Phil

I see your work here is also on Hogaland's web site, main page.

Please don't tell me that you have joined the crew that preaches about the face on Mars, Pyramids on the Moon, and that Iapatus is an ancient Death Star.

I don't think that I could take it! Or, is it like the Borg: ultimatly we we will all be assimilated.

.

A discussion such as this tends to dance around the central issues that are really at the heart of it all:

1) Why (or should we) explore space?

2) What should be the objectives?

3) How should the objectives be accomplished?

Firstly, the “Why?/Should we?” question. This places spaceflight in a broader context of other human activities such as medicine, entertainment, oceanography, literature, gardening, philosophy, commerce, zoology, politics, military, social equality, and thousands of other things that organized human societies do. Outside of applications spacecraft such as communications and weather satellites, what is the contribution that spaceflight has made to date (and might in the future) to societies, nations, and humanity as a whole, relative to the effort required to make it happen? Is it worth it? Nobody say “spin-offs” either, as every one of those things could have been developed for less cost than the space program from whence they came. Remember that spaceflight like all human activities requires effort (read money). It must pay it’s own way in some form or another, or at least demonstrate the prospect of doing so in the future. Every penny that goes into one activity does not go towards another.

Secondly, the question of objectives (assuming that one firstly believes that space travel should be conducted at all). This really boils down to long-term intent, of which there seems to be two opposing camps:

On one side there are those who believe that the point of space travel is to ultimately expand the realm of human existence, that meaning in person – not virtually. Humans exploring, climbing that hill to see what’s on the other side. Taken to it’s ultimate level, it might result in something like colonizing the entire galaxy over a period of thousands of years. Firstly though, it involves mastering spaceflight, building space stations, colonizing the moon & Mars, and exploring the remainder of the Solar System. The philosophy is that of human destiny being one to explore and ultimately colonize if possible. You can’t put a price on human spirit and destiny.

There is another side that feels this to be silly romanticism. They feel that the point of a space program should primarily be the quest for knowledge – knowledge of places and things that humans should never (or at least very rarely) attempt to travel to in person. This side subscribes to the idea that humans living and working in space is, and will continue be, for the foreseeable future a dangerous and expensive endeavor that even when successful provides a payoff that does not match the effort required to make it happen. It is not worth the expenditure of resources and will ultimately prove to be a dead end and a fool’s errand.

Thirdly, methods. If one subscribes to support for human spaceflight as the ultimate expression of human expansion and exploration, then one tends to support the idea of using unmanned spacecraft and other forms of remote sensing such as astronomy as merely a precursory reconnaissance and later as a support system for the ultimate intent of a space program – human exploration and potentially colonization of space and other worlds.

If one subscribes to the idea of spaceflight being another branch of the larger human quest for knowledge, then the need for humans in space will lessen to the point of non-existence, as technology improves and develops. Machines will increasingly get better and better at gathering information. Although maybe machines will never as adept as humans, they will continue to cost less than human spaceflight and still accomplish a reasonable set of knowledge-gathering objectives.



So, now I might be so bold to make a few observations within these 3 talking points:

1) Most of the taxpaying public, rightly or wrongly, do believe that the point of the space program is to have humans ultimately travelling and exploring the "the Universe" in person. This is a cultural conditioning phenomenon as much as anything – especially in the United States. The idea of exploring and settling in new lands has been a part of western culture for over 500 years. Cultural expectations directly relating to space travel are expressed in popular media such as films, television, and literature. Nobody ever made a best selling film or long-running television show about the robot who successfully conducted a spectroscopic analysis of the soil of some other planet. Why? Because the idea of humans travelling to new lands is what generally stokes the fires of the public’s mind at large. Exploring and colonizing new lands is rightly or wrongly seen in western culture as improving the human condition in a very broad and long-term context.

2) If the taxpaying public were to be told that human spaceflight were going to be ended, but that unmanned spaceflight projects that are driven primarily by the quest for knowledge by a relatively small fraction of the population as a whole was going to continue, I suspect that broad public support for such a space program at funding levels that we are used to would dwindle to a much smaller amount. I submit that a large segment of the population will see such a program as an intellectual elite selfishly siphoning off public resources to fund their own quest to satisfy their esoteric curiosities. The question will be “why is so much of my taxes being used to learn about Mars if people will never go there anyway?”. Yes, we will learn more about our own planet from such explorations, but at the price of billions of dollars? If we simply wish to learn more about our own world, might such money be put into research here on Earth that accomplishes the same objectives with much less money and risk?

3) So, here is where I must disagree with many in this thread. This is why I personally feel that the argument put forth by people such Mr.VanAllen over the years are fatally flawed and ultimately self-defeating. Unless there is a direct and immediately tangible application to solving an earth-bound problem, there can be no justification in the mind of the larger public to spending the current level of resources on unmanned spaceflight, and even astronomy, unless it is in support of some sort of ultimate human exploration. There must be a greater cause than the simple intellectual curiosity of a small fraction of the population to justify funding these endeavors at the funding levels they have been at. Even people in places of responsibility for such unmanned projects such as Mr.Squires and earlier on Mr.Sagan will readily acknowledge that ultimately humans should follow the robots to the stars.

4) Everything I have read from Mr.Bell is angry to the point of being vitriolic. He has an agenda – the ending of human spaceflight. He consistently resorts to twisting logic and selective facts, and then mockery and practically name calling. Even when he does have some good observations to make, they are so couched in negativity and criticism as to blacken any astute comment he may have had. Everyone is an idiot but himself. He has no credibility whatsoever in my books.

.

A few guiding principles concerning the CEV guys:

1) NASA has decreed that crew and cargo will never launch and return on the same vehicle ever again. People and large cargo will launch separately and return separately in the future. The shuttle concept of a vehicle to do all things for all people is being intentionally abandoned. This means that the CEV will be little more than a crew launch/re-entry module with a logistics/propulsion module attached for the spaceflight portion of its mission. It will therefore be small by definition. Any other cargo/unmanned spacecraft will be launched and return separately to minimize risk to humans.

2) An ability to perform a launch abort at any point in the ascent (as specified for the CEV) essentially requires a tractor-rocket type launch escape tower assembly. This almost automatically requires a small, lightweight, detachable crew module.

3) Spacecraft re-entry requires that the CEV be one of only a handfull of aerodynamically acceptable shapes. Those shapes come in two basic types: winged/lifting bodies, and capsules. Returning from the moon at a speed of 40,000 km/h makes thermal protection and aerodynamic considerations for a winged vehicle much more problematic than returning from the usual earth-orbital speeds. A capsule’s aerodynamics and thermal protection requirements are simpler and much more robust than a winged vehicle, due to a much simpler aerodynamic shape and structural composition. A very stubby-winged lifting body might be made acceptable for the job, but such a vehicle has very poor terminal landing characteristics anyhow, and would likely require a parachute for the terminal landing phase (such as Klipper). In essence, other than improved cross-range capability, there is no real value in a winged vehicle for a relatively small crew vehicle returning from the moon. The Apollo capsule body mould is being used because extensive research has already shown it to be an optimum shape for capsules re-entering at high speed ballistic reentry speeds. Why re-invent the wheel? Why?

.

.

.

.
.

.

.

.

Several published reports today finally disclosed China’s much anticipated long-term human spaceflight aspirations. Audacious would be an understatement:

EVA in the next few years
A space station by 2010
Robotic exploration of the Moon
Human landing on the Moon by 2017
Helium-3 mining on the Moon
Observatories on the Moon

Bold? Yes. Difficult? Very. Expensive? Without a doubt.

Crazy? Maybe. Overambitious? Maybe. A ruse? Maybe.

Possible? Yes. If the national will to do so exists in the long-term.

Likely? Who really knows?

Very symbolically, the day before, the NASA administrator spoke before the relevant congressional subcommittee and told them flat-out that NASA simply does not have nearly enough money to carry out its mandate. They cannot fly the shuttle in any quantity, finish the ISS in whatever form, or get to the moon at all, with the monies currently available. Whether that needed extra money will ever come is still a very open question. Political support for human spaceflight in the United States is currently lukewarm at best, and outright hostile at worst. Essentially, if the United States as a nation and society does not recommit itself to human space exploration in the very near future, it will falter and possibly disappear from the endeavor over the next decade. This is not my prediction, but the prediction of many experts in the US.

Although predicting the future is foggy at the best of times, the general trend lines here are unmistakable: China is aiming to be a dominant, if not the dominant, player in human spaceflight. It may take time - but they will get there sooner or later. The United States on the other hand seems uncertain, or possibly unwilling, to remain a major player. It is currently in unmistakable decline, in spite of still being the current dominant space power. In 1985, the United States successfully flew 9 Space Shuttle missions in that year alone, including two just two weeks apart. Today, even if all the current shuttle technical problems did not exist, the US could not under any circumstances even come close to matching that ability. It is simply not physically able to do so any more, the institution has been allowed to atrophy and whither. It is in a state of not only negative growth, but negative development. If left on their current trends, those trend lines will meet and cross at some point in the future. The paradigm will have changed, probably permanently. When they will cross is open to debate, but the larger issue is the fact that if left unchecked, the trend lines will cross.

Does America have what it takes to reverse the trend? Does America care to? Will it become to human spaceflight what Portugal became to exploring the Americas 500 years ago? Or will it come back from its current state of decline?

Will we have to learn Mandarin to really get the most out of the next lunar landing by humans?

.

I really am surprised that so few people have clued in on this aspect to date.

The many complaints that I hear about the new Moon proposals are that it is just Apollo 18, and that there is no planned follow-on for permanent or at least semi-permanent lunar habitation following the initial landings in 2018. I would argue that this is simply not the case. Rather, in order to get the program to be at least accepted by the public and politicians, the plan simply does not define specific goals beyond initial lunar landings in order to keep the projected program costs down. If they were to bundle in extended missions, long-term lunar stays, lunar bases, and a Mars trip officially into the plan, the media would suddenly be screaming about the $1 trillion price tag, the public would dismiss it out of hand, and the politicians would run away from it faster than they could say “no freekin way”. What they have done instead is build lots and lots of excess capacity into the new equipment (nod nod, wink wink, say no more!). The LSAM as proposed is one of the most glaring examples. The Huge new booster is another.

You are correct, the descent stage on the LSAM is huge. With that comes a huge payload capacity. The only payload specified to date is the ascent stage for the crewed version of this vehicle. However, I am very sure that it will have many, many applications beyond that in that officially unspecified future past the initial landings. With time after the initial landings, I imagine that the ascent stage will get larger and more capable. More importantly though, why do you think that it is this vehicle that will brake the Constellation stack into lunar orbit insertion, and not the CEV? Because it won’t have a CEV docked to it in alternate future versions. It won’t have a crewed ascent stage either. It will have unmanned payloads. Initially, I imagine that it will be a logistics module to extend the stays of crewed LSAM’s that will land next to it (much like the Shuttle uses to extend its missions to 16 days). Next it will be big surface equipment payloads – maybe a large pressurized rover. How about modules for a lunar base, assembled much like the ISS? Once permanent or semi-permanent habitation is established, regular logistics and supply flights will be needed. I am sure that the descent module of the LSAM will be that ferry vehicle for all these needs.

Add to that the very generous capacity of the new very heavy booster, and I am sure that we have the capacity for a VERY robust unmanned cargo delivery system to support extensive lunar surface operations. Believe me, they didn’t design it so large just to have 4 guys spend a week on the surface. They have built lots of capacity into this for expanded but officially unspecified applications following the initial landings. This thing is envisioned as the workhorse of the new lunar program, not the CEV. The CEV is to be the all-purpose crew taxi for the ISS, lunar program, and whatever else, but the LSAM is the lynchpin of the return to the moon.

.

.

Ya, I know about the last Titan 4 to fly next week. Technically the program is still alive - till next week. I stated it that way more for simplicity's sake. That said, most of the program is shut down already, with the exception of one launch crew at Vandenburg - and they will be gone after next week. Most Titan employees are already laid off or reassigned.

Truly one of the great launch vehicle families - the booster to almost all of the American top-secret spook payloads. Real hi-tech cloak and dagger stuff. As well, the LV for most of the great flagship planetary missions. End of a very impressive era (and a long one at that).

Oddly enough, if things had gone differently, Titan 3 would have been launching manned spacecraft, space stations, and space shuttles before 1970. Would have been neat to see.

As much as I respect and love the BBC for first class news, especially on a global level, they have NEVER been very good at reporting on spaceflight - especially human spaceflight. They would be the last source that I would use for information regarding the subject. NASAWatch.com frequently picks BBC reporting apart for it's shoddiness and Op/Eds based on incorrect or out of context information. They seem to have no one who really understands the subject matter, or places things within the subject matter in the proper context.

I don't know if this is just a reflection of the UK's government's long standing policy regarding spaceflight , particularily human spaceflight - or if they they just don't care if they get it right.

The rusty exhaust smoke and clear flame is a product of the fuel being used: hydrazine and nitrogen teteroxide. The charge that gets the turbopumps up and running briefly adds signifigantly to the colour of the smoke at ignition as well.

There are 3 basic types of liquid fueled rocket engines used in big launchers: cryogenic, storable-hypergolic, and petroleum-based. Most big Chinese space launch vehicles and military missiles use storable-hypergolic. This system has a few big advantages: the fuel/oxidiser can be used at room temperature, and the fuel and oxidiser ignite when contacting each other. This means that the fuel and oxidiser can sit in the launch vehicle for many days, weeks, or months if need be (unlike liquid oxygen, hydrogen, or methane). It also means that the engines do not require an ignition system – just pump the fuel and oxidiser into the combustion chamber and it flames away, resulting in a much simpler and foolproof engine!

One downside to this system is the horrible toxicity of these liquids. Very, very lethal for people to ingest, and handling them is expensive and problematic. This is why most newer launch systems shy away from these propellants. The other downside is the need to keep the fuel and oxidiser apart up till the moment they are mixed in the engine. This usually means that the vehicle body and tanks are double-walled and physically separated. The tiniest propellant leak can spell disaster for the launch vehicle and ground crew.

These propellants originally had their uses in military ICBM/IRMB/SLBM missiles. At one time, they were the propulsion system of choice for big military missiles. The ability of the fuel to sit for long periods of time in the missile allowed the missile to be pre-fuelled and then to stay ready and on alert to be fired at very short notice for many months. A simple(er) combustion system allowed for the missile’s greater ease of use in the field. Eventually, the storable-hypergolic fuels were supplanted by solid fuelled missiles, which had all the advantages of storable-hypergolic without the dangers and difficulty of handling. The Americans went all-solid fuel with their large missiles by the mid-60’s. The Soviets had a much harder time developing large solid fueled rocket motors and did not switch over till the early 1990’s. Up until then, all of their long-range missiles were storable-hypergolic (with the exception of the Semyorka). The Chinese however, are just getting there now.

Many space launch vehicles are derived from large military missiles, especially in the first 25 years of spaceflight. Because of that, many have used storable-hypergolic propellants. The Americans used them in the Vanguard, Titan 2, Titan 3, and Titan 4 (all of these vehicles are retired). The Soviets/Russians have used them in the Kosmos, Cyklone, and Proton launch vehicle families. I believe that the Chinese currently use them in all of their launch vehicles.

Although as time goes by and this family of propellants slowly fades out in use with large boosters, it still holds favour as the system of choice in spacecraft and in some upper stages of both long range missiles and space launchers. This is mainly due to their ease of restart in a vacuum environment and long-term internal storage. NASA’s announcement to abandon this fuel system in favour of ammonia and methane in the new Constellation family of manned spacecraft marks a significant departure from this standard operating practice.

.

.

.

.

I believe that it is intended to work like this:

1) Very-heavy launch vehicle (the “Magnum”): First stage & SRB's of this proposed launch vehicle basically act analogous to the S-1c & S-2 first and second stage phases of a Saturn 5 launch. I would expect lift-off thrust to be something like 8.5 to 9 million pounds of thrust. The solids will still only burn for about 2 minutes and generate something like 6.6 to 6.9 million pounds of thrust. The first stage and it's 5 SSME's should produce a bit under 2 million pounds of thrust and burn for 8-9 minutes. The second stage of the new LV is analogous to the S-4b third stage of the Saturn 5. It would burn for just a few minutes following first stage burnout in order to put itself and the new lunar lander into LEO. Following docking with the CEV in LEO (launched separately), the stage will reignite for TLI and Earth escape - probably a 4-6 minute burn. Once the burn is complete - the stage will be cast off and discarded. LOI and TEI would be accomplished by the service module of the CEV. No further burns should be required of the CEV SPS system following TEI. It's essentially a coast to landing on Earth.

2) Mid-heavy launch vehicle (the "Stick"): The SRB-derived first stage will still only burn for about 2 minutes and is analogous to the S-1b first stage of the Saturn 1b launch vehicle that was used for Apollo Earth orbit missions with CSM only. The rest is up to the new second stage for this vehicle, it being analogous to the S-4b second stage of the Saturn 1b. It will have a long burn - likely 6-8 minutes - to LEO.

The biggest new development job for both vehicles is the all-new second stages for both launch vehicles. Since both have very similar operating requirements, expect to see as much commonality in both stages as is possible. In fact, the one stage might turn out to be a 2/3rd's scale version of the other – with the smaller having only one engine and the larger having 2 engines. Don’t be surprised to see engine selection for these stages flip-flop around a bit prior to a design freeze.

One other thing. Has anyone else noticed that the new-very heavy LV is really a super-duper version of the Ariane 5 architecture?