Poll Which NASA plan does the Orbiter community prefer?

[Urwumpe]

All this business of manufacturing large complex structures in a zero-G vaccuum is fantasy.

Salyut 7, Mir, ISS???

Hell, even Hubble would count as large complex structure in space today.

The only thing we know how to build in space is stuff we can pre-fab on the geound and clamp together in orbit, which means no large-volume structures.

Sorry, but there you are some centuries late. Even on Earth, we hardly have any large scale structure (buildings, ships, cars), that is not made of more or less large prefabs. The USA couldn't even afford building their carriers without using 900 ton heavy "prefabs" (called superlifts in ship building. We virtually have no large ship building company since WW2 that does not use superlifts).

Prefabs are a reality, and they are far from unpleasant. The question is rather, how you work with them. The extra work done on ISS and Mir actually shows great that we can indeed do much more stuff in space than just docking modules together. The question is: Do we dare it? As long as we don't try to weld stuff together in space more often than once per decade, we won't solve the few missing problems with getting the needed quality in the welds.

The only way to achieve the possible is to try the impossible.

 

[Ark]

Maybe Obama should add on-orbit construction to the list of cool stuff he'd like NASA to research with the new budget. We're not going to build Station V with cylindrical prefabs! :lol:

 

[anemazoso]

Salyut 7, Mir, ISS???

Hell, even Hubble would count as large complex structure in space today.




Sorry, but there you are some centuries late. Even on Earth, we hardly have any large scale structure (buildings, ships, cars), that is not made of more or less large prefabs. The USA couldn't even afford building their carriers without using 900 ton heavy "prefabs" (called superlifts in ship building. We virtually have no large ship building company since WW2 that does not use superlifts).

Prefabs are a reality, and they are far from unpleasant. The question is rather, how you work with them. The extra work done on ISS and Mir actually shows great that we can indeed do much more stuff in space than just docking modules together. The question is: Do we dare it? As long as we don't try to weld stuff together in space more often than once per decade, we won't solve the few missing problems with getting the needed quality in the welds.

The only way to achieve the possible is to try the impossible.

Totally agree. I would add Inflatable Structures.

About the welding though... I was an Aerospace welder for 10 years and weld inspector now for 3 years.. I have always wondered if welding was possible in space as far as being able to actually strike an arc. If you can still get solid and controllable arc, achieving a quality weld should be doable.

 

[insanity]

Totally agree. I would add Inflatable Structures.

About the welding though... I was an Aerospace welder for 10 years and weld inspector now for 3 years.. I have always wondered if welding was possible in space as far as being able to actually strike an arc. If you can still get solid and controllable arc, achieving a quality weld should be doable.

You can! Arc welding in space is far superior to welding on Earth too.

 

[Andy44]

The Russians demonstrated arc-welding during EVA many years ago. Siberian Tiger started a thread on it not long ago...

But I still disagree. ISS and Mir are a bunch of modules launched and clamped together in space. My house was made of individual timbers and stuff brought in on a truck. Big difference.

Yes, you can learn how to construct large structures in space, but there's always going to be something too big for your Atlas which has to be prefabbed on the ground.

 

[Urwumpe]

Yes, you can learn how to construct large structures in space, but there's always going to be something too big for your Atlas which has to be prefabbed on the ground.

If you have one such object, you have a demand, and a demand can have a rocket. I don't see much sense in limiting us by waiting for the next big dumb booster to be canceled. Columbus did also not wait for the invention of GPS.

 

[Andy44]

True enough, but Columbus also wasn't fool enough to cross the Atlantic in a rowboat.

 

[Urwumpe]

True enough, but Columbus also wasn't fool enough to cross the Atlantic in a rowboat.

No, but he used the best ships that had been available at his time, calculated conservative (number of ships to return with losses) and did not try design his own trans-Atlantic ship, but took existing ships.

 

[Linguofreak]

And it is likely that flying around debris also injured them, since even the panels would have problems staying screwed on at 22g.

The crew of Soyuz 18a survived a launch abort that involved ~21g, and I don't hear anything about flying debris in the cockpit.

I'm more worried about debris from the tank or boosters knocking a hole in the capsule.

 

[Urwumpe]

The crew of Soyuz 18a survived a launch abort that involved ~21g, and I don't hear anything about flying debris in the cockpit.

Different spacecraft, also there had been damages inside the capsule during this flight.

I'm more worried about debris from the tank or boosters knocking a hole in the capsule.

This is why you try to out run the explosion. There are nice simulations about the Ares I, how a case burst explosion would propagate with the automatic abort system reacting as soon as possible.

 

[AirSimming]

Not only that I have a new account (formerly "Moonwalker", now changed to adapt to my other accounts across the web), but I also changed my mind regarding the latest news of NASA's future.

I support Obamas plans. I think it is a wise decision to at least try to boost commercial space flight and international cooperation. All that combined offers chances for great future achievements in space which possibly can not be achieved that way by single space agencies, less than ever without saving billions of USD and Euros. Let space flight become part of globalization and the outcome might be much more productive than costly maverick proposals just to erect a few country flags and do a few footprints.

Also, since NASA is not just a space agency but plays a basic role as a main contributor and visionary, I think that Obama, i.e. the administration and the Congress, should support a flexible path for NASA as well, regardless commercialisation. Ares and Orion have badly failed. But still, I think NASA should be looking for a Space Shuttle replacement. Not something bigger and not just a national big job keeping program, but a smart design that does not cause exploding costs. First of all: to do more research and careful review before just announcing something like Constellation again.

 

[Ark]

First of all: to do more research and careful review before just announcing something like Constellation again.

I absolutely agree. Announcing Constellation was more about feel-good short term politics, and they completely failed to actually plan and fund it.

 

[JamesG]

Constellation was the Bush Administration's casting about to try to find some kind of positive legacy since the GWoT and Iraq had turned into a disaster. It was literally them asking NASA, "What is the most you can do for _X_ dollars in _Y_ amount of time?"

 

[Ark]

Constellation was the Bush Administration's casting about to try to find some kind of positive legacy since the GWoT and Iraq had turned into a disaster. It was literally them asking NASA, "What is the most you can do for _X_ dollars in _Y_ amount of time?"

Followed by failing to provide the X dollars in the Y time, because by then it was just the next guy's problem.

I honestly find myself wondering if the Republicans knew they were hosed in the '08 elections, so they just left as many problems behind as possible, so they could criticize the next guy for not cleaning up their mess.

 

[Urwumpe]

I honestly find myself wondering if the Republicans knew they were hosed in the '08 elections, so they just left as many problems behind as possible, so they could criticize the next guy for not cleaning up their mess.

Yeah, damn sure. The next guy was in any case somebody of the wrong camp. Either a democrat or a too liberal republican.

The moon landing was never planned to happen. The person who had to cancel it should just be somebody wrong.

 

[Donamy]

Must every thread turn into a political debate ?

 

[Linguofreak]

Constellation was the Bush Administration's casting about to try to find some kind of positive legacy since the GWoT and Iraq had turned into a disaster. It was literally them asking NASA, "What is the most you can do for _X_ dollars in _Y_ amount of time?"

Considering that the Vision for Space Exploration was put forward *before* the 2004 elections, which the republicans won hands-down, no.

 

[Ark]

Must every thread turn into a political debate ?

NASA is a government agency subject to politics, so it's very relevant. Criticizing Bush for exploiting NASA for quick and easy political favor and rigging it to fail just in time for the next president is no worse than all the people in the first thread crying because evil socialist Obama killed NASA.

 

[anemazoso]

Considering that the Vision for Space Exploration was put forward *before* the 2004 elections, which the republicans won hands-down, no.

No the Presidential election was very close. If it wasn't for some voter manipulation in Ohio it could have been very different.

As for the VSE, I think it had some merit before Mike Griffin, Dan Cook and Doc Horowitz screwed it up with their architecture. Going back to the moon isn't such a bad idea if your going to do ISRU and study the other key elements like in-space-fuel-transfer and in-space-propulsion like ION or Vasimr. But there architecture was stripped of all the really key elements and so left just a big dumb mission that would have left us with 20+ years of not moving forward technologically. But the idea of Moon Mars and Beyond is sound and should still be the general goal.

 

[Linguofreak]

NASA is a government agency subject to politics, so it's very relevant. Criticizing Bush for exploiting NASA for quick and easy political favor and rigging it to fail just in time for the next president is no worse than all the people in the first thread crying because evil socialist Obama killed NASA.

Accusing Bush of rigging NASA to fail just in time for Obama is just as much a load of BS as saying that Obama's "killing NASA" is an inevitable consequence of his evil, socialist ways, and anybody who voted for him should be ashamed of themself now that he's done it, they should have seen it coming.

Either is just as much a load of BS as saying that Johnson rigged NASA to blow up in Nixon's lap, or that Nixon curtailed the space program just because he was an evil fascist.

(Now, FWIW, I believe that Nixon (or at least the US government under his administration) *is* the guy at fault here. Apollo should have been completed according to plan, and in the mean time NASA should have been working on turning the "Get to the moon quick" Apollo/Saturn stack into a "mass production" heavy launcher and manned capsule, rather than wasting resources on developing the Shuttle).

---------- Post added at 21:23 ---------- Previous post was at 21:16 ----------

No the Presidential election was very close. If it wasn't for some voter manipulation in Ohio it could have been very different.

As I recall, Bush in 2004 was the first president to win more than 50% of the popular vote in years. Which says that the public didn't see him as a total failure yet, whether you believe that voter manipulation in any particular state may have swung the electoral vote or not.