VSE: LAST CHANCE TO KILL NEGATIVITY?

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mattblack

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Some of the comedians on this forum haven't got a clue what's real between what they want what Congress will allow. <br /><br />They moan because the new concepts don't have SSTO: <br /><br />NOT GOING TO HAPPEN... <br /><br />They moan because it doesn't have fancy nuclear or ion propulsion systems: <br /><br />NOT GOING TO HAPPEN... <br /><br />They moan because it doesn't use huge inflatable modules, space elevators, lifting bodies, private industry, re-usable landers/tankers, robot tugs and a rocket derived from a pipsqueak (20 ton-or-less) or fancy unflown rocket that isn't even man-rated. <br /><br />NOT GONNA HAPPEN!!! <br /><br />That above stuff, though worthy in another context, is spacetech jerkoff fantasies. It's doo-doo!! <br /><br />They've gotta get their sci-fi obsessed heads out of their a55es and learn what's real and what isn't given budgetary realities and the fact that manned spaceflight has powerful, ignorant, namby-pamby enemies out there who would b1tch if this whole thing cost $50 bucks, let alone $100 billion!!! <br /><br />To the naysayers: stop wishing for pie in the sky paper spaceships and unrealities. Learn something about Astronautics, history and economics and stop the damaging, blunderbuss negativity that could yet kill manned Moon & Marsflights. The big, fat mouths of ignorance and negativity might even be viewed as a conspiracy, given slightly different circumstances. <br /><br />What are you no-hopers trying to prove, trying to achieve? Get rid of Nasa and replace it with what?! <br /><br />NOT GONNA HAPPEN!!! <br /><br />If Michael Griffin can't pull this off because enemies of manned space use your negative words to pad their twisted agendas, then the naysayers just may have shot themselves in the foot to a tragic, ironic level. <br /><br />Let's not damn Griffin's architecture with faint praise: Let's venerate it as a good place to start. And damn the torpedo lies of those who want to stop manned spaceflight. <br /><br />Time for a line in the sand: <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>
 
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centsworth_II

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I was very excited by Griffin's description of the program. It squeezes a lot out of the NASA budget. There is simply no budget for development of radical new technologies. But using proven technologies, NASA will develop a robust, reliable transport system to Earth orbit and the Moon that other countries can make use of if they so desire. Also, NASA will encourage private industry to step up and participate with their own LEO programs which, when they prove capable, NASA will not compete with.<br /><br />This sounds like a great plan to me. Those who want to complain should complain about the lack of funding not about NASA's plans for the meager funds it has. But be forwarned, as stated in the previous post, NASA's budget may only be safe as long as it flies under the radar. Try to get the general public excited about a great (expensive) Moon base program and you may only succeed in getting them excited about money that they think would be best spent elswhere. I'd bet that 90% of the general public is much, MUCH less interested in space travel and moon bases than anyone posting in this forum. Especially when their tax money is being used to do it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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jatslo

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That's the problem, get the freaking politicians out of the space business and turn it over to the people.<br /><br />I'll buy 10,000 shares right this very minute!
 
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vt_hokie

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It's very hard to support spending $100 billion or more so that 4 people can walk around on the lunar surface for a few days, when that amount of money could give us something revolutionary, like an NASP type of vehicle. If we focus now on making access to low Earth orbit safer and more routine, then we can talk about sending many flights with many people to exciting new destinations, rather than sending 4 people a couple of times a year. <br /><br />I will be at least a little more positive about things if they manage to get the shuttle flying again and finish assembly of the space station, including <i>all</i> of the large solar arrays, Node 2, the European Columbus module, and the Japanese experiment module. Node 3, the centrifuge, and the cupola should be added as well, imo, and I find it disheartening to see shifting political priorities leading to the same type of thing that killed Apollo just as it was really getting started! Let's not kill ISS just as it's finally close to realizing its potential!
 
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mattblack

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I too hope they finish ISS to the last nut and bolt, otherwise the no-science complaint will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But I have to tell you: If they can't fly at least 2 Shuttle missions in 2006 and at least 5 in 2007, then it's not going to happen. <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>
 
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nyarlathotep

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<font color="yellow">There is simply no budget for development of radical new technologies. But using proven technologies, NASA will develop a robust, reliable transport system to Earth orbit and the Moon that other countries can make use of if they so desire.</font><br /><br />Proven technologies? You mean like the commercially available and more than capable Delta IV and the Titan V?<br /><br />I may be wrong here, but to me it seems that instead of using proven, safe, and readily available commercial products, NASA are instead blowing $15B porkbarreling the development of two new completely unproven, dubiously reliable, and stupidly complex vehicles using the crud left over from the STS.
 
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nacnud

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$15B will give first give NASA the worlds heaviest lift rocket then available, and that’s just for the SRB derived Crew Launch Vehicle.<br /><br />The in-line cargo version will put five times as much into orbit. Where is the commercially available version of these?<br />
 
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nyarlathotep

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<font color="yellow">The in-line cargo version will put five times as much into orbit. Where is the commercially available version of these?</font><br /><br />It's in an alternate reality where NASA didnt kill off the entire US commercial space industry in the early 80's with stupidly complex, unsafe, state subsidised launchers.<br /><br />Here we are twenty five years later with the benefit of hindsight, and instead of using the two more than capable vehicles on the market, and encouraging the commercial development of more, NASA wants to porkbarrel another STS.
 
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rfoshaug

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"Proven technologies? You mean like the commercially available and more than capable Delta IV and the Titan V?"<br /><br />The heavy lift launch vehicle that NASA is going to develop wil lift the payload of 5 Delta IV Heavy vehicles. When NASA is going to the moon, they will need a heavy lifting capability not currently available.<br /><br />Boeing have earlier said that they could expand the Delta IV Heavy with 6 boosters instead of 2, but that would still "only" lift about 95 metric tonnes, and it would too be a new untested (although "Delta-derived") vehicle requiring new launch pads, new manufacturing plants etc.<br /><br />Man-rating the current Delta IV or Atlas V design would also be an expensive and financially/politically risky project. So the Crew Launch Vehicle is also economically justified.<br /><br />The Saturn V is a very old design. Although no Saturn V ever exploded (but they did have problems with pogo effects and engines shutting down from time to time), I'm sure that it was not as safe as a new vehicle will be. I'm sure that if you'd launched 114 Saturn V's you'd lose more Saturns than NASA has lost shuttles in as many flights. Besides, all production facilities and plants would have to be rebuilt. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff9900">----------------------------------</font></p><p><font color="#ff9900">My minds have many opinions</font></p> </div>
 
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nyarlathotep

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<font color="yellow">Man-rating the current Delta IV or Atlas V design would also be an expensive and financially/politically risky project. </font><br /><br />I imagine the risk is more political than anything else. I cant imagine adding a few sensors would cost anywhere near the sort of money NASA are talking about spending.<br /><br />As far as archaic concepts like "man rating" are concerned, i've been keeping a tally.<br /><br />Number of failed launches due to ATK's stupid segmented boosters: 1<br />Number of failed launches on a Delta IV: 0
 
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rfoshaug

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Well, the first (and so far only) launch of the Heavy version of the Delta IV was technically a failure, as the test payload reached an orbit far from the desired one due to a sensor glitch that shut down the engines too early. Although not a catastrophic failure if there had been a crew on board, it's still something that shouldn't happen.<br /><br />Besides, if the booster of the Crew Launch Vehicle were to fail in the same way as the one on Challenger, the crew would have survived due to the configuration of the proposed vehicle.<br /><br />The heavy lift rocket would have suffered the same fate as Challenger in those circumstances, but after the Challenger accident the boosters were redesigned and the problem is fixed.<br /><br /><br />"Number of failed launches due to ATK's stupid segmented boosters: 1"<br />"Number of failed launches on a Delta IV: 0"<br /><br /><br />I'd also like to point out that there haven't been many Delta IV launches yet (less than 10) with a partial failure in the DIV-H launch described above. If we count that as half a failure, the statistics should more be like this:<br /><br />Number of failures per flight:<br /><br />Delta IV: 0.5 in less than 10 flights<br />STS SRM: 1 in 228 flights (2 per shuttle launch)<br /><br />The solid rocket motors of the shuttle are very reliable, especially after the redesign in the mid-1980's. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff9900">----------------------------------</font></p><p><font color="#ff9900">My minds have many opinions</font></p> </div>
 
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nyarlathotep

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<font color="yellow">The solid rocket motors of the shuttle are very reliable, especially after the redesign in the mid-1980's.</font><br /><br />They wouldnt have needed a redesign if they were sane and designed them in a single piece in the first place. They'd also be a whole lot cheaper.<br /><br />
 
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remekr

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<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>They wouldnt have needed a redesign if they were sane and designed them in a single piece in the first place. They'd also be a whole lot cheaper.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Pardon? Do you have facts to back that up, or is that just your guess?<br /><br />Here's some things to consider:<br />transport from Utah to KSC and back<br />reburbishment procedures and costs<br />filling with propellent to precise internal shapes and testing for voids<br />mounting on the mobile launch platform<br /><br />One other thing - Challenger was tragically unlucky that the flange leak was on the tank side. A leak anywhere else would have still allowed the orbiter to make low Earth orbit.<br />
 
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jatslo

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<font face="verdana">In terms of survival of our species, there is nothing more important than the final frontier. Hell, NASA should receive a blank check, in my opinion. I wish we could organize somehow; I have no doubt that we could raise the captital, if we teamed up. I have a server we could use.</font><br />
 
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centsworth_II

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<font color="yellow">"Proven technologies? ...the crud left over from the STS."</font><br /><br />If I'm not mistaken, Griffin (remember, he's a rocket scientist) described the shuttle SRBs as the most reliable -- most flights without failure -- rocket ever. And has the shuttle's main engine <b>ever</b> failed? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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magick58

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ok one the shuttle works for what we need it for right now. It is the only system that can finish the ISS right now. The rocket tech on that system is OUTSTANDING safety wise. Right now the problem with that system is the ET. And from what I have see and looked up you could fix that with $100 worth of chicken wire. I'm probably wrong but that's my opinion and we all know what the're like, and every ones got one.<br /> <br />As for the negativity. NASA is going with proven rocket systems with new designs. Chemical Rocket engines are only as good as there sensors and keeping the fuel where it belongs. If that doesn't happen it's either boom or spat. The're doing this because there scared. Colombia was a PR nightmare. They won’t do anything innovative until that’s out of public's mind. I WANT the nuc engines. There less expensive and use half the fuel weight of chemical rockets. Which equals less structural weight and more payload. The tech has been around since the 70's and Pratt. & Wit. has got 3 or 4 designs DONE, with in the last 10 years. and no i'm not pulling that out of my but if i find the link again i'll post it. Thoughs engines also provide power. So any other power systems would just be backup. Again less weight. <br /><br />Now as for the capsule atrocity I'm through fighting that one on the NASA side of things. I'll hate it but I'll live and I'll still be watching the launches on TV. My problem is with the time line. We are doing in 12 years what they did in the 70's in 10.<br />
 
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nyarlathotep

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<font color="yellow">The're doing this because there scared. Colombia was a PR nightmare.</font><br /><br />If NASA are too chicken to run a manned spaceflight program, maybe it's about time they outsource it. I know that Boeing, RSC Energia, LockMart, SpaceX, Starsem, and t/space would all likely be interested.
 
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spayss

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It's not just a question of 'scared'. It's the realization that success brings public interest and greater funding. Failure brings calls for cancellation and decreased funding. <br /> Thank goodness the latest Mars explorers were a resounding success. It makes asking for a pay raise a whole lot easier when you've done a good job. <br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /><br />
 
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magick58

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Shuttle_guy, Yes I thought i might be wrong about the chicken wire, take it for what it was the foam needs some type of internal support thats all I was trying to say and as for the 10 years thing I was making an estiment. The tech has been there for 35 years I would think they could do it a lot faster. If they realy wanted to focus on manned space flight they would kill some other things that eat up the budget.
 
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trailrider

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The leaks DID occur on the two previous flights! The leaks went outboard and did no damage! On Challenger's last flight, they weren't so lucky.<br /><br />The points about transportability and other technical reasons for using segmented solids are right on! Personally, I don't like solids for a number of technical reasons. Primarily, with large solids, there is a potential for case bond separations, nozzle insert lamination failures, etc. But with more modern NDT techniques, that risk is reduced. With the in-line/escape system design, the probability of crew survival goes positive and close to 100 percent.<br /><br />Apollo was revolutionary. The new Lunar program concepts are, for political and economic reasons, evolutionary. As I have said before, I don't much care if we use Wiley E. Coyote's Acme slingshot to get to the Moon! Let's just get there and establish a permanent (not just human-TENDED) base for research and settlement. <br /><br />You naysayers can argue about hardware, but you'd better be aware there are those who want no part of space exploration at all!<br /><br />Just read the post on the main pages of Space.com by Thomas R. McCabe! (Be sure to do this on an empty stomach, or you're liable to puke all over your keyboard!)<br /><br />He contends that Zubrin, et al, while stating how Mars CAN be settled, has shown no reason WHY it should be settled. By extension, McCabe is taking about the whole exploration paradigm. He contends that America doesn't need a frontier to be great.<br /><br />I believe he is WRONG! But I won't refute him point by point. What I will say is that it is the challenges posed by frontiers that stimulate America. Those frontiers may or may not be exactly geographic, although geographic frontiers are easiest to recognize and believe in.<br /><br />To quote from James Gunn's anthology, "Station in Space", which, although fiction (and pre-Sputnik fiction in fact), has a lot of very pithy philospophy... Earth is a "powderkeg."<</safety_wrapper>
 
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JonClarke

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How about we discuss that oped in a thread of it's own? Does anyone have a link? I can't find it on the main page.<br /><br />Jon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>
 
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trailrider

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Shuttle-guy,<br />It's been awhile since the event, so my memory may be faulty, or I may have mis-read the USBI downstage post-flight reports from the previous August and the April flight before that. From what I read, there were leaks for 120 deg. around the circumference of the joints on both SRB's on both of those flights. But, again, I was reading quickly, as MSFC wanted the pedigree of the SRB-DSS on the Challenger disaster dating back to the bauxite mines that the aluminum ore from which the isogrids were fabricated, and it took the whole weekend to get it done! In point of fact, the about the ONLY thing that DID work on that flight was the drogue and frustum on the left-hand SRB. Those components were totally reusable according to KSC. NASA elected to pound them down the Minuteman launch tube with the rest of the debris.<br /><br />Not wanting to dispute you...as I said, it's been awhile...<br /><br />Ad Luna! Ad Aries! Ad Astra!<br />Trailrider
 
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tomnackid

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"If NASA are too chicken to run a manned spaceflight program, maybe it's about time they outsource it. I know that Boeing, RSC Energia, LockMart, SpaceX, Starsem, and t/space would all likely be interested."<br />----------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />What planet do you live on? If Boeing and Lockmart wanted a private manned space program they could have had it back in the 60s! You don't make the kind of money that those companies want by running a private manned space program. Actually as of now you don't make ANY money with a manned space program! The small companies like t/space might be able to get by with money from "space barnstorming" until government contracts to LEO start coming through--just like barnstorming with airplanes kept pilots working until the first airmail contracts from the government came through. There's a reason to keep the ISS going that no one has mentioned. As incentive for small companies to develop launchers to ferry passengers and supplies to it. <br /><br />Not using one of Boeings or Lockmarts EELVs was the smartest move NASA could have made. For one thing neither company had anything close to what NASA needs for Project Constellation. They would be very reluctant to develop what NASA wants because there would be no other market for it but NASA. (Ask Energia about the commercial market for HLLVs! They've had one for cut rate prices for years with no takers.) <br /><br />Second, the STS was designed from the beginning to be a man-rated HLLV (if you count the orbiter as part of the payload). Why dump all that research and development and try to cobble together a HLLV from modified ICBMs?
 
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