You are not logged in.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
Offline
Like button can go here
This is why NASA, SpaceX, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada need to get their rear ends in gear to ensure we have access to space. This system also clearly demonstrates the superiority of capsules versus large vehicles like the Space Shuttle or BFS for crew escape. Soyuz did exactly what it was designed to do and we're focusing on the accident details, rather than state funerals. In the final analysis, rocketry will always be a distinctly dangerous business.
Online
Like button can go here
I'm glad the abort system actually worked. There's no guarantees about that, you know. That being said, this incident points out the folly of only having one way to reach ISS. The longer that situation dragged on, the more likely a launch failure becomes.
Here's the abort story as delivered by AIAA's "Daily Launch" email newsletter:
Astronauts Safe After Soyuz Rocket Fails.
The Washington Post (10/11) reports that a Soyuz rocket “carrying an American and a Russian to the International Space Station failed on launch Thursday, forcing the astronaut and cosmonaut to careen back to Earth in a dramatic emergency landing.” US astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin “parachuted to the ground safely in their capsule after a booster on the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft failed, NASA and Russia’s space agency said.” Rescue crews met the two men “in remote Kazakhstan more than 200 miles from their launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.” Manned space launches are suspended pending an investigation. The incident was the first failure of a Soyuz on an ISS mission. According to a statement by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, “Shortly after launch, there was an anomaly with the booster and the launch ascent was aborted.” Bridenstine added that “Hague and Ovchinin are out of the capsule and are reported to be in good condition.” Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin “said he was forming a state commission to investigate what caused the failure,” while Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov pledged to share information from the investigation with the US.
xxx
We'll see what the real problem was, perhaps. Perhaps not so much. There's a kind of bureaucratic corruption that sets in after too long a time and too much growth, in any organization. We've already seen it in the drilled holes in that Soyuz capsule docked at ISS that caused the air leak. Sabotage? Or just incompetence? Who knows?
NASA is certainly not immune to such bureaucratic corruption. Or else it wouldn't have taken this many years to get the commercial crew program flying. And it is not flying yet. Even with one vehicle only a design change from a configuration already flying on the commercial cargo program. Ridiculous. What we have today is certainly NOT the "can-do" NASA of the 1960's.
And the Boeing of today is certainly not the Boeing that built the B-17, the B-29, the B-47, or the B-52. See this story from that same issue of "Daily Launch":
NASA IG: Boeing’s SLS Rocket Over Budget, Behind Schedule.
Reuters (10/10) reports that The Boeing Company’s “poor performance” in building a rocket for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) has “resulted in an $8.9 billion price tag that is double the initial budget and could further delay the launch, the U.S. space agency’s watchdog office said on Wednesday.” NASA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) said in an audit that “management, technical and infrastructure issues driven by Boeing’s poor performance” have led to delays and cost overruns. NASA spokeswoman Kathryn Hambleton confirmed that the agency is restructuring Boeing’s contract, but is planning on the current timetable of a test launch in mid-2020 with a crewed launch in 2022, adding that “there are still technical and schedule risks.” Boeing spokeswoman Patricia Soloveichik “said in an email that the audit did not accurately describe the current state of the program and the company had already implemented some of the watchdog’s recommendations.” Soloveichik also cited “internal NASA issues.”
The Washington Post (10/10) reports that NASA OIG “found that Boeing, the main contractor, has already spent $5.3 billion on the rocket program and is expected to burn through the remaining contract funds by early next year, three years ahead of time and without delivering a single rocket stage.” The report also cites production delays for the rocket, but in response, Boeing said that it has “restructured our leadership team to better align with current program challenges, and we are refining our approaches and tools to ensure a successful transition from development to production.” The IG charged that NASA “lacks visibility” into the costs of the program due to the fact that Boeing has combined the construction of both booster stages and the upper stage into one contract line number. As a result, the report said that NASA “is unable to determine the cost of a single core stage.” The OIG also found that Boeing “consistently underestimated the scope of the work to be performed” as well as the labor required to perform it. The Orlando (FL) Sentinel (10/10) reports that the report also cites NASA mismanagement of the contract and failure to properly oversee Boeing’s spending. As a result of “development delays,” the OIG concludes that “NASA will be unable to meet its [Exploration Mission-1] launch window currently scheduled between December 2019 and June 2020.” SPACE (10/10) reports that the OIG report makes seven recommendations to improve the “sustainability, accountability, and transparency” of core-stage and booster development.
xxx
That bureaucratic corruption rot does seem to be everywhere, does it not?
And by the way, the name "Soyuz" more properly applies to the capsule, not the rocket that launches it. The name of that rocket is more properly "R-7".
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-10-11 09:40:19)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
Offline
Like button can go here
This is why NASA, SpaceX, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada need to get their rear ends in gear to ensure we have access to space. This system also clearly demonstrates the superiority of capsules versus large vehicles like the Space Shuttle or BFS for crew escape. Soyuz did exactly what it was designed to do and we're focusing on the accident details, rather than state funerals. In the final analysis, rocketry will always be a distinctly dangerous business.
I will simply state that NASA need to pull their collective heads out of their arsses and allow SpaceX to fly the unmanned demonstration flight ASAP. This administrative delaying tactic in order to allow Boeing to be first is verging on criminal.
Offline
Like button can go here
Why wouldn't they underbid? When you underbid, you get the job and then government doubles or quadruples your payments. The government encourages this by always allowing contractors to go over budget.
Offline
Like button can go here
Belter: many of us here have repeatedly railed against "cost-plus" contracts, where the major component paid for is internal corporate auditing.
Offline
Like button can go here
I've never been much of a betting man, but my money is still on a simple human mistake. We're human and we make mistakes. As long as we're human, that's never going to change. The problem needs to be identified and corrected for the next launch. That's it. This is hardly the first launch to suffer a catastrophic failure, nor will it be the last. We're operating so close to the limit of what current technology can achieve that I think some believe that this endeavor is more routine than it actually is. Even Elon Musk said that before the first launch of Falcon Heavy. There's nothing routine about this. Every launch is a spectacular display of technology and coordination. What happens after you start the engines is a matter of how good the engineering work was and defect-free manufacturing, neither of which is a given. We should all be very thankful that the capsule did what it was engineered to do and carried our astronaut and cosmonaut back to Earth, in one piece.
Online
Like button can go here
If NASA today were anything at all like the "can-do" NASA of the 1960's, they would look at their three commercial crew candidates, realize (or admit) that crew Dragon could fly "right now", and move swiftly accelerate that one's three flight tests into immediate missions. That's the unmanned flight, the unmanned abort demo, and the manned flight test.
That could re-establish manned flight capability to ISS in weeks to a very few months, depending on whether they could talk Spacex into reassigning three Falcon-9's from the normal manifest to this end. Spacex has certainly demonstrated the launch rates needed, and the same Dragon could fly all three tests.
But my bet is that will not happen. Precisely because NASA today is nothing like NASA of the 1960's. Never could they embarrass Boeing, tsk, tsk!!
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-10-11 12:44:43)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
Offline
Like button can go here
The difference is that NASA of the 60s had one goal. Beat the Russians to the moon. At any cost, at any risk and with all due speed.
Now they are basically a science organization with dozens of fingers in every little area of space exploration, but no big single overarching goal. Which, actually, is a better thing. We're spending our money on learning things, not just throwing it on interplanetary vacations.
Offline
Like button can go here
If NASA today were anything at all like the "can-do" NASA of the 1960's, they would look at their three commercial crew candidates, realize (or admit) that crew Dragon could fly "right now", and move swiftly accelerate that one's three flight tests into immediate missions. That's the unmanned flight, the unmanned abort demo, and the manned flight test.
That could re-establish manned flight capability to ISS in weeks to a very few months, depending on whether they could talk Spacex into reassigning three Falcon-9's from the normal manifest to this end. Spacex has certainly demonstrated the launch rates needed, and the same Dragon could fly all three tests.
But my bet is that will not happen. Precisely because NASA today is nothing like NASA of the 1960's. Never could they embarrass Boeing, tsk, tsk!!
GW
I don't think there would be a problem, were NASA agree to use a "flight tested" booster, several of which are sitting on the ground at Vandenberg FB and KSC.
Offline
Like button can go here
"The difference is that NASA of the 60s had one goal. Beat the Russians to the moon. At any cost, at any risk and with all due speed. "
The differences (plural) are a lot more than just that. In the 1960's, there were no favored contractors, just a large competitive pool of contractors to select from. There was no micromanagement yet from a Congress that values porkbarrel over results. And the NASA organization itself was far, far smaller. Its internal culture was quite different.
That began to change right after Apollo was cancelled. As the pool of contractors shrank and began to become a small pool of favored corporate welfare clients, and as Congress began to idiotically-micromanage things, the space shuttle went from a two-stage airplane to the cluster that cost a $billion to launch each time, and killed two crews because of too many single-point failure modes. (That and ignorance combined with arrogance about solid rocket motor seals: no one at NASA had ever actually made a solid rocket themselves; still true today).
The agency itself had no real dramatic mission anymore after Apollo, and grew way too large trying to be everything to everybody. The bureaucratic rot had pretty well set in by 1980. And it really shows now.
Which is why they'd rather not do a fast test of crew Dragon and get to flying again, so as not to embarrass Boeing. Boeing owns too many in Congress. Available hardware notwithstanding. It's not about logic and common sense. It's about high-$ politics and corporate welfare.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-10-11 13:22:20)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
Offline
Like button can go here
What is imponderable here is whether the Russians have another Soyuz in the pipeline and close enough to launch that it could be used in a replacement role. I'm torn between having SpaceX become the "only game in town," versus an interminable delay in relieving the existing ISS crew. What is thrown into sharp focus is the lack of a backup plan by Roscosmos and NASA administrators. This was really inevitable.
Murphy strikes again!
Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2018-10-11 14:18:19)
Offline
Like button can go here
Indeed.
I think that is certainly one aspect of the problem: "goal diffusion". NASA now has too many goals, spreads itself too thin because it is in thrall to what is basically a science lobby, a manufacturers' lobby group (who like "new" projects rather than tried and tested rocketry because there's a lot more profit in it) and the pork barrel politicians.
I've nothing against science of course! I just think that getting to Mars and establishing a base there will revolutionise planetary science and making exploration of the solar system much, much easier. The NASA approach means decades of small ineffective amounts of cash spent on hundreds of projects.
I have argued previously (not that it's really my business as a UK citizen) that the US should split NASA into a Moon-Mars Exploration and Colonisation Agency and a Cosmological and Planetary Science Agency with roughly 50-50 funding. I think that would make for a much more effective overall effort. But we're past that now. Space X are going to revolutionise everything.
The difference is that NASA of the 60s had one goal. Beat the Russians to the moon. At any cost, at any risk and with all due speed.
Now they are basically a science organization with dozens of fingers in every little area of space exploration, but no big single overarching goal. Which, actually, is a better thing. We're spending our money on learning things, not just throwing it on interplanetary vacations.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
Offline
Like button can go here
Louis-
Since NASA has something like a $19.1 Billion annual budget, one would assume that they might actually accomplish something .
Unfortunately, recall a conversation that Admiral Yamamoto was having with his superiors at an Imperial Japanese Staff conference at the outset of W.W. II . When asked if the Navy could accomplish yet one more miraculous offensive task, he calmly took a glass of water--stated that this represents our strength--then poured it on the floor. Then pointed to the puddle and stated "As you can see--it only goes just so far." This little anecdote mirrors what NASA faces, given the myriad of internal factions, each with a pet project and associated staff. NASA is a tree that needs some serious pruning, and a hard headed, hard nosed engineer at the controls.
Indeed, I would have no problem if the agency were broken into 2 components as you've stated. But the real problem is overzealous congressmen and the jobs/pork issue. Too much "oversight" is sometimes worse than none at all.
Indeed.
I think that is certainly one aspect of the problem: "goal diffusion". NASA now has too many goals, spreads itself too thin because it is in thrall to what is basically a science lobby, a manufacturers' lobby group (who like "new" projects rather than tried and tested rocketry because there's a lot more profit in it) and the pork barrel politicians.
I've nothing against science of course! I just think that getting to Mars and establishing a base there will revolutionise planetary science and making exploration of the solar system much, much easier. The NASA approach means decades of small ineffective amounts of cash spent on hundreds of projects.
I have argued previously (not that it's really my business as a UK citizen) that the US should split NASA into a Moon-Mars Exploration and Colonisation Agency and a Cosmological and Planetary Science Agency with roughly 50-50 funding. I think that would make for a much more effective overall effort. But we're past that now. Space X are going to revolutionise everything.
Belter wrote:The difference is that NASA of the 60s had one goal. Beat the Russians to the moon. At any cost, at any risk and with all due speed.
Now they are basically a science organization with dozens of fingers in every little area of space exploration, but no big single overarching goal. Which, actually, is a better thing. We're spending our money on learning things, not just throwing it on interplanetary vacations.
Offline
Like button can go here
There is something else that NASA lost along the way I think... I was really impressed by testament of those involved that NASA once, back in the 60s, had a very strong free speech culture, where no one, even the lowliest engineer was, afraid to suggest an idea or voice a fear. The decay of that culture likely contributed to the Space Shuttle disasters and the present malaise.
Louis-
Since NASA has something like a $19.1 Billion annual budget, one would assume that they might actually accomplish something .
Unfortunately, recall a conversation that Admiral Yamamoto was having with his superiors at an Imperial Japanese Staff conference at the outset of W.W. II . When asked if the Navy could accomplish yet one more miraculous offensive task, he calmly took a glass of water--stated that this represents our strength--then poured it on the floor. Then pointed to the puddle and stated "As you can see--it only goes just so far." This little anecdote mirrors what NASA faces, given the myriad of internal factions, each with a pet project and associated staff. NASA is a tree that needs some serious pruning, and a hard headed, hard nosed engineer at the controls.
Indeed, I would have no problem if the agency were broken into 2 components as you've stated. But the real problem is overzealous congressmen and the jobs/pork issue. Too much "oversight" is sometimes worse than none at all.
louis wrote:Indeed.
I think that is certainly one aspect of the problem: "goal diffusion". NASA now has too many goals, spreads itself too thin because it is in thrall to what is basically a science lobby, a manufacturers' lobby group (who like "new" projects rather than tried and tested rocketry because there's a lot more profit in it) and the pork barrel politicians.
I've nothing against science of course! I just think that getting to Mars and establishing a base there will revolutionise planetary science and making exploration of the solar system much, much easier. The NASA approach means decades of small ineffective amounts of cash spent on hundreds of projects.
I have argued previously (not that it's really my business as a UK citizen) that the US should split NASA into a Moon-Mars Exploration and Colonisation Agency and a Cosmological and Planetary Science Agency with roughly 50-50 funding. I think that would make for a much more effective overall effort. But we're past that now. Space X are going to revolutionise everything.
Belter wrote:The difference is that NASA of the 60s had one goal. Beat the Russians to the moon. At any cost, at any risk and with all due speed.
Now they are basically a science organization with dozens of fingers in every little area of space exploration, but no big single overarching goal. Which, actually, is a better thing. We're spending our money on learning things, not just throwing it on interplanetary vacations.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
Offline
Like button can go here
They will get back to fixing what ever happened to the very stable ship that is and has been the work horse for Russia for many years.
Just think of the fallout if this was a 100 person BFR launch that blew up since we have not seen anything related to vehicle escape for the new rocket that space x is building. Even the dragon crew went through big changes to make it possible.
Offline
Like button can go here
SpaceNut,
There is no escape from BFS. It either works or you witness a brief free fall into the Atlantic or Pacific on live TV and that's that, much as it was for the Space Shuttle crews. The crew and passengers will most likely try to escape, just like the Challenger crew did, and it won't work.
Online
Like button can go here
Like Apollo as well...once you were clear of the launch pad. Space exploration like exploration of Earth, its oceans and its caves is a dangerous business. Let there be debate about the risk but let's not have a "no risk" strategy.
SpaceNut,
There is no escape from BFS. It either works or you witness a brief free fall into the Atlantic or Pacific on live TV and that's that, much as it was for the Space Shuttle crews. The crew and passengers will most likely try to escape, just like the Challenger crew did, and it won't work.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
Offline
Like button can go here
We should be glad I guess that Nasa is not requiring it for manned flight as it did for the Dragon crewed vehicle.
Its not risk adversion to make and take safety precautions and that is what we are doing with the radiation shelter, bringing and staging backups to critical systems....
Offline
Like button can go here
The BFS/BFR has lots of built-in redundancy w/r number of engines and able to achieve orbit with engine(s)-out. The type of failure seen in the Soyuz launch is highly improbable even in F9/FH launches.
Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2018-10-11 21:17:51)
Offline
Like button can go here
Next up is a vacant hotel circling the Earth in LEO call ISS if we can not get a ship that is stable to bring them up and that means all will need to leave the place on the docked soyuz capsules until there is the capablility to deliver men once more.
NASA and Roscosmos trying to avoid an empty Space Station
Following the failure of the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft to deliver Aleksey Nikolayevich Ovchinin and Nick Hague to the International Space Station last week, the orbital outpost is now left with two fewer crew members than planned. NASA now must assess their options for keeping the station occupied, pending Roscosmos’ updated launch schedule once the investigation into the Soyuz-FG failure has been completed.
Soyuz spacecraft have an on-orbit lifetime of approximately 200 days.
This lifespan is limited by the Hydrogen Peroxide used by the Descent Module’s RCS thrusters. Extended time on orbit means the Hydrogen Peroxide becomes decomposed into gaseous Oxygen and Hydrogen, which create bubbles within the liquid-fueled thrusters.
These thrusters are used to orient the spacecraft from module separation through reentry. If bubbles form in the liquid fuel, the thrusters can become unreliable, forcing the crew to re-enter on a risky ballistic trajectory instead of a controlled descent.
That is just one factor in the decision but consumables is the second...
A SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft designated SpX-16, launching aboard Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, is scheduled for November 27.
With less crew aboard the station needing consumables, in addition to the normal redundant amounts of supplies sent, these missions will likely not need to launch earlier than currently planned, even if the Progress supply mission is significantly delayed.
The primary focus for NASA in the coming weeks will be the safety of all crew members, whether they are currently in orbit or waiting to launch from the ground. Meanwhile, ground controllers and engineers will take on the difficult and important task of keeping the space station occupied so that the research conducted on the orbital laboratory can continue uninterrupted.
We have run low on food in the past when shuttle stopped flying but then the ESA and Japan picked up the load so as to keep the station occupied.
Offline
Like button can go here
Latest news reports say Roscosmos is blaming the stage collision on a bent sensor of some kind. They say it was bent during the assembly of the vehicle. Caused a strap-on to impact the second stage.
It's hard to say for sure, but one report had it another capsule was found with a leak during manufacture. Not sure at all whether this is another one, or the one with the hole drilled in it docked at ISS.
Could be bad quality, could be sabotage. Hard to say.
GW
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
Offline
Like button can go here
Just could be a little of both....So long as there is no deaths we will still keep taking the ride until we have either the Space X capsule or the Boeing Starliner and maybe in the wings a Seira .....
Offline
Like button can go here
It's far more probable that simple human mistakes, combined with covering up those mistakes to avoid being fired, contributed to the problems. I think a conspiracy to kill your own people, after spending tens of millions of dollars to get them to where they're going, is a bit of a stretch. The only thing known to man to be truly infinite is human stupidity.
Online
Like button can go here
A fresh cargo ship is on its way hopefully with no extra holes and the next crew launch will be next month.
Alexander Gerst, Sergey Prokopyev and Serena Auñón-Chancellor will prepare the station for the arrival of three new crew members — Oleg Kononenko, Canadian flight engineer David Saint-Jacques and NASA astronaut Anne McClain.
They are scheduled for launch from Baikonur aboard the Soyuz MS-11/57S spacecraft on Dec. 3.
Offline
Like button can go here