just one question that has intrigued me a bit before. im not from US so i might be missing something obvious here ..
why are the ongoing design efforts "inside info" in the first place? i mean, NASA is a public agency, right ?
whats the reason for not letting interested people see whats going on immediately ?
im guessing something its somehow related to ITAR but ... it aint terribly security-sensitive info, is it ?

Hello MarsBlogger!

I was so interested to read that you are working on Orion. Over on the NewMars forums we have been eagerly following Orion's development as closely as we can knowing that it may eventually become the earth return vehicle for the first human mission. Some of us have also been very skeptical about the information "released" on that forum, the fact that they charge for viewing it makes it even more suspect. Please visit us and share whatever you can with us fellow Martians :)

>What I'd really like to know (in addition to where nasaspaceflight.com is getting their inside information) is how they generated this rendering. While some of the details look a little flaky, it has a nice quality to it. It has the marks of a Catia V5 image to my eye, rather than the second-rate results available through ProE.<

From NASA sources - check their forum, they have LOTS. Just because you are not in the loop doesn't mean you can cry all over this blog. That's what made me laugh out loud. Did you get NASA permission to set up this blog? Let's find out.

Wow, I wasted 30 seconds of my life reading this. Why don't you go over there, where there's real Constellation workers and put up or shut up? To say you claim to work Orion is very questionable when you don't seem to be aware of NASA images.

cIclops, stop kissing ass, it makes you look gay.

Who is crying, John? The paragraph you quote is about the quality of the image shown in the forum -- it's an evaluation of the technique. As one of the primary creators of those models, I'm naturally curious about where those posting the images got access to the models to perform the rendering (since, as noted, the rendering appears to my eye to have been done with something other than ProE, which is used by the Orion program).

As stated earlier in the post, I found the article amusing in part because of the tone and in part because of being on the inside of what they're describing.

And no, I've never asked NASA for permission to post on this blog. I'm not aware that I'm obligated to beg permission from a government agency before stating my opinions in a public forum I pay for (seeing as how I refrain from reporting technical details and the like). Is that how it works for you in the UK?

Davie H - who do you think created the models for the aft bay of the CM in the first place?

T.L. James. It seems the only fact you disagree with is the statement of the larger interior compared to apollo. Hmmm. The rest is you saying you think this is 12 months old, which is absolutely inaccurate and you seem to be miffed over how news sites like nasaspaceflight, flightglobal, launchspace, space.com get hold of this information? It's called news media, they are more powerful than these little blog sites that anyone can make up as you are not accountable like they are. Lots of holes in your claims and bad mouthing an excellent news site behind the guise of a blog site is asking for trouble. Stick to blogging about snow storms.
And to the guy who thinks subscription areas are weird, does that mean you think the videos are weird on spaceflightnow. Do you think the press releases on space news are weird? It's called professional sites, which, unlike free blog sites like this, have subscription areas for huge bandwidth areas. Gain an education.

TL,
I think you're right about those images being Catia v5. I've used both that and ProE Wildfire (Catia at the university, and we started with ProE at MSS before they screwed us and we switched to Solidworks...long story), and particularly some of the details on that cover thing that goes between the LAS and the rest of the capsule make me think it was Catia. Particularly one part that looks like they didn't specify a color, and it came out in the default off-whitish color that I remember from my Catia days.

My guess, knowing Chris is that he has some NASA sources and got it from them, not directly from LM. Is there a chance that someone at NASA is duplicating your models in another package (or possibly porting them over)? Oversight and that sort of thing? Either that or someone with a fair deal of spare time on their hands that didn't want to risk getting in trouble by posting actual models made by a contracting company? Just guessing.

BTW, sorry you have to deal with the tone of posting from some of these other guys. Par for the course in the blogosphere I guess.

~Jon

James,

Please ignore the idiots, they are obviously jealous of your position

Wow, Mr. James seems to have bumped the cribs of some thin-skinned whiny babies looking for something to take offense at. Waaaaaa!!!

Doesn't the title explain the article? It’s simply someone reflecting on how something he knows well is seen from outside. It’s not an attack on the other site; rather, he's just showing the limits of news reporting. Sheesh.

I did, however, get a good laugh out of the "NASA permission" comment. Hilarious.

"...he's just showing the limits of news reporting."

Exactly. The nasaspaceflight.com article was funny because it was someone else's view of what I work with every day, distorted a bit by the "telephone effect".

It turns out I was in error regarding the element I was referring to as being 12 months old -- "this CM is reduced in size by .5m from the original ESAS design". The diameter was reduced by half a meter back in February 2006 or thereabouts (the earliest working materials I have were dated March 10), making at least 14 months old. Now, it's possible that Chris wasn't referring to this specific configuration as the one incorporating the diameter change -- the wording is ambiguous -- but that's how it reads.

I am not "miffed" or otherwise angered about the information in the article or pictures. I am genuinely curious how the site gets access to the materials. I suspect I would be in a great deal of trouble if I posted such materials here -- I'm surprised that others (whether NASA or LM) are comfortable sharing unreleased internal information with the public, apparently by their own discretion and against the agreements we (at LM at least) individually make to not do so.

"What I'd really like to know (in addition to where nasaspaceflight.com is getting their inside information) is how they generated this rendering. While some of the details look a little flaky, it has a nice quality to it. It has the marks of a Catia V5 image to my eye, rather than the second-rate results available through ProE."

How "they" generated them? Flaky details?

Try NASA/LM generated with accurated details.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/multimedia/orion_contract_images

Try an accurate link.

"me" means http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/multimedia/orion_contract_images (add on ".ht (no space) ml" to the end as it's being blocked which was updated on the 16th (see bottom of the page) with some of the images that nasaspaceflight.com ran earlier in the month. So basically they got hold of the images before NASA published them. They also seem to have a good working relationship with Lockheed Martin, a number of the VPs are on that site and they've broken all the Atlas HR stories (with LM quotes). Spend a bit of time on the site and you'll see they have good working relationships on things like this.

"it was someone else's view of what I work with every day"

That goes for many other people too.

"Hint: the CM prop tanks and the ECLSS tankage are in different sectors of the aft bay because the prop tanks eat up all the volume in the sectors where they reside...simple as that."

But the point is still right, if there was "more" room, the propulsion system would be kept separate from the ECLSS

I find it amusing that some people think the customer has more information than the prime contractor.

By the way, thanks for clarifying that tanks are stored in "sectors", not "bays".

Boy, the nasaspaceflight.com guys seem a bit cultish, don't they? They’re awfully defensive about what they perceived as a criticism of the site, which certainly isn't the way I read it. Then again, maybe I'm just drinking the wrong Koolaid.

Also, who are the "number of VPs" with which nasaspaceflight.com supposedly has "good working relationships"? It’d be nice to see some names. If the sources are confidential, well fine, but if they’re openly contributing info to the site as "Anon" implies, then listing the names shouldn’t be a problem. How about it?

"...tanks are stored in 'sectors', not 'bays'."

Nor wedges, for that matter.

I neglected to explain before, but the "flaky details" I referred to were items whose proportions looked a little different in the rendering, or which were just dark blobs in the image.

"I find it amusing that some people think the customer has more information than the prime contractor."

That is the way it usually is. LM is not working in a vacuum. Most program offices are integrated.