Using Dragon instead of Orion

[monophonic]

3 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Who was talking about Dragon?

The thread topic. That aside I agree with you.

[Motokid600]

18 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

The Moon is much more affordable. I would like to see a small outpost on the rim of Shackleton crater.

Id have to go agree. It seems as if people have completely forgotten about the Moon. Shame. However Mars has to come at some point and people use the whole "the Moon wont teach us how to colonize Mars" argument. So how would you factor that in? Because honestly I kinda see both happening more or less at the same time. "Backing up humanities hard drive" does have to factor in at some point. It'll just be over a much longer period of time. Literally, the idea of terraforming is something for the next century. But you gotta start somewhere. I honestly don't know what to think exactly. Trump wants to go to Europa, so...Ill take that too.  

Edited November 22, 2016 by Motokid600

[_Augustus_]

1 hour ago, Motokid600 said:

Trump wants to go to Europa, so...Ill take that too.  

He seems to kind of like all three...

[StupidAndy]

i Am the one person in the world who likes both the SLS and the Orion capsule. but i know that all that SLS and Orion is is just a Saturn V with  SRBs strapped to the side, and Orion is just a bigger Apollo capsule

but NASA going completely commercial, only relying on SpaceX and Boeing for transport, no, this is the program that got us to the moon just over two decades after WWII ended, not only will NASA not allow it, and it will be much more expensive due to the small fees (look out! there multiplying!), but they just want to have complete control over their manned spaceflight, kind of like the worlds worst space travel mechanism, the STS.

oh and also the US government is kind of stuck-up, saying they would rather have their astronaut die then have it happen like The Martian, so they don't want to lose their space program PR, so they will step in and force them to make a manned capsule rather then just dumping all the work on some commercial companies.

[Jestersage]

17 hours ago, StupidAndy said:

oh and also the US government is kind of stuck-up, saying they would rather have their astronaut die then have it happen like The Martian, so they don't want to lose their space program PR, so they will step in and force them to make a manned capsule rather then just dumping all the work on some commercial companies.

You do realized that it is because of the incoming administration that there are higher likelihood for Orion to have disassembly on paper and leave US with only Dragon and CST-100.

Note: NASA and politics go hand in hand. We got Moon landing because of international politics, and our half-assed shuttle because of congress budget

Note 2: with the way the future press secretary attack Elon, they better figure out how to use Starliner for the moon.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Jestersage

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

On 11/21/2016 at 11:36 PM, Jestersage said:

Note 2: with the way the future press secretary attack Elon, they better figure out how to use Starliner for the moon.

Unfortunately, it has to thin of a heat shield.

 

On 11/21/2016 at 8:23 PM, Motokid600 said:

Id have to go agree. It seems as if people have completely forgotten about the Moon. Shame. However Mars has to come at some point and people use the whole "the Moon wont teach us how to colonize Mars" argument. So how would you factor that in? Because honestly I kinda see both happening more or less at the same time. "Backing up humanities hard drive" does have to factor in at some point. It'll just be over a much longer period of time. Literally, the idea of terraforming is something for the next century. But you gotta start somewhere. I honestly don't know what to think exactly. Trump wants to go to Europa, so...Ill take that too.  

I think that Mars is a more worthwhile destination than the moon. And, we are about to have the SLS, which can get us there. The Moon really won't teach us about colonizing Mars.  But, its a destination in its own right, and more achievable than Mars. But Mars is still achievable.  Dragon is nice because it could (theoretically, with a lot of adjustments) work a a Mars lander. Or a Moon lander. It gives us new capabilities.

[tater]

The new administration seems to probably be all-in for commercial space, actually, which is good, IMO. The other Musk businesses are another story entirely. I think that to the extent government subsidizes energy it should do so equally---per Watt of power produced by the source (including the 280kW my car produces). Any viable sore of power production doesn't require massive subsidy.

On topic, I don't see Orion going away, and being replaced by Dragon2. 

[StupidAndy]

NASA is mostly a postcard from the gov. that says "hey! look at us! we can do this? can you say that communists?"

[DBowman]

On 11/21/2016 at 8:29 PM, Nibb31 said:

I was speaking in general terms of what we should be focusing on. NASA should be focusing on goals that are achievable rather than pipe dreams that are based on budgets that will never materialize. The actual hardware should be designed around these goals instead of endlessly repurposing heritage stuff. 

This the space review is sobering reading - SLS launch costs will be huge if one assumes a low launch cadence and sharing the dev cost across the actual flights - billions per flight for 130 ton (even the most optimistic estimate seems not that much cheaper per kg than Proton - at least it would tank many many launches to pay back the dev cost out of the savings). Also the political direction NASA gets keeps changing, you cannot really design highly mission optimised hardware if the mission keeps changing.

20 ton to LEO seems to be the current commercial launcher 'sweet spot' since it's whats needed for commercial GSO satellites, there are a half dozen or so systems that can throw this. Why not spend the heavy launcher dev $$ on developing BEO flight hardware that comes in 20 ton chunks which could be combined in different ways for different missions? e.g. small 3 ton crew launch and high speed reentry vehicle, 5-10-20 ton HABs, 3-6 ton propulsion & manoeuvre modules, 20 ton propulsion modules. Start off with docking assembly and later augment with 'robot arms' to move modules into position and 'couple' them (mechanical, electrical, control, propellant).

Probably LVs will be driven larger as limited GSO real estate pushes satellite mass up, the old smaller modules are still useful but throwing bigger propellant modules up will reduce cost and expand possible mission profiles.

[tater]

5 hours ago, DBowman said:

This the space review is sobering reading - SLS launch costs will be huge if one assumes a low launch cadence and sharing the dev cost across the actual flights - billions per flight for 130 ton (even the most optimistic estimate seems not that much cheaper per kg than Proton - at least it would tank many many launches to pay back the dev cost out of the savings). Also the political direction NASA gets keeps changing, you cannot really design highly mission optimised hardware if the mission keeps changing.

This is nothing new, it's what many of us have said about SLS from the start.

[Kryten]

9 hours ago, DBowman said:

20 ton to LEO seems to be the current commercial launcher 'sweet spot' since it's whats needed for commercial GSO satellites, there are a half dozen or so systems that can throw this. Why not spend the heavy launcher dev $$ on developing BEO flight hardware that comes in 20 ton chunks which could be combined in different ways for different missions? e.g. small 3 ton crew launch and high speed reentry vehicle, 5-10-20 ton HABs, 3-6 ton propulsion & manoeuvre modules, 20 ton propulsion modules. Start off with docking assembly and later augment with 'robot arms' to move modules into position and 'couple' them (mechanical, electrical, control, propellant).

20 tons to LEO is not a meaningful figure for commercial space. Proton/Briz and Ariane 5 both do about that much, but Ariane has twice the payload to GTO.

[DBowman]

4 hours ago, tater said:

This is nothing new, it's what many of us have said about SLS from the start.

I'd not really been following in detail - only a vague 'more big rocket = good' - but obviously that ignored opportunity costs and if the SLS budget is eating all the funding for it's payloads then it won't end well.

32 minutes ago, Kryten said:

20 tons to LEO is not a meaningful figure for commercial space. Proton/Briz and Ariane 5 both do about that much, but Ariane has twice the payload to GTO.

Fair point, I just picked their 'nominal' (maybe notional) LEO capability (for what it's worth Ariane 5 has a storable stage that puts 21 ton in LEO I guess like Proton it's part of the 21t and then goes GSO?). If various launchers can use a cryo upper stage to do better getting mass to higher energy orbits (closer to BEO) then that's great. It makes the argument more complicated without challenging the basic thrust;

• dock assemble specific mission vehicles out of modular specialist chunks; if the mission changes re-arrange the chunk collection
• chunks lifted by commodity commercial launchers which will over time lift heavier due to the need to put more functionality into limited GSO slots

It's going to be impractical to plug together too many components. You can only launch so many chunks in a given time. Baikonur can launch 2 Proton a month, but if you can utilise many launch systems you could do more.

I haven't looked at what missions would be possible using this approach. I guess that's the first thing to do - see if there is anywhere interesting to go that's practical using this approach, well you'd need multiple potential destinations. Candidates: Flybys, Moon, Moons of Mars, NEOs, ...

[todofwar]

On 11/23/2016 at 11:54 AM, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

Unfortunately, it has to thin of a heat shield.

 

I think that Mars is a more worthwhile destination than the moon. And, we are about to have the SLS, which can get us there. The Moon really won't teach us about colonizing Mars.  But, its a destination in its own right, and more achievable than Mars. But Mars is still achievable.  Dragon is nice because it could (theoretically, with a lot of adjustments) work a a Mars lander. Or a Moon lander. It gives us new capabilities.

I would disagree, most of the tech on the Moon will directly translate to a Mars colony. Efficient greenhouses, figuring out if low gravity is ok over twenty year time periods, radiation shielding, energy generation and building solar cells from ISRU, and getting a supply chain of raw materials going. There are a few key differences, but overall I'd say if we can colonize the moon about 90% of the tech will translate with little changes to Mars. And the moon has the benefit of being close by, so less risk for the initial colonists. They can come home in a worst case scenario with relative ease. 

[Darnok]

On 23.11.2016 at 6:29 PM, tater said:

On topic, I don't see Orion going away, and being replaced by Dragon2. 

Maybe not right away, but if SpaceX can do same or almost same job, but cheaper... then Orion will be history pretty fast.

Question is what would you have to add to Dragon v2 to have capabilities similar to Orion?

In both capsules you have crew locked inside "can", if SpaceX made their capsule easy to upgrade they could use parts of Dragon that wouldn't had to be changed at all? Are there any available cross-sections and descriptions about differences between Dragon and Orion?

[tater]

13 minutes ago, Darnok said:

Maybe not right away, but if SpaceX can do same or almost same job, but cheaper... then Orion will be history pretty fast.

Question is what would you have to add to Dragon v2 to have capabilities similar to Orion?

In both capsules you have crew locked inside "can", if SpaceX made their capsule easy to upgrade they could use parts of Dragon that wouldn't had to be changed at all? Are there any available cross-sections and descriptions about differences between Dragon and Orion?

Capability has exactly nothing to do with it. Or cost. 

NASA is a technical jobs program. That is their purpose. Really.

The jobs are meant to be in as many Congressional Districts as possible, and the critters who represent those districts will not let go. This is bipartisan---anyone against it is probably in a different district, no one of any party wants to say during reelection, "I put the country first, and moved to kill the cash cow in our fair city!" That's not a thing.

 

[todofwar]

19 minutes ago, tater said:

Capability has exactly nothing to do with it. Or cost. 

NASA is a technical jobs program. That is their purpose. Really.

The jobs are meant to be in as many Congressional Districts as possible, and the critters who represent those districts will not let go. This is bipartisan---anyone against it is probably in a different district, no one of any party wants to say during reelection, "I put the country first, and moved to kill the cash cow in our fair city!" That's not a thing.

 

Here we go again. Not everything comes down to pork. Plenty does, not everything. Without that "technical jobs" program we have no space program. But this is an argument that happens all the time and usually results in a locked thread. 

[tater]

If you think that somehow FH/Dragon V2 is better than SLS/Orion, and therefore SLS/Orion goes "poof" you live in a dream world. We get what we get for a reason, which is to be expected when the money spent belongs to other people. That's just the way it is. It's not impossible that somehow we get a fundamental change in NASA over a short term, I suppose, but the people able to do this right now are also the primary proponents of SLS.

 

[Wjolcz]

On 26/11/2016 at 1:40 AM, DBowman said:

This the space review is sobering reading - SLS launch costs will be huge if one assumes a low launch cadence and sharing the dev cost across the actual flights - billions per flight for 130 ton (even the most optimistic estimate seems not that much cheaper per kg than Proton - at least it would tank many many launches to pay back the dev cost out of the savings). Also the political direction NASA gets keeps changing, you cannot really design highly mission optimised hardware if the mission keeps changing.

20 ton to LEO seems to be the current commercial launcher 'sweet spot' since it's whats needed for commercial GSO satellites, there are a half dozen or so systems that can throw this. Why not spend the heavy launcher dev $$ on developing BEO flight hardware that comes in 20 ton chunks which could be combined in different ways for different missions? e.g. small 3 ton crew launch and high speed reentry vehicle, 5-10-20 ton HABs, 3-6 ton propulsion & manoeuvre modules, 20 ton propulsion modules. Start off with docking assembly and later augment with 'robot arms' to move modules into position and 'couple' them (mechanical, electrical, control, propellant).

Probably LVs will be driven larger as limited GSO real estate pushes satellite mass up, the old smaller modules are still useful but throwing bigger propellant modules up will reduce cost and expand possible mission profiles.

Basically Nautilus-X?

Edited November 27, 2016 by Veeltch

[Jestersage]

5 hours ago, tater said:

If you think that somehow FH/Dragon V2 is better than SLS/Orion, and therefore SLS/Orion goes "poof" you live in a dream world. We get what we get for a reason, which is to be expected when the money spent belongs to other people. That's just the way it is. It's not impossible that somehow we get a fundamental change in NASA over a short term, I suppose, but the people able to do this right now are also the primary proponents of SLS.

I don't know... the next administration seems to be thinking this way. TBH, I wrote this thread because of this: http://www.inquisitr.com/3727375/trump-space-reform-may-force-nasa-to-ditch-sls-rocket-and-orion-spacecraft/

And I do hope this is a dreamworld along with the report, because it is starting to become a nightmare we can't wake up.

I know what is better. NASA actually know what is better. But if the person who hold the purse string doesn't, then it does not matter.
 

[kerbiloid]

Maybe he for a long time is a member of this forum and at last got assured that there is no clear task for Orion in near future?

[tater]

People in the space business have been complaining about SLS for a while. 

I'm usually Johnny on the spot for dealing out SLS abuse, but I don't see it happening, sadly. Politicians are nothing if not wholly invested in the sunk cost fallacy.

[James Kerman]

I'm hoping that once the Chinese space program gets men on the moon it will kick off the space race again.  The political prestige should be a good catalyst for America to want to get in front again.

[tater]

That or the Chinese will land only to find that Jeff Bezos has same day delivery from Amazon on the Moon.

[Darnok]

11 hours ago, todofwar said:

Here we go again. Not everything comes down to pork. Plenty does, not everything. Without that "technical jobs" program we have no space program. But this is an argument that happens all the time and usually results in a locked thread. 

If only purpose of job is to keep it running then it is waste of money? And if we look at any democratic country, we will see that any government driven agency is to just keep running and make prices super high.

Exceptions are government agencies in China, but they have no democracy, so I am starting to see pattern in this...

[Nibb31]

1 hour ago, Darnok said:

If only purpose of job is to keep it running then it is waste of money? And if we look at any democratic country, we will see that any government driven agency is to just keep running and make prices super high.

Prices aren't inherently higher than in the private sector. Actually, most of NASA's budget ends up going to private corporations. There is also the fact that government spending is an economical stimulus. Every dollar spent by governments ends up in someone's salary, and gets spent to buy other stuff and to pay other people. Some of it even goes back into the government's budget to get used again. When a government stops injecting money into the economy, things go bad.

In the end, you either employ your highly qualified aerospace engineers to work for you on government contracts, which maintains and improves your country's technological capability and competitivity or you make them flip burgers at McDonalds or move overseas to work for someone else.

Edited November 27, 2016 by Nibb31