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NASA set to test Orion spacecraft (deep space exploration) Thursday
- Thread starter RoKKeR
- Start date
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I think so, they've done capsule testing, and they definitely don't need to test the delta iv heavy.
Now to build the SLS.
prelude514
Banned
Such an incredible day! Great job NASA/USA! THIS is the type of news I love to see coming out of America.
Days like today make me hope our "Zefram Cochrane" comes within our lifetimes. I'd like to think he/she is already born. Hopefully in their late teenage/early adult years LOL.
Someone needs to shop Orion in the upper right corner!
Days like today make me hope our "Zefram Cochrane" comes within our lifetimes. I'd like to think he/she is already born. Hopefully in their late teenage/early adult years LOL.
Someone needs to shop Orion in the upper right corner!
If you gonna do it, do it right -Such an incredible day! Great job NASA/USA! THIS is the type of news I love to see coming out of America.
Days like today make me hope our "Zefram Cochrane" comes within out lifetimes. I'd like to think he/she is already born. Hopefully in their late teenage/early adult years LOL.
Someone needs to shop Orion in the upper right corner!
Lucky Forward
Member
That's actually really sad, but they have to start the manned flight reboot somewhere I suppose. An unmanned capsule up to 3600 miles is basically catching up to the 1960's accomplishments.
Now nothings happening with Orion until 2018? Yikes. NASA's budget sucks.
Squirrel Killer
Member
Trust Lucky. He was there.
It's a terrible situation really. I can see why they've gone ahead and pushed the Mars goal aspect of Orion in their publicity. Public awareness is a good start in terms of keeping the funding alive. But it's definitely tragic that we're still years away from humans getting beyond low earth orbit.
Let's hope not!
Let's hope that Space X can get there quicker and that excitement for that will give NASA more funding. It's disgraceful to me that we're just now catching up to where we were 40 years ago. And really, not even that because no humans were on the flight today.
AstroNut325
Member
Thanks, doesn't seem very active. :/
Cool. Seems like Space X launches over the next few years will have to keep my excitement. Which I am fine with.
Here is a replay of the full launch from NASA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEuOpxOrA_0
Well considering I'm going to school for the ability to work at NASA, its the other way around, unfortunately.
Thanks!
Can someone explain to me the point of capturing an asteroid and attempting to put it into orbit around the moon? I would assume that anything NASA does with Orion is preparation for going to Mars. So how does that prepare us? Are they going to attempt to do something similar with Mars? I would think that it would be more advantageous to us to go to the moon and land there to practice landing on another surface. Is Orion the landing craft that they'll use to actually get to the surface of Mars? I'm assuming there is a lander.
Poodlestrike
Banned
The fact that the statue of liberty is there with the rest of the launch vehicles kills me for some reason XD
First of all, we get to learn a lot about asteroids! So that's nice. Secondly, it opens up several interesting projects, like mining it or (and I swear this is a thing) wrapping it in copper wire and putting it into a near-earth orbit where it can generate electricity that can be beamed down to the surface by laser.
Cool article about the mission on Tested
http://www.tested.com/science/space/470948-why-nasas-orion-mission-so-important/
http://www.tested.com/science/space/470948-why-nasas-orion-mission-so-important/
Do you have a link for that bit about wrapping it in wire and using it to generate electricity? I understand the mining thing, which could potentially be something. But do we know what the impacts would be of adding something to lunar orbit? How big of an asteroid are we talking here?
Poodlestrike
Banned
'Fraid not, sorry. It's something my dad used to talk about, but damned if I can find a source. The basic idea is that you set it up as (essentially) a gravity-powered generator, moving the asteroid through the earth's magnetic field to create electricity. Probably just pie in the sky silliness, tho.
The asteroid won't be that big; it shouldn't effect the orbital dynamics of the moon much, if at all.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
If that doesn't put it into perspective from one of mankind's greatest achievements.
Saturn V and it's engines. I assume the sls is roughly the same size.
RyanardoDaVinci
Member
Makes me wish there was a launch center built out here in Palmdale, or at Edwards AFB. I loved the house shaking from the sonic booms as the shuttle would re-enter and land out here.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
Even bigger
unf unf unf unf
we need a picture like the one I posted with the SLS 1301. I need my "fuck yeah space" and "fuck yeah humans" boner to get bigger.
Epsilon-delta
Banned
NekoFever
Member
I was mentally comparing the Statue of Liberty on the left to the big SLS picture on the right and wondering how the fuck something that big was supposed to fly.
Saturn V was essentially the same size as the Washington Monument. I believe it's still the largest object to leave the face of the Earth.
NekoFever
Member
Yeah, but it's not that big.
Will probably be for another 10-15 years. The larger SLS isn't expected until around 2030 as its main purpose is the deep space missions and they need to finish the designs on a lot of stuff for the mars missions
Well, rockets don't really fly, so much as they just throw themselves into the air really fast and then fall constantly while in orbit.
As antonz says above, the close SLS is the 70t version, with the 130t version reserved for later.
Holy hell, that's mine too (well, just about)!
Now, a bit about this mission. I hate to be a debbie downer but I think a few things should be clarified:
1. Orion will not be the spacecraft on which astronauts will go to Mars. I think this is rather obvious (Orion is quite tiny, and it only can support a crew for 21 days. It was originally conceived to be the craft to take crew to the moon in the Constellation plan).
Now, Orion does have a small role in the current "planned" Mars mission (Mars Design Reference v. 5, created by NASA last year) - to be the ship that carries the crew from the Earth to the parked-in-orbit Mars Transfer Vehicle (which will actually take them to Mars) and later return them to Earth from it.
Now, by the time that a Mars mission actually occurs ("2030s") that sort of role can be performed easily by commercial crafts such as Dragon or Boeing's CST (which will be much improved by that time-- but I'd wager they'd be able to do it within less than five years).
So what Orion is "good" for? Lunar missions, not deep space (more on that later). It is not very important in the Mars plan and is easily replaceable. I think there has been (possibly deliberate) ambiguity on that matter.
2. The current plans of exploration with SLS are unclear and not quite the straight path to Mars.
The current SLS missions planned are:
a. Unmanned Lunar mission (2018).
b. Manned mission to captured asteroid in Lunar orbit (2024)
That's it. This poses several problems, but first and foremost that the SLS was built with a mindset that we should "build a giant rocket, then figure out what to do with it" (if you're wondering as for the reason, to me it seems mostly that the states responsible for Orion/Ares V did not want to lay off their workforce).
This lack of direction obviously causes some waste of money and resources, but maybe that would happen all the same (lately launching a probe to Europa was also suggested for the SLS).
The second problem is that the missions planned for it are not a "pathway to Mars". An asteroid mission was initially conceived as a stepping stone for Mars since it is a deep-space mission but not as complicated as a Mars one (closer, and landing/taking back off is much easier).
However, the current planned asteroid mission is a twisted version of that. While it is very cool that an asteroid will be captured and carried to Lunar orbit, it defeats the entire purpose of an asteroid mission as a "deep space mission". At the end of the mission humans will still have ventured no further than they did in Apollo 13 and spent less time in space than they do on the ISS.
3. Lastly, and perhaps more importantly, is that NASA does not have even remotely close to the amount of money they will need to carry out these missions (and don't even get me started on the funds they'll need for Mars-- simply read the aforementioned MDR and I doubt you'll think NASA will be able to do that in even 50 years with current funding). They are overpromising as usual, perhaps in an attempt to get the public fired up about it and gathering more funds. I think what's happening here though will not garner the funds they need as it creates the false sense that they can actually achieve that with their current resources. SLS will probably be built and flown (though history tells us, not quite on time), but it is not assured that it will fly many times-- in the 70s even actually fully-built Saturn Vs did not fly because of lack of funds!
I have more to say on this subject (and some actually optimistic stuff on the subject of spaceflight in general, I swear!) but I think I've ranted on long enough, so I'll leave it you with that.
To sum up, while Orion is a great vessel it has little to do with NASA's Mars plan, which is incidentally currently completely unachievable.
ScepticMatt
Member
I couldn't agree more, and I've posted something related earlier.
I also recommend watching "the great SLS debate" on thespaceshow vimeo channel for more insight.
Edit: link: http://vimeo.com/112463372
I very much agree with your previous post, the optimism I mentioned in my own post refers to the commercial sector. My hope is currently with SpaceX and to a lesser extend with other nuspace companies (hopefully if SpaceX is successful, more viable companies will start or simply be able to succeed).
That said, I haven't much hope for anyone to get to Mars even by the 2030s. You can go on and on about commercial space but there's no viable way to profit from Mars for the foreseeable future.
And I'll watch that video once I get home.
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