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May 02, 2003
Back to the Future
Keith Cowing has posted an interesting little document: Report on Top-Level Assessment of Use of Apollo Systems for ISS CRV. When the expanded OSP requirements were issued a month or so ago, a bunch of us chuckled over the notion that a resurrected Apollo CSM could meet most of them. It seemed like a joke at first, but it soon became one of those "It's so crazy, it just might work!" ideas. This study is eye-opening, mainly for the mere fact that NASA is considering it at all. For one thing, it is in a sense a huge step backwards -- politically/PR-wise, if not in fact. They've spent three decades and hundreds of billions of dollars developing, demonstrating, flying, and improving the CSM's winged replacement, and a few billion more on failed winged replacements for the Shuttle itself, only to come back to the capsule vehicle they started with. There is real risk that, should such a concept be adopted for OSP, the agency could make itself the target for severe criticism from the public and Congress, on the premise that those billions of dollars were wasted somehow. Worse for the agency would be the implication that they can't make a winged vehicle that will work any better than Shuttle. It could be seen by the public as an admission of failure, a retreat from innovation into the safety of the tried and true..."America just can't do space anymore." It's also surprising for internal political reasons. The resurrection of an old design lacks the glamour of and opportunities to develop radical new technology. While much that is new would still need to be developed -- the guidance and navigation systems, for instance, which no one would really want to even try to replicate today, given three decades of innovation to play with -- those opportunities would be strictly limited. At first I was opposed to the whole "capsule OSP" notion, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I think Keith Cowing, in his blurb for Alan Boyle, captures my own opinion on this concept very well: “If America is looking to build a capsule simply because it doesn’t have money to build something more sophisticated, with wings, then shame on us,” he said. “However, if this capsule and the modular approach — an approach that could include missions outside low Earth orbit — is what’s under consideration, then yahoo!”  Posted by T.L. James on May 2, 2003 09:11 PM
Comments
I gave you another hat tip, at this post: Has anyone given any thought to putting a C/SM-derived vehicle atop a modified ET? Maybe with a Forward Dome instead of an Ogive. If we did, could we eliminate a lot of the TPS, since ice damage to the OV shouldn’t be a problem? We ought to be able to turn out a substantial number of them, at a much-reduced cost, and without substantial start-up costs. What do you think? Also, once we’ve modified the ET, we could do unmanned cargo units as well. Again, what do you think. Finally, did you read the article suggesting that the Soyuz design was cribbed from early Apollo entries? I put it in a post, let me see if I can find it . . . Oh, yes! Here it is: Encyclopedia Astonautica: “Was the Soyuz Design Stolen?” at: Ciao, Dan Posted by: Daniel Morris at May 5, 2003 02:45 AM The CM-derived CTV concept (as opposed to the CRV concept) would be sent up on a heavy-life EELV, which means the Shuttle and its elements would not be required. Just speculating, but I would guess that an EELV-boosted CTV would reopen the Shuttle-derived box. Granted, NASA did throw away its last mega-booster, so there's no reason to expect this to actually happen, but one could imagine the Orbiters being retired and the pads, ETs, engines, etc. being reused on an unmanned, Saturn-class vehicle (there are many, many proposed versions of this). Of course, hardware isn't the problem, even now, and there's nothing technological stopping us from developing derivative vehicles today. What prevents it is simply a lack of a goal. We don't know where we want to go in space (well, *I* do, but NASA doesn't seem to), and without a destination there's no need for the vehicle. Posted by: T.L. James at May 5, 2003 09:46 PM How did they used to put it in the old space operas? Up and out? That’s where we need to go. Up and out. Up and out. Posted by: Daniel Morris at May 5, 2003 11:24 PM Re-vamping Apollo The scientific value and hopes for the International Space Station were wearing thin even with an operational Space Shuttle. The ISS has sucked the life out of planetary science, NASA’s work on a new replacement shuttle, and Russia had problems too. Posted by: Christopher Eldridge at May 6, 2003 10:17 AM The sad thing about ISS was — aside from engaging the Russians — it really had no defensible mission. As Robert Zubrin pointed out in both The Case for Mars, and Entering Space, we don’t need to know how much microgravity humans can tolerate. We can solve the problem with artificial gravity, and avoid turning our astronauts into the best trained, best motivated, and highest paid lab rats ever.
Posted by: Daniel Morris at May 6, 2003 04:43 PM |
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