[New] Space Launch System / Orion Discussion Thread

[tater]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The stairways.

They certainly help, but it doesn't bring it home as well as a person would in the frame.

[tater]

 

Video with people.

[tater]

Meanwhile, at the same facility ~52 years ago:

Course they were also making these:

And of course the second and third stages of Saturn V (and stage 2 of S Ib) as well.

[RCgothic]

Wow that's depressing.

[tater]

2 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

Wow that's depressing.

NASA did have ~2X the money in constant dollars as they do now...

[Elro2k]

This might be a noob question but what are the red accents on the RS-25 bells? Are they there for some sort of safety reason or is it just for looks?

[RCgothic]

Twice the money, eight times as many first stages. I guess the relationship of space expenditure to rockets is cubic.

[tater]

6 minutes ago, Elro2k said:

This might be a noob question but what are the red accents on the RS-25 bells? Are they there for some sort of safety reason or is it just for looks?

I wondered that as well.

Image from last page to clarify:

[Barzon]

perhaps they hold the nozzles in place? I've seen slomo footage of STS flights with the nozzles flexing during ignition.

[tater]

40 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

Twice the money, eight times as many first stages. I guess the relationship of space expenditure to rockets is cubic.

The S-1C (first stage Saturn V) was substantially heavier, though about 2/3 the length (and 10m vs 8) of SLS Core Stage, so they probably map about 1:1 in terms of effort. The S-IB stages (Saturn I first stage) are way smaller. That said, Saturn S-II (stage 2) was about half the mass of SLS core, and had 5 J-2 engines... and they must have been making 4 of those as well. Plus 4 S-IVB stages, and 4 S-IVB-200s for the 4 Saturn Ib boosters... The 4 Saturn Ib rockets about equal 1 SLS in terms of throw to LEO, and the 4 Saturn Vs are more like 7 SLS Block 1 rockets in throw to TLI (5 Block 1B). So in throw it's still a poor deal in constant dollars. More importantly each Saturn V is a complete mission in being as it were. You need multiple SLS to do anything.

It's tough because in the Apollo era there was a reason for a production line mentality. Each rocket stack is a Moon landing. Goal, tool to achieve goal (Saturn V stack), production line. There is no goal for which SLS was developed, it's an arbitrary tonnage to LEO or throw to TLI/escape. Given that capability, clearly Orion/etc should have been designed to achieve the goal (whatever that is) within that arbitrary throw.

Since Block 1 was never supposed to be a thing (past an uncrewed test flight for the right sort of EDL tests), Block 1b is a better benchmark. That's 36-37t to TLI. Less than Saturn V. If that was the choice for SLS, then they should have used modern materials tech to reduce the mass of the capsule so that they could do whatever the mission goal was in 1 flight of Block 1b. We know a minimal lander is like 16t, so they really needed the Orion CSM to be ~20t, all in.

If the fundamental physics limits of "Shuttle derived" (not really a thing once SLS changed so many parts) was Block 1b, then Orion is the problem. If it would have been possible to make a rocket with existing engines (or only needing the 2 billion in dev money we paid AJ for 16 used engines that we had already bought) that could loft Orion with a decent SM and a lander, then doing SLS right would have made more sense. Or some combination of a lighter CM, and better SLS.

CST-100 is 13t including the weak SM (fine for ISS, obviously). Very much in the Apollo size range for just the capsule I think (5t?). That still requires something like Saturn V level throw to work. SLS always needed to be bigger to be able to do missions as a man rated vehicle. If it was just cargo, then it's distributed launch and not as critical. It simply makes no sense as a crew rated LV given what it can do, and the spacecraft it launches.

19 minutes ago, Barzon said:

perhaps they hold the nozzles in place? I've seen slomo footage of STS flights with the nozzles flexing during ignition.

Would be cool to see super close ups of them.

 

 

A huge ACES (as the upper stage) might well be able to do TLI, and LOI, which would reduce the required mass of the Orion SM (indeed the one they have might suffice), but then they'd still need a lighter lander. They need like 5 tons...

Edited November 11, 2019 by tater

[RCgothic]

I wonder if red components are a colour code for "not for flight", e.g. supports or blanking plugs that need to be removed before the rocket reaches the pad.

Edited November 11, 2019 by RCgothic

[Elro2k]

I hope whatever they are that they'll stay on during flight. They add a "hot rod" racing stripe aesthetic to the engines

[tater]

44 minutes ago, Elro2k said:

I hope whatever they are that they'll stay on during flight. They add a "hot rod" racing stripe aesthetic to the engines

RS-25 is a gorgeous engine to start with. Gotta love 'em.

[tater]

 

[Reactordrone]

9 hours ago, RCgothic said:

I wonder if red components are a colour code for "not for flight", e.g. supports or blanking plugs that need to be removed before the rocket reaches the pad.

I thought that. The ring around the bottom of the engine bell looks like it's held on with velcro strips.

[ZooNamedGames]

11 hours ago, Reactordrone said:

I thought that. The ring around the bottom of the engine bell looks like it's held on with velcro strips.

I can't speak for rockets, but I do know that when mechanics in aviation want to lock out a part and or label it for "Do Not Operate" they attach a red REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT tag that is commonly seen on aircraft and rockets. Often those tags actually plug into some piece of hardware like a joint or a pivot point (in aircraft, often the flaps, slats, spoilers, elevators, rudder, ailerons, landing gear, cockpit canopy... basically anything that moves). By plugging these in, they physically lock the parts movement, ensuring nobody could be injured by the accidental operation of that part. Sometimes it can even go so far as to disable the parts electrical system as well (cutting a break, circuit, etc).

Though that's aircraft. I expect that it'd likely be more symbolic showing that the engine is not yet checked out for flight and will be checklist item #233 when they begin the green run at stennis. " #233 - Remove DO NOT OPERATE tags. "

[Retro Starship]

This is my humble opinion, but the color issues shown with the RS-25 engines and really many of its components are used to give technicians or someone observing the complexity of the machine itself a visual reference. Like the colors that were used on everything from the Jupiter C all the way to the Saturns and so forth, white and black stripes for visual rotation indicators or red areas here for possible positional info are used. This also was for detailed component locations. Here is one (below) where some have red except for a few and many show pipes up above for location. Even with aircraft as well, red was used for protection and should be removed before flight, as a visual indicator. These though with the engines just location.

Again being a tech once, colors like this was always used as a reason in helping you get better info about it. IMHO

Look at the yellow...dont use me!!

(Wow, these engines are beautiful!)

 

Edited November 12, 2019 by Saturn5tony

[ZooNamedGames]

1 hour ago, Saturn5tony said:

This is my humble opinion, but the color issues shown with the RS-25 engines and really many of its components are used to give technicians or someone observing the complexity of the machine itself a visual reference. Like the colors that were used on everything from the Jupiter C all the way to the Saturns and so forth, white and black stripes for visual rotation indicators or red areas here for possible positional info are used. This also was for detailed component locations. Here is one (below) where some have red except for a few and many show pipes up above for location. Even with aircraft as well, red was used for protection and should be removed before flight, as a visual indicator. These though with the engines just location.

Again being a tech once, colors like this was always used as a reason in helping you get better info about it. IMHO

Look at the yellow...dont use me!!

(Wow, these engines are beautiful!)

Well tubing in particular in aviation refers to the material the piping is made of. Red for copper(?), blue for aluminum and black for steel. Any color or symbolic icons on an aircraft can imply what fluid its moving. Again, this is aircraft rules- anything goes with rockets, but perhaps this has some sort of indication of what they mean. The red undoubtedly refers to "REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT" and are lock out banners preventing operation of a certain part. 

[RCgothic]

Yellow is frequently lifting or handling equipment, I think that's pretty common across industries.

[ZooNamedGames]

7 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

Yellow is frequently lifting or handling equipment, I think that's pretty common across industries.

Yeah, those stands aren't part of the engines so I really don't factor them in. 

[tater]

1 hour ago, Saturn5tony said:

(Wow, these engines are beautiful!)

They aught  to be. That image literally shows just over 1 billion dollars worth of hardware (not counting whatever the cost was to refurb them over their previous lifetime of use on Shuttle, I just added the 40M$ each new they cost to the 127M$ cost that AJ got paid to ready each of them for SLS.

Edited November 12, 2019 by tater

[jadebenn]

On 11/11/2019 at 4:22 PM, Elro2k said:

I hope whatever they are that they'll stay on during flight. They add a "hot rod" racing stripe aesthetic to the engines

I don't think they will. They weren't visible on the same engines when they were test-fired. I think those speculating that they're supposed to be removed before flight, and that the red coloration is used to make their presence (or lack thereof) stand out have the right idea.

 

Edited November 13, 2019 by jadebenn

[tater]

14 minutes ago, jadebenn said:

I don't think they will. They weren't visible on the same engines when they were test-fired. I think those speculating that they're supposed to be removed before flight, and that the red coloration is used to make their presence (or lack thereof) stand out have the right idea.

Some of the tubing along the side of the bell is also red, which made me wonder about removal...

Edited November 13, 2019 by tater

[ZooNamedGames]

59 minutes ago, tater said:

Some of the tubing along the side of the bell is also red, which made me wonder about removal...

Which is why I suggested aviation tubing standards.

[kerbiloid]

7 hours ago, tater said:

Some of the tubing along the side of the bell is also red, which made me wonder about removal...

They are not always red.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Probably, it's "Scratch with sandpaper before firing".

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by kerbiloid