Author Topic: Orion to ISS without SLS proposal due today?  (Read 25860 times)

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: Orion to ISS without SLS proposal due today?
« Reply #40 on: 06/06/2017 12:22 am »
What does Orion to the ISS give us that Dragon 2 and CST 100 don't?

This is using the ISS to test the docking facilities of the Orion. A later Orion with TRL 9 docking facilities can then dock with the Deep Space Gateway.

Offline Coastal Ron

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Re: Orion to ISS without SLS proposal due today?
« Reply #41 on: 06/06/2017 01:01 am »
Well, Orion has 84 man-days of life support. With a 6 km/s TMI burn, you can get to Mars in 80 days in 2035 as Musk pointed out at IAC.

It doesn't matter what the vehicle is, no one is going to go to Mars in such a small confined space.

NASA released a study in 2015 that recommended a minimum of 25 m3 (883 ft3) per person based on Mars DRM 5.0. As a reminder, the habitable volume of the Orion spacecraft is only 8.95 m3, or 316 ft3 - barely a third the space one person would need.
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline ncb1397

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Re: Orion to ISS without SLS proposal due today?
« Reply #42 on: 06/06/2017 02:14 am »
Well, Orion has 84 man-days of life support. With a 6 km/s TMI burn, you can get to Mars in 80 days in 2035 as Musk pointed out at IAC.

It doesn't matter what the vehicle is, no one is going to go to Mars in such a small confined space.

NASA released a study in 2015 that recommended a minimum of 25 m3 (883 ft3) per person based on Mars DRM 5.0. As a reminder, the habitable volume of the Orion spacecraft is only 8.95 m3, or 316 ft3 - barely a third the space one person would need.

Obviously something has to be attached to Orion. If it aerobrakes into Mars orbit, you need a miniature service module attached to the docking port for manuevering and power after you eject the service module to expose the heat shield. If you go directly down to the surface, you need a lander with its own habitable volume included. SLS Block II only likely has a few metric tonnes left over on these fast transits lifting Orion, and so co-manifesting is limited. Going directly down to the surface would need a dual-launch architecture or something not currently in the cards for SLS like the triple-core NLS concept(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Launch_System), which would leave enough for a pretty spacious lander.

Anyways, this is not the first proposal for ~8 cubic meters/person. 100 people in ITS is also ~8 cubic meters/person. Dragon v2 probably has about 6 cubic meters(out of 10 cubic meters pressurized) and two people will spend a week in 3-4 cubic meters/person? What is really the psychological difference between being cramped for 168 hours vs 1680 hours?
« Last Edit: 06/06/2017 02:25 am by ncb1397 »

Offline Coastal Ron

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Re: Orion to ISS without SLS proposal due today?
« Reply #43 on: 06/06/2017 03:18 am »
Obviously something has to be attached to Orion. If it aerobrakes into Mars orbit, you need a miniature service module attached to the docking port for manuevering and power after you eject the service module to expose the heat shield. If you go directly down to the surface...

You're not seriously suggesting that the Orion could safely land on Mars, are you? It can barely land on Earth safely if it loses a parachute, and the atmosphere on Mars is only about 1% that of Earth.

Maybe imagining ways the Orion could be used on a trip to Mars is a fun thought experiment, but otherwise it makes no sense to drag a small capsule all the way to Mars and back. The Orion is a Earth-local vehicle only.

Quote
What is really the psychological difference between being cramped for 168 hours vs 1680 hours?

Math suggests that it would be 10X harder, don't you think?   ;)
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline woods170

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Re: Orion to ISS without SLS proposal due today?
« Reply #44 on: 06/06/2017 06:09 am »
What does Orion to the ISS give us that Dragon 2 and CST 100 don't?
Excessive mass (mostly).
« Last Edit: 06/06/2017 06:10 am by woods170 »

Offline UltraViolet9

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Re: Orion to ISS without SLS proposal due today?
« Reply #45 on: 06/06/2017 09:41 pm »
What is really the psychological difference between being cramped for 168 hours vs 1680 hours?

(gallows humor on)

Homicide.

(gallows humor off)

Offline Patchouli

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Re: Orion to ISS without SLS proposal due today?
« Reply #46 on: 06/07/2017 05:30 pm »


It doesn't matter what the vehicle is, no one is going to go to Mars in such a small confined space.

NASA released a study in 2015 that recommended a minimum of 25 m3 (883 ft3) per person based on Mars DRM 5.0. As a reminder, the habitable volume of the Orion spacecraft is only 8.95 m3, or 316 ft3 - barely a third the space one person would need.

You'd pretty much need to have something along the lines of Bigelow's Sundancer module concept along for the ride as a bare minimum.
The good news it's only about 8,618kg which is fairly light compared to Orion itself.
The other option would be something along the lines of a Russian DOS module but this is almost as heavy as Orion but it includes it's own propulsion and it's proven hardware.
 

Maybe imagining ways the Orion could be used on a trip to Mars is a fun thought experiment, but otherwise it makes no sense to drag a small capsule all the way to Mars and back. The Orion is a Earth-local vehicle onl

Orion would be mostly dead weight though it could in theory act as a command module for the stack and the SM  could be used for back up control and propulsion.
Quote
Math suggests that it would be 10X harder, don't you think?   ;)

I'd say it would be much more than 10x harder.

« Last Edit: 06/07/2017 05:38 pm by Patchouli »

Offline brickmack

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Re: Orion to ISS without SLS proposal due today?
« Reply #47 on: 07/07/2017 05:22 pm »
This turned up today from a FOIA request a while ago. Obviously not the full internal report, but a letter distributed to relevant Congresspeople summarizing it. Pretty light on detail, short version is that its technically feasible, but will take 3-4 years to develop, a lot of money, and needs mission-specific hardware, and NASA thinks its a bad option when Commercial Crew exists.
« Last Edit: 07/07/2017 06:19 pm by brickmack »

Offline brickmack

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Re: Orion to ISS without SLS proposal due today?
« Reply #48 on: 07/07/2017 06:03 pm »
Oops, yeah. Forgot that bit, its from FOIA.

Offline Proponent

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Re: Orion to ISS without SLS proposal due today?
« Reply #49 on: 07/07/2017 11:52 pm »
Oops, yeah. Forgot that bit, its from FOIA.

Do you mean that you filed the FOIA request yourself?

Offline Propylox

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Re: Orion to ISS without SLS proposal due today?
« Reply #50 on: 07/29/2017 03:07 pm »
The 2017 budget request for NASA required several reports to be prepared.
Amongst these was 'Subsec. 421(e)   Enactment + 60 days   On Orion to ISS without SLS'.
... short version is that its technically feasible, but will take 3-4 years to develop, a lot of money, and needs mission-specific hardware, and NASA thinks its a bad option when Commercial Crew exists.
Perhaps new leadership wouldn't be as tied to the PoR and provide viable options rather than disregard.

Offline woods170

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Re: Orion to ISS without SLS proposal due today?
« Reply #51 on: 07/29/2017 07:39 pm »
The 2017 budget request for NASA required several reports to be prepared.
Amongst these was 'Subsec. 421(e)   Enactment + 60 days   On Orion to ISS without SLS'.
... short version is that its technically feasible, but will take 3-4 years to develop, a lot of money, and needs mission-specific hardware, and NASA thinks its a bad option when Commercial Crew exists.
Perhaps new leadership wouldn't be as tied to the PoR and provide viable options rather than disregard.
Unlikely. Unless you also completely replace the entire US Congress. They pull the pursestrings and ultimately decide where the money goes to. As such there will always be a PoR.

Offline Space Ghost 1962

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Re: Orion to ISS without SLS proposal due today?
« Reply #52 on: 07/29/2017 09:31 pm »
This suggests that Orion's basic mission is under justified, and political support to broaden its role is underway to address this before commercial crew undercuts it.

This might also explain why Musk wouldn't want to do Dragon 2 land landings - because it would only put more effort into something that Congress may be determined to ignore. They wouldn't see the benefits of Dragon, only the loss of justification to Orion, which likely has no purpose except in the vicinity of Earth/Moon.

Also, this might indicate a shift in govt primes vehicle strategy, to take into account FH/NG/Vulcan/ITSy/SLS.

You'd have a commercial launched Orion, with the "jobs" protected for Orion, launching more frequently than 1-2 per year, and a govt or commercial "cargo only" mission that flies on need.

In this case, you could advance SLS to Block II enhanced, and it would beat all other SHLV to the pad, allowing a "win", with commercial back filling/supplanting eventually this need (NA/ITSy) - a "long goodbye" strategy for the primes (Boeing's payoff).

Commercial gets the benefit of increased flight rate at the cost of leaving the capsule business to Orion (LM's payoff). FH/Vulcan/NG battle for HSF payloads as they would unmanned.

Makes sense for SX - Dragon doesn't get them a HSF Mars vehicle, so why take it beyond a crew Dragon.

Also, SLS as a LV is locked to Orion's schedule and proving as a HSF vehicle - if you break this dependence, Boeing might find a way to up payload and drop costs.

Weird logic, but perhaps it works.

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