China launches Moon mission

[mr friendly guy]

I am sure for a variety of reasons China would be glad America doesn't start pumping out more money to do the same thing they did in the 1960s. Such as maybe America can pay back more what they owe China in debt. Well also because less competition sometimes helps.

The other thing is, I thought the similarities between the Shenzhou and Soyuz was due to the fact that by dividing the modules into 3, only the reentry module would require heat shielding, hence you minimise weight. The advantages in terms of cost, easier to launch etc should be clear.

For those interested, I found this which describes the Shenzhou and mentions a few things in comparison to the Soyuz.

[PeZook]

The Shenzhou isn't an exact copy, but it wasn't developed completely in-house, either. They did have Russian help with the thing: with a lander, the Russians simply won't be able to help. Most of the people who worked on the LK are dead, and the thing is 1960s technology, anyway: it would still have to be completely redesigned.

I think that the Russians might still have that horrible kloodged-together son-of-Soyuz-looking LEM prototype that they put together to park on top of the N-1, that could be reverse-engineered (if someone wanted to).

It's a museum piece, and it never got an engine, anyway. The ascent engine is crucial: it has to be 100% reliable, or as close to that as possible. NASA did something like 100 000 live tests of the LEM ascent engine, because it's the single point of failure that can doom the entire mission. Another was the CSM's main engine, which also had to be utterly reliable. We'll see how well they do making those.

Hell, maybe the PRC can have a go at reconstructing themselves a fleet of N-1s. That would sure be entertaining (not to mention spectacular) to watch... *

They can just buy Russians engines. The N-1's problems stemmed only from the fact the USSR was unable to build a single engine that was powerful enough: now, Russia has the best rocket engines on the planet, and they're selling them to whoever will pay.

[TC27]

It's a museum piece, and it never got an engine, anyway. The ascent engine is crucial: it has to be 100% reliable, or as close to that as possible. NASA did something like 100 000 live tests of the LEM ascent engine, because it's the single point of failure that can doom the entire mission. Another was the CSM's main engine, which also had to be utterly reliable. We'll see how well they do making those.

I agree the Lander is the biggest challenge - multiple single points of failure and unmovable weight restrictions.

I imagine there were quite a few hearts in mouths every time there was a lunar liftoff during Apollo.

[PeZook]

The two points of failure for a manned lunar mission are ascent from lunar surface and ejection burn from lunar orbit. Before and after that, you get multiple non-catastrophic failure scenarios. For example, if the SMME fails after translunar injection, you can do a correction burn using the LEM engine and return to Earth (Apollo 13 did that, for example) ; If you get engine failure after ejecting from lunar orbit for the trip to Earth, it's still possible in certain circumstances to correct using RCS thrusters (though not always, but the point is that it's not automatically catastrophic, especially if the initial burn was precise).

But if the ascent engine doesn't go off, the shore party is dead. If the SMME doesn't go off in lunar orbit, everyone is dead (well, more precisely: if the engines fail. Apollo 11 had a problem with the ascent engine - a critical control switch broke off, but they managed to repair it. That must've been a hair-raising moment )

Though the Soviets had an interesting concept for a lunar mission: it called for landing a single astronaut on the surface, with enough supplies so that he could last until a second ship came by to retrieve him.

The Russians called that guy Porfirri Yebanov. For a reason

[Simon_Jester]

Uh, could you explain the reason for those of us who don't speak Russian?

[Kanastrous]

It's a running joke. A Russian running joke.

[PeZook]

Uh, could you explain the reason for those of us who don't speak Russian?

Jebać = To fuck.

Jebanov...well

[TC27]

Out of interest what do you think was the riskest manned space flight?

I would have to go for Voskhod 1!

[Skylon]

Out of interest what do you think was the riskest manned space flight?

I would have to go for Voskhod 1!

Voskhod 1 was up there. No pressure suits, no ejection seats, no launch escape tower, with three guys shoved into a vehicle originally designed for one.

Apollo 8 was maybe the boldest (solo Apollo CSM, on its second flight, around the Moon, when the Saturn V had only two prior test flights, and the last one prior hadn't exactly gone well).

I'd say STS-1, and I doubt its something that would ever be done again. Launching a rocket on its first flight manned is something that almost defies logic. When you also factor in how much was newly designed, just for the space shuttle, flying for the first time this becomes even more amazing...and makes clear how strong the post-Apollo hubris was in NASA.

[Sarevok]

I liked the daring attitude of the cold war era space programme. The things they did would never happen in today's paranoid, risk averse culture.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I liked the daring attitude of the cold war era space programme. The things they did would never happen in today's paranoid, risk averse culture.

Space travel is like (and in future best-cases, actually includes) nuclear power generation.

Done properly, it's safe, boring, and if you want to live to a ripe old age, you keep it that way.

[Sarevok]

"If we die, want people to accept it. We are in a risky business...

...and we hope that if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."

- Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Apollo 1 Commander.

Space travel is not for the risk averse. It is dangerous and people will die. We have to accept it as part of doing business in a risky frontier. Otherwise the only alternative option is to bury our heads in the sand and give up any hopes of doing anything meaningful beyond this little planet we call home.

[Phantasee]

The pioneers in any endeavour are usually willing to accept much more risk than the follow-ons. Once it's been done, more people become interested parties and the larger the group the more risk-averse it is going to be. The pioneers are self-selecting, in a way.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Space travel is not for the risk averse. It is dangerous and people will die. We have to accept it as part of doing business in a risky frontier. Otherwise the only alternative option is to bury our heads in the sand and give up any hopes of doing anything meaningful beyond this little planet we call home.

It's also not for the risk-seeking. If you send someone who's going to take risks they ought not take, sooner or later the statistically improbable will catch up with them and blow them all straight to hell. We learned that lesson with Challenger, but it's the kind of lesson that gets easily faded into the background.

[edit]In fairness, I'm not calling the crew of Challenger a bunch of adrenaline-junkie thrill-seekers, but I am saying that unacceptable risks were taken. Of course there's a risk - there's always some element of risk. Columbia showed that even when you account for what you know, the unknown can bite you in the ass. But if risk-aversity becomes something to be scoffed at - at any level - then a disaster just waiting to happen will happen.

[Sarevok]

I am not saying Astronauts lives are expendable. That simply is not true. Astronauts are some of the most valuable and respected people in the world. But at same time consider what happens each time an accident or disaster happens. The entire manned space flight program is grounded for years. In the future if humans are serious about spaceflight there will be a lot of rocket launches. There will be regular accidents and many people will perish despite the best efforts. Yet despite deaths and tragedy spaceflight must go on. But in present climate learning from accidents and moving on seems to have become a thing of the past. If a future US or European manned spacecraft blows up you are certainly looking at years of soul searching before anyone even proposes a follow up mission.

[Phantasee]

And yet deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are used to justify greater investment of men and materiel so they "didn't die in vain". Which IIRC was similar to what happened after Apollo 1.

[Patrick Degan]

I am not saying Astronauts lives are expendable. That simply is not true. Astronauts are some of the most valuable and respected people in the world. But at same time consider what happens each time an accident or disaster happens. The entire manned space flight program is grounded for years. In the future if humans are serious about spaceflight there will be a lot of rocket launches. There will be regular accidents and many people will perish despite the best efforts. Yet despite deaths and tragedy spaceflight must go on. But in present climate learning from accidents and moving on seems to have become a thing of the past. If a future US or European manned spacecraft blows up you are certainly looking at years of soul searching before anyone even proposes a follow up mission.

The entire purpose for the suspensions of manned spaceflight (the longest being the 32 month period following the loss of the Challenger, BTW) after each accident is to reduce the chances of another accident. Spaceflight in the present time is not like air travel: astronauts represent not only operational personnel but also walking storehouses of operational experience vital to the functioning of NASA, and these are very expensive pieces of machinery that are being sent up. Determining the technical and managerial failures behind an accident are not mere "soul searching", but a painstaking process to find answers.

As for "learning from accidents and moving on" being "a thing of the past", you're babbling. In the wake of Apollo 1, no space capsule, or shuttle, went up with a pure oxygen mix for cabin atmosphere and materials which could flash-burn in oxygen as well as metals prone to collecting static charges were removed. After Challenger, a new SRB O-ring design and a new set of strict protocols for scrubbing a launch under cold-weather conditions were set in place. After Columbia, new protocols for the coating of the external tank with its foam insulation combined with video monitoring during launch for breakaway material were set in place. Additional measures to examine wing surfaces for damage were also instituted. As a result of what you call "soul searching", lessons are indeed being learned and manned flight continues, despite tragedy, and each of those accidents has not been repeated: there has not been a second loss of vehicle due to O-ring embrittlement from cold weather (24 years), and there certainly has not been another space cabin fire due to the use of a pure-oxygen atmosphere (43 years). Nor have we suffered another shuttle loss due to wing damage from a debris impact (7 years).

So in future, do please spare us from goofy-talk about "burying our heads in the sand" and "soul searching" because it was decided to actually investigate the causes of accidents in order to correct them, during the course of a manned spaceflight programme that has only seen three fatal and one non-fatal but life-threatening incidents in nearly fifty years of mission experience —for the very reason that the accidents that did occur were investigated.

[Kanastrous]

I think Sarevok is correct to the degree that the media, leadership and public will mumble and shuffle and do whatever 'soul searching' means to them, while the engineers and support professionals do the actual work of identifying factors contributory to accidents and finding ways to mitigate them.

Since after all funding flows through the legislature the uneducated mumbling-shuffling-soul-searchery still plays a part.

[Thanas]

I am not sure.

I for one would hesitate placing Emergency Response services and Home Insurance in the same category. One saves lives, the other exists to avert material damage.

These guys however even refused to rescue the family pets, which earns them a special place in the hall of dicks.

[Kanastrous]

I hardly see how NASA engineers or administrators are responsible for saving people's family pets (unless said pets are members of a flight crew...)

Wrong thread, maybe.

[Temujin]

Yeah, he was responding to you in this thread.

[Kanastrous]

Too bad. I was enjoying visualizing golden retrievers in space suits.

[Temujin]

I think Sarevok is correct to the degree that the media, leadership and public will mumble and shuffle and do whatever 'soul searching' means to them, while the engineers and support professionals do the actual work of identifying factors contributory to accidents and finding ways to mitigate them.

Since after all funding flows through the legislature the uneducated mumbling-shuffling-soul-searchery still plays a part.

I don't recalling hearing much about the media questioning the dangers of a manned space program after Apollo 1, as I think it was taken for granted at the time (I'm sure someone probably did). However between Challenger and Columbia with the retarded sensationalist 24 hr news cycle (with 2 hrs of content at best) there was certainly a lot of screeching from the media, and of course some politician will stick their nose in, especially if they're opposed to spending money on space exploration, and now we even get every idiot with a blog or youtube account posting their 2 cents as well.

What's funny (well not for them) is having to see all the professionals like my former professor Dr. John Logsdon having to go on CNN and continually explain why spaceflight isn't routine and refute other idiotic nonsense. He used to bring that up in class a lot; you could tell doing that wasn't the highlight of his day.

[Kanastrous]

The temptation to just say Really, you have problems with the program? How about you just get back to me with your problems once you have earned an engineering degree? must have been overwhelming...

[Thanas]

I hardly see how NASA engineers or administrators are responsible for saving people's family pets (unless said pets are members of a flight crew...)

Wrong thread, maybe.

Woopsie.

Yes.