NASA's new craft....

Just search on "ruby slippers"

Joel. phx

It don't exist yet :)

The candidates are most likely to be derived from the candidates for the now-de-facto-defunct Orbital Space Plan (OSP) program.

And now for todays installment of Irony Theater, brought to you by Nekophiliacs Anonymous:

+++++++++++++++++ I r o n y T h e a t e r +++++++++++++++++

The spaceplane concept was NASA's only real consideration for the OSP program, hence it's name. (Only Hot New Technology for NASA!) So while some good modular capsule-based designs were allowed in the door to put on a show of fairness they didn't stand a chance... Even despite the fact that such capsule designs could easily make good deep-space crewed designs if the budget became available. Or perhaps because of that... since Congress had made very clear its intent to KILL KILL KILL any NASA program that even LOOKED like it might apply to a manned Mars mission. That's how we lost decent crew accomodations on ISS (Google "Transhab").

Capsules didn't stand a chance. Spaceplanes. Or maybe space lifting bodies at a strech. The number of "It looks like the Shuttle! Please buy it!" designs was embarassing.

Until Columbia...

Now the raftful of of proposed shuttle clones have to be scrapped or financed privately while the modular capsule designs, suitable off-the-shelf for deep-space use, are the only candidates in the race...

+++++++++++++++++++++ T H E E N D +++++++++++++++++++++

Today's installment of Irony Theater has been brought to you by Nekophiliacs Anonymous! Our motto: "Nekophilia! Try it! You'll like it!"

I hear NASA has contacted Estes to buy a set of plans for the "Mars Lander."

That's a particularly brainless knee-jerk reaction.

What is a shuttle stripped of aerodynamic surfaces?

A capsule on top of a big freight container.

What would the Orbital Spaceplane have actually been?

A capsule with wings. (Freight was to have been shipped up separately.)

What the hell was a shuttle orbiter anyway? Why was it designed that way?

It was a result of design-by-committee.

To get it built NASA had to accept Air Force requirements for massive military spacelift (hence the huge payload bay) and extended crossrange capability after reentry (hence the huge wings).

After the Air Force bailed on the project when it became clear that NASA could not possibly meet the overly-optimistic projected flight rate the U.S. public was left with an overdesigned military space transport that used many developmental and cutting edge, and downright unstable technologies (remember: only the Hottest New Technologies for NASA!)... and it was all NASA could afford and we've been STUCK WITH THE DAMN THING FOR DECADES!

That's right. NASA's dream machine was, in cold hard fact, a white elephant that has devoured the U.S. space budget year after year.

The fact that the men and women of the the U.S. space industry, space science academia, and NASA made it work and made it worth something is a tribute to those people... and damn little credit to the U.S. policies that created the situation.

So, hopefully having shaken you of shuttle-misinformation, we proceed to practicalities.

A deep space crew transport is what?

A pressure vessel with attached small cargo hold and engines.

Does a deep space crew transport need wings?

Hell no. It might hve a lifting body design component. It might not. Then again the Apollo capsule was, in fact, a lifting body.

Well it have the latest in technology "despite being a capsule"?

Absolutely.

End of story.

You think Shuttle wings are HUGE??? They're downright dinky, compared to typical aircraft. ;-)

I wouldn't consider LEO to be 'deep space'. But you're right - a TRUE deep-space vessel (LEO-to-LLO or LEO-to-Mars) doesn't need control surfaces. Only Earth-return vehicles would have use for such things.

But der shuttle izt not ze typical aircraft.... :)

Compared to original NASA designs for the shuttle (pre-Air Force), then yes, the wings grew mighty big.

No, but the same craft that's going to LEO will also be going to the Moon... and perhaps Mars.

That's how the "Orbital Space Plane" became the "Crew Exploration Vehicle".

But the days of the dedicated Earth-return vehicle are drawing to a close... if Shrub's plan goes through. The same craft that returns crew from LEO wil return crew from the Moon. The vessels attached to the CEV will vary, the accessories on the CEV will change, but the same design is expected to be used... and a variant might serve as a command/control and lifeboat for the Mars missions.

Evidently including all touch with reality and common sense.

Found my keys, though.

To the Chicken Truck?

Bob

True. Perhaps the wings on the next-generation shuttle could incorporate a 'wave-rider' design... use the shock-wave of entry to provide lift.

How do you figure that...? While it would save a couple of cargo-transfer steps, general-purpose vehicles tend to be hellishly complex... since they have to operate in such a wide variety of flight profiles.

Chickens take a Thunderbird for a ride???? ; )

Randy

Nope. Clown car...I AM the official driver for RMR, you know.

ALL ABOARD!!!! ;-)

Shuttle-C

Bob

This one even has a picture of the mock-up built at MAFC.

Bob

Er... there will be no next-generation shuttle. At all.

(Well, at least in this generation :)

The Apollo capsules provided lift, and were steerable.

?

Have you read the plan? Because it's in the plan...

I see.

Sorry, but you missed the point entirely. There will be no cargo transfer. Freight will go aboard unmanned freighters.

There will only be crew and their neccesary suplies aboard the CEV. And what does that for LEO can do it as well for the Moon... and beyond.

?

Have you read the plan? Have you studied the capsule proposals for the OSP that are now the only remaining candidates for CEV? (until the "shuttle-oriented" companies suddenly start churning out capsule designs. This should happen about... say... last Thursday... at the latest... ;)

The CEV will only have basic orbital manuevering thrusters, the passenger compartment for 6-8 folks, and a small cargo area.

A long-overdue general-purpose crew transport.

Owwie... thou hast picayuned ye pontificator fair and square :)

But, just to be nitpicky ,a shuttle stripped thusly was a capsule on top of a big freight contaner. Shuttle-C was just a big freight container ;)

Too bad it was never funded and, given the commitment to expendables built into the NASA structure over the past decade, it can never be funded.

Yeah, we should have been developing this - and a modular unmanned heavy cargo lift capability - all along, starting as an Apollo follow-on. (Although a clean-sheet design with modern electronics certainly has much to recommend it...)

What bugs me is that this is all a frantic catch-up game now - we are quite "behind on our homework" with respect to the development cycle as far as I can tell - and yet we seem to be planning to dump a lot of present capability, such as it is, years in advance of the _projected_ availability of any successor systems.

Have we learned nothing from Skylab?

You know how "projected" tends to slip in practice... nobody expected, at the time, that abandoning the Saturn capability when we did was going to cost us the Skylab: by the time we realized that it was going to lose orbit long before the shuttle became available, it was too late to come up with a workable alternate reboost plan.

This is IMHO yet another example of the sort of politically inflicted institutional learning deficiency that the Columbia report criticized: a field of reinforcement contingencies which conditions different groups of good people, at different points in time, to make similar sorts of bad decisions.

-dave w

But were single-use only... :-(

I haven't. I guess I should. Where would I find it...?

Cargo will still have to be moved from the cargo-pod to whatever manned craft you have.

Er... actually... no. They could have been reused, and eventually would have been reused, especially the 6-9 crew versions that were planned... Sound familiar?

?

Sorry, what were you referring to?