Re: Ares alternatives? "NASA renegades"


"Jochem Huhmann" <joh@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:m21vv66ev6.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Jeff Findley" <jeff.findley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

But if you want to launch that on current EELV's you will deliver at
most 10 to 15 tons of equipment with one launch (since every single
payload will need power and engines and fuel and more). Add to this the
needed crews to assemble non-trivial stuff which you also have to launch
and you end up with dozens or more launches, not two or three. This is
just not practical.

This is how ISS has been assembled. So ISS isn't practical? Don't you
think lessons have been learned from ISS which would make in orbit
assembly
easier for future projects?

It was possible for the ISS, but was it practical? A heavy launcher
could have launched more than the ISS with two launches, saving enormous
amounts of overhead and time. And ISS is not a spacecraft and has no
lander.

True, but look at the ballooning costs of Ares V. If Ares I is cancelled,
Ares V will end up costing even more. At this point in time, I think it's
very likely that both Ares I and Ares V will be cancelled in favor of using
EELV's. I don't think NASA is going to get is super heavy lift capability
that it wants. In the absence of that super heavy lift vehicle, going to
Mars will necessarily be done with smaller launch vehicles.

You'll have to launch modules that are assembled and
tested on the ground and which don't need any manual work to join them.

Not true. Mir and ISS have shown otherwise.

How many years are you willing to take to assemble your spacecraft?

You assume that NASA learned nothing from the ISS experience. I hope they
learned some lessons and would do a better job designing a Mars craft. For
one, you don't necessarily need a huge truss for a Mars craft. The CBM
design could be improved, hopefully requiring no EVA's for those connections
(on ISS some connections were external to the CBM and had to be done using
EVA's).

Progress vessels make a lot of connections automatically when they dock.
Perhaps NASA could incorporate that sort of capability too, largely
eliminating the need to make manual connections in the CBM vestibule area.

Jeff
--
"Many things that were acceptable in 1958 are no longer acceptable today.
My own standards have changed too." -- Freeman Dyson


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Relevant Pages

  • Re: NASA Encounters Problems With Ares 1 Launch Vehicle Design
    ... I'm not for NASA building any new launch vehicle themselves. ... and if there's one thing that the ISS should teach us it's that giant ... If you've got Ares V, you certainly could use it for ISS ...
    (sci.space.history)
  • Re: Is the space station a dead end project?
    ... to get near enough the station to be berthed to a CBM hatch in just a ... that if Ares/Orion continues that we would see Orion flights to ISS. ... It's also concievable that you could launch an Orion minus its pressurized ... This will do nothing to prepare NASA for how to assemble hardware in LEO ...
    (sci.space.station)
  • Re: Should "The Stick" be scrapped?
    ... Ares I, so no savings there. ... think shortening the SRB:s would matter much for the per launch cost. ... RS-68 engines are relatively cheap. ... makes little sence to prefer a single SRB and one J-2X for ISS ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Orion water landing on return?
    ... It's not the end of the world if NASA can't launch astronauts. ... Orion is an unaffordable pig of a throwaway ... so why kill ISS by leaving it with too few spare parts and expensive ... neither does Ares. ...
    (sci.space.history)
  • Re: Should "The Stick" be scrapped?
    ... Ares I, so no savings there. ... think shortening the SRB:s would matter much for the per launch cost. ... makes little sence to prefer a single SRB and one J-2X for ISS ... ISS payload cannister. ...
    (sci.space.policy)