So much for the idea of an SRB being less expensive for CLV

[n_kitson]

The figures I provided are "per 100MM passenger miles", so does take the distance and passengers traveled into account. Thus in the US rail is slightly more dangerous than road traffic.<br /><br />However, I agree with your points on France. Well implemented, a rail system is substantially safer.

 

[mattblack]

>>Much like VSE!<<<br /><br />In God's name why, WHY would you take glee in that prospect? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p>One Percent of Federal Funding For Space: America <strong><em><u>CAN</u></em></strong> Afford it!!  LEO is a <strong><em>Prison</em></strong> -- It's time for a <em><strong>JAILBREAK</strong></em>!!</p> </div>

 

[vt_hokie]

Because it's a complete waste of money, and is designed to keep Thiokol and other contractors employed more than anything. <br /><br />After seeing every worthwhile RLV program get abandoned before completion due to a lack of political will, why would I want to see a glorified Apollo capsule be the design that actually survives? At this point we should be aggressively pursuing new technologies and taking on new challenges, not giving up on progress and resurrecting Apollo. Like I said in another thread, my interest and excitement died along with programs like NASP and X-33.

 

[mattblack]

Okay, so I KNOW that RLV's are your personal preference, even a fetish. BUT: you KNOW --<br /><br /> />>After seeing every worthwhile RLV program get abandoned before completion due to a lack of political will<< <br /><br />**And they will for the forseeable future because of the "Too Hard" bin**.<br /><br /> />>why would I want to see a glorified Apollo capsule be the design that actually survives?<< <br /><br />**You don't have to want to. But a "glorified Apollo" (which is a cynically constructed, semantic expression) is better than nothing, especially if it does far more than Apollo. But I grant you, they're on a path to only duplicating Apollo, which makes this a negative, self-fulfilling prophecy. Still don't forget: Apollo was one of the greatest achievements in human history. One could do worse than to repeat it but --- BUT, like you I want them to do better.**<br /><br /> />>At this point we should be aggressively pursuing new technologies and taking on new challenges<< <br /><br />**From your mouth to God's (or Congress') ears, including nuclear power & propulsion and LOX/Methane propulsion and ISRU. Still, if you believe this, then you haven't been reading in detail the (prospective) technology Trade Studies, and I don't mean the Nasa puff pieces. We are STILL in pioneering times. We haven't even tried and perfected all the 1970's and '80s concepts and technologies yet: How do you think we're going to leap-frog to the 21st Century technology without passing through the technical 'eye-of-the-needle' first?**<br /><br /> />>Like I said in another thread, my interest and excitement died along with programs like NASP and X-33.<< <br /><br />Then what can I say? What CAN I say??!! I could then ask -- why are you here and why do you haunt this and other forums, pining and whining like a kid who didn't get the new Sci-Fi console game for Christmas that you wanted. Instead, what you were given was a bicycle, to get you out into the f <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p>One Percent of Federal Funding For Space: America <strong><em><u>CAN</u></em></strong> Afford it!!  LEO is a <strong><em>Prison</em></strong> -- It's time for a <em><strong>JAILBREAK</strong></em>!!</p> </div>

 

[j05h]

> **Do you want to know what barrow I push? It's a selfish one in a way: I want to watch on Hi-Def TV Astronauts walking and working on the Moon and Mars BEFORE I DIE. I've followed space exploration since I was four years old. I'm 40 now, and I've waited bloody DECADES to see humans leave Earth Orbit again. And I'll be damned, selfishly so, before I see the best opportunity in my life end in chaos at worst and L.E.O. only at second best. Do we want to see hundreds of billions spent the next 30 years ONLY in L.E.O. or spent on OTHER WORLDS. With the VSE, we would be setting out on a path to BUY WORLDS for our children and Grandchildren.<br /> />Who in their right, bloody mind would want to stop that? <br /><br />Well said. One of my first toys was an Apollo diorama. It works like this to me: the world is changing on many levels. A frontier is both a social release valve and a source of various wealth. We are at a pivotal American point: after this generation we may not have the capability to open the new frontier. It's this generation, Gen-X if you will, Linklater's Slackers, it's our turn to make this happen. If we don't do it, the mantle goes to India or China. This is not a dig against international biz, Baby Boomers or Generation Whatever, just history unwrapping. <br /><br />The dot.com bubble created huge, sustainable new businesses. Sure, there was plenty of churn (petfood.com) but we have an entire new sector of industry in a decade. <br /><br />Here's my take on the launch problem. It's not a problem. Getting to LEO & beyond is expensive currently, but is available. What can be made to pay at current prices? Space Adventures is surely profitable at this point, SpaceDev is profitable this year, Scaled Composites must be. Com sats have always made money. Where can you make a difference in the current launch environment? Once demand is driven up, espcecially for lighter payloads, the faster costs will drop. We already have the rockets to do a variety of inter <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[bwhite]

Heinlein said "Get to LEO and you are halfway to anywhere"<br /><br />True.<br /><br />But as ISS proves, halfway to anywhere is no where all that interesting or useful.<br /><br />The second half of the journey to the moon will need ISRU - - lunar LOX and re-useable LSAMs. <br /><br />Otherwise, no matter whether we use ATK Sticks, EELVs or NewSpace SSTO RLVs the moon will remain difficult and expensive to access.

 

[j05h]

Space-derived propellants are the enabling technology forth growing anything sustainable. I'm a fan of NEO comet mining, but lunar, Martian and Phoboan volatiles are all possible. Volatile returns (water primarily) should be the #1 concern and focus of potential new space businesses. <br /><br />What I should have added in that post is this: I think the launch-profit "sweet spot" for new industries is about to be reached. Material and electronic science have driven what we can do to new heights, even with current launch costs. The first groups out the gate with next generation space applications will stand with explorers of old. The applications could include resource return, beamed in-space power, tourist support, adventure exploration and material processing. Facilities in LEO and Highly Eccentric Earth Orbit will interchange to support further development.<br /><br />josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[bwhite]

JO5H, <br /><br />Since LOX is 89% by mass of the fuel needed for hydrogen engine and 80% by mass of the fuel needed for a methane engine; and <br /><br />Since finding any lunar H2O amenable to cost effective mining remains speculative; and<br /><br />Since lunar H2O certainly won't be available at every interesting lunar locations, while virtually every location having lunar regolith is going to have oxygen locked in the rocks; and<br /><br />Since H2O will need to be cracked into H2 & O2 to be used as fuel (even after you dig it out of cold traps or sift tons and tons of regolith);<br /><br />Lunar LOX production is perhaps Job #1 with H2 or methane or even propane or kerosene shipped from Earth. Find a nice glacier of water ice and I'll say "Cool, use it" but just in case there isn't any H2O readily available, lunar LOX and Terran fuel seems the obvious place to start with ISRU.

 

[j05h]

The difficulties involved in lunar mining are part of why i'm so gung-ho about NEO comets. Shine light down a tunnel and use a wicking system to collect water droplets. Or use a fairly simple Tunnel Boring Machine to get the water. Ship as water, use for breathing gas, fuel and oxidizer, etc. Later additions include processing other volatiles and trace minerals. The DeltaV requirements for some NEOs is ridiculously low. The Moon is not the most obvious business solution for fast volatile return. The NEOs along with Phobos and Deimos are. Trip time is a little longer but other factors should prevail.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[john_316]

If we manrate Atlas V and Delta Heavy then we can add the CEV to it. <br /><br />Like this is a 10 year complex deal! Give me a break! Its such a farse it pathetic. Just a lie to keep a money laundering business alive ie (Shuttle).<br /><br />Use the clean sheet for the HLV and use the RS-68 and J2 motors. Why waste more money on SRB's and stuff.<br /><br />Build a tall boy HLV with 6-8 RS-68 engines and exclude SRB from it all. Go away from Shuttle Derived and use something that is reliable. <br /><br />But then again as I think about it. EELV would triple in price overnight if they selected it for CLV. Ummmmmm! Just buy rockets from Russia.... <br /><br />Who cares anymore. The system ie (NASA) is broken and wont get fixed until NASA goes BYE BYE.....<br /><br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /><br /><br />

 

[nyarlathotep]

>>"Yeah, especially considering how many ETs they have hanging around, as well as some 50-60 surplus SSMEs, they could build some serious liquid fuelled CLVs from those for very little cost."<br /><br />It'd be much cheaper to simply use RD-171's. We could outsource the machining too.

 

[gunsandrockets]

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/get-attachment.asp?action=view&attachmentid=4268<br /><br /><br />The ESAS plan seems in crisis. The latest revisions are drasticly cutting back the mass of the CEV, from the original 23 tonnes to something like 15 tonnes. With that change the principle reason for choosing an SRB derived CLV collapses. If the CEV gets much lighter even a Medium version of the EELV could do the job!

 

[j05h]

>If we manrate Atlas V and Delta Heavy then we can add the CEV to it. <br /><br />That is what makes the most sense. I think everything should be sized to fly on available or near-term rockets. No HLV development, build a depot in equatorial orbit, reusable infrastructure whereever possible. Lunar access should be built with new opportunities and development in mind. No more flags and footprints, which is why HLV doesn't make sense until it makes business sense. <br /><br />In other words: for $100million, Russia will get you 2/3s of the way to a moon landing. $44million for 6 months Soyuz in LEO, per person. Those are affordable numbers. NASA should be working on the further out problem, they build really good deepspace craft. If Boeing/Lockmart/USA don't want to fly customers (astronauts) at the going rate, they should stick with their core businesses. <br /><br /> />Who cares anymore. The system ie (NASA) is broken and wont get fixed until NASA goes BYE BYE..... <br /><br />I care. I don't want NASA to go away, they are (despite problems) one of America's shining stars of the government. The technology developed there can lead us outward, they do have a role in Earth sciences and outward exploration. To wish them gone is a recipe for frontier failure. They are not, however, the only player in the game. <br /><br />I predict that the first boots on Mars are Sir Richard Branson's Nikes.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[gunsandrockets]

The link I provided is now dead. www.nasaspaceflight.com has now retracted the story. The link I had provided was to an image showing a table of modified weights for the CEV to fit a EML-2 lagrange-point-rendezvous lunar flight architecture. Sadly, I neglected to copy the image. Drat!