Future of NASA planetary exploration

namloc1980

nokia69 wrote: »

yeah thats all true, a mars/venus flyby is easy and would be possible with a falcon heavy launch

Falcon Heavy will be able to put a max of 14,000 kg on a trip to Mars. NASA's new Orion spacecraft has a total mass of nearly 30,000 kg including fuel and service module - not to mention all the supplies a crew would need to keep them going, so it would not be possible to do with a Falcon heavy launch.

nokia69 wrote: »

JPL seem to be getting better at landing on mars with each mission, so it looks to me like they could land huge habitation units on mars if they needed to, I suppose it all depends on how small you need the landing radius

Landing huge habitation units is not at all comparable to what JPL have been doing with their probes recently. It's extremely difficult to do. I don't understand how you think this is all easy....if it were easy, it would have already been done.

Capt'n Midnight

EnterNow wrote: »

It's a pity oil hasn't been detected or found on another planet yet.

http://www.space.com/4968-titan-oil-earth.html :P

Saturn's smoggy moon Titan has hundreds of times more natural gas and other liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth

Capt'n Midnight

namloc1980 wrote: »

If that was the case it would be great but NASA is currently spending €3bn a year developing the Space Launch System and Orion, which is completely the opposite of what you would expect it to be doing if it wanted the private sector to develop the rocket and crew delivery capability.

€3b per year

to reinvent the Saturn IV

The plans exist. All patents have expired on it - so can't anyone build it now ? There are significant weight savings to be made because of better materials and lighter electronics without having to redesign the entire craft. Digitise the existing drawing do a CAD analysis and use modern substitutes for older material, but only where a redesign isn't needed. Use modern construction techniques like laser cutting and welding instead of riveting.
The aim is to reduce construction costs first, complexity second and weight third.

You now have a big rocket that uses cheap fuel

Weight isn't a bad thing - over-engineering means it may be safer. And rocket fuel is cheaper than a complex part that been engineered to the nth and is under max stress.





Meanwhile the Americans still hope that Dragon or similar will launch for €50 instead of €70m for Soyuz. Even if the figures are true then to repay the billion or so development you're going to need at least 50 flights. Add in the billion being given to develop a capsule, add in the €500 million for a recent launch tower and even if they save €20 per flight (which they won't) the break even point is now 150 flights

The Americans have a saying "if it works it's obsolete."


Far too much emphasis on designing new launch systems that are slightly more efficient than previous ones. Given the number of test firings needed there aren't any real savings in fuel for more efficient designs BTW.



http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/08/nasa-picks-boeing-sierra-nevada-and-spacex-for-commercial-crew/

NASA announced the two and a half winners of the third Commercial Crew development round this morning. The winners were SpaceX ($440M), Boeing ($460M) and Sierra Nevada Corporation ($212.5M), although those allocations are subject to Congressional approval.

Look at ESA - instead of developing a new launcher they are now launching Soyuz from Guiana. €400m investment in the launch pad and facilities and you're good to go. Oh and Soyuz is man rated.

AugustusMinimus

namloc1980 wrote: »

Falcon Heavy will be able to put a max of 14,000 kg on a trip to Mars. NASA's new Orion spacecraft has a total mass of nearly 30,000 kg including fuel and service module - not to mention all the supplies a crew would need to keep them going, so it would not be possible to do with a Falcon heavy launch.

For a Mars or Venus flyby, you'll prob be talking about 2 SLS launches. I suspect that a Mars or Venus habitation unit would weight more than 100,000 kg. Possibly more.

namloc1980 wrote: »

Landing huge habitation units is not at all comparable to what JPL have been doing with their probes recently. It's extremely difficult to do. I don't understand how you think this is all easy....if it were easy, it would have already been done.

Indeed. Big difference between landing a 1,000 kg rover and a 50,000kg habitation unit.

AugustusMinimus

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

€3b per year

to reinvent the Saturn IV

The plans exist. All patents have expired on it - so can't anyone build it now ? There are significant weight savings to be made because of better materials and lighter electronics without having to redesign the entire craft. Digitise the existing drawing do a CAD analysis and use modern substitutes for older material, but only where a redesign isn't needed. Use modern construction techniques like laser cutting and welding instead of riveting.
The aim is to reduce construction costs first, complexity second and weight third.

You now have a big rocket that uses cheap fuel

Weight isn't a bad thing - over-engineering means it may be safer. And rocket fuel is cheaper than a complex part that been engineered to the nth and is under max stress.





Meanwhile the Americans still hope that Dragon or similar will launch for €50 instead of €70m for Soyuz. Even if the figures are true then to repay the billion or so development you're going to need at least 50 flights. Add in the billion being given to develop a capsule, add in the €500 million for a recent launch tower and even if they save €20 per flight (which they won't) the break even point is now 150 flights

The Americans have a saying "if it works it's obsolete."


Far too much emphasis on designing new launch systems that are slightly more efficient than previous ones. Given the number of test firings needed there aren't any real savings in fuel for more efficient designs BTW.



http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/08/nasa-picks-boeing-sierra-nevada-and-spacex-for-commercial-crew/





Look at ESA - instead of developing a new launcher they are now launching Soyuz from Guiana. €400m investment in the launch pad and facilities and you're good to go. Oh and Soyuz is man rated.

The whole point of Commerical Development though is to foster a competitive space industry in the united states. There of course will be an initial outlay for design and testing, but the hope is to gradually get the cost to LEO down to a level where private industry can take over this role from government.

Depending on Soyuz indefinately is not something the US wants to do. Congress firmly wants a US launcher, build and designed in the US, supporting US jobs.

All this development open's up some interesting opportunites. Would there be an issue for instance in ESA buying a number of Dream Chasers eventually and launching them atop a man rated Ariane 5 ?

nokia69

namloc1980 wrote: »

Falcon Heavy will be able to put a max of 14,000 kg on a trip to Mars. NASA's new Orion spacecraft has a total mass of nearly 30,000 kg including fuel and service module - not to mention all the supplies a crew would need to keep them going, so it would not be possible to do with a Falcon heavy launch.



Landing huge habitation units is not at all comparable to what JPL have been doing with their probes recently. It's extremely difficult to do. I don't understand how you think this is all easy....if it were easy, it would have already been done.

the orion spacecraft is not what I was thinking of, it would be better to use a bigelow module and a space x dragon capsule

there was a NASA plan to do a mars/venus flyby as far as I know it was to be done with one saturn V launch, but with lighter modern materials it may be possible with a falcon heavy

if we had reuseable rockets, then we can build fuel depots in space this makes landing large payloads to mars possible

its only easy if we have reuseable launchers

Capt'n Midnight

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

The whole point of Commerical Development though is to foster a competitive space industry in the united states. There of course will be an initial outlay for design and testing, but the hope is to gradually get the cost to LEO down to a level where private industry can take over this role from government.

To get cheap you need high volume production of a standard design.

Look at aircraft - they cost a similar amount.

Even though Boeing make thousands and thousands of aircraft do start from scratch on each new generation ?
Or do today's 737's still use the same fuselage sections as the 707 did back in 1957 ?

It's a process of continuous development. New materials get used like the 787 compared to the 767. Ocassionally a new aircraft is built like the 747, 767 and the 777 but only when there is proven market demand. Otherwise it's a case of stretching and playing musical engines 707 727 737 757. Airbus do the same.

A Boeing 787 is very similar to a 707 , different number of engines and a different diameter fuselage but otherwise the overall arrangement is the same because the basics of physics hasn't changed. It's the same with rocketry. Except that rocket engines haven't gotten more efficient

You won't get high volume if you keep wiping the slate clean and starting again every time you get a mature system debugged.


And how many designs will be needed before they learn "if it ain't broke don't fix it"

Depending on Soyuz indefinately is not something the US wants to do. Congress firmly wants a US launcher, build and designed in the US, supporting US jobs.

Pork barrelling.

aren't some of the most successful US launchers using Russian engines that are more efficient because they use the turbo pump output ?

All this development open's up some interesting opportunites. Would there be an issue for instance in ESA buying a number of Dream Chasers eventually and launching them atop a man rated Ariane 5 ?

chasing dreams more likely

ESA have Souyz so no major mods needed.
Maybe ESA could dust off Hermes, or look at the Russian Klipper

Given the US history on big aerospace/defence projects it's not a good idea to bet on them. On time, on budget, working. Pick two. Pick one - maybe.


If you want to get to orbit one theory says you need to build reusable rockets - but that's where the need to have high volume bites you every time. Lots of external tanks - result they dropped in weight from over 35 tonnes to 27.5 tonnes, and most of that difference translated into payload to orbit.


The shuttles and solid rocket boosters were reusable and didn't show as much improvement. And reusable SRB's cost one shuttle. I've seen figures of $23 million per srb or segment and a figure of $500m for the annual cost of SRB refurbishing operation. Shuttle cost vastly more inefficient than reusable rockets because you had to drag a shuttle and external tank to orbit in addition to your payload.

Capt'n Midnight

IMHO the ISS is a money pit.
US spending on launcher development is another money pit.

Both could have been achieved at 1/10 the cost.

ISS is 5 Saturn IV's. If you used a wet lab design then maybe 4.


For human flight using the Hydrogen storage tanks of the final stage as quarters seems like a no brainer esp on a mars trip.



If you want cheap launchers then invest in superguns
invest in railguns
and inclined ramps

invest in ways to transfer energy from the ground to the spacecraft
so lasers and microwaves can be used to heat the working fluid


Stop giving US companies huge pots of money to build something that is an incremental improvement on what the Soviets built 12 years after WWII


Invest in Ion drives to get from LEO
They may not be quite as efficient as stuff that's on the drawing board.
But they have been used since 1971 and have a 100% reliability record.

Human crew can pop up to the assembled craft later on


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_space_elevator
If going to the moon consider a tether - because the materials are strong enough now, and while it will take bleedin ages , after the initial investment you will save half the mass
better still do a loop - you can use moon rock to make the counterweight




some more Beagle type missions - ie. cheap science

AugustusMinimus

Really like the ideas on how the Mars lander and Mars to Mars orbit vehicle will work.

This plan would have taken 7 Ares V launches. How many SLS launches will it take :eek:

NASA Space Flight explanation of video: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/01/sls-exploration-roadmap-pointing-dual-mars-approach/