Big honking heat shield

[Asbo Zaprudder]

For those of you who would like an idea of how large the Orion capsule of the Crew Exploration Vehicle will be, see:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/sci_nat_enl_1195475454/html/1.stm

Apollo on steroids indeed.

 

[Meredith]

Impressive, a lot more internal Volume than an apollo capsule, combine that with an orbiting space outpost and you are set.


Here is an idea for a Hubble servicing mission....


Launch a Bigelow module with equipment inside and dock it with the ISS, send a CEV up and dock with the bigelow Module/part pallete, use the service module to change orbit, rendesvous with Hubble, fix it go home, use solar space teher propulsion/ion propulsion to automatically re-dock bigelow tot he ISS.


Hmmmm.



Remeber the CEV is like the front chunk of the shuttle, not mush less space then.....



So for Spacelab type missions just send a cheal Falcon rocket up with a bigelow module....

 

[Alpha_Geek]

I think Bigelow is pretty much banking on Soyuz based standards for docking hardware, so the CEV may not work for this.

It's really unfortunate that NASA wrote off the transhab technology that Bigelow is using. The station might have had a real habitation module instead of their altered plan of making do by using reack space previously designated for science to put in staterooms.

But I digress. Yeah, they Orion is gonna have a good bit of elbow room!

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

That, or the technician in the picture is really, really small.

Remember, Orion extends as a rather blunt cone above that heat shield. There will be room for six people and the means to bring them to and from ISS, or four people and the stuff they need to get to and from the moon. There's a fair amount of room, but suborbital spaceplanes like Spaceship Two will still have more room to get around. Orion will have more room than Apollo, and maybe as much per-person as the space shuttle (I'd seen mockups first-hand - it's a tight squeeze for seven people!), but it's not THAT much.

More importantly, Orion lacks the ability for hauling any large cargo to the station, especially whole payload racks as they can with the Italian MPLMs they can haul up with the shuttle. After 2010, they're pretty much stuck bringing up ONLY things that can fit through a 36-inch circle.

Mark

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Were there good reasons for sticking with the simple cone design (volume = approx 1/3 * base area * height) rather than the more truncated cone of Soyuz? I know they're considering using a shallow entry angle technique to skip between the southern and norhern hemispheres (sounds risky), but I don't know how dependent that is on the shape of the upper part of the capsule.

 

[Bad Bishop]

Never mind that. Is there enough room for a toilet in the capsule? Space Shuttle astronauts have that luxury.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Bad Bishop said:
Never mind that. Is there enough room for a toilet in the capsule? Space Shuttle astronauts have that luxury.

A poop question, sir?

 

[Bad Bishop]

It's a legitimate question relating to astronaut health.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Bad Bishop said:
It's a legitimate question relating to astronaut health.

Of course, but I simply don't know -- it would be nice to see some detailed plans of the interior of the Orion. I can't imagine that they'd be back to using diapers and wipes again. Hopefully, the instructions for the zero G toilet are simpler than those in the Aries 1B from the movie 2001.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Deuterostome said:
Were there good reasons for sticking with the simple cone design (volume = approx 1/3 * base area * height) rather than the more truncated cone of Soyuz?...

The simple answer is that they're using the lessons of aerodynamics and handling from Apollo for this "Apollo v2.0" approach to space travel.

Also, they're cashing in on what experience they can find from NASA's last big manned push beyond orbit. There are still some of the old steely eyed missle men around that can lend their experience to the project and tell the next generation what they may expect when hitting an atmosphere at more that 20kmph.

Someone else asked about toilets and such. Hopefully any long term trips will incorporate the CEV attached to some other module to give a bit more elbow room as well as a pooper.

I've not been doing enough homework to know the answer, but the idea riding all the way to mars while one of your buddies is stinking up the capsule because he's eating all the frozen bean burritos would surely cause a revolt in the astronaut corps!

There's *gotta* be a toilet, or someone would get spaced!

AG

 

[RobertVA]

There's going to be an increase in length to go along with that increase in diameter, so there will probably be some room for equipment and/or storage between the crew seating and the docking port. I have seen illustrations showing all six seats positioned at the same distance from the aft bulkhead in three "rows", two elbow to elbow in the top row (with flight controls and instrumentation), two beneath their feet and the remaining seats in a row outboard of the rest with their heads level with the top row occupant's hips. There was no indication as to which seats wouldn't be installed in the four seat version.

A separate document indicated there are plans for a cargo version without seats, instrument panels and much of the life support equipment. That would be basically a US built alternative to the Russian resupply vehicle, which is essentially a cargo version of Soyuz. Ventilation during unpacking could be ducted in through the docking port.

Note that, like Apollo, any items the crew would need to access during a return from the moon would probably need to be inside the reentry module, as I suspect they wouldn't want to expend propellants pushing the mass of the new lunar ascent module out of lunar orbit.

 

[Johnny Rico]

Well here's a little snippet from the NASA website:

Veteran Shape, State-of-the Art Technology
Orion will be similar in shape to the Apollo spacecraft, but significantly larger. The Apollo-style heat shield is the best understood shape for re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, especially when returning directly from the moon. Orion will be 5 meters (16.5 feet) in diameter and have a mass of about 22.7 metric tons (25 tons). Inside, it will have more than two-and-a-half times the volume of an Apollo capsule.

The larger size will allow Orion to accommodate four crew members on missions to the moon, and six on missions to the International Space Station or Mars-bound spacecraft. Orion is scheduled to fly its first missions to the space station by 2014 and carry out its first sortie to the moon by 2020.

So it appears that the Orion capsule will have 2.5 times the volume of the Apollow capsule. And then during moon missions, the crew will be able to migrate back-and-forth to the lander module which looks to be about the size of an MPLM or slightly smaller. So during missions to the moon, they'll have quite a bit more room to mingle in than even the shuttle.

Habitable volume in the module will be 361 cubic feet. Not sure how that compares to other ISS modules, shuttle, or Apollo capsules.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

A quick web search shows that the shuttle compartment is around 2500 cubic feet. Ouch.

Mark

 

[Johnny Rico]

Mark_Nguyen said:
A quick web search shows that the shuttle compartment is around 2500 cubic feet. Ouch.

Mark

Holy shit! That is quite a disparagement. Are you sure though? 2500 cubic feet for the flight deck and mid-deck?

 

[M'Sharak]

^ I think you meant "disparity".

Deuterostome said:

Bad Bishop said:
It's a legitimate question relating to astronaut health.

Of course, but I simply don't know -- it would be nice to see some detailed plans of the interior of the Orion. I can't imagine that they'd be back to using diapers and wipes again. Hopefully, the instructions for the zero G toilet are simpler than those in the Aries 1B from the movie 2001.

One would so hope.

http://davidszondy.com/future/space/zero_g_toilet.htm

 

[bdb]

Mark_Nguyen said:
A quick web search shows that the shuttle compartment is around 2500 cubic feet. Ouch.

Mark

That can't be right. If you figure that each deck is 10x10x8, then that's 800 per deck. 1600 total. 10x10x8 is way bigger than the actual dimensions. Maybe the 2500 included the cargo bay?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

M´Sharak said:

One would so hope.

http://davidszondy.com/future/space/zero_g_toilet.htm

That's a great website. :thumbsup:

 

[ctrlaltdel]

Deuterostome said:
Were there good reasons for sticking with the simple cone design (volume = approx 1/3 * base area * height) rather than the more truncated cone of Soyuz? I know they're considering using a shallow entry angle technique to skip between the southern and norhern hemispheres (sounds risky), but I don't know how dependent that is on the shape of the upper part of the capsule.

The soyuz is a more efficient shape with regards to internal space to capsule weight ratios, but if a soyuz style capsule returns to earth at lunar return velocities, the 'bell shape' impinges on the boudary layer of the plasma sheath, causing thermal and vehicle controlability issues. It's not an insurmountable problem, but the apollo moldline is more desirable nonetheless.
ps first post on the trekbbs. hi everyone!

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

But wait, didn't the Soviets intend to go to the moon with Soyuz? So would they have not figured out the ideal shape just like the Americans did, and used that? Or did they just wanna be different.

And welcome!

Mark

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Yeah, they did.. up to the point of launching unmanned hardware. Whether the aerodynamics of the Soyuz at those velocities would work or not is still unknown, I *think*.

I didn't do much research to see if the Sovs actually got to try a reentry at that speed, though. The launch cited on the link below mentions a deep space launch without attempting a lunar target.

Anyway, here's the Rooskies last try to get men to the moon... if not on it before those pesky Americans:

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/soyz7kl1.htm

... and welcome ctrlaltdel!