t/Space CCDEV2 Concept

[clongton]

Pity t/Space isn't in the SLS development group of companies.  I'd be most curious what would come out of that.

It could be scaled up to provide full Shuttle capacity downmass returned to earth.

[bad_astra]

THIS is what a spaceship should look like. I cannot help but think that, from a standpoint of a private station operator like Bigelow, it would seem this would be the route to take. Crew and cargo on the same flight.

With the CST-100 route they end up doubling their flight rate when they don't have to.

[HMXHMX]

Pity t/Space isn't in the SLS development group of companies.  I'd be most curious what would come out of that.

Indigestion.  On my end at least.

FYI, HMX bid the HLV BAA from NASA, but lost.  At some point, I may excerpt the strategy and concept from that bid and post it.  It's based around my Hyperion LV core module.

[HMXHMX]

I've always liked T-Space's concepts, including the air-launched spacecraft to the ISS that I've seen an animation of somewhere.

Attached for your viewing pleasure.

[HMXHMX]

By the way, rather than respond to each comment, I'd like to thank all posters who have offered kind words about our work.  (And by extension, I'm thanks all who worked at or with t/Space during the past ten years.  As with most things aerospace, it was a team effort.)

[Jose]

I've always liked T-Space's concepts, including the air-launched spacecraft to the ISS that I've seen an animation of somewhere.

Same here. I'd never heard of them until I came to these forums, and they've been a real find.

Designs are always creative, and they stoke the imagination.  It's a shame we can't find a way of funding this kind of innovation. (Yeah, I hate the way the "i" word is abused nowadays, but it really applies here.)

[Downix]

Pity t/Space isn't in the SLS development group of companies.  I'd be most curious what would come out of that.

Indigestion.  On my end at least.

FYI, HMX bid the HLV BAA from NASA, but lost.  At some point, I may excerpt the strategy and concept from that bid and post it.  It's based around my Hyperion LV core module.

I am curious if you ever looked at my AJAX concept.  I'd like input from people that do work on real launch vehicles.

[HMXHMX]

Pity t/Space isn't in the SLS development group of companies.  I'd be most curious what would come out of that.

Indigestion.  On my end at least.

FYI, HMX bid the HLV BAA from NASA, but lost.  At some point, I may excerpt the strategy and concept from that bid and post it.  It's based around my Hyperion LV core module.

I am curious if you ever looked at my AJAX concept.  I'd like input from people that do work on real launch vehicles.

Send it to me via PM and I'll comment if I can.

[yg1968]

I've always liked T-Space's concepts, including the air-launched spacecraft to the ISS that I've seen an animation of somewhere.

Attached for your viewing pleasure.

I have an error on this file. 89k seems a bit small for a video file.

[RanulfC]

Can you hang it below a 747 with a tripple-barrel, 3STO pressure feed VPAC booster though? :::::grin:::::

I could try...

Ok... I'll just hang around here till you get back then.... ::::grin:::

I was curious because IIRC the last Air-Launch concept could fit a maximum diameter of around 8 feet and it looks bigger than that.

Seriously, a key element of the concept is so-called "launch vehicle agnosticism."  I wanted to keep the options open for the future.  Our early evaluations suggested the ability to fly on a number of vehicles, from Atlas 401, F9, T-II (enhanced version), Soyuz and even (with human-rating the LV plus variable length OM) Cyclone-4, Zenit 2 stage, or Angara.

Good solid concept and thinking.... NOT "politically-correct" though as you'd have gotten a HUGE amount of "support" from Congress if you'd simply stated that it could ONLY be flown on a newly-designed 130-ton payload HLV....

But I'm sure we're ALL aware of the general psychological damage that kind of thinking develops and we wouldn't want you all to fall into THAT trap now would we

Randy

[ugordan]

Attached for your viewing pleasure.

I have an error on this file. 89k seems a bit small for a video file.

Same here. If the original file was above 20 MB, it can't be uploaded directly to a post IIRC.

[HMXHMX]

I've always liked T-Space's concepts, including the air-launched spacecraft to the ISS that I've seen an animation of somewhere.

Attached for your viewing pleasure.

I have an error on this file. 89k seems a bit small for a video file.

Apologies.  It's a mov file and I can't seem to find the whole movie on my machine.  Plays fine for me when I click it, but the source file is missing.  I'll root around to see if I can find it, but it'll be later today.

[HMXHMX]

Can you hang it below a 747 with a tripple-barrel, 3STO pressure feed VPAC booster though? :::::grin:::::

I could try...

Ok... I'll just hang around here till you get back then.... ::::grin:::

I was curious because IIRC the last Air-Launch concept could fit a maximum diameter of around 8 feet and it looks bigger than that.

It's ten feet, plus or minus.

[RanulfC]

I wonder if they (NASA) read the same proposal we wrote, frankly.

Hey, "we" can start some cool conspiricy rumors going around about intercepted emails and stuff! I'm getting WAY out of practice in tweaking conspiricy theory's (and their supporters )

For example, they speak about lack of off-nominal landing calculations and other FAA license related analyses.  Our proposal explained very clearly that we targeted open ocean off the California coast to reduce FAA license risks.  Our off-nominal strategy is a "normal" water landing, or a hard land landing (both similar to Apollo), with the former case requiring refurbishment and the latter necessitating scraping the vehicle but with crew survival due to our unique fabric seats.

Ok that's probably directly related TO the "seats" after all these are pretty much the same folks who keep insisting that "Mechanical Counter-Pressure" is an unworkable idea for space suits and then have to hand out cash awards to people who actually show it DOES work and work well...
(And then they turn around and put out CONTRACTS for "advanced" work that keep going back towards full-pressure suits... THAT was a "kick-in-the-pants" news item for me )

Maybe you need to convince NASCAR to put in a version of your seat, THAT might turn some heads

In another place they say we have unrestrained crew during entry and landing.  WTF?  The crew would be fully restrained.

I don't see that anywhere in your proposal really... The crew seems fully "unrestrained" and could have all sorts of things happening during entry and landing. Wild parties, free-internet, cabin drinks, heck I don't see any imposed "restraint" listed at all! Where's the Sky-Marshall sit?
(Running and Ducking now... )

Then they complain that we provided insufficient detail to evaluate launch vehicle integration.  Eh?  We explained carefully that there was only a bolted joint between LV and spacecraft, no other interface (fluid, electrical, etc.).

Well OBVIOUSLY if you don't need support from the LV then you don't need support from NASA so there ;P

(Actually, now that I read that it actually makes a sort of "bureaucratic-think" kind of sense... But I REALLY don't want to think that through too much... Refer back to other statement about mental damage involved )

They state that we failed to provide sufficient detail on the technical risks of launch-escape-integral-abort recovery system.  Pardon moi?  Our partner HMX holds the patent.  Their previous CCDEV1 proposal was highly detailed, and was referenced.

All true of course and while not "defending" the question I WILL point out that there is a patent out there for a "Mobile Defense System" or some such that is a monsterous "vehicle" powered by half a dozen PBR-nuclear reactors, hovers on plasma jets and sprouts dozens of "plasma" cannon with about a paragrah of "jargon" and about 70 pages of "pictures" of the inner workings of the various weapons systems. (NICE art but totally un-realistic in any sense)

NOT saying that the proposed ARS is ANYTHING like such but my point is having a "patent" doesn't neccesarily mean it will actually work....

On the "gripping" hand however I'd have to call BS-check on this objection as the proposed system is fairly "conventional" overall and the ONLY major "difference" is you're not base-lining solid rockets for the system which is NOT sufficiently "different" from other proposals to require a highly detailed technical risk assesment.

I have argued the issue of skin in the game in other forums here, and won't repeat myself, except to note that our reading of the RFP (and responses to questions from contractors answered by NASA) was that skin was not required if the amount requested for CCDEV2 was low enough, though they didn't give a figure of what was "low."  We asked for thirty million dollars to perform more work that any of the of the contractors who won space Act agreements will do with both NASA and their own funds.  Our past performance on CE&R shows we could have met our milestones...which were mostly hardware based, and not design reviews as other contractors proposed.

Well THAT along with boldly pointing out in slide-2 of the presentation that NASA would NOT be your "primary" customer was probably some-what related to the reasons for not being among the chosen few

I'm a HUGE agree though that CCDev should not EVER have been or be about "winning-or-losing" but encouraging the maximum amount of competition and inovation as possible.

NOW of course all you or I have to do is manage to get appointed as Director of NASA....  :::GRIN:::

Randy

[billh]

Our past performance on CE&R shows we could have met our milestones...which were mostly hardware based, and not design reviews as other contractors proposed.

Maybe your approach is just too far removed from the sort of process-heavy approach NASA is accustomed to. That's a pity. I agree with the other comments here about how groups that show such creativity also deserve support. Clearly you need to start making friends with some billionaires.

[JimP]

I wonder if they read the same proposal we wrote, frankly.  <snip>

Then they complain that we provided insufficient detail to evaluate launch vehicle integration.  Eh?  We explained carefully that there was only a bolted joint between LV and spacecraft, no other interface (fluid, electrical, etc.). 

They state that we failed to provide sufficient detail on the technical risks of launch-escape-integral-abort recovery system.  Pardon moi?  Our partner HMX holds the patent.  Their previous CCDEV1 proposal was highly detailed, and was referenced. 

If there is no electrical interface between the LV and spacecraft, then how can the LV's EDS signal the spacecraft's LAS to activate?  Does the above referenced patented system not require any kind of connection other than the above mentioned bolted joints?

Clearly I am missing something here, or I have been thrown by the "only a bolted joint" comment.  Could the examiner have stopped reading there?

[MATTBLAK]

I've always liked T-Space's concepts, including the air-launched CXV spacecraft to the ISS that I've seen an animation of somewhere.

Attached for your viewing pleasure.

I have an error on this file. 89k seems a bit small for a video file.

Apologies.  It's a mov file and I can't seem to find the whole movie on my machine.  Plays fine for me when I click it, but the source file is missing.  I'll root around to see if I can find it, but it'll be later today.

I've found a YouTube link! Hope you don't mind

[HMXHMX]

I've always liked T-Space's concepts, including the air-launched CXV spacecraft to the ISS that I've seen an animation of somewhere.

Attached for your viewing pleasure.

I have an error on this file. 89k seems a bit small for a video file.

Apologies.  It's a mov file and I can't seem to find the whole movie on my machine.  Plays fine for me when I click it, but the source file is missing.  I'll root around to see if I can find it, but it'll be later today.

I've found a YouTube link! Hope you don't mind

That's great, thanks.  Saves me trying to figure out how to make mine work.

[HMXHMX]

Our past performance on CE&R shows we could have met our milestones...which were mostly hardware based, and not design reviews as other contractors proposed.

Maybe your approach is just too far removed from the sort of process-heavy approach NASA is accustomed to. That's a pity. I agree with the other comments here about how groups that show such creativity also deserve support. Clearly you need to start making friends with some billionaires.

Been there, done that.  I don't wish to name names, but I have had discussions ranging from casual to detailed with a number of folks whose net worth is measured in billions.  My recent Space Access presentation noted that rich guys – at least a significant fraction – often take the view that they are rocket designers.  My counter has been "If you had a brain tumor, would you get out a neurology text, a drill and a mirror?"

[MATTBLAK]

That IS funny!!