In this blog I'm going to talk about what NASA needs to do once Congress has passed President Obama's new budget that starts on October 1st. Although I spent most of last year speaking about these concepts, they may be new to some readers - and they have even greater significance now that the space program is poised to make a great, and I believe necessary, transition. My ideas, if followed, would assure America of global space leadership for many years to come. And equally cool is the fact that to develop them won't break the already near-empty national budget.
First, is the idea of what type of commercial crew-carrying vehicle should follow the Space Shuttle. Next is why we should extend the life of the Shuttle program for a small number of additional flights. And last, what those Shuttles should carry up to the International Space Station - a true spacecraft that would live only in space.
Right now, NASA is hoping to spend about a billion dollars each year beginning next October to speed the development of a new fleet of all-commercial spaceships that would act as space taxis. These machines would take American astronauts and others bound for the orbiting station, but also serve as a vehicle for the repeated use of researchers and experimenters. I'm urging NASA to foster the development of what I call runway landers. No, that's not the name of a high stakes gambler from Vegas. It's a type of spacecraft that flies to orbit like the retiring Shuttles but then glides to a landing like an airplane on a runway. Just like the Shuttles do.
My reasoning is if these new spacecraft are to be true space taxis, then returning their human crew and perhaps research experiments quickly is essential. Landing in the ocean and waiting for the navy to come alongside and haul you out of the drink is what space capsules require. And after the capsule is recovered, it would take weeks for the ship to return to port. The astronauts might be flown home earlier by helicopter, but the cargo, and the capsule, will still be waiting long after the flight has faded from the business news web sites. This is just ridiculous, and no way to foster a true commercial space industry. As someone who flew two space capsules and twice landed in the ocean, I can attest from personal experience how much logistics work is needed to get you home. This is no way to treat a spaceship -- making it become a boat at the end of the flight? By comparison landing on a runway in the heart of a military or civilian airport or specially constructed spaceport would speed the retrieval and replacement of the cargo and crew. If that landing site is also the launching site, and the ship is fully reusable, then it can be mated to a new booster and readied for flight in a few weeks. This is exactly what we have learned flying the Shuttle for the last 30 years.
And, speaking of the Space Shuttle, why are we retiring it before the replacement vehicle is available? Makes no sense to me when there are enough parts to fly the Shuttles for other two, three or four flights, say. By stretching out the remaining handful of flights, we can close the infamous space flight "gap" that looms ahead between Shuttle retirement and first flights of the new commercial craft. Why should American's hard-earned taxpayer dollars go to Russia to buy flights on their Soyuz rockets, as is the current plan? Would it not be a better and more sensible thing to use that money to extend - only briefly - the life of the Shuttle?
Speaking of which, in the current debate, folks have seemed to forget that if we need a heavy lift booster to haul large payloads up to orbit, we already have one now-it's called the Space Shuttle. And I have a mission in mind for these handful of extra flights.
In storage at Marshall Spaceflight Center, and elsewhere around the country are spacecraft components from which we can build a true spaceship, one worthy of the name. I've called the Exploration Module, or XM. This vehicle, lifted up to orbit aboard the Space Shuttle in its final missions, would be a true spacecraft that lives only in space. Just like the Lunar Module Eagle that Neil Armstrong and I rode down to the moon's surface during our Apollo 11 flight. Once docked to the International Space Station, astronaut crews could practice and train for future deep space missions, to encounter asteroids say, or the moons of Mars. If the XM was shielded and connected with a spacecraft like the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle or some other return-to-Earth craft, once tested at the space station, we could take it out for a spin, say cycling between the Earth and the moon. My concept for a cycling spaceship, now universally called the Aldrin cycler, could be fashioned out of the XM. All we'd need would be a rocket to attach to it, maybe like the Centaur liquid hydrogen upper stage flown many times aboard many different launchers - and managed by Ohio's Glenn Research Center.
Consider what I'm proposing: commercial vehicles fly from the surface of the Earth to the station. Their destination - the XM, is built from existing hardware and managed by say the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The spaceship's propulsion and life support system could be managed by Huntsville's Marshall Spaceflight Center. And everything is assembled, tested and launched from Florida's Kennedy Space Center. Commercial providers do what they do best - flying people and cargo from Earth. NASA does what it does best - build deep space vehicles - and there is sufficient work to keep all of the existing Project Constellation centers humming along.
As someone once said, "Mission Accomplished!"
Follow Buzz Aldrin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/therealbuzz
Buzz Aldrin: Why We Should Keep Flying the Space Shuttle
SPACE.com -- Buzz Aldrin: Put Humans on Mars By 2031
Buzz Aldrin's Advice to the Augustine Commission - Plans for NASA ...
I had lunch with you over 20 years ago. It was a thrill. I am working with inventor Joe Holden who invented the afterburner and thrust tubes that made supersonic travel possible. Joe has invented a space plane that I believe is the best idea for future civillian space travel. I'd like to connect you and Joe Holden together.
I can be reached at mnovember (at) earthlink.net.
Sincerely,
Mark November
Just noodling here: we do have seaplanes that take off and land in water. Why not direct sea-to-space launch and landing vehicles? Why does it necessarily have to be retrieved by Navy ships?
We already know that we can build launch vehicles to battleship tolerances and they work fine. That's what the Russians do. The obsession with precise, lightweight vehicles is a holdover from the ICBM programs. Why not a landing vehicle that is legitimately a boat, that can propel itself to harbor? If we can land at an airstrip we can land close enough to a dock.
Hell, you could even build ships to dock at conventional ports, just like other boats. Talk about resolving logistical issues--they have all those cranes to transship containerized cargo from ship to rail right there, all the transportation infrastructure is right there... ties right into the global trade system. If we're serious about filling the heavens with our number, that's exactly the kind of interface we need between earth and space--a highly scalable one.
I guess the hard part of that design is the launch leg. But there are serious benefits to this sort of system. Maybe it's worth trying to find a way to work out those difficulties.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUI36tPKDg4
You RAWK, Buzz!
The main reason for that Constellation was that it would take us back to the Moon...well if we're not going to the Moon anytime soon then we don't really need a space capsule! Nasa needs to listen to Buzz what we need is a real spaceship not another tin can that lands in the ocean ...that stuff is for beginners....we need the right stuff !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng0NNRor_iQ
http://www.crossfirefusor.com/nuclear-fusion-reactor/overview.html
NASA said that by the mid-70s they would have manned missions to Mars. Unfortunately, mankind had lost interest in space flight by that point.
There was a lot of grumbling about what appeared to be wasted money for nothing in return; yet a lot of people seemed to miss the fact that the space program drove development like nothing before - new technologies including fuel cells, LCDs, solar power, pharmacology, earth sciences, personal computers, Tempurpedic mattresses, better food storage, and so on.
A recurring theme seems to be that the USA wants to be 'in charge' as regards space travel and exploration. Don't forget that other countries such as China are busy with their own programs and goals with regard to getting into space; they see the potential windfall of space travel and exploration and do not be too surprised when they build their own space station.
It is tragically true that humanity in general IS too short-sighted to achieve long-term goals. Only when we can rise above the mentality of 'what's in for me' and say 'what's in it for all of us' will humanity succeed..
If you want a 100mT+ IMLEO Shuttle-derived launch vehicle, the DIRECT Jupiter concept is much more reasonable, since it retains SSME and 8m-diameter tanks.
Orion (as we know it) would fly on Atlas V 501 or 552 for that matter. Orion needs Delta IV Heavy or the proposed Altas V Heavy. Maybe an stripped down Orion Lite could launch on an EELV Medium-Heavy with solid boosters, but certainly not AV 501 or DIV-M, and human-rating the solid-boosted configurations would be problematic.
Dream Chaser can fly on AV 402. If you're not familiar, that's like the X-38 CRV, except it's a full-fledged launch/reentry spacecraft rather than just reentry. It has reusable N2O/HTPB hybrids (like SpaceShipTwo) that double as launch abort and deorbit engines.
Subject; Mars and what to do with the depleted nuclear fuel.
For about a year now i've mean looking for someone to bounce an off the wall thought, TAG.... you're it.
From what I read. About a 1k, million yrs ago or more, Mars was hit by a huge rock, hence the two faces of Mars. Wait there's more to this... I believe up until that time Mars had an very strong Van Allen type radiation Belt and with it a planet with an atmosphere and some oceans. When that rock broke open the planets crust it caused the molten core to stop spinning. Thus when the Van Allen Radiation belt was no longer there, the atmosphere was no longer held in place and so it dissipated into space/ the oceans evaporated because there were no clouds to feed the cycle.
I think that we should take all the used nuclear fuel put it on some rockets/missile that can penetrate Mars thin crust (impact side) that way all that spend fuel send all to one spot will reheat the core and in about 700 or 1k yrs Mars will again have a Van Allen type radiation belt and all the benefits that come with it. Is this crazy or what?
Reach me at nodirectaxes@bellsouth.net
There's proof, if you ask me, that we really have evolved from killer primates.
We are EVOLVING from killer primates. We have a long way to go before we get there.
Thank you for your attention. Carry on.
The funding is such that we had to shut down the Shuttle program in order to develop a new system, and we need a new system. Ironically, the new budget solves that problem: NASA will no longer pay to develop hardware. Contractors will make the investments, and NASA will pay for goods and services. But we waited until the Shuttle program was done to make this change...
As for your suggestion, Shuttle is not designed to remain on orbit like that. It generates power using fuel cells that run on liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and it maneuvers using thrusters that run on nitrogen tetroxide and monomethyl hydrazine, none of which can be refilled on-orbit. Only one Shuttle can dock to the ISS at a time, it prevents other vehicles from docking to Node 2, and it doesn't add a whole lot of habitable volume relative to the rest of the station.
Look at the direct benefits: getting to the Moon in the 1960s revolutionized electronics, communications, and many other fields.
But also consider the indirect effect. I was a kid of 7 when my Dad took us to watch Apollo 8 take off, and just 8 when I Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon... Dad again, he got me out of bed to watch anything to do with the space program. I was a sci-fi fan like many kids of the day, but this was different -- it was real. And probably more profound a happening for kids like me than anything before or since. We had real heroes... scientists and engineers and flyers, not sports figured or hollywood actors.
And many of us did our best to follow in some small ways. I made some personal computers for Commodore for some years, and designed a cheap robot that can help find bombs, so people don't have to get killed doing this job. This is a big of where the whole PC industry came from, and the internet, and pretty much every other cool gadget. This is what that $25 billion (about $150 billion in today's dollars) bought us.
What, again, did we get for the $3 trillion spent on Iraq?
We should commit to building a real spaceship. NASA really should be doing the work that only NASA can do. If the private sector is building good enough launcher/landers now, great. But that's only a piece. If NASA doesn't have to replicate that, they should take the next step, build a permanent spaceship designed for the needs of space travel. Where are they going? Even the sky wouldn't be the limit...
That said I agree with many of his points but would like to get him on board my big idea: we need to INTERNATIONALIZE our space program, get the talents and money of Europe, Japan, Korean, Britain, etc. working with and for NASA. It may mean an American is not the first to do some important future step but it gets our flag up there too more than we can afford to do without an international effort.
Pleas show me your facts with links
Thank You
-Sarge