NASA mandated to do manned mission to Mars

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

What does the bill actually say?

[Diche Bach]

4 minutes ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

What does the bill actually say?

Hmmm, that is a good question . . .

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/3346/text

Quote

Summary: S.3346 — 114th Congress (2015-2016)All Bill Information (Except Text)

A summary is in progress

??

Quote

Text: S.3346 — 114th Congress (2015-2016)All Bill Information (Except Text)

As of 09/25/2016 text has not been received for S.3346 - National Aeronautics and Space Administration Transition Authorization Act of 2016 

Bills are generally sent to the Library of Congress from GPO, the Government Publishing Office, a day or two after they are introduced on the floor of the House or Senate. Delays can occur when there are a large number of bills to prepare or when a very large bill has to be printed.

Apparently whatever it says is still known only to the legislator class . . . if it indeed, says anything at all . . .

Maybe they just posted it as a stub to get feedback from KSP forumites?

[DDE]

22 minutes ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

What does the bill actually say?

It's NASA's 2017 budget, it includes a strategic goal of a manned Mars mission within the quarter-century, and allocated $1.4 of the annual budget to that goal.

[Nothalogh]

On 9/23/2016 at 5:14 PM, DerekL1963 said:

Senate Launch System

I'd fund that.

Provided that it actually launches the senate, into retrograde solar orbit

Edited September 25, 2016 by Nothalogh

[DerekL1963]

3 hours ago, Diche Bach said:

Hmmm, that is a good question . . .

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/3346/text

??

Apparently whatever it says is still known only to the legislator class . . . if it indeed, says anything at all . . .

Maybe they just posted it as a stub to get feedback from KSP forumites?

0.o  The whole text is there - scroll down.

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

55 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

0.o  The whole text is there - scroll down.

Thanks. At least we're getting EM-2 in 2021.

[Diche Bach]

11 hours ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

What does the bill actually say?

Ah must have finally got it processed in!

Skimming through it, I see repeated references to "cis-lunar" which I take to mean, they ARE proposing that returning to mission to prove the effectiveness of habitats etc. should be undertaken as an initial proving stage!

[jwenting]

On 24-9-2016 at 2:36 PM, Jeb Jawkins said:

"Senate Launch System"  

I like that! 

Now if only they used it to launch the senate on a one way trip to Mars... Would no doubt get them enough crowd funding to build the things in no time 

[Diche Bach]

39 minutes ago, jwenting said:

Now if only they used it to launch the senate on a one way trip to Mars... Would no doubt get them enough crowd funding to build the things in no time 

If they would take the House with them, they'd probably have enough left over (from the inevitable windfall of crowdsource donations) to make some pretty substantial charity contributions even after paying for the whole project in advance!

Plus it would be a great chance to do experiments in human cyrogenics.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Diche Bach

[TheSaint]

On 9/25/2016 at 7:24 AM, DDE said:

Whatever is happening to this thread, I think it's a passable impression of what's going to happen with that $1.4 billion.

Okay, thank you for making me blow coffee out of my nose.

[jwenting]

On 25-9-2016 at 4:55 PM, DDE said:

It's NASA's 2017 budget, it includes a strategic goal of a manned Mars mission within the quarter-century, and allocated $1.4 of the annual budget to that goal.

They're getting $1.40 to put a man on Mars? Either serious deflation or congress is getting to be an even bigger tightwad 

[DDE]

5 minutes ago, jwenting said:

They're getting $1.40 to put a man on Mars? Either serious deflation or congress is getting to be an even bigger tightwad 

It's only this year. The Congress knows to keep NASA on a tight leash and has made no promises.

[Nibb31]

In the light of Musk's announcement, a new Mars DRM involving multiple SLS launches is going to be hard sell...

[StarStreak2109]

If SpaceX's plan ever leaves the pad, can you say: PPP? (as in Public Privat Partnership)

[Nibb31]

Given that both are powerpoint plans at this stage, it doesn't make a difference. I was talking about selling a DRM plan to Congress.

Although there are still many details in SpaceX's plan that don't withstand casual scrutiny...

Edited September 28, 2016 by Nibb31

[_Augustus_]

8 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

In the light of Musk's announcement, a new Mars DRM involving multiple SLS launches is going to be hard sell...

No. The ITS launcher has more engines than the N1.

 

[DDE]

46 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

No. The ITS launcher has more engines than the N1.

The more I hear about it, the more I realize SpaceX engineers spent all of their time "researching" what a BFG it.

[Nibb31]

47 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

No. The ITS launcher has more engines than the N1.

And ?

[_Augustus_]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

And ?

The reliability of one ITS booster is probably worse than the reliability of ten SLS rockets....

[Nibb31]

1 hour ago, _Augustus_ said:

The reliability of one ITS booster is probably worse than the reliability of ten SLS rockets....

Reliability isn't necessarily linked to the number of engines. The N1 failures weren't directly linked to the number of engines. They were more related by the lack of proper testing and a shoddy working environment.

42 engines allows a certain number of engine failures and you should still be able to reach orbit. If one engine fails on an SLS, you lose a multi-billion dollar mission.

Edited September 28, 2016 by Nibb31

[Gaarst]

7 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Reliability isn't necessarily linked to the number of engines. The N1 failures weren't directly linked to the number of engines. They were more related by the lack of proper testing and a shoddy working environment.

42 engines allows a certain number of engine failures and you should still be able to reach orbit. If one engine fails on an SLS, you lose a multi-billion dollar mission.

Tell me how trying to build a launcher 4 times larger than the largest launcher ever built and cheaper than any rocket ever built, in 7 years will allow time for proper testing.

[Nibb31]

9 minutes ago, Gaarst said:

Tell me how trying to build a launcher 4 times larger than the largest launcher ever built and cheaper than any rocket ever built, in 7 years will allow time for proper testing.

I never said it will, neither did I say that I believe in Musk's vision or that much of the engineering showed yesterday is feasible.

What I'm saying is that the number of engines alone is not a good metric to judge the potential reliability of a new vehicle.

Edited September 28, 2016 by Nibb31

[kerbiloid]

12 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

The N1 failures weren't directly linked to the number of engines.

3 of 4 N1 failures were linked to thrust disbalance, 1 of 4 to 1-of-30 engine burst.
(sorry, in Russian https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Н-1#.D0.9F.D1.83.D1.81.D0.BA.D0.B8)

12 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

They were more related by the lack of proper testing

In 3 of 4 failures engines didn't burst. Just worked differ.

Edited September 29, 2016 by kerbiloid

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

3 of 4 N1 failures were linked to thrust disbalance, 1 of 4 to 1-of-30 engine burst.

Um, no.  None of the N-1 failures were caused by or linked to unbalanced thrust.  The first vehicle was lost due a fire caused by ruptured fuel and oxidizer lines.  The second due to fire caused by an explosion in a turbopump.  The third due to aerodynamic effects.  The fourth due to structural stress.

At any rate, unexpected engine shutdown can happen with much fewer engines too - ask the flight controllers on SA-502.  Or Apollo 13, where the S-II's center engine shut down early.  (The Saturn V, when you look at the many failures due to POGO, was actually quite a problematic vehicle.)  Or STS-51F.

[kerbiloid]

33 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

The first vehicle was lost due a fire caused by ruptured fuel and oxidizer lines.

In flight. A voltage surge shut down engine #12. Thrust autobalancer (KORD) disabled #24 to parry the uneven thrust. 30 seconds later both pipelines were destroyed by the pitch oscillations, and that caused a fire. The fire destroyed electric cables, autobalancer treated the situation as turbopumps failure and switched off the whole 1st stage.

40 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

 The second due to fire caused by an explosion in a turbopump.

Incorrect work of engine #8 caused automatic stage shutdown right above the launchpad (200 m alt.). All but one engines got disabled, but #18 (i.e. another one) continued working, and that caused a rapid unplanned pitch maneuver. This caused the later events sequence.

43 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

 The third due to aerodynamic effects.

An off-design angular momentum (aerodynamical) caused unplanned rotation. Vernier nozzles could not parry this, while several dozen main engines had no gimbals and culd not be used by autobalancer.

46 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

The fourth due to structural stress.

Due to #3 vernier engines were added (in addition to several tens main ones).
At 7 seconds before the planned 1st stage shutdown, during the planned thrust descreasing, the turbopump of main engine #4 exploded, causing fire and critical damage.