Campaign '12, Congress, NASA, Other

Briefly: More shuttle lobbying, support for the ex-Triana, Hernandez’s torch run

A grab bag of items from the last few days:

Remember when members of Congress would lobby for shuttle orbiters to be located in the states or districts? Now that the locations for the orbiters have been settled (and the complaints from those who lost out have died down), some members are turning their attention to something a little different: the timing of when shuttle orbiters head to their ultimate destinations. The Orlando Sentinel reported Sunday that Sens. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), as well as Reps. Sandy Adams (R-FL) and Bill Posey (R-FL), have asked NASA administrator Charles Bolden to time Endeavour’s departure from KSC so it coincides with the nearby Cocoa Beach Air Show. The airshow is slated to take place September 22-23, while current schedules call for Endeavour to leave for California on its 747 carrier aircraft on September 20. The air show’s promoters hope the inclusion of the shuttle will increase attendance—and ticket sales—“exponentially”, although the promoters add that most people who see the air show don’t buy tickets.

The Sentinel also reported this week that Congress seems willing to support, and fund, a new mission for a notorious grounded satellite. NOAA is seeking $23 million this year to help prepare the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft for a launch as soon as 2014, and is getting support in Congress in large part because it carries a much-needed instrument to monitor solar weather conditions. DSCOVR started in 1998 as Triana, a spacecraft proposed by then-Vice President Al Gore to provide live full-disk images of the Earth from the earth-Sun L1 point. Derisively dubbed “Goresat” by critics, the spacecraft was stuck in storage for about a decade after its launch was blocked by Congressional critics skeptical of its scientific value. (DSCOVR has been proposed as a potential mission for “new entrants” to the Air Force’s EELV contract, such as SpaceX or ATK.)

Former astronaut Jose Hernandez is running for Congress, but on Monday he was doing a different kind of running: participating in the Olympic torch relay in England:

He didn’t mention how he was selected to be a torchbearer, but in another tweet, in Spanish, he did say he was there “thanks to Samsung”, one of the presenting sponsors of the torch rely. His bio on the Olympic website, interestingly, identifies his hometown as Houston; it may have been compiled before he officially moved to the central California district he seeks to represent in Washington. “José is an exemplary Mexican,” his bio, written by an unnamed nominator, reads, “who doesn’t believe in barriers to reach once [sic] dreams.”

25 comments to Briefly: More shuttle lobbying, support for the ex-Triana, Hernandez’s torch run

  • amightywind

    The torch run is a silly ritual anyway that originated in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and was adapted from Nazi political rallies. Its reputation was even further degraded by the infamous Chinese ‘Torch Thugs’ of 2008, where the torch run had to be hidden from the public in San Francisco. If the IOC wants to sell it to willing companies, who cares? That the trinket found its way to a politically favored minority is no surprise. NASA astronauts are selected on the same basis.

  • In a much more important development. Looks like Grasshopper is about to start SpaceX’s experiments in booster reusability, with the first low altitude hop test to be attempted in the next few weeks. It’s a full-fledged F9 booster with landing legs.
    http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1207/10grasshopper/

  • amightywind

    Lockheed Martin is already building a prototype for the Air Force. Why send in a Bush League pitcher when you can have an All Star? A powered vertical landing vehicle is prohibitively inefficient. I’m surprised there are people out there still considering it.

  • @ablastofhotair
    “Lockheed Martin is already building a prototype for the Air Force. Why send in a Bush League pitcher when you can have an All Star? A powered vertical landing vehicle is prohibitively inefficient. I’m surprised there are people out there still considering it.
    Why?
    a) Because the main part of the vehicle is an already built and functioning booster, not so with the Lockheed project.

    b) The Air Force project will be costing the American taxpayer a total of $250 million dollars versus $0 government money for this project. If SpaceX wants to risk their own money on this, it’s their perogative.
    c) Nobody has any idea what the relative efficiency is, because VTVL has never been attempted at this scale before with an already existing launch vehicle. I’m not stupid enough to claim to know either, but I do know no one is going to find out until someone has the balls to try it. And that’s the reason they’re doing it: to find out.

    Exactly the type of response to be expected from someone who was claiming the first F9 flight didn’t make it to orbit after the rest of us already knew it was a fait accompli, claimed all Commercial Crew advocates were far left wing radicals, etc. You must really love to make a fool of yourself since you keep doing it over and over again.

  • Dark Blue Nine

    “A powered vertical landing vehicle is prohibitively inefficient.”

    Not necessarily. Both are going to expend propellant (and reduce payload mass) for the rocketback maneuver. After that, both require additional mass (and further reduce payload bass) for wings (RBS) or more propellant for vertical landing (Grasshopper).

    “Lockheed Martin is already building a prototype for the Air Force. Why send in a Bush League pitcher when you can have an All Star?”

    No one is “sending” in SpaceX. They’re doing this on their own dime.

    And they’re going full-scale from the get-go. If it works, they’ll beat RBS operationally by years and probably kill that program.

  • common sense

    “Lockheed Martin is already building a prototype for the Air Force.”

    What is it *you* don’t understand in what *you* write?

    Let’s try slowly:

    Lockheed Martin is already building a prototype for

    Lockheed Martin is already building a prototype for the

    Lockheed Martin is already building a prototype for the Air

    Lockheed Martin is already building a prototype for the Air Force

    Clear now?

    Oh well… May not make it as a NASA Admin after all…

  • vulture4

    A long, low-speed descent supported only by rocket thrust as suggested in the SpaceX video would indeed entail excessive gravity losses. But that leaves two options. If the vehicle can descend backwards at high speed while maintaining stability (not impossible as CG with low fuel will be near the tail) it can come to full thrust only in the last few seconds before landing and decelerate quickly just before touchdown.

    A less dramatic strategy would be similar to what Musk has selected for the Dragon; deploy a small parachute (ideally a GPS-guided drouge parasail (already commercially available) to keep the rocket centered over the landing site and descending at a fast but controlled rate, and fire the engines only for the touchdown when parachutes do not provide adequate control for a large and delicate vehicle. This would minimize the size of the required parachute since a very fast sink rate would be perfectly acceptable.

  • “If the vehicle can descend backwards at high speed while maintaining stability (not impossible as CG with low fuel will be near the tail)”
    Well, not possible until continuous adjustment computer-guided “fly by wire” techniques were created. May I remind you that modern jet fighters would be unflyable from a stability standpoint were it not for continuous adjustments automatically done by computers every few microseconds performed independently of the pilot. Thus for Grasshopper, imbalances in any direction as the result of a less than optimal center of gravity can now be compensated for. The first flights of Grasshopper will be done with little fuel (because they are short hops requiring little fuel) thus the CG will be very low and less than optimal on those first tests in the manner that you state. As the Zen master said, “we shall see”.

  • amightywind

    If the vehicle can descend backwards at high speed while maintaining stability (not impossible as CG with low fuel will be near the tail) it can come to full thrust only in the last few seconds before landing and decelerate quickly just before touchdown.

    SpaceX concept photos suggest that the reusable stage returns to the launch site and does not land down range. This implies that it will have to pitch over and thrust against its velocity vector at high mock. You are not grasping the whole problem.

  • @amightywind
    Gasp! You actually said something that made sense. Other than your spelling of Mach as mock, great comment!

    Part of the difficulty of this situation will be obviated by the first stage only reaching Mach 5 which is much slower than the current speed at stage separation of over Mach 9. As for everything else involved, SpaceX is keeping things close to its vest.

  • common sense

    @ Rick Boozer wrote @ July 12th, 2012 at 8:01 am

    “thus the CG will be very low”

    Not sure what you mean. BUT considering their depiction of the system a favorable CG is towards the nozzles. There are other important issues though that will have to be dealt with for a return flight nozzles first. Much more than for a simple hop. This has also somewhat been already demoed with DC-X, that is that you can actually land a vehicle like they say. Nothing has been shown in terms of reentry and that is a very different story.

    FWIW.

  • Oops, you are right CS. Now that I think of it, favorable cg would be toward the nozzles. That’s what I get for drive-by posting while trying to juggle multiple thought processes between this subject (for which I have little time) and other subjects (that of necessity take more of my time).

  • common sense

    @ Rick Boozer wrote @ July 12th, 2012 at 12:01 pm

    Designing the proper first stage for reentry as I already said multiple times will take some time. I do not pretend I hold the truth but my experience tells me it will look nothing like the current first stage. SpaceX has shown conceptual approaches to first stage reentry. They are doing some flight tests it looks like are there to validate flight control rather than aerodynamic concept. So it most likely is misleading to take their concepts and assume they will look just like in the video. Just remember that you can make a simulation with any aerodynamic coefficients and paste a video on top of it flying an elephant if you want to. The question is whether they have an aerodynamic concept with proper CG that will behave as the simulation predicts. Not the pretty picture/video.

    FWIW

  • This has also somewhat been already demoed with DC-X, that is that you can actually land a vehicle like they say.

    The state of the art for this currently resides at Masten and Armadillo.

  • If accurate these comments by Cernan point him out to be a fool RGO

  • common sense

    @ Rand Simberg wrote @ July 12th, 2012 at 1:53 pm

    “The state of the art for this currently resides at Masten and Armadillo.”

    I was merely pointing out that it is nothing new on its own. One might argue that Blue is trying for the same thing even though I have absolutely no idea how they all compare together.

  • vulture4

    “SpaceX concept photos suggest that the reusable stage returns to the launch site and does not land down range. This implies that it will have to pitch over and thrust against its velocity vector at high mock. You are not grasping the whole problem.”

    Gosh, I must have wasted all those classes in engineering. A rocket engine is reasonably efficient as long as it is accelerating or decelerating, i.e. rapidly changing velocity. But there are two situations where the engine is pumping out thrust but velocity remains about the same, rapidly using up the available fuel. Drag losses occur when a rocket spends any significant time time at low altitude and high speed (e.g. horizontal takeoff) where the high air density creates excessive drag. Gravity losses occur when the rocket spends any significant time hovering or climbing or descending at constant speed, i.e. the impressive looking vertical takeoffs and landings demonstrated by several of the newspace companies. Unfortunately this strategy runs out of gas rather quickly.

    There are (at least) four potential was around this problem. The rocket can be equipped with wings for a gliding entry and runway landing, like the X-15, X-37 or Shuttle. The rocket can have a low L/D lifting-body shape that can enter more or less horizontally at a controlled speed and use powered lift just before touchdown, possible by pitching up to the vertical just before landing (DC-X) or by releasing a parachute to maintain the constant descent rate until just before touchdown. If the rocket has no aerodynamic lift at all, the most fuel-efficient landing trajectory is still to do the fall freely at the aerodynamic terminal velocity until

    The actual rocketback maneuver is reasonably simple and efficient by comparison, the “high mock” [sic] notwithstanding. Aerodynamics is a very minor consideration since the pitcharound where the booster turns end for end and flies nozzle first is done just after first stage separation, near the apex of the first stage trajectory where air is extremely thin, and propellant use is efficient since the rocket can use as much acceleration as it can structurally tolerate. The RTLS (return to launch site) that was always in the contingency planning for the Shuttle was a variant of this.

  • vulture4

    Yikes, I wish there were an edit function. some ways around gravity loss during first stage descent are;

    1. High L/D gliding flight with wings (X-15, Rutan Spaceship, Shuttle, X-37)

    2. Low L/D gliding flight as a lifting body with terminal deceleration by pitcharound and rocket thrust (DC-X) or by releasing a parachute

    3. Free fall with deceleration by parachute (Shuttle SRB)

  • vulture4

    4. Release a small drouge chute at high altitude to maintain a rapid but stable tail-first descent and use thrust to slow the descent just before touchdown.

  • common sense

    @ vulture4 wrote @ July 13th, 2012 at 8:17 am

    FWIW. You can get lift from a cylinder by flying it at a non zero angle of attack, other considerations such as structural loads on the first stage make it difficult if not designed with that in mind. Other considerations relate to the various components such as the nozzles themselves and other protruding in the air flow things. How much lift is determined by the mission you try to fly, nothing else.

    The challenge they have is to reenter and fly back a booster that was designed for ascent. And that regardless of its ability to land nozzle first.

    In that particular case lift is not their primary problem. Mission design actually is.

    Again FWIW.

  • vulture4

    A challenge for SpaceX but they are beginning by trying out procedures for deploying a chute and brining the booster at sea. That’s still a challenging problem but if it can be done than the chute can provide both stabilization and control of descent rate and the terminal landing under power can be developed with their VTOVL test system.

    For the DOD reusable launch program the situation is different. Since they have more money available and are working from the start to get the booster back, it makes more sense to start with a winged, subscale prototype with a suborbital up-and-back trajectory ending with a glide to a landing at KSC or CCAFS.

  • vulture4 wrote @ July 13th, 2012 at 8:17 am

    A reusable Falcon does not necessarily “look” Like the Falcon that is expended…the reusable Falcon can have more of “Delta Clipper” built into it…ie the shape…

    you make good points RGO

  • common sense

    @ Robert G. Oler wrote @ July 14th, 2012 at 12:58 am

    There are a lot of issues even with a Delta Clipper shape related to the center of gravity for reentry. Delta Clipper never went beyond the transition to land stages and was intended as far as I know to enter nose first, probably at an angle of attack. In any case. My point stands.

    FWIW Shuttle had a pretty big scare when they deflected the body flap on first flight I believe and it barely made it.

    Again, don’t believe PR videos. They are after all only PR.

  • common sense wrote @ July 14th, 2012 at 5:50 pm

    I think your points are some of the best on the subject and sorry if you took mine as disagreeing with them.

    The PR videos are PR videos…there is no chance in my view that the reusable FAlcon “Looks” like the expendable one…which was my only point.

    But I will bet this…a reusable Falcon launch vehicle is wider at the base for every stage, then it is at the top…and doesnt have wings RGO

  • common sense

    @ Robert G. Oler wrote @ July 15th, 2012 at 3:28 pm

    Thanks Robert.

    I was merely trying to dispel some myths that I sometime fear our friend vulture4 is a victim of. I too would like super-duper spacecraft looking better than a capsule. But “looking better” is not a mission requirement… Neither is “high lift”.

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