Ares 1X

[Admin]

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I just don't understand one thing. If the Russians could somehow save the Soyuz, how come USA didn't save anything.

My take is that USA and USSR (and current Russia) had/have a totally different set of priorities.

/Admin

[Moonwalker]

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I just don't understand one thing. If the Russians could somehow save the Soyuz, how come USA didn't save anything.

My take is that USA and USSR (and current Russia) had/have a totally different set of priorities.

/Admin

Indeed. Before STS, everything in manned US space flight was short-term projects with the goal of one big political show of landing on the moon (the scientific part of Apollo was not as big as journalists often tend to call it in the media). Politically Apollo was about beating the Russians but nothing else. They did no think any further at that time. Initially Russia was on a similar course with its N1 moon landing program. But at the same time they've also build Soyuz, a real workhorse that later on sucessfully carried men to Mir and today men (and stuff) to the ISS. It operates sucessfully for 39 years (after there had been the last accident in 1971: because of a failed valve the crew got exposed to vacuum). There is no need to end the Soyuz program, and there is no better design for a replacement. If you will it is a perfect system that even will be in operation by ESA in the future. Think about why China did chose to partly "reproduce" that design and not something really different

STS was the first long-term project of the USA. But the mistake was that its design did not really include the possibility for updates. Everything you do on the Shuttle is expensive and elaborate as hell (just as the whole program is). STS is/was way ahead of its time. I hope that this time NASA really builds something for the future...

[bjbeard]

In the end, what it all means is the US need to retain at least one flight ready shuttle (OV-105) until Orion is flying manned missions. The Russians are already talking about seats on Soyuz in the current nuclear arms limitation talks. Congress aint gonna go for that bait. So with the prospect of Russia possibly denying US Astronauts seats on Soyuz, it is national suicide to retire the only access to space available.

The USA should take cash outta that useless failure of a health care reform bill, and put it back into NASA. The HCR will keep another 10 years. You folks not living in the US don't really know how much the citizens here do NOT WANT that heath care system that congress is ramrodding though. That money should be spent on infrastructure and NASA.

[Moonwalker]

In the end, what it all means is the US need to retain at least one flight ready shuttle (OV-105) until Orion is flying manned missions.

Well, as far as I know neither the NASA management nor the house and senate don't really want to operate the Shuttle any further beyond the ISS servicing missions. The house and senate only agreed to extra money "if" the current planned ISS servicing missions need to be extended by another servicing mission. Operating the Shuttle any further beyond the still required servicing missions is something nobody really wants (of the management) because it costs another tons of money and doesn't close the gap at all. They rather want to focus on getting Orion off the ground.

To stop the Shuttle flights as soon as possible and pump the proper budegt into the new program would be the best thing to happen for the future of manned US space flight. It would reduce the gap significantly and get a reliable system off the ground. What people don't understand is that the STS program is the actual issue here. It eats up tons of money and man power. It is a real drag NASA has to get rid of finally, no matter as much as we all love the Shuttle.

You folks not living in the US don't really know how much the citizens here do NOT WANT that heath care system that congress is ramrodding though.

It depends I'm not living in the US but I'm quite aware that by the HCR Obama actually is going to divide the country.

[Huron_Serenity]

Even if a significant amount of money was injected into Constellation, I doubt Orion or Ares I (or whatever they decide to launch Orion on) would fly till 2014-2015. That's just a basic Orion too, not the block that will do lunar or NEO flights. Similar story with heavy lift capability; it would still be years away even with a significant injection of funds. Unless they decided to built a fairly unsafe poor man's heavy lift rocket that consists of hastily cobbled multiple (more than 3) together Delta or Atlas stages.

Just look at Apollo. Even with the huge budget that NASA had available to them, it still took close to a decade of development and testing to get to the Moon (Saturn I first flew in 1961!).

It's a bad situation that I think everyone with the most meagre knowledge of aerospace or spaceflight history saw coming. Grand goals without the funding to back it up. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

[Moonwalker]

Even if a significant amount of money was injected into Constellation, I doubt Orion or Ares I (or whatever they decide to launch Orion on) would fly till 2014-2015. That's just a basic Orion too, not the block that will do lunar or NEO flights. Similar story with heavy lift capability; it would still be years away even with a significant injection of funds. Unless they decided to built a fairly unsafe poor man's heavy lift rocket that consists of hastily cobbled multiple (more than 3) together Delta or Atlas stages.

I think that the lunar version won't fly within this century anyway. But to get Orion off the ground and service the ISS wouldn't be any big deal until 2014/2015 by proper funding.

Just look at Apollo. Even with the huge budget that NASA had available to them, it still took close to a decade of development and testing to get to the Moon (Saturn I first flew in 1961!).

The big difference between those days and these days is that NASA had no experience in manned space flight. They decided to go to the Moon still within the 1960s just a few days after the first manned US space flight in 1961. And only 6 years later the first Saturn1b launched manned. And only 1 year later the first crew was orbiting the Moon already. If you will, from the decision to go to the Moon until the first manned flight to the Moon it took only 7 years, while NASA also had to learn how to live, work an operate in space at the same time. Remember that at the same time they also developed and operated Mercury and Gemini, including the required new infrastructures and mission control centers. The development of the Saturn V took only 4 years until it first lifted off for a test flight which was a complete success, and all in all only 6 years (two years after the first test flight) until it flew to the Moon manned for the first time in 1968.

Within only one decade, NASA developed and operated three manned systems: Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, and even more manned launchers: Mercury- Redstone, Mercury-Atlas, Gemini-Titan, Saturn 1b and Saturn V!

These days NASA engineers are highly skilled as well and they have much more tools and technologies availabe. They just wait to get a real chance. By proper funding, going to the Moon seriously could be done until 2018. The problem is that it's not a governmental goal really, it's just what NASA managers and engineers/scientists have in mind. But they just don't get the proper money. As you say: no bucks, no Buck Rogers.

[bjbeard]

I bet if NASA got the 770 billion from that "bailout" in 08 we would have a flying Orion next year!

[Moonwalker]

Within the next weeks, or in February at the latest, we can expect that Obama might set a new and hopefully final course for NASA. According to a few sources they may scrub Ares I and get a heavy launcher ready to take humans to the moon until 2018.

"President Barack Obama will ask Congress next year to fund a new heavy-lift launcher to take humans to the moon, asteroids, and the moons of Mars, ScienceInsider has learned. The president chose the new direction for the U.S. human space flight program Wednesday at a White House meeting with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, according to officials familiar with the discussion. NASA would receive an additional $1 billion in 2011 both to get the new launcher on track and to bolster the agency’s fleet of robotic Earth-monitoring spacecraft."

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/12/exclusiveobama.html

[davidrobinsonjr]

They keep fooling around, changing directions, funding is on and then it is off. We are going to get Ares I,  and then we are not. In the mean time the schedule slips and slips. Are they going to chuck all the R&D allready done on Ares I? I don't mean to be synical, but that sounds like a government program doesn't it? I read the comments at the end of the article. Sounds great. How long would it take to develop propellantless propulsion. What do we do in the decades before that is ready. Like I said before: we need a safe, reliable and cost effective way into space. Ares might not be what everyone wants, but how long has it been since NASA got what it wanted? We have spent a ton of money on Ares I. Seems pretty dumb to toss it all down the drain now when we are so close to being done.

[bjbeard]

Well Ares I and Orion are a done deal. We are getting those, the only question is when. I have read and heard statements that it will be ready to fly in 2016 to as late as 2022. My bets are on the 2017-2019 time frame, unless a lot of money is routed to the program. The Ares V HLV program will need far more then 1 billion dollars to get it back on track. That report above proves that Obama is all about appearances and lip-service. Michoud Assembly has already cleared out all STS program equipment and begun to modify the facility for Constellation support. But at this point it is just a big empty bulding.

There is not even a finalized design for the HLV, as engineers are still going back and forth between the Ares IV and V concepts. I think this billion is being done as incentive to freeze the HLV design and stop all this bickering. I reluctantly got behind the Constellation program, but I am begining to wonder if we will ever see it.

[Moonwalker]

Well, Ares I sadly is not a done deal at all. Work on it only continues as long as NASA has the go to continue. That's what one of the managers also said during one of the Ares I-X post-conferences. Everything depends on the white houte and congress. If they want to see things change, things will change. NASA depends on its "financier".

The problem of the latest course of Obama, if the source is trustable, is that the government is continuing to not make access to space cheap and reliable. They again are going to continue building something that's expensive and certainly not for the wide future. Orion needs more than just a heavy-lift launch vehicle. Also, Obama does not seem to consider the ISS at all. If they stop Ares I now, and put 1 billion "pocket money" into a heay-lift launcher, NASA is going to be what I didn't want to say before: out of the manned business. 1 billion is nothing. It won't help getting Ares I off the ground. Less than ever will they build and operate a heavy-lift launch vehicle until 2018. NASA is going to lose manned access to space really, which won't be a gap anymore, but a total stop for an uncertain period of time, probably right into the late 2010s or even into the 2020s.

It's nice that Obama considers international work. That is what I believe for a long time already: a real requirement if we want to fly to the Moon and beyond. The maverick way was possible for Apollo, but only for a very few years because it simply was too expensive. International partnership does work and does enable great projects like we can already see by the ISS. But again, like Apollo and the Shuttle, a heavy-lift launch vehicle and a lunar lander is not something for the wide future. It's for a big show of footprints on the lunar surface. But what after? There won't be no cheap manned access to space for NASA beside a grounded heavy-lift launcher and a few new descent stages on the lunar surface.

To cancel Ares I and put ridiculously less money into a heavy-lift launcher is to cancel manned access to space. Those politicians and decision maker today have no skill, no spirit, and no imagination anymore. We need somebody like Kennedy. Not somebody who "seems to be" like Kenney but does just indeed nothing more than lip service. To be honest: Obama and his team does not seem to have any clue of space flight. But that's what Obama already was known for. He is not a space flight enthusiast. My personal point of view is that space flight seems to be only a necessary evil for him.

No matter what happens this year, I can already see a bright future for Soyuz. Not that only Europe is going to operate it on its own in French Guyana, but also US astronauts will ride on it for many years to come...

People can think about Russia whatever they want. But one thing is for sue: they did it very right with Soyuz. Something NASA missed to build until today and in future obviously...

[bjbeard]

That post makes me want to add more lead to my diet...

Way to depressing.

[Admin]

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No matter what happens this year, I can already see a bright future for Soyuz. Not that only Europe is going to operate it on its own in French Guyana, but also US astronauts will ride on it for many years to come...

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The only gripe I have with it is their crash landing "system". I wouldn't want to stay for one or two months on the ISS, significantly lose bone mass (a minimum of 14% loss and closer to 30%) and then suffer a fracture during landing.

/Admin

[Moonwalker]

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No matter what happens this year, I can already see a bright future for Soyuz. Not that only Europe is going to operate it on its own in French Guyana, but also US astronauts will ride on it for many years to come...

.....

The only gripe I have with it is their crash landing "system". I wouldn't want to stay for one or two months on the ISS, significantly lose bone mass (a minimum of 14% loss and closer to 30%) and then suffer a fracture during landing.

/Admin

That seems to be an old myth

The Soyuz TMA, which is the latest version, was especially modified for ISS missions. It's latest SLEs (soft landing engines) reduces the touchdown speed from 9,4 km/h (Soyuz TM, the older version) to only 5 km/h. That's even slower than some landings of skydivers and makes landing with Soyuz more comfortable than landing with the Apollo Command Module was. The Apollo Command Module had a rate of descent of 35,4 km/h and up to 40 G's during water impact, depending on the wave hight. A splashdown is not something that can be called smooth. Each time the impact attenuation system destroyed the structure of the Command Module intentionally (that's really what can be called "crash", even more when you consider 40 G's). The rate of descent of the Soyuz TMA is 7 times slower during landing than the rate of descent of the Apollo Command Module was. Even if the Soyuz TMA would have to land only with its reserve parachute, it would descent with only 8.6 km/h and so even slower than the normal rate of descent of the old Soyuz TM during landing.

By the way, the Soyuz TMA improvements also increased the crew member capability by 10kg per astronaut, which is 95kg maximum mass per astronaut.

That's actually another good example of what NASA never managed to do, neither with Apollo, nor with Orion these days: smooth landings on solid ground. Orion sadly won't only land on solid ground and so reduce costs, it also won't be as much reusable as they wanted to make it initially. There are engineering voices who already said that Orion likely even could become non-reusable.

If people would look closer to Soyuz, they really would realize the advantages and dominance compared to any other manned system regarding to costs and reliability. And it has even a higher success rate than the Space Shuttle.

[Admin]

Not really a "myth" Moonwalker - rather a quite recent fact:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24243569/ns/technology_and_science-space/

and a post TMA incident:

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/exp6_soyuz_030526.html

While in NASA's case the STS program desasters were a direct result of management and decision-making chain almost criminal failures, in the Soyuz case, it's the method and equipment which is still an issue, with all the traditional Russian robustness, simplicity and over-specification built in their platforms.

And yes, I still have gripes with uncontrolled and uncontrollable re-entry and landing on hard surfaces regardless of whether it's NASA, ESA, JAXA or the Bear... but maybe that's a personal thing.

/Admin