Comments on: In its Aerospace Day proclamation, Colorado legislators demand accelerated space program

By: Neil Shipley

Neil Shipley — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 06:51:37 +0000

Well if it wasn’t that, then there’s not much else. Perhaps PICA-X??!!

By: Vladislaw

Vladislaw — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 22:21:32 +0000

The most logical thing to do with SLS is immediatley retire it and move it to a musuem of failed space archtectures….

By: common sense

common sense — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 20:50:30 +0000

If it is what I think it is there are unsolved issues with it since it is a tiled TPS. Namely the gap-fillers. Can it be solved? I guess we’ll know soon enough… I doubt though that this alone would save Orion. Seriously doubt. I always doubted Orion would fly. If it ever does it will be similar to the Ares-1X, a one-off event. Sad. Very sad.

By: common sense

common sense — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 20:46:58 +0000

No I am afraid you don’t understand the relationship. It is not the contarctor’s responsibility to speak up and certainly not to speak up to the taxpayer. Their responsibility ends with the delivery of the product, service or whatever it is they were contracted to do. They are only liable so to speak to the contracting organization for delivering what they promised they would. In that case NASA is in charge, for better… or worse.

By: Hiram

Hiram — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 13:35:43 +0000

Lockheed Space Systems is in Denver. Lockheed does a lot more than space systems.

By: guest

guest — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 12:31:34 +0000

I understand the relationship however when the contractor finds they cannot do the job they’ve been contracted for thanks to lousy NASA leadership or misdirection, they owe it to themselves and the taxpayer to speak up.

By: Malmesbury

Malmesbury — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 11:21:15 +0000

The current Orion program is a result of the interactions of politics with reality.

1) Must be too big for EELV
2) Must use legacy concepts
3) Must launch on a vehicle using SRB derived tech on the first stage

1) led to the battleship Orion. Too big for its parachutes
2) led to a simple up scaling of the Apollo shape. AVOCAT heat shield. This led to even more weight – poor scaling
3) led to the need for a giant LAS to escape the debris cloud. This led to heavy structures to support the LAS and survive its pull. Features were brutally chopped from Orion as Ares I failed to meet it’s requirements. At the end, despite an insanely high max dynamic pressure etc, Ares I was only able to get a cut down Orion into a suborbital trajectory – Orion had to make the orbital burn itself…

So you have a massively overweight, under featured vehicle.

Politics are still at work. An engineer at NASA just got a kicking for writing a proposal to replace the heat shield for Orion. The replacement material he suggested is flight tested, and would be lighter for a more capable shield. The existing one can do only a return from the moon. Mars return would need more shielding.

Guess what he was proposing?

By: Rhyolite

Rhyolite — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 05:44:05 +0000

Actually, I think LM is headquartered in Bethesda, MD.

By: James

James — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 02:14:43 +0000

Russia should Annex Colorado to put the kabosh on Orion; Then Congress will see fit to fully fund commercial crew.

By: James

James — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 02:11:30 +0000

Can Russia Annex Colorado? Stop SLS.Orion in its tracks!