SLS and what asteriod will we go to

SpaceNut · 2016-02-21 17:18:48

Nasa appears to be wanting to do some sort of demostrator scouting mission prior to going for it...to bring back a boulder for study.

With an already tight budget is that going to happen.... not ....other than getting a tpographical map of the asteriod in order to select the safe boulder to take away from it what else is it good for....

SpaceNut · 2016-02-25 20:18:25

SSL TO PROVIDE DESIGN WORK FOR NASA JPL ASTEROID MISSION

The goal of the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM) is to demonstrate the use of a solar electric propulsion based spacecraft to move and maneuver large payloads, including a boulder of up to 20 tons, as a proving ground for future human spaceflight to Mars.
SSL is one of four companies that received contracts from JPL for design studies for the spacecraft for this mission.

No meantion of the value for the contract or what must be produced for the funds.....

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-02-28 09:34:18

Is it really necessary to send an empty Orion capsule out past the Moon to see if it works? Seems like a waste of a booster to me!

GW Johnson · 2016-02-28 11:53:10

It's called a flight test. It's something you do before you let men ride the thing.

GW

RobertDyck · 2016-02-28 12:18:19

Apollo 8 was supposed to be an unmanned test. The same flight profile. Equatorial around the Moon, not polar, and I think it was originally going to be a free return trajectory, so just loop around the Moon and come back. But the Russia Zond-5 mission did the same with a Soyuz spacecraft carrying 2 tortoises, just 3 months before Apollo 8. Russia was ready to send a Soyuz LK-1 on a fly-by around the Moon. After Zond-5, that was their next one. So NASA asked for volunteers to ride Apollo 8. It was highly risky. Apollo 9 was a test in high Earth orbit: CSM and LM together. Apollo 10 was supposed to be the first human flight to lunar orbit. And no LM was ready for Apollo 8, so if an Apollo 13 style accident happened, they would have died. Today there's no need for that sort of risk. So EM-1 will be unmanned, EM-2 will have crew.

That said, I would like to see EM-1 (unmanned) November of this year, and EM-2 November 2018. They're currently planning EM-1 for November 2018, and EM-2 for 2021–2023.

A new president will be elected this November, sworn in end of January 2017. He/she will have at most 8 years. So yet another president will be sworn-in January 2025. Missions don't last through multiple presidential mandates. Apollo only lasted because LBJ was JFK's vice president. Nixon cancelled Apollo. George H. W. Bush started SEI, which got killed real fast. Clinton started VentureStar, which George W. killed. George W. started Constellation, which Obama killed. Congress tried to revive Constellation, Obama changed it to Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM). Expect the next president will kill ARM. I'm worried if EM-1 is not completed this year, it will be killed. Then what happens to SLS?

kbd512 · 2016-02-28 16:35:39

RobertDyck wrote:

Apollo 8 was supposed to be an unmanned test. The same flight profile. Equatorial around the Moon, not polar, and I think it was originally going to be a free return trajectory, so just loop around the Moon and come back. But the Russia Zond-5 mission did the same with a Soyuz spacecraft carrying 2 tortoises, just 3 months before Apollo 8. Russia was ready to send a Soyuz LK-1 on a fly-by around the Moon. After Zond-5, that was their next one. So NASA asked for volunteers to ride Apollo 8. It was highly risky. Apollo 9 was a test in high Earth orbit: CSM and LM together. Apollo 10 was supposed to be the first human flight to lunar orbit. And no LM was ready for Apollo 8, so if an Apollo 13 style accident happened, they would have died. Today there's no need for that sort of risk. So EM-1 will be unmanned, EM-2 will have crew.

If NASA is still specifying power generation technologies for capsule systems that have Apollo era technical problems, there are larger issues to address.

RobertDyck wrote:

That said, I would like to see EM-1 (unmanned) November of this year, and EM-2 November 2018. They're currently planning EM-1 for November 2018, and EM-2 for 2021–2023.

There is not even the possibility of launching EM-1 this year. President Obama is also still trying to kill the program. For once, I agree with the man.

RobertDyck wrote:

A new president will be elected this November, sworn in end of January 2017. He/she will have at most 8 years. So yet another president will be sworn-in January 2025. Missions don't last through multiple presidential mandates. Apollo only lasted because LBJ was JFK's vice president. Nixon cancelled Apollo. George H. W. Bush started SEI, which got killed real fast. Clinton started VentureStar, which George W. killed. George W. started Constellation, which Obama killed. Congress tried to revive Constellation, Obama changed it to Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM). Expect the next president will kill ARM. I'm worried if EM-1 is not completed this year, it will be killed. Then what happens to SLS?

There is no Orion / SLS Mars exploration program that is remotely feasible in the next decade, absent a budget increase that NASA will not receive.

I firmly believe that the STS program must be the last government-manipulated manned spacecraft and launch vehicle program in order for NASA to move forward with human space exploration missions. Transfer the technologies from STS and Orion to CST-100, Dragon, and Dream Chaser.

From now on, NASA and the US military must use affordable spacecraft and launch vehicles from service providers, rather than being permitted to come up with ridiculous requirements fulfilled on cost plus contracts that don't incentivize performance and timeliness. Special technologies for exploration or military missions can be integrated as required. Orion is not considerably more advanced than CST-100 or Dragon or Dream Chaser. Orion is just ridiculously heavy and expensive.

With respect to SLS, Falcon and Vulcan are far more affordable and practical than SLS will ever be. It's not practical to deliver an entire exploration class mission architecture with a single launch and it never will be. ISS wasn't built with a single launch. The insane cost was a result of using insanely costly launch vehicles, namely STS, and SLS continues that tradition.

Apart from purchase of launch services, the only launch vehicle funding NASA should be permitted to spend should be propellant cross-feed and first stage recovery for Falcon and Vulcan. The combination of the availability of those two man-rated heavy lift vehicles will enable any reasonable exploration missions within the inner solar system.

Whereupon those two recommendations (purchase of COTS capsules and launch vehicles) are implemented and adhered to, the funding provided to NASA will be devoted to payload and technology development for exploration.

RobertDyck · 2016-02-28 17:51:22

NASA doesn't have serious plans to go to Mars. They keep playing around, but but nothing serious. However, they can do it. If you still don't understand that they could go within 8 years of making the decision to do so, then I recommend you read the book "The Case for Mars".

As for private space, they're doing great wonderful things. They could greatly help. However, they won't be ready to do it on their own for decades either.

kbd512 · 2016-02-28 21:38:33

RobertDyck wrote:

NASA doesn't have serious plans to go to Mars. They keep playing around, but but nothing serious. However, they can do it. If you still don't understand that they could go within 8 years of making the decision to do so, then I recommend you read the book "The Case for Mars".
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vYKSco28L._AC_UL115_.jpg

I already know what the case for going to Mars is. It's the first planet to explore that's well within our technological capabilities and could reasonably be expected to support human life if we make use of the resources that are there.

RobertDyck wrote:

As for private space, they're doing great wonderful things. They could greatly help. However, they won't be ready to do it on their own for decades either.

I don't want to do away with government-sponsored space exploration and I don't think corporations would develop the technology required to go to Mars, absent government-sponsored and funded technology development programs.

However, it's also quite apparent that corporations can do some things far faster and cheaper than governments, especially when there are no inane requirements to service or political games to play.

I firmly believe that corporations can develop capsules and rockets with a modicum of government funding. We have two commercially developed capsules flying humans within the next two years and Dream Chaser will follow shortly thereafter. I'd not be the least bit surprise if all three were flying humans before Orion flies with humans for the first time.

Falcon Heavy is scheduled to launch for the first time this year. By the time we're ready to go to Mars, Vulcan will also be available. With two affordable heavy lift rockets available at commodity launch services pricing, there's plenty of funding for payload development.

NASA and Congress need to pick a program to kill. The choices are Orion or SLS. Personally, I'd rather complete SLS development through its first flight and then put further flights on hold until development of an exploration class upper stage has been completed. By the time NASA has developed a payload that requires a super heavy lift rocket, vehicle development will have been completed. In the interim, funding needs to be devoted to payloads.

ESA and ROSCOSMOS both want to go to the moon. Orion was purpose-built for that mission. Hand off development to them after EM-1.

Terraformer · 2016-02-29 05:19:00

Could we fly Dragon around Luna? It's designed to return from Mars, after all. How soon could an unmanned test be done? How big would a service module have to be for a manned flyby?

I'd really like to see a manned Lunar mission in the next few years...

Tom Kalbfus · 2016-02-29 07:44:43

GW Johnson wrote:

It's called a flight test. It's something you do before you let men ride the thing.
GW

What does it test?
I don't think we need to send the capsule out past the Moon to test its life support system, and the capsule is empty, not even a chimpanzee or a dog! Big rockets are expensive, maybe it could be tested by sending another probe to Mars for example, and if the rocket fails, we just write it off.

RobertDyck · 2016-02-29 10:08:30

Falcon Heavy could launch Dragon on a flyby past the Moon. It would have to be a free return trajectory. Dragon doesn't have enough propellant to enter lunar orbit, certainly not enough to leave. Dragon was originally designed by SpaceX for their bid for CEV. It had a service module, to enter lunar orbit today and return it would need a service module to replace its trunk. But they could do a free return flyby as it is now.

As for testing: say that to the crew of Apollo 13. Turns out NASA does have a good idea, not what media speculated at the time. (click image for NASA's description) But...

Terraformer · 2016-02-29 12:36:12

Well that's good. Maybe we can at least have a crewed flyby to commemorate Apollo 11, though of course a landing would be better...

SpaceNut · 2016-03-20 20:51:10

NASA into deep planning for Asteroid Redirect Mission

Nonetheless, NASA is working with four current Candidate Parent Asteroids for ARM, including Itokawa, Bennu, 2008 EV5, and 1999 JU3.

NASA has completed a review of its upcoming, first-of-its-kind Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) flight. ARM, scheduled to launch in 2021, will see the agency attempt to retrieve a boulder from the surface of a Near Earth Asteroid, place that boulder into lunar orbit, and test a potential planetary defense capability.

Not happening on SLS as its not ready....

According to the ARM presentation, this flight is targeted for 2026 – placing it notionally as the EM-5 mission (based on EM-2 in 2023 and a once-per-year flight rate of Orion thereafter) – and would be a 24.3 day, 2-person crewed mission launched aboard an Orion vehicle augmented with an ARCM mission kit.

Not unless nasa can correct the once a year flight rate which would mean a dramatic lowering of its cost per mission flight using its hardware.....

SpaceNut · 2017-01-23 22:56:33

I have dug out this old topic as it relates to the current up roar for words to be sadi for and against the use of the SLS....

Oldfart1939 · 2017-01-24 10:15:19

Near as I can figure--the SLS is simply a reiteration of the defunct Ares V heavy lift version in the Constellation Project. I have no idea how much $$$ has been spent on this white elephant. A not-heavy-enough Heavy lifter. It's powerful, but not enough to do anything other than a possible Apollo Redux. Using it for some deep space, outer solar system probes would make more sense than the asteroid redirect. Very expensive science, though. Maybe NASA could undertake a Mars landing with a Kilowatt range nuclear reactor in support of a SpaceX mission? That way it would be a one-way trip, and the $$$ would then vanish forever?

SpaceNut · 2017-01-24 20:34:34

More or less correct after much testing and redevelopement of engines which are not being used for the SLS....
They have not even spent a dollar on the actual boulder retrieval unit for the mission and still are not on time for even the first EM-1 test.....
It should have been easy to take the SLS engines, stick them under the New first stage with the same ATK strap on SRB's and make a 100 ton to orbit expendable rocket in less than 4 years from when the last shuttle few in 2010....as best that I can figure....

Instead 2004 through 2010 was wasted on pork jobs replacements for shuttles standing army.... Then when it looked like there would be no Saturn V redux Congress steps in to create this monster which has been nothing but a money pit.....
Nasa not only needs to make it work but the contractors need to make many copies very quickly in order such that America can believe that Nasa can still do space flight.....

Start with a billion for a dragon to lunar falcon heavy plus parts landing and then I woould Personally like Nasa to give 2 billion to Musk and say We want to be on Mars by 2024.....4 crew down and back for a full martian cycle....

SpaceNut · 2017-07-08 19:21:14

So now we are back to asteriod deflection to avoid the big one... "Since one of the biggest asteroids to strike Earth nearly 65 million years ago, our planet has been unarmed -- until now."
How NASA plans to knock asteroids heading toward Earth off course

NASA plans on testing the DART system on the moon of the asteroid Didymos. The satellite launches into space in 2020 with plans for impact in 2022.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-07-09 07:30:44

NASA continues to select diversionary projects that have little to do with manned spaceflight, and picks very long term but potentially expensive avenues that may provide for ongoing employment of engineers and scientists.

I agree that some planning should be undertaken for asteroid deflection. One simply needs to read Entering Space by Zubrin and realize what a massive undertaking such a project could become, and it's far beyond NASA's ability to fund. If we are indeed worried about planetary defense, it needs to be undertaken by either a dedicated agency of one consisting of all nations of the world.

NASA continues to get itself spread out thinner than a gallon of $2 paint. This is another grasping at straws to find an application for the Great White Elephant SLS.

GW Johnson · 2017-07-09 20:46:44

The new NASA asteroid deflection mission targeting Didymos is actually a good thing to be doing, but far from a real protection capability. Things relative to protecting Earth from asteroids really haven't changed since I went to the IAA conference on this in Granada back in April 2009.

The NASA mission is to try an impactor to see what effect it has. That effect is a function of the "splash" intensity of spalled-off material (in turn a function of the object's composition and cohesiveness, something still unknown to us), and is further fundamentally limited by disruption of the struck body. Disruption is a bad thing!!! The popular movies are very, very, very wrong about this.

Dry flying gravel piles disrupt very, very easily. Gravel banks cohesive because of ice content are much harder to disrupt. Solid rocks are very difficult to disrupt, but are actually very rare. Solid metallic objects resist disruption the most, but are the rarest of all. Impactors and nuclear explosives both impart very disruptive forces on these objects. The larger disruption risk is nuclear explosives, by many orders of magnitude.

Impactors are not the only option. Most people know about nuclear explosives, but not how they are really used. There is no blast wave in the vacuum of space. There is only a super-brilliant light that vaporizes and spalls whatever it shines upon.

No one is going to land on one of these bodies, drill a well, and put a nuke in that well. That's very, very, very wrong movie fiction.

Such charges are exploded adjacent to the asteroid, to create massive vaporization and spalling at the illumination point. The jet reaction of that spall/vaporization event is what adjusts the speed of the asteroid. The amount you get varies with composition and cohesiveness of the body (still unknown to us). Disruption is a considerable risk, because the effects are so very large with a nuke.

The third and final option is the "gravity tractor". This is mutual attraction with a large spacecraft, which station-keeps with active thrust. That minute pull over long periods of time adjusts the speed of the asteroid. That requires years of advance warning, and years of station-keeping to have its effect. But it pretty well eliminates the disruption risk, even with a dry gravel bank object. And it is precisely known, being independent of composition and cohesiveness. It does require ion propulsion techniques.

When I went to Granada, my paper offered electrostatic attraction as an upgrade to the gravity tractor. Much less is known about how to go about doing this, and how much effect you can really expect, but it does look theoretically attractive.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-07-09 20:50:55)

Oldfart1939 · 2017-07-10 07:17:26

In my mind, this is another diversion and expansion of NASA's brief. Maybe the fact that it's a national (World) defense issue, the Air Force should be doing the work? NASA is getting $19.1 billion for ALL it's projects, and adding another potentially huge one means that NOTHING ever gets done. I'm making these statements based--not on scientific merit--but economic realities.

GW Johnson · 2017-07-10 13:39:03

I don't know what agency should be in charge of asteroid protection.

But the first thing to do is detection, and it's not expensive. B612 Foundation has an infrared detection satellite named Sentinel designed and partly built. 2 or 3 of these orbiting the sun near Venus's orbit looking outward, can "put it over the top" finding all the threats down to only city-buster size, maybe even smaller. (Ground based studies have found only the big extinction event-sized threats.) Can be done for well under $1B, essentially "small change".

We'll need to visit a bunch of these asteroid things with probes to better understand the great spectrum of composition and cohesiveness. Otherwise, the only way to avoid the "shotgun blast" disruption risk is to detect them years in advance and use the gravity tractor. Short-warning events will require the impactor or nuke techniques, and will inherently run the disruption risk until we very much better understand these bodies.

But if we have good detection capability, it is far less likely we have to take the disruption risk. So, the asteroid-visiting program need not be rushed, or too expensive in any given year. And, as I pointed out, good detection is available quickly and cheaply.

It is really hard to argue with saving the planet from a severe impact's destruction. That makes a very good reason to have a multi-faceted space program, including a manned flight program. There are things men can do in-situ that no imaginable robot or tele-operated device ever can.

The ship that can take men to asteroids can take men to Mars. It's the very basic same orbit-to-orbit transport, with the same life support, same artificial gravity, and the same radiation protection. Might need more or less propellant tankage for this or that mission, but so what? Especially if you make it modular. For Mars, you add a lander. For asteroids, you don't need it.

And you need not wait for a giant rocket to do this, because such a transport is assembled from modules in LEO. It's going to be too damned big to launch in one piece. Might as well face that, up front, and quit doing pork barrel politics instead of a real space program.

Ultimately, it's all the same manned space flight program.

GW

SpaceNut · 2017-07-10 19:22:04

Sounds like the B612 Foundation infrared detection satellite named Sentinel being placed inside of the Earth venus plane orbiting the sun looking outward would be a where and what I would have done with the satelite but I would have also looked above and below the plane as well since they can cross and still hit us.
Which is sort of why we are looking for the planet 9 as a result of the inclined to plane orbits of the oort cloud objects....
The planetary defense I did start a topic in politics The high ground control to space as it references the military... as that would be a hot button in whom should be in charge of planetary defense.

Oldfart1939 · 2017-07-10 20:54:01

SpaceNut wrote:

Sounds like the B612 Foundation infrared detection satellite named Sentinel being placed inside of the Earth venus plane orbiting the sun looking outward would be a where and what I would have done with the satelite but I would have also looked above and below the plane as well since they can cross and still hit us.
Which is sort of why we are looking for the planet 9 as a result of the inclined to plane orbits of the oort cloud objects....
The planetary defense I did start a topic in politics The high ground control to space as it references the military... as that would be a hot button in whom should be in charge of planetary defense.

In post #95 above, I suggested the Air Force be given this mission. Then the deep pockets of the National Defense budget could foot some (most?) of the bill

GW Johnson · 2017-07-10 22:31:56

Most of the NEO's are out of the ecliptic plane to one or another significant degree. I would assume Sentinel is equipped to handle that, one way or another. But I know no details. Contact B612 Foundation to find out. It's nothing but a matter of pointing versus field-of-view for the detector instrument.

Getting started with a small fleet of Sentinels is not an expensive item. Experimenting with a gravity tractor spacecraft might be. I don't think B612 would care who funds their detection satellites. But USAF would consider the gravity tractor experiments "small change" compared to what NASA might fund. In that sense, USAF responsibility for asteroid defense might make a better choice, IFF you can get them to accept the mission at all.

Ultimately, someone will have to fund a bunch of unmanned probes and few manned trips to asteroids for the purpose of characterizing the spectrum of composition and cohesiveness. Having that settled makes the last-ditch impactor and nuke designs far more reliable and feasible. We have to include comets with the asteroids, since it is the comets that are more likely to be a last-ditch short warning scenario.

Personally, I think there's no such thing as "comets" distinct from "asteroids". There's only a spectrum of of ice content in otherwise "loose flying gravel bank" objects.

It really is that easy. And that hard.

IFF means "if and only if".

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2017-07-10 22:35:58)

SpaceNut · 2017-07-11 19:11:45

The B612 sentinal topic http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6821 and it was last posted in 2 years ago...

https://b612foundation.org/sentinel/

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#76 2016-02-21 17:18:48

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

#77 2016-02-25 20:18:25

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

#78 2016-02-28 09:34:18

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

#79 2016-02-28 11:53:10

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

#80 2016-02-28 12:18:19

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#81 2016-02-28 16:35:39

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

#82 2016-02-28 17:51:22

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#83 2016-02-28 21:38:33

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#84 2016-02-29 05:19:00

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#85 2016-02-29 07:44:43

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#86 2016-02-29 10:08:30

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

#87 2016-02-29 12:36:12

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

#88 2016-03-20 20:51:10

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

#89 2017-01-23 22:56:33

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#90 2017-01-24 10:15:19

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

#91 2017-01-24 20:34:34

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

#92 2017-07-08 19:21:14

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

#93 2017-07-09 07:30:44

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

#94 2017-07-09 20:46:44

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

#95 2017-07-10 07:17:26

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#96 2017-07-10 13:39:03

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#97 2017-07-10 19:22:04

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#98 2017-07-10 20:54:01

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#99 2017-07-10 22:31:56

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

#100 2017-07-11 19:11:45

Re: SLS and what asteriod will we go to

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