Lockheed Martin's CEV is winged!!

[spacefire]

yeah, that's what I was talking about. Although it made s splashdown, like a cpasule, it proves the lifting body as a viable re-entry configuration <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[shuttle_rtf]

>please retract your statement<<br /><br />No. It's a message board, Jack. Don't get so touchy! <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />Lovely long post you wrote - and I'm sure you're right about how capsuals are all great yadda yadda. However, I have an opinion and I don't agree with yours....and neither do the good people at Lockheed Martin. <br /><br />I've already said - till I'm blue in the face - that my angle is about indentity and public interest. I don't know - nor care - about the finites of a capsual.<br /><br />The "putting words into my mouth" element of your post was a good laugh all the same.

 

[najab]

><i>... my angle is about indentity and public interest....</i><p>So basically the better looking design wins, regardless of it's performance?</p>

 

[shuttle_rtf]

Average Joe doesn't know or care about the performance of a capsual over a space plane. But you can bet which one he'd be more interested in.

 

[najab]

If it's 'just' going to be going around and around in LEO Joe Public isn't going to be interested in either.<p>If it's going to the Moon or to Mars, Joe Public isn't going to care if it's a capsule, lifting body or ve7rkt's 1975 Honda Civic - he'll be interested!</p>

 

[spacefire]

the public generally likes new stuff. Capsules looks vintage. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[shuttle_rtf]

Don't disagree with you. However, it's of my opinion that the public would be wary of a 75 Honda Civic given the lack of storage. I'd find a Ford Probe more apt <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />Just a point to bring up here...are you saying you're of the opinion that LockMart's lifting body design concerns you that it's just looking too much at LEO?

 

[spacefire]

<font color="yellow"> one subscale reentry test isn't enough testing</font><br />the Apollo capsule is like a subscale version of the Boeing CEV capsule. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[najab]

I can't really pass judgement until we see some more details (not that my judgement would really count for much). My gut feeling, however, is that L-M's design is biased towards LEO, after all the lifting body shape contributes nothing for 99.999% of a Mars mission or 99.95% of a Lunar mission (no lift in space), but is more useful for a surface to LEO 'shuttle', which would likely be making the trip often.

 

[gofer]

Speaking from my experience (15 years living and working in Silicon Valley, CA, USA) Joe Taxpaying Public isn't interested in Space, period*, and doesn't give a damn about what geometric shape NASA shoots up with its rockets. Thus, the perceived "sexiness" of a vehicle is of limited value. Although, there may be preferences on Capitol Hill, mostly concerned with job programs in their districts, I'll grant. <br /><br />*well, besides the Star Wars movies

 

[spacefire]

I too think the Earth Return Vehicle should not be included in the CEV during its missions to the Moon and Mars.<br /><br />However, I endorse the idea of the Lifting Body configuration for any launch/reenty craft. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[scottb50]

If you look at the aerodynamics of a lifting body it doesn't offer too many advantages. Look at the rate of descent of the Shuttle and then triple it, they might allow extra cross-range capability, but leave little or no room for error. <br /><br />In my opinion it comes down to capsule or wings. I would think a capsule design would be perfect for cargo, but when we talk about people there has to be the flexibility only a winged vehicle could provide. If the only purpose of that vehicle is to go the LEO and return then you are using the wing at least 50% of the time.<br /><br />The key is a flexible launch vehicle that put either design, or multiple variations of either design, into LEO, not what you put up. Sort of like not seeing the trees for the forest. <br /><br />Realistically both Delta and Atlas can be grown to take Shuttle comparable payloads to orbit, but the kicker is that payload has to include the container it is going in. When you factor in the mass of the CEV itself the payload capability quickly dwindles. When you factor in single flight engines and burned up fuel tanks the cost only gets higher. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[shuttle_rtf]

>Speaking from my experience (15 years living and working in Silicon Valley, CA, USA) Joe Taxpaying Public isn't interested in Space, period*, and doesn't give a damn about what geometric shape NASA shoots up with its rockets.<<br /><br />Figures. When I've got friends in the Bay Area and they don't care about anything apart from calling people "Dude" and "par-ty" <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="orange">"- Lower risk of developmental failure." </font><br /><font color="yellow">"like I said before, we have more than 40 years of lifting body research"</font><br /><br />And yet there's not a single production system that ever used lifting bodies. Think about that for just a few seconds.<br /><br /><br /><font color="orange">"- Faster time to production. "</font><br /><font color="yellow">"Not necesasarily. It was admitted earlier in the thread that all the tooling for the Apollo program was detroyed. Essentially productioon would start from scratch, the same as with a totally new design."</font><br /><br />No -- it would not start from scratch.Since you used that term -- I'll make use of it literally for a cooking analogy. A capsule design -- particularly one based on an Apollo capsule style is one for which we already have a recipe that's been cooked up before (and shown to be quite nutricious and fairly tasty). The recipe has a lot of ingredients, and we don't have the exact match for about 80% of them. In addition, the original recipe only served three, whereas we want to serve 4-6 with the new one. However, given that recipe -- it's possible to locate substitutres for the missing ingredients and scale up the necessary volume to create a new version of the same recipe that has a high probability of being every bit as good as the original. <br /><br />By contrast -- there <b>is</b> no recipe for a lifting body. No one has every built anything more than a test vehicle, and even the test vehicles that have been built are not much like what LM has proposed. A recipe must be designed from <b>nothing</b> with little more than a picture and a vague notion of ingredients involved. This would be equivalent to making a recipe for a cake fomr having a picture of one, plus a notion that it contained flour, milk, eggs and sugar... but only a vague idea of the proper proportions.<br /><br />You're obviously not an engi

 

[najab]

Obligatory nit-pick:<br /><br /><font color="yellow">...it is ALWAYS easier to take an existing deign and re-engineer it than it is to create one from nothing.</font><br /><br />Assuming, of course, that the existing design <b>works</b>! (Which Apollo does). Many times engineers get snookered into trying to re-engineer (read "fix") a flawed design.

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"However, I have an opinion and I don't agree with yours..."</font><br /><br />Notta problem. Your recent posts clearly indicate that you are completely disinterested in the engineering principles and basic soundness of the CEV design. Since my objections to it are based on actual engineering information, I can now simply mentally classify any of your posts on the subject as puerile garbage and ignore them. Easy.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"...and neither do the good people at Lockheed Martin. "</font><br /><br />As I said in one of the posts around here. They're well aware that competing capsule to capsule with Boeing is a losing proposition.

 

[spacefire]

Mrmorris, please stop calling me ignorant. You are totally disregarding years of research on lifting bodies. For a refresher, please read the following:<br /><br />http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-011-DFRC.html<br /><br />you will note that lifting bodies have enough maneuvrability to fly and even land like any winged aircraft.<br /><br />as with the X38, a parafoil might be used to reduce landing speed. An Apollo type capsule is not aerodynamic enough to be used with a parafoil,(unless maybe tilted and with some form of landing gear ) as, like I posted before, its drag would kill all forward movement before it reaches the ground and thus negate the posiblity of a flare to reduce descent rate and forward speed.<br /><br />Your quote from Michael Griffin is utterly irrelevant here (I will give you the benefit of doubt and not claim that you merely copied and pasted the first piece of text you found that had the word cpasule in it coming from a position of authority) , since it does not address the lifting body configuration. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[najab]

><i>...its drag would <b>kill all forward movement</b> before it reaches the ground and thus negate the posiblity of a flaring to reduce descent rate <b>and forward speed</b>.</i><p>You realise this makes no sense, right?</p>

 

[shuttle_rtf]

> I can now simply mentally classify any of your posts on the subject as puerile garbage and ignore them. Easy.<<br /><br />Cool. Ain't gonna rise to your hissy fit.............cause it's a message board!!! Loosen your belt and try not to come across as a condesending twat, ok? Cool.<br /><br /> />They're well aware that competing capsule to capsule with Boeing is a losing proposition.<<br /><br />Soooooooooooooo they decided to go for a lifting body.<br /><br />Yeah, you're a real genius around here <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

[gofer]

There was some question as to the utility of the separate Orbital Module on the Soyuz. AFAIK (just an amateur here), it is the consequence of the "as light descent module as possible" <br /><br />The OM contains things like a small toilet, a small kitchen and a place to for one crewmember to have some solitude (IMPORTANT in a cramped spacecraft with multiple crew that may spend days in orbit). Why take all this stuff down to Earth if the craft is not supposed to be reusable, and design parachutes etc… for such a mass? I recall reading that Korolyov (?) , an anecdote perhaps, would even give out salary bonuses for every kilogram/volume removed, that needs to be protected by TPS on the descent capsule. So, the OM is shed off just before the re-entry and only the bare minimum mass re-enters. (“the crowbar style of engineering” <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> )<br /><br />However, nowadays I don’t see the need for it, especially in such exaggerated variants as on Shendzhou (with its own propulsion and solar panels, I thinks that's waaaay overboard) The chute/powered landing/TPS systems have progressed far enough to combine these into a reusable sort of craft. Just pack a new 'chute in, reload the soft landing SRMs, stick a new TPS shield onto it (can be prepared beforehand), and up we go again....

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"you will note that lifting bodies have enough maneuvrability to fly and even land like any winged aircraft. "</font><br /><br />You will ignore the fact that spacecraft and aircraft are different animals. Spacecraft have a <b>lot</b> more dead weight on them than aircraft of the same basic size. The TPS, ECLSS, RCS, plus higher pressure vessel requirements make them much heavier. Heavy things don't fly as well as light things -- this is one of those facts of physics that you have to grasp to design spacecraft. I can make a paper airplane that flies pretty far. If I make that same airplane out of a piece of sheet metal... it wouldn't really 'fly' per se. <br /><br />The X-38 needed the parafoil to provide <b>lift</b> in the final stages of flight, not drag. <br /><br /><font color="yellow">"Your quote from Michael Griffin is utterly irrelevant here..."</font><br /><br />I was actually looking for a primer that discussed the three body styles and their various base characteristics and ran across that URL. It was an interesting read and amusing when placed into the context of this thread. Unfortunately -- he didn't address lifting bodies specifically, it's true. He did discuss the volumetric efficiency of a capsule vs a winged craft. It's generally understood that the basics of the three styles are:<br /><br />Winged craft -- least volumetrically efficient shape. Highest cross-range on re-entry.<br />Capsule -- most volumetrically efficient shape. Lowest cross range on re-entry.<br />Lifting Body -- Midway between a capsule and a winged craft on both volumetric efficiency and cross-range.<br /><br />I'll see if I can locate such a primer tomorrow. Possibly someone else knows of one and will post it before me.

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"Ain't gonna rise...</font><br /><br />Yeah -- no rise there.<br /><br />Anyway -- as I said -- you don't give a rat's patootie about engineering.<br />I don't give a rat's patootie about the sensibilities of the unwashed masses.<br /><br />We can therefore safely ignore each other's opinions about what CEV design is 'best'.

 

[shuttle_rtf]

It's the unwashed masses that will be paying for the damn thing, so there's your relevance....that you don't give a rat's arse about over there in Shuttle-basher world.

 

[gofer]

I hate to harp on this, but man, the budget.... I'm most interested in cost specs for any CEV vehicle. Are there any? <br /><br />I couldn't find any dollar figures for this thing (in this thread or on the Lockheed's site). Yes, even estimates would do. To Develop, to Manufacture, to prep and Process, and to Launch. What staff requirements. A "standing army" like for the shuttle? or a little squad like for regular EELV payloads?<br /><br />It's time they release these things together with the pretty pictures. Ah, cost plus, I forgot... Even if this crate ends up costing a quarter of the shuttle to develop, manufacture prep, and launch, combined with Griffin's penchant for shuttle derived HLVs and CEV SRB launchers we are back to square one, albeit modular this time, and the VSE is as good as dead in the long run.

 

[starfhury]

This is not to Shuttle_RTF directly.<br /><br />Have any one been inside an Apollo CM? Or even a Mercury or Gemini capsule. While I was in Florida last month I visited the Kennedy Space Center. When you compare the mass and size of the Saturn booster to the Apollo CM it's pathetic. I don't know how three guys allowed themselves to be cooped up for so long in such a tight enclosed space with death inches away. Apollo served it's purpose; leave it to history. We need to look forward. Recreating Apollo CMs is not the way to go as proven by the demise of the Apollo program. Yes, capsules might be cheaper, but I think that's a short term deal. As the size of our space craft increase, using capsules will begin to present more and more of a problem. Just imagine a capsule with the payload capacity of the shuttle. What kind of parachute system would you need to land it? In space, shape does not really matter, but when we are dealing with return crafts to earth it's very important. Even though a winged or lifting body design might not be as volumetrically efficient or inherently self righting during descent like a capsule, adding wings and landing gears makes it easy to move the vehicle on the ground. Whether capsule or winged wonder, the next CEV or shuttle replacement that covers earth to LEO will most likely spend most of its time on the ground. At that point, I suppose having wheels will make moving the vehicle less of a challenge. Just connect a tow tracker and move it where ever. I think the thing that will truly decide whether we end up with a wing CEV or a capsule CEV will be the TPS system. Some new TPS system developments were done for X-33/Venturestar. A winged CEV with a tough permanent TPS system will certainly be in the running with a capsule. Another thing to consider about the capsule is how wide the base can be made. Atleast regarding the shuttle, you can make a long cyclinder. <br /><br />The really problem I have with the capsule is that af <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>