Author Topic: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT  (Read 47256 times)

Offline chalz

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #80 on: 06/14/2016 05:06 am »
Regarding inter compatibility with existing standards; this has already been tackled with airplanes and the ULD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_load_device.

The size is primarily determined by the aircraft family and is small enough that they can by transferred to flatbed trucks for road transport. 5' width compared to an intermodal 8' width.

The upshot being they are not directly compatible with intermodal containers but it doesn't matter. By the time you are loading your goods into a container you know where they are going and how they are going to get there. You or your shipper will know the container that the majority of the journey will be taken in.

So for Mars we need a unit size small enough that it could be carried on a flatbed truck. It would then stack into the MCT airframe, which could just be a single large volume. Very large items are not going to be common I think because of the handling limitations on rocket and on Mars.

Offline lamontagne

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #81 on: 06/14/2016 10:32 pm »
Here is a field of 10 containers and connectors, compared to a Bigelow 330 and a 2100.
Don't really know how much a container would mass, but they suffer a bit in comparaison, I find.

I think containers can be useful only if the MCT has an unpressurized cargo area.  Otherwise, wouldn't it be almost as easy to pack smaller containers into a cargo hold in the ship, since a spaceship is even more 'fragile' than a sea ship, and maximum care must be taken in mass distribution and anchoring to resist severe acceleration stresses?

Why pack a rigid container, when you can pack an inflatable habitat, if the main purpose, in the long run, of the container is to act as an habitat?

And is an unpressurized cargo hold a good idea in a spaceship that is essentially a large balloon, that probably gets a significant amount of it's structural resistance from internal pressure?

So perhaps the best container for MCT is in fact a small and light carbon fibre box, not necessarily airtight, that packs well, can be reused for other purposes and fits in existing transportation modes?  It might be designed to be easily recycled on Mars.  Cardboard boxes are probably not strong enough for the need, so a nice carbon fiber shell with a lot of tie down points.  Might as well use high quality materials, so perhaps even lithium aluminium alloys?

Any simple ways of recycling carbon fiber?








« Last Edit: 06/14/2016 10:39 pm by lamontagne »

Offline RonM

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #82 on: 06/14/2016 11:51 pm »
Any simple ways of recycling carbon fiber?

Instead of recycling the carbon fiber, the boxes can be made out of carbon fiber panels and supports that can be disassembled and reassembled into other shapes. The panels can be used to build tables, chairs, interior walls, etc.

Online docmordrid

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #83 on: 06/15/2016 12:20 am »
Build a Bigelow tech dome and attach a rigid floor. When folded (thinking deflated Jiffy Pop) stack them like pallets in the hold, perhaps 2-4 per vehicle. Remove, inflate, connect.
DM

Offline lamontagne

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #84 on: 06/15/2016 12:29 am »
Any simple ways of recycling carbon fiber?

Instead of recycling the carbon fiber, the boxes can be made out of carbon fiber panels and supports that can be disassembled and reassembled into other shapes. The panels can be used to build tables, chairs, interior walls, etc.

If it's anything like fiberglass, then it's harder to rework than one would want.  But there are probably some good lessons to be learned at Ikea... and I remember milk bottle plastic crates used to find 1000 uses.  Perhaps a form of re usable plastic would be better, at that.  Mulch it up after use and run it through a 3D printer...

Offline Lar

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #85 on: 06/15/2016 01:29 am »
I can hear it now... "Container pieces are not LEGO elements"

.. well, why not? I'm all about reuse. I was earlier saying that it should be possible to strip a passenger carrier of 3/4 of its fittings if they were properly enginnered, and hey presto, you have prewired walls and panels to use inside habitats...

Why not design these containers to be made of components that can be assembled different ways? Especially if they're not pressurised (for reference, boats made of LEGO elements are not watertight...)
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
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Offline biosehnsucht

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #86 on: 06/15/2016 06:17 am »
The 5' size of ULD may not be large enough, but the idea isn't bad. Flip it 90 degrees and you can optimize space usage of a vertical round cargo hold better (ULD being of course for aircraft which are 90 degree from a rocket in terms of which way the round part is pointing). You can probably grow the overall size a meter or more in either/both width and length easily this way, though your largest single object doesn't get bigger necessarily, you can put more in each container and make more use of space. If you combine ULD shaped (rectangular box with a corner cut off) with regular rectangular containers (those not around the periphery) you can probably get the best of both worlds.

I like the idea about putting the MCT containers inside ISO containers for road transport to the launch site / cargo integration area, so you don't have to move things from container to container, but that may not be feasible depending on what size you want those MCT containers to be. Still the idea has merit, you could just design ISO-y oversized road transport containers if needed that the MCT containers go in, unless the MCT containers are so big as to make that infeasible (i.e. if they were 5m wide, they're gonna be really hard to road transport at all, probably need to ship contents to cargo integration site then pack them in MCT containers).

As for the argument about whether these are even needed and if instead should just have everything stored on smaller pallets or whatever tied down somewhere, while most goods / supplies don't need large containers to move them, when setting up a colony there will be plenty of large items that need to be transported such as construction equipment or general purpose rovers (both of which could be made to fit a 5' dimension but it might be better not to), power storage / generation and ECLSS type utility equipment, and (possibly expandable) hab modules to name a few.

Especially if you are trying to offload 100t of cargo and get the MCT refuelled and sent back on the same synod, doing so by hand with 1-to-2 person portable sized cargo elements will require too much labor and time, especially for early ~10-person crews. If you can offload large containers (of whatever dimension) you can get the offloading done rapidly, and spend the rest of the time after MCT has departed with the specific items in the containers as needed.

Offline darkenfast

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #87 on: 06/15/2016 08:01 am »
I personally don't see the need for a standardized cargo container for some time.   Pallets and various sized boxes?  Yes.  Large equipment carried outside the pressure hull?  Maybe.  Intermodal containers came about because it was more economical to ship goods from factories to consumers in other countries in such containers.  The ships involved can carry the extra weight of thousands of these containers and then they are shuffled around in container yards and moved about on trucks and trains.  None of this will be necessary off-planet for a very long time.  Space and weight on the MCTs will be too limited, and there won't be enough long-distance shipping on Mars to justify it.  Think of it like a base in Antarctica that only got C-17 flights in every 26 months.  Every synod, a few ships will come in.  Everyone will turn out to unload, unpack, sort out and load up return cargo.   Standardized shipping containers would just make things harder at the scale we are looking at.  Most stuff can go in boxes and bags, perhaps attached to pallets.
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Offline Doesitfloat

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #88 on: 06/15/2016 02:09 pm »
I agree with darkenfast.  Standardized containers will not be part of the first generation of colonies.
I was thinking of a thin pallet with a net on the top but with the reduced gravity only the net is needed.

Offline lamontagne

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #89 on: 06/15/2016 02:45 pm »
I agree with darkenfast.  Standardized containers will not be part of the first generation of colonies.
I was thinking of a thin pallet with a net on the top but with the reduced gravity only the net is needed.
Musn't forget launch acceleration and vibration, as well as some possible reverse acceleration during atmospheric re-entry as the ship changes attitude radically.
We all know what a single bracket failure can do to attached elements is a space vehicle...

« Last Edit: 06/15/2016 02:47 pm by lamontagne »

Offline biosehnsucht

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #90 on: 06/15/2016 05:16 pm »
You have to unload 100t of cargo (possibly multiple 100t's of cargo, if many cargo MCT have arrived prior to your arrival). If not containerized, are you going to do this with a pallet jack / manual labor? That is a waste of time and human energy, and time and human energy will be at a premium.

Standardized containers for MCT are about being able to unload and deploy things in a timely manner. They allow for various tools such as an onboard crane / hoist with spreader bar or similar method to move the container outside of the vehicle onto the ground, and some other asset (itself also deployed in a similar fashion) to then move the container from there.

Not everything will be literally in a container necessarily (i.e. if all it would contain is a large rover or construction vehicle, it may just have a frame around it with the attachment points on the frame, no sides), but containers allow for tighter packing and better use of space as well vs open pallets (because contents can be attached to walls/ceiling as well as floor allowing greater use of space).

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #91 on: 06/15/2016 05:58 pm »
You have to unload 100t of cargo (possibly multiple 100t's of cargo, if many cargo MCT have arrived prior to your arrival). If not containerized, are you going to do this with a pallet jack / manual labor? That is a waste of time and human energy, and time and human energy will be at a premium.

I expect the whole cargo hold to be taken off and the propulsion unit returning to earth without it.

Offline Burninate

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #92 on: 06/15/2016 06:20 pm »
You have to unload 100t of cargo (possibly multiple 100t's of cargo, if many cargo MCT have arrived prior to your arrival). If not containerized, are you going to do this with a pallet jack / manual labor? That is a waste of time and human energy, and time and human energy will be at a premium.

I expect the whole cargo hold to be taken off and the propulsion unit returning to earth without it.

I've been trying to work this out, and it would be very useful, but...

How?  The ability to drop 15m-diameter cargoes would seem to require engines canted so far to the side that they'd pick up quite a lot of cosine loss in effective specific impulse, and-or engine bells so shrunken that they'd pick up quite a lot of underexpansion loss in direct specific impulse.  We already don't understand how the vehicle could achieve the needed amounts of delta V at 380s Isp.
« Last Edit: 06/15/2016 06:22 pm by Burninate »

Offline envy887

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #93 on: 06/15/2016 06:36 pm »
The engine nozzles have to cant around a 15m heatshield, there is no way they will survive interplanetary re-entry velocity if they are sitting in the plasma flow. Why not cant around the cargo hold too?

Offline Burninate

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #94 on: 06/15/2016 06:45 pm »
The engine nozzles have to cant around a 15m heatshield, there is no way they will survive interplanetary re-entry velocity if they are sitting in the plasma flow. Why not cant around the cargo hold too?

Depends on whether the spacecraft performs top-first or bottom-first reentry.  A blunt sphere-cone reentry with a rigid heatshield does not seem to permit sufficient deceleration for Mars before impacting the surface - it shifts too much dV requirement to the engines.  The options seem to be some sort of expandable decelerator (inflatable or actuated), a magnetoshell, and-or gliding reentry.  Largely propulsive reentry is feasible, but seemingly not in combination with fast transits, and it may require high-orbit prop depots as well.
« Last Edit: 06/15/2016 06:48 pm by Burninate »

Offline biosehnsucht

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #95 on: 06/15/2016 09:11 pm »
I'm not so sure the engines can't be protruding through a heatshield (more or less like a Falcon 9 first stage), assuming they have sufficient propellent to run at least some of the engines with enough power to use the supersonic retropropulsion effect to push the shock wave far enough out to reduce aero heating. For Mars decent that is probably easier since the atmosphere is thinner in the first place (less need for a heat shield), for Earth this may be more difficult.

Even if you cant the engines around the heatshield (more like Crew Dragon than Falcon 9 first stage), if you drop off the cargo as one giant module, you still have a problem, since you just dropped your (Mars) heat shield you need a second, more massive (at least you could save mass on the Martian one) Earth heat shield, which is above your engine nacelles. Alternatively you might put your engines far up the side of the vehicle to be above the Earth return heat shield, but now you need to shield the sides of the cargo from the engine exhaust and so on.

Offline guckyfan

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #96 on: 06/15/2016 09:30 pm »
I expect the whole cargo hold to be taken off and the propulsion unit returning to earth without it.

I've been trying to work this out, and it would be very useful, but...

How?

I expect the main cargo hold at the top. I know it will require some capable equipment to do. But I expect some capable equipment to be part of building the colony anyway. Removing the top will expose a fresh heatshield for earth return.

I expect the part that returns to earth to be almost exactly a tanker as used on earth to carry fuel to LEO.

Offline Impaler

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #97 on: 06/15/2016 09:37 pm »
You have to unload 100t of cargo (possibly multiple 100t's of cargo, if many cargo MCT have arrived prior to your arrival). If not containerized, are you going to do this with a pallet jack / manual labor? That is a waste of time and human energy, and time and human energy will be at a premium.

Standardized containers for MCT are about being able to unload and deploy things in a timely manner. They allow for various tools such as an onboard crane / hoist with spreader bar or similar method to move the container outside of the vehicle onto the ground, and some other asset (itself also deployed in a similar fashion) to then move the container from there.

Not everything will be literally in a container necessarily (i.e. if all it would contain is a large rover or construction vehicle, it may just have a frame around it with the attachment points on the frame, no sides), but containers allow for tighter packing and better use of space as well vs open pallets (because contents can be attached to walls/ceiling as well as floor allowing greater use of space).

Finally someone else gets it.  I see between 9 and 12 TEU containers in MCT and an integrated gantry crane lowers them onto waiting trucks.  The whole process would take a few hours and then the vehicle can be made ready to launch again.

Offline envy887

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #98 on: 06/16/2016 02:20 pm »
I'm not so sure the engines can't be protruding through a heatshield (more or less like a Falcon 9 first stage), assuming they have sufficient propellent to run at least some of the engines with enough power to use the supersonic retropropulsion effect to push the shock wave far enough out to reduce aero heating. For Mars decent that is probably easier since the atmosphere is thinner in the first place (less need for a heat shield), for Earth this may be more difficult.

Even if you cant the engines around the heatshield (more like Crew Dragon than Falcon 9 first stage), if you drop off the cargo as one giant module, you still have a problem, since you just dropped your (Mars) heat shield you need a second, more massive (at least you could save mass on the Martian one) Earth heat shield, which is above your engine nacelles. Alternatively you might put your engines far up the side of the vehicle to be above the Earth return heat shield, but now you need to shield the sides of the cargo from the engine exhaust and so on.

Further discussion of this is certainly merited, but it belongs in the MCT speculation thread: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=37808.2320

Offline oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: Standardized container cargo system for Cargo MCT
« Reply #99 on: 06/16/2016 03:44 pm »
I'm not so sure the engines can't be protruding through a heatshield (more or less like a Falcon 9 first stage), assuming they have sufficient propellent to run at least some of the engines with enough power to use the supersonic retropropulsion effect to push the shock wave far enough out to reduce aero heating. For Mars decent that is probably easier since the atmosphere is thinner in the first place (less need for a heat shield), for Earth this may be more difficult.

Even if you cant the engines around the heatshield (more like Crew Dragon than Falcon 9 first stage), if you drop off the cargo as one giant module, you still have a problem, since you just dropped your (Mars) heat shield you need a second, more massive (at least you could save mass on the Martian one) Earth heat shield, which is above your engine nacelles. Alternatively you might put your engines far up the side of the vehicle to be above the Earth return heat shield, but now you need to shield the sides of the cargo from the engine exhaust and so on.

Further discussion of this is certainly merited, but it belongs in the MCT speculation thread: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=37808.2320
Yes, forward the payload handling issues into the MCT design thread as another MCT design consideration but please only mention MCT designs in passing when they directly affect the container/payload issues.

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