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#1 2014-01-28 20:10:57

SpaceNut
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NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

Some will say this is good news while others will swear that it is bad but if the price and conditions are right then maybe this is the right choice after all.

NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

U.S. astronauts will continue to fly to and from the international space station aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft through the end of 2017, NASA announced Jan. 27.

NASA plans to reserve six Soyuz seats to cover round-trip transportation and related training for three astronauts during 2017, according to a sole-source procurement notice posted online. Also included in the pending Soyuz order, which will be NASA’s second in as many years, is emergency crew rescue services through the spring of 2018, NASA said.

The procurement notice did not say how much NASA would pay the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, for these services. NASA spokesman Trent Perrotto, reached by email Jan. 28, had no immediate comment about the price.

The crash did cause many threads to be losty and while I think the price started around 10million a seat it has continued to increase with each one that has been needed since shuttle stopped flying.


In May 2013, NASA paid Russia $424 million for astronaut transportation to the station in 2016, and for emergency crew rescue services through June 2017. The total cost averaged out to roughly $70 million a seat.

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#2 2014-01-29 08:40:18

Quaoar
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

When will be ready SpaceX Dragon Rider?

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#3 2014-01-29 18:02:46

GW Johnson
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

Manned Dragon is funded by NASA,  they are in control of its development schedule and the milestones that must be accomplished.  That schedule calls for first manned flight in 2017.  That's why NASA bought Soyuz rides through 2017. 

If it was just Spacex,  I'd bet that Dragon could fly manned by 2015.  They've been testing the Super Draco thrusters for it,  for some time now.  Once those are ready,  they just integrate into a capsule already designed to have them. 

It's just my opinion,  but I think that NASA's schedule is needlessly delayed by 1 to 2 years. 

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#4 2014-02-01 17:26:49

SpaceNut
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

While SLS Program Manager Todd May Talks About The Future of NASA’s Biggest Rocket the Ares I will possibly do a few trips the the station its Nasa COTS program I question.  Is the Relationship Between NASA and Private Space About to Sour?

2014 budget: NASA's big-ticket missions have been spared the Congressional ax. The Orion crew vehicle gets $1.2 billion, the Space Launch System (SLS) gets $1.9 billion. Together, these are supposed to get humans to Mars or an asteroid,

Which would be what we would like to see. Currently the ISS is services for cargo by just

Two companies, SpaceX and Orbital, are delivering cargo to the International Space Station using hardware they designed without strict NASA oversight. The effort to replace the space shuttle with a new private-sector vehicle is also going well, with the three companies hitting milestones and setting dates for flights.
But there's some who are not quite so happy: the private space companies vying to get astronauts to orbit by 2017, including Boeing, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada.

The trouble is that the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability Nasa may not have the money to keep them all available for use and that down selection would hurt this start up inductry.

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#5 2014-02-01 18:58:35

Terraformer
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

Why are they still funding Orion, whilst trying to get commercial crew transportation? What use is Orion, given that Dragon is supposed to be capable of similar reentry conditions?


"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony

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#6 2014-02-02 12:44:18

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

The Use of Orion is as competition to the Dragon and as a back up transportation in case the Dragon doesn't work, the point is no to depend on any one system for getting into orbit. What are you going to do if a dragon blows up on the launch pad, and you need an immediate resupply of the space station? What if the explosion was later determined to be caused by a design flaw after the investigation, sort of like the Challenger explosion and the O-rings of the solid rockets.

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#7 2014-02-02 17:41:01

Terraformer
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

Tom, Dragon is being designed by a private corporation, not Congress. It will be a lot safer than Shuttle - or Orion. As for backup, you have Boeing making a capsule, plus the DreamChaser. Use one of those. There is no need for NASA to waste money on another launch system to compete with those three, especially if doing so will make it less likely they get developed.


"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony

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#8 2014-02-02 19:29:32

SpaceNut
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

It would be nice to keep them all but if companies can not offer seats to any destination of buyers chioce then we do not need any of them as to open space we need more than just nasa in command of the destinations and the means to get there.

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#9 2014-02-03 08:23:30

Quaoar
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

Terraformer wrote:

Tom, Dragon is being designed by a private corporation, not Congress. It will be a lot safer than Shuttle - or Orion. As for backup, you have Boeing making a capsule, plus the DreamChaser. Use one of those. There is no need for NASA to waste money on another launch system to compete with those three, especially if doing so will make it less likely they get developed.

The only problem of Falcon Heavy is its diameter. For LEO mission it's perfect, but for a future manned mission to Mars it's impossible to launch a lander with moore than 5.4 meters of diameter. So a future mission based on Falcon H will be forced to use a narrow biconic slender body lander (like Mars Oz Lander), or a narrow vetical body lander with a deployable aeroshell like ADEPT ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_eWC7OZx2E ).

Last edited by Quaoar (2014-02-03 08:26:12)

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#10 2014-02-03 16:16:28

GW Johnson
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

Launcher shroud diameter is only an issue if you ignore the now-proven option of assembly by docking in LEO from smaller components that do fit the various launchers in your available fleet. 

If you add a direct fabrication-assembly capability in LEO (which only requires a supple space suit,  appropriate sun shades,  and appropriate lighting),  you can pretty much build anything imaginable from components,  parts,  and supplies sent up by your existing launcher fleet. 

Things have changed drastically since Apollo.  This LEO assembly option is so attractive,  I have to wonder why anybody today would even consider trying to launch stuff direct to Mars or anywhere else,  without stopping in LEO for assembly.  It's just too restrictive on vehicle and hardware designs to do otherwise,  and that's fundamentally expensive. 

That being the case,  I also have to wonder why anyone would consider building a 100+/- ton SLS launch rocket before there is an actual commercial need for it.  Government stuff is so expensive to operate,  you cannot benefit from the unit payload cost reduction that the larger size offers.  This has been the demonstrated history of it,  since the beginning in the 1950's. 

Compared fairly at the same max payload capability,  and flown "full",  commercial stuff is about 4 times cheaper than government stuff,  and has been for at least 3 decades.  Shuttle was even worse. 

SLS is "justified" by the need to launch a huge,  heavy Orion capsule and service module not launchable by existing rockets,  so that is its only real function.  Orion is "justified" by the need for a deep-space vehicle,  when it is demonstrably too small and cramped to voyage beyond cis-lunar space. 

To go further,  a vastly-bigger habit space is required,  something that quite simply does not need to also be an entry capsule.  Neither SLS nor Orion is justified by anything other than pork in political districts.  Simple as that.

The habitat space needs to resemble the old Skylab station in terms of living volume allowances.  The capsule can be Dragon,  or Boeing's capsule,  or something like them.  You only need to make the return entry to Earth in the capsule,  not try to live in it during the voyage. 

Bigelow is working on spacious habitat concepts,  but not with significant support from NASA.  That's a government manned space program aimed at going anywhere beyond cis-lunar space?  I don't think so. 

The commercial ventures offer better prospects and more simple common sense for manned travel beyond cis-lunar space, than anything I have seen out of NASA since their Mars mission proposals vintage 1969 for the 1983-1987 oppositions.  But,  based on what we know now,  those NASA plans back then would have killed their crews,  either from radiation exposure or microgravity disease,  or both. 

Plus,  they had no solution to the problem of astronaut rations with a 2.5 year lifetime back then,  nor did they have a lander design.  Finally,  those NASA mission designs back then were flag-and-footprints only.  Still,  flawed as we now know they were,  they made far more sense than anything I see from NASA today!

I think it'll be the commercial guys who go to Mars first with men,  because I see no prospects for the total cultural revolution in NASA that is required to make it effective again.  This is such a huge problem that not even Dennis Tito's semi-suicide fly-by mission will be able to shame NASA into doing something right. 

That pessimistic assessment excludes the NASA unmanned probe activities,  because those are still doing great things.  Although,  the over-bureaucratization is beginning to infect even those activities:  see aluminum tires punctured by sharp rocks on Curiosity.  Even I know better than to propose a vulnerable design like that!

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#11 2014-02-04 16:31:48

Quaoar
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

GW Johnson wrote:

Launcher shroud diameter is only an issue if you ignore the now-proven option of assembly by docking in LEO from smaller components that do fit the various launchers in your available fleet. 

If you add a direct fabrication-assembly capability in LEO (which only requires a supple space suit,  appropriate sun shades,  and appropriate lighting),  you can pretty much build anything imaginable from components,  parts,  and supplies sent up by your existing launcher fleet. 

Things have changed drastically since Apollo.  This LEO assembly option is so attractive,  I have to wonder why anybody today would even consider trying to launch stuff direct to Mars or anywhere else,  without stopping in LEO for assembly.  It's just too restrictive on vehicle and hardware designs to do otherwise,  and that's fundamentally expensive. 


GW

Without orbital fabrication capability, it is possible to assembly by docking in LEO a conic lander, with a 12 meter diameter aeroshell (like that you projected in your blog)?

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#12 2014-02-04 17:32:50

GW Johnson
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

Quaoar:

To answer your question:  can we dock-together a conical vehicle 12 m in diameter?  Not so very much. 

To build such a thing in LEO,  the assembly astronauts are going to need to turn small bolts,  screws,  and nuts.  They will need to do wiring and small plumbing.  This is just not possible with the clumsy,  stiff gas balloon suits we currently use. 

Lighting and temperatures are also an issue.  Things in shadow get super cold,  things in sunlight get really hot.  Stuff fails to fit up due to extreme thermal expansion.  It's already been an issue with ISS EVA's. 

It's fairly easy to fix the lighting and temperatures thing with a very lightweight space frame around the work zone,  covered with aluminized-plastic sheet tarps.  Hang the work lights on the frame inside,  and use the reverberatory radiation oven effect to bring all workpieces to near room temperatures,  while at the same time providing nice,  bright lighting from all directions to eliminate shadows. 

You solve the clumsy space suit problem with a mechanical-counterpressure suit.  You just probably won't be working at the ciurrent 0.33 atm pure O2 pressure standard.  You'll be nearer 0.20 to 0.25 atm O2 pressure,  something that we already know can be done with simple elastic fabrics,  and probably with the oriented-stiffness fabrics being investigated at MIT.  We also already know it's quite adequate as a breathing pressure. 

Once you can do screwing,  plumbing,  and wiring in zero gee (inside a space that relieves the hot/cold/lighting issues),  then bolting up a 12 m diameter craft from components and panels becomes possible.  What ticks me off is that absolutely no one seems to be working on this critical capability. 

We need these capabilities anyway to properly explore on the surface of Mars (and other places).  Given that we need them anyway,  why would anyone spend multiple 100's of $billions on a giant launch rocket with a 12 m dia shroud,  just to avoid tens to hundreds of $millions for these capabilities?

That kind of penny-wise,  pound-foolish thinking is what ticks me off so.

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#13 2014-02-04 18:26:45

SpaceNut
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

While a 5 meter diameter is not that much a better one seems to be 10 for all designs that I have seen so even docking lots of 5 meter modules still is only half as wide as what we need.

I like the ADEPT fabric heatshield material Quaoar and this type of shielding has been talked about during the crash years as they relate to those that were used by shuttle. This fabric shiled and a shpe that can morph into a landing plane could open up lots of possibility in Mars future once a runway is made. I would allow for more mass to the surface as the speed can be slowed way down with the breaking guild path simular to the one Shuttle once used.

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#14 2014-02-04 18:32:09

RobertDyck
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

Why not use a fold-out heat shield? I keep going back to Mars Direct. This is image is from the original 1989 proposal from Dr. Zubrin and Dr. Baker from Martin Marietta to NASA, the heat shield and landing propulsion module for Mars Direct.
MarsDirect4-300x113.jpg

Interesting. The web page describes it as...

Eight months after Earth departure, the propellant factory/ERV would aerobrake into Mars orbit behind a 23-meter-diameter, 5.26-metric-ton umbrella-like ”flex-fabric” heat shield.  Soon after capture into Mars orbit, the landing propulsion module would ignite its rocket motors to decelerate the propellant factory/ERV for reentry into the martian atmosphere

From the images I had assumed it was a solid heat shield with fold-out panels. After reading about DurAFRSI from Ames Research Center, I thought it was my wonderful idea to use the fabric from DurAFRSI as a parasol or "umbrella-like" heat shield. Once again I have re-invented the wheel. So again I return to Mars Direct. My mission plan is tweaked from Mars Direct. But if you can fit a 23-meter-diameter heat shield in an 8-meter diameter fairing, then what is stopping us?

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#15 2014-02-04 19:15:52

SpaceNut
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

from the video and looking around for more data the center part of the shield is a solid panel while the umbrella like fabric does control making it rigid. This was also one of the methods MarsDrive had also explored but we as a group did not think of the high temperature fabrics that would be necessary.

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#16 2014-02-05 11:16:12

Quaoar
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

GW Johnson wrote:

Quaoar:


It's fairly easy to fix the lighting and temperatures thing with a very lightweight space frame around the work zone,  covered with aluminized-plastic sheet tarps.  Hang the work lights on the frame inside,  and use the reverberatory radiation oven effect to bring all workpieces to near room temperatures,  while at the same time providing nice,  bright lighting from all directions to eliminate shadows. 

GW

Why not posting on your blog a concept study for an orbital assembly facility?

It may be possible to build some sort of orbital pressurized hangar where technicians may assembly spaceship without suit?

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#17 2014-02-05 12:15:21

GW Johnson
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

Quaoar:

I've a start on that idea posted already on "exrocketman".  There's "End of an Era Need Not Be End of a Capability" dated 8-2-11.  It deals with having shuttle bay-and-arm capability as a permanently-orbiting facility,  to which the sunshade space frame and lights could be very easily added.  Adding that capability is only a little more ambitious than the sunshade parasol on Skylab 1 decades ago. 

And there's "Fundamental Design Criteria for Alternative Spacesuit Approaches" 1-21-11.  This one analyzes partial pressures in breathing gases relative to centuries of human experiences,  for compression criteria applicable to new spacesuit designs.  I got the same answers that Dr. Webb got for his "elastic spacesuit" of 1969-1972. 

A shirtsleeve pressurized hangar is a much more ambitious undertaking.  Given a supple spacesuit,  you don't need it.  In an unpressurized sunshade enclosure,  with work piece temperature controlled by the power of the lighting,  your gloves need not be thermally insulated,  they can be quite thin compression garments indeed. 

Plus,  with an MCP suit composed of sections,  experience indicates you could doff the gloves and work barehanded in vacuum for up to about 30 minutes,  before any edema and swelling sets in.  Just recompress with gloves or go inside before the time is up.  Barehanded,  very fine work indeed becomes possible. 

Yep,  you're right.  I need to post this idea as a fleshed-out design concept. 

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#18 2014-02-06 09:18:10

Quaoar
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

GW Johnson wrote:

Quaoar:


Yep,  you're right.  I need to post this idea as a fleshed-out design concept. 

GW

Great GW!!!

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#19 2014-02-06 11:54:19

Tom Kalbfus
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

I think we'll likely have robots that operate in space as dexterously as a human being can in a pressurized environment, so having pressurized hangar bays will be redundant at this point. Also another problem with them is that pressurized hangar bays wastes atmospheric gases. Think of it this way, the hangar bay is a giant airlock which can hold a smaller spacecraft. The doors open the spacecraft moves inside, the doors close, then the hangar bay pressurizes to people can work on the spacecraft in a pressurized environment, once servicing is done, the mechanics and technicians move out of the hangar bay and it is depressurized. The only way to fully depressurize the hangar bay is to let some atmospheric gases out into space, we can pump some of the gases back into pressurized containers, but we can't depressurize the hangar bay back down to the level of an outer space vacuum, the more gases we pump out the harder it is to pump the gases that remain. We can achieve a laboratory vacuum by this method, but it will still be pressurized compared to the vacuum of space, we can't get all those gases back into the station proper, if we open the doors again, we can't help but lose some of those gases into space, and those gases will have to be replaced at some point if we are going to keep operating the hanger bay as a shirt sleeve environment.

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#20 2014-02-06 15:54:53

Terraformer
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

That's... not what GW is suggesting. He's suggesting using decent spacesuits to operate in space, with a shield to keep the temperatures constant and warm enough.

As for robots, we don't have them (or at least, cheaply) at the moment. Whereas we do have what we need for this idea.


"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony

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#21 2014-02-07 14:05:40

GW Johnson
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

There's things robots can do,  and there's things men do better.  That will always be true.  We'll need capability for both.  Remote manipulators,  too. 

I agree that airlocking is very wasteful of breathing gas residuals no matter how good your pump.  That's why I think working in vacuum in a truly supple suit is the far better option.  This will never happen if we stick with these "do-everything-in-one-garment" balloon suits we have now. 

The MCP suit should be approached as vacuum-protective underwear plus an O2 helmet.  You wear whatever conventional (!!!!!) protective clothing over it,  that suits the job.  Working inside the lighted spaceframe that I suggest,  you need none.  That suit inside there would very much resemble Webb's elastic spacesuit experimental rig of 1969-1972. 

Inside,  that's all you need.  Pull on some white insulated coveralls,  and maybe slip-over white insulated boots and gloves,  when going out in the sun or shade. You could even come up with a broad-brimmed hat to fit the O2 helmet. 

Once you adopt the vacuum-protective MCP underwear approach,  all of this becomes easy.  Not at all like now,  and that threatens the semi-monopoly of the 2-3 suit makers we have.  That's probably why none of them ever looked at this.  Just Webb and now MIT,  all at pittance funding. 

Workpiece temperature control by lights inside a spaceframe covered in aluminized tarps is something very easy to do right now (we got a little start on Skylab 1 decades ago,  but never went further).  There's no real excuse not to try this out ASAP at ISS.  Along with some experimental MCP suits. 

If NASA or ESA won't try some of these techniques,  I'd bet Bigelow and Spacex will,  once they get to flying their own men.  It's only a question of how long we have to wait before somebody does this,  and makes fools of the rest. 

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#22 2014-02-07 20:22:51

SpaceNut
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

One issue with seat purchasing is that there is only one place to make use of them to but even that is limited or restricted to the ISS. We need more destinations and then the prices will start to fall and to not a nasa / Russian owned location.

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#23 2014-02-09 00:54:01

RGClark
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

GW Johnson wrote:

Manned Dragon is funded by NASA,  they are in control of its development schedule and the milestones that must be accomplished.  That schedule calls for first manned flight in 2017.  That's why NASA bought Soyuz rides through 2017. 
If it was just Spacex,  I'd bet that Dragon could fly manned by 2015.  They've been testing the Super Draco thrusters for it,  for some time now.  Once those are ready,  they just integrate into a capsule already designed to have them. 
It's just my opinion,  but I think that NASA's schedule is needlessly delayed by 1 to 2 years. 
GW


Congressmen are educated people. Prior to entering Congress they are lawyers, doctors, businessman. Very smart, accomplished people. It is only after they reach Congress that they lose the ability to reason logically.

  Bob Clark


Old Space rule of acquisition (with a nod to Star Trek - the Next Generation):

      “Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”

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#24 2014-02-11 04:37:48

RGClark
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From: Philadelphia, PA
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Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

RobertDyck wrote:

Why not use a fold-out heat shield? I keep going back to Mars Direct. This is image is from the original 1989 proposal from Dr. Zubrin and Dr. Baker from Martin Marietta to NASA, the heat shield and landing propulsion module for Mars Direct.
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wired … 00x113.jpg

Interesting. The web page describes it as...

Eight months after Earth departure, the propellant factory/ERV would aerobrake into Mars orbit behind a 23-meter-diameter, 5.26-metric-ton umbrella-like ”flex-fabric” heat shield.  Soon after capture into Mars orbit, the landing propulsion module would ignite its rocket motors to decelerate the propellant factory/ERV for reentry into the martian atmosphere

From the images I had assumed it was a solid heat shield with fold-out panels. After reading about DurAFRSI from Ames Research Center, I thought it was my wonderful idea to use the fabric from DurAFRSI as a parasol or "umbrella-like" heat shield. Once again I have re-invented the wheel. So again I return to Mars Direct. My mission plan is tweaked from Mars Direct. but if you can fit a 23-meter-diameter heat shield in an 8-meter diameter fairing, then what is stopping us?

Good point. I really think there are already several technical solutions to the problem of aerobraking the large mass needed for a crew module arriving at Mars.

   Bob Clark


Old Space rule of acquisition (with a nod to Star Trek - the Next Generation):

      “Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”

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#25 2014-02-11 11:25:31

Quaoar
Member
Registered: 2013-12-13
Posts: 652

Re: NASA To Order More Soyuz Seats

RGClark wrote:
RobertDyck wrote:

Why not use a fold-out heat shield? I keep going back to Mars Direct. This is image is from the original 1989 proposal from Dr. Zubrin and Dr. Baker from Martin Marietta to NASA, the heat shield and landing propulsion module for Mars Direct.
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wired … 00x113.jpg

Interesting. The web page describes it as...

Eight months after Earth departure, the propellant factory/ERV would aerobrake into Mars orbit behind a 23-meter-diameter, 5.26-metric-ton umbrella-like ”flex-fabric” heat shield.  Soon after capture into Mars orbit, the landing propulsion module would ignite its rocket motors to decelerate the propellant factory/ERV for reentry into the martian atmosphere

From the images I had assumed it was a solid heat shield with fold-out panels. After reading about DurAFRSI from Ames Research Center, I thought it was my wonderful idea to use the fabric from DurAFRSI as a parasol or "umbrella-like" heat shield. Once again I have re-invented the wheel. So again I return to Mars Direct. My mission plan is tweaked from Mars Direct. but if you can fit a 23-meter-diameter heat shield in an 8-meter diameter fairing, then what is stopping us?

Good point. I really think there are already several technical solutions to the problem of aerobraking the large mass needed for a crew module arriving at Mars.

   Bob Clark

NASA is studing this kind of umbrella like heat shield:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_eWC7OZx2E
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/vexag/Nov2012/p … cinski.pdf

I ask to the engineers of this forum if supersonic retropropulsion can be avoided with an umbrella shield large enough.

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