Jump to content

soyuz the underappreciated workhorse?

crazyewok

By crazyewok
in Science & Spaceflight

 Share

Recommended Posts

SuperFastJellyfish

SuperFastJellyfish

Posted
Posted
BlackBicycle all true, and yet proud Americans launch rocket at our NC-33, but I'm sure that Americans believe that their engines are the best in the world. . .

Why are you trying to provoke an emotional, nationalistic fight? This is a science forum. Hostility like this will only get the thread closed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
BlackBicycle

BlackBicycle

Posted
Posted

Jelly, Russians are just like that. I am sure the fella didn't mean to heat the thread up. And in any case, WE can curb (kerb?) this and just go on with the discussion. You have to realize, however, that "Shuttle vs. Soyuz" thread will never be calm and docile. It is our responsibility to keep it civic. So far we are doing reasonably well, imho.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
J.Random

J.Random

Posted
Posted (edited)

NK-33, not NC-33.

Anyway, I think Soyuz has become something that Shuttle should've been: a space bus. Simple as a nail, reliable and cheap. That's its purpose, and it fits this purpose perfectly.

Regarding Dragon, the discussion will end when (or if) it will replace Soyuz as "life boat" on ISS.

Edited by J.Random
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Piwa

Piwa

Posted
Posted
Why are you trying to provoke an emotional, nationalistic fight? This is a science forum. Hostility like this will only get the thread closed.

I'm sorry, I do not want to provoke anyone, but when I read that "The shuttle was reliable soyuz" is really annoying when people do not realize that the shuttles stopped flying because of the unreliability and too expensive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Skyrunner27

Skyrunner27

Posted
Posted
I'm sorry, I do not want to provoke anyone, but when I read that "The shuttle was reliable soyuz" is really annoying when people do not realize that the shuttles stopped flying because of the unreliability and too expensive.

The only problem with your thought is if that was true the shuttle program would have ended in 2003 with the destruction of the shuttle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
BlackBicycle

BlackBicycle

Posted
Posted (edited)
the shuttle program would have ended in 2003 with the destruction of the shuttle.

Didn't it though? Pretty much, that is. IMHO the rest of it was like watching Mandela wither away...

EDIT: Clarification: They just ran the rest of the shuttles till their operating lifespan ran out, and that was it.

Edited by BlackBicycle
Link to comment
Share on other sites
mdatspace

mdatspace

Posted
Posted (edited)
What? Maybe you should elaborate. If you can.

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/55583main_vision_space_exploration2.pdf

From page 6:

"Retire the Space Shuttle as soon as assembly of the International Space Station is completed, planned

for the end of this decade;"

That was issued in 2004. The end of the decade then was 2010. The shuttle was retired because of the demands of the vision for space exploration, not because it was unreliable or costly. It was planned out.

Edited by mdatspace
Link to comment
Share on other sites
mdatspace

mdatspace

Posted
Posted
I still don't understand this. Demands of the vision?? Look, i'll study that document tonight, but... your opinion still sounds nonsensical to me. Sorry.
Also, Bush made the decision to cancel it in 2004. NASA was spending 4B per year on the shuttles. Bush needed to stop the spending if CxP were to go further.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/08/reversing-nonsensical-retirement-shuttle-requires-miracle-decastro/

A quote:“The reason to shut down the Shuttle Program is that the Nation doesn’t want to spend any more money on Shuttle. President Bush cancelled the Shuttle Program to fund the Constellation Program. President Obama cancelled the Constellation Program to fund commercial companies."

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Themohawkninja

Themohawkninja

Posted
Posted
Also, Bush made the decision to cancel it in 2004. NASA was spending 4B per year on the shuttles. Bush needed to stop the spending if CxP were to go further.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/08/reversing-nonsensical-retirement-shuttle-requires-miracle-decastro/

A quote:“The reason to shut down the Shuttle Program is that the Nation doesn’t want to spend any more money on Shuttle. President Bush cancelled the Shuttle Program to fund the Constellation Program. President Obama cancelled the Constellation Program to fund commercial companies."

Wait... Obama used the money to fund companies like SpaceX?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Kryten

Kryten

Posted
Posted
I still don't understand this. Demands of the vision?? Look, i'll study that document tonight, but... your opinion still sounds nonsensical to me. Sorry.

'Vision for space exploration' was the document that set out Bush's constellation program; the names are sometimes used interchangeably.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Skyrunner27

Skyrunner27

Posted
Posted
Wait... Obama used the money to fund companies like SpaceX?

Where do you think SpaceX is getting the money to build the Falcon 9 and the Dragon. SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and Blue Origins are being funded to build commercial crew vessels. NASA's vision is government deep space and a commercial LEO.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Themohawkninja

Themohawkninja

Posted
Posted
Where do you think SpaceX is getting the money to build the Falcon 9 and the Dragon. SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and Blue Origins are being funded to build commercial crew vessels. NASA's vision is government deep space and a commercial LEO.

I always thought that Musk was just a known (and rich) entrepreneur that I never knew about until SpaceX came to be.

Too bad more people didn't know that SpaceX is where the money went.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Kryten

Kryten

Posted
Posted

The concept isn't to have 'private space programs' at all, it's simply for NASA to take a much more hands-off role in development. There's not a large enough non-government customer base for human spaceflight for it to attract much traditional investment, and it's far too expensive an endeavour for all but the richest people to attempt to self-fund (think Gates or Bezos, not Musk).

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Tiberion

Tiberion

Posted
Posted (edited)

Come on guys, you can do some research on your own? How can you be here arguing about this stuff and not even know the basics of what SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, or Orbital Sciences are?

Elon Musk helped start or founded Paypal and Tesla Motors, as well as SpaceX (in 2002.) They privately funded the development of the Falcon 1 light launcher on their own (and it was the first privately funded rocket to orbit something, in 2008.) In 2006 NASA awarded the COTS (Commercial transport) contracts to several companies including SpaceX to design and built something capable of servicing the ISS. We now know they succeeded with the Falcon9 and Dragon. The company wasn't founded on NASA money and it had its own business before the contract. It did take a HUGE risk to expand itself in order to achieve the Falcon9 and Dragon program, and without earning the rest of the government contract money (which had REQUIREMENTS that had to be fulfilled) they would have failed and likely closed, but they did it. And now they have a full slate of private launches lined up too, so much that they want to expand into one of the old shuttle pads that NASA is leasing out.

United Launch Alliance is a cooperative effort between Boeing and McDonell-Douglas Lockheed Martin (two aerospace companies with decades of history with the US government, especially the military) that operates the Atlas and Delta launcher families. Before the "alliance" was created they each had their own programs. Their primary customer IS the US Goverment, and they are the primary launcher for most of their payloads, be it things like MAVEN, Curiosity, and such from NASA, or recon satellites for the NRO. In addition to their contracts, they receive a "stipend" in order to stay functional so the government has guaranteed access to launchers and thus do not have to develop their own. Neither Atlas or Delta really had the capability to service the ISS (since there was no compatible orbital craft they could launch) and neither were man-rated. ULA has also taken part in the COTS and Commercial crew programs on smaller scales, for the latter mostly to get the Altlas V man-rated so it can potentially launch the CST-100 and/or DreamChaser. The Delta IV Heavy will launch the Orion test mission in late 2014 as well (since the SLS is years away from being done)

Orbital Sciences Corp is another government contractor that has built satellites, GPS systems, missile defense systems and operates some launch vehicles and the new Cygnus craft out of the WALLOPS launch site in Virginia. They have been around since the 80s and have launched payloads using Pegasus, Taurus and Minotaur since the 90s.

There are also several other companies which have received money from the Commercial Cargo/Crew programs like Sierra Nevada, ATK, Blue Horizons, etc. Some of them only made it through 1 or 2 steps of the selection process, others are still active (Sierra Nevada with Dream Chaser) or working on smaller systems instead of full launchers.

So the US government has funded a lot of programs through contracts, and the reason they do so is because the competitive process makes it cheaper. They also don't have to fund 100% of the costs since the private companies also put in their money (and in return get a launcher capable of sustaining their business.)

As far as I know, United Launch Alliance is the only company that gets a stipend outside of their contracts, and the reasoning behind that is.. complicated.

Edited by Tiberion
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Themohawkninja

Themohawkninja

Posted
Posted

As far as I know, United Launch Alliance is the only company that gets a stipend outside of their contracts, and the reasoning behind that is.. complicated.

The "it's actually just a long story" complicated, "they did some illegal stuff that the government turns a blind eye for" complicated, "not illegal because of sketchy loopholes" complicated, or something else?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Tiberion

Tiberion

Posted
Posted (edited)

The long story one. The basics are that the US private space sector was killed off in the 80s and 90s due to a monopoly held by the Shuttle for launching things, which was sort of true. They were actually still using a lot of Titan, Atlas and Delta rockets during that time, but the claim was that they couldn't keep their business running (and thus support the governments with launchers) without federal aide, which they were granted. its one of those iffy government 'pork' projects.

Supposedly they claim they still require it, though there is some skepticism since a lot of the other private companies are finding business now without a stipend on top of their government contracts. But when you have Boeing and McD Lockheed involved, there is a huge amount of government spending tied up in what they do, so they have a lot of influence and are rather entrenched. Its not actually part of NASAs budget anyway, its under the defense umbrella I believe.

Edit: Silly me, I said ULA was Boeing and McDonell Douglas, its actually Boeing and Lockheed Martin. McDonell Douglas merged with Boeing quite a while ago.

Edited by Tiberion
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...