Orion program delayed 2 years

[AngelLestat]

Sorry, but you've been drinking the Kool-Aid and have no idea what the experts in the field think of strong AI. Kurzwiel is not an expert. He's in it to sell books. Get a clue, if the people in a field tell you something can't be done, most likely they are not the "stupid" ones. There is no evidence that can prove that exponential advancement will continue and mounting evidence that it won't. There is a point of diminishing returns with all technology.

Increible, so many errors in only one paragraph. You know that the average prediction from all experts working in the AI field is 2040 (this is the date when learning machines will surpass the human in all task)

Second, if you take a look to my huge post, I never mention Kurzwiel, in fact I never read much about him, neither the 20 or 40 min video that is in youtube, the only thing I know about him is that he uses a different definition of singularity from the one I use.

The evidence of exponential advancement is pure logical, and can not be false. And there is not point of diminishing return able to put a stop to it.

If you want to keep your idea to sleep better on nights, be my guest, but if you really want to know how deep is the rabbit hole, then read the link I gave you with all their links, and if you still are not convince, then tell us the part where we are wrong. Or you can drop any excuse with bad words against us, and leave the discussion before we show you how few things you know.

Calling anyone "stupid" who doesn't do things the way you think they should be done is doing you no favors. Read more. Comment less.

Ok, make a quote of me calling them "stupids", Let me reflect your advice: Read More. Comment less.

Saying than NASA not always has the best solutions is very different than calling them stupids. More when those decisions are taken into account by silly internal policies and management.

You don't know what kind of sensors are required to analyse a chemical product automatically, and neither do I, because that development work has not been done.

Why you include me in your ignorance? Here there is a lot of different mechanism to analyze chemicals:

1- electrochemical sensors (detect signal changes caused by an electrical current being passed through electrodes that interact with chemicals)

2- optical sensors (changes in visible light or other electromagnetic waves in the interaction.)

3- chromatography and spectrometry (separation of complex mixtures by percolation through a selectively adsorbing medium and subsequent detection of compounds of interest)

4- mass sensors (disturbances and changes to the mass of the surface of the sensor during interaction)

Then you have very simple sensors that work just for one compound, measuring the amount (porcentage-purity) of a single compound in a mix. That is enoght for fuels, because you can assure that you will have combustion with certain grade of purity not matter what other compund you may have (is not for drinking).

Here is one of many:

http://www.bluesens.com/english/products/allgassensors/bcp-ch4-sensor.html

You can use 2 or 3 different types of sensors to be sure, even a mass spectometer is a "must have" in any manned mission.

Sorry.. but your "too risky" last excuse totally fail.

You can't be sure that there are no flaws in a system before you have certified it, which means going through the whole harvesting/transformation/storage/transfer/utilization cycle several times with unmanned in-situ testing. Hence iterations. With Mars windows opening every two years, and assuming that testing results could be translated into design changes instantly, it would take at least 2 years between each iteration from TRL 6 to 9. And that ignores the actual R&D that needs to happen in between each iteraration.

I already explain this in the last post... all this is just nonsense for space exploration. And it does not add safety, because the process of depuration of tech is so time consuming and expensive that you come out with a worst and limited technology (which add risk for being inneficient) than the one you will get without so many pointless certifications.

Sending up the same equipment twice doesn't protect you against a design fault. For example, the backup plan for the star tracker on Apollo was to use a sextant. The backup plan in case the docking ring failed was to use EVA. The only possible backup plan for an architecture that relies on ISRU is to bring your own fuel with you.

What??? if you want to compare, make a good comparison!!! One thing has nothing to do with the other.

Tell me how a single vehicle with fuel is more safe than 2 (1 with already fuel in the tanks, and another able to produce that fuel, with the benefic they land with a lot less density which is more safe and easy to do, plus 2 in case one fails, you can even exchange components from one to the other). Come on.. use your logic.. is not hard.

You're saying that the people working in the space industry are stupid, which again is simply insulting and ignorant.

The insulting is that you dont know to read or understand the most basic logic rules.

NASA is a political organisation, which is under scrutiny. They don't play with the lives of their astronauts and they can't afford to cut corners on safety.

They play with the live of people even if they dont wanted, with their silly policies that stop them to use the best solution for each case.

Also an exploration agency needs to take risks.. You dont go anywhere without taken risk. Astronauts needs to understand those risk, and balance their own decision (take the risk with the possibility to become the person with the biggest achievement in our age, or stay in home?)

All days die thousands of people due wars, and better for you if we dont analize the causes of many of those wars..

Doing I really have to point out how silly that sounds? Luckily for everyone, that is not how real space programs are handled.

haha, sorry if I can think by my own and you cant. Again focus into criticize other people ideas without even pointing a flaw. I come out with that idea just thinking 1 min about it, if I have a full day to think I will come out with a much better idea.

Also why they will die? Is an extra... an option that you will not even have in a normal NASA mission.

And the best you can do in the first mars mission, is to test ISRU methods to reduce the cost of next mission and make them more safe. Because you can not call to earth for more resources.

Mars water extraction is heavily complicated by the fact that the stuff in the ground is laced with perchlorate.

It is, I always said that is easier to extract water from venus than from mars, because you do it from the atmosphere it self.

But you can come out with an idea that might work, being light enoght to not represent any disadvantage in the payload. If does not work, you learn that it does not work and find a better way to improve it for the next mission. And if it works and you are in a position that you needed to survive.. then better to have it before nothing.

Edited September 20, 2015 by AngelLestat

[G'th]

They play with the live of people even if they dont want it, with their silly policies that stop them to use the best solution for each case.

There's a difference between taking a risk and being reckless. Going into space period is a risk. Going into space without proven and reliable technology and equipment is reckless. Read your history. The entire reason we didn't just go straight for the Moon after Mercury is because we needed to prove that it was even possible in the first place, and no amount of theoreticals was going to cut it for ANYONE. And thus, Project Gemini was born, where we built and tested the technology needed to go to the Moon. We couldn't just slap together some equipment and just go to the Moon.

And its the same situation we face with Mars. Its no question that we have a greater understanding of space travel than we did back then, but that doesn't change the fact that the technology needs to be proven before we can actually send anyone. And regardless of how "silly" you may think that is, fact of the matter is that the moment an astronaut dies because of some flaw in the system that could have been fixed is the moment you lose public support (and very likely end up with a backlash), and with that goes your funding.

Whether you do this on the ISS, during a stepping stone Lunar program, or even the old fashioned way with a Gemini-like program, it doesn't matter. No one, not NASA, not SpaceX, no one is going to go to Mars without proving that the equipment can actually do it.

If does not work, you learn that it does not work and find a better way to improve it for the next mission

And if you're entire crew dies because you brought faulty equipment you don't get to have a next mission. You suggest this to anyone on the PLANET who works on anything like this and they'll laugh in your face. And you can't just bring unproven equipment along with proven stuff, for one thats not cost effective and two, if you can go to Mars and back without the new equipment, then WHY BOTHER WITH IT AT ALL? The main goal of any initial manned mission to Mars is going to be the first landing. If that could be done with current equipment and within NASA's budget they would have done so already. But thats the problem. No one has the equipment that can do it, and nobody has the budget.

[AngelLestat]

Is not reckless, nobody is saying launch something without the minimun tests, but NASA goes way beyond that until the point that is complete pointless and more risky.

First, you can never be 100% sure that something will work, to be 95% sure is super cheap, 98% --> more expensive --> 99%--> a lot more expensive --> 99.9% you dont have enoght money.

You reach a point, that all the extra money you need to spent to be a bit more sure, it can be spent it to develope new redundant mechanism or technologies that increase the safety even further.

Take a look to dragonv2, its escape abort system is more safe and efficient than the old one that use orion. At the same time gain redundancy as a landing method (and you can choose where to land which add safety). It can be also used as extra deltaV needed in a emergency.

And they did all that with even less money, so they have extra money to spent in other safety measures if they want.

The heat shield is also better, it can in theory also resist an earth rentry from mars, which right now I hear that the Orion heatshield needs modifications to be able to resist that.. And that taking into account that the shape of Orion is better for aerobrake than dragonv2.

Not to do ISRU, increase the danger of the mission by many reasons that I already mention.

And if you're entire crew dies because you brought faulty equipment you don't get to have a next mission.

There is something called logic.. that you seems to complete skip in your answer.

I already explain this 3 times.. how hard it can be?

Example: You have the NASA mission that carries 1000 liters of water for said.. then you have my mission that carries 990 liters of water and the 10kg device that is designed to extract water.

Lets imagine that the astronauts needs only 600 liters to accomplish the mission as is expected.

What happen if you have a contingency with your water supply? Those extra 10 liters than Nasa has will help more than a device that was designed to extract 5 to 10 liters by day if it works? No.. so even if this device was not test it in mars, you still have a lot more chances to survive with it than without it.

That is basic logic. And nasa policies works against all those benefics.

SpaceX for example, can design a better heavy launcher, an interplanetary capsule with higher safety, and still it would spent at least 5 times less money. With that extra money, you can launch a lot of vehicles to gain redundancy if "safety is so important".

But as I said, it should not be the most important.. To explore you should take risk.. saying this is not equal to said "no test", what it means is leave the fail policies from nasa who does not increase safety and waste a lot of money, time and resources.

[Frozen_Heart]

better heavy launcher

Falcon Heavy is not a true heavy launcher. 20 tons to orbit is a lot but nothing compared to the 70 tons of the SLS. Yes I know everyone keeps saying 54 tons but that is with fuel crossfeed and expendable. Crossfeed is no longer being worked on and SpaceX plans to reuse all 3 cores which will cut the payload in half.

an interplanetary capsule with higher safety

Dragon is not interplanetary. Its electronics need massively upgrading and rad hardening for that. Their method is much better for LEO but further than that it will just get fried.

spent at least 5 times less money

Ok I do agree here. SpaceX is massively more efficient with their money than NASA, and companies like Boeing or Lockheed.

[Bill Phil]

20 tonnes is heavy. 70 is super-heavy. Or is Proton not a heavy launcher? Delta IV Heavy with its 20 something tonnes?

Personally, I believe a heavy launcher could be made in many ways. But there's quite a lot of better ways.

[TMS]

Coulple of points:

One, the article basically says very little, other than indicating that timelines are being adjusted to cover managerial asses against possible problems.

Two, SpaceX haven't done anything other than stick a few cargo runs up to the ISS. That's great, but it isn't interplanetary, it isn't heavy lift and it isn't currently manned. Everything else is hypotheticals and PR.

Three, everyone's an expert when it comes to NASA's failings.

[Kryten]

Saying we should switch to Spacex because of delays is frankly hilarious. When is falcon heavy supposed to fly, again?

[SargeRho]

Saying we should switch to Spacex because of delays is frankly hilarious. When is falcon heavy supposed to fly, again?

Early 2016.

[AngelLestat]

Frozen hart and Bill: I was saying that Spacex can design a better SLS and Orion, when I said heavy launcher I was talking of a similar rocket than the SLS, and when I said a better capsule, I was saying a better capsule to go mars.

And taking into account their accomplishes in rockets and capsules plus new technology... I will said is totally possible without question.

[Guest]

20 tonnes is heavy. 70 is super-heavy. Or is Proton not a heavy launcher? Delta IV Heavy with its 20 something tonnes?

Proton and Delta IV Heavy are classified as heavy launchers, IIRC.

[Frozen_Heart]

Frozen hart and Bill: I was saying that Spacex can design a better SLS and Orion, when I said heavy launcher I was talking of a similar rocket than the SLS, and when I said a better capsule, I was saying a better capsule to go mars.

And taking into account their accomplishes in rockets and capsules plus new technology... I will said is totally possible without question.

We don't know that yet. I know they plan to so we'll be able to see how well they do, which i'm hyped for. At the moment all they have done is a launch vehicle and cargo capsule. (Both of which I admit are brilliant compared to the competition)

[fredinno]

Early 2016.

The point here is that SpaceX isn't good at meeting deadlines like that.

- - - Updated - - -

Is not reckless, nobody is saying launch something without the minimun tests, but NASA goes way beyond that until the point that is complete pointless and more risky.

First, you can never be 100% sure that something will work, to be 95% sure is super cheap, 98% --> more expensive --> 99%--> a lot more expensive --> 99.9% you dont have enoght money.

You reach a point, that all the extra money you need to spent to be a bit more sure, it can be spent it to develope new redundant mechanism or technologies that increase the safety even further.

Take a look to dragonv2, its escape abort system is more safe and efficient than the old one that use orion. At the same time gain redundancy as a landing method (and you can choose where to land which add safety). It can be also used as extra deltaV needed in a emergency.

And they did all that with even less money, so they have extra money to spent in other safety measures if they want.

The heat shield is also better, it can in theory also resist an earth rentry from mars, which right now I hear that the Orion heatshield needs modifications to be able to resist that.. And that taking into account that the shape of Orion is better for aerobrake than dragonv2.

Not to do ISRU, increase the danger of the mission by many reasons that I already mention.

There is something called logic.. that you seems to complete skip in your answer.

I already explain this 3 times.. how hard it can be?

Example: You have the NASA mission that carries 1000 liters of water for said.. then you have my mission that carries 990 liters of water and the 10kg device that is designed to extract water.

Lets imagine that the astronauts needs only 600 liters to accomplish the mission as is expected.

What happen if you have a contingency with your water supply? Those extra 10 liters than Nasa has will help more than a device that was designed to extract 5 to 10 liters by day if it works? No.. so even if this device was not test it in mars, you still have a lot more chances to survive with it than without it.

That is basic logic. And nasa policies works against all those benefics.

SpaceX for example, can design a better heavy launcher, an interplanetary capsule with higher safety, and still it would spent at least 5 times less money. With that extra money, you can launch a lot of vehicles to gain redundancy if "safety is so important".

But as I said, it should not be the most important.. To explore you should take risk.. saying this is not equal to said "no test", what it means is leave the fail policies from nasa who does not increase safety and waste a lot of money, time and resources.

The entire point of ISRU is to reduce required mass, so carrying the same amount of mass for one thing would make it pointless. Your anology sucks.

[Bill Phil]

Proton and Delta IV Heavy are classified as heavy launchers, IIRC.

Exactly.

[AngelLestat]

The entire point of ISRU is to reduce required mass, so carrying the same amount of mass for one thing would make it pointless. Your anology sucks.

No, only your comprehension skills...

I am detecting a pattern here, whereas less logic, evidence and good argument I find in your replies, more bad words try to fill those gaps.

The water example of 1000 liters vs 990 + 10 kg Isru device, wast just a mental exercise to prove than even if something has low chance to work, it will add more safety to the mission in case a contingency.

When I talk about ISRU I mention the fuel case, and I explain all the beneficts that are many more than just "not carry the fuel".

But now I will clarify how much benefic we can extract from a good ISRU mission.

1- You transfer a ship to mars that will be equal to the one that will carry humans 2 years later.

a) You can test the design and its EDL (Entry, Descent, and Landing) before try it with humans.

You start to harvester Methane using few kg of hydrogen you carry from earth.

c) It may transport also a mars vehicle.

2- You transfer a special rover that will extract water from the soil using microwaves, this rover transfer the water to the main ship which has an electrolysis device. (this rover is less than half than curiosity)

3- You transfer the ship with the crew 2 years layer (is a copy from the first main ship)

a) The same as the main ship, it does not use complex mechanism to slow down or a lot of fuel in retro propulsion, because it just need the fuel to land. In other words less mass because you dont need to land with the fuel needed to launch from mars, neither the fuel for retro propulsion (that is a lot).

In case you land far from the first ship, you have the transport vehicle that will come for you to take you to the main ship with all the harvested resources, the water rover also comes to your meet.

c) You leave the second main ship in ISRU mode, harvesting fuel.

4-After your mission completes, you go back with the fuel harvested.

a) In case of problems, you transfer the fuel using the vehicles to your second ship.

If your launch find fails, you land again in mars and still you can use the other ship.

c) In case any other contingency, you can produce oxygen, water, hydrogen and methane, so you will be able to survive for a while.

In a NASA kind of mission, you will have to deal with real complex aerobraking manuvers and waste a lot of fuel in retropopulsion, in case something goes wrong, you have more chances to fail because you dont have redundancy and you are not able to produce resources.

[Nibb31]

But now I will clarify how much benefic we can extract from a good ISRU mission.

You can't just build "a ship to mars that will be equal to the one that will carry humans 2 years later", because we simply don't have the technology.

You keep on ignoring all those steps that come before your step 1.

Before you build a man-rated ISRU system, there are all these steps that you are ignoring:

- Build a complete theoretical model (TRL 3)

- Building a lab model as a proof of concept (TRL 4)

- Engineer a subscale prototype that you can submit to environmental testing on Earth (TRL 5-6)

- Design a pathfinder mission with a spaceworthy subscale prototype (TRL 7)

- Study and analyse the results from the pathfinder.

- Incorporate your findings into a new prototype.

- Validate your new prototype

- Iterate prototypes and flight qualified hardware until you build enough confidence to reach TRL 8 and 9.

Increasing your TRL is an iterative process. You can't simply go from TRL2 to TRL9 overnight.

Each of those steps is going to expose new problems and force you to workaround and improve your model and your methods. You are going to learn lessons on what works and what doesn't, because there is always stuff that you didn't think of or that you didn't know.

Getting everything right the first time rarely happens (even for SpaceX!) and you would be stretching your luck by thinking that the first iteration of an ISRU-based spacecraft is going to work perfectly, or even well enough to keep your astronauts alive.

We don't know where to start building a full scale ISRU plant that would work on Mars. We don't know how deep it would need to drill. We don't know how hard the regolith is underneath the surface. We don't know how efficient it would be. We don't know what the best lubricants would be. We don't know where the best landing site is. We don't know how much maintenance is needed. We don't know if it should be fixed or mobile. We don't know what to do if we don't find the deposits that we expected. We don't know how efficient the system will end up being.

There are dozens engineering questions that need solving, like designing the fuel tanks or transfer valves, selecting the best type of pump for moving fuel around, figuring out the best power source, designing a low maintenance drill, and plenty of other stuff.

They might seem trivial, but each one of those questions needs to be studied, analyzed, tested and answered. You need to test multiple options, build prototypes, test them, and select the best design. Every component needs its own development project, with teams of engineers and scientists and multiple iterations of development phases and review milestones.

Think of how JPL got from Sojourner to Curiosity. It took them decades of R&D to evolve from the basic idea of a remote-controlled rover to a fulls-size design. They couldn't have made MSL without learning from Mars Pathfinder and the MERs beforehand. Apollo couldn't have existed if there hadn't been a Gemini program.

Similarly, it would be foolish to launch a full-scale manned Mars ISRU program from scratch without the basic knowledge of how to engineer one and without learning lessons from several iterations of pathfinder missions.

Edited September 21, 2015 by Nibb31

[AngelLestat]

I just make an example of how the final mission would look if it is ISRU and what are the benefics.

Why I need to get my microsoft project and write and design all steps with its details and procedures to explain a concept example that if it has more than 5 sentences nobody will understand or read? Yeah.. because I notice a great lack of logic from the other side.

OF course (Duhh!) you will need to develope all that. But in my version I will change some procedures, politics, risk limits, etc.

First you analize all possibilities not matter if they are high tech or low tech, if some new tech seems very promising, you anallize the time required to look into and decide if it worth it or not.

I will encourage for the first steps better dynamic procedures without so much documentation, certifications so the project will not choke from the begining.

I will encourage redundancy over high safety limits in the cases where mass is not a high penalty.

Everything that is not cost efficient, is remove it from the mission design.

It needs procedures more related to small test without choke with so much theory (spacex style), not waste time trying to find the ultimate device in quality and efficiency, for example: if you have a water extractor device with an efficiency of 50% and it match the requiremets for the mission, dont waste time until you get a 70% efficiency device, you move on.

When you have enoght of the plan figure out, you go to the congress and said.. this is our plan.. it can be done with such X billions, but we need to hurry because the time windows for the optimun launch date is not so far.

About testing ISRU in mars before deploy it, there are things that can be tested in earth with enoght accuracy of mars conditions.

There are several rovers who already discover ice in top layers of soil, soil compositions, etc.

SOmething that will be needed is to decide the best location for the mission, then sent another rover there to test everything that it should be tested (with one rover), then you just launch the mission, you can measure all the ISRU activities with sensors, if something goes wrong, you dont launch the crew and you go back to the design stage. But the benefic, that there is a high chance that it will work, and if it does, you dint waste 10 years of development just to be a bit more sure.

[shynung]

First, we have to make sure the ISRU equipment will Not Fail. This is where protoype testing and TRL levels come in.

And, as Nibb says, TRL2->9 doesn't happen overnight. Neither did Apollo, STS, Curiosity, New Horizons, and pretty much every space project that ever happened.

Edited September 21, 2015 by shynung

[AngelLestat]

Why you need to be 99% sure it will work?

Why you can not launch being just 95% sure? If you have sensors to measure how it works and how much resources you haversted before even launch the crew mission?

Besides if you need to land half of the mass in mars (because the fuel is already there), then you save many years of development in tech that it will be needed to land heavy payloads in mars.

At the ends, all your excuses does not match the reality.. SpaceX accomplish a lot of things with a lot less money, and the things it accomplish are even more efficient.

You can said.. ah but it dint try to go mars yet... it does not matter, before they dint know nothing about rockets, few years after they have the best launch company in the world. And not only that, they accomplish new technology with a lot more in the development state as:

New abort system, cross feed fuel, reusability, supersonic retro propulsion (which nasa really take note of that), engines with multiple ignites and good control, aero fins , legs, and I am forgeting many...

Another fail in NASA its the amount of research centers they have, to keep them operational, they usually divert their research that are no related to the main goal. The comunications delay between the centers, the different leadership structures and the lack of solid path and goal makes them very inneficient. Also how is not a private company, they are not so pursuit to accomplish goals with limit time and money.

SO the main point of this topic, is how is not NASA fault? when so many just blame the goverment.

Edited September 21, 2015 by AngelLestat

[Nibb31]

OF course (Duhh!) you will need to develope all that. But in my version I will change some procedures, politics, risk limits, etc.

As if that was easy! You see, the problem with all those pesky procedures is that most of them are actually necessary. You can't just skip them or remove them.

First you analize all possibilities not matter if they are high tech or low tech, if some new tech seems very promising, you anallize the time required to look into and decide if it worth it or not.

Yes. That's called a trade study. A proper trade study typically takes several months. Typically, this is done either internally or outsourced to a research organization or an industry. But before that, you need to go through a procurement process to find out the best organization to do the trade study. You also need to obtain funding for those trade studies, because somebody has to pay.

I will encourage for the first steps better dynamic procedures without so much documentation, certifications so the project will not choke from the begining.

Have you ever done any actual project management? The first steps are where all the fundamental design decisions are actually made. You won't make those decisions on your own. You are going to mobilize your top architects. They are going to have to consult with experts to figure out where the state of the art is. There will be architecture review boards and more feasibility studies. This also has a cost.

And again, because this uses taxpayer money, you need to justify the expense, which means that you need to document everything you do in order to prove to the taxpayer representatives that you didn't just steal the money.

I will encourage redundancy over high safety limits in the cases where mass is not a high penalty.

Everything that is not cost efficient, is remove it from the mission design.

Good, fast, or cheap. Pick two.

As much as everyone wants a design that is efficient, quickly implemented, and cheap, that rarely ever happens in real life. You need to balance between a good design, a cheap design, and development time. If you remove everything that isn't cheap, then you are likely to end up with stuff that is under-performing or over-schedule (note that over-schedule always means over-budget too).

It needs procedures more related to small test without choke with so much theory (spacex style), not waste time trying to find the ultimate device in quality and efficiency,

How long has SpaceX actually been developing first stage recovery or the Falcon Heavy? SpaceX is pragmatic, they build stuff with rapid prototyping, blow up stuff, make tweaks, then try again until they get it right. This involves a lot trial-and-error, which I wouldn't call an efficient development process. It also results in a basic design with lots of tweaks added to it.

On the other hand, the "classic" approach in the aerospace industry is to spend a lot of time in CAD and simulation, and only start production when you are 100% confident that it's going to work, including economically. You don't see Airbus or Boeing crashing prototypes and tweaking the wing shapes to get them to fly, or building new planes and then looking for customers. Actually, they typically only build one prototype of a new model these days, and that's mainly to develop the industrial procedures.

for example: if you have a water extractor device with an efficiency of 50% and it match the requiremets for the mission, dont waste time until you get a 70% efficiency device, you move on.

It rarely works that way. It's more like you have a device with an efficiency of 50% but it's too heavy and you need 70% for the mission. So you need to get it to 70% and make it lighter, but then it gets more expensive and needs some other resource and more development time... Engineering is never clear-cut. It's a world of compromises and tough decisions.

When you have enoght of the plan figure out, you go to the congress and said.. this is our plan.. it can be done with such X billions, but we need to hurry because the time windows for the optimun launch date is not so far.

LOL. It really doesn't work that way. It's more the other way round, like "you have X billions per year, what can you do with it?" (and the answer is typically "not much"). And all the R&D stuff that you did above already cost a lot of money for which you must have already got a budget, right?

And even politicians know that there is always another launch window!

About testing ISRU in mars before deploy it, there are things that can be tested in earth with enoght accuracy of mars conditions.

There are several rovers who already discover ice in top layers of soil, soil compositions, etc.

Yes, but nothing replaces the real thing. You can do a lot of simulation, but the actual validation can only happen through an actual flight test.

SOmething that will be needed is to decide the best location for the mission, then sent another rover there to test everything that it should be tested (with one rover),

It takes years to develop and launch a new science mission. The call for proposals for MSL started in 2004, and it arrived at Mars 2012. It cost $2.5 billion. Again, you might be able to do it faster, but it will cost more, or cheaper, but it will take longer.

then you just launch the mission, you can measure all the ISRU activities with sensors, if something goes wrong, you dont launch the crew and you go back to the design stage. But the benefic, that there is a high chance that it will work, and if it does, you dint waste 10 years of development just to be a bit more sure.

No, because if you skip on the review boards, the procedures, and the paperwork, the there is a lower chance that it will work. Because those are the basic tools that are used for quality control.

[shynung]

Why you need to be 99% sure it will work?

Because if it doesn't, no one will be foolish enough to take it to the heavens. Heck, even a 1-in-a-thousand chance of failure (that's 99.9% confidence of it working right) gets the spacemen to shudder at the thought.

Edited September 21, 2015 by shynung

[Nibb31]

Why you need to be 99% sure it will work?

Why you can not launch being just 95% sure?

Because 5% LOC rate means that your astronauts die every 20 launches. Good luck getting money from Congress with that figure.

If airliners had a reliability rate of even 99.99%, there would no air travel industry.

If you have sensors to measure how it works and how much resources you haversted before even launch the crew mission?

At the ends, all your excuses does not match the reality.. SpaceX accomplish a lot of things with a lot less money, and the things it accomplish are even more efficient.

You can said.. ah but it dint try to go mars yet... it does not matter, before they dint know nothing about rockets, few years after they have the best launch company in the world.

The best launch company in the world has been grounded for 3 months after blowing up a customer's payload.

And not only that, they accomplish new technology with a lot more in the development state as:

New abort system, cross feed fuel, reusability, supersonic retro propulsion (which nasa really take note of that), engines with multiple ignites and good control, aero fins , legs, and I am forgeting many...

- The Dragon abort system is carried all along the mission, which has its drawbacks. Some people might prefer to jettison the abort system and get more payload.

- SpaceX has abandonned cross-feeding fuel.

- Reusability has yet to be demonstrated.

- NASA actually paid for the supersonic retro-propulsion tests.

- Restartable engines are nothing new, and neither are aerodynamic surfaces and landing legs.

I'm not saying that SpaceX's achievements aren't impressive, because they are, but there is no unique solution to a problem. I'm certain that their design is good for their requirements, but other missions have other requirements. And as I said above, SpaceX has its own problems. Their development process involves a lot of prototyping, tweaking, and trial-and-error. Cutting corners can cause problems, like the helium tank strut issue, which apparently wasn't properly qualified/certified. And they also have a lot of delays.

Another fail in NASA its the amount of research centers they have, to keep them operational, they usually divert their research that are no related to the main goal. The comunications delay between the centers, the different leadership structures and the lack of firm path and goal makes them very inneficient. Also how is not a private company, they are not so pursuit to accomplish goals with limit time and money.

It is true that NASA probably has too many space centers, but that's the price of being a political organization. It isn't much a matter of communication, especially nowadays (a lot of people work with colleagues on the other side of the world these days), but there is a cost of maintaining these large facilities. So they have the choice of closing down a facility and losing support from the local congressmen, or keeping them open and getting money to do stuff there.

You need to stop comparing NASA with private companies. It's not the same world, they don't follow the same rules.

SpaceX simply wouldn't exist without NASA. The Merlin engine was based on a NASA reference design. Falcon 9 and Dragon development were paid for by NASA.

SO the main point of this topic, is how is not NASA fault? when so many just blame the goverment.

Pointing fingers and blaming is pointless. It doesn't help anything. There is just a reality that you have to deal with.

Edited September 21, 2015 by Nibb31

[AngelLestat]

As if that was easy! You see, the problem with all those pesky procedures is that most of them are actually necessary. You can't just skip them or remove them.

why not? they are written in stone? I am systems engineer, that is what I studied.. I know how to find the flaws of a system to improve it.

Have you ever done any actual project management? The first steps are where all the fundamental design decisions are actually made. You won't make those decisions on your own. You are going to mobilize your top architects. They are going to have to consult with experts to figure out where the state of the art is. There will be architecture review boards and more feasibility studies. This also has a cost.

What all that has to do with reducing the amount of documentation and certification at this point? Are you answering something or just copy and paste advices for project managements?

There are not rules in project management.. each project is unique, and it needs the best development system according to the project in question.

Good, fast, or cheap. Pick two.

Why? spacex choose 3 with several improvement in the 3.

How long has SpaceX actually been developing first stage recovery or the Falcon Heavy? SpaceX is pragmatic, they build stuff with rapid prototyping, blow up stuff, make tweaks, then try again until they get it right. This involves a lot trial-and-error, which I wouldn't call an efficient development process. It also results in a basic design with lots of tweaks added to it.

And that procedure works.. they are the living evidence of that.

On the other hand, the "classic" approach in the aerospace industry is to spend a lot of time in CAD and simulation, and only start production when you are 100% confident that it's going to work, including economically. You don't see Airbus or Boeing crashing prototypes and tweaking the wing shapes to get them to fly, or building new planes and then looking for customers. Actually, they typically only build one prototype of a new model these days, and that's mainly to develop the industrial procedures.

How that work for them? 50 years without any significative acomplish or new technology to make things cheaper.

It rarely works that way. It's more like you have a device with an efficiency of 50% but it's too heavy and you need 70% for the mission. So you need to get it to 70% and make it lighter, but then it gets more expensive and needs some other resource and more development time... Engineering is never clear-cut. It's a world of compromises and tough decisions.

If you really know nasa procedures you will not saying nothing like that.. I read a lot of papers in different states of development, and I found a lot of inefficiencies in their methods searching for new alternatives or materials when they already accomplish the goal.

LOL. It really doesn't work that way. It's more the other way round, like "you have X billions per year, what can you do with it?" (and the answer is typically "not much"). And all the R&D stuff that you did above already cost a lot of money for which you must have already got a budget, right?

Ok, they have almost 20 billions by year.. A mars mission can be done (not by NASA) with just 60 or 100 billions, this mean 5 years in budget.

And even politicians know that there is always another launch window!

With the difference they really want this as soon as possible, if it is at a reasonable cost, the time between the good launch windows is 5 to 7 years.

It takes years to develop and launch a new science mission. The call for proposals for MSL started in 2004, and it arrived at Mars 2012. It cost $2.5 billion. Again, you might be able to do it faster, but it will cost more, or cheaper, but it will take longer.

No, many times faster is equal to cheap, if you lose time the cost increase a lot.

----------------------------------------------

Because 5% LOC rate means that your astronauts die every 20 launches. Good luck getting money from Congress with that figure.

If airliners had a reliability rate of even 99.99%, there would no air travel industry.

this is when I have a facepalm, why is so dificult to make you understand the most basic logic?

Can you explain me how they die? if you have a lot of sensors measuring that it works (or not) before you launch the astronauts?

And what best way to test it than an equal ship doing EDL and all the things for it was designed to do, before launch the astronauts with the same ship? But If you dint understand this the first 5 times that I explained.. then is a waste of time..

Also the % that you calculate about how safe may be something.. is not a real thing.. is just a math model that deals with uncertainties in your development, but once you actually do it in mars and works, that % increase a lot. Because you know as fact that it works.

The best launch company in the world has been grounded for 3 months after blowing up a customer's payload.

Who doesn´t? None lives was in risk. Many companies or agencies can not said the same thing.

- The Dragon abort system is carried all along the mission, which has its drawbacks. Some people might prefer to jettison the abort system and get more payload.

Are you serious? only dumb people will prefer the old system. And it does not have any drawback. Recomendation, try to analize again before answer.

- SpaceX has abandonned cross-feeding fuel.

Show me a source when elon musk said that it renounce to cross feeding..

Cutting corners can cause problems, like the helium tank strut issue, which apparently wasn't properly qualified/certified. And they also have a lot of delays.

Even with all those delays they are still on top.

It is true that NASA probably has too many space centers, but that's the price of being a political organization. It isn't much a matter of communication, especially nowadays (a lot of people work with colleagues on the other side of the world these days), but there is a cost of maintaining these large facilities. So they have the choice of closing down a facility and losing support from the local congressmen, or keeping them open and getting money to do stuff there.

Yeah, I dont have a solution to that.

You need to stop comparing NASA with private companies. It's not the same world, they don't follow the same rules.

SpaceX simply wouldn't exist without NASA. The Merlin engine was based on a NASA reference design. Falcon 9 and Dragon development were paid for by NASA.

Who paid the bills does not matter, what it matter is the thing you accomplish with the same money.

And is not a point of comparing.. here what it matters is that NASA is acting as the biggest obstacle to achieve big goals.

Without doing even nothing to try to solve some of their policies.

ok I am kinda delay with my work. Anyone is free to think wherever they want, but I just alert you that it will be just a pain in the ass to keep supporting NASA, when you know that spacex will keep growing until it will be so obvious the difference, than even the most slow people will be able to make the connection between an efficient management and one that is not.

I am out.. was fun.

[Frozen_Heart]

I've got to the point where I can't even remember what we're all arguing about...

[Guest]

I've got to the point where I can't even remember what we're all arguing about...

Apparently NASA sucks because they're too careful with human lives. Or something.

[Kryten]

I've got to the point where I can't even remember what we're all arguing about...

If you find yourself getting that a lot with him, remember the forum has an ignore function.