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NASA Announces Design for New Deep Space Exploration System
- nickolai 15y agoGood news. So they went with the 'fast and expensive' option after all[1](the 'cheap' one was planning on first launches after 2021 instead of 2018). [1]http://www.space.com/12916-obama-nasa-space-launch-system-budget.html http://www.space.com/12916-obama-nasa-space-launch-system-bu...
- nobody314159 15y ago"This launch system will create good-paying American jobs, ensure continued U.S. leadership in space, and inspire millions around the world" Hopefully they will discover the grammar asteroid.
- coderdude 15y agoThis is great news! Hopefully the final version isn't as ugly as the artist's conception: http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/multimedia/gallery/sls_launching_2.html http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/multimedia/galle... Kind of reminds me of a rocket used for the Apollo missions (although it's not) with some Space Shuttle SRBs attached to the side. The first version shown in the video actually looks kind of cool -- like something SpaceX would have built. It's a good thing progress in the space industry move at a snail's pace. Our aim is to remain the go-to country for space flight yet the first mission is slated for 2017. It looks like they're trying to save some money by using advancements from the Space Shuttle and Constellation programs. Always a good thing because NASA projects are notorious for going over their budgets (with good reason). >>It will use a liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propulsion system A consequence of using previous propulsion tech is that we're still using dangerous, highly explosive liquid hydrogen and oxygen rockets. I'm still hoping we're able to get higher ISP from hybrid rockets in the near future. Much safer and easier to turn off if there is a catastrophic systems failure on the way up.
- cpeterso 15y agoWhy are space ships always white? If the designers are not going to use cool colors, they could at least give the rocket racing stripes or "go Nascar" with tons of advertisements. :)
- nostromo 15y agoA guess: it's because it's easier to spot damage, dust, debris, etc.
- sliverstorm 15y agoWhite reflects the most heat, which is important during re-entry and in regulating internal temperature while being directly irradiated by the sun. As an added bonus, white is the easiest color to see against the backdrop of Space. Photos of spacewalks would be pretty boring if the Shuttle and the astronauts were all wearing black.
- mturmon 15y agoThe image you see is an artist's rendering, of course. The Shuttle main engines used to be painted white (this is the big central tank supplying liquid hydrogen and oxygen to the engine). But it turned out to save about 600lb to leave it unpainted, so that's what they did for all later launches. The tank already has an insulator. You can see both versions in Shuttle launch imagery. From wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_external_tank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_external_tank): "The original ET is informally known as the Standard Weight Tank (SWT) and is fabricated from 2219 - a high strength aluminium-copper alloy used for many aerospace applications. The first two, used for STS-1 and STS-2, were painted white to protect the tanks from ultraviolet light during the extended time that the shuttle spends on the launch pad prior to launch.[4] Because this did not turn out to be a problem and in order to reduce weight, Lockheed Martin ceased painting the external tanks beginning with STS-3, leaving the rust-colored spray-on insulation bare, saving approximately 272 kg (600 lb) of weight."
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- zrail 15y agoIf SpaceX and friends can reliably launch cargo and eventually humans into LEO, why can't NASA focus on what to put into space, rather than how to get there? I'm sure I don't understand the mechanics of it, but wouldn't it be possible to put up a few smaller cargo carriers containing fuel and pieces of a trans-mars ship and assemble it in orbit?
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- timroman 15y agoI think the problem is that the things NASA wants to send into orbit are much larger than what the commercial space industry is planning to send into orbit. That's why NASA is taking the lead and building a vehicle specifically designed for large loads rather than people or satellites.
- Udo 15y agoI disagree. Commercial launch systems are just beginning to unfold and for example SpaceX has already announced plans for heavy lift versions in the very near future. Contrast this with the SLS, which is the umpteenth attempt at rediscovering how the mysterious and ancient Saturn V worked, and which will probably be cancelled within three years without ever producing something that can actually get off the launch pad. Programs like these are completely superfluous and most people involved know it. NASA is not even hiding what this project is for: it's a job program, says so right there in the article. And when they say "jobs", they don't refer to real companies like SpaceX or even themselves, they mean huge defense contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
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- krschultz 15y agoThe proposed payload for the NASA SLS is 64,000kg-120,000kg while the Falcon 9 is 10,450 kg. The proposed payload for the Falcon Heavy is 53,000 kg. So to match 1 SLS launch you are looking at 6-12 Falcon 9s (which have flown) or 2-3 Falcon Heavy launches (which have not flown). I don't think it's a stretch to say that using Space X would be significantly cheaper to get the same weight up there because the design work is already done. You probably would want to use the Falcon Heavy because you don't want to piece together 10 different things, but that is just 3 Falcon 9s strapped together which I can't imagine is as expensive as designing a new launch vehicle from scratch. You are absolutely right that at this point NASA needs to get out of the launching game. Use the tax money for payloads whether that is a manned mission or robots.
- broot 15y agoI'm worried they'll build half of this and then cancel it.
- hga 15y agoAh, yes, the Senate Launch System. Looks rather like the more sensible DIRECT; I haven't looked closely at it yet, but from glancing at the Wikipedia entry the Feb 11 design shows it's already a boondoggle (as reported by people I trust) by using 5 segment SRBs, one of the fatal flaws of the Ares I (going from 4 to 5 segments results in thrust oscillations severe enough to kill the crew). And from what they're not saying it sounds like they're sticking with the Ares program's wider SRBs, which fantastically drove up the cost of it. Well, since NASA has been more public works program than anything else since Apollo (and even then, helping the South was an explicit goal of Apollo), I suppose it's fitting. But can we really afford this sort of thing as opposed to building up a commercial launch sector in any one of a number of ways?
- bfe 15y agoI know a few people who know more than me about astro engineering who approve of these jumbo SRBs... but I still just don't buy that they're a good idea for human-rated launch systems. U.S. astronauts who are used to flying on the Space Shuttle and then ride a Soyuz up to orbit can't believe how incredibly smooth and peaceful liftoff is - because the propulsion system is just liquid kerosene - liquid oxygen. Launch stacks with SRBs have to have so much extra weight in structural support just to deal with the immense acoustic load - and even then, it's hard to accept that they can reach the level of inherent safety of a straight liquid fuel stack.
- hga 15y agoNote my other comment on why liquid fueled rockets are preferred for manned flight because you can turn them off. Once you light off a SRB you're 100% committed until it burns out (at best, although at least the fuel in the Space Shuttle ones has a proper pressure and burn rate feedback: as pressure increases burn rate goes down, addressing some of the worst issues, e.g. a sudden increase in propellant surface area due to a crack). To my now somewhat hazy memory, except for the first few Mercury suborbital missions (which were done in a real hurry) the only manned space flight system to use SRBs is the Shuttle.
- RexRollman 15y agoDon't get me wrong, I am pro space exploration and love science, but I just don't see how we can justify spending money on this kind of project with the economy as it is.
- myhf 15y agoFrom the article: "This launch system will create good-paying American jobs"
- Jeng 15y agoIf factories get shut down and re-purposed it costs a lot more to then create new factories if you need to build that product again at a later date. Long term wise how can we justify not spending money knowing that we will spend less in the long run if we spend big in the short term?
- russell 15y ago"...kids today can now dream of one day walking on Mars." Hell, I dreamed of walking on Mars when I worked on the Apollo Project. I never dreamed that 2011 would come and we would never have even gone back to the moon. It makes me regret even more that I never made the trek to Florida to see a Saturn V launch.
- derrida 15y agoYou worked on the Apollo Project!!! What was your role in the Apollo Project?
- russell 15y agoI worked at the MIT Instrumentation Lab on a compiler for the Apollo Guidance computer. The language was rather bizarre. Each line was encoded on 3 punched cards. One for the main expression, one for subscripts, and one for superscripts. I was pretty junior so my task was really at the front end processing compiler options and reading the input. The Lab was a really interesting place. Lots of high end 360's, which couldnt even power a phone these days. We had our own command module mockup, but I was an employee of a contractor, so no-one would let me play around on the inside, but I did get to peek. In the grand scheme of things, my role was miniscule, but I am still very proud that I was able to contribute to one of the greatest adventures of the last century.
- derrida 15y agoThat is really cool! What if the guidance computer operated with a bad parser? I imagine that could have been disastrous.
- russell 15y agoNot really a problem. All the software was rigorously tested using emulators running on mainframes. The Guidance computers were truly bizarre things. They used core memories for program storage, but to save weight only the 1 bits were expressed with cores. The 0 bits had none. If you recompiled a program and even one bit changed, the memory had to be re-manufactured. Therefore, lots of testing.
- aforty 15y agoI know it's not logical but I was disappointed that the new "deep space exploration system" didn't look like something out of Star Trek. Instead they made another fucking rocket.
- Synthetase 15y agoBarring any significant development in propulsion technologies, they did what any responsible engineering design team would. I would obsess less over the form factor and more over efficiency.
- marze 15y agoThe primary design objective for this system, as well as the cancelled programs NASA wasted billions on over the last four years, is to: Spend the same money in all the congressional districts that the Shuttle program spent money in. $18B is 50 times what NASA has paid out to SpaceX so far, and SpaceX already has already developed a working rocket. Congress could fund 50 SpaceX-like firms for that same amount. Instead, Congress is attempting to cut the money NASA has requested for commercial crew transport.
- russell_h 15y agoMy favorite part is that the first quote in the article is "This launch system will create good-paying American jobs". When an election isn't coming up they at least put that below the nationalistic/visionary stuff.
- nobody314159 15y agoEven worse - you know that they originally wrote "well paid jobs" and a team of media image consultants decided that "good-paying American jobs" sounded more homely and folksy and would play better in social groups XYZ in congressional districts ABC.
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- zzzeek 15y agoAbout six paragraphs that need to mention "cost" or "jobs created", only one at the bottom that has some actual scientific goals. How far we've fallen
- sliverstorm 15y agoIt's a symptom of the times. People don't care about science today, they care about jobs, and NASA is trying to play that tune to keep themselves afloat.
- InclinedPlane 15y agoIt's a pattern of the last 3 decades of NASA manned spaceflight. It hasn't always been a jobs program, but it's been mismanaged for so long that being a jobs program keeps it afloat.
- HeyLaughingBoy 15y agoWhen have people never cared about jobs? When have they (outside a select few) ever really cared about Science?
- csomar 15y agoWhen joblessness is 3% and you can (not easily) find a job if you get fired from another, landing to the moon is quite interesting for you, and for anyone else. When you are struggeling to pay the bills, finding a job, or securing your current job, landing to the moon is a quite stupid thing the USA gov. is spending the money on. Although it won't cost the US economy only a little (few billions) comparing to its size, people won't be easy with it. They are in trouble living in earth, and are not looking for the moon or massively expensive explorations.
- tsotha 15y ago>How far we've fallen Not really, at least not lately. Since the end of Apollo the manned space program has been first a jobs program and then everything else. So if we've "fallen" it happened in the early '70s. NASA funding is just a perk you get as a Congressman when you amass enough clout.
- civilian 15y agoI just want a space elevator! However, having a heavy-lifter NASA shuttle will help the creation of a space elevator.
- EREFUNDO 15y agoThe Chinese explored the Middle East and Africa almost 100 years before the Europeans. Every expedition consisted of 300 ships, some as long as 400 feet with 9 mast and an armada crew totaling 28,000 men. After 30 years of doing it they realized that they were spending too much money on these grand expeditions. The succeeding emperor ended the program. The Europeans on the other hand would send out just a few ships and try to find ways for the expeditions to be profitable (Slaves, gold, land, colonies) in ways the Chinese never thought. These smaller European expeditions could not be stopped by one emperor because Europe was not a unified empire like China. The smaller European kingdoms also competed against each other. This not only made the expeditions sustainable but thrive for the next 500 years. Right now I think we are in China's situation 600 years ago. We stopped the moon landings for the same reason the Chinese stopped landing Eunuchs in Africa. Unless we find a way for these space programs to be profitable I don't see humans colonizing space anytime soon.
- VladRussian 15y agoit can be turned the other way as well - Chinese fell into stagnation and lost the technological, power and all other races during last 2-3 centuries because they stopped the exploration and closeted themselves inside their kingdom. >We stopped the moon landings for the same reason the Chinese stopped landing Eunuchs in Africa. and we don't go to Mars and beyond for the same reason Chinese didn't venture deep into and across the Pacific to America - too technically challenging, unknown and dangerous
- EREFUNDO 15y agoI agree. The emperor who replaced Zhu Di was more conservative and thought that China should close its doors. He famously said that "The outside world had nothing to offer China, it is too primitive and backwards, leave it alone." This inward looking mentality, fueled by the belief in your own superiority, is the disease of great powers. I am afraid that in some ways the United States has become one, maybe it's a good indicator of a power in decline.
- EREFUNDO 15y ago
- mchusma 15y agoNice to see that the most common reaction to this article, even among space geeks, is that this is a waste of NASA's focus and everyones tax dollars. I think that bodes well for progress.
- rbanffy 15y ago> the most common reaction to this article, even among space geeks As Richard Feynman once said, "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled".
- nknight 15y agoI have a sophisticated layman's understanding of stuff like orbital mechanics, launch energies, etc., but one thing I've never been entirely sure of: Why are rockets always round? I'm guessing it's the least-questions-asked shape as far as aerodynamics goes, and gives good weight efficiency assuming you can build what you need into a round shape. Is there anything more fundamental than that?
- lucasjung 15y agoI would guess that it's a whole lot of reasons including the reasons you stated. I would also add a couple (and there's probably more): Round is structurally strong (which, when it comes to aerospace engineering, is really just the opposite side of the "light weight" coin). Symmetry of shape and mass makes the stability and control equations a hell of a lot simpler to deal with, and a round shape makes it easier to be (nearly) symmetrical in more ways than with other shapes..
- gregatragenet 15y agoA rocket is a series of pressure vessels, pressurized fuel tanks, pressurized crew compartment, etc.. Round shapes spread the pressure around the entire structure. The ideal shape for pressurized vessel is spherical, however for aerodynamic reasons cylinders with rounded ends are used.
- HeyLaughingBoy 15y agoMy educated guess: it's because a cylinder is the easiest shape to form sheet metal into. It also avoids multiple seams which are failure points. As a side effect, the stress concentrations at sharp corners are avoided.
- dkokelley 15y agoI suspect weight and aerodynamics play the most important part in determining shape. What I've always wondered is why we've never effectively used wings on our spacecraft to get part of the way there. Spaceship one used something like this with its "stage 1" vehicle. I haven't done the math, but I always assumed it would be less expensive (as in fuel and weight) to start the orbital boosters from 50,000ft after climbing via traditional wings, as opposed to the brute force option of simply producing as much thrust as possible and climbing straight up. Granted for extremely large payloads the structural requirements for building wings that can support the weight might be impractical, but wouldn't it have been easier for the space shuttle to "launch" from 50,000ft?
- mkramlich 15y agoaka heavy rocket
- bfe 15y agoImagine trying to run a company that has 535 people on the board of directors, none of whom has equity in the company, but many of whom have de facto equity in your suppliers. Maybe NASA should be spun off.
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- ThaddeusQuay2 15y agoTangentially, given the comments referencing Star Trek and SpaceX, I'd like to point out that SpaceX lost Scotty's ashes. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/science/space/03launchweb.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/science/space/03launchweb....
- CamperBob 15y agoScotty would've understood, and respected them for trying.