Orion (CEV / SM) - status

gaetanomarano · 2007-05-28 08:14:17

...NASA have modified Lockheed's contract extending the design work until the end of 2013...

the news say that NASA extended the Lockheed's contract "two years" more than the past design end in 2012, then the new design end should be (at least) in (2012+2) 2014 (and this is an optimistic date since it doesn't include any further delay) ...how can the Orion fly in 2013 if it will be ready in 2014?
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cIclops · 2007-05-28 09:05:18

Here is the NASA press release

This contract modification, in the amount of $385 million, brings the total value to approximately $4.3 billion and adjusts the development period of performance through December 2013.

Note the word development. Design work will also continue even after Orion is operational, they will futz about with it as problems are found and corrected, requirements are added and optimizations are made.

gaetanomarano · 2007-05-28 10:26:37

Here is the NASA press release
This contract modification, in the amount of $385 million, brings the total value to approximately $4.3 billion and adjusts the development period of performance through December 2013.
Note the word development. Design work will also continue even after Orion is operational, they will futz about with it as problems are found and corrected, requirements are added and optimizations are made.

I don't see any difference with my posts ...the Orion development (with four test-capsules built) will end in December 2013 (+delays) a couple of (unmanned) test-flights will happen in 2014 (+delays) and the first manned flight will happen in 2015 (+delays)

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cIclops · 2007-05-28 11:32:04

There's nothing in the modified contract that stops Orion being ready by 2013. The contract just pays Lockheed for development work until Dec 2013. (I think NASA have done this in case they don't get any more money and Orion has to be delayed). The only constraint right now is money. If there is more money for exploration, NASA have said officially they can have Orion operational in 2013.

gaetanomarano · 2007-05-28 16:08:41

There's nothing in the modified contract that stops Orion being ready by 2013.

but the NEW vehicle can't be launched with astronauts without (at least) a couple of unmanned test flights in 2014
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neviden · 2007-05-29 02:30:10

(DOZENS billion$$$ LOST for NOTHING)

The reality is, CEV could be much smaller and it would still work. It would be used only for a few days to transfer crews from Earth to LEO, anyway. Apollo sized would be big enough. But, that would mean that it could fly on an existing rocket. Why have two rockets, when you can have three for twice the price?

It's not lost for NOTHING as far as NASA is concerned. It gets NASA “something” to do (Ares I) with a promise to do “something else” (Ares V) after that. That money pays for everybody at NASA, and that is good enough for them. Rational Space exploration? At NASA? You got to be kidding me.. They get their 15 B$ to spend it “on space” with no expectation for any return for that money. It’s a sweet deal for NASA. Why change anything?

GCNRevenger · 2007-05-29 07:15:46

Return? Its never been about a financial "return" on investment, thats not what NASA exists for. How can you put a price tag on scientific discovery, exploration, precursors to colonization?

Making Orion smaller makes no sense, we will likely need a six-seat capsule for ISS crew escape duty that we're obligated to provide and for the Mars return vehicle sometime down the line. A larger capsule will make light cargo lift/return from the ISS much more practical since it can hold a lot more volume, and a bigger capsule makes asteroid missions much easier on the crew. We might even want to increase a Lunar base crew from four to six some time.

Switching to a smaller four-seat Orion will make the present weight margin issues go away, yes, but this is really unnecessary. The present Orion design is already within half a ton of the projected payload of the vehicle with safety margin, it should not be a problem by the time the design freeze rolls around. After all, the Apollo LM had the same problem back in the Apollo days, and it worked out.

6-man Orion will also cost about the same to launch as 4-man Orion, so it really won't save much money. It will likely still ride on Ares-I thanks to its safety and commonality with Ares-V, and will still use the J-2 and five-segment SRB since it would be hard to fit multiple RL-10's with their big efficient bell nozzles and keeping the four-segment booster in service would be an unnecessary expense.

And alternative rockets? So long as Orion carries fuel to execute the TEI burn to return to Earth from Moon/asteroids, Orion is too heavy to ride on any of the "medium" EELVs, at least not without a dangerous number of the cheap little plastic mini-SRBs. Delta-IV is probably out of the running entirely due to thrust/weight problems, and Atlas-V would require radical modification (new tanks upper and lower, new upper stage, second first stage engine) to lift a somewhat lighter Orion without boosters. And, because the first stage is liquid fueled, there is about a 2-3X higher risk of death versus the safer Ares-I.

Lastly, again, Ares-I and Ares-V are not truly separate projects, the Ares-I will develop all the major hardware for Ares-V except the structure/tanks and the modified RS-68. Similar boosters, upper stage engines, and avionics. Every major development item deleted from Ares-I is another item that must be added to Ares-V.

cIclops · 2007-05-29 11:32:47

So long as Orion carries fuel to execute the TEI burn to return to Earth from Moon/asteroids, Orion is too heavy to ride on any of the "medium" EELVs, at least not without a dangerous number of the cheap little plastic mini-SRBs. Delta-IV is probably out of the running entirely due to thrust/weight problems, and Atlas-V would require radical modification (new tanks upper and lower, new upper stage, second first stage engine) to lift a somewhat lighter Orion without boosters. And, because the first stage is liquid fueled, there is about a 2-3X higher risk of death versus the safer Ares-I.

Orion doesn't need to carry much fuel at all to reach the ISS or dock with the EDS in LEO. That would reduce the GLOW by several tons (SM fuel was approximately 8mT of the 28 mT total mass of Orion as reported in Jan 2007). Yes Orion currently needs hypergolics for TEI, but for asteroid missions much less delta-v is needed compared with return from LLO.

Such extensive modifications to the Atlas V effectively make it a new vehicle, and it loses the advantage of its so far successful (9/9) flight history.

gaetanomarano · 2007-05-29 12:08:29

The reality is, CEV could be much smaller and it would still work. It would be used only for a few days to transfer crews from Earth to LEO, anyway. Apollo sized would be big enough. But, that would mean that it could fly on an existing rocket. Why have two rockets, when you can have three for twice the price?

the Delta IV Heavy can launch a 4.5 m. Orion and a Delta IV Medium 5,4 can launch a 4 m. capsule (both with a smaller SM and LAS, of course)
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GCNRevenger · 2007-05-29 13:01:45

Delta probably can't lift a 20MT Mini-Orion without three cores, and thats not going to work. Also, those little plastic boosters are hazardous and should be avoided. You could slap 6-9 of them on Delta and that might have just enough payload, but that would be cutting it awfully close.

neviden · 2007-05-29 19:38:03

Return? Its never been about a financial "return" on investment, thats not what NASA exists for. How can you put a price tag on scientific discovery, exploration, precursors to colonization?

That is the problem with NASA. You CAN put the price tag on everything.. I even know how much it is: 15 billion $ per year. Why would you need precursors to colonization if nobody is developing technologies to actually do any colonization? What, 50 years of “precursor flights” are not enough? Few people on Mars that will run on their treadmills will be a colony? Why do you need a colony? Because we want to become “space fearing civilization”? You think DRM III will enable Mars colonization?

Ok, building controlled explosion (rockets) is hard, but what NASA is doing is just plain stupid. Billions to do what.. put few people on Moon, so they can then spend more billions to put few people on Mars. What will they show after all those billions are spent? Flags and Photos?

Nobody at NASA cares if Orion costs 100 million or 500 million. As long as they get their 15 billion $ to spend on salaries doing “something”, they don’t care. They don’t care about “colonization” or any such thing. You might care, some engineers might care, astronauts might care, but NASA doesn’t care, since they don’t have to present any kind of a “return” on the investment. Technology that NASA uses might be cool, but what they do with it is a disaster.. if they get their 15 billion, they might at least use it sensibly..

Do you want to know what Orion should look like? Take a look at 20 million $ per seat Soyuz for some ideas. You need 6 people? Send two.

GCNRevenger · 2007-05-30 20:35:59

Nonsense

The ~$10Bn/year budget for spaceflight is how much the government is willing to allot to the space program, but again no fiscal return is expected. This money is invested for another purpose.

As for colonization, this is a chicken-vs-egg problem, and is really rather simple: if you don't have to bring landing/ascent fuel, water/oxygen/power, nor perhaps housing/misc equipment from Earth, then costs a whole lot less to start a colony does it not? And besides the logistical, the technology development "incubator" of a Mars base where techniques can be tested and refined will greatly lower the risk of starting a colony. These are thing that NASA can and should do, and is entirely possible to do with the DRM-III mission plan within budget. Enable colonization? Probably not, but it does reduce the cost and risk of that first step beyond a little research base by an order of magnitude.

And thats worth it

but what NASA is doing is just plain stupid

No, its not, because we are going to stay this time. Lunar base, Mars base etc etc.

You might care, some engineers might care, astronauts might care, but NASA doesn’t care

You make it sound like NASA exists as some separate cognitive entity, which is not true. NASA is an arm of the federal government, and so if the public were really against NASA then NASA would cease to exist. The public has at least tacit support for the existence of NASA and manned spaceflight, and at present with the technologies available this is the mission that makes the most for our money.

Because conventional multistage ballistic rockets made with high-performance materials are the only really sane means of low-volume space travel at the moment, this is what we are going to use.

Do you want to know what Orion should look like? Take a look at 20 million $ per seat Soyuz for some ideas. You need 6 people? Send two.

I'm so sick of this "oh but Soyuz only costs" stupidity. Soyuz only costs $20-odd million because the broke ex-Communist factory workers are willing to build Soyuz rockets for pennies on the dollar of American engineers. If you paid the people that make Soyuz an American wage, they'd cost five times that easily. ~200M for a pair of Soyuz versus ~$300M for Orion with TEI ability, the difference in price would be trivial if not Orion coming out slightly ahead.

The religiously chanted mantra about how wonderful Russian stuff is, how much better it is, that NASA is so stupid for overpaying so much is a load of horse hockey. The only reason that their price tag is so low is because the Russian rocket builders are second-world at best and are willing to work for far far less. It does not mean that their rockets are better.

cIclops · 2007-05-30 23:36:35

Do you want to know what Orion should look like? Take a look at 20 million $ per seat Soyuz for some ideas. You need 6 people? Send two.
I'm so sick of this "oh but Soyuz only costs" stupidity. Soyuz only costs $20-odd million because the broke ex-Communist factory workers are willing to build Soyuz rockets for pennies on the dollar of American engineers. If you paid the people that make Soyuz an American wage, they'd cost five times that easily. ~200M for a pair of Soyuz versus ~$300M for Orion with TEI ability, the difference in price would be trivial if not Orion coming out slightly ahead.

Futhermore just because RKA charge about $20 million to "space participants" doesn't mean that is the true cost. Recently NASA signed a $719 million contract with RKA for 15 crew seats and cargo services. According to Wikipedia each return flight will cost $42 million. Even this is probably not the true cost as RKA are far less transparent in their accounting than NASA. Their internal costs are all in rubles that are not simply equivalent to the market value in US dollars.

noosfractal · 2007-05-31 00:31:28

As for colonization, this is a chicken-vs-egg problem, and is really rather simple: if you don't have to bring landing/ascent fuel, water/oxygen/power, nor perhaps housing/misc equipment from Earth, then costs a whole lot less to start a colony does it not? And besides the logistical, the technology development "incubator" of a Mars base where techniques can be tested and refined will greatly lower the risk of starting a colony. These are thing that NASA can and should do, and is entirely possible to do with the DRM-III mission plan within budget. Enable colonization? Probably not, but it does reduce the cost and risk of that first step beyond a little research base by an order of magnitude.
And thats worth it

This is a really important point. Even a successful flag & footprints mission evaporates risk like fog in full sunlight. Right now naysayers can raise ridiculous possibilities. "But how can you know their bones won't turn to jello?" Afterwards, risk discussions can be brought down to Earth ... so to speak

neviden · 2007-05-31 05:16:09

As for colonization, this is a chicken-vs-egg problem, and is really rather simple: if you don't have to bring landing/ascent fuel, water/oxygen/power, nor perhaps housing/misc equipment from Earth, then costs a whole lot less to start a colony does it not? And besides the logistical, the technology development "incubator" of a Mars base where techniques can be tested and refined will greatly lower the risk of starting a colony. These are thing that NASA can and should do, and is entirely possible to do with the DRM-III mission plan within budget.

That is my point. NASA should do this. But will it? Do you see anything reusable in the curent NASA plans? Everything is done Apollo style. Burn it and dump it.

Enable colonization? Probably not, but it does reduce the cost and risk of that first step beyond a little research base by an order of magnitude.
And thats worth it

Yes, but you then have to develop whole new reusable systems to replace "we just built it few years ago" expendable system. Mars is 20 years away. Why not go for reusable system. Make it limited at first, but have it designed to be reusable.

but what NASA is doing is just plain stupid
No, its not, because we are going to stay this time. Lunar base, Mars base etc etc.

When I look a how the "LEO base" (ISS) was handled I am not too optimistic about that.

You make it sound like NASA exists as some separate cognitive entity, which is not true. NASA is an arm of the federal government, and so if the public were really against NASA then NASA would cease to exist. The public has at least tacit support for the existence of NASA and manned spaceflight, and at present with the technologies available this is the mission that makes the most for our money.

Every part of the federal government has some purpose. DoD gets the money to “build us an army to win wars” while NOAA gets the money to “tell us the weather”. NASA has no such specific thing. After Apollo it got money to “do space research”. That is a wide topic. Not something that you can asses that easily like you can DoD (Did they win?). Now they have new target. “go to the Moon”

The Moon part is more specific, but the way they are doing it is not long term. They are the government. If anyone can look long term it’s the government. Are they? Where is the ISRU in those plans? Where is reuse?

Because conventional multistage ballistic rockets made with high-performance materials are the only really sane means of low-volume space travel at the moment, this is what we are going to use.

No, they are the only sane and realistic means to get to LEO. From LEO to other orbits you don't have to use chemical reactions (which are limited) for energy. You can use NEP, SEP, NTP, STP,..

Do you want to know what Orion should look like? Take a look at 20 million $ per seat Soyuz for some ideas. You need 6 people? Send two.
I'm so sick of this "oh but Soyuz only costs" stupidity. Soyuz only costs $20-odd million because the broke ex-Communist factory workers are willing to build Soyuz rockets for pennies on the dollar of American engineers. If you paid the people that make Soyuz an American wage, they'd cost five times that easily. ~200M for a pair of Soyuz versus ~$300M for Orion with TEI ability, the difference in price would be trivial if not Orion coming out slightly ahead.
The religiously chanted mantra about how wonderful Russian stuff is, how much better it is, that NASA is so stupid for overpaying so much is a load of horse hockey. The only reason that their price tag is so low is because the Russian rocket builders are second-world at best and are willing to work for far far less. It does not mean that their rockets are better.

I actually like Soyuz TMA, because it is a better design. The price is just a bonus.

Orion has two sections. First has tanks and everything else and gets dumped. Second is a large crew section. That part has everything needed for medium term (days) survival and a big shield with parachutes to return the crew safely to Earth. It can return from TEI, land, escape from exploding booster,.. it’s a solid design.

Soyuz TMA has three sections. First has tanks and avionics like in Orion. The second is a small crew section. The third is a lightweight medium size crew section with everything needed for medium term (days) survival. Since Soyuz TMA can dump most of the “medium term” stuff before it enters Atmosphere, it can have smaller shield and smaller parachutes. It still can do TEI, land, escape from exploding booster.. it is a superior design, since you need smaller rocket to put the whole thing into LEO.

Soyuz TMA weights 7 MT. How much does an Orion weigh?

And there is another thing that I like about the Russians. They have “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” policy. Since there have been no major advances in rocketry in the last decades, they use the same thing as they did before. Soyuz has flown 1700 times. They keep upgrading it, but it’s the same basic design. That means the whole design and tooling has been paid long time ago. They can build them cheaply since they can afford to build them cheaply. They are not perfect in their manufacturing, but their philosophy is good. It’s not like they are short of money right now, yet they will not even spend money to build Kliper. Why should they? Just build one more Soyuz for peanuts. You need 6 people in LEO? Send two ships. Problem solved.

They kept Mir operational for 200 million $ per year. What can NASA do with 200 million $?

cIclops · 2007-05-31 15:46:38

Soyuz TMA weights 7 MT. How much does an Orion weigh?

The Orion command module, equivalent to the Soyuz capsule but with a heat shield able to reenter from Mars and six crew, weighted just under 10 mT according to this January 2007 design ppt

neviden · 2007-06-01 02:25:17

Soyuz TMA weights 7 MT. How much does an Orion weigh?
The Orion command module, equivalent to the Soyuz capsule but with a heat shield able to reenter from Mars and six crew, weighted just under 10 mT according to this January 2007 design ppt

And Soyuz Reentry module for three people weighs just under 3 mT for 3 people. They can do that, because 3 people are “packed” into 3,50 m3. But while in orbit they also use 5 m3 orbital module. Make it a little bigger, and you can pack more people in it.

For Mars reentry this would rise of course since you would need heavier heat shield, but it would not be that drastic. Zond capsules (which are Soyuz reentry modules) have returned from TEI speeds.

The three part design is lighter, more flexible, roomier and as an added bonus, you get and airlock for spacewalks. It was actually proposed by GE for Apollo program, but was rejected as “too complicated”. The Russians and the Chinese don’t think that it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_spacecraft

And there is no reason not to use Orion capsule as a reentry module only. It has 20 m3 of the pressurized volume of which 11 m3 of volume is habitable. Pack them like sardines in it (They do it like this on commercial planes and nobody complains). Do it Soyuz style with 1,2 m3 per passenger, and you can put 9-15 people inside. They must be seated there for only few hours. The rest of the time they can spend in the third, orbital section. And if you ask me, they already have an orbital section. It’s called lunar lander. Orion docks to it in LEO.

That’s why the whole “Orion has to be 25 MT big to get 4 people to the moon” is stupid. It's only designed that way to "require" Ares I.

cIclops · 2007-06-01 04:52:59

The three part design is lighter, more flexible, roomier and as an added bonus, you get and airlock for spacewalks. It was actually proposed by GE for Apollo program, but was rejected as “too complicated”. The Russians and the Chinese don’t think that it is.

A three part design is more complex, has more risk and weighs more. Soyuz is good for short duration 3 crew LEO missions. It's small not because they want it small but because that's all Soyuz can lift. The Chinese based their design on Soyuz for similar reasons.

Checkout the new Russian spacecraft design called Kliper - it carries 6 crew, is designed for missions beyond LEO and in its latest configuration weighs 7 mT. It consists of one main module and an orbital/docking connector. The design has been changed many times and it now seems a separate vehicle is needed, which means another launch. A spacecraft that is capable of taking 6 crew beyond LEO is more complex than one optimized for LEO operations, that means more mass.

(edits in italics)

neviden · 2007-06-01 05:35:06

The three part design is lighter, more flexible, roomier and as an added bonus, you get and airlock for spacewalks. It was actually proposed by GE for Apollo program, but was rejected as “too complicated”. The Russians and the Chinese don’t think that it is.
A three part design is more complex, has more risk and weighs more.

Yet, somehow they can put people in LEO for peanuts and havent killed nobody doing that for decades.

Soyuz is good for short duration 3 crew LEO missions.

That's strange. I thought that it was designed for (never implemented) moon missions. And that it can stay 6 months in orbit. And that it can be easily upgraded...

It's small not because they want it small but because that's all Soyuz can lift. The Chinese based their design on Soyuz for similar reasons.

The Russians and the Chinese have built it that way not because they don't have bigger rockets, but because they don’t NEED bigger rockets to put people to LEO. Russians could have easily used Proton if they wanted, but Soyuz is cheaper.

Why have cheap transport when you can have expensive transport, right?

Checkout the new Russian spacecraft design called Kliper - it carries 6 crew, is designed for missions beyond LEO and in its latest configuration weighs 7 mT. It consists of one module. A spacecraft that is capable of taking 6 crew beyond LEO is more complex than one optimized for LEO operations, that means more mass.

Yes, and check out how they try to find anyone that would give them 1,5 billion $ to build it. And don't forget. Kliper can't enter from TEI..

Meanwhile, the Soyuz TMA is being upgraded to stay one year on orbit (TMAT) and having it modified to carry moon missions (with Europeans).

neviden · 2007-06-01 06:09:35

Checkout the new Russian spacecraft design called Kliper - it carries 6 crew, is designed for missions beyond LEO and in its latest configuration weighs 7 mT. It consists of one main module and an orbital/docking connector. The design has been changed many times and it now seems a separate vehicle is needed, which means another launch. A spacecraft that is capable of taking 6 crew beyond LEO is more complex than one optimized for LEO operations, that means more mass.
(edits in italics)

Oh, edits.. that means that this new design is better, right? Let us see..

Nope, it still costs 1,5 billion $ to actually build and still can't reenter from TEI speeds. Only now it needs another spacecraft (Parom) to actually deliver it to the ISS. (More money? Are you sure they are Russians. They sound like NASA guys). It might be good LEO shuttle (reusable and all that) since it could deliver 6 people on one Soyuz rocket, but that is all that it could do. And they still can’t find nobody that would give RKK Energia (you know, the company that has designed Kliper and would also build it) the money to actually build it.

Meanwhile, the Soyuz TMA…

cIclops · 2007-06-01 15:50:07

$126 million is a lot of peanuts and as previously mentioned the true cost is probably much higher. Marginal cost for an Ares I/Orion is about $225 million. Both of these numbers must be taken with a lot of salt, but they are the only ones publically available. Ares I/Orion is a far safer, more reliable and capable vehicle and is being designed with a LOC risk of less than 1 in 1000, that's why it costs more. Soyuz and Shuttle both have about a 2% LOC risk, that's a lot of risk. How many passengers would fly on a plane knowing that 1 in 50 crashed?

The safety record of Soyuz is similar to Shuttle, however Shuttle has carried more than double the number of people in 117 flights whereas Soyuz has had 96 flights. Both systems have had two complete failures; more people dying in Shuttle of course because of the larger crew. Part of the myth of Russian technology derived from the total secrecy of the early program, even today there is far less public information available from the Russians. Every tiny mistake that NASA makes becomes a headline.

It's a fantasy to think that Soyuz can be used for a serious return to the moon programme. Zond, the lunar version of Soyuz, was much lighter and still needed a Proton to orbit the moon, it was too unreliable to fly people and could have only carried one or two.

TMA class Soyuz capsules are only good for short duration human missions of a few days because of their tiny volume and life support capability, whereas an Orion capsule will be adequate for a few weeks. Orion is primarily designed to be able to loiter in lunar orbit for six months and eventually in Mars orbit for almost two years. Orion will also have the capability to serve as an ISS lifeboat for 6 months or longer and be able to accommodate between 6 and 10 crew.

Where does the $1.5 billion development cost for Kliper come from? Wikipedia quotes between $1.8 and $3 billion. One way of looking at Russian prices is to use the PPP value of the currency, this effectively doubles the dollar value, so Kliper would cost between $3.6 and $6 billion, approaching Orion's far more detailed (and contracted) cost of about $9 billion. Applying a PPP value to the Soyuz cost gives $252 million.

neviden · 2007-06-01 20:14:17

$126 million is a lot of peanuts and as previously mentioned the true cost is probably much higher.

hold on.. $126 million? Where did that number come from? Is that like what.. 3 x $42 million? Don’t compare apples and oranges..

$42 million deal will buy NASA one dedicated Soyuz rocket with Soyuz TMA capsule, with training. If NASA astronauts could fly Soyuz they would get three seats, but that way they only get one. The marginal cost for Soyuz is in the range of $20-40 million. You can bet that they are making profit even on that kind of low price.

$126 million will almost buy you an Ariane 5 rocket that can deliver 20 MT to LEO. That Ariane 5 is built and launched with “real wages”. $40 million for 7 MT is in “real wages”.

Marginal cost for an Ares I/Orion is about $225 million.

Marginal? Sure.. let us ignore billions spent to keep everything running.. low or high flight rate makes no difference in the price of a rocket, right?

Both of these numbers must be taken with a lot of salt, but they are the only ones publically available.

We must, since we are not even comparing the same things..

Ares I/Orion is a far safer, more reliable and capable vehicle and is being designed with a LOC risk of less than 1 in 1000,

You expect me to believe that a new rocket and a new capsule that has never flown before is 20 times safer then the rocket that has flown for the past 40 years 1700 times is flight proven and didn’t loose a crew after all the bugs were ironed out decades ago?

that's why it costs more.

No, it costs more because it has small flight rate and costs a lot of money to run. Safety has nothing to do with it.

Soyuz and Shuttle both have 98% LOC risk, that's a lot of risk. How many passengers would fly on a plane knowing that 1 in 50 crashed?

Statistics are funny things..

Like for example..

The safety record of Soyuz is similar to Shuttle, however Shuttle has carried more than double the number of people in 117 flights whereas Soyuz has had 96 flights. Both systems have had two complete failures; more people dying in Shuttle of course because of the larger crew.

That would appear that they fail the same amount of times, right? Well, by that account the Mississippi’s averages depth is around 1,5 m. Therefore, nobody can drown in Mississippi, right?

Soyuz failures were at the beginning. After all the problems were sorted out it managed to deliver crews back to Earth alive. Shuttle failures were random. One problem was fixed, the other can’t be fixed. One design is good, the other is not so good. Guess which one is which. If you look only at flights in say last 20 years, you will get different statistics.

Part of the myth of Russian technology derived from the total secrecy of the early program, even today there is far less public information available from the Russians. Every tiny mistake that NASA makes becomes a headline.

Who cares how many rockets exploded 50 years ago? What is important how many rockets explode today? And it’s not even technology. It’s the design and economics..

It's a fantasy to think that Soyuz can be used for a serious return to the moon programme. Zond, the lunar version of Soyuz, was much lighter and still needed a Proton to orbit the moon, it was too unreliable to fly people and could have only carried one or two.

So, Soyuz could not get to LEO, dock to EDS, get to LLO and return to Earth?

TMA class Soyuz capsules are only good for short duration human missions of a few days because of their tiny volume and life support capability, whereas an Orion capsule will be adequate for a few weeks. Orion is primarily designed to be able to loiter in lunar orbit for six months and eventually in Mars orbit for almost two years. Orion will also have the capability to serve as an ISS lifeboat for 6 months or longer and be able to accommodate between 6 and 10 crew.

It’s like talking to a wall.. Oh mighty Orion.. Soyuz sux..

They do the same job (or could once they would be built). The only difference is that one weighs 7 MT for 3 people for $40 million and the other 25 MT for 4-6 people for $200 million.

Where does the $1.5 billion development cost for Kliper come from? Wikipedia quotes between $1.8 and $3 billion. One way of looking at Russian prices is to use the PPP value of the currency, this effectively doubles the dollar value, so Kliper would cost between $3.6 and $6 billion, approaching Orion's far more detailed (and contracted) cost of about $9 billion.

Why do you bring up that Kliper?

It’s crappy, expensive and heavy design that nobody will fund. It can cost $20 billion for all I care. Sure, Energia would love to get that kind of money, but who will fund it? They were so sure Europeans will until they told them to take a hike. The Soyuz did cost a lot of money to design – 40 years ago. Now, it’s cheap since you only have to build it and keep it up-to-date. It’s being upgraded and will stay in service for a long time. Maybe it will even evolve into 4 seat design.

If you would design it right now it would cost the same amount as would cost to design Orion. The difference is only in the design. Oh, yes, and in the "why fix it if it ain't broken"..

Applying a PPP value to the Soyuz cost gives $252 million.

Since we are making up numbers.. Why not make it $500 million? It’s a nice, round figure.. That way you could “prove” that the Orion is better, cheaper, lighter, safer..

cIclops · 2007-06-02 03:55:54

$42 million deal will buy NASA one dedicated Soyuz rocket with Soyuz TMA capsule, with training. If NASA astronauts could fly Soyuz they would get three seats, but that way they only get one. The marginal cost for Soyuz is in the range of $20-40 million. You can bet that they are making profit even on that kind of low price.

Nope. $42 million is the cost per return seat. Please provide a source for the $20-40 million marginal cost of a Soyuz.

GCNRevenger · 2007-06-02 15:34:59

Ah it looks like we have a dyed in the wool Russian cheerleader/NASA hater... but first:

Do you see anything reusable in the curent NASA plans? Everything is done Apollo style. Burn it and dump it.

So? Until colonization or other private interest really gets going for Moon/Mars, then flight rates will necessarily remain low. Because of this, expendable launch vehicles and a good many of the vehicles make sense whereas reusable vehicles don't. The economics for big complex electric or nuclear powered reusable ships just aren't there for small amounts of people/stuff. And frankly, the cost/development of going with an elaborate reusable scheme would simply delay missions to the Moon and Mars too long. The technology for VSE is close, while other methods are not. The benefits of reuse, and its superiority over expendability, simply cannot be realized until there is already infrastructure in place at the destination worlds anyway, and with fuel supplies chemical propulsion gets a major boost too.

And if this is delayed too long, it doesn't matter if it costs a little more for expendable now and reuseable a little later, VSE will take long enough and risk political cancellation. Raw dollars are not the only concern. In this context, NASA's plans, which aren't nearly complete, are to date on course...Now about this "Soyuz is sooo wonderful" stuff that pops up here now and then:

neviden · 2007-06-02 20:27:18

$42 million deal will buy NASA one dedicated Soyuz rocket with Soyuz TMA capsule, with training. If NASA astronauts could fly Soyuz they would get three seats, but that way they only get one. The marginal cost for Soyuz is in the range of $20-40 million. You can bet that they are making profit even on that kind of low price.
Nope. $42 million is the cost per return seat. Please provide a source for the $20-40 million marginal cost of a Soyuz.

"Based on open source information from the Federal Space Agency the Soyuz booster cost, plus Lunar Soyuz/Zond-TMA spacecraft cost is approximately $28.6 million"

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/lib … rc-cpv.htm
http://www.friends-partners.org/piperma … 17862.html

Why they charge NASA $42 million? Well, why not.. NASA still gets a bargin price compared to anything else (what else?), the Russians get a little profit.. Capitalisum at it's finest..

Ah it looks like we have a dyed in the wool Russian cheerleader/NASA hater... but first:

Ccc... Aren’t we getting a little personal? Would you be so nice to stick to the facts?

But If you are really interested.. I don’t care about either NASA or the Russians. I try to look at the facts and if the idea is good, then it doesn’t matter one bit to me, whose idea it is.. Most of the time I don’t even concentrate on the rockets themselves, since they are not cosing the problems. Goals, design, organization, production.. they are important. Technology itself is not the main problem.

Do you see anything reusable in the curent NASA plans? Everything is done Apollo style. Burn it and dump it.
So? Until colonization or other private interest really gets going for Moon/Mars, then flight rates will necessarily remain low.

True. And with small flight rate comes the big cost per flight.

Because of this, expendable launch vehicles and a good many of the vehicles make sense whereas reusable vehicles don't.

Not True. At least not true beyond LEO.

Reusable vehicles to get to LEO are expensive, because it has to do 10 km/s delta-v with high trust. That means that it is mostly made from propellant and tanks. Only the very small amount of the whole spaceship is the actual payload. Any thing that would make this thing reusable would reduce the actual payload to the point that is practically impossible to do that. Not with chemical engines at least.

Anything with lower delta-v is quite possible.

The economics for big complex electric or nuclear powered reusable ships just aren't there for small amounts of people/stuff.

True. But, what do we need? Transport for small amounts of people?

And frankly, the cost/development of going with an elaborate reusable scheme would simply delay missions to the Moon and Mars too long.

True. But, wouldn’t the money spent on “small” expendable expeditions be better spent on developing and testing reusable systems? It’s not like we weren’t on the moon already..

And besides.. Mars is decades away.. even Moon is a decade away.. there does not appear to be any rush to get there. Why not take time to build it right the first time, so we would not have to spend the money twice?

The technology for VSE is close, while other methods are not.

True. But this was also true 30 years ago.

The benefits of reuse, and its superiority over expendability, simply cannot be realized until there is already infrastructure in place at the destination worlds anyway, and with fuel supplies chemical propulsion gets a major boost too.

True. But the way things are going, there will not be even chemical propulsion reuse. Never mind the more elaborate (better) schemes..

And if this is delayed too long, it doesn't matter if it costs a little more for expendable now and reuseable a little later, VSE will take long enough and risk political cancellation.

Not True. Either US keeps the manned flight or it doesn’t. This is not NASA’s decision. Successful Apollo program didn’t prevent or cause it’s cancellation. The costs of an Apollo program did. If there will be no reuse and a drastic cost reduction, the whole VSE will end up like Apollo or ISS.

Raw dollars are not the only concern.

True. But the amount of the raw dollars make the program nice target for political cancellation. Not to mention how those dollars are spent..

In this context, NASA's plans, which aren't nearly complete, are to date on course...

well.. we are talking about the future..

Now about this "Soyuz is sooo wonderful" stuff that pops up here now and then:

You are welcome to criticize any of it.. if any facts are not true..

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