Re: An alternative to Orion/Constellation?

Promised long response follows. Sorry for the long quotes, I feel
I had to keep them here to establish context.

Dave

Derek Lyons wrote:
David Spain <nospam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Derek and Jeff bring up several very good points.

I don't have the time right now to go into full detail
in expounding upon my responses, but I'll give you
a brief response now and hopefully a better follow-up
later.

Replies welcome....

Derek Lyons wrote:
"Jeff Findley" <jeff.findley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"David Spain" <nospam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:88GdnZ3vC-NLfm3UnZ2dnUVZ_vmdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Such a vehicle would be much more expensive to develop than Orion.
Yes definitely. I'm not opposed to spending money if its in the right
direction.

Shuttle costs got out of control when we decided to make it big enough
to carry a significant payload other than people [1].
One of the biggest problems with the shuttle is complexity. Making
it smaller wouldn't have made it (much) less complex. Some things could
have been cheaper (i.e. TPS due to smaller surface area and fewer tiles),
but other things would remain the same in terms of complexity (life support, crew cabin, computers, control surfaces, windows, and etc).
Many people also forget *why* the Shuttle grew like it did. Once the
unmanned heavy lift launcher was removed from the equation, NASA had
little choice. Leaving aside the niggling detail that the heavy lift
never really was in the equation in the first place in the minds of
those paying the bills.

Yes. We should have preserved ELVs for heavy lift. Saturn 1B would have
been good to have kept around.

Which wouldn't have made things cheaper - Saturn 1B was an expensive
beast to operate.


It seems the general consensus here is that Titan III became the heavy lifter
of preference post Apollo because of cost. That makes sense to me.

If it were just to ferry people it could have been made a lot smaller
with a lot more launch options which would have improved the economies
of everything.
The economies of everything except actually accomplishing anything
other than limited 'spam in a can' missions. If you're going to LEO
you need a destination - Apollo had to have one provided (Skylab or
Soyuz), while the Shuttle carries it's destination on its own back.

We should be focusing on building what I call a 'traveling space habitat'.
Something on the order of a very small space station that can be sent out
of low Earth orbit (LEO) on orbital exploration missions. First to the moon, then maybe Venus, and eventually Mars.
Of course, building such a station would be a massively expensive
enterprise - one made even worse by the need to make it survive and
operate in three very different enviroments.
Yes. But it would also allow us to explore interplanetary space over
decades.

Never mind the facts! Full speed ahead!


So what is your alternative? Three separate programs targeted over what time
frame? 3 centuries? In the long run how is that any cheaper?

Derek, you are a little loose with the term 'fact'. You haven't given me much
that I can check. What *is* the cost of Constellation/Orion? What do you think
is the payback that justifies it? You *say* my orbiting habitat proposal is more
expensive, but have given no justification for your opinion other than that we
agree that the traveling habitat is more complex than Constellation and therefore
more likely to be more expensive. You *ignore* the idea I promote that if we
had such a habitat it would be versatile enough to "enable" interplanetary exploration
for incremental expenditures already put into it for moon work. You cannot do that
with Constellation no matter how hard you try.

The fact that it would take decades to achieve is a cost benefit, since the expense
is stretched out over a number of years, not paid all up front at start-up. We can
start small (LEO operations at first) then *incrementally* move up to lunar exploration
and then planetary exploration. Small steps, but along a path that actually leads us
somewhere. And the money does not have to be spent all at once.

It would be self-sufficient and fully reusable and capable of supporting
a 6 person crew nearly indefinitely.
You (David) have no idea of the vast expense and complexity that
simple sentence implies.

I totally agree. I'm not arguing from a cost perspective, but from a value
perspective. If such a thing could operate for 2 or more decades I'd think
we'd get plenty back in return.

2 or more *decades*? Your cost just went beyond any possible value.


Wait a minute. I'm talking about building what amounts to a space station (smaller
than ISS, less complex that ISS in some ways but not others) in LEO. That eventually,
when the technology is proven out, would be sent into
lunar orbit to conduct exploration there. Perhaps by dropping landers, manned
or otherwise, but something that could stay in lunar orbit to support exploration
from lunar orbit, not MCC in Houston TX, ~240,000 miles away. Eventually the station
would be returned to LEO for reconfiguration for the next mission.

How does Orion/Constellation accomplish any moon goals that realistically don't
stretch out to be the better part of one, even two decades? Esp. if you're talking
about using it to establish a moon base! Talk about costs?!?!?

Think about the trillions already gone thanks to credit default swaps
and mortgage derivatives, and even the loftiest cost projections pale
in comparison.

Utterly irrelevant.


OK, I was doing a dollars for 'nothing' to a dollars for 'something' comparison.
But obviously we're not going to be spending trillions on a space program, period.
I think it's a significant question whether we're going to be willing to spend *anything*
on a moon return program that has no clear benefit beyond a moon return program.
Orion is likely to survive since it will be the only way for the US to get to ISS
w/o Russian help (well NASA *could* consider buying SpaceX Dragons, but let's assume
Orion gets built first). The Obama admin seems big on Earth Sciences. I would not at
all be surprised to see NASA gets re-tasked to that soon. That means more orbital
missions to ISS not the moon.

As an aside, I don't for the life of me understand this compulsion to throw
everything out with each new generation of space transport and start over.
When we do this, I'll get back to you.
How much of Mercury/Gemini/Apollo went into shuttle?

Right. The engineers on the Shuttle were wet behind the ears kids out
of kindergarten with zero experience or knowledge of anything that
went before.

If you have facts to present please do so. Jorge Frank followed up with a post
where he said he had studied how much Rockwell has reused technology inside
shuttle systems. I would ask Jorge where he found technology evolution from
earlier manned programs in the shuttle design, not because I doubt the veracity
of his claim, but because I truly want to *know*! Your 'wet behind the ears'
commentary, although colorful, isn't helpful.

My whole engineering career in the commercial sector has seen incremental
improvements where technology is refined and refined.
What kind of engineering? I.E. lets compare apples to apples.
OK fair enough.

Lack of answer noted.

I already answered that question long ago in an old post. FWIW, I'm in computers
and digital electronic design and software with a BSEE degree. I've been working
in the computer design business for 30 years. And since we're on the diversion
of backgrounds, how about yourself (Derek)? I've already noted here and
sci.space.history that aerospace is not my specialty. I don't think any of that
is relevant to my question, which was what are the examples of technology reuse
between the technologies used in capsule development which "appear" to be incremental
refinement (but *I* don't know that) and the shuttle which is radically different.
What was refined? RCS systems? Guidance systems? Can you be specific?

Why not? Why is space so vastly different an engineering discipline from
even aeronautics that the principles of incremental improvement don't apply?

You have failed to demonstrate that incremental improvements haven't
happened. For just *ONE* example - consider the orbital lifetime of a
Mercury capsule vs. anything that followed.


Gee an old debater's tactic. I didn't know it fell upon me to prove a negative.
I thought I was asking for facts. The straightforward way to answer my question
would be thusly: "Spacecraft engineering is no different. Incremental improvements
*do* apply. For example, consider the orbital lifetime of a Mercury capsule vs.
anything that followed.", simple, direct and to-the-point.

IIRC, the longest Mercury mission was the last one, flown by Gordon Cooper. How did
that compare to the first Gemini mission? Was that the one flown by Grissom/Young?
I could fact check it myself, but it's easier for me to use the 'Lovell method'. :-)
There clearly was some deviation in going from Gemini to Apollo, we all know about
the regrettable problems with the Apollo 1 capsule.

So what went from Apollo to Shuttle? For starters I'm pretty sure I read long ago that
the shuttle does NOT use the same pure oxygen capsule pressurization system used in Apollo
so that is one area where a system was abandoned rather than improved, but with a clear
benefit to the program. So if you're looking for exceptions, there is one I thought of off
the top of my head since abandonment of a system is not an incremental improvement. So
what were some examples of an incremental improvement? BTW what is Orion using for air?
I assume it must be compatible (i.e. the same) both in composition and pressure with the ISS?
Does that make Orion more costly to operate to the moon than Apollo? Compatibility with ISS
is not necessarily a benefit to a moon program and could be a hindrance. Who was it said,
complexity adds cost? :-)

So what is being re-used from the shuttle for the Orion ->capsule<- ? I would think if there's
technology reuse/refinement from shuttle you'd likely find it in the Orion SM. Is that true?

Dave
.

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