NASA G2

[Guest aevans]

Nobody has yet demonstrated that they are capable of constructing a space vehicle that will withstand the rigors of a multi year manned space expedition. Nobody. Not even the ISS can exist w/o relatively quick delivery of spare parts. And we haven't exactly performed 100% on sending unmanned sats and landers to Mars either. We're not sure the very latest polar lander is going to make it since it is a rehash of an old design (I hope it does make it).

 

The ISS was built with ground support as part of the engineering environment. Experience with that platform, no matter how far you extend it into the future, is going gain us very little in the design of reliable manned spacecraft. The acid test, while at the same time staying in the immediate nieghborhood, would be to send a Mars transfer habitat into orbit around the Moon for three years to see what happens. That way you can remove the ground support for all practical purposes, and expose the vehicle and habitability experiments to cosmic rays and solar output. Circling around the the Earth in a can doesn't buy you a bit of that.

 

The loss of the last polar lander was the result of a software failure directly attributable to inadequate verification testing. And that was a consequence of the "faster, better, cheaper" philosophy. When have you ever seen me advocate a return to that approach?

[DB]

Moon orbits don't tend to be long-term stable, so to get the duration you're thinking of you'd be using unrepresentative amounts of station keeping. I suppose you'd want to keep it local so you could inspect it at end of life. If you're not bothered about that particularly, then you could drop it into an Earth trailing orbit or actually send it to Mars on its own.

 

David

[Guest aevans]

Moon orbits don't tend to be long-term stable, so to get the duration you're thinking of you'd be using unrepresentative amounts of station keeping. I suppose you'd want to keep it local so you could inspect it at end of life. If you're not bothered about that particularly, then you could drop it into an Earth trailing orbit or actually send it to Mars on its own.

 

David

 

Or attach a staionkeeping bus and use the test spacecraft's propulsion only as frequently and in ways as you might need to for course corrections. That will give you the right number and type of cycles to make the experiment relevant. But you're getting the spirit -- do stuff to materially advance the technology and doctrine, don't repeat already done to death stuff.

Edited August 15, 2007 by aevans

[SCFalken]

 

 

 

Nice shot from the current mission.

 

 

 

Falken

Edited August 16, 2007 by SCFalken

[TSJ]

An editorial note from NASAWatch.com:

I had the distinct honor of being in the Challenger Center in Alexandria, Virginia this morning as Barbara Morgan did her live downlink and teaching session with a group of students. Although no one among the adults in the room was overtly sobbing, there wasn't a dry eye in the room this morning. Nor were there any expressions other than big smiles.

 

If only NASA could fully understand (no small task) - and then react to and harness - the immense pride the parents in attendance had in their children, the awe the kids felt at having an opportunity, the obvious sense of future accomplishments all of us adults saw, and the wonderful feeling of completing a circle (Challenger), NASA would never have to worry about inadequate budgets again - nor would it have to worry about being out of step - or unappreciated by the public.

[Guest aevans]

An editorial note from NASAWatch.com...

 

Sentimental drivel. If NASA has to rely on people nostalgically boohooing over a disaster of the agency's own making, it deserves all the ridicule heaped upon it.

[Josh]

If the current orbiter bites it would it be safe to say that's the end of the program? That would make it three out of four machines...how is the repair to Endeavor going?

[CT96]

If the current orbiter bites it would it be safe to say that's the end of the program? That would make it three out of four machines...how is the repair to Endeavor going?

 

If this one doesn't land safely, it's over. Done. There will be no more space-shuttle launches, ever. Neither the Media nor Congress will permit it. If this one doesn't land safely, NASA may be completely ravaged by Congress - and in the long run that may not be a bad thing: Complete changeover in leadership and complete reorganization before the next round of Manned Spaceflight would probably be a good thing. Of course, a complete changeover in Congress would probably be a good thing too, but that's another discussion.

[Josh]

If this one doesn't land safely, it's over. Done. There will be no more space-shuttle launches, ever. Neither the Media nor Congress will permit it. If this one doesn't land safely, NASA may be completely ravaged by Congress - and in the long run that may not be a bad thing: Complete changeover in leadership and complete reorganization before the next round of Manned Spaceflight would probably be a good thing. Of course, a complete changeover in Congress would probably be a good thing too, but that's another discussion.

 

The more cynical might even suggest that the reason they don't jestison the Endeavor and save the crew is because it would end the program. I wonder what the astronaut's opinion is vis-a-vis riding it down or staying on the ISS.

[Guest aevans]

The more cynical might even suggest that the reason they don't jestison the Endeavor and save the crew is because it would end the program. I wonder what the astronaut's opinion is vis-a-vis riding it down or staying on the ISS.

 

Well, according to NASA's press releases (1), there isn't even a question of catastrophic failure, just one of spot overheating and possible structural damage requiring extensive post-flight repair. It is a fact that they've had similar sized dings in thermal control tiles before and it's not been a problem.

 

1. Yeah, I know...

[Jim Martin]

The more cynical might even suggest that the reason they don't jestison the Endeavor and save the crew is because it would end the program. I wonder what the astronaut's opinion is vis-a-vis riding it down or staying on the ISS.

 

 

Well, they're drunk when they go up. Any chance of there being a still on the ISS?

[John Nelson]

Wow, what incredible photos. I'm not cynical enough yet to lose my sense of wonder about this machine. Despite all it's shortcomings it's still an amazing accomplishment. Shame it wasn't succeded by something even more advanced, like Venture Star.

 

[Guest aevans]

Wow, what incredible photos. I'm not cynical enough yet to lose my sense of wonder about this machine. Despite all it's shortcomings it's still an amazing accomplishment. Shame it wasn't succeded by something even more advanced, like Venture Star.

 

The photography comes from advances in imaging technology that are used every day on here on Earth. The vehcile that puts the imaging system in orbit is immaterial.

 

The shame is that STS was built at all. The shame is that instead of improving the already powerful, practical, and reliable launch systems we already had, we let ideology triumph over engineering sense. (And Venture Star would have been more of the same.) The shame is that we are now just picking up where we left off 35 years ago.

[TSJ]

The photography comes from advances in imaging technology that are used every day on here on Earth. The vehcile that puts the imaging system in orbit is immaterial.

 

The shame is that STS was built at all. The shame is that instead of improving the already powerful, practical, and reliable launch systems we already had, we let ideology triumph over engineering sense. (And Venture Star would have been more of the same.) The shame is that we are now just picking up where we left off 35 years ago.

 

The shuttle was chosen:

from wikipedia......

In 1969, United States Vice President Spiro T. Agnew chaired the National Aeronautics and Space Council, which discussed post-Apollo options for manned space activities [1]. The recommendations of this body would heavily influence these directions.

 

They considered four major options:

 

manned Mars expedition

follow-on lunar program

low earth orbital infrastructure program

discontinuing manned space activities

Based on the advice of the Space Council, president Richard M. Nixon made the decision to pursue the low earth orbital infrastructure program. This program mainly consisted of a space station and space shuttle. However funding restrictions precluded pursuing both simultaneously, so NASA logically chose to develop the space shuttle first, without which the space station could not be constructed or serviced.

 

The primary intended use of the space shuttle was supporting the future space station. This function would dictate most of the shuttle's features. The U.S. Air Force was also interested in using the shuttle, and NASA welcomed their participation and influence to ensure political and financial support for the shuttle program.

 

Many potential shuttle designs were proposed during the 1960s, and they varied widely. Many were exceedingly complex. An attempt to re-simplify was made in the form of the "DC-3" by Maxime Faget who had designed the Mercury capsule among other vehicles. The DC-3 was a small craft with a 20,000-pound (9 metric ton) payload, a four-man capacity, and limited aerodynamic maneuverability. At a minimum, the DC-3 provided a baseline "workable" (but not significantly advanced) system by which other systems could be compared for price/performance compromises.

 

Instead of completing the planned moon missions, the last three missions were dropped and all emphasis was placed on the building the shuttle. According to Tony, this was an ideological decision because the US beat the Soviets to the moon. More later.

[Ivanhoe]

Well, they're drunk when they go up. Any chance of there being a still on the ISS?

 

Based on the outcome of Andromeda Strain, there better be.

[TSJ]

Based on the outcome of Andromeda Strain, there better be.

 

Either that or crying really hard.

[TSJ]

....as I was saying, The dropping of the last three missions were erroneous. The missions that were performed barely scratched the surface of the moon. Not only that the Saturn system did not give us any polar landing capabilities, something the VSE should provide us. We're still not sure if the moons core is molten or solid (according to the Science Channel). The vast quantities of Helium 3 in the Lunar soil may be of benefit if the lower temp fusion plant is developed. Another robot lunar lander is planned by the US in the next couple of years(Griffin tried to kill it). Plus at the same time NASA is completing the ISS and all the other activities with space telescopes planned, etc. It's quite a schedule. Unfortunately, US participation in the ISS is being sacrificed along with the huge portion of the Life Sciences experiments. The Univerity of Florida had built a $35M lab building at the space complex to spport the life sciences. Wonder what they will do with that? Griffin is feeding every spare program into financing the VSE. I'm not sure Congress is happy with that but we'll have to wait and see.

Edited August 19, 2007 by TSJ

[Guest aevans]

The shuttle was chosen:

from wikipedia......

In 1969, United States Vice President Spiro T. Agnew chaired the National Aeronautics and Space Council, which discussed post-Apollo options for manned space activities [1]. The recommendations of this body would heavily influence these directions.

 

They considered four major options:

 

manned Mars expedition

follow-on lunar program

low earth orbital infrastructure program

discontinuing manned space activities

Based on the advice of the Space Council, president Richard M. Nixon made the decision to pursue the low earth orbital infrastructure program. This program mainly consisted of a space station and space shuttle. However funding restrictions precluded pursuing both simultaneously, so NASA logically chose to develop the space shuttle first, without which the space station could not be constructed or serviced.

 

The primary intended use of the space shuttle was supporting the future space station. This function would dictate most of the shuttle's features. The U.S. Air Force was also interested in using the shuttle, and NASA welcomed their participation and influence to ensure political and financial support for the shuttle program.

 

Many potential shuttle designs were proposed during the 1960s, and they varied widely. Many were exceedingly complex. An attempt to re-simplify was made in the form of the "DC-3" by Maxime Faget who had designed the Mercury capsule among other vehicles. The DC-3 was a small craft with a 20,000-pound (9 metric ton) payload, a four-man capacity, and limited aerodynamic maneuverability. At a minimum, the DC-3 provided a baseline "workable" (but not significantly advanced) system by which other systems could be compared for price/performance compromises.

 

Instead of completing the planned moon missions, the last three missions were dropped and all emphasis was placed on the building the shuttle. According to Tony, this was an ideological decision because the US beat the Soviets to the moon. More later.

 

That's not what I said at all. I said that the dropping of Apollo was a pragmatic decision, because the political objective that motivated the investment had been achieved. We won the race, no need to keep running. The LEO infrastructure program was IMO based on ideology, because it assumed without honest and rigorous analysis that a reusable LV was a necesity for regular and permanent LEO operations, and that regular and permanent LEO operations were a necessity for opening up the solar system to manned spaceflight. I have yet to see a convincing analysis, based on the true economics of chemical rocketry, that supports this notion. AFAICT, the whole idea was nothing more than an omnibus of every 50s science fiction cliche, with the anwer to the question "Why?" always met with the response "Because everyone knows you need Earth Station One, serviced by reusable shuttle rockets."

 

Sorry, fellas, what "everyone knows" was a product of SF writers who thought in terms of linear progression, establishing successive footholds, expected nuclear rockets to be commonplace, and who just needed plot devices and settings. von Braun of course helped contribute to this attitude with his grandiose proposals as related to the public in Colliers pop sci features, accompanied by highly imaginative color art. None of it was based on serious technical or economic analysis, it was all just about selling -- for the SF authors, selling books; for von Braun, selling a space program. Pretty soon, all of this sales talk morphed into a spacegoing ideology that said you had to have an orbital infrastructure (1), a Moon base (2), and fleets of big, built on orbit/stay on orbit, interplanetary space liners (3). What everybody forgot was that it was all just speculation and slaes talk.

 

1. For a lot of good things, but all things which we manage just fine with robotic spacecraft today.

2. For strategic high ground, among other serious-sounding but essentially meaningless rationales.

3. Hard to come up with the right word, but "liner" seems to fit best -- even all military exploration crews were going to be 20-30 men per unit, dispatched in multiple unit Lewis and Clarke type expeditions.

Edited August 20, 2007 by aevans

[Jeff]

Based on the outcome of Andromeda Strain, there better be.

Actually, all they need is Sterno and a rag. Remember, the old man was drinking "squeeze".

[Jeff]

This stuff just keeps getting more and more interesting. I wonder how it protects against explosions?

 

Scientists hail ‘frozen smoke’ as material that will change world

From The Sunday Times

August 19, 2007

Abul Taher

 

A MIRACLE material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars.

 

Aerogel, one of the world’s lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C.

 

Scientists are working to discover new applications for the substance, ranging from the next generation of tennis rackets to super-insulated space suits for a manned mission to Mars.

 

It is expected to rank alongside wonder products from previous generations such as Bakelite in the 1930s, carbon fibre in the 1980s and silicone in the 1990s. Mercouri Kanatzidis, a chemistry professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said: “It is an amazing material. It has the lowest density of any product known to man, yet at the same time it can do so much. I can see aerogel being used for everything from filtering polluted water to insulating against extreme temperatures and even for jewellery.”

 

Aerogel is nicknamed “frozen smoke” and is made by extracting water from a silica gel, then replacing it with gas such as carbon dioxide. The result is a substance that is capable of insulating against extreme temperatures and of absorbing pollutants such as crude oil.

 

It was invented by an American chemist for a bet in 1931, but early versions were so brittle and costly that it was largely consigned to laboratories. It was not until a decade ago that Nasa started taking an interest in the substance and putting it to a more practical use.

 

In 1999 the space agency fitted its Stardust space probe with a mitt packed full of aerogel to catch the dust from a comet’s tail. It returned with a rich collection of samples last year.

 

In 2002 Aspen Aerogel, a company created by Nasa, produced a stronger and more flexible version of the gel. It is now being used to develop an insulated lining in space suits for the first manned mission to Mars, scheduled for 2018.

 

Mark Krajewski, a senior scientist at the company, believes that an 18mm layer of aerogel will be sufficient to protect astronauts from temperatures as low as -130C. “It is the greatest insulator we’ve ever seen,” he said.

 

Aerogel is also being tested for future bombproof housing and armour for military vehicles. In the laboratory, a metal plate coated in 6mm of aerogel was left almost unscathed by a direct dynamite blast.

 

It also has green credentials. Aerogel is described by scientists as the “ultimate sponge”, with millions of tiny pores on its surface making it ideal for absorbing pollutants in water.

 

Kanatzidis has created a new version of aerogel designed to mop up lead and mercury from water. Other versions are designed to absorb oil spills.

 

He is optimistic that it could be used to deal with environmental catastrophes such as the Sea Empress spillage in 1996, when 72,000 tons of crude oil were released off the coast of Milford Haven in Pembrokeshire.

 

Aerogel is also being used for everyday applications. Dunlop, the sports equipment company, has developed a range of squash and tennis rackets strengthened with aerogel, which are said to deliver more power.

 

Earlier this year Bob Stoker, 66, from Nottingham, became the first Briton to have his property insulated with aerogel. “The heating has improved significantly. I turned the thermostat down five degrees. It’s been a remarkable transformation,” he said.

 

Mountain climbers are also converts. Last year Anne Parmenter, a British mountaineer, climbed Everest using boots that had aerogel insoles, as well as sleeping bags padded with the material. She said at the time: “The only problem I had was that my feet were too hot, which is a great problem to have as a mountaineer.”

 

However, it has failed to convince the fashion world. Hugo Boss created a line of winter jackets out of the material but had to withdraw them after complaints that they were too hot.

 

Although aerogel is classed as a solid, 99% of the substance is made up of gas, which gives it a cloudy appearance.

 

Scientists say that because it has so many millions of pores and ridges, if one cubic centimetre of aerogel were unravelled it would fill an area the size of a football field.

 

Its nano-sized pores can not only collect pollutants like a sponge but they also act as air pockets.

 

Researchers believe that some versions of aerogel which are made from platinum can be used to speed up the production of hydrogen. As a result, aerogel can be used to make hydrogen-based fuels.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/s...icle2284349.ece

 

[DB]

Actually, all they need is Sterno and a rag. Remember, the old man was drinking "squeeze".

Your avatar was safe, too.

 

David

[Jeff]

Your avatar was safe, too.

 

David

[Jeff]

We can put a man on the moon (well, we used to be able to) but we STILL can't keep some damn foam in place.

 

Atlantis Launch Delayed To Fix Fuel Tank

POSTED: 6:36 pm EDT August 20, 2007

UPDATED: 5:54 am EDT August 21, 2007

 

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA will delay the launch of space shuttle Atlantis because of continuous problems with the fuel tank.

 

It happened to Endeavour; it happened to Columbia, and it has continued to happen all along: foam insulation comes off the shuttle's fuel tank and endangers the astronauts.

 

NASA has just announced engineers have to try to fix it again.

 

NASA knew even before Endeavour's launch that the shuttle's big orange fuel tank had another weak spot.

 

Video from that launch shows foam insulation coming off in the same place it's been lost before.

 

This time, that softball-sized piece of foam or ice hit the underside of the shuttle, and caused agonizing deliberations over whether the astronauts could land safely.

 

The manager of the shuttle program said late on Monday that engineers will redesign that part of the tank, and that the planned late October launch of Discovery will have to be delayed.

 

The 3-inch hole in Endeavour's tiles is not considered a threat, even though it goes all the way through in one small spot.

 

But next time, it could be worse, so engineers are going back to their drawing boards, and wind tunnels, hoping to fix the spot where the foam keeps coming off.

 

The shuttle program manager said flying the shuttle is always risky, and they launched Endeavour believing the risk was small but now they know better.

http://www.wesh.com/news/13934486/detail.html

[Guest aevans]

Well, they got it down safely this time, anyways.

[ShotMagnet]

Work and illness conspired to keep me out of the loop. What was the last word on the underbelly gouge?

 

 

Shot