CEV/Orion mock-up Size (picture)

[qso1]

Boris1961:<br />Where did you get the 5 meter figure?<br /><br />Me:<br />Thats what I'm wondering as well. I loaded my 3D Apollo capsule, then loaded a copy, sized it to a 5 meter diameter heatshield and it wasn't near as big as what is shown in the image posted here so I assumed I made a mistake as usual. But since the question has been raised by someone else...maybe I didn't. That would be a relief to know I only made 3.4 million mistakes today...and this wasn't one of them.<br /><br />I was going to post the comparison but when I saw how small the CEV representation I had was...I didn't.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[scottb50]

If you are going to carry passengers you have to takeoff and get to orbit pretty much right now. You also need to get back to to a landing area or be able to divert to a different landing area. All reasons the CEV is a waste of time.<br /><br />I would rather put more funding into Shuttle, build a couple more advanced vehicles and keep getting better at it, rather than changing it. Not that a capsule is not possible, but we have proven we can go beyond that. Why step back? <br /><br />The ET and SRB's could stay the same, an advanced vehicle keep working. Eventually the ET's and the SRB's could be upgraded. The basic concept works, so why not advance that way, rather than adapt to current, inferior, launch vehicles. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[nibb31]

Remember the laws of perspective?

 

[frodo1008]

You do have good points, but none of them will get us back to the moon and on to Mars in the first half of this crntury, and that is the goal for NASA that had been set by this administration! Once again, as many have pointed out, it IS the physics of the situation that is governing the shape of the vehicle!<br /><br />Now, if you could somehow give NASA about twice its funding (and it would STILL only be about half that of the Apollo era) NASA could both perform this effort AND a large effort to make travel to LEO far cheaper in the long run! While we may want and like this to happen. NASA certainly can't count on it. In fact it is far more likely that there will be further budget cuts in the current wisdom of the bunch of lawyers that run congress. <br /><br />We can throw away some $250 billion per year in the Middle East, but a 10% yearly increase in NASA's budget? Oh no, that would be a definite budget buster!<br /><br />Only our congress could add two plus two and come up with five!

 

[j05h]

> Remember the laws of perspective?<br /><br />It's not just perspective, the capsule mockup could be a 5.5m unit, from before the down-sizing. That's almost 18ft across the heatshield. None of the proposed next-gen capsules are small vehicles, even the new (lunar) Soyuz concept is 4-seats to LEO. <br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>