News about CEV and heavy lift launchers.

[lycan359]

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1055<br /><br />Ohh, pretty pictures.<br /><br />Wait a second... did they say side-mounted shuttle derived CEV launcher?

 

[ehs40]

i like the idea of putting the cev onTOP of the et because then we will never have to hear of this damned foam problem........o yea nice pics

 

[spacefire]

since the SLDV is going to be expendable, won't it cost more for the same payload? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[liquidspace2k]

Well you shouldn't hear about the foam cause the foam wont hit the Tiles/ Heat Shield. Doesn't really matter if the foam hits the other parts of the launcher cause they will eventually burn up anyway. <br /><br />Reason we hear about the foam now, is because we don't want it to hit the shuttle and cause a hole in the tiles and stuff, which might cause it to get destroyed on re-entry, like what the Columbia did.

 

[larper]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>since the SLDV is going to be expendable, won't it cost more for the same payload? <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />No. That is what we have been trying to tell you in several other threads. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Vote </font><font color="#3366ff">Libertarian</font></strong></p> </div>

 

[lunatio_gordin]

You said it. <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" />

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">That is most assuredly no, And the reason is the lack of wings.</font>/i><br /><br />And the fact that for today's shuttle there is an army of people essentially tearing down and rebuilding each shuttle between every flight.</i>

 

[john_316]

<br />good link and news....<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />

 

[cuddlyrocket]

Interesting article.<br /><br />One thing, as a Brit, I noticed was that there was absolutely no consideration of international co-operation - either co-opting non-US technology or sharing the development costs. It's one thing for them to conclude there's no benefit to be gained, it's another to apparently have not even thought about it.<br /><br />I know, and have sympathy for, the argument of not depending on non-US assets, but that can be taken into account. Manufacture in the US under US control can be achieved (if not - by all means, go it alone).

 

[tomnackid]

I really like the idea of a separate crew and cargo capsules from a safety and flexibility standpoint. I also like that one of the capsules being considered is a biconic lifting body. One issue I have not seen addressed yet is returning cargo from orbit. the current orbiter can return something like 40 tons from orbit, Does anyone care about returning things from orbit anymore. I know that shuttle never really made a whole lot of use of this capability even though it was a major driving forced behind the design.

 

[gladiator1332]

I'm thinking about getting this image blown up to poster size:<br /><br />http://images.spaceref.com/news/2005/cev.33.l.jpg<br /><br />Really shoss that NASA was considering a Saturn V like vehicle for Crew Launch, however, I agree with the SRB Launcher much more. Really can't wait to see that beautiful vehicle's first launch.

 

[botch]

That in-line heavy lifter does look like a cool beast of a vehicle. I think it's a pity that it might stay on the drawing board in favour of cheaper options.<br /><br />Call me strange but I like the way the srb derived vehicle looks. It's probably got something to do with its no-nonesense simplicity when compared to the STS. It feels like a workhorse like the R7 derived vehicles of Russia.<br />Simplicity = attractiveness in my book.

 

[spacefire]

<font color="yellow">And the fact that for today's shuttle there is an army of people essentially tearing down and rebuilding each shuttle between every flight.</font><br /><br />oh, but wasn't the shuttle suposed to be reusable?<br />seems we've been scammed. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[lycan359]

<font color="yellow"> oh, but wasn't the shuttle suposed to be reusable?<br />seems we've been scammed. </font><br /><br />Hah, not only that but the thing was supposed to fly 40 times a year. At least that's how they sold it to congress.

 

[lycan359]

<font color="yellow">If the ISS had stayed as a USA effort without involving international partners, things wouldn't be so held back atm. We were better off building it ourselves and then having them take a visit every now and then.</font><br /><br />You have to be kidding me.

 

[j05h]

>If we had used the shuttle for 15 years after the first flight, <br /> />not including the Challenger accident, and then developed the <br /> />next generation of reuseable craft we'd be in a lot better <br /> />position today. You can thank the public for forgetting <br /> />about space travel, I dont really blame them...<br /><br />The public is plenty fascinated with "space" - both manned and robotic. Blame NASA and the Big Aero contractors for the lack of next-generation vehicles. They have been using the "real soon now" argument since the late 1980s. They have burned through billions of dollars pursuing various strategies for another Shuttle, to high-tech, to fragile and to costly. The list is long: NASP, X-33, x-34, SMV, OSP, SLI. All of these were promised and not delivered, usually with a wink and nod to Shuttle. The Primes, yes , Boeing and Lockheed, have been swilling at the federal trough for decades without producing a reasonable "next gen" space vehicle. The only successful manned spacecraft in 25 years has been Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne!<br /><br />And that, my friends, is where the future points to.<br /><br />Big Aero does some things right, airliners, big comsats and military hardware come to mind, but they have an abyssmal track record with developing manned spacecraft in the past couple decades. They will get another crack at our tax dollars for the CEV, but I would wager on t/space, Space X or Blue Origin having succeeded before the CEV bid winner.<br /><br />Josh<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[propforce]

From the link<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>According to planners involved in the 60 Day Study, a crew safety goal of one launch failure in 1,000 was the objective for the launch vehicle selected. This requirement is ten times greater than the 1/100 risk posed by the existing post-Columbia space shuttle orbiter fleet. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Using SRB for 1/1000 reliability ???? <br /><br />From http://www.astronautix.com/engines/srb.htm<br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>The decision to use segmented solid rocket boosters for the compromised space shuttle design, and the selection of Thiokol as the contractor, was fraught with political overtones. Aerojet in particular offered to build monolithic non-segmented SRB's from the Florida facility it had built in the 1960's for its 260 inch motors. The monolithic approach completely eliminated a number of potential failure modes, and should have resulted in considerably lower cost. One of these failure modes resulted in the Challenger disaster. <br /><br />When the award to Thiokol was announced, Lockheed was so upset that they lodged a formal protest, but nothing ever came of it. Many years later, it was learned from a source close to the original source selection board that Thiokol was ranked fourth out of four by a wide margin. So, a new board had been convened, and strangely enough, Thiokol won. Many in the losing teams felt that this just may have been influenced by the fact that the Chairman of the Senate Space Committee was the senior senator from Utah. The selection of Thiokol was said to have been ordered directly from the Nixon White House. A similar situation occurred after the Shuttle disaster, with the decision, despite all that had happened, to continue with Thiokol's redesigned motors in lieu of solutions from other manufacturers (such as the cancelled ASRM). <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[propforce]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>The Primes, yes , Boeing and Lockheed, have been swilling at the federal trough for decades without producing a reasonable "next gen" space vehicle. The only successful manned spacecraft in 25 years has been Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne! <br /><p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Let's not forget it is the Boeing and Lockheed employees, on day-in and day-out basis, kept the shuttle flying and safely for 98 launches in the last 30 years.<br /><br />The problem may resides in the decision makers... have you thought of that one? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"Many in the losing teams felt that this just may have been influenced by the fact that the Chairman of the Senate Space Committee was the senior senator from Utah. "</font><br /><br />Ayup -- also, James Fletcher -- the NASA Admin from 1971-1977 was a devout Mormon. Completely coincidental though...<br /><br />On the other hand, you can't joke that the SRBs were designed by the lowest bidder. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[redgryphon]

<font color="yellow">Using SRB for 1/1000 reliability ????</font><br /><br />Well, this is talking about the crew safety goal. So it's referring to a 1/1000 chance that the astronauts will die. Not 1/1000 that the vehicle will fail to perform its mission completely. <br /><br />The Planetary society report (with Griffin's input) said, since Challenger the *redesigned* SRB has a record of 176 (now 178) to zero. Not bad for a launch vehicle.<br /><br />Okay, but what if we have a catastrophic failure of the SRB? Realistically the worst of these is a case burst, which would be detectable by the crew escape system which would fire the CEV to a safe distance away from the disintegrating SRB, and then parachute back to the surface. Remember a case burst is not an explosion, but just uncontained burning of the SRB, leading to uncontrolled thrust, leading to loss of the vehicle, but not the crew. Even with Challenger, the SRBs didn't immediately cause the loss of the crew. The SRBs caused the ET to fail, which the ensuing rapid combustion (once again, not a true explosion) pushing the orbiter sidways into the slipstream, causing breakup. The crew compartment probably didn't fail until impact into the sea.

 

[propforce]

I could not help but wonder if replacing the SRB with liquid LOx/RP boosters is a better idea. Put 2 RD-171s per booster and we'll have shut-down and throttling capability. <br /><br />Oooppss.. I forgot, the 'decision' is already made <img src="/images/icons/blush.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[lycan359]

redgryphon, even if the CEV was using the Challenger SRB (the one that breached), I would think that there would be plenty of time to fire the escape system, even without being redesigned.<br /><br />If I remember correctly the breached SRB continued to fly for quite some time after the explosion of the ET.

 

[starfhury]

[RANT] All I can say is welcome to 1960. A solid only proposition for the CEV and the cargo transfers ships. Oh wait, the moon return looks virtually identical to Apollo. Complete with toss away moon landers stored exactly like the Apollo version. Where is the vision? Where is the revolution? We need to make a transition like we did from biplanes to monoplanes and piston power to jet powered. The NASA future looks bleek. We are committing to another thirty years of the status quo. Every one has become afraid to meet the challenge. Failure has become anthema, so much so that dullness has prevaded the whole space industrial complex. No one wants to try anything any more. I thougtht that was what space was about. The greatest challenge of any generation. This generation is saying they can't hack the challenge and must fall upon using the very same ideas and systems from the very dawn of the space age. I don't see any moderm airliners using biplanes and fabric for wings and control surfices. Why do we have to go back to using 2,000 year old solids? I see this as an embarrassment and failure. [/RANT]<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[thecolonel]

It is similar to Apollo, but you're missing the point. This is a "if it's not broke don't fix it" approach. It just so happens that the best architecture for landing on the moon in the 1960's remains more or less the best architectural approach today. Without an atmosphere for braking, direct ascent makes no sense. Slogging together alot of pieces in LEO adds to mission failure rates, so that leads us back to Lunar Orbit Rendezvous again.<br /><br />Where is the vision you ask? The vision is in the scale and methods used for Project Constellation. Apollo was constrained to landing sites along the Lunar equator because of expensive plane changing maneuvers. Project Constellation is going to stage at the L1 Earth-Moon point, making flights to the Lunar poles possible. This time four crew are going to be landed on the surface, and each landing will leave behind infrastructure added to a manned lunar base. <br /><br />And above all else, were going to live off the land this time. In-situ resource utilization will allow us to do much more grand things than Apollo even if we have LESS payload margin. We're going to use the water ice at the south pole so we don't have to drag Hydrogen with us. Look for Oxygen to be generated from moon rocks for starters, with propellant generation techniques to refuel lunar landers to follow. This element of the return to the moon will be especially important in preparing us to move on to Mars.<br /><br />And allow me to finish by saying that the scale of this is the most reassuring thing. Perhaps the fact that you weren't blow away by the proposal points towards the pragmatism involved in it. This is not some grandiose scheme that looks dynamite on paper, wins all skeptics over, but is impossible to implement. It is attainable, it is sustainable, and it is about time.

 

[starfhury]

I'm not convinced. Sure I'm all for return to moon. The real problem is not return to moon though. The biggest obstacle is that this whole plan does not adequately address the first two hundred miles. They want to spend billions setting up moonbases and what not, but are refusing to spend the money researching and building the most critical leg. No matter how much we want to try to reach the moon, if the initial mountain is too high, the cost will be too high and only a very limited amount of success will be achieved. People keep talking about heavy lifts and what not proposing huge behemoth LVs. Sure it would be great to launch 120 tons at one shot. But if we actually look at the cargo being launch most probably could be broken down into smaller weight sizes, whether 40, 50 or even 60 tons. What we need to do is get to the point where we are able to launch 100s of these per year. We need to work on one of those Liberty ships from WWII. You can build a bunch of them fast and fairly inexpensive versus building massive aircraft carriers. Until NASA or private industry invest in something like that we have a long way to go. What we need is a Henry Ford of rockertry, not another Apollo repeat. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>