NASA Moving Ahead With Orion
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The Thread For The Future Of Interstellar Propulsion
new NASA spacecraft 'Dawn' with ion propulsion to asteroid belt
ion plasma rocket being developed - VASIMR
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The Thread For The Future Of Interstellar Propulsion
new NASA spacecraft 'Dawn' with ion propulsion to asteroid belt
ion plasma rocket being developed - VASIMR
This announcement is still not making sense to me.
The executive and Congress and NASA have stated that LEO missions are to be turned over to the private sector and NASA will focus on deep space missions. Fair enough.
So then this MPCV shouldn't be designed or used for LEO stuff.
And the President has decided to scrap the planned Moon missions in favor of "flexible paths", destinations TBA.
So MPCV is NOT for LEO and NOT for Moon missions, as NASA won't be pursuing those goals.
That leaves asteroids, Mars, Lagrange points.
So this MPCV must be the chosen vehicle for those missions. Really? Is any mission profile to those destinations really a 21 day roundtrip?
It is all too ass-backwards.
Rather than naming a destination and then developing whatever spacecraft or technology is necessary, they are instead designing and building something without knowing where it will be going or what it will be required to do.
It's just not working right.
Supposed to be, the President and Congress decide upon a goal or mission or destination and then NASA finds a way to carry out the objective.
Instead, Congress is dictating which kind of launch vehicle to build over another (the means rather than the ends) and people assume NASA decides where astronauts go next and that's not the case.
Congress is trying to be rocket engineers and NASA is pretending to be policy-makers. Very muddled.
The executive and Congress and NASA have stated that LEO missions are to be turned over to the private sector and NASA will focus on deep space missions. Fair enough.
So then this MPCV shouldn't be designed or used for LEO stuff.
And the President has decided to scrap the planned Moon missions in favor of "flexible paths", destinations TBA.
So MPCV is NOT for LEO and NOT for Moon missions, as NASA won't be pursuing those goals.
That leaves asteroids, Mars, Lagrange points.
So this MPCV must be the chosen vehicle for those missions. Really? Is any mission profile to those destinations really a 21 day roundtrip?
It is all too ass-backwards.
Rather than naming a destination and then developing whatever spacecraft or technology is necessary, they are instead designing and building something without knowing where it will be going or what it will be required to do.
It's just not working right.
Supposed to be, the President and Congress decide upon a goal or mission or destination and then NASA finds a way to carry out the objective.
Instead, Congress is dictating which kind of launch vehicle to build over another (the means rather than the ends) and people assume NASA decides where astronauts go next and that's not the case.
Congress is trying to be rocket engineers and NASA is pretending to be policy-makers. Very muddled.
Not quite. NASA will still operate the ISS and train astronauts for said mission through at least the end of this decade.
So, how do you design something that can function BEO and not in LEO? That's like asking for a car that can do 100mph but not 20mph.
Not exactly, think of it more as Obama telling NASA to not focus just on the moon, but to develop basic systems that allow a wide range of mission including the moon.
see previous post on this. The MPCV won't go out by itself. It's the return capsule/command module component of the mission, not the entire setup.
This point I agree on, Congress is more interested in pork than results
Sigh, ever heard of FUD? because you're good at spreading it.
Yes it appears this MPCV can do LEO as well as BEO stuff.
I had thought NASA was going to leave the LEO stuff of heat shields and launch escape towers and parachutes to the private sector's Dragon capsule while they concentrated on deep space vehicles *without* those features.
Similar to the LEM, designed for lunar operations without the Earth launch/return components. I thought this MPCV would be something similar (deep-space ops only craft).
And yes, as designed this MPCV could do lunar missions. But at the President's speech at Kennedy in April '10, he pretty much said "been there, done that". I don't think he's gonna go for a Moon mission, even if the vehicle is capable. So translunar only, and in 21 days no less.
I was hoping for more. The OTHER components--the engine stages, habitat module, other parts that will REALLY enable a deep space mission. As you mention, the MPCV is just the command module, not the actual craft that will make it to Mars or asteroids. THAT was the milestone I had anticipated with this announcement.
As presented, it was a glorified re-naming ceremony of the existing Orion capsule. And even that appears to be an Apollo follow-on. I don't see their "milestone" with this MPCV. If anything, Falcon 9 and Dragon are bigger milestones.
I had thought NASA was going to leave the LEO stuff of heat shields and launch escape towers and parachutes to the private sector's Dragon capsule while they concentrated on deep space vehicles *without* those features.
Similar to the LEM, designed for lunar operations without the Earth launch/return components. I thought this MPCV would be something similar (deep-space ops only craft).
And yes, as designed this MPCV could do lunar missions. But at the President's speech at Kennedy in April '10, he pretty much said "been there, done that". I don't think he's gonna go for a Moon mission, even if the vehicle is capable. So translunar only, and in 21 days no less.
I was hoping for more. The OTHER components--the engine stages, habitat module, other parts that will REALLY enable a deep space mission. As you mention, the MPCV is just the command module, not the actual craft that will make it to Mars or asteroids. THAT was the milestone I had anticipated with this announcement.
As presented, it was a glorified re-naming ceremony of the existing Orion capsule. And even that appears to be an Apollo follow-on. I don't see their "milestone" with this MPCV. If anything, Falcon 9 and Dragon are bigger milestones.
Agreed, on both statements.
Bacically, it's the same capsule as before, with the same mission capabilities, (except it won't be going to the Moon, just LEO, Mars, and an asteroid, just like it could before) but with the words "Orion," and "Bush" scratched out and "MPCV" and "Obama" written in in crayon.
MPCV = More Politically Correct Vehicle?
Anyway, I'm glad it at least still exists.
MPCV = More Politically Correct Vehicle?
Anyway, I'm glad it at least still exists.
I don't think Orion and Dragon are being developed simultaneously merely for redundancy - Dragon is supposed to accomplish LEO whereas Orion is intended to function as a deep space (Moon/Mars) crew vehicle. That's not to say that Orion couldn't function as an LEO vehicle but it's pretty safe to say that the additional deep space capability is not going to be modular and thus it's not going to be used for LEO other than as a testing approach.
Someone mentioned that Congress is forcing NASA to stick with a solid rocket booster - specifically because ATK has a massive monopoly of a contract on the development of solid rocket boosters and ATK has a lot of influence in Congress. I've only recently discovered that this is worth taking into consideration when you hear smack talk from anyone under NASA's employ about SpaceX and Dragon/F9/FH since the presence of ATK contracts on solid rocket boosters is compelling a pretty strong anti-SpaceX smear campaign throughout the NASA community; because SpaceX is independently developing its own liquid rocket motors in-house and could potentially become a competitor to NASA projects.
Someone mentioned that Congress is forcing NASA to stick with a solid rocket booster - specifically because ATK has a massive monopoly of a contract on the development of solid rocket boosters and ATK has a lot of influence in Congress. I've only recently discovered that this is worth taking into consideration when you hear smack talk from anyone under NASA's employ about SpaceX and Dragon/F9/FH since the presence of ATK contracts on solid rocket boosters is compelling a pretty strong anti-SpaceX smear campaign throughout the NASA community; because SpaceX is independently developing its own liquid rocket motors in-house and could potentially become a competitor to NASA projects.
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Unless they upgrade the life support to support a crew for more than 21 days, or lift extensions to the life support together with it (e.g. I guess it can work more than 21 days if docked to the space station or when standing on Earth
), this thing is going no further than the moon. You can go to Mars and back in 21 days, but I don't think we have any engines that could do that. So no Moon means no anything.
Orion/MPCV uses an external module for oxygen supply and power generation so a larger service module with bigger tanks wouldn't be very challenging for those requirements. MPCV uses an external module with an umbilical bypassing the heat shield for those purposes so an alternative service module would be simple to implement. That would be more complicated with Dragon's use of internal storage for those items.
A little more challenging would be food storage and the chemical cartridges commonly used to remove carbon dioxide from the spacecraft's atmosphere. Either spacecraft would need a pressurized module docked to the forward/top to store those items for long duration flight. In addition to the issue of getting that module into orbit either spacecraft would need to dock with the supply module, similar to the Constellation procedure's docking with a lunar lander placed in orbit prior to the Aries I/Orion launch.
A little more challenging would be food storage and the chemical cartridges commonly used to remove carbon dioxide from the spacecraft's atmosphere. Either spacecraft would need a pressurized module docked to the forward/top to store those items for long duration flight. In addition to the issue of getting that module into orbit either spacecraft would need to dock with the supply module, similar to the Constellation procedure's docking with a lunar lander placed in orbit prior to the Aries I/Orion launch.
That's actually a good thing. When one particular destination is your only goal, you finally get there....and then what? We did that already and then spent the next 50 years staying in LEO.
In order to really take our space capability to the next level, we need systems which are designed for more than one mission plan.
That's not to say Orion is the ideal platform, but I do approve of the overall direction.
^ That's good provided the objective in the design of the vehicle is to be useful in as many contemplated and useful missions as possible, and not simply to provide pork for the districts that will manufacture it.
Multi-mission adaptability is good for a new spacecraft.
That's one of the highlights of the shuttle. While it doesn't go anywhere besides LEO, it is able to perform a wide variety of missions (orbiting lab, cargo hauler, construction platform, satellite repair, satellite return, etc)
However, the shuttle also got its start by promising to be everything to everyone, considerably overselling it.
I don't want to see this new vehicle start off the same way.
And of course there's the problem of building a spacecraft with destinations TBD. It leads to the old saying "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there."
If we don't know if we are going to the Moon or Phobos or an asteroid or a Lagrange point or Mars, how do we know this MPCV is the right vehicle?
Also, "Bush / Orion" scratched to "Obama / MPCV" is the best thing I've heard yet about this big milestone.
"More Politically Correct Vehicle" !!!
Yes indeed
That's one of the highlights of the shuttle. While it doesn't go anywhere besides LEO, it is able to perform a wide variety of missions (orbiting lab, cargo hauler, construction platform, satellite repair, satellite return, etc)
However, the shuttle also got its start by promising to be everything to everyone, considerably overselling it.
I don't want to see this new vehicle start off the same way.
And of course there's the problem of building a spacecraft with destinations TBD. It leads to the old saying "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there."
If we don't know if we are going to the Moon or Phobos or an asteroid or a Lagrange point or Mars, how do we know this MPCV is the right vehicle?
Also, "Bush / Orion" scratched to "Obama / MPCV" is the best thing I've heard yet about this big milestone.
"More Politically Correct Vehicle" !!!
Yes indeed
^^
I doubt that MPCV will be retained as the name though.
Remember, Orion was originally known as the CEV.
I doubt that MPCV will be retained as the name though.
Remember, Orion was originally known as the CEV.
