Comments on: It’s here…

By: common sense

common sense — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:27:00 +0000

“And, in fact, I have long suspected that a portion of the napkin-doodled conceptual impetus behind the broader ESAS architecture (NOT VSE, mind you) was an attempt at infusing political invulnerability into the program under the mistaken assumption that if it was packaged as one big tightly intertwined easy-to-understand scheme (See how similar it is to the way we did it successfully before? And see how it all fits together and each piece depends critically on every other piece?), it would be impossible to cancel any part of it without killing it allâ€¦and who in their right mind would envision any administration completely cancelling the entire American manned space program? ”

You know. I’ve had similar thinking since this thing started, I mean the ESAS/Constellation “conspiracy”. That by the time a new administration shows up it’d be too late and they would not be able to kill it. Unfortunately, or fortunately, in order to do so they would have had to be flying already as was intended initially. Flying something, anything. Ares 1-X won’t cut it as it is not a vehicle representative of the program!!! A LAS flight on the other hand… Well I guess you need people in charge to think better than that. Not that I particularly like Ares but come on. They could have done a lot better than that…

Oh well…

By: Bob Mahoney

Bob Mahoney — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 03:33:50 +0000

And, in fact, I have long suspected that a portion of the napkin-doodled conceptual impetus behind the broader ESAS architecture (NOT VSE, mind you) was an attempt at infusing political invulnerability into the program under the mistaken assumption that if it was packaged as one big tightly intertwined easy-to-understand scheme (See how similar it is to the way we did it successfully before? And see how it all fits together and each piece depends critically on every other piece?), it would be impossible to cancel any part of it without killing it all…and who in their right mind would envision any administration completely cancelling the entire American manned space program?

No proof, just suspicions. The Flexible Path, by its very pieces-parts nature, is almost the polar opposite…and would thus be easily vulnerable to political cafeteria-line picking and choosing…down to whatever minimal portions are palatable for any administration in power.

By: Bob Mahoney

Bob Mahoney — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:27:33 +0000

@common sense

“I would stop laying the blame…”

I’m not laying blame, I am suggesting that the Flexible Path is a double-edged sword that opens up (at least) two possible outcomes; while I believe the former outcome I listed above might be the best immediate way forward for reasons stated there and elsewhere, I consider (as I’ve also described before, for numerous reasons both historical and current) the latter as being the most likely.

And also as I’ve stated before, I dearly hope I’m wrong on the second.

Time will tell.

By: Loki

Loki — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:03:43 +0000

BTW, I was thinking that there’s another possible advantage to the flexible path option that I don’t think anyone’s pointed out yet (that I know of).

Even with another $3 billion it’s highly likely that we won’t have the Altair or lunar surface systems ready until the min-2020s. If ISS is decommissioned in 2020 there could be another gap between it and lunar exploration. Flexible path would at least give us something to do during that “gap”.

By: common sense

common sense — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:18:10 +0000

@Bob Mahoney:

Of course they can do what you say. But consider this: Assuming the previous WH was so great about it, NASA had 5 (FIVE) years to get something going that made sense and now?

I would stop laying the blame on a WH that just started and look at how we can get back on track. Sen Shelby and the others’ attitudes are really not helping.

By: common sense

common sense — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:15:22 +0000

I am talking about the sidemount stack of course.

By: common sense

common sense — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:14:36 +0000

“If you want to make the argument that the heat shield on an Orion capsule that is shrouded within a cargo bay and capped with a LAS can be as easily damaged by foam and ice as a the fully exposed fragile reentry thermal tiles of the space shuttle then I would love to hear your elaborated â€˜common senseâ€™ arguments on that one:-)”

Now you must understand that the heatshield is not equal to the base heatshield right? The sidewalls of Orion are also made of TPS (see Loki’s post above).

“Whether or not said foam chunk would still have enough energy to damage the TPS of the Orion, I donâ€™t know for sure but I kind of doubt it.”

I guess that without working the analysis and some tests we’ll never know. Right? Remember the foam impacting the Shuttle wing not being that big of a deal for many years?…

“The fact thereâ€™s a LAS that can pull the capsule to safety in the event of a challenger scenario makes it much safer than the shuttle in that case. The in-line DIRECT style concept is safer still, due to the fact that your crew vehicle isnâ€™t in as close proximity to the SRBs as in the sidemount concept. And now that I think about it, the same could be said for Ares 1.”

It’s not just about SRB proximity but aero stability upon ejection. Your stack will not necessarily be in the “right” attitude (unlike what was shown on NASAWatch where the stack flies 0 alpha and the LAV ejects). I’d like top see some work where the stack is flying at opposite alpha than that of LV on abort and see whether shock impingement (pitch moment) is an issue or not. Until then I say bad bad idea. And it looks like the committee agrees with me. So?

By: Donald F. Robertson

Donald F. Robertson — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:29:30 +0000

Thank you all for your responses to my comment. I agree that the issues are more complex than I initially thought. I still think a permanent base is the best option, and the one that is known to work, but I feel quite a bit better about the possibilities of the Flexible Option — and it does provide early experience in deep space flight.

— Donald

By: Top Dog

Top Dog — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:37:48 +0000

We should be going straight to Mars, with modest additional money we could make it happen.

Ok, Zach, then what?

What you have demonstrated for us is your complete disconnect from reality.

By: Marcel F. Williams

Marcel F. Williams — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:52:42 +0000

@ Robert G. Oler

Marcelâ€¦there are other things which can be damaged by â€œiceâ€â€¦plus the sidemount system preserves the shuttle system and its clear that has to go.

The space shuttle hasn’t had a fatal malfunction with the solid rocket boosters since 1986 (more than 23 years of continuous success). And the SSME have never caused a fatal malfunction (29 years of continuous success). The shuttle orbiter suffered one fatal accident out of 128 missions thanks to the extremely fragile thermal tiles which have always been a concern for NASA since the shuttle was first developed. But the Orion vehicle will have no thermal tiles and the reentry heat shield will be shrouded within the cargo bay during launch.