Author Topic: Boeing Submits Proposal for NASA Commercial Crew Transport System  (Read 36956 times)

Offline Namechange User

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Is there any chance Boeing proposed (again) a winged orbital space plane?

http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=h_b_osp_plane_02.jpg

Nope.  This concept has been in work for some time.
{sarcasm mode}
We're too stupid, cheap, and incompetent an aerospace industry to do anything but a capsule. After we wipe off the drool for several decades, maybe there may be residual engineering engineering gene fragments that may breed back into the culture to in a hundred years try something thats both safe and a little more developed than falling (with style!) into an ocean. At least Soyuz does land, unlike POR Orion.{/sarcasm mode}

Sarcasm aside, why isn't a capsule good enough?  Over-complexity is not something one would want in a very, very young commercial market where your competition could out price you and crush your business just because they did not over do the plumbing and it doesn't look as "cool" as one would think because of a sci-fi movie or something. 
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Offline Jorge

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But getting back closer to topic, I really hope that Congress follows-through on the A-com suggestion to put serious money into developing commercial crew capabilities.  I'd really love to see an industry where there are several competent players capable of putting people into space.  I hope one of these days we'll actually get to see some of what Boeing and others have proposed.

Agree. The DoD regularly gives out multiple development contracts; F-35 and engine, Littoral Combat Ship, Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, KC-X, etc. This is more expensive at first, like COTS, but the outcome is a more capable product with lower long-term costs. Even after NASA decides which vehicle to use, having 'close 2nds' available in case problems arise with the 1st choice insures NASA gets and maintains commercial LEO crew-access.

People keep repeatedly missing the point on what this about.  What was just described above is the standard contracting business.  In many cases the government agency awards development contracts to multiple companies until a final down select decision is made and the real DDT&E and production contracts are awarded.

What this whole concept has at its core, is very little government money is available (even less if it goes to multpile companies) and it is up to them to bring the rest of the money roll.  NASA would be a customer just as any one else could be a customer for this vehicle.  Customer, very important word, because in this context it does not mean the same as having ultimate contract authority where every move made is at the blessing of the agency who pays for everything you do.  Do you think it is coincidence that Boeing has partnered with Bigelow? 

If this really continues to gain traction, I expect the FAA to enter into the mix here soon, more so than they are already, and there will be a standardized set of requirements crewed vehicles must achieve in order to get certification.  NASA will have input into that but I doubt they will be the ultimate authority.

NASA doesn't want to be the authority, unless it is also the customer.
JRF

Offline Namechange User

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NASA doesn't want to be the authority, unless it is also the customer.

NASA may not have the choice.  If this is the ultimate "institutional mentality" of the agency leadership, then it will also be the ultimate undoing of the agency and commercial development for the immediate future. 
« Last Edit: 09/27/2009 11:17 pm by OV-106 »
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Offline Jim

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If this really continues to gain traction, I expect the FAA to enter into the mix here soon, more so than they are already, and there will be a standardized set of requirements crewed vehicles must achieve in order to get certification.  NASA will have input into that but I doubt they will be the ultimate authority.

FAA is already in the mix.  It has rules and they are based on informed consent and not design requirements.  It is not NASA's job and NASA has no say in commercial vehicles.  It can only have input in vehicles it is contracting
« Last Edit: 09/28/2009 12:59 am by Jim »

Offline sdsds

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Is there any chance Boeing proposed (again) a winged orbital space plane?

http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=h_b_osp_plane_02.jpg

Nope.  This concept has been in work for some time.
{sarcasm mode}
We're too stupid, cheap, and incompetent an aerospace industry to do anything but a capsule. After we wipe off the drool for several decades, maybe there may be residual engineering engineering gene fragments that may breed back into the culture to in a hundred years try something thats both safe and a little more developed than falling (with style!) into an ocean. At least Soyuz does land, unlike POR Orion.{/sarcasm mode}

Sarcasm aside, why isn't a capsule good enough?  Over-complexity is not something one would want in a very, very young commercial market where your competition could out price you and crush your business just because they did not over do the plumbing and it doesn't look as "cool" as one would think because of a sci-fi movie or something. 


Other than NASA, Boeing has one other really big customer.  For some reason that customer is really interested in the X-37 spaceplane design -- but apparently not for human-rated applications.  For this tiny amount of money NASA has available, Boeing could offer to study modifications that would make X-37 suitable for a Commercial Crew Transport System.  Would that be of interest to anyone at NASA?

As for why this is better than a capsule:  the goal of 72 hour turnaround seems feasible for a winged vehicle that has smoothly landed on a runway, but seems implausible for a splashed or hard-landed capsule.
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Offline Jim

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1.   Boeing could offer to study modifications that would make X-37 suitable for a Commercial Crew Transport System.  Would that be of interest to anyone at NASA?

2.  As for why this is better than a capsule:  the goal of 72 hour turnaround seems feasible for a winged vehicle that has smoothly landed on a runway, but seems implausible for a splashed or hard-landed capsule.

1.  No it couldn't, because the X-37 is too small for manned applications.

2.  There is no legitimate requirement for such a turnaround nor is it possible on an EELV.  This the task of prop loading would take longer.

Offline sdsds

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1.   Boeing could offer to study modifications that would make X-37 suitable for a Commercial Crew Transport System.  Would that be of interest to anyone at NASA?

2.  As for why this is better than a capsule:  the goal of 72 hour turnaround seems feasible for a winged vehicle that has smoothly landed on a runway, but seems implausible for a splashed or hard-landed capsule.

1.  No it couldn't, because the X-37 is too small for manned applications.

2.  There is no legitimate requirement for such a turnaround nor is it possible on an EELV.  This the task of prop loading would take longer.

You may have better insider knowledge, or there may be more current public knowledge, but Craig Covault's coverage in Aviation Week (Aug 3, 2008) is fairly straight-forward.  See: http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=awst&id=news/aw080408p2.xml

Perhaps Space Maneuvering Vehicle (SMV) is the correct term, rather than X-37. 

As regards 1:
The SMV is "about 29 ft. long with a roughly 15-ft. wingspan", has "a small payload bay" capable of carrying "small satellites."  The payload bay can also "be reconfigured for diverse operations." 

A human in an EMU might be about the size of a small satellite.  SMV could be, 'For those times you really need to get to or from ISS in six and a half hours.'

As regards 2:
Again quoting Covault:  "It is designed for quick turnaround - 72 hr. or less between missions."  USAF apparently wants that, whether or not the requirement for such a turnaround is 'legitimate.'  In a national security "Operationally Responsive Space" scenario, consider one functional SMV and four EELV pads.  Each pad need only launch every 12 days to keep the SMV busy.  (The need for more launch personnel would be met by their "shadow force" of uniformed missile-men.  ULA wouldn't mind them manning their launch systems, would they?)
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Offline savuporo

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Agree. The DoD regularly gives out multiple development contracts; F-35 and engine, Littoral Combat Ship, Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, KC-X, etc. This is more expensive at first, like COTS, but the outcome is a more capable product with lower long-term costs. ..
This is all true, but i wanted to point out that the downselects for the actual acquired system are still always victim to politics, lobbying and god knows what behind the curtains.
Prime example being Advanced Tactical Fighter and YF-22 winning, while many claimed that YF-23 was superior.
Orion - the first and only manned not-too-deep-space craft

Offline nooneofconsequence

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OV-106,
My issue is the retreat of technology. Nor do I buy that a capsule is 1) necessarily intrinsically safer, or 2) more economic, or that we can expect with our "reduced skill set" (since Apollo) industry a capsule will be a better outcome.

I believe these are pitiful rationalizations, done for all the wrong reasons. I am resigned to Orion and Dragon, but have no illusions about the nature of what brings us to this point. It is a Hobson's choice.

We are in a decadent culture, where the prior achievements are greater than the future ones. And where, like preserving the arts of making certain kinds of stained glass, we hope to preserve some of our past heritage, because we know we can't innovate at the same level as before. I resent watching the degradation of aerospace over the past 30 years, in small and in large ways.

I resented the "what can be done" mindset that doomed Columbia. I understand thoroughly what has happened top to bottom, soup to nuts, ...and  I don't think it is at all how history should have rolled out, but it is what has happened. And yes, I'm very sarcastic about it.

Nor would I advocate a useless "pie in the sky" scheme, nor a repeat of the Shuttle misadventures. There's a lot to be said here, that I can't say in a single damn post to cover all the bases, but no, we as a culture/industry aren't working to nearly our potential. More like attempting to find the easy way out, because we've gotten burned too frequently.

The DNA here is getting too thin and non-viable.  At a time we've got the best materials technology, best design and verification technology, ... a whole world of wonder. And we are reduced to still dropping into the ocean like Mercury.

Sorry, I can't see this as anything other that backwards.
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Offline meiza

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The capsule is the way of the future.

Was it Henry Spencer or someone, who had a nice historical analogy:

Zeppelins, airships operated with the sea ship mentality: lots of crew and manual operations everywhere. To increase power, you call the engine room etc... Passengers had lots of luxuries and there were only very few of them.

Airplanes (at least the successful ones) started with a completely different mindset. The ship paradigm just didn't work there, because space was at premium.

They probably seemed small, ugly and inelegant compared to the massive airships with large crews, but they just came and wiped out the airships with their superior capabilities.

Air was a different environment than the sea, and you needed very different solutions there. Sometimes you just have to let go of obsolete assumptions.

Wings are practically obsolete in space.
« Last Edit: 09/28/2009 12:28 pm by meiza »

Offline robertross

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The capsule is the way of the future.

...

Wings are practically obsolete in space.

I'll take exception to BOTH and say that each has advantages for what we can do today, however a different mode altogether is the best way forward.

Reuseable design, land landings, vertical descent.

Offline Jim

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1  As regards 1:
The SMV is "about 29 ft. long with a roughly 15-ft. wingspan", has "a small payload bay" capable of carrying "small satellites."  The payload bay can also "be reconfigured for diverse operations." 

A human in an EMU might be about the size of a small satellite.  SMV could be, 'For those times you really need to get to or from ISS in six and a half hours.'

As regards 2:
Again quoting Covault:  "It is designed for quick turnaround - 72 hr. or less between missions."  USAF apparently wants that, whether or not the requirement for such a turnaround is 'legitimate.'  In a national security "Operationally Responsive Space" scenario, consider one functional SMV and four EELV pads.  Each pad need only launch every 12 days to keep the SMV busy.  (The need for more launch personnel would be met by their "shadow force" of uniformed missile-men.  ULA wouldn't mind them manning their launch systems, would they?)

1.  Non viable, A person in a EMU can't take the g loads.   

2. a.  The 72 hours is BS, like the shuttle's two week turnaround.  Like I said, there are many operations like prop loading that take more than 72 hours, encapsulation, pad ops, just getting the x-37 to a processing facility, safing the vehicle after landing.

b.  Using all four EELV pads is a joke,

c.  There is no such thing as a "shadow force" of uniformed missile-men.  They are not qualified to even come near the vehicles unescorted, much less operate them.  The current USAF launch base members don't have the experience or knowledge of earlier members

I will start another thread on this on a later date.

Online mmeijeri

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Wings are practically obsolete in space.

Lifting bodies sound interesting. Especially if they also help with Mars entry, but I'm not sure they do.
Pro-tip: you don't have to be a jerk if someone doesn't agree with your theories

Offline nooneofconsequence

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The capsule is the way of the future.
Prove that to me - it sounds unjustified.

Quote
Wings are practically obsolete in space.
I never asked for wings. I asked for no splashdowns, and implied sensible turnaround, and better than Soyuz flight termination.

But I didn't say 'wings'. Nor 'runway'. I did say the requirement was to improve the state of the art, not retreat. Many ways of doing that - that don't imply wings. But I don't think you should get hung up on wings - because then you get as dogmatic as such useless maxims as separate crew/cargo taken to extremes (when what is reasonably meant is that massive cargo shouldn't have crew).

Jorge (and others) have repeatedly pointed out before the obvious value of the cross range of Shuttle being actually used, and Analyst has also pointed out the cost fallacies in denigrating the Shuttles economics. If you are going to pick a fight, do so over something reasonable.

But don't just say 'wings'.
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Offline Norm Hartnett

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Capsules, lifting bodies, or winged rlvs it doesn't matter, what matters is that it be cheap, robust, and safe. That's why I keep coming back to NASA returning to a research and development agency, not an operational space agency, nor an exploration agency, at least in the human space flight arena.

The thing that hamstrings every exploration or operational space program is the cost of access to LEO. Until that becomes not merely cheap but routine there isn't a single exploration program that will be sustainable.

Anything else is wishful thinking.

“You can’t take a traditional approach and expect anything but the traditional results, which has been broken budgets and not fielding any flight hardware.” Mike Gold - Apollo, STS, CxP; those that don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it: SLS.

Offline Patchouli

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Capsules, lifting bodies, or winged rlvs it doesn't matter, what matters is that it be cheap, robust, and safe. That's why I keep coming back to NASA returning to a research and development agency, not an operational space agency, nor an exploration agency, at least in the human space flight arena.

The thing that hamstrings every exploration or operational space program is the cost of access to LEO. Until that becomes not merely cheap but routine there isn't a single exploration program that will be sustainable.

Anything else is wishful thinking.



I could not agree more and we simply don't know what that is yet but then we didn't know what a practical airliner was in 1914 or what a practical automobile was in 1900.

The capsule is the way of the future.

Was it Henry Spencer or someone, who had a nice historical analogy:

Zeppelins, airships operated with the sea ship mentality: lots of crew and manual operations everywhere. To increase power, you call the engine room etc... Passengers had lots of luxuries and there were only very few of them.

Airplanes (at least the successful ones) started with a completely different mindset. The ship paradigm just didn't work there, because space was at premium.

They probably seemed small, ugly and inelegant compared to the massive airships with large crews, but they just came and wiped out the airships with their superior capabilities.

Air was a different environment than the sea, and you needed very different solutions there. Sometimes you just have to let go of obsolete assumptions.

Wings are practically obsolete in space.

I cannot disagree with you more and you have it completely backwards.

Dragon is the only one of the present crop of capsule vehicles that at least tries to do something better.
It did move most of the service module systems into the reentry vehicle and claims to have a reusable LV.

But F9/Dragon is no DC3 at best it's a ford trimotor.

Vehicles like the shuttle but also Orion,Apollo,Gemini,Soyuz,and the ATV are akin to the Zeppelins because they are expensive to fly and require large ground crews.

Vehicles similar Skylon or Delta Clipper when built will likely be the first DC3 of space.

But the vehicle also has to be safe for most people to use.
If you have to be a fit test pilot to ride it the vehicle will never be hugely successful.

As for an earlier post about needing to fit in a fairing the shuttle does not have a fairing a fairing and it should be unnecessary for any other vehicle that has an aerodynamic shape.

In someways the post Columbia mindset is a cancer when you consider innovation.
« Last Edit: 09/29/2009 03:45 am by Patchouli »

Offline Namechange User

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I cannot disagree with you more and you have it completely backwards.

Dragon is the only one of the present crop of capsule vehicles that at least tries to do something better.
It did move most of the service module systems into the reentry vehicle and claims to have a reusable LV.

But F9/Dragon is no DC3 at best it's a ford trimotor.

Vehicles like the shuttle but also Orion,Apollo,Gemini,Soyuz,and the ATV are akin to the Zeppelins because they are expensive to fly and require large ground crews.

Vehicles similar Skylon or Delta Clipper when built will likely be the first DC3 of space.

But the vehicle also has to be safe for most people to use.
If you have to be a fit test pilot to ride it the vehicle will never be hugely successful.

As for an earlier post about needing to fit in a fairing the shuttle does not have a fairing a fairing and it should be unnecessary for any other vehicle that has an aerodynamic shape.

In someways the post Columbia mindset is a cancer when you consider innovation.


What is Dragon doing differently in an ops concept?  It launches on a rocket, orbits earth, the service module separates, the capsule lands in the ocean.....sounds real familar. 

Next point, you have no idea what the "DC-3 of space" will be.  Tieing it to an OML configuration is silly.  It will be the vehicle that operates efficiently, affordable and safely.  That's it and of course that is all relative too. 

Next, the shuttle really does have a fairing.  It's called the payload bay.

Finally, your comment about a cancer is assenine.  I suggest you comment on topics you can actually speak to.  For example, post-Columbia I look at the following:

1.  Implementation of the OBSS
2.  Implementation of some complex operational procedures.
3.  Resolution of the flow control valve proplem, at least to the point we can fly safely and countless other engineering issues.
4.  Flights with fewer and fewer in-flight annomalies all the while staying on orbit longer. 

The list could go on but you should get the point. 
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Offline JohnFornaro

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Wings are obsolete in space, but quite useful for Earthly atmospheres.  We should probably have vehicles from LEO onwards, which never touch an atmosphere and winged vehicles to transport people to and from LEO.  Landing in a capsule is dumb, especially if a winged landing craft has been shown to work for thirty years.  Winged craft begin to open the option of landing at different places and should be available for passengers just as airplanes are.

I share some of nooneofconsequence's thoughts, but I think wings are good.  Capsules are an expedient based on cost.

Also, what are the cost fallacies of denigrating shuttle economics again?

And I don't agree that the shuttle bay is a fairing; it's part of the craft.  Certainly, there could be a different craft built that only carries passengers and whatever luggage fits under the seats.  That craft would be a lot smaller than the shuttle.
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline Robotbeat

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safety requires a direct reentry (medical reasons - shortest path).
I disagree. Once you are in LEO, you can take your time to dock to a craft returning home. We know what it's like to spend more than a year in space. 6 month crew rotations in LEO are normal. An extra few days in LEO are not going to kill the crew. As far as the abort standpoint, nowadays we can just abort to a safe orbit, as long as we have responsive launch capability or on-orbit prepositioned spacecraft capable of large inclination and altitude changes (a propellant depot could easily fit this description). Apollo didn't have that option because they were racing and there was no in-space infrastructure to speak of. And, abort to the Earth's surface isn't very safe if you land in an ocean squall or if you have a damaged heat shield.

Nowadays (post-Colombia), the Space Shuttle is designed to abort-to-orbit. This is possible because we have in-space infrastructure (the ISS). Since you already have depots, you could invest in a small cache of emergency supplies (oxygen could be siphoned off of the fuel in the depot--including condensing water out of burning the fuel and oxygen) capable of letting you wait until a rescue mission could be mounted. This is the benefit of in-space infrastructure (another example is the Iridium beacons on the Dragon capsule!).
« Last Edit: 09/29/2009 10:06 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline meiza

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Yeah, my post was too simplistic. Wings are not categorically an obsolete technique in a launch / re-entry vehicle.

It's just that one can't say capsules are bad because they are old-fashioned. (Maybe you didn't mean that but that's the gist of what I understood.)

You could likely quite easily soft-land capsules with parawings / parafoils. This seems to me to be the optimal path: very small mass and still precision landings. (Maybe not thousands of kilometers of cross range but tens of kilometers anyway.)
http://gravityloss.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/the-last-five-kilometers/

Capsules can be extremely light. This solves so many other problems it's a very good idea to look at them hard. Lifting bodies are heavy and things with wings are elephants. Capsules have great margins in control and thermal issues and are very easy to build.

I'm not dismissing winged vehicles out of hand. Just saying they start with a significant weight disadvantage, which effects everything down below in the hierarchy, the launcher, ground infrastructure... There are  good reasons why all operational re-entry vehicles but one have been capsules.

Like there are reasons why airplanes were airplanes and not airships, re-entry craft are not spaceplanes automatically - the environment is different and requires a clean sheet thinking to find the best approach.

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