Re: ESAS - VSE article by Jeffery Bell

In article <Xns97A5E4FBDC025jrfrank@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jorge R. Frank <jrfrank@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
CEV has but one docking mechanism. Once it's docked to the LSAM, just how
is it going to dock to the EDS? I just can't visualize this; someone draw
me a picture, please.

You dock the LSAM, with the CEV on top, to the departure stage.

The obvious approach, although not an entirely simple one, is to fly the
second docking from the LSAM. Alternatively, flying the LSAM docking from
the CEV is probably no more difficult, once techniques are worked out and
cameras, targets, etc. are in place, than some of the shuttle-station
dockings that have been done.

Or you can put an arm on the departure stage, and use it to do berthing
instead. (Better yet, do the final assembly at a LEO facility rather than
insisting on doing it out in the wilderness without support, and then the
assembly facility can have the arm(s) needed... but that may be too much
of a departure from the sacred Apollo way of doing things.)

Or, finally, take a leaf from the Soviet book rather than the Apollo one:
there's no real reason why CEV *can't* have docking ports at both ends.
Add a heatshield hatch and a pressurized passage down the center of the
SM, and have several small SPS engines rather than one big one so that the
centerline can be free, and it's not hard to have a rear docking port. It
makes the SM more versatile too -- Zarya, the first module of ISS, was
derived from such an SM design, as were most of the Mir add-ons.

Absent an SRB-based CLV, there will be a gap of several years between the
last shuttle SRB and the first CaLV SRB. From a production/workforce
standpoint, you've just made it a lot more difficult to keep the SRB line
open for CaLV, and the use of SRBs on CaLV must be rethought.

Good. :-)
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. | henry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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