Orion still overweight after its SRR!

[ragnorak]

<br />Hey check this out about Orion's weight problems and there is even detailed mass figures for the CM and SM and stuff.<br /><br />http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2007/04/03/213056/orion-struggles-to-lose-excess-weight.html<br />

 

[docm]

I'm shocked, NOT <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[christine16]

is it april 1 joke?

 

[docm]

No, the story's a month old.<br /><br />Kinda explains the dreidel shape of the latest CEV/SM stack. <br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[gunsandrockets]

I can only hope the article is inaccurate. Those numbers for the CEV are horrible and terribly heavier than the numbers claimed by NASA.<br /><br />NASA says the CM capsule is 7,500kg, but the article says 10,202kg! Yikes!

 

[ragnorak]

<br />where did you see this a month ago then dcm?

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>NASA says the CM capsule is 7,500kg, but the article says 10,202kg! Yikes!<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Uff da. Reminds me a little of the JSF weight problems. Looks like they've got some difficult engineering decisions ahead of them. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[jimfromnsf]

"Uff da. Reminds me a little of the JSF weight problems. Looks like they've got some difficult engineering decisions ahead of them."<br /><br />1. Made a little bet with myself that you were from Minnesota before checking your profile<br /><br />2. It is a two edge sword. Orion overweight and/or Ares underperforming

 

[CalliArcale]

Well, to be perfectly honest, flying on the edge of the performance envelope is not uncommon in spaceflight. It's just so darned expensive that in many cases you simply can't afford much margin. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[jimfromnsf]

The real problem is that more lift can't be squeezed of the stick. The first stage is fixed. If any other non stick LV were to be used, the lower stage tanks and upperstage engine could be sized properly. But since it is constraint, the stick is affecting the CEV more directly

 

[baktothemoon]

Didn't they also have weight problems with the Apollo CM the first time around? I guess that's what you get when you go for "Apollo on steroids", aparently those steroids cause launcher shrinkage too.

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">2. It is a two edge sword. Orion overweight and/or Ares underperforming</font>/i><br /><br />Its the old Garfield line: "I'm not overweight, I am under-tall."<br /><br />Maybe those discussions on the Ares IV will pick up momentum.</i>

 

[docm]

What's wrong with this picture;<br /><br />Orion: 10,202 kg; 32.5 deg; 3-4 passengers <br /><br />Dragon: 7,000 kg; 15.0 deg; 7 passengers <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[docm]

More like the BMI of my first wife when she hit 45 <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jimfromnsf]

"What's wrong with this picture;<br /><br />Orion: 10,202 kg; 32.5 deg; 3-4 passengers<br /><br />Dragon: 7,000 kg; 15.0 deg; 7 passengers "<br /><br />Orion is 4-6 passengers, Orion lhas the propellant and engine to return from the moon and survive entry from those speeds. Orion can support a mission duration of 14 days (trying to find the man days) . It also has the avionics to navigate at those distances<br /><br />It is not a valid comparison.

 

[docm]

Block 2 Orion (LEO & lunar) is up to 4 passengers. Block 3 is Mars with 6 and we ain't there yet.<br /><br />SpX: "All systems designed to support long durations in space, including potential lunar fly-by missions"<br /><br />Consumables can go in the trunk. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[jimfromnsf]

CEV ISS is 6. There really isn't a "block II" , the CEV is designed for the lunar mission and used for the ISS.<br /><br />Just adding "consumables " doesn't increase duration. <br /><br />Also the Dragon isn't designed for lunar entry.<br /><br />"Centaur/lander rig" is just power point charts.<br /><br />"long distance remote avionics" what is that? Lunar navigation requires star trackers and not GPS. Not a "simple" box swap. <br /><br />It is "easy" to design/redesign a spacecraft on paper with words.

 

[docm]

<font color="yellow">Also the Dragon isn't designed for lunar entry. </font><br /><br />Is there some "law" that a 15 deg capsule with an appropriate heat shield can't do a lunar re-entry? How do <i><b>you</b></i> know it doesn't possess same or have lunar capability? Someone at SpX leaking or are you just shooting from the hip?<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"Centaur/lander rig" is just power point charts.</font><br /><br />Yes they are, but very attractive ideas are in those powerpoints. Lots of good ideas were first presented in powerpoint.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Just adding "consumables " doesn't increase duration. </font><br /><br />But you don't get anywhere whining; you add them and make it work. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">What's wrong with this picture;</font>/i><br /><br />Orion is over engineered for simple LEO missions to ISS.</i>

 

[trailrider]

'This is the problem as I see it. NASA starts with an Orion design that is waaaay too big, and settles on a rocket that is waaaay too small. This becomes the baseline. Intense efforts are then devoted to downsizing Orion and upsizing the rocket. Presumably, these concurrent efforts will meet somewhere in the middle, and as usual NASA will be flying a spacecraft right at the edge of its performance envelope. <br /><br />I guess that's okay as long as all systems work perfectly. Unfortunately they don't most of the time, and NASA knows this, so there will be additional labor involved going over each launch vehicle with a fine tooth comb, and the whole enterprise will baloon in cost as a result. <br /><br />Additionally, one wonders how much downsizing is possible for the Orion and how much upsizing is possible for "the stick" while maintaining the fiction that the Orion is still "The Orion" and the stick is still "The Stick". '<br /><br />About the same amount that changed the B-1A to the B-1B. Or, to put it another way, this is likely to turn into an "elephant" (and a white one at that)...which as most of your know is a mouse (and this whole thing is looking more and more "Mickey Mouse" as it is) built to Government specifications!<br /><br />It WOULD be nice...just once...to have a bit of margin for growth, rather than hanging on the ragged edge of the "envelope". As a former aerospace systems engineer, I recognize that we are a long way from a finalized design, and most airborne vehicles go through similar "growing pains" (NO pun intended). But it would be so nice...just once...to have a true DC-3 of the Space Age! (Personally, I'm real disappointed that we don't have the ISS at 1,075 miles and that winged V-2 standing on its tail on the Moon just as Chestley Bonestelle painted it in "The Conquest of Space"...just like "Onkel Wernher" planned in Collier's Magazine.)<br /><br />I wonder if Wiley Coyote has anything made by Acme Space Ship Company?<br /><br />Ad Luna! Ad Are

 

[jimfromnsf]

"Just adding "consumables " doesn't increase duration.<br /><br />But you don't get anywhere whining; you add them and make it work. "<br /><br />It doesn't work that way, like installing a bigger gas tank. <br /><br />There is this little speciality that gets over looked frequently, it is called system engineering. A small change in one system might have a large effect on another one

 

[jimfromnsf]

"Orion is over engineered for simple LEO missions to ISS."<br />just as Apollo was for Skylab and ASTP. The design mission is lunar, ISS is a secondary mission

 

[holmec]

Please! There's problems in any project. Its so easy to pick on them and sensationalize them. <br /><br />My response to the article is "Whatever...dude" <br /><br />I'm reminded of a couple of DOD projects that had major problems and the projects still went ahead successfully, FB-111 and Osprey. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[docm]

And I'm reminded of a plethora of govt. projects that wasted hundreds of millions, or many billions, before <i>finally</i> getting canceled. <br /><br />Then there are those projects that should have been canceled but went into service after decades of troubled development and billions wasted.<br /><br />One is the Bradley Fighting Vehicle which is so vulnerable to incoming fire some soldiers would rather walk <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /><br /><br />Some 6700 Bradley's have been built and their performance is checkered. If it were what it was supposed to be we wouldn't have had to build the Stryker M1126 Infantry Carrier Vehicle. Details in the book/movie "The Pentagon Wars" <br /><br />Then there's the "Big Dig" in Boston, the Space Shuttle and on and on.<br /><br />My point is that large govt. projects, be they spacecraft, tunnels or weapons, are very often poorly thought through, poorly managed and even more poorly executed.<br /><br />This is why so many people are rooting for NewSpace. There may be failures here as well, but the finances will be better controlled and the upside could well be better than the 20+ years to manned space travel joygasm then back in the hanger pattern of NASA and its political leash holders. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[docm]

<font color="yellow">Since the Delta IV Heavy has already flown and we have a few years of Shuttle service left to iron out the kinks, I'm scratching my head in wonderment why this rig wasn't selected as the pony for the early aspects of VSE. </font><br /><br />N.I.H. = not invented here (NASA), plus some gibberish about "man rating" which ULA has shown capable of being worked through with the Atlas V (their statements re: the talks with Bigelow).<br /><br /><font color="yellow">I know we'll need Thoikol down the road for Ares V, but this "Stick" idea is really starting to stink.</font><br /><br />Yup, you can always tell when there's a skunk under the porch <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>