NASA SLS/Orion/Payloads

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

there is no scenario where a manned mission is faster, cheaper, safer or even higher quality, than a robotic mission.

Mechanical geologist avatar bots on surface, and organic geologists on board a Martian orbital station possessing their bodies.
No scripts which you have to program and test for days before a movement, no lightspeed delay.

Spoiler

Pay attention for the tail with a drill for samples and geological multitool held in the right manipulator.

Edited September 27, 2017 by kerbiloid

[Nikolai]

16 hours ago, tater said:

Engineering is by definition not science.

The primary definition of "engineering", as found in the 2017 Random House dictionary, is as follows: the art or science of making practical application of the knowledge of pure sciences, as physics or chemistry, as in the construction of engines, bridges, buildings, mines, ships, and chemical plants.

Sure, it uses science in its methodologies, but practical application of science is itself a form of experimentation, and thus a form of science.  They're not synonymous, but that's not a requirement.

15 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

So you are agreeing that the only thing can learn by sending humans to Mars is how to send humans to Mars. Now all you need is to find a reason to send humans to Mars in order to learn how to send humans to Mars. Circular.

I never said it wasn't circular.  You're erecting a straw man.  But circular does not imply pointlessness, and it does not imply insignificance, and it does not imply meaninglessness.

Most of what humans do is circular.  We play sports to find out who's the best at playing sports.  We have kids who may very well, in turn, have more kids.  We work in order to eat in order to get the energy to work.  We answer questions in order to ask more questions.  All of these things, and more, are circular, but observing that tells us nothing about whether or not the endeavor is worthwhile.

I believe that the more options humans have, the better off we can potentially be.  It follows from that that pursuing greater capability and greater human presence is generally a good thing.  A human race with the option to live places other than Earth are, it seems to me, better off than a human race that is stuck here.

[tater]

16 hours ago, G'th said:

DRA 5 doesn't has very much bearing on the question of who do you think will get to Mars, unless you're using as an argument in favor of NASA, in which case I question your motives.

We are commenting in a thread that specifically requires the content be related to SLS, Orion, and the DSG.

Any Mars plan that doesn't use SLS/Orion is off the table in this thread, so the DRA is what you must mean by a Mars mission in this thread. Literally nothing in the DRA has flown as flight article. If you are referring to a different Mars powerpoint mission, it belongs in a different thread.

Meanwhile, my call for probes---if the goal is science---only has to show that such sample return would mass (and hence cost, kg=dollars) substantially less than this DRA for the same sample mass returned to Earth (or sliced and studied in situ, which is also possible, actually, instead of a huge hab, land an automated geology lab that makes thin sections, and scans them for transmission).

Given the same mass/dollar budget, the mission could land more craft, in more varied locations because by far most of the mass of the crew mission is crew related.

Quote

Then you should probably try being supportive of it. Your "realism" is just pessimism, plain and simple, because if you do in fact support manned spaceflight then your continued arguments for robotic spaceflight is just hot air. Arguing over whats cheaper for zero reason, because guess what of course robots are cheaper. They're freaking robots! We can sit here and argue all day long over whats more cost effective over time spent (though you don't seem to get that you don't get funding for something that might take decades to provide some kind of return) but that has no bearing on what should be done. 

You should probably figure out which side of that aisle you want to be on and stick to it. You can't bark up the tree for one side of it and then still say you support the other side too. You either support both or you support only the one. 

I personally want to see both, because I want to see NASA's capability to explore the Solar system greatly expanded. Human's can't go everywhere, so by all means lets get the robots going too. (inb4this'llneverhappen shtick. Yes we know its unlikely, please take your pessimism and go elsewhere with it)

And i'm not getting into your "stunt" nonsense, because that just proves you have zero interest in manned spaceflight anyway. 

No, it shows I'm rational enough to realize that the reason is not science. If you argue for something with bad reasons, then when someone points out that "science" can be done cheaper, everyone realizes you've been lying to them. 

I'm honest enough to say we should want to go to Mars because it's the sort of human adventure people need, even if they don't realize it. You do science there, because why not. If the claim is that we need to learn about Mars, and only people can do it in person, though, that's wrong.

Quote

And you're confusing a not yet built and flight ready crew lander with whats impossible to build. The issues we still face with Mars has all to do with working out specific engineering kinks that we can't directly simulate. That has nothing to do with whats impossible. The fact that we've put anything on Mars at all shows that much. So all thats left is the engineering.  You seem to be under the impression that theres some great unknown thats going to make Mars impossible to land humans on. And again, this isn't the 50's. Mars is an engineering problem, and one that can and will be solved. You literally said this yourself, so either you agree with me and just don't want to get your argument straight or your just straight lying because you won't admit your wrong.

I said nothing was impossible, I said nothing has flown. The only reason I went there is your claim that I had to show you a working robot probe that was capable of collecting Mars samples. My counter is that you cannot show a working Mars spacecraft to get the working geologist there, whereas I know we can get a working robot there, we've done it many times. NASA is confident on sample collection, they've tested the drill and cache system for possible inclusion on the next rover, in fact. 

Rover sample return is mostly mature---the real unknown that they need to test is the return part, which I'm sure they'll want to do long before people go.

Quote

And thats fine. I don't expect much at this point.

Thats still just as limited as Curiosity was. Cept now its bigger and can pick up rocks. Still time limited. Still ineffective at field geology. Literally cannot do much of the other science humans can do on Mars. 

We don't have the return vehicle(s). Do you plan on sending dozens of these huge rovers to Mars or do you plan on sending one with a large return vehicle? May be you want to send a bunch of return vehicles. Thats cool, show me how many you can pack in that mass limit thats going to bring back the same variety of samples a human mission would inherently be able to bring back.  Show me the specs on the return vehicle that can not only be packed so densely but can efficiently and consistently return worthwhile samples. What do you do if the rover loses its camera or literally breaks in any way?  

Any crew return vehicle is certainly more massive than a probe return vehicle assuming both are designed to carry the same mass of samples. Say they bring back 100kg of samples (all apollo together was around 400-something kg). Crew MAV takes 100kg of samples, plus 400kg of astronauts, whereas the probe carries just the 100kg of samples.

Variety? The human exploration footprint of the manned mission is several km around the landing site, which site will have been picked specifically because it's dead flat, with as few interesting rock outcroppings as possible. The robot could be landed someplace intentionally interesting, because losing it doesn't kill anyone.

Edited September 27, 2017 by tater

[WinkAllKerb'']

well the return part, prolly require the same amount of factory, hand, brain, etc. and etc. than it require here to make something into orbit, but well it's 2017, the sun not yet reached mars so

i guess it's "needed" at some point, on the other hand i m totally out when it come to: when and how exactly and cost and media story telling expected or not return

still i tend to support, the better sooner than to late policy ...

Edited September 27, 2017 by WinkAllKerb''
and when i say sooner it has nothing to do with biped lifespan as a reference

[tater]

42 minutes ago, Nikolai said:

The primary definition of "engineering", as found in the 2017 Random House dictionary, is as follows: the art or science of making practical application of the knowledge of pure sciences, as physics or chemistry, as in the construction of engines, bridges, buildings, mines, ships, and chemical plants.

Sure, it uses science in its methodologies, but practical application of science is itself a form of experimentation, and thus a form of science.  They're not synonymous, but that's not a requirement.

Engineering is not science. That's not a slight on engineering, it's just a fact.

42 minutes ago, Nikolai said:

I never said it wasn't circular.  You're erecting a straw man.  But circular does not imply pointlessness, and it does not imply insignificance, and it does not imply meaninglessness.

I never said it did, I in fact said exactly the opposite, that human spaceflight was worth doing just to do it... "because it's there."

42 minutes ago, Nikolai said:

Most of what humans do is circular.  We play sports to find out who's the best at playing sports.  We have kids who may very well, in turn, have more kids.  We work in order to eat in order to get the energy to work.  We answer questions in order to ask more questions.  All of these things, and more, are circular, but observing that tells us nothing about whether or not the endeavor is worthwhile.

I believe that the more options humans have, the better off we can potentially be.  It follows from that that pursuing greater capability and greater human presence is generally a good thing.  A human race with the option to live places other than Earth are, it seems to me, better off than a human race that is stuck here.

I agree, as I said countless times, I just don't pretend that it's for some "greater" reason than just because people should expand human horizons.

Given the required subject of this thread, SLS/Orion/DSG (the last is supposed to include testing of possible Mars transit habs), I think that it's reasonable to also consider timelines.

No crew mission is going to Mars in any less than 20 years aboard anything launched by SLS. I think this is an uncontroversial statement. Any crew mission would in fact have to be predicated on landing some of the stuff ahead of time at the very least as a proof of concept for the landing tech---if the first pre-placed stuff makes a crater,, then they need to redesign everything.

What are the chances SLS is still flying in 20 years, given New Glenn, ITSy, and possibly at that point New Armstrong, and whatever SpaceX might come up with? If you don't think SLS will be flying in even 10, then any Mars talk in THIS thread is pointless, because it will not involve SLS.

[StarStreak2109]

I'll just leave this here...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4925126/Russia-create-Deep-Space-Gateway.html

TLDR: Roscosmos and NASA to cooperate on DSG...

 

[tater]

This is far more likely to actually involve SLS/Orion, as the timeframe is such that there is a chance both will still exist during possible mission timeframes. SLS will certainly fly a few times until there is a clear commercial replacement that makes the project look like the vast waste of money that it is.

[kerbiloid]

18 minutes ago, tater said:

Crew MAV takes 100kg of samples, plus 400kg of astronauts, whereas the probe carries just the 100kg of samples.

If equip a Martian rover with AGL, samples would be more diverse, it could dig mini-craters from distance and gather samples from the underlying layers.

Spoiler

 

[wumpus]

1 hour ago, tater said:

What are the chances SLS is still flying in 20 years, given New Glenn, ITSy, and possibly at that point New Armstrong, and whatever SpaceX might come up with? If you don't think SLS will be flying in even 10, then any Mars talk in THIS thread is pointless, because it will not involve SLS.

SLS isn't flying now, but that hasn't stopped this thread.  I'm reasonably sure that an unmanned SLS will fly at least once, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if funding continued for 20 more years whether or not they launch a second rocket.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if one of the reasons Blue Origin built a facility out at Marshal Flight Center (Alabama) was to try to scoop up some SLS funding.

If you can convince the Senate that SLS needs to go to Mars to keep the pork going, then SLS will be funded for Mars.  Since the thing is simply overpowered for almost any other use (it looks like what happens when a KSP player simply designs for delta-v without looking at any mission requirements), this might just work (or it might kill SLS.  You never know how things work out in Congress).

[tater]

I'm certain SLS will fly, and likely several times---the sunk cost fallacy is deeply ingrained in government.

That said, given that I have trouble imagining even a precursor mission to Mars with crew inside of 20 years using SLS/Orion, and given that the commercial (reusable! cheaper!) alternatives will likely be several, I don't think the current DRA is very predictive in specifics. I think the overall mechanism---a sort of modified Mars Direct---is what they would go for (they want redundancies not in Mars Direct, or even SpaceX notions) is sound, and the specifics of stage diameters might change given new LV realities.

[tater]

 

Here's Lockmart's powerpoint version of Mars. The idea that this goes in 10 years is pretty unlikely, but it's certainly (short of the lander part) not impossible within 20. The redundancy they show is pretty critical (and they get to sell NASA 2 of everything at a gajillion $ each) since current life support systems are prone to... issues. The shame of such a system (IMO) is that it seems to leave no infrastructure. It's hard to tell from the vid if the 2 elements meet at Mars, or travel to Mars as a unit.

[tater]

EDIT ^^^: re-watched it, looks like it leaves cislunar space as one unit. 2X Orions, etc. 

[sh1pman]

 

8 hours ago, tater said:

This is far more likely to actually involve SLS/Orion, as the timeframe is such that there is a chance both will still exist during possible mission timeframes. SLS will certainly fly a few times until there is a clear commercial replacement that makes the project look like the vast waste of money that it is.

Why do they need a cooperation on DSG with the Russians? Roscosmos doesn't have a super heavy launch vehicle, and probably won't have it in the foreseeable future. 

[insert_name]

8 hours ago, tater said:

This is far more likely to actually involve SLS/Orion, as the timeframe is such that there is a chance both will still exist during possible mission timeframes. SLS will certainly fly a few times until there is a clear commercial replacement that makes the project look like the vast waste of money that it is.

Russia cant seem to get their remaining ISS modules finished, color me skeptical that they can make lunar orbiting modules, let alone launch them

[tater]

10 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

 

Why do they need a cooperation on DSG with the Russians? Roscosmos doesn't have a super heavy launch vehicle, and probably won't have it in the foreseeable future. 

For the same reason they were involved with ISS. (Hint:geopolitics, not engineering)

[sh1pman]

Just now, tater said:

For the same reason they were involved with ISS. (Hint:geopolitics, not engineering)

But I mean, what can they even do? You can't expect Protons and Soyuz to make it to lunar orbit. And they aren't going to build anything heavier any time soon. Use SLS to haul some Russian-designed modules up there? That's kinda lame.

[Canopus]

4 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

But I mean, what can they even do? You can't expect Protons and Soyuz to make it to lunar orbit. And they aren't going to build anything heavier any time soon. Use SLS to haul some Russian-designed modules up there? That's kinda lame.

I read some months ago that they where building an airlock for the station that would likely be launched on an SLS. I don‘t know if thats the plan anymore though.

[sh1pman]

4 minutes ago, Canopus said:

I read some months ago that they where building an airlock for the station that would likely be launched on an SLS. I don‘t know if thats the plan anymore though.

Doesn't sound like much, does it?

[tater]

Russia would love to go to the Moon, I think, and as the current premier manned space power (the US cannot even launch crew right now, grrrr), it makes a lot of sense to include them.

[tater]

Lockmart streaming their IAC presentation tomorrow:

 

[sh1pman]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

Russia would love to go to the Moon, I think, and as the current premier manned space power (the US cannot even launch crew right now, grrrr), it makes a lot of sense to include them.

Well, it's just hard to see the potential benefit from this cooperation, because from the technical side of things they're much further behind the US in both building station modules and getting them to the Moon. Maybe they're great at building airlocks, I don't know. 

[tater]

1 minute ago, sh1pman said:

Well, it's just hard to see the potential benefit from this cooperation, because from the technical side of things they're much further behind the US in both building station modules and getting them to the Moon. Maybe they're great at building airlocks, I don't know. 

The same is true of all the "international" space stuff. One outfit does all the heavy lifting (and/or check writing), everyone else slaps a flag on it. 

[Ten Key]

4 hours ago, tater said:

Russia would love to go to the Moon, I think, and as the current premier manned space power (the US cannot even launch crew right now, grrrr), it makes a lot of sense to include them.

Meanwhile, NASA (or, at least Congress) would love to have some payloads for SLS, even if only on paper. 

[tater]

Yeah, SLS has always been a rocket hunting for payloads. If they can get funding, then DSG can be a thing. The other players who are interested will need to get there, however, SLS cannot launch stuff not worth the cost of SLS.

[kerbiloid]

6 hours ago, sh1pman said:

Why do they need a cooperation on DSG with the Russians?

Do you suggest to India do this alone?

SLS is still as ready as Angara.