<strong>How do you figure? We already have the technology. The issue is infrastucture and oli companies not wanting to loose all their money.</strong><hr></blockquote>
*ba-bing*
And yet guess what a lot of green-minded people are griping about regarding Bush's push for 1.5G$ for such research? "It relies too much on oil and coal for production of the hydrogen!"
Well freaking *DUH*... how else are you going to *convince the oil companies and auto makers to put in the infrastructure for us*?!?
Once the infrastructure is in place, *ANY* energy generation source can be used to produce the hydrogen, and we can wean off fossil fuels rapidly... but no one *but* the oil companies has the resource base to put in an entire infrastructure system from scratch.
Let them do it, then phase them out. Oh sure, they'll fight tooth and nail, but it'll be a losing battle at that point.
An example of nonforward thinking people : " There will always be fossil fuels. Why bother thinking of anything else. Besides that's a long time off so why should I seriously consider alternatives. "
Man I get belly full of this all the time. <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[oyvey]" />
The space plane will be cheaper than the current shuttle series
Nasa has revealed its first set of mission criteria for the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) - the series of space vehicle expected to replace the space shuttle from 2012.
The new spacecraft's primary function will be to ferry crews to and from the International Space Station (ISS) and serve as a lifeboat if the station has to be evacuated.
At present the ISS has a Soyuz spacecraft attached to it to transport the crew for emergencies.
The safety of manned space missions has been in the spotlight following the loss of the space shuttle Columbia, which broke up on re-entry on 1 February killing its crew of seven.
The US space agency has grounded its remaining three shuttles Atlantis, Endeavor and Discovery while an investigation is carried out.
[quote]The space plane will be cheaper than the current shuttle series<hr></blockquote>
Only marginally, most likely.
NASA relies on pork to survive. It is always spreading out its operations across the country to get more Congressmen to give it funding.
From a logical standpoint, it makes no sense to:
- Locate the spacecraft manufacturing/maintenece facility thousands of miles away from the launch site.
- Build the massive SRBs in one state, ship them at great expense to Florida, launch them, recover them, ship them all the way back to the factory and then back to NASA yet again. It would be so much simpler to do it on-site.
- Have one dedicated facility to launch the shuttles, then reproduce that facility with all the infastructure and personell that requires, halfway across the country to control the shuttle during its mission when one location could easily handle both. Huston....you are a problem.
- Launch the shuttle at one end of the country, then land it on the other side and ship it back - even though it is ridiculously expensive and usuallly ends up making any problems with the shuttle's exterior much worse. When you could just you know...land it where it took off. This is probably the only bit of pork they actually bothered to do away with.
And people actually wonder why it takes half a billion to launch each shuttle and why NASA would kill the Delta Clipper Project.
The Clipper would have realistically cost 5 Million a flight, and had a 7 day turnaround (which is actually an exxagerated estimate, they did it in 36 hours once.)
It terms of cost per launch, it'll be cheaper because of the GLOW will be much less. For dollars per pound, it'll probably be around $7k/lb which is not good but better than shuttle.
I'm waiting and waiting for NASA to make the right choices, and it looks like OSP isn't going to be it. If it has wings, I don't think it'll be the right choice.
<strong>NASA relies on pork to survive. It is always spreading out its operations across the country to get more Congressmen to give it funding.</strong>
This is more the other way around. NASA, along with all other fed agencies and offices, are under the auspices of congressional and OMB direction. This is how MSFC gets control of all the cool projects (X-33, X-34, SLI, OSP). Note they also all failed.
In addition, facilities are spread across the country for various reasons. Dryden has the lake bed and is the best option for flight testing. Langley has most of the aerodynamics facilities prior to NASA. KSC is on the Atlantic coast for launching over the ocean. The operation center in Houston is probably the most political choice.
<strong>Locate the spacecraft manufacturing/maintenece facility thousands of miles away from the launch site.</strong>
Manufacturing is fine. Every single military airplane has its parts built in different parts of the country. The shuttle has two different sorts of maintenance: major modification and refurbishment and maintenance between launches. When it's at Palmdale in California, it's under major mod and taken apart for 9 months or more. The rest of the time it is at the orbiter processing facility and VAB at KSC being prepared for launch.
<strong>Build the massive SRBs in one state, ship them at great expense to Florida, launch them, recover them, ship them all the way back to the factory and then back to NASA yet again. It would be so much simpler to do it on-site.</strong>
SRBs are a problem. It's cost of refurbishment is about as much as building a new one!
<strong>Have one dedicated facility to launch the shuttles, then reproduce that facility with all the infastructure and personell that requires, halfway across the country to control the shuttle during its mission when one location could easily handle both. Huston....you are a problem.</strong>
Easy? You realise KSC launches more than the shuttle? In fact nearly all mission ops centers for Lockheed, Boeing and others are not at KSC either.
<strong>And people actually wonder why it takes half a billion to launch each shuttle and why NASA would kill the Delta Clipper Project.</strong>
I think it was a terrible mistake by NASA for not continuing the DC-X program and choosing the McDonnel Douglas VTVL X-33 option. The sooner NASA phases away from shuttle the better.
<strong>The Clipper would have realistically cost 5 Million a flight, and had a 7 day turnaround (which is actually an exxagerated estimate, they did it in 36 hours once.)</strong>
Paper airplanes always fly better than real ones. The DC-X was a supersonic rocket. A 50k lb payload capable VTVL will not cost $5M per flight, probably $100M.
I'm as much a fan of VTVL as anyone, though not necessarily SSTO VTVL, and offers the most flexible crew escape options. But lets at least offer up some realistic numbers.
Comments
<strong>How do you figure? We already have the technology. The issue is infrastucture and oli companies not wanting to loose all their money.</strong><hr></blockquote>
*ba-bing*
And yet guess what a lot of green-minded people are griping about regarding Bush's push for 1.5G$ for such research? "It relies too much on oil and coal for production of the hydrogen!"
Well freaking *DUH*... how else are you going to *convince the oil companies and auto makers to put in the infrastructure for us*?!?
Once the infrastructure is in place, *ANY* energy generation source can be used to produce the hydrogen, and we can wean off fossil fuels rapidly... but no one *but* the oil companies has the resource base to put in an entire infrastructure system from scratch.
Let them do it, then phase them out. Oh sure, they'll fight tooth and nail, but it'll be a losing battle at that point.
<strong>come on guys
make with the pictures of experimental spacecraft and stuff !
That looks painful.
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
Man I get belly full of this all the time. <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[oyvey]" />
Project ORION Test Vehicle
<a href="http://www.nasm.si.edu/nasm/dsh/artifacts/RM-ORION.htm"; target="_blank">
<a href="http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/PAO/warp.htm"; target="_blank">Warp Drive When? - NASA compendium of interstellar travel ideas</a>
lots of clever ideas with mythological names
<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2785443.stm"; target="_blank">bbc space plane article</a>
The space plane will be cheaper than the current shuttle series
Nasa has revealed its first set of mission criteria for the Orbital Space Plane (OSP) - the series of space vehicle expected to replace the space shuttle from 2012.
The new spacecraft's primary function will be to ferry crews to and from the International Space Station (ISS) and serve as a lifeboat if the station has to be evacuated.
At present the ISS has a Soyuz spacecraft attached to it to transport the crew for emergencies.
The safety of manned space missions has been in the spotlight following the loss of the space shuttle Columbia, which broke up on re-entry on 1 February killing its crew of seven.
The US space agency has grounded its remaining three shuttles Atlantis, Endeavor and Discovery while an investigation is carried out.
Only marginally, most likely.
NASA relies on pork to survive. It is always spreading out its operations across the country to get more Congressmen to give it funding.
From a logical standpoint, it makes no sense to:
- Locate the spacecraft manufacturing/maintenece facility thousands of miles away from the launch site.
- Build the massive SRBs in one state, ship them at great expense to Florida, launch them, recover them, ship them all the way back to the factory and then back to NASA yet again. It would be so much simpler to do it on-site.
- Have one dedicated facility to launch the shuttles, then reproduce that facility with all the infastructure and personell that requires, halfway across the country to control the shuttle during its mission when one location could easily handle both. Huston....you are a problem.
- Launch the shuttle at one end of the country, then land it on the other side and ship it back - even though it is ridiculously expensive and usuallly ends up making any problems with the shuttle's exterior much worse. When you could just you know...land it where it took off. This is probably the only bit of pork they actually bothered to do away with.
And people actually wonder why it takes half a billion to launch each shuttle and why NASA would kill the Delta Clipper Project.
The Clipper would have realistically cost 5 Million a flight, and had a 7 day turnaround (which is actually an exxagerated estimate, they did it in 36 hours once.)
Only marginally, most likely.</strong>
It terms of cost per launch, it'll be cheaper because of the GLOW will be much less. For dollars per pound, it'll probably be around $7k/lb which is not good but better than shuttle.
I'm waiting and waiting for NASA to make the right choices, and it looks like OSP isn't going to be it. If it has wings, I don't think it'll be the right choice.
<strong>NASA relies on pork to survive. It is always spreading out its operations across the country to get more Congressmen to give it funding.</strong>
This is more the other way around. NASA, along with all other fed agencies and offices, are under the auspices of congressional and OMB direction. This is how MSFC gets control of all the cool projects (X-33, X-34, SLI, OSP). Note they also all failed.
In addition, facilities are spread across the country for various reasons. Dryden has the lake bed and is the best option for flight testing. Langley has most of the aerodynamics facilities prior to NASA. KSC is on the Atlantic coast for launching over the ocean. The operation center in Houston is probably the most political choice.
<strong>Locate the spacecraft manufacturing/maintenece facility thousands of miles away from the launch site.</strong>
Manufacturing is fine. Every single military airplane has its parts built in different parts of the country. The shuttle has two different sorts of maintenance: major modification and refurbishment and maintenance between launches. When it's at Palmdale in California, it's under major mod and taken apart for 9 months or more. The rest of the time it is at the orbiter processing facility and VAB at KSC being prepared for launch.
<strong>Build the massive SRBs in one state, ship them at great expense to Florida, launch them, recover them, ship them all the way back to the factory and then back to NASA yet again. It would be so much simpler to do it on-site.</strong>
SRBs are a problem. It's cost of refurbishment is about as much as building a new one!
<strong>Have one dedicated facility to launch the shuttles, then reproduce that facility with all the infastructure and personell that requires, halfway across the country to control the shuttle during its mission when one location could easily handle both. Huston....you are a problem.</strong>
Easy? You realise KSC launches more than the shuttle? In fact nearly all mission ops centers for Lockheed, Boeing and others are not at KSC either.
<strong>And people actually wonder why it takes half a billion to launch each shuttle and why NASA would kill the Delta Clipper Project.</strong>
I think it was a terrible mistake by NASA for not continuing the DC-X program and choosing the McDonnel Douglas VTVL X-33 option. The sooner NASA phases away from shuttle the better.
<strong>The Clipper would have realistically cost 5 Million a flight, and had a 7 day turnaround (which is actually an exxagerated estimate, they did it in 36 hours once.)</strong>
Paper airplanes always fly better than real ones. The DC-X was a supersonic rocket. A 50k lb payload capable VTVL will not cost $5M per flight, probably $100M.
I'm as much a fan of VTVL as anyone, though not necessarily SSTO VTVL, and offers the most flexible crew escape options. But lets at least offer up some realistic numbers.