NASA Human Landing System

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

12 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Exactly it isn't.
The "whose" and "how much" are insignificant.

More of that, they have to prove the "why" again and again every financial year.

No one prooves significance of most of other business fields.

Someone always has to be first.  And like Sutter - they don't always succeed.  But along the way someone gets rich, and a host of associated and supporting industries tag along for the ride. 

I'm curious as to whether this is a particularly American observation... We certainly have a relatively 'modern' experience with ventures into the unknown and undeveloped - and the appreciation for the possible (even if it's not evidently 'possible' to all observers). Is pessimism more a common human experience across the wider world? 

 

(Edit: suggested reading 'Empire of the Summer Moon' by S. C. Gwynne - who makes clear that the Americans who ventured into the Comanche territory of the Southern Great Plains were pretty much daft madmen /women... Completely unprepared for the environment /political system... And still they came) 

Edited August 10, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[tater]

Privately funded space exploration has benefits and pitfalls. That it requires "billionaires" is a function of the huge cost associated with doing so, nothing more.

The benefit is continuity, and vertical integration—which results in higher cost efficiency, which is required because they are rich, not bottomless.

The pitfall is that the development is focused where that particular guy wants it focused. If it is Mars, it's Mars. If it's "millions of humans living and ..."—<squirrel!>a new yacht, and keeping new GF happy—"working in space" then so be it.

 

 

[kerbiloid]

32 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Americans who ventured into the Comanche territory of the Southern Great Plains were pretty much daft madmen /women... Completely unprepared for the environment /political system... And still they came

To the airless desert with no water, wood, and soil.

[tater]

37 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Completely unprepared for the environment /political system... And still they came

If you show up someplace in space even partially unprepared—you immediately die.

A buddy of mine thinks the first Mars town should be named in the Blue Origin fashion: New Donner.

[kerbiloid]

6 minutes ago, tater said:

the first Mars town should be named in the Blue Origin fashion: New Donner.

Yes, 新唐納  Xīn táng nà

[tater]

SpaceX will be there long before the Chinese.

[kerbiloid]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

SpaceX will be there long before the Chinese.

SpaceX won't name it in the Blue Origin fashion.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

36 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

the airless desert with no water, wood, and soil

 

31 minutes ago, tater said:

If you show up someplace in space even partially unprepared—you immediately die

I'm telling you - reading about the people who would sign up for Mars... It will happen. 

And they will die.  And people will still go 

And die 

Until they stop dying. 

And once enough people are going and not dying?  What do you have? 

33 minutes ago, tater said:

: New Donner

Lolz! 

[kerbiloid]

15 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

And once enough people are going and not dying?  What do you have? 

Soil humus.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

29 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Soil humus.

LOL xD

[StrandedonEarth]

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Soil humus.

Soylent Green?

[SunlitZelkova]

8 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

This is the heart of the criticism for the traditional approach.  At least in the US it appears that completely government funded space exploration is declining.*

CN is rapidly iterating government controlled space capacity - but there is some talk about private (yeah, I get it) enterprise space companies being authorized to exist. 

ESA has a problem in that it's a conglomerate of individual nations that generally cannot compete on their own - but if Musk proves profitable and the market exists, some EU type will make a run for the money. 

RU is capable of doing the same - and no, I don't think Roscosmos would roll over any attempt.  Some intrepid individual(s) could start up a private business. 

And why 'billionaires'?   Because the up front costs are staggering.  Yet as you pointed out earlier - one Musk paves the way, all a prospective competitor has to do is copy and paste 

 

 

 

*certainly we will see government funded and academic minded missions... But the completely government funded design of rockets and payload delivering services is on the way out. 

The thing about China is that the "government" kind of simultaneously is the "private sector"- either company executives are CPC members or the CPC literally owns/controls some businesses.

The Chinese government are not idiots, I think they are serious about wanting to save money- the cuts to the PLAGF and the pursuit of reusable rockets by both the government/state (reusable Long March 8 and 9 rockets) and private space companies (i-Space, Deep Blue Aerospace, etc.) are evidence of this. So instead of seeing some delayed dinosaur SLS-like rocket, with seemingly "fiscally psychotic" plans to operate it into the 2030s, I think it is safe to expect China to continue to be a serious space competitor to the US not just in space achievements like aiming for a lunar base and outer planet exploration, but also the commercial launch market too (that is, trying to bring down launch costs), despite "government involvement" which in the West is a red-flag for ambitious space projects.

An example of this is Long March 9, which could be considered the Chinese answer to both SLS and Starship as a cargo carrier. They only plan to launch the non-reusable (presumably super expensive) variant for a few years before moving on to a semi-reusable variant in the 2030s. No pork there. In contrast to the SLS which will continue throwing away SRBs into the 2030s despite Starship likely existing by then, even with a horribly delayed development schedule fraught with issues.

7 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Smart guys are often ahead of their times 

Although - to be honest I'm analogizing the advent of the Age of Sail if anything. 

Certainly, prior to 1492 sailboats existed - but afterwards deep ocean craft technology progressed in leaps and bounds... And economies never dreamed of were created.  I seriously doubt those early adopters could anticipate the East India Company or the clipper ships of the Americas

I think there is a danger to such logic. Just because I successfully rowed by myself across a large lake for the first time does not mean I can circumnavigate the Earth by myself successfully.

I think political-historical analogies work but comparing sailing ships to spacecraft is difficult. The complexity in relation to the economics and politics involved  are vastly different, and I don't think they should be considered similar because they are "new and upcoming".

Note- "Danger" as in danger of making incorrect predictions. Also this are just ideas I am sharing, it is not my intention to "demand" you to cease such thoughts.

7 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Someone always has to be first.  And like Sutter - they don't always succeed.  But along the way someone gets rich, and a host of associated and supporting industries tag along for the ride. 

I'm curious as to whether this is a particularly American observation... We certainly have a relatively 'modern' experience with ventures into the unknown and undeveloped - and the appreciation for the possible (even if it's not evidently 'possible' to all observers). Is pessimism more a common human experience across the wider world? 

 

(Edit: suggested reading 'Empire of the Summer Moon' by S. C. Gwynne - who makes clear that the Americans who ventured into the Comanche territory of the Southern Great Plains were pretty much daft madmen /women... Completely unprepared for the environment /political system... And still they came) 

Americans have never had the experience of a massive foreign army rampaging across their homeland, massacring people and crushing dreams. The amount of great civilian projects either cancelled or literally destroyed during the Second World War is depressing.

They have also not seen their country rise to greatness over multiple centuries only to have its *empire*/level of influence destroyed by conflict with rival empires and economic crisis.

Nor have they experienced "real" authoritarian government and the ensuing suppression of hopes and ambitions.

Basically every country in the world apart from Canada has had at least one of these experiences. That's not to say people literally think "we got invaded in WWII, shouldn't be too optimistic about our multi-decade space project", but such realist attitudes are much more imbued into other people's thinking than Americans I think.

But that said, I personally don't think it is the rest of the world that is "weird" or "in the wrong"- it is Americans that are way too over optimistic at times- and I say this not to hate on them, but because I think such optimism actually harms the goals they want to achieve- and they are the "outlier", and might benefit from looking at the negative possibilities too.

This is also not to say everyone outside of America and Canada think in such a way either. As memories of war fade into the past, perhaps more and more nations will "become American".

No hate/insult or "talking down" intended with this statement. Just sharing my personal view (opinion, that is, not trying to make a factual statement) on the American psyche, not making a personal attack on Americans themselves nor demanding Americans cease their way of thinking.

I also apologize for using "them" so often. It can have a demeaning meaning, but it is simply the word I used, no offense intended. On the other hand saying "you Americans" would be far worse in terms of causing a misunderstanding so I used the former when writing this.

[Flavio hc16]

Warning: wall of text incoming

 

GAO report is out, and there are a lot a information and some heavy beating for BO and Dynetics :

 

Of the 16 launches 1 is the Lunar Starship, 14 are tankers, and the last one is [Deleted]. This, (deleted ) to me, suggests it is a full depot starship variant that will hold the propellant to refuel the Lunar Starship. The depot would be filled and the lander would be launched last, reducing the time on orbit of the craft.

 

 

On page 38: Due to their chosen navigation system, BO can't land in darkness, and find NASAs chosen reference landing spots "challenging" or "infeasible"... 

 Basically, the RFP asked to land in two specific areas. BO said that due to their optical nav system, those two areas would be challenging. Subsequently, BO poodleed that there wasn't a specific requirement to land in low light conditions, ignoring that the RFP specifically stated two potentially low light areas. 

The GAO slapped BO down and said, dude, the RFP doesn't have to have every picky little requirement laid out if a requirement can be readily inferred by another requirement.

Incidentally, the GAO report is a master class in how to run a protest evaluation. BO brought up all sorts of spurious protest rationales, and GAO looked them straight in the eye and pointed out why they were spurious. I'm impressed.

 

Just to give one of many examples, BO complained that the contracting officer did a more detailed analysis of BO's crappy comms system than he had done at contract award when justifying his reasons for calling the comms system crappy (I'm paraphrasing it. GAO said that was perfectly fine to do if the detailed analysis didn't contradict the initial finding. GAO pointed out that initial findings were not necessarily completely 100% documented to the nth degree, whereas post hoc analysis could be more detailed. 

 

I feel like this is the best view we've ever gotten into how SpaceX handles things vs. how the legacy contractors who've been building everything on cost-plus contracts handle things.

As a concrete example, all three proposals had to identify how they would handle cryogenic fluids management for this mission. SpaceX submitted (quoting from the GAO report):

- a nearly 90-page “Thermal Analysis” that the awardee used to drive overall vehicle architecture, active and passive thermal control system design, material selections, and component designs
- a 57-page “Thermal Protection System Analysis” that the awardee used to present thermal protection systems analysis results to date for HLS and its methodology and approach for ongoing efforts
- a several hundred page “Propulsion System and Performance Analysis” setting forth the intervenor’s analysis of its starship propulsion system, including the propellant inventory and final performance margins
- a nearly 50-page “Propellant Heat Rates” analysis addressing boil-off, in terms of the methodology for accounting for boil-off losses, as well as specific mitigation and management approaches

While Dynetics and BO submitted proposals which offered minimal technical analysis and hard data, and leaned on (again, quoting the GAO) very literally filling in tables with "TBD" in the case of Dynetics, and verbiage about "heritage" (referring to the Orion program) in the case of BO.

It's really interesting to see SpaceX, who for years has been painted as slapdash and a maverick (an image helped along by Elon's volatility and mercurial tendencies) deliver data, data, data, and more data. Meanwhile their competitors, who portray themselves as established and safe, handwave major technical concerns. Of course, in a cost-plus world this makes sense: you promise to figure it out later -- and then that's exactly what you do, delaying the program until the problem is cracked, getting paid all the while.

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[tater]

 

Says the company that has yet to actually fly anything to orbit.

[Beccab]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

 

Says the company that has yet to actually fly anything to orbit.

Says also the company that proposed a lander literally unable to land in the indicated sites

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, tater said:

All other arguments aside, they’re barking up the wrong tree by urging NASA to award a second provider. NASA doesn’t have the funding. If they’re serious about competition, they need to urge Congress to provide the funding NASA needs for a second contract award. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

20 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

they need to urge Congress to provide the funding NASA needs for a second contract award. 

Did you just say 'Traditional Aerospace'? 

(Mike - don't hit me... Teh joke was too easy) 

Edited August 11, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[tater]

 

Much lighter, 4 tanker flights?

Time for some math...

[tater]

The trick is what is actually needed, which depends on aerobraking being possible. If it is, TEI is only 900m/s. You need maybe 1900m/s to get to LLO. So the min is ~2800 m/s, and you might need another 3200m/s for a propulsive LEO burn—though that is lower for a higher orbit.

So we need between 2.8 and 6 km/s.

For a 50t (dry) LSS

Worst case 6km/s dv required for return:

Land with 203t residual propellants. This allows a full LSS to JUST land (no cargo mass) and propulsively return to LEO with a 1200t load in LEO to start.

Best case 2.8km/s dv required for return (aerobrake):

Land with 57t of residual propellants. With no cargo it only needs 487t of props loaded in LEO. With 20t of cargo it needs 567t props loaded in LEO.

So LSS must be closer to 50t dry than the 80t we have assumed.

 

 

 

[tater]

60t dry needs 68t props with an aerobrake return to LEO. Needs 575t props in LEO (no cargo).

A 60t LSS can do the round trip with aerobraking with 600t props delivered to LEO, and 19t of cargo.

[tater]

Assuming a SS (no fins etc) is a total of ~25 sheets of steel (smaller at the top, so that excess goes towards domes thrust structure, etc—each dome is maybe 1.5 rings of metal, so this is not perfect), then at 4mm thickness, LSS has ~41.7t metal. At 3mm, it's 31.3t, at 2mm it's 20.8t metal. Raptors are like 2t each, unsure if LSS actually needs 6, might do fine with 4 (3 Rvac, with 1 with gimbal in the center—possibly also a Rvac but with gimbal).

So 8t of engines. That's a ~50t (no crew stuff included) at 4mm thick, 40t at 3mm, 30t at 2mm. LSS could actually be really light.

[Rakaydos]

5 minutes ago, tater said:

Assuming a SS (no fins etc) is a total of ~25 sheets of steel (smaller at the top, so that excess goes towards domes thrust structure, etc—each dome is maybe 1.5 rings of metal, so this is not perfect), then at 4mm thickness, LSS has ~41.7t metal. At 3mm, it's 31.3t, at 2mm it's 20.8t metal. Raptors are like 2t each, unsure if LSS actually needs 6, might do fine with 4 (3 Rvac, with 1 with gimbal in the center—possibly also a Rvac but with gimbal).

So 8t of engines. That's a ~50t (no crew stuff included) at 4mm thick, 40t at 3mm, 30t at 2mm. LSS could actually be really light.

Superheavy's avionics were quoted at a significant tonnage, though, and LSS is going to involve several airlocks and docking ports, and the internal structure to make use of the volume between them. I'd add 20+ tons to that estimate.

[tater]

10 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Superheavy's avionics were quoted at a significant tonnage, though, and LSS is going to involve several airlocks and docking ports, and the internal structure to make use of the volume between them. I'd add 20+ tons to that estimate.

Sure, but the "avionics" included the grid fins I think.

I am talking bare metal before fitting out.

There is no reason for LSS to be more than 3mm steel unless aerobraking required it—remember it is coming back uncrewed, so it can brake in multiple passes.

19 minutes ago, tater said:

So 8t of engines. That's a ~50t (no crew stuff included) at 4mm thick, 40t at 3mm, 30t at 2mm. LSS could actually be really light.

Assuming the fitting out is indeed 20t, then our mass range is 50-70t. My 60t ballpark (right dead in the middle for the 3mm version) can land 19t of cargo, plus crew, and still return to LEO via aerobraking with only 600t of total props.

Edited August 11, 2021 by tater

[cubinator]

13 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Superheavy's avionics were quoted at a significant tonnage, though, 

That's because they are using batteries that are not optimized for the job on B4. Those avionics will get a lot lighter.

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Did you just say 'Traditional Aerospace'? 

As opposing to Alternative Aerospace.