“Why bother. Per President Obama, ‘been there, done that.’ See Apollo 8, Apollo 10, 11,12, 13, 14,15, 16 and 17 for details — and six of those threw in lunar landings.”

Nonsense. If you cannot see the difference between a NASA only mega budget Apollo style fly by and a mix NASA/private fly by that’s too bad.

Why bother. Per President Obama, ‘been there, done that.’ See Apollo 8, Apollo 10, 11,12, 13, 14,15, 16 and 17 for details — and six of those threw in lunar landings.

Why bother. Per President Obama, ‘been there, done that.’ See Apollo 8, Apollo 10, 11,12, 13, 14,15, 16 and 17; and six of those threw in lunar landings as well.

“Let’s have them operate it in that sense after parts of it morph into parts of a beyond-LEO craft.”

At this stage I seriously doubt the Orion CRV will ever be turned into a BEO ship ever. It’s too late the wheels have already turned. Now you say “parts of it” and maybe so. But here again the “parts” may become obsolescent real soon. But we shall see. For example I seriously doubt that a “capsule” will be the lander for Mars. Of course it all depends on the final architecture which we don’t know yet.

My crystal ball says that the first BEO mission will be a commercial company doing a fly-by around the Moon with a mix NASA/Private crew…

Vladislaw: “I found a link I have not seen on here yet about the Flagship Technology Demonstrators”

I’m not sure what links have appeared here, but here’s one link that includes that presentation and a lot of the others from the recent NASA exploration workshop:

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/new_space_enterprise/home/workshop_home.html

It includes high-level overviews of the early flagship technology demonstration missions, robotic precursors, and more. You can search around nspires for RFIs for more exploration work. In some cases there are a lot of details on NASA’s initial ideas. For example:

https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/solicitations/summary.do?method=init&solId=%7B980D21C5-AF8F-7252-C1BA-507EA54906BB%7D&path=open

“1) – I would like to see a Phobos mission instead of the two mars missions. Sample returns from an asteroid and a Martian moon.”

Without being able to compare the details of the missions, I’d tend to agree with that. I figure 1 precursor mission to Mars, given that Mars itself is far off in the future, is probably good enough for the initial batch. Phobos seems to fit in with the initial Flexible Path mission sequence a bit better (even though it’s pretty far off, too). Also, there would probably be plenty of Mars science missions for HSF robotic precursor instruments to hitch a ride on, and the robotic precursor budget does have a spot for such “missions of opportunity”.

“2) – I would scrap from the lunar mission something that is not dual or multiple use for any moon or asteroid. Building up tools for multiple destinations instead of every single instrument being a custom built, one off design would make further missions less expensive.”

That might be another reason to do the sample returns you mentioned. There is a 5th mission in the initial NASA plan to a NEO, but it’s not even roughly defined. Sample return is 1 listed possibility.

“3) – Although I like the idea of a free flyer … By increasing the ISS capacity the crew vehicles can run full.”

Without knowing how bad the increased technical difficulties Gold alluded to are, I’d tend to prefer the ISS attachment. The free flying is probably ideal for Bigelow, but the ISS attachment is probably better for NASA’s overall mission. For example, it could be actually used as an ISS production system once demonstrated. It’s also the home for NASA’s ECLSS technology demo plans. It looks like it includes a capability to add modules to the ISS (via the ARDV vehicle) that may have other uses, too.

“4) – Solar works best going towards the Sol. Solar propulsion missions to Venus, Mercury, Aten and Apollo asteroids.”

I guess I’m sympathetic to NASA’s approach in this case. You’d want to demonstrate the technology in the environment it would be used on in production missions (possibly for astronaut missions after some more waves of improvement, possibly robotic precursors to HSF destinations before then). I might have picked a NEO though.

“5) – I would prefer the aerocapture test be for earth, it would be more immediately valuable for ALL missions beyond earth orbit before we attempt Mars.”

It seems to me that they’re putting an awful lot of emphasis on their long-term destination (Mars). From their charts it looks like the Earth option would be in 2016 but the Mars one would be in 2018-2020, so the Earth mission would get done sooner, too. I do think they’re thinking a lot about robotic missions in the near term, too (to the Martian surface or to other worlds like Titan and Venus). The intended scale of this demo is 10t delivered to the Martian surface, and a later one penned in for year 2028 is 50t delivered to the Martian surface, presumably part of enabling astronaut landings.

“I have not given much thought to the precursers yet, I would like to see them fleshed out more. Unless I am not finding the released data on them yet.”

Here are a few high level details (from the page I presented above):

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/457443main_EEWS_ExplorationsPrecursorRoboticMissions.pdf

common sense: “Let’s just hope they never, never “operate” the CRV… See what I mean?”

I agree … I didn’t mean it that way of course. Let’s have them operate it in that sense after parts of it morph into parts of a beyond-LEO craft.

“Inflatable aerocapture systems (ballute) have been under study for a while,”

Understood.

“and would not have the weight issues of a solid-mass heat shield.”

I don’t think that it’s that clear just yet. Lots of issues with deployment and elasticity for a large vehicle. Then again it depends on the ballute and the vehicle, e.g. hypercones?

“You don’t have to slow down all at once either, and most flight profiles I’ve seen have had multiple “dips” into the atmosphere to slow down gradually. ”

Still the heat load will be an issue since it is “difficult” to cool the TPS in space. And those dips my go “deep” into the atmosphere if you don’t want to slow down “for ever”. Trade study…

“We need to get out there and do some testing, and it looks like the Flagship Technology Demonstrator program wants to do that, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed it gets fully funded.”

Yep.

“I do like the idea of the cyclers too, and who knows what combination of technologies & techniques will finally provide us with our first workable BEO system.”

I think it is decades if not more away. But you gotta start some day!