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west point

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Jun 9, 2015
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We cannot minimize the example of what the just completed mission has proved. The various delays with the batteries and hurricane proved the mission pre launch was well planned. Then a rocket 1 - 1/2times the thrust of Saturn 5. New SRBs that had no problem. As well most powerful earth launched rocket ever. Yes just a little more noise. Then a perfect flight plan that went past moon to farther than any other space craft lunched from earth. The perfect return to a Pacific landing less than a mile from planned touchdown spot. What does this spotless misssion mean? Have no idea.
 
I would expect that the space shuttle design would be different enough that a new one will need a clean sheet design from lessons learned from original design. Especially the design of the heat tiles that brought down the ??? . Electronics and especially computers as the old ones in original are now manufacture dicontinued and only old farts know how to operate them.
 
It’s been almost a half-century since the Space Shuttle was designed. I would think that they could have made significant progress since then in furthering its concept. Perhaps to the point where it could even take off on its own, from an airport, without the need to launch it attached to fuel tanks and boosters, at least for shorter missions…
 
There is that minor issue of packing enough thrust (8.8 Million Pounds of it for the SLS) and fuel, on something that can take off from a runway to place that much weight on its way to interstellar flight. The Space Shuttle, in spite of all the fancy Hollywood footwork with it, was really not designed for putting anything beyond low earth orbit. It was primarily designed for building the ISS. One has to take cognizance of limits placed by just the Physics of it.

In fact, the Space Shuttle for all its capabilities proved to be too complex and unreliable and expensive. In fact SpaceX has been able to achieve a more reliable and less expensive platform for doing essentially what the Shuttle was originally expected to do.

Of course, meanwhile we all await the invention of Teleportation. :D
 
jis said:
There is that minor issue of packing enough thrust (8.8 Million Pounds of it for the SLS) and fuel, on something that can take off from a runway to place that much weight on its way to interstellar flight. The Space Shuttle, in spite of all the fancy Hollywood footwork with it, was really not designed for putting anything beyond low earth orbit. It was primarily designed for building the ISS. One has to take cognizance of limits placed by just the Physics of it.

In fact, the Space Shuttle for all its capabilities proved to be too complex and unreliable and expensive. In fact SpaceX has been able to achieve a more reliable and less expensive platform for doing essentially what the Shuttle was originally expected to do.

Of course, meanwhile we all await the invention of Teleportation. :D
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I teleport every night when I go to sleep. Oh, the crazy places I've found myself at.... 🤣
 
The race to the moon is back on, but why does SpaceX's Starship & super heavy booster need 33 engines when NASA's Saturn V rocket, which went to the moon six times 55 years ago only needed five. We look at what has changed since then and why many smaller engines and all the extra complexity that comes with them seem to be the way forward for the modern space industry.
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Written, Researched, and Presented by Paul Shillito - The Curious Droid

 
Well recall the moon landing. At the time, many of us thought this to be a first step into going to Mars. In fact, 5 years or so would have been about right to develop the methods and materials for that trip. It is nigh impossible, and would have been laughed out of the room at the time that, over 50 years later, we have gone no further and have not even gone back, nor established some form of permanent base on the moon at the least and almost certainly on Mars as well. Venus was considered a less likely target due to inhospitable surface conditions and the deep "gravity well" necessary to climb for return to earth.
 
George Harris said:
Well recall the moon landing. At the time, many of us thought this to be a first step into going to Mars. In fact, 5 years or so would have been about right to develop the methods and materials for that trip. It is nigh impossible, and would have been laughed out of the room at the time that, over 50 years later, we have gone no further and have not even gone back, nor established some form of permanent base on the moon at the least and almost certainly on Mars as well. Venus was considered a less likely target due to inhospitable surface conditions and the deep "gravity well" necessary to climb for return to earth.
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That may be why they called those that performed that amazing accomplishment in 1969, only 63 years after the Wright Brothers first powered flight, "The Greatest Generation", and not those that have come in the 55 years since.... 🤷‍♂️
 
According to report in Florida Today (Brevard edition) which is almost certainly behind a paywall, NASA is now talking of possibly using SpaceX Dragon Crew Mission 9 to bring back the Starliner crew in early 2025. They will achieve this by sending up only two additional Astronauts on Crew Mission 9 and incorporating the Starliner crew into Crew Mission 9. They can then figure out when and how to bring the Starliner back separately.

Here is a small relevant quote from the article...

Florida Today said:
Originally planned for mid-August, NASA announced that the launch of Crew-9 would now be no earlier than September 24. The reasoning behind this move is to allow more time for teams to assess the situation with Starliner and its crew.

One option might be: making Williams and Wilmore part of Crew-9, so essentially flying up with only two and not four astronauts on the Crew-9 Dragon. Although no official decision has been made, that would allow the two Starliner astronauts to return on a Crew Dragon in spring of 2025. NASA said they've been talking to SpaceX about this option.
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This will be yet another black eye for beleaguered Boeing which has figuratively been run into the ground by its executives executing what is known in aviation parlance as Controlled Flight into Terrain, very sadly.
 
Kenneth Bowersox is the NASA Associate Administrator for Space Operations and he will have a major say in the decision whether to return the Starliner crew on Starliner in the next few weeks or on a SpaceX Dragon as part of Crew 9 in early 2025. Mr. Bowersox is a former Astronaut and his last flight in space was as a member of the STS-113/Expedition 6 crew on the ISS (along with Astronaut Michael Fincke and Cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov). His final space flight experience may play a role in his view about using Starliner.

The Expedition 6 crew was on board the ISS when the Columbia shuttle disaster occurred. They were supposed to return from the ISS on STS-114 (Atlantis) but, following the Columbia accident and the grounding of the shuttle fleet, they had no ride home. The decision was made to have the crew return to earth using Russian Soyuz capsule TMA-1, the first of an updated iteration of Soyuz. TMA-1 was docked at the ISS serving as a “lifeboat.” The Soyuz reentry occurred on May 3, 2003, and it was memorable. Due to “technical difficulties” (Russia-speak for something bad) the reentry went from a controlled, glided path to an uncontrolled ballistic path. They kind of dropped like a rock. This issue caused very high G forces on the crew and resulted in the capsule landing 276 miles short of the planned location. Fortunately, the capsule and crew survived their thrill ride back to earth and, despite radio issues caused by antenna problems, they were located about two hours after landing.

My guess is that the experience of Mr. Bowersox makes him especially sensitive to issues that may impact controlled reentry and landing. He is not going to take Boeing’s word for it that all is well.
 
Let's just say I am somewhat concerned about the Space X durability. The far beyond design limit of takeoff blast affected area that happened with the first rocket launch makes me concerned about the quality of the rocket itself. This sort of blast pattern beyond protected limits did not occur at any time during the original NASA run up from first rocket into space through moon landing. It seems the whole concept of engineering for the unknow and unanticipated of "When in doubt make it stout," has somehow gotten lost. This is how unanticipated failures are prevented or at worst consequences minimized.
 
The rocket currently being used is not the ones that they have been randomly blowing up in Texas though. These Falcon 9s appear to be quite reliable and predictable, enough to be able to bring back the exhausted first stage and land it vertically either on land or on a barge.
 

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