So what's after the space Shuttle?

[DerekL1963]

2. One could just as easily say that the MPCV is a glossed up Apollo, a 1960's design. Soyuz rockets have launched successfully over 1700 times (compare to Atlas's 500 or so), including 118 crewed launches. There hasn't been a major crewed Soyuz incident since 1983 when Soyuz T-10-1 exploded on the launch pad (the crew successfully used the escape system), and no deaths since 1971 when the Soyuz 11 capsule depressurized during preparations for re-entry. It may be 1970's technology (and it has, of course been upgraded continuously since the 1970's), but it's a pretty reliable and versatile rocket and spacecraft.

The simple fact is this - the difference (statistically) between Soyuz and any other booster is only a couple tenths of a percent. It fails just as regularly as any other booster. It's failed five times since 2000, and it's only a matter of luck and a reflection of how few manned flights it carries that none of those failures have been on manned flights.

[mobious44]

they're all going to end up cancelled.

I was recently at the Oshkosh air show in Wisconsin and attended NASA's small press meeting about SLS and the asteroid mission. It sounded to me that both are going to happen. The SLS is currently being built and they do intend to put an asteroid or such in orbit around the Moon to study as far as I could tell.

Edited August 8, 2013 by mobious44

[mobious44]

I'll try to post some of the video I got at it later, once i figure out how. (its on my ipod ATM)

Edited August 8, 2013 by mobious44

[SuperWeegee4000]

There's always the Dream Chaser project.

[asmi]

The simple fact is this - the difference (statistically) between Soyuz and any other booster is only a couple tenths of a percent. It fails just as regularly as any other booster. It's failed five times since 2000, and it's only a matter of luck and a reflection of how few manned flights it carries that none of those failures have been on manned flights.

Actually not - manned Soyuz spacecraft are launched by Soyuz-FG rocket while unmanned are riding Soyuz-U. They are slightly different (changes mostly aimed to limit max acceleration, as well as other "man-rating" requirements), but, more importantly, they undergo much more rigorous pre-launch testing than their unmanned counterparts. And, to answer your next question, they don't do same level of testing for unmanned because it's expensive.

Oh, and Soyuz-FG rocket NEVER failed - all launches to date had been successful.

[Phoenix36C]

I thought that was cancelled too. Or was that just Project Constellation?

[jwenting]

I was recently at the Oshkosh air show in Wisconsin and attended NASA's small press meeting about SLS and the asteroid mission. It sounded to me that both are going to happen. The SLS is currently being built and they do intend to put an asteroid or such in orbit around the Moon to study as far as I could tell.

wouldn't you try to keep up a smile until the day the plug is pulled?

I've worked on several projects that ended up canceled. On all of them, the people involved in the project itself were the last to be informed of the cancellation "so as not to get them down".

One project, the CTO was called to a board meeting to discuss plans for the next quarter, his briefing package included the increased budget figures already appointed. He arrived there at 10, 4 hours into the meeting he got told the entire project was canceled as of tomorrow, after several hours of him presenting his plans based on his already approved (or so he'd been told) budget.

[Tiberion]

Dream Chaser is a private development based on an early 2000 NASA "Crew Recovery Vehicle" which was pretty similar. It's being developed by Sierra Nevada and is currently in competition for the Commercial Crew Contracts from NASA to launch people to the ISS and bring them home (to relieve Soyuz)

The other 2 competitors is SpaceX and its manned Dragon capsule (many upgrades from the cargo Dragon they fly now) and Boeing's "Orion-lite" CST-100 module which will launch on a man-rated Atlas V (as well Dream Chaser probably)

And just for reference: Soyuz is still very capable, but no one really wants to keep using them that much longer. They are old and somewhat limited and its probably a matter of time until something bad happens.

Russia has been developing a successor for a long time now. Its now called PTK NP and it has a long and weird development history, probably even more mired in political bureaucracy than the NASA projects. After the US announced the cancellation of Project Constellation and the new Moon program, Russia sort of canceled the other variants of PTK NP (unmanned Progress-type missions and ISS service among others) to solely focus on a Moon-orbiting vessel, to sort of take the place of Ares. Now they're saying it might at least fly to ISS during development, so who knows what the end result will be. Also, the new Russian carrier rockets (RUS-M -cancelled and Angara -long in development) are not ready yet.

And that is the real reason Soyuz still flies - because both agencies are under budget and political pressure and have had major issues in their launcher/ship development. So the present is Soyuz and the future is Commerical crew vessels as far as the ISS goes - and for extra-planetary trips? Who knows.

[iDan122]

Russia currently isn't in a rush to develop anything since they got everything they need, they might revive the Kliper if a Soyuz fails.

About the US:

I expect the Dragon to be manned first since its development is very fast and successful, I think it is to be manned by 2016.

The DreamChaser will probably second, and Orion 3rd since it is funded by NASA which is funded by the *ugh* government.

As for Boeing, haven't heard much about them and no milestone swere reached sooo.....

[Kryten]

CST-100 development is going fine. It's certainly doing better than dreamchaser, given CST-100 prototypes have managed to do drop tests that ended with survivable landings.

[CalculusWarrior]

I'm a big fan of Orion and the SLS; I feel like they will succeed. However, its nice to know that the Commercial Crew Development Program is active; it gives incentive for companies to continue working on space transport solutions, even if NASA's main projects are shut down. I feel like public attitude towards space is shifting away from simple complacency (like during the waning years of the Shuttle) and starting to want us to travel further into space once more.

[Tiberion]

Russia has been actively trying to develop a new craft for over a decade, so if you think they're satisfied with Soyuz in the long term and are going slowly be choice, you're only kidding yourself.

Orion and all three Commercial crew programs are funded primarily by the government. Because realistically, there aren't too many private uses for a people-launching craft in the near future. Outside of small space tourism uses, very theoretical plans for a Bigelow/private space station, and even more theoretical and more-distant plans about a Mars mission, its all government-paid trips to the ISS for whoever wins.

Orion isn't involved with ISS support, its for the asteroid mission and beyond. Out of the other three, its likely two of them will be chosen. And all three programs have finished multiple milestones and have moved through phases 1 and 2 of Commerical Crew Dev into phase three (called CCiCAP)

I honestly have no idea which 2 it might be. You'd think Dragon would have an edge since SpaceX is already having success with Falcon9 and the more basic Dragon, and has experience working through NASA testing and safety phases and solving related issues. But the DC and CST100 both use the same launcher and it might make it easier to support the programs in some joint manner.

For reference: NASA reported that Boeing had completed 9 of 20 milestones as of September 2013. Sierra Nevada had completed 3 of 9 milestones toward their respective CCiCap contract objectives as of February 2013. SpaceX completed 9 of 15 milestones for its CCiCap objectives as of November 2013.

It started in August 2012 and runs to August 2014, so assuming Sierra Nevada has kept up the pace, they're all roughly in the same phases.

CST-100 development is going fine. It's certainly doing better than dreamchaser, given CST-100 prototypes have managed to do drop tests that ended with survivable landings.

Actually, they found out that the landing wasn't as bad as initially thought. An outside source postulated that it had flipped and crashed, but when they found the actual ship after the dust cleared, it was right side up with skid marks on the belly and an intact flight capsule, so it apparently just skidded out. Furthermore, the landing was not being tested - it was a test of the flight computer being able to take the vessel from a dropped free-fall and enter into its glide slope and trajectory for landing, up to and including the final flare before touchdown - all of which worked flawlessly. The gear was a purely mechanical failure and was not the final flight hardware, but a temp gear made for the test articles

Edited December 15, 2013 by Tiberion

[Firov]

Which *sounds* bad, until you realize the 'one final component' was a *MAJOR* component - the fuel tank. Which showed no signs of being complete anytime soon. (In fact, it took five more years before a sample tank of the same general design and material was successfully tested.)

The only reason this was a problem at all is because the bureaucrats at NASA insisted on using a carbon fiber H2 tank despite the fact that they had been warned long in advance by Skunk Works engineers that such a tank was completely unfeasible. Indeed, the Venture Star was originally designed with an aluminum H2 tank. It was only changed over to a carbon fiber tank afterwards.

Furthermore, while theoretically lighter than a conventional aluminum tank, a carbon fiber tank required such complex jointing and piping that it would have actually ended up heavier. After the repeated failure of the carbon fiber tanks Lockhead Martin had already begun construction of a Aluminum/Lithium alloy tank that would have fulfilled all of the design objectives of the carbon fiber tank.

This wasn't an engineering problem, it was a political problem, made worse by the fact that former NASA director Ivan Bekey basically lied to Congress about Venture Star and it's "unsolvable" problem with the composite fuel tank which resulted in it being cancelled. As a result, we lost more than a billion dollars, and more importantly, access to one of the most promising post shuttle reusable launch vehicles.

So now we're stuck with the poorly conceived and doomed to fail SLS. With any luck, it WILL be canceled so NASA can devote those funds to more useful pursuits and leave space transport to private enterprises like Space-X who won't let petty politics get in the way.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2006/01/x-33venturestar-what-really-happened/

[rdfox]

The Senate Launch System won't be cancelled. Too many important congresscritters have bits of the pie in their districts for it to ever be defunded.

My question regarding it is what the POINT of it is. There really isn't much of a market for launching locomotives into LEO, so...