White House

Captain Ahab, White House on line one

Today’s issue of the Washington Examiner, a free DC-area newspaper, fires a shot across the bow of the Vision for Space Exploration in an editorial. Decrying the “almost Ahab-like obsession exhibited by many with regard to space travel to the moon and, ultimately, Mars”, the editorial claims that there is no support for the VSE but, despite that, the President and NASA are pushing ahead. As is the case with many such editorials, it notes that robots are much safer, cheaper, and more effective.

The Examiner makes an odd claim, that the original VSE was “instantly grounded by most” and that the administration continues to push the plan “[d]espite the proposal’s lack of support on Capitol Hill.” The latter claim is hard to reconcile with the full funding for NASA in the FY05 budget (Tom DeLay certainly helped, but he didn’t act alone), nor the overwhelming passage of NASA authorization legislation in the House and Senate this year (383-15 in the House, unanimous consent in the Senate), both of which explicitly support the exploration vision.

36 comments to Captain Ahab, White House on line one

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Shows you that there is a disconnect between the far left media and reality. Most polling still shows support for the VSE.

  • It only shows that Congress has signed onto a White House strategy of misdirection and playing to all sides. The VSE mostly embraces the status quo for the 43rd President, and lays a lot of radical promises at the feet of the 44th President and the 45th President. It’s not hard for the current Congress to support either one of these.

    But if you want the radical things that the VSE ultimately promises, like a moon base, you can just forget it.

  • Ray

    >But if you want the radical things that the VSE >ultimately promises, like a moon base, you can >just forget it.

    Ignorant statment Greg. If the US government was able to keep alive programs like the shuttle and station with all their cost overruns for over 20 years and fly them, you better believe that we will get a moonbase and in the future a marsbase. Going to the moon and mars is a lot more exciting than going to a space station in orbit.

    Ray

  • Kevin Davis

    Also more exciting than sending robotic probes into space..

  • Dfens

    It’s funny, but manned space seems to be the one thing both the right (see pg. 8) and left agree on. Personally, I don’t find these retro-rockets all that exciting. I think almost everyone agrees on that.

  • Ray

    It’s funny, but manned space seems to be the one thing both the right (see pg. 8) and left agree on. Personally, I don’t find these retro-rockets all that exciting. I think almost everyone agrees on that

    Maybe you are too much into science fiction..:) instead of the reality of spaceflight. I find Apollo and VSE, Apollo redo or whatever you want to call it very exciting

  • David Davenport

    I find Apollo and VSE, Apollo redo or whatever you want to call it very exciting

    Maybe so, but are you an aerospace engineer, applied physicist, professional aviator, etc.? What are your qualifications for making judgments about the merits of alternative spacecraft, launch vehicle, or recovery system designs?

    Here, in your in words, please explain why you find ballistic re-entry more exciting than equilibrium glide re-entry.

  • Kevin Davis

    Had we not stopped the Apollo program in the early 70’s we would have advance rocketry. Right now this is the only way to go imho..

  • Jeff Foust

    Mark: if there is an evil left-wing media conspiracy, the Examiner is certainly not a part of it: it has a center-right tilt (not as far right as the Times, DC’s arch-conservative paper), and its owner, Philip Anschutz, is hardly considered a bleeding-heart liberal.

  • Jeff is right. The Washington Examiner is an off-shoot of the San Francisco Examiner, which is a moderately conservative, pro-business free daily, owned by someone whose politics appear to be to the right of Mr. Bush. As a newspaper, they’re probably to the left of the nation as a whole, but by local standards they are the conservative standard. This liberal reads them religiously.

    — Donald

  • David: Here, in your in words, please explain why you find ballistic re-entry more exciting than equilibrium glide re-entry.

    I’ll take a stab. The former works well and is affordable. The latter kinda works in the Shuttle but otherwise has little operational experience to orbit, has a long history of techno-political failure, and is unaffordable in the near future.

    Do you want to go to the moon or not? Going to the moon with semi-ballistic capsuls just might create the market needed to drive the development of reusable gliding reentry vehicles. Without that market, we’re likely to continue spending tons of money trying to develop the latter and getting nowhere fast.

    It’s the same argument you (and I) use to support use of the EELVs. Use what we have now, first, then develop something new once there is a reason for it to exist.

    — Donald

  • Dfens

    I find Apollo and VSE, Apollo redo or whatever you want to call it very exciting

    I agree having a destination beats the heck out of spinning around in low Earth orbit. None the less, the way NASA is going about getting to their destination sucks. Have you noticed how NASA has avoided doing the same kind of unmanned exploration of the Moon as they’ve done of Mars? I suppose if they found something of commercial value on the Moon, it would spur commercial exploration. Mars, on the other hand, is too far away for any commercial ventures. What do you suppose the odds are that there are no commercially valuable resources on the Moon? Instead of operating on that hypothesis, NASA asks just the opposite. They exist to exist, which is why none of them is as stupid as all of them.

  • David Davenport

    Do you want to go to the moon or not? Going to the moon with semi-ballistic capsuls just might create the market needed to drive the development of reusable gliding reentry vehicles.

    Why? Please explain that.

    Without that market, we’re likely to continue spending tons of money trying to develop the latter and getting nowhere fast.

    Good thing Lt. Col. Rutan doesn’t follow that logic.

    It’s the same argument you (and I) use to support use of the EELVs. Use what we have now, first, then develop something new once there is a reason for it to exist.

    The fastest way to return humasn to the Moon with a modicum of saftey is to use one of the existing Shuttles to launch humans to LEO, where the Shuttle will rendezvous with a third stage/propulsion module/space tug that can push the Shuttle from ( rounded off ) 17,500 mph to 24,600 mph outside Earth’s atmosphere. An EELV can launch the third stage/propulsion module/space tug.

    Once in lunar Orbit, the Shuttle can deploy a Lunar excursion Module from its cargo bay. This LEM may be reverse engineered from the original Apollo series LEM. It may contain some original, vintage LEM parts taken from the LEM in the Smithsonian Museum and elsewhere.

    To return to Earth, the propulsion module/space tug will perform a short burn to accelerate the Shuttle out of lunar orbit. Later, the propulsion module/space tug will need to turn itself and the Shuttle around to perform another burn to decelerate the Shuttle from 24,600 mph to 17,500 mph mph, so that the Shuttle can enter orbit around the Rarth, and then return to Edwards or Kennedy as per normal procedure.

    The only way this scenario, including the necessity for two launches meeting in Earth orbit to accomplish one lunar trip, differs at the macro scopic level from Apollo On Steroids (TM) is the need for the deceleration rocket burn to re-acquire Earth orbit.

    This additional rocket motor firing would add to the mission risk. I contend that this additional risk would not be unreasonable.

    Why is the deceleration burn needed? The Shuttles are designed for re-entry from earth orbital speeds, not the faster velocity needed for escape from Earth’s gravity. Note that reentry heating, in the boundary condition case, is equal to the kinetic energy of the reentry vehicle, so that heating is proportional to the sqaure of reentry velocity.

    In case the deceleration burn failed to slow the shuttle down enough, there would be an emergency paln to try perform a “skip glide,” whereby the Shuttle would try to skim through the upper atmosphere just enough to slow down a mere few thousand miles per hour, then climb outside the sensible atmosphere, orbit several times, and cool itself by radiative heat conduction into the balckness of space. the emergency procedure would repeat the skip glide a number of times until slwoing to 17,500 miles per hour.

    The Space Shuttles have performed — what is it ? — 114 successful reentries and landings. The USA has much more experience with orbital gliders than it does with capsules.

  • David, I don’t necessarily dislike this idea, but it does strike me as a one-shot sort of thing. You’re going to make an efficient Earth-moon transportation system by descelerating ~100 tons of dead weight (the orbiter) at _both_ the moon and Earth? Doesn’t sound very efficient or low cost to me. Even with its higher up-front investments, I think Mr. Griffin’s plan is more sustainable, and I like your earlier EELV thoughts even better.

    — Donald

  • Sam Hoffman

    Blunt-body rentry vehicles:

    1) Every US IRBM, ICBM, and SLBM nosecone/warhead since (and including) Thor/Jupiter/Polaris;

    2) The entire Discoverer/Corona series of satellites;

    3) Every Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo CSM test and operational flight, including the boilerplates;

    Total = ~1000? ~2000? More?

    Hypersonic glider re-entry:

    1) STS – ~100?

    US astronauts lost during a blunt-body re-entry:

    0

    US astronauts lost during a hypersonic glider re-entry:

    7

    And the engine and tankage to push an orbiter/LM assembly to lunar orbit and back would surpass an S-IVB by a substantial margin, I’d expect – and how does one get this S-IVB+ into LEO?

    And this is a “simple” approach?

    Okay…

  • Dfens

    To take off on what you proposed, the shuttle-c and current orbiter does not have to be mutually exclusive vehicles. Instead of a shuttle-c, you could build a shuttle-t, a tanker. Launch the shuttle with a lunar lander in the bay. Then launch a shuttle-t consisting of two tanks full of LOX and LH2 with a small guidance system in the nose. The “T” would have the same external tank attachments as the orbiter, so 4 small adapters (or does it mount at 3 points?) could join the two. The “T” could shed its engines and become the new external tank for the lunar insertion burn. If it takes more fuel than that, launch two “T’s”.

    As for the braking issue, I don’t see why the aero-braking scenario you describe would have to be the secondary method. Make it the primary means for slowing the orbiter on return. Just for kicks, and to save money, they could pick up the “T” engine pod from low Earth orbit after the braking maneuver and tuck it away where the lunar lander had been.

    I’m sure, however, NASA has already considered and dismissed all such possibilities. After all, they did a trade study. A trade study beats employing a qualified design engineer any day. After all, look at all the great stuff we’ve been building ever since we started using trade studies.

  • Ray

    Here, in your in words, please explain why you find ballistic re-entry more exciting than equilibrium glide re-entry.

    I am not an aerospace engineer, but I was always interested in air and space flight. I just think NASA did the experiment for 30 years with winged spacecraft, we were locked in orbit because of it, and I think its time to get back to tried and true spaceflight technology that we know works that will take us beyond earth orbit for the budget nasa has. I think that fact that russia and china chose a modular design over a winged design says something.
    I am not saying that a winged spacecraft will never work, but I think that private industry should develope a winged spacecraft now instead of nasa. I think it would be better to launch winged spacecraft from atop an airplane instead of a rocket.

  • Nemo

    David:

    …where the Shuttle will rendezvous with a third stage/propulsion module/space tug that can push the Shuttle from ( rounded off ) 17,500 mph to 24,600 mph outside Earth’s atmosphere. An EELV can launch the third stage/propulsion module/space tug.

    Not with any real-world propellant. The shuttle is over twice the mass of an Apollo CSM/LM stack; the prop module would therefore need to be, roughly, twice as big as an S-IVB stage. And that required a Saturn V to get into LEO.


    In case the deceleration burn failed to slow the shuttle down enough, there would be an emergency paln to try perform a “skip glide,” whereby the Shuttle would try to skim through the upper atmosphere just enough to slow down a mere few thousand miles per hour, then climb outside the sensible atmosphere, orbit several times, and cool itself by radiative heat conduction into the balckness of space. the emergency procedure would repeat the skip glide a number of times until slwoing to 17,500 miles per hour.

    Good idea. It will give the crew something to do rather than waiting to die. (Any skip-glide with the shuttle from lunar re-entry speeds that doesn’t transfer enough heat to destroy the shuttle will lower apogee so slowly that the shuttle will have repeated, and lengthy, passes through the Van Allen belts, which neither the electronics nor the crew can survive).

    Sam:

    US astronauts lost during a blunt-body re-entry:

    0

    US astronauts lost during a hypersonic glider re-entry:

    7

    This is called “lying with statistics”, since you neglect to mention “seven out of how many” versus “zero out of how many” (hint: it’s more than 7:1 if you restrict it to US astronauts).

    Ray:

    I just think NASA did the experiment for 30 years with winged spacecraft, we were locked in orbit because of it…

    One winged spacecraft. Don’t make the mistake of drawing a curve through one data point – that will get you laughed out of any decent engineering class. By your logic, the Wrights should have gone back to tried-and-true dirigibles after Selfridge was killed.

  • David Davenport

    Good idea. It will give the crew something to do rather than waiting to die. (Any skip-glide with the shuttle from lunar re-entry speeds that doesn’t transfer enough heat to destroy the shuttle will lower apogee so slowly that the shuttle will have repeated, and lengthy, passes through the Van Allen belts, which neither the electronics nor the crew can survive).

    Nope, the Moon is outside the van Allen belts. If you’re going to the Moon, it takes roughly 72 hours each way, assuming one travels the minimum energy path. En route, after one gets more than 4000 miles high, one is outside the inner belt.

    Add at least 24 more hours for a Moon stay, perhaps several days. Compared to that period of time, spending on the order of 24 more hours skip gliding and cooling would not increase the crew’s exposure to solar and cosmic radiation by a very large percentage. Given, say, a ten day round trip from earth orbit and back to near Earth, then 24 hours of skipping, skip gliding as an emergency procedure done only in the event of space tug/propulsion module failure. That emergency procedure would increase the crew’s radiation exposure by only ten percent. A longer stay on the Moon would make that percentage even smaller.

    The Earth’s Radiation Belts

    The Earth has two regions of trapped fast particles. The inner radiation belt discovered by Van Allen is relatively compact, extending perhaps one Earth radius above the equator (1 RE = 6371 km or about 4000 miles). It consists of very energetic protons, a by-product of collisions by cosmic ray ions with atoms of the atmosphere. The number of such ions is relatively small, and the inner belt therefore accumulates slowly, but because trapping near Earth is very stable, rather high intensities are reached, even though their build-up may take years.

    Further out is the large region of the ring current, containing ions and electrons of much lower energy (the most energetic among them also known as the “outer radiation belt”). Unlike the inner belt, this population fluctuates widely, rising when magnetic storms inject fresh particles from the tail of the magnetosphere, then gradually falling off again. The ring current energy is mainly carried by the ions, most of which are protons. …

    http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/Iradbelt.html

  • Nemo


    Nope, the Moon is outside the van Allen belts.

    You don’t get it. Passage through the Van Allen belts is very quick during translunar coast and transearth coast since the belts are only a few thousand miles thick and the spacecraft is travelling fastest close to perigee (which is where the belts are). To avoid the belts entirely after the first skip-glide pass requires a delta-V high enough to put apogee below the belts, which will destroy the shuttle. To keep the heating survivable for the shuttle’s structure, the delta-V per pass will have to be kept low enough that apogee will come down only gradually, and spend a lot more time in the belts.

  • Dfens

    Not with any real-world propellant. The shuttle is over twice the mass of an Apollo CSM/LM stack; the prop module would therefore need to be, roughly, twice as big as an S-IVB stage. And that required a Saturn V to get into LEO.

    What does the type of propellant have to do with anything? No part of what you said was correct.

  • Nemo


    What does the type of propellant have to do with anything?

    It has everything to do with whether you can use an EELV to launch a prop module with enough delta-V to send a shuttle from LEO to translunar coast.


    No part of what you said was correct.

    Wrong.

  • David Davenport


    …To keep the heating survivable for the shuttle’s structure, the delta-V per pass will have to be kept low enough that apogee will come down only gradually, and spend a lot more time in the belts.

    How much more time?

    Consider:

    “The Van Allen belts are full of deadly radiation, and anyone passing through them would be fried.”

    Needless to say this is a very simplistic statement. Yes, there is deadly radiation in the Van Allen belts, but the nature of that radiation was known to the Apollo engineers and they were able to make suitable preparations. The principle danger of the Van Allen belts is high-energy protons, which are not that difficult to shield against. And the Apollo navigators plotted a course through the thinnest parts of the belts and arranged for the spacecraft to pass through them quickly, limiting the exposure.

    The Van Allen belts span only about forty degrees of earth’s latitude — twenty degrees above and below the magnetic equator. The diagrams of Apollo’s translunar trajectory printed in various press releases are not entirely accurate. They tend to show only a two-dimensional version of the actual trajectory. The actual trajectory was three-dimensional. The highly technical reports of Apollo, accessible to but not generally understood by the public, give the three-dimensional details of the translunar trajectory.

    Each mission flew a slightly different trajectory in order to access its landing site, but the orbital inclination of the translunar coast trajectory was always in the neighborhood of 30°. Stated another way, the geometric plane containing the translunar trajectory was inclined to the earth’s equator by about 30°. A spacecraft following that trajectory would bypass all but the edges of the Van Allen belts.

    This is not to dispute that passage through the Van Allen belts would be dangerous. But NASA conducted a series of experiments designed to investigate the nature of the Van Allen belts, culminating in the repeated traversal of the Southern Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly (an intense, low-hanging patch of Van Allen belt) by the Gemini 10 astronauts …

    http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/Van%20Allen%20belts.htm

  • David Davenport

    It’s a better point you make to compare the mass of propellant needed to accelerate a Shuttle from Earth orbit to escape velocity versus the mass of propellant needed to do the same for an Apollo Command Module.

    An Apollo Comand Module weighed about 6,000 kg empty. A later model Shuttle Orbiter weighs about 79,000 kg empty — order of magnitude 10x more. More than one EELV launch would definitely be needed to get all the additional propellant in orbit.

    On the other hand, the proposed new CEV is advertised to have three times the volume of the Apollo CM, so it may have roughly twice the mass of Apollo CM. That means that a Shuttle is about 6.6 times heavier than the proposed CM capsule.

    The proposed new Departure Stage is to use liquid CH4 and liquid oxygen. If we allow our departure stage to use CH4 or kerosene and liquid oxygen, and plan on making a stop in point-of-no-return higher Earth orbit while outbound to rendezvous with tanks containing the propellant needed for descent, we might make it almost practical. Our space tug/departure stage would be able to drop empty tanks.

    Btw, I am assuming that it would be impractical to mate a Shuttle in orbit with another External Tank containing L2 and O2. The space tug/Departure Stage for the Shuttle would probably have its own rocket motor.

    Another possible solution is to reverse engineer another Apollo Command Module, and launch the Apollo CM from Earth without crew inside the cargo bay of a Shuttle. This would circumvent the need to deveop a “man rated” launcher for the Apollo capsule. The Apollo crew could ride in the Shuttle’s passenger section, the middeck.

    On the return from Luna, our Apollo capsule would aerobrake — no skipping — and reacquire Earth orbit. There the Apollo CM would rendezvous with the Shuttle, and the Apollo’s crew would board the Shuttle and descend to Earth in proper, dignified, aircraft-style manner — as aviators instead of monkeys in a bucket. The Apollo CM would be brought back to Earth inside the Shuttle’s cargo bay.

    Cost of this Return to the Moon architecture: an Apollo CM plus Apollo Service Module and Lunar Excursion Module, all reverse-engineered from the orginals, plus maybe one EELV launch.

  • MrEarl

    Ok; Dave, Greg and Dfens your missing the point.
    The whole point of the VSE is that this is man’s first steps toward long-term, sustained exploration of space. The excitement is in the adventure that that poses for us! As long as the spacecraft dose what it’s supposed to do dose it really matter that it’s “Apollo on steroids” or a souped up “Super Shuttle”? As the need arises the products will be developed.
    As for there being nothing to do on the moon, that the Apollo flights were getting boring; You’re comparing the exhilaration of first setting foot on an alien world which was Apollo 11 to prospecting in the desert southwest which was Apollo 17. The former was far more exciting for a short period of time but the latter was far more productive. I’m hoping that if the CEV design is successful there will be many more Apollo 11 moments to come and a steady stream of Apollo 17 prospecting.

  • Dfens

    If the point is to take the first steps, it’s about 40 years too late. NASA needs a success after failing for these last 30 years, and a shuttle/shuttle-c mission to the Moon would be both quick and spectacular. It would pave the way for a new concept vehicle, which is really what NASA needs for sustainable space exploration.

    Right now, the costs are too high. The costs were too high with Apollo. So what is NASA’s long term plan for space exploration? Go back to a “shuttle derived” Apollo rocket. It is stupidity built on stupidity.

  • Mike Puckett

    “The proposed new Departure Stage is to use liquid CH4 and liquid oxygen.”

    Nope, the EDS uses H2. The SM and ascent module of the lander uses CH4.

  • David Davenport

    Hi guys.

    Does anyone the mass of the new Crew Module, i.e., capsule, and its Service Module? I can’t find a number for the empty weight of the proposed new capsule. Last night I guessed that that new capsule might have twice the mass of an Apollo CM. That was just a guess. Maybe the new capsule will weigh more than that.

    The ESAS slide show states the mass of the new CM plus its Service Module is between thirty (30) and forty (40) metric tons. They want to use something that heavy to send six people to the ISS. That is about as massive as a Shuttle!

    So if the H2 fueled Departure stage is going to deliver the new capsule plus its service module plus a lunar lander module to lunar orbit, that payload mass might be more than the mass of a Shuttle Orbiter plus an Apollo Lunar Excursion Module.

    Please explain where my guesstimates are wrong.

    Nope, the EDS uses H2.

    Well then, why not find way to launch a filled STS External Tank, attach it to a Shuttle Orbiter, and
    proceed to Luna? :0\

  • David Davenport

    As long as the spacecraft dose what it’s supposed to do dose it really matter that it’s “Apollo on steroids” or a souped up “Super Shuttle”?

    The new proposal will neither do what it is supposed to do in a cost effective manner, nor will it happen soon.

    This 30-40 metric ton capsule and Service Module will be grossly oversized for getting up and down from the ISS. Therefore it will be inefficient.

    As the need arises the products will be developed.

    Then why don’t we have the appropriate products for completing the space station available?

    … I’m hoping that if the CEV design is successful there will be many more Apollo 11 moments to come and a steady stream of Apollo 17 prospecting.

    That’s an old-fashioned concept of how to explore the Moon. NASA needs to use more robotic rovers and so forth to prospect on the Moon. Dfens made an excellent point about this last night.

  • Mike Puckett

    “The ESAS slide show states the mass of the new CM plus its Service Module is between thirty (30) and forty (40) metric tons. They want to use something that heavy to send six people to the ISS. That is about as massive as a Shuttle!”

    Not nearly, the dry weight of the Orbiter is around 120 tons IIRC.

  • David Davenport

    Not nearly, the dry weight of the Orbiter is around 120 tons IIRC.

    That’s closer to its maximum gross weight in thousands of kilograms, not tons, with a full cargo bay. You need to punch the right buttons on your calculator to keep that unit conversion stuff straight.

    A late model Shuttle Orbiter’s empty, dry weight is roughly forty metric tons.
    The NASA Facts cited below seem to say that that the new capsule Crew Module plus Service Module, or functional equvalent thereof, will weigh twenty five (25) metric tons at liftoff. That’s down from the 30-40 metric tons stated in earlier descriptions.

    But still, the Apollo on Steroids (TM) vehicle is not an order of magnitude smaller mass than a Shuttle Orbiter. AoS (TM) seems oversized for the task of getting people up and down from the ISS.

    SPACE SHUTTLE ORBITER SPECIFICATIONS

    First launch: 12-Apr-1981
    Number launches: 80 to end-1996
    Principal uses: US manned capability to beyond 2010 (four reuseable Orbiter fleet), 25,000 kg payload delivery to LEO, satellite retrieval/in situ repair, short-duration science platform, Space Station assembly/servicing
    Availablity: typically 7-8 flights/year manifested but with restricted commercial access
    Cost: NASA’s figures for the first 20 missions (1981-85) showed an average cost of $257 million. STS-27 military mission cost to NASA in Dec-1988 was reported at $375 million. Constuction cost is about $1.3-2 billion per orbiter (each capable of &gt100 missions)
    Performance: OV-103/104/105 can deliver 24,990 kg into 204 km LEO; they are called 55K Orbiters because of their 55,100-pound capacities (the design goal was 65K). OV-102 can only handle 21,140 kg because of its greater dry mass
    Crew size: 2 min, 8 max
    Endurance: originally 9-10 days; OV-102/104 were modified as 16-day Extended Duration Orbiters (EDO); OV-105 was constructed with EDO capacity. OV-104/105 are capable of carrying EDO kits allowing up to 28-day missions, although none is yet planned

    ( 28 days? That is interesting. Why doesn’t NASA use that capability? Because it might makes psace stations seem superfluous?)

    Wingspan: 23.79 m
    Length: 37.24 m
    Height: 17.27 m
    Habitable volume: 71.5 m3
    Dry mass: 82,288 kg OV-102, 78,448 kg OV-103, 78,687 kg OV-104, 79,135 kg OV-105
    Landing mass: 104,328 kg max, defined by abort requirements

    http://www.braeunig.us/space/specs/orbiter.htm

    The spacecraft will have a total mass of 25 metric tons, be able to dock with the International Space Station and other exploration elements, use a liquid oxygen/liquid methane service module propulsion system (yet to be developed), and
    return to dry land with a water landing as backup.

    Launch System

    • After extensive study of all viable options, NASA chose the shuttle-derived option
    for its launch system because of its superior safety, cost and schedule
    availability. Specifically, the space shuttle’s main engines and solid propellant
    rocket boosters are reliable, human-rated, and best able to fit the planned
    architecture. The industrial base to support this option is already in place that will
    significantly lower development costs and support a workforce that will transition
    when we retire the shuttle in 2010.

    …”support a workforce that will transition
    when we retire the shuttle…” — the real aganda

    • NASA chose two primary launch vehicles. The crew launch vehicle is a single
    four-segment shuttle solid propellant rocket booster with a liquid oxygen / liquid
    hydrogen upper stage supporting one shuttle main engine. This configuration can
    lift 25 metric tons. This capacity can be increased by an additional 7 metric tons if
    a fifth segment is added to the booster.

    Hmmm, planning for seven tons of weight growth? That would put Apollo on Steroids back into the 30-plus metric ton category mentioned in early accounts. To be fair, that mass probably includes the capsule, the service module, and the tractor escape rocket. But it still seems like an oversized clunker for the job of getting up and down from the space station.

    http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/133820main_ESAS_Facts.pdf

  • Dfens

    The shuttle would be a less than optimal way to go to the Moon. You’d be carrying the unnecessary wing and landing gear structure, but what the heck. Even if you had to launch one oxidizer tank, fuel in the next, and the orbiter with a reduced crew to round them all up, it would still cost a fraction of $100B. Once Americans were charged up about going back to the Moon, then hit them with the bill for the rail gun, or fly back first stage – after you have a success to point to, not before.

    I’ve figured out the real purpose of ESAS. Egypt has their Sphinx, we will have our Sphallix. What other reason could there be for having two 5 segment boosters instead of 3 of the 4 segment variety? You know, like the shuttle uses now. Like the crew rocket will be based on. Oh yeah, then the external tank wouldn’t be just like the one the shuttle uses now, right? You know, the external tank with the engines on the bottom and its nose shoved up the orbiter’s…

    I know, it’s time for me to turn off the computer.

  • Nemo


    A late model Shuttle Orbiter’s empty, dry weight is roughly forty metric tons.

    Wrong. A metric ton is 1000 kg, not 2000. By the weight statements you gave, that’s 80 metric tons, not 40.


    ( 28 days? That is interesting. Why doesn’t NASA use that capability?

    Because there’s not enough room in the payload bay for an EDO pallet on ISS assembly missions. Besides, the only EDO pallet was lost with Columbia.

  • David Davenport

    Wrong. A metric ton is 1000 kg, not 2000. By the weight statements you gave, that’s 80 metric tons, not 40.

    {:0[ !!

    Oops, you’re right. There’s an arcane bug in this unit conversion program somebody wrote in reverse Polish for my HP cacluator!

    Because there’s not enough room in the payload bay for an EDO pallet on ISS assembly missions. Besides, the only EDO pallet was lost with Columbia.

    The 28 day stay wouldn’t being needed for delivering space station modules to the station. A 28 day Shuttle mission would be for scientific research and observations performed on the Shuttle, instead of on the ISS.

    I’m suggesting that NASA has never used this 28 day stay capability because Shuttle missions of this length would compete with the ISS. The International Space Station is confined to one orbit, whereas Shuttles can choose many orbits.

    …Maybe even polar orbits, if launched from Vandenberg with more powerful first stage boosters than the Thiokal’s solid rockets. Studying the shrinkage of Earth’s polar ice masses is a hot topic currently. The International Space Station will never be to overfly the Earth’s poles or, for that matter, North America. It does give excellent views of Kazakhstan.

    A Space Shuttle may even be able to stay aloft for months, if it could rendezvous with an orbiting supply cache and solar electric power array and a bit of extra room for human experimenters … a smaller space station that could be launched by one Shuttle-C or a few EELV missiles. The crew working areas for this small station station might even be hybrid folding tent/inflatable chambers.

    One could speculate that this Shuttle-small space station duo could do 80 or 90 percent of the useful science that the ISS will ever do. NASA could name this smaller space station, umm, what?

    Skylab II.