Using Dragon instead of Orion

[Darnok]

1 hour ago, Nibb31 said:

Prices aren't inherently higher than in the private sector. Actually, most of NASA's budget ends up going to private corporations.

Compare prices for private made rocket like Falcon 9 vs any government made rocket... which is cheaper?

 

Quote

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.

Fact is that government doesn't have money at all, every single dollar spent by government is taken from private wallet, so government can not stimulate economy in any way

What government is doing is manual control of money flow from your pocket to part of industry politician likes.

Government only can transfer money from one branch of industry to another, from your wallet to NASA wallet, there is no money FROM government. That is like manual steering of water in river, you can do it and you can turn water in whatever direction you want to, but that is definitely not cheap nor needed. Because water in river is like flow of human needs, it is self driven and it always takes "cheapest" path.

When government is steering flow of water they also drink "a bit" of it as payment for doing their job, so in the end you have smaller stream, flowing in direction of politician needs.

 

Quote

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.

In the end if you steer manually flow of human needs you end up hurting some branches of industry and promoting not needed part of industry. That is why we still doesn't have base or even space station on the Moon orbit, because governments world wide, for the last 50 years, took manual control over space sector... instead we have lots of banks.

Edited November 27, 2016 by Darnok

[todofwar]

6 hours 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.

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

Are you saying you'd rather have no space program? Just use rockets for satellites? No Juno, no Cassini, no mars rovers, nothing? NASA is damned if they do, damned if they don't it seems. They focus all their efforts on awesome science projects like the James Webb telescope and Curiosity, and people complain they're not sending people to Mars or back to the moon. They try and build a craft to get to the moon and maybe Mars and people complain it's just a jobs program. We all know there are inherent inefficiencies in government, but let me tell you scientists are very good at being on a budget and there will never be a profit in it, so unless you just want science to end up at the mercy of philanthropists you'll have to get used to the way NASA does things, and I think they do a damn good job. 

[tater]

I'm not complaining it's a jobs program, I'm saying it's a jobs program. That's not the same thing at all.

That it does great stuff anyway is awesome, but don't expect it to be efficient or cost-effective, it's the government.

The reality is that if something replaces SLS/Orion, it needs to replace SLS/Orion---and from the standpoint of the people who write the checks, that means it needs to employ similar numbers of people in districts where there are votes. Doesn't matter what NASA wants., either.

We need the military, obviously, but the Pentagon has wanted most all US bases closed for decades. Every time they decide to close a few, Congresspeople who have been for closures for years become against it---in their own district. Kirtland AFB or Holloman become "vital to national security" and off the table.

Edited November 27, 2016 by tater

[todofwar]

5 hours ago, Darnok said:

That is why we still doesn't have base or even space station on the Moon orbit, because governments world wide, for the last 50 years, took manual control over space sector... instead we have lots of banks.

Last I'll say because this was supposed to be about Orion, but the reason we don't have those things goes far beyond government inefficiency. In fact, there are perfectly good reasons to not do those things, read every thread on manned space exploration and you see the compelling arguments for canceling the manned space programs entirely. Also, until recently space was not an industry ready for the private sector. If not for governments, we would not have a space program. Sometimes you need to create an industry first and after a while allow the private sector to take over. We are finally at that point, but without NASA pioneering the way it would never have happened. I won't argue it was perfect, when spending other people's money all kinds of regulation gets built in bit it was the only way.

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

21 hours ago, todofwar said:

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. 

Good point, i am saying that we could still get along without developing technology on the moon. But it would be helpful.

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

13 hours ago, Jestersage said:

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.
 

that is interesting. It probably won't happen, considering that we have poured so much money into sls and orion.

 

9 hours ago, James Kerman said:

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.

That would be rally cool, but it will take them a long time to get to the moon.

 

On 11/26/2016 at 6:16 AM, DBowman said:

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.

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, ...

that would be great, but it doesn't seem to be what nasa is doing.

I have some questions.

1. How much money would ditching orion and sles for a commercial atlternative save?
2. how often will the sls fly?

 

I find it strange that we are finally getting a rocket that will enable us to do things that we have always wanted to, and we cant find a use for it. We aren't making serious plans to go to Mars and build bases on the moon. But we will soon have the rocket that we need. Here's what I say. We use SLS as a heavy lifter to launch moon base components, and/or go to mars. what I really think we should do is establish a versatile, expandable gateway station, with the ability to test artificial gravity, and serve as a way station and propellant depot for moon base construction. We send people out in spacecraft from it to rendezvous with asteroids, study them, and (Maybe) avert them or bring them to the gateway station. The station would also make it easier to launch missions to mars. Hypothetically, fuel could be made at a moon base, or from asteroids, brought up to the station, and used to fuel deep space and mars missions. Maybe even probes to the outer planets.  Or in the farther future human missions to Venus and the outer planets. We need an ACES like spacecraft. Similarly, ULA had a plan to send crews to gateway stations and the moon without using a giant heavy  lift rocket. Instead, it would use propellant depots. Or, we could do that using dragon capsules on Falcon heavy rockets.

That is how I see it!

 

 

[tater]

Orion and D2 are not comparable right now. For one, Orion has actually flown. Also, Orion and SLS are linked. There is no private competition for SLS right now. It's not just mass to LEO, you need a payload >8m in diameter. 

[James Kerman]

37 minutes ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

That would be rally cool, but it will take them a long time to get to the moon.

Quess satellite launched this year - the first attempt to use quantum encryption for secure sat coms.
Chang'e 4 - a mission to land on the dark side of the moon, scheduled for launch in 2018.
Tiangong 2 and 3 - a program that will give China a 3rd generation space station.
This past year China had 19 successful space launches, Russia 26 and America 18.
All this with an estimated budget far less than NASA.
China can also commercialise on the fact that US foreign policy precludes more than half the world from using their aerospace services.

"China sees space capability as an indication of global leadership status.  It gives China legitimacy in an area that has great global power." John Logson, founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.

I think the US will figure out it needs to get to Mars to stay #1 and that means Orion and SLS are the best option "on the shelf" for rapid advance of their program.

Edited November 27, 2016 by James Kerman
Edited for grammar

[kerbiloid]

11 hours ago, James Kerman said:

This past year China had 19 successful space launches, Russia 26 and America 18.

Leaves not much room for Falcon, btw. Unlikely Russia or China or Ariane owners would choose it, nevermind is it better or worse.

[DBowman]

12 hours ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

how often will the sls fly?

good question - that article I linked earlier said maybe as seldom as once every four years - ouch.

12 hours ago, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

gateway station

I worry about inclination and argument or periapsis (I'm trying to mean like the position of An/Dn). I can see you could setup a Lunar gateway station @ 5 degrees to the ecliptic which would be great for Lunar bound traffic. But other destinations have other inclinations Venus 3.39, Mars 1.85 - and probably with An/Dn not at Lunar An/Dn. NEOs, NEAs? low deltaV gravity assist flybys could be anything ( e.g. one I was looking at was 62.8 degrees). Has anyone seen an evaluation of how that plays out?

On 11/27/2016 at 0:31 PM, Veeltch said:

Basically Nautilus-X?

Oh thanks, interesting. Yep the basic modular conception is the same, though I'm thinking on a smaller scale.

[Tyko]

On 11/27/2016 at 8:49 AM, Emperor of the Titan Squid said:

Good point, i am saying that we could still get along without developing technology on the moon. But it would be helpful.

I just finished reading Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin. In that he pretty strongly denounces Moon-first as having any real value when measured against the additional resources necessary. His arguments include that it actually takes more DV to get to the moon than it does to Mars (including use of aerobraking on Mars), that the resources on moon are very limited and different than those on Mars (so you can't really test ISRU equipment) and that it's harder to get from Moon to Mars than it is to leave directly from LEO...there are a bunch of others. It's a good read.

[Emperor of the Titan Squid]

On 11/28/2016 at 5:29 PM, Tyko said:

I just finished reading Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin. In that he pretty strongly denounces Moon-first as having any real value when measured against the additional resources necessary. His arguments include that it actually takes more DV to get to the moon than it does to Mars (including use of aerobraking on Mars), that the resources on moon are very limited and different than those on Mars (so you can't really test ISRU equipment) and that it's harder to get from Moon to Mars than it is to leave directly from LEO...there are a bunch of others. It's a good read.

I know. Good book. He has a version that uses dragon.

[tater]

On 11/28/2016 at 3:29 PM, Tyko said:

I just finished reading Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin. In that he pretty strongly denounces Moon-first as having any real value when measured against the additional resources necessary. His arguments include that it actually takes more DV to get to the moon than it does to Mars (including use of aerobraking on Mars), that the resources on moon are very limited and different than those on Mars (so you can't really test ISRU equipment) and that it's harder to get from Moon to Mars than it is to leave directly from LEO...there are a bunch of others. It's a good read.

More dv is sort of meaningless as a direct comparison, since you also need to bring vastly more stuff with you for an expedition with a given surface dwell time. So you need to give a lot more mass, a little less dv.