NASA Announces Key Decision For Deep Space Transportation

[ANGELUS]

Link

Michael Braukus/J.D. Harrington
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1979/5241
michael.j.braukus@nasa.gov j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

Josh Byerly
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
bill.j.byerly@nasa.gov

May 24, 2011 RELEASE : 11-164 NASA Announces Key Decision For Next Deep Space Transportation System WASHINGTON -- NASA has reached an important milestone for the next U.S. transportation system that will carry humans into deep space. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced today that the system will be based on designs originally planned for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle. Those plans now will be used to develop a new spacecraft known as the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV).

"We are committed to human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and look forward to developing the next generation of systems to take us there," Bolden said. "The NASA Authorization Act lays out a clear path forward for us by handing off transportation to the International Space Station to our private sector partners, so we can focus on deep space exploration. As we aggressively continue our work on a heavy lift launch vehicle, we are moving forward with an existing contract to keep development of our new crew vehicle on track."

Lockheed Martin Corp. will continue working to develop the MPCV. The spacecraft will carry four astronauts for 21-day missions and be able to land in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast. The spacecraft will have a pressurized volume of 690 cubic feet, with 316 cubic feet of habitable space. It is designed to be 10 times safer during ascent and entry than its predecessor, the space shuttle.

"This selection does not indicate a business as usual mentality for NASA programs," said Douglas Cooke, associate administrator for the agency's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate in Washington. "The Orion government and industry team has shown exceptional creativity in finding ways to keep costs down through management techniques, technical solutions and innovation."

Other interesting related links:

First Test Orion Crew Module Shipped Out
About the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV)

[Eternal_Freedom]

316 cubic feet of space for 4 crew? In metric terms thats a little under 9 cubic metres. Barely over 2 cubic metres per person. Off hand I think that'll be mroe cramped than Apollo was, and this thing is going on 21 day missions?
That sounds extraordinarily uncomfortable.

EDIT: My apologies, Apollo had a habitable volume of 5.9 cubic metres for 3 astronauts.

So this Orion thing will have slightly more room per person. But is still intended for much longer missions. Hmm, still sounds mighty cramped to me.

[Skylon]

316 cubic feet of space for 4 crew? In metric terms thats a little under 9 cubic metres. Barely over 2 cubic metres per person. Off hand I think that'll be mroe cramped than Apollo was, and this thing is going on 21 day missions?
That sounds extraordinarily uncomfortable.

EDIT: My apologies, Apollo had a habitable volume of 5.9 cubic metres for 3 astronauts.

So this Orion thing will have slightly more room per person. But is still intended for much longer missions. Hmm, still sounds mighty cramped to me.

Depends what you are flying it on I suppose. A visit to a NEO (Asteroid) will probably require some form of additional module to support the crew (Lockheed proposed using a "double Orion" for this...docking two together for such a mission, one would have added provisions and living space, the other would be the actual return vehicle). A Mars clearly would require more. In which case it may become "21 days of autonomous capability."

But, 21 days is enough for a lunar flight. On such a mission, with a lander, the crew would hopefully be able to stretch their legs on the Moon.

[Zaune]

316 cubic feet of space for 4 crew? In metric terms thats a little under 9 cubic metres. Barely over 2 cubic metres per person. Off hand I think that'll be mroe cramped than Apollo was, and this thing is going on 21 day missions?
That sounds extraordinarily uncomfortable.

EDIT: My apologies, Apollo had a habitable volume of 5.9 cubic metres for 3 astronauts.

So this Orion thing will have slightly more room per person. But is still intended for much longer missions. Hmm, still sounds mighty cramped to me.

The occasional semi-serious proposals one hears to crew a long-range manned mission exclusively with anti-social nerds don't sound quite so laughable now. Internet access might be a problem though.

[SpaceMarine93]

316 cubic feet of space for 4 crew? In metric terms thats a little under 9 cubic metres. Barely over 2 cubic metres per person. Off hand I think that'll be mroe cramped than Apollo was, and this thing is going on 21 day missions?
That sounds extraordinarily uncomfortable.

EDIT: My apologies, Apollo had a habitable volume of 5.9 cubic metres for 3 astronauts.

So this Orion thing will have slightly more room per person. But is still intended for much longer missions. Hmm, still sounds mighty cramped to me.

Unfortunately, given current technology most space missions for astronauts long or short are going to be just as cramped and uncomfortable. Many people were given the impression from Sci-Fi shows that space travel could involve spacious spaceships that have gravity on board. As Cracked.com and other science websites cleverly pointed out, living in a spacecraft / space station is more like a submarine

[SpaceMarine93]

Anyways, it is about time. Going to an asteroid in a new, less costly version of the Orion Spacecraft sounds better than an expensive Moon mission.

I mean, what was NASA thinking? Trying to turn Florida into the heartland of American science and technology like the debacle of the Apollo program? Not that it is not a stupid idea going to the Moon, but there is in fact a much more cheaper method of doing it (look up Advanced Gemini on Wikipedia), yet NASA overlooked it because of some stupid idealistic vision under the NASA leaders at the time. The Apollo costs made way for budget choppers like that bastard William Proxmire to cut both necessary and unnecessary budget that crippled any future exploration. And then NASA did it again with the Space Shuttle.

If NASA had simply did it like the Soviets did, cheap but reliable, with a few extra gadgets here and there, we would had colonized Mars by now. THIS, is the problem with the NASA space program for the last 40 years, a lack of pragmatism and too much technological show-off.

[PeZook]

I mean, what was NASA thinking? Trying to turn Florida into the heartland of American science and technology like the debacle of the Apollo program? Not that it is not a stupid idea going to the Moon, but there is in fact a much more cheaper method of doing it (look up Advanced Gemini on Wikipedia), yet NASA overlooked it because of some stupid idealistic vision under the NASA leaders at the time. The Apollo costs made way for budget choppers like that bastard William Proxmire to cut both necessary and unnecessary budget that crippled any future exploration. And then NASA did it again with the Space Shuttle.

How was the Apollo Program a "debacle" in any way, shape or form? It was extraordinarily succesful. It was not clear Advanced Gemini would've been cheaper (it would've required an entirely new one-man lander, for example), safer or more reliable in general. The rationale for going with Apollo was mostly safety: three astronauts allowed the instruments to be watched at all times during the flight, and allowed you to use a two-man crew to share the workload during the most dangerous part of the mission (the lunar landing itself). Advanced Gemini proposals involved one person landers which NASA bigwigs felt elevated the risk.

Deciding to go with Apollo was far from a "stupid idealistic vision", there were important safety considerations in there.

If NASA had simply did it like the Soviets did, cheap but reliable, with a few extra gadgets here and there, we would had colonized Mars by now. THIS, is the problem with the NASA space program for the last 40 years, a lack of pragmatism and too much technological show-off.

This is a myth. Soviet systems were not significantly more reliable than American ones. In fact, the Soviets had a tendency to take unnecessary risks to beat Americans to certain milestones, like stuffing two astronauts and an improvised inflatable airlock on a Vostok capsule and calling it a day.

In the end, though, the safety of both programs was very similar. Americans preferred safety by redundancy (they could afford that thanks to their vastly larger budget), while Soviets preferred to achieve safety by simplicity. Both approaches worked fine.

[Skylon]

Anyways, it is about time. Going to an asteroid in a new, less costly version of the Orion Spacecraft sounds better than an expensive Moon mission.

I mean, what was NASA thinking? Trying to turn Florida into the heartland of American science and technology like the debacle of the Apollo program? Not that it is not a stupid idea going to the Moon, but there is in fact a much more cheaper method of doing it (look up Advanced Gemini on Wikipedia)

I'm sorry, I cannot be a big backer of the Gemini landing concepts. I have no doubt it could have pulled off such a landing but would it have been as capable? Would it have yielded the same science return? I'm sorry, I find it very hard to advocate for paper spacecraft, because every one seems to be touted as "Hey, if we'd done this everything would have been better, and we'd be in the Buck Rogers future!" There are too many unknowns and perils in space flight.

The Soviets also had the benefit of a full command economy. Compare the Soyuz flight rate of the Communist era to modern Russia. It has dropped considerably since the fall of Communism, and has only recently picked up from two to four flights per year due to an infusion of cash from the US, ESA and JAXA to fly its astronauts in the post-shuttle era. Also, as much as people love to knock the shuttle (rightly in many ways), it has actually flown more times than Soyuz.

[PeZook]

The Soviet concept for a manned moon landing was actually pretty much Advanced Gemini. It was completely inferior to the Apollo in all ways, from safety (which the Soviets recognized, hence why it involved delivering a reserve lunar lander to the surface before the manned landing!) through operations down to maximum payload return.

For example, in order to transfer from the LOK (the orbiter) to the LK (the one-man lander) a cosmonaut had to perform an EVA. Getting back also required an EVA.

This was only technically a "simple" solution, as in "didn't require any docking", but put severe constrains on the ease of operations, safety et al. For example, such a configuration would've resulted in total loss of the craft in a scenario similar to Apollo 13, as the astronauts would be unable to quickly transfer to the lander in case on an emergency.

Not to mention Apollo could afford to provide astronauts with more living space by storing suit life support systems in the LEM, it could return more scientific payload to Earth, loading/unloading of the LEM in orbit was far faster and easier etc etc etc

Sometimes complexity is a good thing, as it adds significant capability to your system.

[SpaceMarine93]

Damn, I really need to do more research in the future

[someone_else]

Still stupid on many, many levels. But anyway.

The biggest issue I have with it is that they are moving around a reentry capsule (the Orion). Forth and back. This is a kind of architecture that made some kind of sense in Apollo days, but now is slightly idiotic.
You can use a fucking Soyuz to ferry people and make a space-only vehicle. So you just freed mass since it doesn't have to carry heavy systems for reentry.

Orion capsule mass ----> 9 tons
Bigelow inflatable module mass -----> 8.6 tons

Orion capsule living volume ----> 9 cubic meters
Bigelow inflatable module volume -----> 180 cubic meters

Notice the two orders of magnitude improvement in living volume with a comparable mass. Bigelow module is supposed to be self-sufficient in power generation, thermal management and life-support, so we are more or less on par with Orion


I can see it being *much* safer since you don't have to dock with something else to abort. But hell. 21 days with 4 people in less than 9 cubic meters.... I think most astronauts will choose the inflatable module.

Another thing I have issues with is a manned program without any fucking infrastructure anywhere. Unlesss you are sending people very far, a teleoperated robot do much better if there is no infrastructure.

[PeZook]

The solution to living space problems is simple and already devised by Russians fifty years ago.

...stick an extra hab module onto the craft that it will discard for reentry.

Nothing is stopping the Orion from being thus equipped ; Hell, nothing stopped Apollo from this. All you really need is a dock.

[Ilya Muromets]

As Cracked.com and other science websites cleverly pointed out, living in a spacecraft / space station is more like a submarine

Just a word of advice, but I wouldn't classify Cracked.com as a science website. The research for their more "serious" articles are shoddy, at best. This article, for example, mentions the old rumor that the Soviet space program allowed a cosmonaut to burn to death on re-entry and covered it up, but that his dying screams (which mentioned that he saw flames) were caught by some Italian ham radio guys. That was proven bullshit years ago. Especially since even a cursory examination of the claim shows a blatant impossibility--radio signals cut off during the whole Burny McBarbeque part of re-entry, so there's no way they could've heard and such transmission.

[Sarevok]

They are right about the submarine part. Minus the gravity living conditions on a large space station lSS are not very different. Except you get even fewer creature comforts and less privacy.

A large deep space manned spaceship is almost sure to be submarine like interms of habitability.

[Simon_Jester]

There's an important difference- on a submarine, the whole boat needs to have a density of roughly 1 tonne per cubic meter, and has to be wrapped in a heavy and expensive pressure hull. This creates a very strong incentive to minimize internal volume- you want the boat to be dense, and that means making the crew spaces small.

On a spaceship you have tremendous incentive to save mass, but very little incentive to save volume for things which aren't designed for reentry. Thus, if you can build a low-mass, relatively flimsy but voluminous hab module, there's no real reason not to use it.

EDIT: The big problem with that, of course, is getting the bastard off the ground if it's too big to fit in a rocket nosecone...

[PeZook]

Yeah, the ISS is actually rather spacious. It's just that equipment keeps getting added to it, and they also have limited ability to get rid of waste.

The entire interior of the ISS is 12 000 cubic metres, about the same as a Boeing 747 passenger cabin.

Watch some videos from inside of it (its crew makes lots of these), you will see that it's not really all that submarine-like. Still not a place where I'd want to live for years, though.

[Simon_Jester]

Of course, one corollary is that the ISS doesn't have to move much or quickly. An interplanetary spacecraft will need to withstand considerably higher peak accelerations than the ISS does, unless I am very wrong about how they go about boosting the ISS to higher orbits when needed.

That places minimum (though not very restrictive) requirements on structural strength, as does the fact that human beings will be moving around inside the habitat module and you don't want to risk someone accidentally putting their arm through the wall. But you can still assemble relatively huge, flimsy modules to give people space, and perhaps some limited degree of privacy (individual cabins that are basically a network of aluminum tubing and plastic sheets, perhaps?)

[Coalition]

Of course, one corollary is that the ISS doesn't have to move much or quickly. An interplanetary spacecraft will need to withstand considerably higher peak accelerations than the ISS does, unless I am very wrong about how they go about boosting the ISS to higher orbits when needed.

Would using continuous ion drives allowing for continuous acceleration be usable? Basically turn the engine on up to the halfway point, then turn the engine around for the deceleration phase. Since it won't need as much structural strength, this is extra mass that can be used for food, water, scientific equipment, or simply reduce the overall mass so the launch costs are lower/trip is shorter.

An inflatable structure might be able to handle higher accelerations, by using extra balloons to provide support for the living space against the engine (with appropriate insulation so it doesn't pop). When the acceleration is over, the extra balloons are deflated, and the air stored internally.

Combine this with the ISS being used as a crew stop point on the trips means you don't have to tightly coordinate launches. When the crew gets back from their destination, they stay at the ISS until there is a rocket to return them.

[Sarevok]

Ion drives are not as efficient as nuclear thermal. They are unsuitable for larger spacecraft that are not long duration robotic probes.

[someone_else]

An interplanetary spacecraft will need to withstand considerably higher peak accelerations than the ISS does, unless I am very wrong about how they go about boosting the ISS to higher orbits when needed.

Only if you have insanely powerful torch drives. In general, you either have high thrust (acceleration) or you have decent fuel endurance. Or your engine is made of stuff/forcefields that routinely laugh at multi-megaton nukes.
Reboosting the ISS isn't going to be much more different than moving around a realistic spacecraft. It's just that you will have bigger fuel tanks for your engines.

Apollo used high-thrust engines since its life support was very limited, but the ISS can take the same route with much more leisure.

That places minimum (though not very restrictive) requirements on structural strength,

Anything coming from Earth must withstand more than one gravity in any axis (for obvious reasons), and probably at least 2 or three gravities to survive the bumpy trip to orbit on a rocket.
The connections between the modules may not be so strong though.

But you can still assemble relatively huge, flimsy modules to give people space

In the case of bigelow modules (as it was the case of the Trans-Hab their desigh is based on), the inflatable hull is bolted at the ends of a central truss that houses all the systems (life support, computers, whatever is needed) and is built to withstand the launch on a rocket. The inflatable "hull" provides crew living space around the central truss that is capable of resisting at least 2 gees otherwise it couldn't reach orbit intact.

Would using continuous ion drives allowing for continuous acceleration be usable?

Ion drives don't scale up very well (read "not at all") since they are very power hungry, and power plants in space get fucking heavy very fast.
Anyway, what matters up there is the delta-v, you can scale down chemical engines to do a gentle acceleration without any problem. Chemical rockets won't bring you anywhere beyond the Moon (and NEOs) and Venus in a decent timescale, though.

Your idea is sound, though. It's just that we don't have engines capable of doing that at the moment. You need a very energetic fuel to do that. Fusion can do it, if we manage to make it work.
Most proposals of fusion-powered engines I saw around have an acceleration measurable in milligees, a milligee is 0.00981 m/s.
It's the fact that they can keep this acceleration for the whole trip (and flip at the middle) that allows them to do insane things like reaching Pluto in less than a year.

Otherwise there are solar and magnetic sails, and the newcomers, electric sails. The latter two exploit the solar wind (particles with a mass) and claim higher performance than solar sails (that use photons).

Ion drives are not as efficient as nuclear thermal.

Nuclear thermal is dead, due to various political reasons unlikely to change in the future. Besides, nuclear thermal (realistic solid-core concepts anyway, liquid/gas-core stuff was slightly speculative) doesn't provide significantly better performance than chemical rockets unless you are going to Mars (and even then it's a "meh" increase), but add cadres of issues and unnecessary complexity.

[Sarevok]

There's an important difference- on a submarine, the whole boat needs to have a density of roughly 1 tonne per cubic meter, and has to be wrapped in a heavy and expensive pressure hull. This creates a very strong incentive to minimize internal volume- you want the boat to be dense, and that means making the crew spaces small.

On a spaceship you have tremendous incentive to save mass, but very little incentive to save volume for things which aren't designed for reentry. Thus, if you can build a low-mass, relatively flimsy but voluminous hab module, there's no real reason not to use it.

EDIT: The big problem with that, of course, is getting the bastard off the ground if it's too big to fit in a rocket nosecone...

On the other hand flimsy materians are rather transparent to radiation. I am rather keen to see how a Bigelow inflatable hab holds out during a major solar flare. Without active magnetic shielding you really do need dense construction. The ISS is lucky it is below the Van Allen belts, deep space AFAIK is a far more dangerous enviroment in terms of radiation expouser.

[Sea Skimmer]

On the other hand flimsy materians are rather transparent to radiation. I am rather keen to see how a Bigelow inflatable hab holds out during a major solar flare. Without active magnetic shielding you really do need dense construction. The ISS is lucky it is below the Van Allen belts, deep space AFAIK is a far more dangerous enviroment in terms of radiation expouser.

I'm not sure the metal on the other option would be much better; you are talking about an equivalence of several sheets of tin foil. It might literally work better to give the crew some thick unfolding trashcan lids to hide behind.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah.

Radiation shielding for an interplanetary craft will almost have to take the form of a "storm shelter-" a very small area of the ship which has enough thickness to bring down radiation exposure to reasonable levels.

[PeZook]

That's exactly how it's done on the ISS. During periods of particularly high radiation activity the crew takes shelter in modules more resistant to radiation. There's no reason why such "shelters" (IIRC the ISS doesn't have a purpose built shelter, just particularly resistant modules) could not be implemented on a long-range starship.

[someone_else]

On the other hand flimsy materians are rather transparent to radiation.

Well, anything able to hold pressure can stop normal solar wind (it's very easy to stop). And bigelow module's skin isn't the same of a rubber dinghy. They are both inflatable, but the similarity stops there. Herethey say that micrometeoroids that would have punctured the ISS just got halfway through its skin (made of vectran, twice as strong as kevlar).

To stop solar flares when you are in deep space you need some armor (fuel tanks are generally thought to be good enough for that) or a badass magnetic field.
If you don't spin the hab you can do well with a single plate, since the radiation comes from a single direction and travels in a straight line. Or say, if you have a relatively long cylinder with the hab at one end (like the proposal that started this thread) and you are coasting (likely if you are using chemical rockets), you orient it with the engine towards the sun, so that any radiation that wants to reach the hab has to go through the rest of the vehicle, and will be likely stopped.

The ISS is within the Earth's own magnetic field, that is the main responsible of its safety (one of the main reasons why it is in LEO).

If you want to stop GCR you need multiple meters of anything or a truly huge magnetic field, and may look practical for permanent installations. I read around that the dose of GCR isn't huge, well below the average dose you would get by living in certain (inhabited) places on Earth.