FishInferno Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 It wouldn't change anything. Even if the Atlas does blow up, it has no bearing on the Orion program.Well why not save the capsule? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brotoro Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 No Atlas.Delta IV Heavy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nibb31 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Well why not save the capsule?Why spend extra money to save it? It's expendable. It's just going to a museum and it won't contain anything useful if the launch is aborted anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motokid600 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 It wouldn't change anything. Even if the Atlas does blow up, it has no bearing on the Orion program.The Orion is on top of the DeltaIV. If the rocket fails ( and it wont ) its taking the Orion with it. Itd make for a MUCH better image/outcome if the capsule was saved. Both for public and financial support. "No bearing on the Orion program" Lol well seeing is how the Orion would be destroyed im pretty confident that would impact the program. That's just silly to think otherwise... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nibb31 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 The Orion is on top of the DeltaIV. If the rocket fails ( and it wont ) its taking the Orion with it. Itd make for a MUCH better image/outcome if the capsule was saved. Both for public and financial support. "No bearing on the Orion program" Lol well seeing is how the Orion would be destroyed im pretty confident that would impact the program. That's just silly to think otherwise...Orion is not reusable. This Orion is just a test article. Who cares if it's destroyed. It's as expendable as all the other Orions that will follow. Once they have flown, they will end up in museums. So no, losing one test article because of the launcher will have no bearing on the Orion program. They will just have to launch another one on the same rocket, or wait until SLS. If the Delta fails, it says nothing about Orion because Orion is not supposed to ever again fly on a Delta rocket. As for image, if the test is a failure, it's a failure. Saving the test article on top will have zero impact, since it has zero value. It's pretty easy to explain to the public that a live LES on an unmanned test article would just cost more for no justifiable reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motokid600 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Who cares if it's destroyed.The media. Who are just looking for any chance they can get to call space flight a waste of money... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nibb31 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 The media.1) No they won't. They will just talk about the failure. Then they will move on to Kim and Kanye.2) Even a 5 year old kid can understand that there's no point in spending $10 million just to have pictures of an Orion coming down on parachute in the 1 out of 1000 chances that the Delta rocket blows up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GigaG Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 Orion is designed to be partially reusable (although it will probably just be parts, I guess - the ocean water from the splashdown will not do anything good to the structure), but considering that this is essentially a prototype outfitted for unmanned flight, I doubt much of it will go into future Orion flights. If, God forbid, the Delta IV Heavy blows up during launch, having an abort system would do little good - maybe it would alleviate a small bit of sadness, but is that worth so much money?On another note, I wonder if the escape tower is filled with dummy weight like water, metal, etc. to simulate the weight of the solid fuel that is usually inside. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motokid600 Posted December 3, 2014 Share Posted December 3, 2014 1) No they won't. They will just talk about the failure.The media feeds on bad publicity. They will no dout mention and bash the cost of the fireball just as they did with Antares... NASA needs public support today more then ever. All im saying is IF the rocket were to fail. The image of the capsule being saved would be much better for the future of the program. Not sure how anyone could argue against that...But alas.. this is all moot. Because as you said. 1/1000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nibb31 Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 On another note, I wonder if the escape tower is filled with dummy weight like water, metal, etc. to simulate the weight of the solid fuel that is usually inside.Yes, it's an inert mass simulator.The media feeds on bad publicity. They will no dout mention and bash the cost of the fireball just as they did with Antares... Yes, and having the capsule come down on a parachute instead of blowing up wouldn't turn the bad publicity into good publicity. It would still be a failure.And if the launch is successful, then you get bashed for wasting $10 million on a launch escape rocket for an unmanned prototype (and it's probably much more expensive than that). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motokid600 Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 (edited) It'd make for a nice silver lining in such an accident. But okay.. fair enough.wait... $10million Is it really that much money for the escape motors?Edit: Anyone know the time of splashdown? Edited December 4, 2014 by Motokid600 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GigaG Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 ^The escape motor is a series of smallish, but very powerful solid rockets. They have to be reliable and very powerful - I've heard they produce a short burst of thrust more powerful than the Atlas missile that propelled John Glenn into orbit. On another note, in KSP, the escape tower is similarly powerful relative to other rocket engines - it has 750 thrust, IIRC, more than a Skipper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B787_300 Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 also they would need to get the capsule back to get most data, they are not going to be contantly streaming data down it is one of the reasons they need to recover it. also as to why it would be good to get the data for an abort is because all data is useful, and it would be nice to know that it works and what accelerations and what not are conveyed by the system in the event of a real abort under flight conditions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwenting Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 If anything goes wrong, the whole project will be scrapped, period.Some congresscritter, somewhere, will use the failure to gain political brownie points by stating manned spaceflight is a waste of money, too dangerous, and we shouldn't do it.Someone else will one up that congresscritter and claim that ALL spaceflight is a waste of money and NASA should be defunded.And with an $18 trillion deficit the administration will be all too quick to cut funding and siphon the money into something else, something else that makes them look better for the upcoming elections.Yes, it's politics. And yes, space flight IS politics, at least when performed by government agencies using government funding that's dished out by politicians. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nibb31 Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 (edited) ^The escape motor is a series of smallish, but very powerful solid rockets. They have to be reliable and very powerful - I've heard they produce a short burst of thrust more powerful than the Atlas missile that propelled John Glenn into orbit. On another note, in KSP, the escape tower is similarly powerful relative to other rocket engines - it has 750 thrust, IIRC, more than a Skipper.It also has its own avionics and liquid attitude control engines, as well as separation/jettison motors. It's a pretty complex system. I don't know the exact price difference between a live LAS and an inert one, of course, but several million dollars seems in the ballpark, and it seems reasonable to use that money elsewhere if there is no point in spending it.Also as to why it would be good to get the data for an abort is because all data is useful, and it would be nice to know that it works and what accelerations and what not are conveyed by the system in the event of a real abort under flight conditionsThe LES had its own test campaign to provide data about abort conditions (including the PA-1 test).Data from the launch is not useful for this test, because it will never launch under these conditions again. After EFT-1, Orion MPCV will only ever fly on the SLS, which has a different flight profile. This test flight is only to test high-speed re-entry and some of the avionics systems in space. An abort from the Delta Heavy would not provide much reliable data that would concern an abort from an SLS. Edited December 4, 2014 by Nibb31 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m_robber Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Is there any reason why they chose not to have an active escape system - wouldn't it be worth it to save the capsule in case of catastrophic failure of the launch vehicle? That would suck, of course, but at least you'd get data on the escape system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lunniy Korabl Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Since they already performed that test, I suppose they're just saving money. I was under the impression the escape motors were fired during escape tower jettison though, which is something they are testing. Does anyone know what the difference is? Are they using a different motor for jettison or is the difference to do with escape capability being disabled in some other way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kryten Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Jettison is by different motor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m_robber Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Since they already performed that test, I suppose they're just saving money. I was under the impression the escape motors were fired during escape tower jettison though, which is something they are testing. Does anyone know what the difference is? Are they using a different motor for jettison or is the difference to do with escape capability being disabled in some other way.As Kryten said, jettison is a different motor. I didn't know the abort test had already been done, but I would have thought that an active escape mechanism would have been worth it to save the vehicle, just in case of catastrophic failure of the Delta Heavy. But I'm sure NASA has it reasons - hopefully Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nibb31 Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 (edited) Is there any reason why they chose not to have an active escape system - wouldn't it be worth it to save the capsule in case of catastrophic failure of the launch vehicle? That would suck, of course, but at least you'd get data on the escape system.We've been discussing the reason for 2 pages now.By launching a dummy LAS, you save the cost of the attitude motors, the abort motors, and all the avionics that go inside. If they had put a live LAS on EFT-1, people would be complaining about wasting money just to potentially save a prototype that will be retired to a museum after the test anyway.Since they already performed that test, I suppose they're just saving money. I was under the impression the escape motors were fired during escape tower jettison though, which is something they are testing. Does anyone know what the difference is? Are they using a different motor for jettison or is the difference to do with escape capability being disabled in some other way.The jettison motors are separate from the abort motors. This is probably because they are solids and have to be fired in two phases, and also because it would be dangerous to jettison the tower with the full thrust of the abort motors. Edited December 4, 2014 by Nibb31 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m_robber Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Thanks for the info - didn't see the previous posts on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethon Posted December 4, 2014 Author Share Posted December 4, 2014 Countdown on hold. Another boat on the range, and some higher than nominal winds. Still hoping for a go! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethon Posted December 4, 2014 Author Share Posted December 4, 2014 Hold, no hold, go, no go. C'mon baby. 1hr 45 min left in the window. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethon Posted December 4, 2014 Author Share Posted December 4, 2014 Scrub, scrub, scrub. We'll rendezvous back here tomorrow and try it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 So ANOTHER boat. I understand it's not the main cause of launch delays, but nevertheless.What is NASA/USA/Coast Guard practices about those boats in the restricted zones? Restricted zone is in US waters, or it's in international waters too?So any foreign power can pay a captain to go into that area and cause launch delay/abort without any significant consequences to captain and crew? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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