NASA's 'CEV' and 'Return to Moon vision'

POSTED BY: Calhoun
UPDATED: Friday, January 13, 2006 02:01
VIEWED: 2735
PAGE 1 of 2

1 2 NEXT PAGE LAST PAGE

CALHOUN

Wednesday, January 11, 2006 10:44 PM

Interested to hear opinions of NASA's new CEV and Return to Moon vision. I personally am very dissappointed. The new CEV is basically just a scaled up Apollo capsule, surely in the 30 odd years since the Apollo program we have advanced technologies further than this..I think there are some kick-ass technologies out there that just need to be proven in use,NASA seems to want to stick with the OLD tried and true stuff, this to me is stagnating. I think some of the private companies currently working on space vehicles like scaled composites / spacedev could teach NASA some.

I am all for going back to the moon establishing permanent bases and going further into the solar system I just think this new vision doesnt go far enough fast enough or well enough.

End of rant.

CITIZEN

Thursday, January 12, 2006 12:43 AM

It's designed to do the same thing as the Apollo space craft, so it's quite likely to look similar. The technology inside it is going to be much more advanced, the engines cheaper and more efficient. Look at cars and planes, from the outside they haven't changed much since the 60's, but they are far more advanced technologically.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.

FLETCH2

Thursday, January 12, 2006 12:47 AM

Well Scaled Composites have done the equivalent of Alan Shepards Mercury flight and that's all. I don't think that qualifies them to be the world experts.

The problem with space travel is that since Apollo the question hasn't been "what can be done" so much as "what can be done with this amount of money." The return the the moon program basically uses bits and pieces of shuttle and Apollo technology to keep the costs down, it doesn't really give us what we need to go further.

Ideally you would put a space station in Earth orbit, another in Luna orbit with some kind of reusable shuttle rocket going back and forth between them, just like 2001....

GUNRUNNER

Thursday, January 12, 2006 12:50 AM

I wasn’t very fond of the idea of a capsule spacecraft but since the Columbia disaster my view has changed somewhat. Look at the Russian Soyuz, its been active since Apollo and its had what, two failures resulting in loss of life? (Soyuz 1 in ‘67 and 11 ‘71 resulting in a total of 4 dead.) Really says something about the concept of space capsules.

EV Nova Firefly mod Message Board:
http://s4.invisionfree.com/GunRunner/index.php?act=idx

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, January 12, 2006 1:49 AM

Quote:
Fletch:

Well Scaled Composites have done the equivalent of Alan Shepards Mercury flight and that's all. I don't think that qualifies them to be the world experts.

In light of the numerous attacks you made I my posts, don't take this the wrong way, because it really is nothing person, just another clay pigeon that needs shooting down.

Scaled Composites are world experts? WTF? Who qualifies then, God Almighty? Scaled Composites is the company of Burt Rutan, who is, unquestionably I feel, the world expert when it come to aeronautics. Rutan's team is indeed way ahead of Nasa on the drawing board, but unlike NASA they have no media and govt pressure with budget strings attached and so they don't need to rush to experiment with human lives.

The problem is that gunrunner is right, but the snag is not so much the capsule as the rocket, it's a flying bomb. A VTOL craft with oribit capability would be ideal, and then as fletch said, dock on a space station and meet the interplanetary vessel there, or meet directly with the mothership. Remember, the mothership is going to have to dispatch a shuttle when it reaches Mars.

My strong suspicion is that Scaled Composites will get there long before any govt. and all that awaits after that is a reason to go.

GUNRUNNER

Thursday, January 12, 2006 3:36 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
The problem is that gunrunner is right, but the snag is not so much the capsule as the rocket, it's a flying bomb.

I perfer to think of it as a flying chemical reaction. ;)

Quote:
A VTOL craft with oribit capability would be ideal, and then as fletch said, dock on a space station and meet the interplanetary vessel there, or meet directly with the mothership. Remember, the mothership is going to have to dispatch a shuttle when it reaches Mars.

VTOL is unnecessarily complex and dangerous. Are you familiar with the crash rates of the Russian Navy's Yak-38 'Forger' or the Harrier or the V-22 Osprey? Some pilots call the Harrier ‘the widow maker’, the pilots of the Yak-38 liked that it was unreliable- it meant they didn’t have to fly the thing- 1/3 of all Forgers were lost in accidents:

“Pilots despised the Yak-38 and were with good reason even afraid of it. Many tried to transfer to other duties, and it was not unusual for pilots to go on the sicklist rather than fly it. A handful of pilots went so far as to send a letter of complaint against the type to the Soviet Central Committee.” Source: http://www.vectorsite.net/indexav.html

If you can afford to make a spacecraft you can afford to build a runway for it. CTOL increases take off weight (Even more if you use RATO/JATO or a “cat”) and gives you a better margin of safety (can’t really abort a VTOL takeoff). VTOL may work on Mars but on Earth it’s unnecessary unless you need to fit an aircraft on a small flight deck of a warship.

EV Nova Firefly mod Message Board:
http://s4.invisionfree.com/GunRunner/index.php?act=idx

JAYTEE

Thursday, January 12, 2006 5:10 AM

lets spend two or three times what we've already spent to reinvent the wheel. yep, it's Apollo, the sequel! What a waste. I'm all for space exploration but this is heading in the wrong direction. It's 2006 already and all we can come up with is a redesigned throwaway chemical rocket? C'mon, America is a bit more innovative and creative than that. We can't even finish the space station or put it to full use yet and we're going back to the moon? Just another "bread and circuses" ploy by the Bush administration to distract people.

Jaytee

CALHOUN

Thursday, January 12, 2006 8:01 AM

Quote:
Fletch2 wrote:
Wednesday, January 11, 2006 14:47
Well Scaled Composites have done the equivalent of Alan Shepards Mercury flight and that's all. I don't think that qualifies them to be the world experts.

Only replicated the Mercury flight? If that is so easy how come everyone doesnt do it? They also do it much safer (their rocket engine cannot explode) and what about the innovative shuttlecock re-entry system! brilliant! I think you seriously underrate their achievements.
Burt Rutan / Scaled Composites have done the impossible, that makes them mighty! They won the X-prize easily, no one else came close. Imagine what they could accomplish if they had just 1/10th NASA's budget. I look forward to seeing SpaceShip 2 and White Knight 2 in action and to seeing what else they can achieve.

FLETCH2

Thursday, January 12, 2006 9:04 AM

Could you have gone to the moon based just on the data you got from Shepards flight? No. There were things you needed to learn how to do which was what Gemini was for. Scaled Composites did a wonderfull job, I believe that the private sector is the only way we will get "routine" cheap spaceflight in our lifetime, but just as there were big steps between Freedom 7 and Apollo 11 there are a lot of things SC have to do before they are the world experts on spaceflight.

CITIZEN

Thursday, January 12, 2006 9:21 AM

Quote:
lets spend two or three times what we've already spent to reinvent the wheel. yep, it's Apollo, the sequel! What a waste. I'm all for space exploration but this is heading in the wrong direction. It's 2006 already and all we can come up with is a redesigned throwaway chemical rocket? C'mon, America is a bit more innovative and creative than that. We can't even finish the space station or put it to full use yet and we're going back to the moon? Just another "bread and circuses" ploy by the Bush administration to distract people.

Can someone explain to me how the concerns of travelling to the moon have changed since the sixties? The fact is within current technology unless you’re going to make the trip to the moon very often there is absolutely no point in having a reusable vehicle. What do you expect? The star ship enterprise?

The capsule is something we know will work, and will get us there. Why innovate the wheel if the one we've already got works fine and just needs a pneumatic tire to bring it up to date?

The shuttle isn't much more than a throw away chemical rocket, truth be known. A lot of the Shuttle parts ARE NOT reusable. The booster rockets have to be stripped down and rebuilt, with a good percentage of parts being thrown away after every flight. Also the shuttle is designed to carry a payload into orbit. We haven't got the technology to build a reusable lunar lander, and I'm not sure we would have without major leaps in material and drive technology.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.

1 2 NEXT PAGE LAST PAGE