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July 19, 2003
Another Modest Proposal
The End Of US Manned Spaceflight Looms Ever Closer Another myth is that a water landing would require borrowing a carrier battle group from the Navy. For regular scheduled CTV landings near KSC, NASA could use its two dedicated recovery tugs which lie idle at Port Canaveral between the occasional Shuttle SRB recovery missions. Apollo missions regularly landed within 2nm of the predicted point, so it should take less than an hour to hoist the spacecraft aboard and hose it off with fresh water. For emergency CRV landings, existing search and rescue organizations would be adequate.Has anyone ever considered putting a deployable outboard motor on one of these capsules? No, really. The capsule splashes down several miles offshore, the crew safes the onboard systems, reconfigures the seats, fires up the motor, and put-puts back to the port at KSC, where the capsule is cleaned and refurbished. Sure, there would be a weight penalty of around 500 pounds (not counting the added weight of beer coolers and fishing equipment), but it would seem to be a small price to pay if it results in a self-recovering capsule design which trades wings and other runway-landing deadweight for a crew size large enough to make the OSP project at least somewhat worthwhile.  Posted by T.L. James on July 19, 2003 10:42 AM
Comments
Has anyone ever considered putting a deployable outboard motor on one of these capsules? Well, it would be cheaper to put that motor on a boat and drag the capsule behind it. Posted by: Karl Hallowell at July 19, 2003 02:22 PM Perhaps. But then you run into the added operations costs of the vessel(s) and crew for the tug. Consider for a moment what goes into the retrieval of the STS SRBs. NASA has two specially-built vessels for this purpose, one per booster, each with a crew of up to twenty-four. These vessels have to be maintained throughout the year, with dock facilities, ongoing maintenance, periodic overhauls and the like. The crew has to be paid and trained as well, all year, even with only four launches annually. Granted, the vessels (and part of their crews) are used for other activities on occasion, such as towing the external tank barges back and forth to Michoud. However, that is possible because the Shuttle is launched infrequently -- the SRB tugs only need to be at the ready when there is a launch. Contrast this with the operations associated with a water-landing capsule type of OSP. Without a motor onboard the capsule, a suitable towing vessel (not necessarily the Stars, just something big enough for the job) would need to be available during each launch in case of aborts. They would also need to be available the entire time the OSP is in orbit, in case an early splashdown is required. If the capsule OSP is docked at ISS long term, in a CRV capacity, a tug (and crew) would need to be available on short notice all the time. Having a motor on board the capsule would also give a returning crew a great deal of freedom as to where they come down -- any suitably deep and broad body of water would do, anywhere along the orbital track. This is important in cases of emergency evacuation, when the crew may not have the time to wait for a splashdown at KSC or an emergency site where a retrieval team is available. You know, I was only half-serious when I made the suggestion, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Why bother with the parasitic weight of wings and landing gear? Posted by: T.L. James at July 19, 2003 09:12 PM It might be cheaper even if those guys are used only four times a year. We haven't solved the cheap access problem yet. Posted by: at July 20, 2003 08:37 AM |
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