tater

The technical issues are obviously not going away (boil off), they are engineering issues that can only be dealt with to the extent possible. The political side is is the near-term issue. You can predict what the votes are based on the district. FL/TX/etc think that SLS is a jobs program vs craft that are either current, or incremental upgrades of current vehicles lofting smaller payloads to LEO, and perhaps propellants in secondary launches (refueling). Since they want the shuttle-level jobs program (a huge fraction of costs is labor), SLS. It's the reality of spending other people's money---Congress decides. Sadly they are not about maximizing bang for the buck, they are about maximizing pork to their districts.

Ions are only good for cargo, and VASIMR would require a (large) reactor anyway for a low-Isp, higher thrust dash. Marshall is doing good work on NTP, and the issues surrounding fuel (boil off) are the same with other high Isp orbital motors fueled with H2. Maybe in desperation for SLS payloads they'll finally flight test one.

I realize it's too late Congress has ruined things pretty well. In a fantasy world where anything is possible, however, canceling SLS doesn't hurt. If they were smart, they'd have dumped Orion in favor of an OTV (they called such a critter the EDS for Constellation, earlier it was the space tug) and maybe a lunar lander, and use commercial crew as the taxi to get crews to and from orbit. Of course Congress is pathologically against orbital refueling for reasons that escape anyone with a brain comprised of more than 2 neurons held together with a spirochete, so space tug is DOA. The 11 manned flights (moon program) all happened between 11 October, 1968, and 7 December 1972. That's 4 years and 2 months. If you want to be strict about it, 10 manned flights in 4 years. I have no idea where you are getting 7 launches in 4 years. You can add 3 more manned missions (Skylab) for a total of 14 manned missions in 5 years, 1 month (obviously the last 3 being IB, not a V). Saturn I did 10 launches in 4 years. There were 4 unmanned IB launches in 2 years, and 2 unmanned V launches in 2 and a half months. If we look at the calendar years 1968 to 1972, we have 13 Saturn V launches in those 5 years (2 unmanned).

They are scary to some people. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

Wow.

NASA is having trouble coming up with a single launch per year using SLS, and half or more of what they are proposing to do with it is fitting a mission to the booster, which is exactly the wrong way to do things. NASA would be better off, and accomplish more minus Ares V... sorry, SLS, and Orion. Apollo mission pacing (of the Saturn V) was 14 flights (11 manned) in just over 4 years. If NASA had a plan that needed that kind of pacing (or anything remotely close) SLS would make sense. They don't, and it doesn't.

We have carbon nanotubes. We need them grown arbitrarily long. Space elevators are marginally possible in theory on Earth, but yes, longer nanotubes are necessary technology (but not sufficient).

Thank you!

The end point would not be in orbit.

Yeah, I have SpaceY, I was wanting something that opened on top. It doesn't matter aside from aesthetics, really, it can reenter minus the fairing as is.

It's the Boeing concept from the mid 1970s. http://pmview.com/spaceodysseytwo/spacelvs/sld043.htm

Yeah, it's not a terrible idea, but it's a very impractical idea. If someone comes up with a better way to fabricate nanotube strands, then it becomes just the logistical problem (which is still stunningly difficult).

A buddy of mine is a space elevator guy... I think a key technology to make it easier would be arbitrarily long carbon nanotubes.

Cool mod, I'll have to try it out. I was always wanting a related concept from the 70s:

Seems like the bones are already in stock, the shrouded docking port, for example.

The thread said "very optimistic," not "rediculous," but the very first post was off the rails from line one of the timeline (30 SpaceX launches this year, mostly reused when they are scheduled for 14, none reused (and none likely to be)). If started a thread titled "Plausible manned space missions for 2020" and my list included a VASIMR trip to Mars I've just removed "plausible" from my title effectively.

Using some procedural tanks I was trying to make something sort of like the Boeing LEO concept, Martin Renova, Douglas SASSTO, etc (though smaller). Basically, a large, capsule shaped SSTO. Anyway, the nose needed to be a very large fairing with the payload within. It seems like a fairing that would perhaps open like a flower or clamshell (pictured above), and could then close again would be useful. Does such a mod exist? If not, is it possible?

The moral of the story is not that the DM is a bad news source. The moral is that reporters are a bad news source. Read any technical story that you know something about... and you'll find errors.

Yeah, so place one in a distant, polar orbit big enough to fly a ship through... Randomize monoliths a few places. Find one, and it beams a signal to another one (showing it as a kind of unknown object on the map). Touch that one, and it beams to another, then the last points out the stargate version.

BTW, people should not conflate a dislike for SLS with the person in question not wanting HLVs. An HLV is a great thing to have---under the assumption you have a need for an HLV. That's where I find myself agreeing with Zubrin. Not on Mars, specifically, but his observation that without a tangible, "big" goal that is actually worked towards, NASA sort of flounders and wastes time/money. What that goal is can be debated, but if you want SLS/Orion, then you need to come up with a program first, then figure out what kind of payloads you need delivered, then build the craft to do that job. Build it. Not white paper the thing looking for uses for the arbitrary design until the guys writing the white papers have white hair. 10 years is a long time to manage a first manned flight---and I'm not even counting the time spent on Constellation designing effectively the same vehicle (Ares V). If NASA wants to go cislunar, great. Do it. Bend their effort to that goal, and do that as well as it can be done. Not a 1-off, but a program of those missions. Blowing a huge % of their budget so that they can get their toes wet because they cannot afford to do more is a waste of money. I think forum members here need to realize that some of us were here for Shuttle (heck, Apollo, lol). We saw basically identical conversations that are happening here right now about planning the next step. Even with stupid STS (minus the tug and NTR ferry that formed the last S of STS), we then had to say, "Well, our moon lander will have to fit in the cargo bay..." but we still thought it might be a thing. We've had enthusiasm beaten out of us. I know people who've worked on NASA programs. They started out as anyone here in school might feel right now, and now they hope maybe something might happen, but their principal concerns have switched to socking money away for their kids' college, etc. It's frustrating, we get that, but that's reality. SLS is a direct analog of Shuttle in terms of what it does to NASA. It's isn't a way to get off Earth, it hamstrings that effort, IMO. I'd hate to see the next decade blown the same way Shuttle killed the 80s spaceflight wise.

I can't stand SLS, and I'm not a SpaceX fanboy (at least not one of the irrational ones, I'm totally fine/supportive of commercial crew and I'm glad to see any rocket company succeed).

I assume step one is heading towards PhD number one... what field?

Realistically, we can copy and paste this thread back into the forum in 10 years and it will basically be the same discussion.

HGR and Tantares both have nice Soviet parts. They tend to use a 1.875m diameter, which adds a nice difference from stock. Still, the stock parts are NOT copies of US stuff (except the shuttle cockpit), they just have the same look. So a "stock-a-like" version of CCCP stuff could be arbitrarily changed as long as they had the right feel.

I think that if they were going to add russian-inspired parts (or any others) that overlap with current parts in terms of capability (1-kerbal pod, 3 kerbal pod, etc), then they should be different enough in specifics to make use of them a pro/con choice. Better at one aspect, worse at another (if that's reasonable for the given part).