Europa moon Lander mission - science

[sojourner]

My beef with the poster above is that he--and others--want to put MSFC out of work.

See this is your big misconception. I am not arguing from a point of "putting people out of work". But, that being said, NASA should not be a jobs program. Part of the problem with NASA today is that it gets so little bang for the buck because of congress using it as a pork barrel jobs program rather than being concerned about results.

You want to keep those people in work? Make space cheaper and open up the market. Get enough companies interested and you'll have a shortage of engineers for all the work available.

I truly don't understand your obsession with Huge launch vehicles. I mean seriously, you think it would be practical to send up a ring station in one piece?

You know, I don't have a problem with HLV's. I have a problem with overly costly HLV's that waste money that could be put to better uses.

 

[publiusr]

Part of the problem with NASA today is that it gets so little bang for the buck

Even Bergin has admitted that SLS has been making progress. It is great bang for the buck. Now F-35 at 1.5 trillion life cycle costs--that is what needs cutting.

See this is your big misconception. I am not arguing from a point of "putting people out of work".

Well that is what it would result in.

NASA should not be a jobs program. You want to keep those people in work? Make space cheaper and open up the market.

I disagree. I think in house capability should be maintained regardless of whatever caprices the market endues. You might as well talk about privatizing the Air Force.

For the last time capability is not "pork", its capability. Once it is gone--it's gone.

I don't see Musk testing F-1s, I see NASA doing it under SLS. I want independant capability outside of the market--the market be damned.

I truly don't understand your obsession with Huge launch vehicles.

I don't understand your obsession with the market always being the best path. I got news for you--it isn't.

Market forces actually make things MORE expensive, not less. Case in point, the failure of the Very Light Jet, and Santorum's Accu-weather bill:

http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/04/santorum_vs_nat.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/...Tried-To-Abolish-the-National-Weather-Service
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/...hing-Called-8216-Volcano-Monitoring-8217-8221#


The call to wreck NASA's in-house capability is just as wrong-headed for the same reason.

You know, I don't have a problem with HLV's. I have a problem with overly costly HLV's that waste money.

It isn't "overly costly." It costs what it costs. Any space capability is going to be expensive. MCT will be expensive. In the DoD there are cost overruns --but that is simply to be expected. I want to see a Bering Strait Bridge myself. That would be pretty steep too, but it is good infrastructure.

Now with F-35, which drones will soon make obsolete--that is a matter all unto
itself. I could launch the Battlestar Galactica with what that will cost us. THAT is your waste of money.

As for me, I'll side with Carolyn Porco.

 

[sojourner]

If NASA had any in house capability, it might be nice to keep. It doesn't. And it's wasting a lot of dollars trying to produce what can already be purchased.

Capability is not pork. Endless powerpoint rockets duplicating existing capability is.


Bid out an HLV program COTS style and see how costly SLS is by comparison.

Considering F-35 is military spending and cutting it would not benefit NASA, it really has no bearing here.

 

[gturner]

Under NASA's current projection, each year they'd either launch a cargo payload or a crew. Since the Orion is just going to return to Earth, I won't count those as delivered payload, just like the dead-weight of the Space Shuttle Orbiter.

The Space Shuttle, when it wasn't grounded because of the numerous government design flaws, averaged 5.5 missions per year, carrying 22.7 tonnes of cargo. That comes to 124 tonnes of cargo per year delivered into orbit. The SLS, in its fully evolved configuration that's supposed to debut in 2032, and maintain one flight every other year, effectively delivers only 65 tonnes of cargo per year to LEO. That's only half as good as the Space Shuttle.

When it comes to crew, the Space Shuttle put an average of about 38 people into orbit every year. The Soyuz almost always puts up twelve people a year. The SLS is projected to average three people a year.

That's going backwards.

 

[larryman]

When NASA uses these ships, we will have a space agency to support.

Give all SLS development funding to the "Nasa Innovative Advanced Concepts" (NIAC) program.

We need submersible flying saucer shuttle craft, and warp drive motherships. Not more rockts!

 

[publiusr]

When NASA uses these ships, we will have a space agency to support.

Now talk about powerpoint presentations...


First of all, Area 51 is just Jesse James' Monster Garage for Fighter-Jocks, Bomber-Barons and drone-drivers. Anti-gravity is likely never going to be real. I wish it were andwe could abandon rockets altogether.


But the kicker is this. Hoaxland...I mean Hoagland...maintains that the reason the "over-unity devices" and similar woo only works sometimes is due to the 19.5 whatzit, and I think he said something about a previous war between planets messing with the space time continuum.

After all, there must be a reason why a super-advanced species can fly many light years, and then seem not to know how to land. Maybe its radar beams interfering, or whatever.


The point is this. Even if all the space alien field-manip drives were real, they are evidently wonky around this Earth--so we STILL need rockets, since no inertia drive dampener is ever going to affect a SRB in the least.


I'm thinking that if we ever do have space drives, they will be like ion engines. No good for lifting off a surface, so the LV still plays a part.

Right now, our best bet is nuclear-thermal. (NTR). That means lots of high volume LH2. So an LV that is also roomy, wide and large, will be what is launching it--and that will be SLS.

Capability is not pork. Endless powerpoint rockets duplicating existing capability is.

It isn't powerpoint--it is metal now. SD-HLLV has been worked on and pushed for by space advocates (i.e.experts) before there was even Powerpoint to begin with.


But if we ever have anti-gravity, I'll eat my words.

 

[sojourner]

Publiusr, got an article for ya.

 

[publiusr]

Talk about cherry picking...

That's old news, Dumbacher and others rightly took issue with it.
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32484.msg1080154#msg1080154

But if you scroll down to the comment section, you see this:

It is amazing to see how many so called experts pretend to make anaylises of the work performed by the space agencies without even uderstanding how different and uncomparable the requirements are for a reusable system to LEO such as the Space Shuttle, and a heavy lift rocket for deep space missions to Moon and Mars (forget asteroids, they are not a destination !!!).
Articles like this one only help confusing the political decision makers, by pretending changing physics or by just ignoring it.

Also from nasaspaceflight:

Biased op-eds seem to be the last remaining bastion of the anti-SLS faction.

Meanwhile, SLS has progressed to about to pass PDR, when most of you said it would be cancelled by the start of 2012.

This particular piece from "The Space Review" generally reminds me of the DC beltway lobbyist culture. People with agendas writing "articles". The last part about how his rant should not be construed as dissing NASA or its employees, made me laugh.


Another view

I would say the article is more hysterical than sober. Just a lot of handwaving about made-up SLS costs that the author admits he has no official source for.

His first whack at it results in a per-launch cost of $5 billion, and by the end of the "article" he is claiming per-launch costs of $14.3 billion.

And of course the article make no mention of the progress that SLS is making through the PDR process.

The author does present one chart that shows the impact of the expected low flight rate on the per-launch costs of SLS. It shows that we will need to be launching SLS at least once or twice a year in order to achieve a decent return on investment. Of course, when you plug in more realist costs, the numbers look even better.

As SLS gets closer and closer to reality, the SLS haters will escalate their drumbeat of negativity to a towering crescendo. I just hope that NASA and the good people working on SLS and Orion will be able to ignore the vitriol and continue their good work on these systems.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32377.msg1074853#msg1074853


Strickland actually supports HLVs, he just bought into ULA's BS numbers on Ares V, SLS etc.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-05zza.html

From nasaspaceflight-

It has been said a Delta IV Heavy cost around $270M per launch, so $500M per launch of a SLS out side of the fixed yearly cost seems reasonable and based on shuttle per launch costs.

Right now the real stagnation is with everyone making EELV class LVs, duplicating effort, and supporting only medium lift. You won't take humanity to the stars with lvs whose size is determined by whatever the latest comsats are.

Some of Musks problems
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=41515 http://www.americaspace.com/?p=34964

 

[gturner]

It has been said a Delta IV Heavy cost around $270M per launch, so $500M per launch of a SLS out side of the fixed yearly cost seems reasonable and based on shuttle per launch costs.

$500 million to launch the SLS isn't even in the ballpark. The engines alone cost almost that much to purchase.

 

[sojourner]

Some of Musks problems
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=41515 http://www.americaspace.com/?p=34964

That reads a lot more like americaspace's problem than any Elon has. Especially since the writer of the article concedes that it's MDA's choice for how the event is handled.

Oh, and posting a link to an entire article is not cherrypicking. Posting cropped quotes of opinions with little fact is.

 

[RAMA]

Talk about cherry picking...

That's old news, Dumbacher and others rightly took issue with it.
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32484.msg1080154#msg1080154

But if you scroll down to the comment section, you see this:

It is amazing to see how many so called experts pretend to make anaylises of the work performed by the space agencies without even uderstanding how different and uncomparable the requirements are for a reusable system to LEO such as the Space Shuttle, and a heavy lift rocket for deep space missions to Moon and Mars (forget asteroids, they are not a destination !!!).
Articles like this one only help confusing the political decision makers, by pretending changing physics or by just ignoring it.

Also from nasaspaceflight:

Biased op-eds seem to be the last remaining bastion of the anti-SLS faction.

Meanwhile, SLS has progressed to about to pass PDR, when most of you said it would be cancelled by the start of 2012.

This particular piece from "The Space Review" generally reminds me of the DC beltway lobbyist culture. People with agendas writing "articles". The last part about how his rant should not be construed as dissing NASA or its employees, made me laugh.


Another view

I would say the article is more hysterical than sober. Just a lot of handwaving about made-up SLS costs that the author admits he has no official source for.

His first whack at it results in a per-launch cost of $5 billion, and by the end of the "article" he is claiming per-launch costs of $14.3 billion.

And of course the article make no mention of the progress that SLS is making through the PDR process.

The author does present one chart that shows the impact of the expected low flight rate on the per-launch costs of SLS. It shows that we will need to be launching SLS at least once or twice a year in order to achieve a decent return on investment. Of course, when you plug in more realist costs, the numbers look even better.

As SLS gets closer and closer to reality, the SLS haters will escalate their drumbeat of negativity to a towering crescendo. I just hope that NASA and the good people working on SLS and Orion will be able to ignore the vitriol and continue their good work on these systems.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32377.msg1074853#msg1074853


Strickland actually supports HLVs, he just bought into ULA's BS numbers on Ares V, SLS etc.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-05zza.html

From nasaspaceflight-

It has been said a Delta IV Heavy cost around $270M per launch, so $500M per launch of a SLS out side of the fixed yearly cost seems reasonable and based on shuttle per launch costs.

Right now the real stagnation is with everyone making EELV class LVs, duplicating effort, and supporting only medium lift. You won't take humanity to the stars with lvs whose size is determined by whatever the latest comsats are.

Some of Musks problems
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=41515 http://www.americaspace.com/?p=34964

I find it especially satisfying to receive almost daily reports on the progress of the SLS system on my phone. I'm not saying it's an ideal launch system, but it's likely the best option till more money is derived from space based endeavors. There is also the perceived competition with the Chinese which may keep it going.

 

[larryman]

For the billions of development dollars used... I can't wait to see how the SLS rocket will block the Higgs boson particles, from giving the mass property, to the matter of the rocket and its payload - like an advanced space-launch technology should. LOL

 

[Byeman]

You won't take humanity to the stars with lvs whose size is determined by whatever the latest comsats are.

What does that have to do with NASA? That is not nor should it be NASA's charter.

 

[publiusr]

You won't take humanity to the stars with lvs whose size is determined by whatever the latest comsats are.

What does that have to do with NASA? That is not nor should it be NASA's charter.

That's just your opinion, Jim. Or use that sock puppet. I don't care which. Your unpleasent manner got you banned from Phil Plait's site because you couldn't hide behind Chris Bergin there. I see how you and Blackstar (as Dwayne Day likes to call himself), like to beat up on folks who support SLS
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=32626.msg1086467#msg1086467

The people there complain about how "spectre" dissed other centers--like you did MSFC. Or how you liked to question my patriotism at Phil Plait's. But you get away with far more abusive language than Spectre ever used--and you tell your buddy Chris that he is a coward for not having me stand up to your bunch. But that's okay. Thankfully it isn't just me sticking up for SLS there anymore, looking at the polls.

For those who don't know Jim, (or Byeman as he calls himself)--here is a brief rundown on his personality. Once we were discussing a typo about the amount of money to be spent on this that or the other, and I jokingly suggested that if Hillary Clinton became President, Doom and Gloom Hansen would be NASA Chief, and NASA's typo'ed budget would consist of 10,000 Delta II rocket launches--all weather sats--and you said "What's wrong with that?"

Now if that isn't a lack of vision, then I'm Bill Gates.

BTW The next poster after Jim, IIRC, said "Just about everything."

I simply want a more robust NASA. You got what you wanted. Orion will be initially launched by Delta IV, so if SLS dies, I fully expect you (or ULA at the least) to push for it over Dragon.

Some of Musks problems
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=41515 http://www.americaspace.com/?p=34964

That reads a lot more like americaspace's problem than any Elon has. Especially since the writer of the article concedes that it's MDA's choice for how the event is handled.

Oh, and posting a link to an entire article is not cherrypicking. Posting cropped quotes of opinions with little fact is.

That they are valid opinions is apprently lost upon you, so I will leave you with Neil's
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/...program-wont-be-first-to-send-people-to-mars/
Then maybe you will listen.
America Space is a good site and has good folks running it. Covault does work there as I recall.

I find it especially satisfying to receive almost daily reports on the progress of the SLS system on my phone.

The folks at Marshall appreciate that. For more, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/index.html

 

[publiusr]

Sorry for the necro--but I have good news.

The Europa Lander now has the force of law.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/12/congress-nasa-must-not-only-go-to-europa-it-must-land/
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=89822#more-89822

"In other words, it's against the law to fly the mission to Europa without a lander."

From Texas Congressman John Culberson: “Until now Europa has had no advocate,” he said. “NASA headquarters was prepared to let the Europa mission die...There’s enough money to do everything on their plate.”

Now all the talking heads who lamented Congress (with their cutie-pie "Senate Launch System" remarks) interfering in space matters have egg on their faces. We are going to get an orbiter and lander for Europa. It is the law.

What I find most delicious about all this--is that the very noisemakers at JPL and elsewhere are going to be building a lander made possible by the very launch vehicle they tried to kill.

MSFC will take your apologies now.

FYI
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2888/1

“We reached—and exceeded—The Planetary Society’s goal of $1.5 billion per year for NASA's planetary exploration program,” Bill Nye, the organization’s CEO, said in a statement. “This is a big win for NASA, planetary science and all of Earth’s citizens who understand and advocate the need to explore other worlds.”

The Ares V (now SLS) inspired big telescope guys are back:
http://gizmodo.com/astronomers-want-to-build-a-forty-foot-space-telescope-1751398471

Not all good news of course. Case in point, fighter-jock-and-menace-to-science John McCain:

http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/ne...-books-make-mccains-americas-most-wasted-list
http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2008/10/08/4351040-mccains-planetarium-problem

The new William Proxmire ladies and gents.

He almost makes me wish that SA-2 guideline that hit him had been nuclear tipped.

 

[publiusr]

New information about the Europa mission:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/jul2013/presentations/Clipper_Summary.pdf

Some PDFs: Orbiter
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/meetings/aug2016/presentations/day-1/Pappalardo.pdf

Lander:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/meetings/aug2016/presentations/day-1/LanderUpdate.pdf

For VEEGA they baselined Atlas V 551: departure in 2021; arrival in 2028
For a direct trajectory on SLS: departure in 2022; arrival in 2025.
Notice in the "advantages" section of the attached graphic the mass margin they showed for the SLS launched mission.

From here: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=40928.20


Other space news:

Ice Giant Mission
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/opag/meetings/aug2016/presentations/day-2/Hofstadter.pdf

A recent cubesat design which may visit one of Earth's Trojans: asteroid 2016 HO3.
http://fluidandreason.com/constantq/

India looks to build a large VAB of their own: http://www.shar.gov.in/SDSC/svab.jsp
New 3D print nozzle evolution http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=34421.msg1503127#msg1503127

The Europa missions--look to ride on SLS:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/08/qm-2-booster-examination-sls-pair-shape/

Interestingly, evaluations continue to show “over performance” against the baseline 70 mT and 105 mT ratings, which have been further aided by the future incorporation of the powerful Exploration Upper Stage (EUS).

It has been claimed internally, that the Block 1B, with advanced boosters and EUS, could achieve most – if not all – of NASA’s deep space exploration goals, potentially removing the need to evolve to the Block 2. NASA, however, continues to cite Block 2 for its main Mars missions.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2016/08/sls-critical-paths-2018-thrust-profiles/
The rocket will also be able to place 231,485 pounds (105 metric tons) to LEO and 88,185 pounds (40 metric tons) into TLI.

More here:
http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/links-to-science-and-technology-websites.31646/page-4

 

[B.J.]

Can you trim it down to just the relevant subjects per thread? It's very confusing trying to make sense of your posts.

 

[publiusr]

Here's something simpler.

It looks like Krall isn't alone in having BEEs
http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2016/pdf/2602.pdf
It looks like the fly-by may have a sub-satellite all its own.

More:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/to-get-to-europa-think-like-macgyver/

 

[publiusr]

A very extensive report on Europa:
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=34147
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/docs/Europa_Lander_SDT_Report_2016.pdf
http://www.space.com/35655-nasa-lander-jupiter-moon-europa.html
http://www.ibtimes.com/life-europa-...ovian-moon-look-biological-signatures-2489567
https://www.nap.edu/catalog/10432/n...lar-system-an-integrated-exploration-strategy
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27871.msg1640089#msg1640089

On other bodies in the solar system:

Bucket-wheel for mining asteroids
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1702/1702.00335.pdf

Debris disk 92 AU out
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.00731.pdf

Lunar and Planetary Science XLVIII (2017) Science
http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2017/pdf/program.pdf

Our galaxy...surrounded?
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1702.00485.pdf
http://www.universetoday.com/133312/magellenic-clouds-stay-connected-string-stars/

 

[publiusr]

More on Europa missions
https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/ssbsite/documents/webpage/ssb_172023.pdf
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2017/20171128-clipper-slipper.html
forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=44356.msg1756031#msg1756031