Orange Anchor
New Member
Hey! hey... then open a thread on the differences between their programs and ours, especially since we are going to soon be using them, ESA, China or India for our lift. We are out of LEO and manned space soon.
Russian tanker bid?!
- Thread starter fisher37
- Start date
Hey! hey... then open a thread on the differences between their programs and ours, especially since we are going to soon be using them, ESA, China or India for our lift. We are out of LEO and manned space soon.
KSCessnaDriver
Well-Known Member
Long story short, we spent a ton of money, and they (the Soviets/Russians) didn't. When I get sometime, I'll sit down and try to write some stuff out about NASA versus the RSA, and our future plans with NASA. Honestly, Obama did the right thing, but its tough to convince people of that.
Orange Anchor
New Member
I am open to listening. Start a thread on why canceling Constellation and the follow on programs is good. I would like to hear opposing arguments.
jynxyjoe
Queso King
There was a long one about 2 weeks back in "The Economist".
I fail to see how cutting manned flight exploration, in any way, helps manned flight explorations. Bob Cabana agrees. There are probably more but that's the biggest name that I can quickly think of.
Scientific discovery will increase because that's where the money is going to go.
NASA Budget = shell game. Take away from manned space exploration and give to unmanned space exploration. We are giving up touching the stars for understanding the stars. Ideally I'd have both, but until I'm dictator of the USA that won't happen.
KSCessnaDriver
Well-Known Member
I'm in no way, shape, or form, advocating an end to manned space flight. I am, however, in favor of the Obama proposal to end Constellation. It's a jobs project, not a project to give our astronauts the best possible vehicle.
Start with the Ares booster. Re-use as much as we can from the STS program, so use the SRB with an additional segment, in the first stage. Sounds great, until you realize that there are massive vibration issues with a booster and that a solid doesn't have any way to change the thrust one burning. Re-using the booster sounds nice, but in the grand scheme of things, it probably ends up costing more to reuse them. Lots of cost in just going out an picking them up. We had 2 boosters that would have worked fine, Delta IV and Atlas V. Nobody wanted to use the Atlas V because of the engines (RD-180's), which were derived from the RD-170, used on Energia (the Buran). Delta IV wasn't used, because well, its "cooler" to build a new vehicle, rather than saving money.
Next, look at the capsule. The Orion was supposed to be able to carry 6 people. Due to some weight issues, it was looking more and more like at most, it could carry 4 people. Again, trying to reuse the vehicle would end up costing more. If you want to build the thing to reuse, its going to carry more mass. Build it to use it once and its very likely the vehicle would have a lower empty weight. Plus, the thing was basically designed to do the same thing as a Gemini capsule (earth environment) and an Apollo capsule (Moon/Mars environment).
There is rocket ready to go, that can carry a capsule. SpaceX's Falcon 9 has the ability to carry a capsule (their Dragon). The first launch (which will carry a boilerplate crew vehicle) has been down at KSC for a while. They've been trouble shooting the thing, and have a scheduled launch date of April 12 (which would be a great day to launch, historically). SpaceX has their docking system up on ISS already. Baring any issues, they should start flying cargo to the station within the next year.