Lockheed Martin's CEV is winged!!

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">I'm sort of surprised at all the heat over capsules vs lifting bodies.</font>/i><br /><br />Actually, I think the capsule vs. lifting body debate simply reflects renewed energy and excitement by the community.<br /><br />Griffin has really hit the ground running, is stirring things up, and I think the capsule vs. lifting body "heat" is simply a symptom of people's excitement, hopes, and fears.<br /><br /><ul type="square"><li> Time and again Griffin has stated that the currently planned gap in US manned access to space was not acceptable.<br /></li></ul><ul type="square"><li> Griffin pulled a plan for a Systems Engineering and Integration (SE&I) Request For Proposal (RFP). Essentially instead of having a commercial organization play the integrator role, Griffin has decided to keep that in house. This will have a number of effects, including removing a delay to get a lead contractor selected and up to speed.<br /></li></ul><ul type="square"><li> Griffin essentially changed the timeline for an operational CEV from 2014 (~9 years from now) to as close to 2010 as possible (~5 years). Despite this change in priority, Griffin did not delay the submission of the CEV proposals.<br /></li></ul><ul type="square"><li> Griffin changed the plan from a two-horse race, with two competing development systems until 2008 at which point down selection will occur to down selection early in 2006. Once again accelerating the process.<br /></li></ul><ul type="square"><li> Griffin has initiated a complete Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS), a complete (and fast) review of the Project Constellation from top to bottom. This is for "reprioritization of near-term and far-term technology investments" -- read "shakeup".<br /></li></ul><ul type="square"><li> Unlike O'Keefe, who was primarily brought into NASA because of cost overruns of ISS, who had very little "rocket science" skills, and who seemed to move very cautiously, Griffin is a rocket science with a deep pedigre</li></ul></i>

 

[Aetius]

Human space exploration is about reaching the destination, doing what people do best, and returning safely to the Earth. Adding technological requirements which do not directly support the core mission needlessly puts lives in jeopardy. All that gee-whiz crap comes at a price, in money and lives.

 

[wvbraun]

Exactly. NASA should opt for the absolute simplest and fastest way to get to the Moon and on to Mars, i.e. a capsule and a heavy lifter. By 2009 the Spiral 1 CEV should be nearing completion and work on an HLV should have been started as well. This way it will be extremely difficult for any incoming adminsitration to cancel the VSE and get back to business as usual. I often think that Bush's space intiative is NASA's last chance to get it right. This time failure is not an option.

 

[wvbraun]

Nice summary. One more thing: Griffin cancelled NASA's roadmapping activities ("too slow and unfocussed"). I guess the ESAS is supposed to take over now.

 

[starfhury]

I can't agree with this. Apollo was the simplest fastest way to get to the moon. We don't want to do this again. We want to go to stay forever! With VSE there should never again be a time when someone is not off planet. ISS was the first step. VSE must be the continuation of that. We must build the right foundations with out which we will see another collapse. The shuttle was the right approach after Apollo, just the implementation turned out to be a let down. The simplest, fastest way is not the way to go this time. It should not be about a mad dash to the moor or Mars. We are going back to build bases. Bases. That being the case, I'd be more than willing to shut down the entire space program right now and devote all available resource to building a space truck and a space bus reliable and robust enough to make the ground to LEO trip a non issue. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[krrr]

98% of all the excitement will not be Earth-to-LEO and back. It will be the L1 station! the SEP tug! the moon base! ISRU! etc.<br /><br />The most reliable method for bringing people back from LEO (or farther out) is, by experience, a capsule.<br /><br />It is also a mass-efficient and robust way for earth-to-LEO. As far as I am concerned, passengers could stay in coffin-sized compartments during launch and reentry. After all, once in orbit, they will be able to enter a more spacious orbital module. (Or the ISS; it's strange that most of the concepts don't consider the ISS as an intermediate waypoint.)

 

[starfhury]

You right. Yet return to earth is the most important as far as people are concerned. Otherwise, we might as well continue to send robots. It might be 200 miles, but it's one of the toughest 200 hundred miles in the history of the world. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[gofer]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>...Bottom line on CEV -- Boeing's lightweight and low cost design, vs Lockheed's design for maximum crew safety.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote> AFAIK, (and I hope mmorris et al. will correct me if I'm wrong) capsules have a failure recovery mode called "ballistic re-entry" which asymmetrical shapes can never hope to achieve. I.e. it ensures it descends "TPS down, 'chutes up" even if a loss of active orientation mechanisms occurs. It's spun around the axis of symmetry or something. Higher than normal G loads but survavable as deomnstrated on one of the ISS missions 5 years ago (not sure TMA2 or 3???)This would give a thick '+' to capsules in the safety department in my book.<br /><br />Actually, regarding shapes I remember seeing a JAXA (the Japanese space agency) propsal that looked like a sort of classical UFO thick flying saucer. A capsule, obviously but thin/wide looking. I wasn't even sure how they'd fit it under the fairing. It never went anywhere, but I looked at it and thought "whoa, is this thing THE SPACESHIP, or what!" (not that it's important) I can't find the picture anymore.

 

[spacefire]

not worth arguing here...<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[jurgens]

But, some people have been speculating that Lockheed's Lifting Body design also is capable of aliging itself during reentry passively.

 

[wvbraun]

"VSE must be the continuation of that. We must build the right foundations with out which we will see another collapse. The shuttle was the right approach after Apollo, just the implementation turned out to be a let down."<br /><br />Apollo was the right approach, its collapse was *not* inevitable. The problem was the political situation at the time and NASA's decisions following the Apollo program. The Apollo hardware could have been upgraded and improved. There could have been bases on the moon in the 1970s and the first manned mission to Mars in the 1980s. That was the plan! But Nixon chose to cancel everything but the Shuttle. <br />With the VSE NASA is basically taking up where they left off in 1972.<br /><br /><br />"I'd be more than willing to shut down the entire space program right now and devote all available resource to building a space truck and a space bus reliable and robust enough to make the ground to LEO trip a non issue."<br /><br />NASA tried time and again to develop a reliable, safe and cheap RLV. Let the private sector do it.

 

[gunsandrockets]

The nearest equivalent to the Lockheed CEV is the Russian Kliper project and according to astronautix.com ...<br /><br />"The Kliper lifting body was said to be capable of a cross-range of 1,000 km during which the forces on the crew would not exceed 2 G's and the maximum stagnation temperature would be 3000 deg K. Final landing was accomplished by a parasail system. Automatic guidance would glide the spacecraft to a thump-down on land to within 1 km of the aim point."<br /><br />So I expect the Lockheed CEV will have at least a 1000 km cross-range.

 

[gunsandrockets]

Thank you for the welcome!<br /><br />As far as the advantages/disadvantages of lifting bodies/capsules returning from LEO/beyond LEO I must disagree with you. I think capsules are probably a better choice than lifting bodies for returning from LEO. The Soyuz re-entry module has proven just fine for land recovery operations, so no lifting body is necessary.<br /><br />But for Earth re-entry at the higher speeds and limited timing that a mission beyond LEO entails, I think a lifting body is superior to a capsule.<br /><br />In both cases, LEO and beyond LEO, I am thinking in terms of expendable vehicles. One could make an arguement in favor of a fully reusable LEO lifting body orbiter over a fully reusable LEO capsule, but that would focus on the wrong part of a LEO reusable system. For LEO missions, better a fully reusable 1st stage booster with an expendable orbiter than a fully reusable orbiter with an expendable 1st stage booster.

 

[gunsandrockets]

Undeniably capsules have some advantages over lifting bodies. That's why I think capsules are better than lifting bodies for LEO missions. But when it comes to the limited window - higher energy re-entry of returning from a deep space mission, I think lifting bodies have the advantage over capsules.

 

[jurgens]

1207, is there any more info on the X-38 being switched over to the AirForce/DARPA?

 

[wvbraun]

"The X 38 just went to the Air Force and DARPA. Rutan is still building it and will be flying it up into the heavens on a White Night type of vehicle."<br /><br />You're mistaken, sorry. You're probably referring to the X-37 which was turned over to DARPA last year. The X-38 was a great vehicle but it seems there is no hope for it.

 

[jurgens]

As far as the X-37 goes,<br /><br />http://www.space.com/news/x37_darpa_040915.html

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">The X 38 just went to the Air Force and DARPA. Rutan is still building it and will be flying it up into the heavens on a White Night type of vehicle.</font>/i><br /><br />That was the X-37 not the X-38.</i>

 

[spacefire]

the most efficient lifting-body shape, and the one most experimented with, is the SV-5Dthe X24 and X38 look exacty the same)<br /><br />http://www.astronautix.com/craft/prime.htm<br /><br />a subscale model has been tested and successfuly flown on typical re-entry paths. <br /><br />please do not think capsules are trouble-free during re-entry. the deorbit burn has to ensure the craft does not descend too steeply or at a shallow angle, as two things can occur: the craft can burn up completely, or it can bounce off the amosphere and back in space.<br /><br />Because lifting bodies experience decelerations of only two Gs, comparable to the capsule's 8.5 during reentry, their structure can be lighter, which adds up to the payload!<br /><br />for those interested in lifting bodies, an excellent historical resource, avaialble free, can be found here:<br /><br />http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19980169231_1998082126.pdf <br />(free book in PDF format) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">http://www.space.com/news/x37_darpa_040915.html</font>/i><br /><br />The Space.com article mentioned that $325 million had already been spent on the X-37. "New Moon Rising" mentions that 800 people were working on the OSP when it was cancelled.<br /><br />NASA and the big aerospace companies can't seem to get out of bed for less than $300 million.</i>

 

[starfhury]

I question Apollo as a good model. Apollo was a rushed project to get to the moon first based on the political climate at the time. It was not going to survive considering it was consuming around a 4% portion of the Federal Budget during a full scale war. Nixon cut it because it made sense to cut it. They had already achieved their goal of reaching the moon first. It's a good model if you want to do something very specific as part of a broader plan, but by itself it's not going to work over the long run as history records. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[najab]

><i>please do not think capsules are trouble-free during re-entry. the deorbit burn has to ensure the craft does not descend too steeply or at a shallow angle, as two things can occur: the craft can burn up completely, or it can bounce off the amosphere and back in space. </i><p>And this is different for lifting bodies how exactly?<p>><i>Because lifting bodies experience decelerations of only two Gs, comparable to the capsule's 8.5 during reentry, their structure can be lighter, which adds up to the payload!</i><p>But a lifting body has more structure per unit volume in the first place, plus I doubt peak G's on a Apollo-shaped capsule would exceed about 5Gs.<br /></p></p></p>

 

[spacefire]

naja:<br />please let me know where you have gotten your figures from.<br />please check the follwoing two websites for a mass/dimensions/interior space comparison of the Apollo CSM and the HL20 PLS<br /><br />http://oea.larc.nasa.gov/PAIS/HL-20.html<br /><br />http://www.astronautix.com/craft/apolocsm.htm<br /><br />the HL20 was designed to carry up to 10 people! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[drwayne]

This reference has a table of g loads for the Apollo flights (and some other neat data):<br /><br />http://history.nasa.gov/SP-368/s2ch5.htm<br /><br />I will reporoduce the table here:<br /><br />Apollo 7 3.33 <br />Apollo 8 6.84 <br />Apollo 9 3.35 <br />Apollo 10 6.78 <br />Apollo 11 6.56 <br />Apollo 12 6.57 <br />Apollo 13 5.56 <br />Apollo 14 6.76 <br />Apollo 15 6.23 <br />Apollo 16 7.19 <br />Apollo 17 6.49 <br /><br />Wayne<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[najab]

><i>the HL20 was designed to carry up to 10 people!</i><p>Yes. It was. That's why it's invalid to make a comparison to the Apollo CSM which was designed for 3 persons (but could carry 5 in a pinch).</p>