The Final Frontier

[Deleted]

I am a space nerd. I'm not really a Space Historian, but I am fairly well-read on the subject. I did not realize until I was watching a documentary about the Mission Control guys that I realized that this forum, dedicated as it is to Star Trek, has no thread to discuss space flight.

We are actually living in rather interesting times for space flight. We have commercial operators, SpaceX and Orbital being the big names, launching payloads to a space station built by several Governments. NASA's Space Launch System (hopefully it will get a real name soon) is set to fly in two years. Lockheed, Boeing, and SpaceX are all working on man-rated capsules. SpaceX has got the re-usable booster thing mostly worked out (which is absolutely amazing!). So clearly, there should be ample conversation fodder.

We've recently received our first real pictures of Pluto and Ceres - both turned out to be really amazing worlds (though neither is a planet).

So long as it is Space Flight related, and not "Ancient Aliens" feel free to have fun.



see what I did there... I "launched" a new thread... You guys all caught that, right? 

[starcruiser]

Pluto -may- not be a planet right now but, that designation is still in flux.

Yup - I'm surprised by that lack of an actual "Space, the Final Frontier" thread.

I, of course, grew up in the '60s and '70s and do remember seeing the Apollo 11 landing on TV as a kid. I don't remember for sure which network broadcast it was but, I was glued to the TV. My dad loved books - Sci-Fi (Asimov, Clarke, Niven you name it) Westerns (Louis L'Amour and such) and kept up with the space program.

He was the one that tuned in to the first broadcast episode of Star Trek as well (I wasn't quite 3 at the time) and that got me hooked on that "Final Frontier" from both ends.

[Deleted]

I was around for the Apollo 11 landing, but I was only 11 months old at the time. But I remember how SPACE was everywhere when I was a kid. Everyone was so sure we would have a colony on the moon, and people living on big "2001"-style space stations. And flop...

Now that I look back on it, it almost seem like we borrowed a decade from the future. I just hope that decade was the 2010's so we can get back on track soon. I read a lot of older books about space exploitation, and it looks like a lot of really intelligent people are really surprised at how little we have done in the field.

[starcruiser]

The entire Space Shuttle program effectively became a distraction from the original path we were taking. I liked the idea of a "pickup truck to space" but, it held us in orbit instead of "boldly going" further into the system.

If NASA's budget had not been too restricted after the success of the Apollo program, we could have done sooo much more.

[Gorn]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6ClA5f5uu0

2:15

[starcruiser]

Exactly - exactly the way I felt about it. Where did it go? Why did we stop trying to reach out further?

The madness of waste and a lack of clear focus killed the dream (for now).

[Deleted]

"It's unfortunate, but the way the American people are, now that they have developed all of this capability, instead of taking advantage of it, they'll probably just piss it all away." - Lyndon B. Johnson.

At the time the big brains figured we could not have continued long with the Saturn V, it was extremely expensive. We might have refined it to a point where it was more affordable, but that was along way off. It seemed faster and smarter to build a new space launch system. Something reusable, to keep the costs down. Like an airliner instead of an artillery round.

The shuttle we got was a bill of goods. Had we built the Max Faget shuttle, we would have had a relatively inexpensive, useful, and reliable system to get us to LEO. That is valuable because LEO is halfway to anywhere in our solar system. When budgets became lean, NASA went to the USAF for help. The Airforce wanted some additional capability. High cross-range glide for polar orbit missions, larger payload for the huge surveillance satellites of the time (the KH-9 Hexagon), the ability to land with a satellite in its bay, and a large crew to service large surveillance sats. So instead of a nice Chevy Pickup, we got a Peterbilt 18-wheel semi.

It was this size and weight increase that drove the need for SRB's, heat shield tiles, and other complexities that made the shuttle expensive to build and maintain. The Faget shuttles did not need SRB's or Heat Shields due to their large area and low mass.

Now think of it like this...
A Saturn V cost $1.2 billion per launch in today's money, and carried up to 301,000 lbs to LEO
Shuttle cost between $0.5 to $1.5 billion per launch in today's money, and carried up to 60,600 lbs to LEO 
The orbiter itself weighed 151,205 lb, and there were plans to use the tank and boosters, sans Orbiter for cargo missions capable of lofting about 220,000 (ish) lbs to orbit.
The aborted Ares I was a single 7-segment SRB with a liquid-fueled upper stage that would have carried slightly more weight to LEO than the shuttle.   It would also have used the Shuttle system's SRB recovery ability to make the first stage reusable (and save some spondulix). Maybe we'll come back around to it one day. Unfortunately the system still needs work. The Ares I-X test flight bent the SRB... 

When we actually launched the Columbia, the Soviets thought we were nuts! They tried to match us with Buran, but realized something we were too stubborn to admit - it was a bad idea. It would have been a better idea to have build DynaSoar, one of the lifting bodies NASA was testing, the MiG-105, or the current X-37, Dreamchaser, or Prometheus for taking people to and from LEO, and use partially expendable boosters (like Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy) for cargo and satellites.

With the success of "Proven" Falcon boosters, I find myself wondering what would have happened if NASA had developed a reusable S-IC first stage. People did at least ponder the idea (apparently):

[starcruiser]

Water under the bridge... The shuttle program is gone now. The new system of rockets and other launch equipment is nearing the point of completion. Only time will tell whether this generation will be more practical - and cost effective - than the systems that went before them.

As said before, we haven't surpassed the old Saturn V yet. It's still a legend and for good reason.

[Deleted]

In some ways, we have manged to surpass components of the Saturn V.

The SSME's (Space Shuttle Main Engines) are the the most efficient and reliable liquid-fueled rocket engines ever built. Out of 135 Shuttle missions, 405 engine launches, there was one SSME failure, and that resulted in an "Abort to Orbit". People are also looking at the F-1 engine again. It is still the most powerful rocket engine ever launched, and engineers are trying to find better, more efficient ways to build it - like metallic additive machining (3d printing in metal) which has been tested as a fuel injector in an experimental rocket engine. Another engine being studied is an updated J-2, which powered the S-II second and S-IVB third stages of the Saturn V. The Shuttle Tank (which will form the tankage for the 1st stage of SLS) is much lighter than the tankage used in the Saturn V, and every but as strong. Avionics have made a huge leap since 1968, resulting in lighter, more accurate, and more reliable instrumentation (resulting in a weight savings). These instruments use less power which results in more weight savings (smaller gauge wire, less need for cooling fans, etc...).

SLS could be an really impressive machine. And it really could combine the best of what we had from Apollo and Shuttle. On paper it's awesome (but homely). SLS is projected to cost $500M per flight and lift 130,000 - 290,000 lb to LEO. It is planned to take people to Mars by 2033.

That all sounds great, until you look at Falcon Heavy. Projected to run $90M per launch, it is supposed to carry 140,000 lb to LEO. Double the Shuttle's payload at basically the same cost per launch. It will have reusable first stage boosters, and the reusable, seven-occupant Dragon capsule (the heat shield for which will not require the high maintenance required by the shuttle tiles), which can land on the ocean or on land with a propulsive descent system.

Falcon Heavy-Dragon will be able to fly people back to the moon (circumlunar).

In order to launch SLS's 290,000 lb to LEO, we would have to launch three Falcon Heavies, with a cost savings of $350M.

[Gorn]

Alot of astronomers think the current heavy lifter of NASA is a mistake and entirely unnecessary expenditure. I have to agree given what I've seen so far. Musk wants to build a heavy, let him and HELP HIM!

[starcruiser]

Bingo! Give that man a cigar!

Let private industry work out the process of making a buck at this business and then let NASA focus on real science. We can contract with the private boys to launch loads up there when we need them.

[Deleted]

Ezzakly! Unfortunately, NASA seems to think it needs one really big and impressive program (like SLS) in order to survive.

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So, this is a fun page to read through. Lots of fun old designs [LINK]

[Deleted]

OK... maybe necro-posting, it's been almost four months, but I saw this and though, "DING".

"Boeing CEO Says Boeing Will Beat SpaceX to Mars" [LINK]

I love Musk's reply... "Do it"

[kaisernathan1701]

Been cooler if he said Make it so... Just Saiyan

[trynda1701]

Part of me wants to say, team up guys, but they are private companies, so that is unlikely.

[cowboy40]

Wernher Von Braun was on the right course in his thoughts. He had developed a plan that if it had been followed would have most likely already had us on Mars or even further out into space.

The first of that plan was just the moon. Not just to land on it, but to develop the tech to establish a base...to use as a logistics center. Second establish the famous wheel looking space stations to use as manufacturing facilities and so on. Third use the Moon base and the space stations to manufacture larger vessels that would be built on Earth Orbit, and these would be the ships for the next step the landing on Mars. Mars would be used for colonization and so on...

Expensive yes, but a plan that would have probably worked...

Though if some of the conspiracy theorists are right, we did follow his plan...lol...and NASA is just a cover up of it..

[Deleted]

trynda1701 - the two companies are going in different directions to reach the same goal. I don't think they are compatible. I also think a little competition might actually speed things along. It's also possible that one path will lead to a dead end, in which case it will be nice to not have to go back to square one,

cowboy40 - YUP! Expensive only compared to doing nothing though. It's much cheaper to go to Mars or the Belt from the Moon than it is to launch everything from Earth. If we can build our wheels and exploration ships from lunar material, we'll end up saving a lot of time and money. A very similar approach has been recommended for the creation of power-satellites. Start at the moon, establish a mining base, use lunar materials to build an orbiting outpost, and work from there. It is given in pretty good detail in T.A. Heppenheimer's Colonies in Space and G. Harry Stine's Space Power, as well as a few other books I have read on Space colonization and Space Exploitation. The guys who bother to crunch the numbers keep coming up with the same solutions - except Robert Zubrin... He's odd, but his Mars Mission could probably work.

[starcruiser]

Any effort to do SOMETHING is better than nothing at all.

Von Braun was one of those true visionary types (even though he got caught up in WW2's madness). Someone who really believed in the dream. We don't get enough of those these days.

[Deleted]

von Braun (Fahn Brown) used the NAZI's to get the funding an equipment to build his rockets. The NAZI's used von Braun to build a new kind of weapon that didn't pan out so well. von Braun came out the winner, and the losers were the laborers in Dora (more people died building V-2's than were killed by V-2 warheads).

I've read von Braus's biography, and a few other Histories of Space Flight (Heppenheimer's Countdown is excellent), he was brilliant, but flawed. The "von" is part of it - you only get a "von" if you are a Junker (German aristocracy). I'm not sure he saw common people as "people". Also there was a war on, and he was in NAZI Germany where you were useful or bullet fodder for the Soviets along the Eastern Front. I got the feeling he was in the "Better them than me" mode at the time.

It is noteworthy that we did not go with von Braun's plan to get to the moon. He wanted Earth-Orbit Rendezvous with HUGE rockets and a huge, single stage lander. It was John Houbult at NASA Langley that figured out von Braun's method was a dead end - and he based his ideas on the work of Russian mathematician Konstantin Tsiolkovsky . He pushed for Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous with a two-stage lander.

[starcruiser]

Tsiolkovsky, von Braun, Goddard - sure sound like good names for Science ships (oh wait!).

[cowboy40]

If that Scottish hacker was right in what he found...there are "secret" ships named after them....!!!

Go you boys at Solar Warden and US Space Command..keep those phantoms flying....lol

[Deleted]

AND we're also heading for "Ancient Aliens" territory... can we bring it back a little? 

I mean, I would LOVE to spend some time talking about this kind of whacked out stuff (I LOVE all the SOLAR WARDEN stuff), just in a different thread, n'kay?

[starcruiser]

Party pooper...

[rarcher]

The stuff bout building an infrastructure and ships etc in orbit keeps to me coming back and going WHY in this age are we NOT?? We got 3d printers shown and made that can build huge houses of all things structurally and to a degree wiring in a day! WHY ARE WE NOT USING THIS GOD!?!

[starcruiser]

Is there money in it?

If yes, then go to space.

If no, then ignore...

(If that kinda looks like basic programming, that's intentional!)