…to the Augustine summary, over at NASA Watch.
[Early morning/late evening update]
I haven’t read the whole thing, but I’ve scanned the intro, to take a break from doing triage on my office before packing it up tomorrow. Two things jump out at me. First:
Can we explore with reasonable assurances of human safety? Human space travel has many benefits, but it is an inherently dangerous endeavor. Human safety can never be absolutely ssured, but throughout this report, it is treated as a sine qua non. It is not discussed in extensive detail because any concepts falling short in human safety have simply been eliminated from consideration.
If the sine qua non of the opening of the New World had been human safety, we would still be in Europe, wondering why we couldn’t return to the Caribbean forty years after Columbus’ first voyage. We would never have opened up the western United States, and we would not have settled California and built an aerospace industry that ultimately got us to the moon. This is a major fail on the part of the panel, for politically correct reasons.
Second, in the “five key questions to guide human spaceflight”:
3. On what should the next heavy-lift launch vehicle be based?
This, to me, is tragic. It is the primary reason that we remain stuck in LEO, forty years after Apollo. Note that the assumption is how should we build, not if we should build, a heavy lifter.
Norm (and I am assuming, based on comments he made in the public hearings, that this was driven by him), you disappoint me. But perhaps I shouldn’t have expected better from the old guard. This flawed assumption lies at the heart of the recommendations. I hope it won’t continue to be a stake in the heart of progress in human spaceflight, but I suspect it will. At least for government human spaceflight. Fortunately, others, who are spending their own money, won’t succumb to this continuing disastrous conventional wisdom.
We’ll see in good time what the administration’s response is.
I bet one cent on Ares V Lite.
I’m sensing a ‘flexible path’ approach hopefully done right, with the slight possibility that the administration feels the need to do something audacious and hopeful like a trip to Mars.
I bet one cent on Ares V Lite.
I bet fifty Quatloos!
Fortunately, others, who are spending their own money, won’t succumb to this continuing disastrous conventional wisdom.
In other words: others, who are spending their own money, will kill would-be astronauts to save a few bucks. Well, a few billion bucks, perhaps.
As you’ve noticed, I am extremely reluctant to climb onto the kill-the-astronauts bandwagon. Once upon a time, on the aircraft side of aerospace, we killed a lot of pilots. Over the years, we learned how to make aircraft safer — to the point where the F-16 is nearly 100 times safer than the F-100 Super Sabre (measured by dead pilots per 100,000 flight hours). The F-16 is many times more effective than the F-100. And, yes, many times more expensive.
I can’t quite tell from your argument whether you think it’s merely necessary to accept that spaceflight is at the stage of the F-100 rather than the F-16, or whether it is necessary to go back to F-100 levels of safety to save money, or whether you think the whole “safety” metric is overweighted. Maybe all three?
In any case, I don’t accept the argument. Granted, launch vehicles are far less reliable than airplanes, but I can’t believe we would field a system that wouldn’t be significantly safer than the Shuttle. And I really don’t see a politically feasible alternative. Our country can barely tolerate wartime casualties that are less than the peacetime rates of 2 decades ago. How long do you think the barnstorming era of spaceflight will last once Elon Musk kills a couple of crews? That is, how long will Congress let it last, in response to public outcry?
BBB
How long do you think the barnstorming era of spaceflight will last once Elon Musk kills a couple of crews? That is, how long will Congress let it last, in response to public outcry?
Where is the public outcry over the people who die mountain climbing every year?
I repeat — if this had been the attitude during the grand Age of Exploration, the exploration wouldn’t have occurred. If it prevails, the next one won’t either.
The government and the ‘people’ have little or no say at all about anything if SpaceX kills ‘passengers’. The money they received from the ‘government’ and the ‘people’ was in the form of space act agreement awards and possibly stimulus funds, which are non refundable and are not associated in any stock or ownership transactions. The ‘people’ and ‘congress’ are completely out of the loop on that one, sorry. At the very most they could choose to deny future space act agreement awards or deny existing payments if success criteria and interim goals are not met.
There also would seem to be the assumption that space exploration costs more than the NASA budget so therefore the government needs to give NASA more money or give up on space exploration.
Alternatively, maybe the report is also saying that NASA must reinvent itself as a NACA like institution that works with independent commercial interests and thereby finds a way to explore space properly within its existing budget.
One can not demonstrate high levels of safety without demonstrating a high flight rate.
So one can not really achieve high safety without high flight rate, and one can not really achieve high flight rate without low cost, so the question is kind of moot.
Hence the low cost solution will be safer in the long term, and may well also be safer in the short term. A low cost high flight rate solution also likely enables an extensive low cost testing program.
The shuttle is unsafe largely because it is too expensive to fly frequently.
Pete says, “NACA”
You (and others) keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Very few people in the aerospace world today actually remember the real NACA as it was in the 1950’s and the research world of the times, which in some ways was truly impressive and in others ways ….not so much. NACA was an important agency at the time, but it was only one of many. At best, it had a budget about $2 billion (in 2009 $). It had very little connection with commercial or military aircraft manufacturers, virtually none with universities (although NACA charts certainly showed up in aero engineering textbooks).
It ran wind tunnels, I’m trying to explain. It tested engines and wing sections and propellers under varying conditions and published the results for anyone in the world to use. It tested supersonic airplanes, and sometimes it tested rockets which didn’t quite make it to supersonic. It was not a pre-ARPA ARPA; it was not a pre-JPL JPL; it was not pre-Saturn Redstone Arsenal. All that neat shiny stuff that people think NASA ought to be doing once it gets out of the launcher building business … NACA wasn’t doing any of that.
You’re quite convinced you want “a NACA like institution that works with independent commercial interests and thereby finds a way to explore space properly within its existing budget?” You’ll get an outfit about the size of the Bureau of Mines which will be happy to wind tunnel test Elon Musk’s rocket nozzles, and run tests on adhesive-bonded fuselage skins for Boeing, assuming the tax payers are willing to fork up the dough (by no means an assured thing). I don’t think you’ll get an outfit that sends spacecraft to Saturn, robots to Mars, humans to the Moon or much else for your $2 billion bucks.
Know what I mean?
No. The Shuttle is unsafe because it is unsafe. Remember those zero-zero ejection seats in aircraft? Or those spiffy escape pods in sci-fi spaceships? Shuttle does not have any. If you think ejection seats seldom get used you would be correct, yet look at the counter on the right of this page:
http://www.martin-baker.co.uk/home.aspx
24 successful ejections just this year. That is more than all astronauts killed by Shuttle during the entire program. I especially like their “1 in 10 seats manufactured saves a life” quote.
At least Apollo had a launch escape tower.
If they wanted a safe Shuttle, they could have put the orbiter on top of the stack and made the whole “front” section an ejectable capsule. The orbiter would reenter “backwards” engines first while the seats would rotate 180 degrees, like on a Soyuz, so you would not get negative Gs. VTVL. That way you could eject away from the rest of the orbiter anytime along the flight path or even in the ground.
We know what you mean, they would be creating a situation in which others could do it well instead of failing to do it all themselves.
You (and others) keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means
I do not think you know what we think. 🙂
Very few people in the aerospace world today actually remember the real NACA as it was in the 1950’s and the research world of the times, which in some ways was truly impressive and in others ways ….not so much. NACA was an important agency at the time, but it was only one of many. At best, it had a budget about $2 billion (in 2009 $)
So, it was small and efficient?
Please explain why you think that is a bug and not a feature.
I’m probably going to shock you, Mike. The NACA — it was never called “NACA” — was far more important and influential in the 30’s than in the 50’s, with even less money. You don’t measure success by how much money an organization spends but what it accomplishes.
It tested engines and wing sections and propellers under varying conditions and published the results for anyone in the world to use.
And that was bad because — ? From that model, we got an Air Force and a commercial airline industry that made flying safe, affordable, and routine. Von Braun’s “pre-Saturn Redstone Arsenal” never accomplished anything like that.
Do you think the US would have been better off if Roosevelt had turned the NACA into the National Air Ship Agency, which stopped doing research and replaced it with a crash program to send government aeronauts on missions to Hawaii, Tahiti, and Beyond?
All that neat shiny stuff that people think NASA ought to be doing once it gets out of the launcher building business … NACA wasn’t doing any of that.
Please don’t be so sweeping in your generalizations, Mike. *Some* people want the government to do “shiny stuff” — not everyone.
Pete Worden proudly says he wants NASA Ames to be “the NACA of space.” That’s not because he knows less about the NACA than you do. He didn’t get to be a general by being ignorant. He was also one of the first people to donate $50,000 to the X-Prize out of his own pocket — not a small sum for an Air Force Colonel — even though suborbital spaceflight was not considered “shiny.”
I don’t think you’ll get an outfit that sends spacecraft to Saturn, robots to Mars, humans to the Moon or much else for your $2 billion bucks.
Know what I mean?
Yes, Mike, but I think you miss the point. Not everyone wants an agency that sends humans to the Moon for $2 billion. Some would prefer an agency that helps makes it possible for humans to go to the Moon for $20,000. No, that is not an impossible figure — but we’re far more likely to get there through through modest efforts like the X-Prize and the NACA than the big “shiny” programs.
The NASA manned space budget spends perhaps ten times what it should for the results that it achieves. This is not justifiable and is fast becoming politically unsustainable. Launch vehicles only cost a few hundred million to develop these days – unless NASA is doing it. And these relative cost structures probably do not just apply to launch vehicles.
The latest 3 billion per year budget increase request almost seems suggested so as to enable a politically uncontroversial refusal.
The “flexible path” does perhaps offer a sustainable future for NASA, but will it take it?
The need of heavy lift is a completely unfounded assumption.
Heavy lift is not necessary.
Large missions can be done with existing and commercial rockets and a propellant depot.
You can go to the moon with just Atlas and Delta launches.
Et cetera. This needs to get into the media and repeated so long that everyone has heard it multiple times.
Simple things.
You can not base a multi billion dollar endeavour on irrationality.
Decision making needs to be rational, especially at the top level.
Progress in space exploration is important, not jobs.
If Ares IV/ Direct 2.0 is a palliative applied to Congress in order get on the flexible path, then it’s ok. The one caveat I would make is that the HLV should NOT be owned and launched by NASA. I am happy with getting cargo & crew transportation on COTS, that’s a major chunk which will enable commercial LEO operations. We’re not going to get everything to change at once.
Anyway, if an HLV is brought in affordable (I know that’s a really BIG if), it doesn’t hurt to have it in the bag of tricks. I wouldn’t complain about being able to throw 140mt blocks in addition to 75mt blocks, especially if COTS PropDepots are in operation. An HLV with PropDepot could launch a first-generation Mars/Venus cycler (with adequate shielding mass) that has an effective mass of near 300mt. Five to six cyclers and we have a regular transportation system to Venus & Mars for the flexible path.
Having a HLV mentioned in the report should not surprise anyone since Norm did mention about the need to throw up > 75mt blocks during the hearings.
Having studied aviation history for almost 40 years, I know what I’m saying when I advocate a more NACA style organization over what NASA is now. NACA never tried to become an aircraft manufacturer or run an airline. Instead, NACA developed an infrastructure of wind tunnels and other test equipment in support of industry. NACA developed technologies like their low drag cowling for radial engines, whole families of airfoils including the 23000 series used on planes such as the DC-3 and laminar flow airfoils that made the P-51 Mustang the champion it was. Along with the Air Force, NACA flew research planes like the X-1 and X-15, and developed basic aerodynamic concepts such as the Area Rule that allowed the F-102 to fly at supersonic speeds.
A “NACA for space” would, IMO, so similar things that NACA did for aviation. It could help with expensive infrastructure for engine tests. It could experiment with different rocket engine technologies looking for ways to increase performance and lower cost. It could test experimental designs for spacecraft technologies and then make those technologies available to US manufacturers to ensure US superiority. As a historical point of fact, US aviation technological development pretty well peaked in the 1950s, perhaps extending into the early 1960s. Ever since NASA was formed, aviation development has taken a back seat to NASA’s space endevours. I’d like to see NACA reborn and the current bureaucratic NASA restructured if not outright eliminated.
Rand, I think it is pretty clear what the Commission is really pushing:
1) Return the OMB cuts from this spring;
2) Fly ISS to 2020;
3) Fly Shuttle to 2015;
4) Develop SDHLV;
5) Commercial launches for manned access to ISS;
6) Work towards Moon sorties.
That’s actually not a bad set of recommendations especially if the refueling path gets chosen.
Rocket Stuff Said:
“The government and the ‘people’ have little or no say at all about anything if SpaceX kills ‘passengers’.”
Actually, SpaceX needs to get a launch license from FAA-AST, and congress could theoretically block that. I am hopefull that a level of safety similar to mountain climbing and skydiving will be accepted by the public and congress. It’s currently not possible to do better, and as Rand said, the only other option is not to do it at all.
—
Mike Shupp said:
“[If you make NASA into NACA] I don’t think you’ll get an outfit that sends spacecraft to Saturn, robots to Mars, humans to the Moon”
I think there are two valid jobs for NASA. One is the NACA role of retiring technology risk to enable private space development. The other is scientific exploration. It’s not going to profitable for a private company to do geology on Mars for the advancement of science, but it’s something that’s worth doing. Mike has a valid point that currently NASA does that, and if you remove that part of NASA without doing it some other way it won’t get done.
Maybe the answer is to close all of NASA except Ames and JPL. Or maybe the answer is to give sapce science to the National Science Foundation to be prioritized alongside all other branches of science.
—
As far as the Augustine options, I have a dire prediction. The report says that you can’t do any exploration program without a budget increase, and if you get a budget increase the program of record (Aries I/V) is executable. The fact that this option would have no money for a technology program to decrease costs in the future is a footnore.
Eh. It’s all pretty much irrelevant. The looming Argentinization of the USA is going to make the US government manned space program a thing of the past.
Private launcher companies need to focus on the needs of foreign customers, who will be vital sources of valuable foreign currency after the dollar collapses.
“No. The Shuttle is unsafe because it is unsafe. Remember those zero-zero ejection seats in aircraft? Or those spiffy escape pods in sci-fi spaceships? Shuttle does not have any.”
Commercial aircraft and military cargo aircraft don’t have these either. RLVs need *that* degree of robustness. That’s what the shuttle lacks.
(And, fighter planes are also designed around the expectation that they will operate in environments where someone will be actively trying to destroy them. Not a launch vehicle concern, so far…)
“Progress in space exploration is important, not jobs.”
…And might *incidentally* create as many or more jobs (though mostly not in government) as today, once truly under way.
“Eh. It’s all pretty much irrelevant. The looming Argentinization of the USA is going to make the US government manned space program a thing of the past.
Private launcher companies need to focus on the needs of foreign customers, who will be vital sources of valuable foreign currency after the dollar collapses.”
If the dollar collapses, the rest of the world will come along for the ride.
The government and the ‘people’ have little or no say at all about anything if SpaceX kills ‘passengers’
Yeah, you (and the rest of we lovers of liberty) wish that were so. You’d also think the government and “the people” have jack to say about whether or not I wear a helmet when I ride a motorcycle, or ski, or whether I wear a seatbelt in my car, or whether I smoke, or whether I have insurance on my car or life or health, or whether I want to pay from my own pocket to have surgery for my prostate cancer instead of “wait and hope.”
But that’s not the culture we live in anymore, more’s the pity. You’ll find popular support for my freedom to make any of those choices as I see fit is limited, and in many cases there are already laws forcing our choices.
There is zero doubt that if a handful of paying passengers (not pilots) get killed by SpaceX, then if the lawsuits don’t destroy them, there will be a public outcry to “regulate” the industry and that will.
No. The Shuttle is unsafe because it is unsafe. Remember those zero-zero ejection seats in aircraft? Or those spiffy escape pods in sci-fi spaceships? Shuttle does not have any.
Neither do military aircraft. The Air Force stopped developing escape capsules for a reason. They killed crewmembers, far more often than ejection seats do.
If you think ejection seats seldom get used you would be correct, yet look at the counter on the right of this page:
http://www.martin-baker.co.uk/home.aspx
If you think ejection seats are a magic bullet, you need to talk to some pilots and stop relying on marketing as your sole source of information. Even “successful” ejections can cripple pilots. There’s a reason why ejection is called “attempted suicide to avoid certain death.”
Ejection is sometimes necessary but no pilot believes it’s a substitute for developing a safe aircraft. Why would anyone think it’s a substitute for developing a safe spacecraft?
If they wanted a safe Shuttle, they could have put the orbiter on top of the stack and made the whole “front” section an ejectable capsule. The orbiter would reenter “backwards” engines first while the seats would rotate 180 degrees, like on a Soyuz, so you would not get negative Gs. VTVL. That way you could eject away from the rest of the orbiter anytime along the flight path or even in the ground.
With a fair chance of killing the crew in the process. Just as aircraft escape capsules and even ejection seats have a fair chance of killing a pilot, even though they have been tested far more often than space capsules.
The F-16 isn’t 100 times safer than the F-100 just because it’s more expensive or just because it has an ejection seat. It’s safer because it incorporates lessons learned in aircraft development. Lessons that Capsules Forever ignores.
There has never been a capsule/ELV combination that had a better safety record than the Shuttle (based on real statistics, not handwaving). The capsules that never killed anyone — Mercury, Gemini, Shenzou — simply didn’t fly enough flights to be statistically significant. Claiming they had a 100% safety record is like claiming Buran had a 100% safety record.
Sorry, but you and Mr. Beard are on the “kill-the-astronauts bandwagon.” You just don’t realize it because you swallowed the marketing hype from people peddling Capsules Forever.
If Ares IV/ Direct 2.0 is a palliative applied to Congress in order get on the flexible path, then it’s ok. The one caveat I would make is that the HLV should NOT be owned and launched by NASA. I am happy with getting cargo & crew transportation on COTS, that’s a major chunk which will enable commercial LEO operations.
That would be true, Alan, *if* there were no limit to the amount of money Congress is willing to spend on space — but there is a limit, and it’s fairly close to what they’re spending right now. Ares IV/Direct 2.0/Shuttle C/Saturn X would grow and squeeze out funding for other programs. That has been the history of NASA projects for the last 50 years.
Expecting COTS to survive while competing with a megaproject is like expecting Lunar Gemini would be allowed to survive while competing with Project Apollo.
Even if COTS managed to survive, a new megabooster would squeeze out funding for research, Centennial Challenges, and other small programs which, I will repeat, is likely to be far more important to our future than the “shiny stuff.”
An HLV with PropDepot could launch a first-generation Mars/Venus cycler (with adequate shielding mass) that has an effective mass of near 300mt.
For how many hundreds of billions of dollars? And what other things could NASA be doing with that money instead?
Let’s put it in perspective. $100 billion is 10,000 X-Prizes.
“As you’ve noticed, I am extremely reluctant to climb onto the kill-the-astronauts bandwagon. Once upon a time, on the aircraft side of aerospace, we killed a lot of pilots. Over the years, we learned how to make aircraft safer — to the point where the F-16 is nearly 100 times safer than the F-100 Super Sabre (measured by dead pilots per 100,000 flight hours). The F-16 is many times more effective than the F-100. And, yes, many times more expensive. ”
Did it ever occur to you the reason the F-16 is so safe is because we learned so much flying(and crashing) earlier jets?
This, to me, is tragic. It is the primary reason that we remain stuck in LEO, forty years after Apollo. Note that the assumption is how should we build, not if we should build, a heavy lifter.
Amen, and yea verily.
This continuing fascination with large candles, when there are so many better, and more sustainable ways of doing exploration, is baffling.
Neither do military aircraft. The Air Force stopped developing escape capsules for a reason. They killed crewmembers, far more often than ejection seats do.
No. They stopped developing things like the ejection cabin in the F-111 because it was too expensive for the amount of benefit provided. Airplane escape systems do not need to reenter from space so the protective shield is unnecessary. Even Kelly Johnson, who was against such escape systems in aircraft, deemed them necessary for spacecraft.
If you think ejection seats are a magic bullet, you need to talk to some pilots and stop relying on marketing as your sole source of information. Even “successful” ejections can cripple pilots. There’s a reason why ejection is called “attempted suicide to avoid certain death.”
Tell that to Vladimir Titov and Gennady Strekalov. I would rather have this kind of security feature while I am on top of a giant firecracker, thank you.
Ejection is sometimes necessary but no pilot believes it’s a substitute for developing a safe aircraft. Why would anyone think it’s a substitute for developing a safe spacecraft?
You can have it both ways you know?
I have to agree with Blue regarding what the panel recommends. They are explicitly recommending supporting private space flight, and used the airmail analogy in support. It seemed to be a reasonable plan, given what is politically and technically feasible in the near term.
Another point regarding crew safety. Yes, some risk must be accepted, but if Columbus’ crew weren’t reasonably sure that they’d survive the trip, they wouldn’t have gone. IIRC, Columbus nearly had a mutiny with his crew arguing for turning back, even though he was lying to them about how far they had gone and had underestimated the distance he needed to cover.
“Reasonably sure of survival” is not 100%. It is also a number that varies over time and place. Your average 21st century Somali might accept risks that an American would consider suicidal.
I would rather have this kind of security feature while I am on top of a giant firecracker, thank you.
No one is suggesting that giant firecrackers are safe or required, well, maybe NASA is…
“Reasonably sure of survival” is not 100%. It is also a number that varies over time and place. Your average 21st century Somali might accept risks that an American would consider suicidal.
While that’s true, it’s only on average. Not all Somalis or American’s are created equal. I’m sure that there are many qualified Americans who would accept (say) a ten percent chance of dying on a mission, if the mission seemed worthwhile. And it’s not a suicidal attitude — it’s one of willingness to accept risk for great reward, something that NASA is apparently unable to do.
I’m presently taking a little time off from packing to write a piece for Popular Mechanics on this subject for tomorrow morning.
This is the thing that really gets my goat. One Committee, 8 options, and about 6,000 people screaming at the top of their lungs on why the Committee is wrong, why it’s right, whether or not we need HLV, EELV, SDLV, ejection seats, escape pods, lunar sorties, Mars cyclers, propellant depots, Earth observation, ISS continuation and so on.
With advocacy like this, it’s no wonder NASA’s all over the map, and with supporters more intent on picking at each other, it’s no surprise that Congress doesn’t just roll over when confronted with 1,000,001 would-be von Brauns.
The only thing of any importance at this juncture is contacting your Congress-critter and President over the next month and telling them that you want your future back. Skip the technical details, skip telling staffers about the advantage of lifting bodies, and how a lunar space elevator can be made from existing materials. Just tell them that, dammit, you want a space program. Send money, and give NASA the leeway to reorganize itself past Apollo. Any message more complex will get lost in translation.
The orbiter would reenter “backwards” engines first while the seats would rotate 180 degrees, like on a Soyuz, so you would not get negative Gs. VTVL. That way you could eject away from the rest of the orbiter anytime along the flight path or even in the ground.
Sorry, keep trying to visualize how this would work, and I keep seeing complete failure in concept. Why would you do this?
but if Columbus’ crew weren’t reasonably sure that they’d survive the trip, they wouldn’t have gone.
This is historically ignorant. As a rule, something like half to three-quarters of the crew would survive your average trip of exploration. In an extended trip, like Cook’s or Magellan’s, most of the original crew would not survive.
The important fact is that those who did survive might become very wealthy. Obviously, a lot of people wouldn’t like those odds. And equally obviously, most people did not sign up as crew for voyages across the Atlantic in the 1500s.
The key point Rand is making is that the perfect balance between risk and reward is very individual, unique to every man. Therefore, every man should judge it for himself. The idea that there should be (or even can be) some national consensus on the “correct” risk/reward ratio is stupid.
Leland:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/sassto.htm
If you think you cannot do a single stage vehicle just add another stage like the vehicle in The Rocket Company.
No. They stopped developing things like the ejection cabin in the F-111 because it was too expensive for the amount of benefit provided. Airplane escape systems do not need to reenter from space so the protective shield is unnecessary.
Do you think needing a heat shield makes it less prone to malfunctions and landing failure??? That statement makes no sense.
Even Kelly Johnson, who was against such escape systems in aircraft, deemed them necessary for spacecraft.
What spacecraft did Kelly Johnson design? I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not sure you do, either.
Tell that to Vladimir Titov and Gennady Strekalov. I would rather have this kind of security feature while I am on top of a giant firecracker, thank you.
So, from one incident, you infer absolute certainty?
By that logic, everytime a man named Lincoln walks into a theater, he’s going to be assassinated.
Please go back and review Statistics 101.
Ejection is sometimes necessary but no pilot believes it’s a substitute for developing a safe aircraft. Why would anyone think it’s a substitute for developing a safe spacecraft?
You can have it both ways you know?
Sure you can, but then you ‘d have a fully reusable spacecraft — not a Shuttle-derived ELV/capsule like you were proposing.
Dennis Wingo said, “This continuing fascination with large candles, when there are so many better, and more sustainable ways of doing exploration, is baffling.”
The point of the “large candle” is a large payload. Suppose we’d developed something like Shuttle-C and used it to kick ISS pieces weighing 100 tons at one go into orbit, rather than shuttles carrying up a quarter to a third of that weight. Wouldn’t things have gone somewhat quicker and more cheaply than they did (and perhaps even more safely)? Too late to know now, of course, and developing Shuttle-C would have had some cost, but it does seem in retrospect that using the original shuttles was not the brightest thing NASA has done.
Ed Wright & Godzilla —
As it was explained to me back in B-1 days, an ejection capsule is somewhat large and ungainly compared to an ejection seat. It requires non-trivial stiffening of the aircraft frame, and non-trivial amounts of pyrotechnics, and getting the thing clear of a falling aircraft can be chancy. On top of that, experience has shown that air crews can get as badly dinged up during capsule ejection and capsule grounding as people with regular ejection suits and parachutes. Since the original idea was that capsules would be safer than straightforward ejections, this came as a dissapoinment…
Of course with space systems, your’re in a different environment, and it’s easy to think of circumstances in which a capsule might make more sense.
experience has shown that air crews can get as badly dinged up during capsule ejection and capsule grounding as people with regular ejection suits and parachutes.
Actually, they get worse. Why would expect similar things not to happen with space capsules?
Of course with space systems, your’re in a different environment
That’s completely illogical. How is the desert/ocean/mountainside that a space capsule crashes down in any different from the desert/ocean/mountainside that an aircraft ejection crashes down in? The fact that the capsule’s coming down faster, from a higher altitude, is surely not going to reduce the risk, is it?
Space capsules have a long history of fatal accidents and near misses. “Godzilla” mentioned the Soyuz T-10A abort with Titov and Strekalov. He didn’t mention the Soyuz T-18A abort with Lazarev and Makarov. They experienced 20.6 gees on reentry, and after landing the capsule nearly rolled off a cliff. The crew was saved only because the parachute happened to snag in some trees. Both men suffered internal injuries, and Lazarev later failed a flight physical and never flew again.
Strange that you think capsules are safe and orbital assembly is unsafe. I can tell you how many astronauts and cosmonauts have died in capsule accidents. How many have died while doing orbital assembly?
It is appears that the fate of human space flight within NASA is looking pretty grim right at the moment. Fiscally, Obama is starting to feel the heat and I’d say that whatever NASA needs at this point and time is just a matter of bad timing. Not to say that whatever funding has been allocated to Orion and Ares at this point couldn’t be funneled into continuing Shuttle until 2015. This could be a rare instance under this administration for private enterprise to show their chops.
To those in the private space industry, slap yourself in the side of the head, grunt, and start charging forward my friend — god speed.
Ed Wright wonders, “That’s completely illogical. How is the desert/ocean/mountainside that a space capsule crashes down in any different from the desert/ocean/mountainside that an aircraft ejection crashes down in? The fact that the capsule’s coming down faster, from a higher altitude, is surely not going to reduce the risk, is it?”
Ejected aircraft personnel generally have under 2000 Mph of velocity to kill off before landing (and will eject at subsonic speed if at all possible); reentering astronauts have have about ten times as much speed to eliminate — 100 times as much kinetic energy as air crew meet. Air crew generally eject at altitudes where the air is breathable; this might not be the case for astronauts. Typically ejected air crew are in the air for only several minutes beforee landing; for a spacecraft breaking up early in reeentry sequence, the fall might last half an hour. Air crew presumably have some training in ejection techniques, and opportunities to discuss such techniques with people who have experience; my suspicion is that beyond some familiarization lectures non-pilot astronauts are really not intellectually/emotionally prepared for ejecting from a flight vehicle and successfully parachuting to the ground, so sticking with a capsule might well increase their safety.
Seems clear to me the environments are different. Maybe the fault’s with me.
Josh Reiter –
Shuttle’s headed for the junkyard after 2011. It was be just too much trouble to convert Michaud back to producing those external tanks, and too much trouble for Lockheed and Boeing to recall the shuttle personnel being laid off this year and the next. As for the funds that might have been going to the Constellation program … there’s talk of spending another 3.5 billion on COTS (SpaceX, etc) to produce a “commercial” launcher for NEO use; it seems evident that much of the unused Ares/Orion funds will go in that direction. Additional savings from ending Constellation can be used on satellites for monitoring earth’s climate and to restart some of the unmanned planetary missions that have been pinched in recent years. Be of good cheer! There are all sorts of ways for NASA to spend 17-18 billion dollars year, no matter how severely manned space flight is cut back!
(I know I’m going to regret this)
Ed, why do I suspect you about to burst a blood vessel? It isn’t the end of the world if someone refuses to jump with glee onto your spaceplane bandwagon. And you might do a better job convincing people if you wear a smile on your face instead of a grimace.
This thread is about safety and acceptable levels of risk, not capsules vs spaceplanes. It’s kind of rude to put words into other peoples mouths when you continually accuse them of advocating capsules when in reality they only advocated escape systems. For all you know they love spaceplanes as much as you do, except with an escape system instead of none!
Your posting about statistics and your unfavorable comparison of the Soyuz safety to the Shuttle made me curious about how many manned Soyuz missions there have been, so I found this…
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/cs-081010-expedition18-soyuz100.html
Not bad. 100 manned Soyuz missions, and I believe only two of those were fatal. Not a bad record for a spacecraft capable of circumlunar missions (in theory anyway).
reentering astronauts have have about ten times as much speed to eliminate — 100 times as much kinetic energy as air crew meet.
And that makes the space capsule safer than the aircraft escape capsule — how???
Air crew generally eject at altitudes where the air is breathable; this might not be the case for astronauts.
And that makes ejecting from a spacecraft safer than ejecting from an aircraft — how?
Seems clear to me the environments are different. Maybe the fault’s with me.
None of the differences you mention explain why reentering and parachuting to earth in a space capsule would be safer than parachuting to earth in an aircraft escape capsule. You haven’t shown how the space capsule avoids *any* environmental hazard that an aircraft escape capsule must cope with. On the contrary, you’ve mentioned several *additional* hazards that the space capsule has to cope with.
So, please explain. Aircraft designers still fret over reliability, even when they have escape systems. That’s one reason why you don’t see “expendable airplanes.” Cost is another one, obviously. So, why is it that when we talk about space, people suddenly argue that vehicle reliability (like cost) shouldn’t matter and unreliable expendable rockets are fine as long as they have an escape system *that is less reliable than the escape systems used in aircraft*?
That does not compute.
None of the differences you mention explain why reentering and parachuting to earth in a space capsule would be safer than parachuting to earth in an aircraft escape capsule. You haven’t shown how the space capsule avoids *any* environmental hazard that an aircraft escape capsule must cope with. On the contrary, you’ve mentioned several *additional* hazards that the space capsule has to cope with.
We were talking about the Shuttle remember? The Shuttle is a spacecraft. It must reenter from space at the velocities mike said. Airplane analogies only get us so far… We must take care not to get too sidetracked with them.
“Just tell them that, dammit, you want a space program. Send money…”
Constellation (as currently configured) supporters will say; “But-but we’re *trying* to give you a space program! Yes, just send us money and we’ll get you one…um, eventually!”
“…and give NASA the leeway to reorganize itself…”
Good luck with that happening, without serious outside support/pressure.
“…past Apollo. Any message more complex will get lost in translation.”
Unfortunately, without specifics, it’s likely that they’ll take that to mean continuation of the status quo…
You do need to be brief, but you *do* have to say what you actually want and support.
We were talking about the Shuttle remember? The Shuttle is a spacecraft. It must reenter from space at the velocities mike said.
No, we were talking about some insane Shuttle-derived vehicle you proposed.
Once again, why do you think higher velocities means engineers ought to pay *less* attention to vehicle reliability, rather than more?
It’s not because escape capsules (which are unreliable even at low velocities) suddenly become more reliable at higher velocities. That notion is completely disproven by the actual record.
Neither you or Mike has explained that.
Airplane analogies only get us so far…
Well, the escape capsule analogy hasn’t gotten us very far — in either space or aviation. Why shouldn’t we try something that has actually worked before?