CEV down select is near, wanna guess?

[pathfinder_01]

“That article said that they'd build about 8 orions for 7.5bln or so. NASA pissed away more than that between Columbia and RTF#1. One failure of the winged vehicle costed more than it costs to make the more reliable capsules.”<br /><br />What worries me more than anything else about the new program isn’t the fact that it is a supposedly more reliable capsule(which frankly I would say that so far the shuttle has as reliable if not more reliable.). It is the fact that we are trading today’s capabilities for a promise to go to the moon. <br /><br />What I would have loved to have happened is we kept the shuttles perhaps retire one or two and built a shuttle-C type heavy lift and built a capsule. <br /><br />The capsule is cheaper than the shuttle if all you want to do is carry some people and small amounts of cargo. However we are losing the ability to bring down large items and take up large items with crew. <br /><br />Now I frankly do think the shuttle needed to be retired/replaced but I would prefer a replacement in like. What troubles me more than anything else is the heavy lift portion. We are basically trading the shuttle for a promise to build a heavy lift vehicle to the moon. <br /><br />If that is canceled the US will be just as trapped in LEO with a less capable craft and I fear that it is the most likely portion to be canceled or indefinably delayed. I also wonder just how will NASA pay for it most estimates I have seen tend to think that NASA will only be able to afford like 2 flights to the moon a year at best. Two flights a year in terms of normal operations (i.e. not down for safety reason) of a manned space program just does not stir my blood at all. <br /><br />I also fear that people may get the idea that capsule equals safe, when frankly even in a capsule there is a lot that could go wrong. <br /><br />In addition I see no real plan for setting up a moon base, something we are desperately going to need if we plan to stay there. <br /><br />I hope I am wrong,

 

[gunsandrockets]

"An Apollo CM shaped capsule isn't necessarily the best choice" -- vt_hokie <br /><br />"You are wrong about that, as we have thried to tell you countless times before............. " -- shuttle_guy<br /><br />I think it's hilariously ironic that Lockheed-Martin, who first proposed a modest lifting-body for the CEV, still ended up winning the Orion contract even though NASA now mandates a semi-ballistic capsule. I also think it's funny that I was one of the very few here who predicted Lockheed would win.<br /><br />vt_hokie is right about the history of the Apollo program. The NASA semi-ballistic capsule was far from the only choice or the best choice for the job. More to the point, today the winning engineers at Lockheed-Martin also think a semi-ballistic capsule is an inferior choice for a reentry vehicle of a Mars return mission.<br /><br />The 0.3 lift to drag ratio of the Apollo's semi-ballistic capsule may be adequate for the lunar return velocities of 11 km/s, but it gets uncomfortable at the higher speeds of a Mars return which can reach 14 km/s. That's why Lockheed-Martin orginally proposed a modest lifting body reentry vehicle with lift to drag ratio of 1.0.<br /><br />Even aside from Lockheed-Martin many proposals for Mars vehicles employ a simple bi-conic lifting body with a l/d of 0.6 rather than the semi-ballistic capsule. So absent some definitive references (which I would love to see) I find if difficult to believe the Apollo shape is the best choice let alone the obvious choice for the Orion mission.

 

[vt_hokie]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4155553.html<br /><br /><i>Lockheed Martin Vice President John Karas said his company will succeed with Orion compared to its failure with X-33, because "we're not shooting as far... I'd say it (Orion) is within reach."</i><br /><br />That says it all! Aim low, and don't take on tough challenges...that's a great vision for the 21st century!

 

[josh_simonson]

>Now I frankly do think the shuttle needed to be retired/replaced but I would prefer a replacement in like. What troubles me more than anything else is the heavy lift portion. We are basically trading the shuttle for a promise to build a heavy lift vehicle to the moon.<br /><br />It would be politically unacceptable to stop at the stick. 3/4 of the NASA spacelaunch workforce would be unemployed. Either all those guys must be laid off (which would be a great infusion for alt.space) or NASA needs to build something nearly as complex as the shuttle.

 

[no_way]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Lockheed Martin Vice President John Karas said his company will succeed with Orion compared to its failure with X-33<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Not to rain on the parade but it might be worth digging up what the Vice Presidents of LMT said when they got the X-33 contract ... Wanna guess ?<br /><br />X-33, OSP, CEV, Orion .. currently its just a bunch of blueprints and cost estimates that look peachy. Deja-vu, anyone ?

 

[rfoshaug]

For the discussion of capsule vs. spaceplane, I'd like to say this:<br /><br />I think it's better to have a simple craft (CEV) flying difficult missions (Moon, Mars?) than to have a difficult craft (spaceplane) flying simple missions (LEO). <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff9900">----------------------------------</font></p><p><font color="#ff9900">My minds have many opinions</font></p> </div>

 

[mattblack]

BINGO!! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p>One Percent of Federal Funding For Space: America <strong><em><u>CAN</u></em></strong> Afford it!!  LEO is a <strong><em>Prison</em></strong> -- It's time for a <em><strong>JAILBREAK</strong></em>!!</p> </div>

 

[frodo1008]

Yes that is exactly what NASA needs to do right now! If NASA were to "aim high" and come short as the X33 (by the way I worked on the linear aerospike engines at Rocketdyne, so I too wished it would have been completed, but it was not to be) and then fail to give back anything to the US taxpayer for his money the US taxpayer would be fully justified in withdrawing ALL support for NASA. Then there would be NO US manned space program at all! Would that be better?<br /><br />No, Mike Griffin realizes this, and so I do hope to see us go back to the moon within my lifetime! <br /><br />The astronauts that actually walked on the moon were themselves totally aware that our explorations there were inandequate to the task!<br /><br />Before we can go further out (MUCH further out) to such as Mars it is essential that we set up not only further methods and explorations on the moon, but even start to exploit the resources that are there and relatively close to us!

 

[frodo1008]

A laudable post and position, but Mars isn't even a consideration at all at this time. The problems of going hundreds or even thousands of times the distance between the moon and the Earth are far too much to even shoot at now. By the time we have a true space infrastructure between the Earth and the moon I am certain that other methods will be available for other efforts so much further out such as Mars.<br /><br />Right now the CEV is what CAN be done and what the American taxpayer is WILLING to pay for! If enough of the people like us that fully support space efforts fuss enough about it we may just get absolutely NOTHING!! And I for one am unwilling to do that!<br /><br />So let us get behind the efforts of both our government and our excellent private aerospace industy, and let Mars take care of itself. The best things that we can do for further out explorations at this time is to support NASA getting additional funds to see to it that the excellent robotic exploration programs of NASA continue to give us the data that is so very necessary to even be able to send realtively delicate human beings further out eventually!

 

[tomnackid]

VT, i think it is time to embrace capsules. Take a look at Phil Bono's concepts from the 60s. Gary Hudson Phoenix concepts. The Delta Clipper. All ballistic capsules. All reusable. All capable of pinpoint powered landings. Putting wings on a spaceship was a wrong turn--like putting tillers on the first automobiles, or sleeping berths in the first airliners. Holdovers from older technology that clouded our judgment and held us back. The CEV is a reusable capsule with a potentially reusable first stage (whether it is worth recovering the SRB or not remains to be seen) that can touchdown on land in a landing zone that is actually smaller in area than a commercial landing strip. (At least that is the hope.) It is the first step towards a reusable SPACE vehicle that accounts for the realities of SPACE flight rather than our preconceived notions of "flight" or the demands of cold war era defense. A spaceship that isn't dropping bombs on Russia or putting (or stealing!) secret spy satellites in polar orbits just doesn't need the cross range that wings give. Its a pointless waste of mass. Spaceships are inherently ballistic vehicles (an orbit is just a ballistic trajectory that happens not to intersect the ground at any point!) Trying to force a spaceship to be an airplane is like putting an internal combustion engine and truck tires on an airliner so it can drive you to and from the airport.

 

[vt_hokie]

CEV ain't no Delta Clipper! Heck, it might not even be reusable! <br /><br />People keep referring to the failure of X-33, without considering that X-33 still may have flown had the Bush administration not killed it. If they hold CEV/Orion to the same standard, and kill the program at the first hint of technical troubles and cost overruns, I guarantee that it won't fly either. X-33 was what its name implied - an experimental vehicle. Its purpose was to test technologies that could be applied to a future orbital vehicle (TSTO more likely than SSTO). I think it would have been worthwhile to see the program through to completion. Really, I think there needs to be money available for operational vehicles using proven technology as well as technology deveopment.

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">That says it all! Aim low, and don't take on tough challenges...that's a great vision for the 21st century!</font>/i><br /><br />The DOD and NASA use a concept called Technology Readiness Level (TRL) to describe the maturity level of a piece of technology. For example, for NASA a TRL 1 is "basic principles observed and reported", while TRL 9 is "actual system 'flight proven' through successful mission operations". In general, before you put a technology into a critical path of a major project, you want the technology to be mature; otherwise, you are inviting project disaster (cost overruns, schedule slips, cancellation).<br /><br />My guess is that Lockheed's proposal had more components at higher TRLs than the Boeing's project.<br /><br />This doesn't mean NASA, the DOD, or other organizations shouldn't develop new technology or work to mature relatively immature technologies. They should just do this on smaller projects that are outside a critical path of a majore project.</i>

 

[PistolPete]

Can you elaborate on what the other TRL levels are? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><em>So, again we are defeated. This victory belongs to the farmers, not us.</em></p><p><strong>-Kambei Shimada from the movie Seven Samurai</strong></p> </div>

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">Can you elaborate on what the other TRL levels are?</font>/i><br /><br />Wikipedia has a good summary:<br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_Readiness_Level</i>

 

[Testing]

Here ya go<br /><br />http://ipao.larc.nasa.gov/Toolkit/TRL.pdf <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[j05h]

Tom has a very good point. ROMBUS, LEO, Phoenix and Roton were all "capsule" designs. More accurately, axi-symmetric base-first-entry vehicles. Big round ceramic (etc) heat shields are very easy to make. The really big ones have a nice slow atmospheric descent; they decelerate to a terminal velocity well before sea level. Jon Carmack (or Bezos?) was recently saying it's a 15 second burn to decelerate to landing their VTVL. <br /><br />Bring on the DropShips!<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[josh_simonson]

>X-33 was what its name implied - an experimental vehicle. Its purpose was to test technologies that could be applied to a future orbital vehicle (TSTO more likely than SSTO).<br /><br />You don't have to fly an experimental vehicle to learn something from it, in the case of the X-33 we learned that we could not build a spacecraft with the needed mass fraction for SSTO, Linear Aerospikes are heavier than anticipated, funny shaped low pressure composite tanks are comparable to aluminum in weight performance, ect.<br /><br />Being that the SSTO was shown to be impractical once the X-33 was partially built, why continue building a subscale prototype design for an SSTO vehicle? Don't need linear aerospikes for a TSTO, and their T/W was lame anyway. X-33 showed lockheed and NASA what the limits of today's technology was as far as mass fraction and exotic materials go, and using that information Lockheeds next proposal was a TSTO that was totally different from X-33.<br /><br />Alot was learned, and learning that something doesn't work is just as important as learning that something does. I can spend weeks and tens of thousands on a design, and if it isn't working out I'll punt and take a different approach. Often things that look good at the outset develop problems upon closer inspection, that's engineering. Also it is an economic fallacy to use sunk expenses to justify sending good money after bad. Yeah we spend $1bln, but when it went from a subscale prototype of a useful craft to something they'd fly simply for 'research' from which there is no direct application, the X-33's value dropped below what it would be worth to finish it. Killing it was the right decision. <br /><br />What would you say if the stick was found to be unable to make orbit and NASA said "well, we've spent 1bln on it, might as well finish it and fly a bunch of suborbital CEVs to see what happens..."

 

[bobvanx]

Before the X-33 even got underway, back-of the envelope calcs showed that our current level of technology probably couldn't get the job done (of SSTO). I'm amazed that we still managed to spend a billion dollars to prove that we were right, from the start.<br /><br />Keeping engineers employed is a good thing, certainly. I'm glad we have the CEV to keep them busy, now.

 

[vt_hokie]

<i><font color="yellow">Don't need linear aerospikes for a TSTO...</font>/i><br /><br />Actually, a variable expansion ratio would certainly be advantageous for a vehicle similar to the space shuttle, where the orbital vehicle's engines are firing for the full duration of the launch, and strap-on boosters provide additional thrust for the initial phase.</i>

 

[mattblack]

The technology SHOULD be pursued. It shows promise. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p>One Percent of Federal Funding For Space: America <strong><em><u>CAN</u></em></strong> Afford it!!  LEO is a <strong><em>Prison</em></strong> -- It's time for a <em><strong>JAILBREAK</strong></em>!!</p> </div>

 

[j05h]

> The technology SHOULD be pursued. It shows promise.<br /><br />SSTO? Mass fractions for it have been shown in actual vehicles but the payload would be atrocious. Any vehicle mass growth disproportionately impacts payload compared to multi-stage rockets. I think the smart growth is in reusable rocket stages, further RpK and SpaceX both agree. <br /><br />If someone built a 3-stage fully reusable system (possible now? ) or SpaceX really comes through with their system, I'm not gonna complain that it's not SSTO. There is plenty of room for different approaches. We need affordable spacelift to make everything else happen.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[vt_hokie]

How about a VentureStar type of vehicle mated to liquid fueled flyback boosters like those once proposed for the space shuttle to replace the SRB's?

 

[j05h]

> How about a VentureStar type of vehicle mated to liquid fueled flyback boosters like those once proposed for the space shuttle to replace the SRB's?<br /><br />Whatever works, as long as I can buy a safe ticket for myself and passage for cargo. If it looks like a Buck Rogers rocketship, ROTON, space elevator, magic levitation powder, I don't care. I just want to be able to GO (when I can afford it)<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[gunsandrockets]

"A laudable post and position,..."<br /><br />Thanx! Sometimes a little perspective is neccessary to clear out excessive genuflecting for the semi-ballistic capsule.<br /><br />"... but Mars isn't even a consideration at all at this time. The problems of going hundreds or even thousands of times the distance between the moon and the Earth are far too much to even shoot at now. By the time we have a true space infrastructure between the Earth and the moon I am certain that other methods will be available for other efforts so much further out such as Mars."<br /><br />Sensible enough, but it's clear that many of the NASA specifications for the vehicles in development are directly related to Mars missions! If Mars was not a consideration, than much easier and cheaper choices could have been made, NASA administrator Griffin has said as much himself.<br /><br />Griffin has said the need for the heavy lift vehicle is for Mars missions and that a less capable lifter would suffice for just lunar missions. The CEV is designed for six people to fit the Mars mission requirements; a CEV for only lunar missions can be smaller and lighter since the lunar mission only requires four people. <br /><br />So a lunar-only plan would not follow the current ESAS recommendations, it wouldn't make economic sense. The simple fact is the vehicles currently under development are not temporary stop-gaps and they will be integral to any longer range plans beyond lunar missions.<br /><br />This is why I fear the CEV semi-ballistic capsule design imposed by NASA could prove short-sighted. Since NASA insists the CEV will be used for Mars missions, it's odd for NASA to demand the reentry vehicle fit a shape primarily suited for lunar missions.<br /><br />I can only hope the CEV is flexible enough so the block 3 version for Mars missions can employ some altered aerodynamics. Perhaps an asymetric heatshield? Or a heatshield which can expand beyond the 5 meter base diameter like a ballute? Or altering th

 

[gunsandrockets]

"VT, i think it is time to embrace capsules. Take a look at Phil Bono's concepts from the 60s. Gary Hudson Phoenix concepts. The Delta Clipper. All ballistic capsules. All reusable. All capable of pinpoint powered landings."<br /><br />Actually the Delta Clipper is a bi-conic lifting body with four body flaps. The Delta Clipper may touch down vertically while under power, but that's not how it reenters the atmosphere. The Delta Clipper reenters nose forward and with the side of the body canted into the airstream, not base first as semi-ballistic capsule does.<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_reentry#Biconic<br /><br />