Quote from: dodo on 02/28/2017 06:05 pm. Plus if something breaks you want someone who knows how it was put together. Then that person is not an astronaut. Astronauts just know how to operate a vehicle, they don't build or design it.
. Plus if something breaks you want someone who knows how it was put together.
I don't understand all these assumptions that NASA (as if it's a monolith) has a problem with this. There are people in NASA that support Commercial Space. The whole point of Commercial Space is to foster this sort of thing.NASA is a big organization with a lot of moving parts and people with different goals and beliefs. No doubt there are groups that are not fans of commercial space.
Has anyone considered that the NASA announcement last week may have been a preemptive face-saving response to SpaceX. I assume here SpaceX notified NASA of their upcoming announcement, which prompted a quick re-analysis of the EM1 mission.Complete and total speculation but I smell smoke.Thoughts?
Apparently, there is a Rumor that Trump will say something about returning to human spaceflight tonight. See tweets from Eric Berger and John Yang.
The timing of this announcement is all about the customer. Someone agreed to pay for the trip, no more, no less.
A NASA HQ source claimed they were not informed about the announcement ahead of Elon’s comments on Monday, although he believes Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot and President Trump’s NASA “Landing Team” was briefed, which in turn – the source claimed – was why Mr. Lightfoot asked NASA to conduct a study into accelerating the schedule towards crewed missions on Orion.
Hmm... I had this romantic idea (perhaps from the Apollo era) that astronauts were very much involved in the design of systems. I may be (a) plain wrong or (b) outdated - specialization is a true devil.
Quote from: Jim on 02/28/2017 05:34 pmQuote from: hydra9 on 02/28/2017 05:17 pmMaybe this will put an end to the White House idea of using the SLS/Orion There, fixed it for youIs this Jim officially planting a anti-SLS/Orion flag. I'm sorry if I either misinterpreted or you planted this flag on a prior occasion.
Quote from: hydra9 on 02/28/2017 05:17 pmMaybe this will put an end to the White House idea of using the SLS/Orion There, fixed it for you
Maybe this will put an end to the White House idea of using the SLS/Orion
I understand that what they are planning is just to fly around the moon and not enter lunar orbit.I would love to know in terms of fuel requirements, once you reach the moon how much additional fuel would be needed for orbit insertion and then escape lunar orbit and head back to earth.If it takes X amount of fuel to do TLI, how much more would be needed for lunar orbit? are we talking about 20% more, 50% more, double? etc.Just Curious.TY
Quote from: dodo on 02/28/2017 06:55 pmHmm... I had this romantic idea (perhaps from the Apollo era) that astronauts were very much involved in the design of systems. I may be (a) plain wrong or (b) outdated - specialization is a true devil.I've been involved in writing documentation for military systems, and have had the opportunity to spend a bit of time working with teams on site. There, as in the ISS, everything that is to be done with or to the systems is extensively and meticulously documented down to the letter, and any off-nominal work is done in close coordination with the engineering teams back home. The astronauts, as I see it, are not distinguished by their engineering prowess, but their generalist flexibility, their ability to learn new things easily, and most importantly to make connections among their various areas of knowledge and experience. Take a look at a space walk, such as the IDA installation, for example - there's no "winging it" in that situation. Each step is laid out and timed to the second, and the ideal mission never deviates from that plan. And when it does, the generalist flexibility of the astronauts enables them to fully and accurately assess the situation, whether it's a fussy connector or a malfunctioning suit, and work in close collaboration with others to identify, understand, solve the problem.But just imagine how many heads are going to explode when the first high-school-graduate blue collar employee launches into space. Expert welder? Plumber? Electrician? Millwright? Janitor? We'll see. But even if they don't have a PhD., they'll have that same kind of flexible generalist mindset which good astronauts exhibit.Have you ever watched the "Gold Rush" series on the Discovery Channel? Rough-looking, dirt-covered, cussing, and endlessly tough folks with calloused hands unafraid of putting in grueling hours keeping enormous, dangerous, complex equipment up and running by any means necessary in the middle of a hostile wilderness miles from the nearest hardware store with only a supply of metal, welders, assorted large tools, and their wits, ingenuity, and substantial intelligence.I'm descended from generations of Kansas farmers; these are my people. Snooty coastal elites tend to look down on them, but if you want to see what the Martian pioneers are going to look like - the ones who survive anyway - take in a few episodes of "Gold Rush" or "Bering Sea Gold." Instead of Au they'll be digging for H2OIn the long run, the foundations of Lunar and Martian civilization are going to be built by rednecks, not only by PhD's. Folks need to get over it.
Quote from: mn on 02/28/2017 07:27 pmI understand that what they are planning is just to fly around the moon and not enter lunar orbit.I would love to know in terms of fuel requirements, once you reach the moon how much additional fuel would be needed for orbit insertion and then escape lunar orbit and head back to earth.If it takes X amount of fuel to do TLI, how much more would be needed for lunar orbit? are we talking about 20% more, 50% more, double? etc.Just Curious.TYAs a rough rule of thumb, using storable propellants:One kilogram on a translunar trajectory takes 4 kg in low Earth orbitOne kg in lunar orbit takes 4 kg in translunar trajectoryOne kg on the lunar surface takes 4 kg in lunar orbitOne kg returned to Earth takes 4 kg on the lunar surfaceNot suitable for use in navigation, but it supplies a good intuitive bound to the problem.
