Americans In Orbit-50 Years:Recreating John Glenn's Flight

[carmelo]

http://www.aio50.org

A question: 1-The Space suit will be a Goodrich Mercury suit ?

[ckiki lwai]

That flight is nicely timed, in the middle of the gap between the space shuttle and orion.
I hope they can make it and they can do it safe.

[Skyrocket]

Sounds simply like a white elephant idea, which won't happen.

First I do not believe, the will get enough money to build and fly a working Mercury 1:1 replica.

Second it makes no sense, to spend millions of $ to build an essentially new capsule (as probably nothing of the Mercury stuff is still available, so it has to be re-developed) just for a memorial mission, which can not be used for other useful missions. Would be only wasted money.

And what about the launch vehicle? It is no simple issue to put a Mercury ontop of a Falcon-9, as it would have completly different aerodynamics.

The 45 M$ price tag is completly phantastic, even with a Falcon at only 35 M$ and using a "refitted" heritage Mercury-Capsule, as this guy envisions.

Somehow i think, these people have taken "Astronaut Farmer" too seriously.

[William Barton]

With modern materials, a lightened version of a Mercury capsule could probably fly on a Falcon 1.

[kevin-rf]

What modern materials? Mercury was about as bare bones as you can get and still get the person back alive.

[carmelo]

Ok,let's play a game.Im a mad multi-multimillionaire,and i want reconstruct  the Mercury or the Gemini capsule and the Atlas (or Titan) launch veichle. The important thing is that externally the capsule is the same of the original,but i can use new materials and new tecnology for make it more safe.The question is: is only a money problem? With a lot of millions i can fly in orbit in my Mercury (or Gemini) replica capsule?

[kevin-rf]

carmelo - 9/1/2008  4:23 PM

Ok,let's play a game.Im a mad multi-multimillionaire,and i want reconstruct  the Mercury or the Gemini capsule and the Atlas (or Titan) launch veichle. The important thing is that externally the capsule is the same of the original,but i can use new materials and new tecnology for make it more safe.The question is: is only a money problem? With a lot of millions i can fly in orbit in my Mercury (or Gemini) replica capsule?

So you want to trim the heat shield, pressure vessel, and parachute (bulk of the weight) with some new miracle materials. So what do you have?

Okay, let’s list the materials that you will use...

What would you use for the heat shield? AeroGel maybe? Or use what works and is proven. Find a "lighter by factor of two heat shield that has flown".

Pressure vessel. You have me, did they use Al or a steel. I remember something about incol metal panels on the outside. So what are you going to use, yeah you could switch from Al to AlLi to save some weight. What is the melting point of AlLi? I believe it is much lower than Al. You really think you will save by making it out of composites? Name one space craft that has used a composite pressure vessel. One. The boeing Dreamliner has not flown yet.

The chutes, pray tell what is this lighter than nylon material they now use in parachutes.

The size of the capsule is limited by the size of the passenger. Unless you are launching midgets it will be 6.2 feet in diameter. Wider than the falcon 1 is designed for. You also need to trim the weight by half.

So the capsule weighs half as much, meaning it is half as dense meaning it will slow down twice as fast during reentry. If I remember right, the mercury peak g's where a little on the high side. What will they be with this replica?

Now we get to the final point, it needs to be a replica launch vehicle, meaning the replica atlas needs to be the same size if the capsule is the same size. So why do we need to reduce weight again.

Tell me this; will dragon weigh a magnitude less than Apollo the capsule?  That I want to see.

[Rusty_Barton]

The U.S. National Archives has quite a few online
documents related to the flight of MA-6 - Friendship 7.

Most of these documents are not online at the NASA NTRS website.

Here's how to access them:

Go to this URL:


http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/arc_home.jsp

click on:
"Advanced Materials Search"

Search for:
"National Aeronautics"

Click box: Limit Results to "1000"

check box: "Descriptions of Archival Materials linked to digital copies"

Leave the rest of the options at their defaults.

Click "GO".

Click "Display All Hits".

When documents appear, click "All Digital Copies"
to display a particular document.


Here's a list of some of the available documents:

-John Glenn Oral History Interview
-Technical Results of the First Manned Orbital Flight from the United States, Part 1 -- Mission Results
-Mercury Atlas 6 Flight Controller's Handbook , ca. 12/01/1961  
-Public Information Operating Plan, Project Mercury MA-6
-Detailed Test Objectives for NASA Mission MA-6 , 11/10/1961
-Promotional Documentary--MA-6 , 1962 (Booklet of pictures related to flight)
-Computing Notes on MA-6 , 02/28/1962
-Flight Plan for Mercury-Atlas Mission 6 , 12/21/1961
-Memorandum for Flight Director, Report on Test 5460 (MA-6) , 12/12/1961
-Postlaunch Memorandum Report for Mercury-Atlas No. 6 , 03/05/1962
-Revision A to Flight Plan for Mercury-Atlas Mission 6 , 01/09/1962 - 01/11/1962  
-Revision B to Flight Plan for Mercury-Atlas Mission 6 , 01/18/1962 - 01/19/1962
-Orbital Flight of John H. Glenn, Jr , 02/28/1962 (Congressional report)
-Network Status Monitor Report to Flight Director, Mercury-Atlas 6 , 02/20/1962

[William Barton]

My understanding is Dragon is supposed to weigh under 20,000lbs, compared to Apollo CSM's 65,000 lbs. More than half of the CSM weight was fuel, IIRC, and the CM alone weighed about 11,000 lbs. Most of Dragon's weight is in its CM equivalent (or will be, should it happen to fly one day). Wouldn't a magnitude less than an Apollo capsule be a Gemini?

[simonbp]

William Barton - 9/1/2008  5:13 AM

With modern materials, a lightened version of a Mercury capsule could probably fly on a Falcon 1.

Mercury launch mass was 1,935 kg, and Falcon 1e can loft just 700 kg, so that's some serious redesign...

It's a completely private, not-for-profit effort, so I wish them the best of luck!

Simon