Looks aside, NASA’s Orion is “lightyears ahead of what they had in Apollo”

Redundancy is key to travel "farther away than any human spacecraft has ever been.”

Read the whole story

 

[Wirth'sLaw]

"Lightyears ahead of what they had in Apollo"


I sure hope so...

But does it make the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs?!

 

[smenor]

The last Apollo mission was 42 years ago and only about ~4 years after Intel was founded. It'd be depressing if things weren't at least slightly more advanced.

A more interesting (and I suspect far less favorable) comparison would be to Dragon 2

 

[truthyboy15]

I still don't see this flying very much and there is no guarantee with the next president that things won't change.

 

[windnwar]

What has been left out is the fact that the current heat shield that was tested is being completely redesigned and may or may not work as well, we won't know till the next test, the life support system may not be complete for testing by the next launch, and the first launch of crew will likely be the first launch of the exploration module being built. So there will be many systems tested for the first time with the crew on board. Provided it continues to be funded for the next 5 to 7 years.


This has been the most long winded development project ever.

 

[normally butters]

Orion will only have a 21-day life support endurance. It's only taking us beyond the moon if it comes along for the ride with a true interplanetary spacecraft (design and funding TBD), and in that situation it's just a particularly heavy little bit of habitable volume we're lugging along.

 

[Deleted member 192806]

"Launch abort system" the same as a "Launch escape system"?

 

[Cloudgazer]

Where do they put the nukes?

 

[dio82]

windnwar[/url]":17uqgbut]What has been left out is the fact that the current heat shield that was tested is being completely redesigned and may or may not work as well, we won't know till the next test, the life support system may not be complete for testing by the next launch, and the first launch of crew will likely be the first launch of the exploration module being built. So there will be many systems tested for the first time with the crew on board. Provided it continues to be funded for the next 5 to 7 years.


This has been the most long winded development project ever.

Seriously. THAT long? Seriously?

All of the science and engineering has already been done. Complex engineering and complex project management? Sure. But that is merely the name of the trade. There are no hidden gotchas. No unknowns. Not even unknown unknowns.

If they are not doing component testing within 2 years, and have completed system integration testing by 4 years, project management is simply incompetent.

 

[Tom the Melaniephile]

Is there any way to have playback speed control on these videos? The guy was quite slow in his pacing.

 

[flerchin]

I'll just leave this comparison of Orion and Dragon 2 here:

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2743/1

And this comparison of SLS and Falcon Heavy here:

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2737/1

By all means, lets waste our money on the old behemoths. They've earned it?

 

[Deleted member 1]

I know nothing about rockets... but as a Chinese American who gets the news media in both languages...

1. China is working very hard on their most powerful rocket to date -- so they can have their first manned mission to the Moon sometime in the 2020's. My understanding is that the rocket they are working on won't be as powerful as our 40+ years old Saturn V.

2. If our Orion is truly 'light years' ahead of the Apollo's Saturn rockets, then I believe we have a very, very wide lead ahead of China.

We are still the top dog, bar none. Hopefully, our kids will continue to shine in this relay run, in the years and decades ahead.

And my fondest hope is that the world's leading countries will find it more profitable to cooperate than to compete. Maybe someday...

 

[isparavanje]

windnwar[/url]":cizjq1lo]What has been left out is the fact that the current heat shield that was tested is being completely redesigned and may or may not work as well, we won't know till the next test, the life support system may not be complete for testing by the next launch, and the first launch of crew will likely be the first launch of the exploration module being built. So there will be many systems tested for the first time with the crew on board. Provided it continues to be funded for the next 5 to 7 years.


This has been the most long winded development project ever.

I'm curious, do you know why it is being redesigned? Is it using pica?

 

[Deleted member 192806]

isparavanje[/url]":4kicbc0n]

windnwar[/url]":4kicbc0n]What has been left out is the fact that the current heat shield that was tested is being completely redesigned and may or may not work as well, we won't know till the next test, the life support system may not be complete for testing by the next launch, and the first launch of crew will likely be the first launch of the exploration module being built. So there will be many systems tested for the first time with the crew on board. Provided it continues to be funded for the next 5 to 7 years.


This has been the most long winded development project ever.

I'm curious, do you know why it is being redesigned? Is it using pica?

Maybe they're going metric?

 

[Statistical]

2. If our Orion is truly 'light years' ahead of the Apollo's Saturn rockets, then I believe we have a very, very wide lead ahead of China.

Orion (like Dragon or Apollo command module) is a capsule not a rocket. The SLS which is the rocket that will boost the Orion spacecraft into orbit is not light years ahead of the Saturn. It is space pork based on the Shuttle components.

Honestly nobody will probably make something like the Saturn again. The Saturn was essentially hand crafted and unbelievably expensive. It was built under a scenario where we would beat the Russians at any cost.

 

[Flatley]

isparavanje[/url]":2u8q8prw]

windnwar[/url]":2u8q8prw]What has been left out is the fact that the current heat shield that was tested is being completely redesigned and may or may not work as well, we won't know till the next test, the life support system may not be complete for testing by the next launch, and the first launch of crew will likely be the first launch of the exploration module being built. So there will be many systems tested for the first time with the crew on board. Provided it continues to be funded for the next 5 to 7 years.


This has been the most long winded development project ever.

I'm curious, do you know why it is being redesigned? Is it using pica?

The parachute rigging has been adjusted so that the splashdown angle is a little steeper, now it glides a bit more into the water instead of plopping down face-first. As a result, required load levels have dropped and the heat shield is being lightened considerably. (Structural design of the shield is dominated by the splashdown rather than the re-entry itself).

 

[BlackHex]

Flatley[/url]":wybseuht]

isparavanje[/url]":wybseuht]

windnwar[/url]":wybseuht]What has been left out is the fact that the current heat shield that was tested is being completely redesigned and may or may not work as well, we won't know till the next test, the life support system may not be complete for testing by the next launch, and the first launch of crew will likely be the first launch of the exploration module being built. So there will be many systems tested for the first time with the crew on board. Provided it continues to be funded for the next 5 to 7 years.


This has been the most long winded development project ever.

I'm curious, do you know why it is being redesigned? Is it using pica?

The parachute rigging has been adjusted so that the splashdown angle is a little steeper, now it glides a bit more into the water instead of plopping down face-first. As a result, required load levels have dropped and the heat shield is being lightened considerably. (Structural design of the shield is dominated by the splashdown rather than the re-entry itself).

I wonder what the justification for that is? If it works with the heavier design and adjusted parachutes, isn't the extra weight a)already planned for, and b) just extra resiliency?

 

[Statistical]

Flatley[/url]":3p5zprl5]

isparavanje[/url]":3p5zprl5]

windnwar[/url]":3p5zprl5]What has been left out is the fact that the current heat shield that was tested is being completely redesigned and may or may not work as well, we won't know till the next test, the life support system may not be complete for testing by the next launch, and the first launch of crew will likely be the first launch of the exploration module being built. So there will be many systems tested for the first time with the crew on board. Provided it continues to be funded for the next 5 to 7 years.


This has been the most long winded development project ever.

I'm curious, do you know why it is being redesigned? Is it using pica?

The parachute rigging has been adjusted so that the splashdown angle is a little steeper, now it glides a bit more into the water instead of plopping down face-first. As a result, required load levels have dropped and the heat shield is being lightened considerably. (Structural design of the shield is dominated by the splashdown rather than the re-entry itself).

I wonder what the justification for that is? If it works with the heavier design and adjusted parachutes, isn't the extra weight a)already planned for, and b) just extra resiliency?

I am not sure if it is still the case but as of last year the Orion was still significantly over design weight. Actually keeping the spacecraft mass on target has been a challenge since pretty much since day one.

 

[Flatley]

BlackHex[/url]":8c1sidku]

Flatley[/url]":8c1sidku]

isparavanje[/url]":8c1sidku]

windnwar[/url]":8c1sidku]What has been left out is the fact that the current heat shield that was tested is being completely redesigned and may or may not work as well, we won't know till the next test, the life support system may not be complete for testing by the next launch, and the first launch of crew will likely be the first launch of the exploration module being built. So there will be many systems tested for the first time with the crew on board. Provided it continues to be funded for the next 5 to 7 years.


This has been the most long winded development project ever.

I'm curious, do you know why it is being redesigned? Is it using pica?

The parachute rigging has been adjusted so that the splashdown angle is a little steeper, now it glides a bit more into the water instead of plopping down face-first. As a result, required load levels have dropped and the heat shield is being lightened considerably. (Structural design of the shield is dominated by the splashdown rather than the re-entry itself).

I wonder what the justification for that is? If it works with the heavier design and adjusted parachutes, isn't the extra weight a)already planned for, and b) just extra resiliency?

I don't know about the project management side but mass is always king, whether you're designing boat motors or spacecraft. It gives other systems more room to breathe, to include launch operations, like when your main engine unexpectedly cuts out six seconds early.

The redesign isn't very high-risk, either - the flight loads are validated, and in general getting those loads correct is more difficult than actually computing the structural response.

 

[isparavanje]

richten[/url]":2jj1qi6w]It has nothing to do with the subject, but watching the video I was really bothered by the way he was pronouncing Orion. Took me a while to know what he was talking about ("what is or-ion?"). Is that really how Americans say it? You do know it is a Greek name, it's written Ὠρίων, it should be pronounced like "onion".

In English it's pronounced orion around the world. I'm from the commonwealth and it's the same. English words aren't always pronounced based on etymology, that should be obvious.

 

[bthylafh]

richten[/url]":30rphik0]It has nothing to do with the subject, but watching the video I was really bothered by the way he was pronouncing Orion. Took me a while to know what he was talking about ("what is or-ion?"). Is that really how Americans say it? You do know it is a Greek name, it's written Ὠρίων, it should be pronounced like "onion".

Yes, that's how we typically pronounce Orion. Think of it as our accent; there's no reason to expect we'd pronounce it the same way a Greek would, even ignoring the various Greek accents.

 

[loquacio]

I thought the 21 day endurance was for a safety margin during lunar polar orbit missions? You can't really get anywhere else useful in that timeframe.

 

[normally butters]

isparavanje[/url]"ghbb2bl]

windnwar[/url]"ghbb2bl]What has been left out is the fact that the current heat shield that was tested is being completely redesigned and may or may not work as well, we won't know till the next test, the life support system may not be complete for testing by the next launch, and the first launch of crew will likely be the first launch of the exploration module being built. So there will be many systems tested for the first time with the crew on board. Provided it continues to be funded for the next 5 to 7 years.


This has been the most long winded development project ever.

I'm curious, do you know why it is being redesigned? Is it using pica?

Orion's heatshield uses AVCOAT, the same concept used by Apollo. It's a non-woven composite honeycomb structure with a mixture of silica fiber and phenolic resin injected into the honeycomb cells.

PICA is an injection-molded expanding foam made of carbon fiber and phenolic resin. PICA has substantial advantages over AVCOAT: much lower density and much lower manufacturing costs.

SpaceX has adopted PICA as PICA-X and has been iterating on the process to optimize performance and manufacturing cost. They are currently flying PICA-X version 2, and Dragon 2 will use PICA-X version 3, which is distinguished by its black color rather than beige material we've seen on Dragon to date.

The Orion EFT-1 test vehicle used a monolithic AVCOAT heat shield. The honeycomb structure was applied to the vehicle in one piece and then each of the thousands of cells were injected with the resin mixture by humans with glorified caulk guns. This process was extremely expensive and extremely time-consuming, and other work could not proceed on the vehicle during the prolonged injection process.

Future Orion vehicles will use a tiled AVCOAT heat shield. The injection process will be more-or-less the same, but the heat shield will be fabricated in multiple pieces which will be bonded to the vehicle after the injection process is complete. This will streamline the manufacturing process... somewhat.

 

[MaxArt]

"Lightyears ahead of what they had in Apollo"

If that's true, why aren't they orbiting around Alpha Centauri yet?

Don't use figures like "lightyears ahead" in a context where lightyears actually make sense.

 

[MobtownDave]

MaxArt[/url]":u0mmn145]"Lightyears ahead of what they had in Apollo"

If that's true, why aren't they orbiting around Alpha Centauri yet?

Don't use figures like "lightyears ahead" in a context where lightyears actually make sense.

Exactly. Every time he says light years he sounds stupider to me.

Using light years to impress layman that technology is advanced makes no sense whatsoever and you are making your audience more ignorant by evening using it.

 

[Ben G]

I've certainly seen the phrase "it's X ahead of..." where X is in units of length (i.e. "Miles ahead"). So, it's not necessarily wrong, but probably still a poor choice.

 

[SkepticalOptimist]

flerchin[/url]":r9p8chxq]I'll just leave this comparison of Orion and Dragon 2 here:

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2743/1

And this comparison of SLS and Falcon Heavy here:

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2737/1

By all means, lets waste our money on the old behemoths. They've earned it?

Salient details from these 2 articles:

__Launcher_____Mass to LEO__Cost per MT to LEO
__SLS_________70MT________$8.57M/MT
__Falcon Heavy_53MT_________$2.97M/MT

__Capsule___pressurized vol__delta V
__Orion_____19.5m3________1.34km/s
__Dragon V2_10m3_________unknown (can abort/landing thrusters be used in space?)

__Musk plans on sending Dragon 2 around moon (presumably with non-NASA funds)

Falcon Heavy is a less capable but cheaper vehicle, cheap enough so that one can entertain assembling a larger spaceship from modules. Dragon V2 has much smaller usable volume, so edurance would be shorter than that of Orion.

I hope SpaceX keeps their profile low, otherwise they may be accused by the congress of overcharging NASA for their commercial crew development (even though award amount is less than that to Boeing)

 

[has]

normally butters[/url]":1kmnd20d]Orion will only have a 21-day life support endurance. It's only taking us beyond the moon if it comes along for the ride with a true interplanetary spacecraft (design and funding TBD), and in that situation it's just a particularly heavy little bit of habitable volume we're lugging along.

Exactly this.

The task of getting around in space is fundamentally different to the job of getting up there at the start and back down at the end. The only reason Apollo was built the way it was, as a single-stack brute-force-and-back design, was because Kennedy's '69 deadline and the race against the Russians left nowhere near enough time to develop and deploy a more componentized design that could launch deep space missions directly from orbit. Since then, a huge amount of experience and expertise has been developed in living and assembling complex craft in LEO, but of course now all that gets forgotten and wasted, just as all the expertise in building big rockets and deep space capsules was tossed out before.

If NASA^h^h^h^h Congress honestly was serious about creating a sustainable, cost-effective deep space program they'd have funded long-term development of separate vehicles for each role, and laid out specific missions for each. For all the bluster and bravado, heatshield and parachutes are hardly high on the list of essentials one should be lugging to the moon and back; conversely, launch vehicles have better things to do than toss up long-term habitat systems only for the damn things to come back down a few weeks later.

The whole thing stinks of F-35 by way of Darien Scheme, like fatty pork chops left out for a week. Your tax dollars at work.

 

[peppeddu]

The Apollo program had one key feature that made it happen and that was political will.
That's why they were able to literally bring a slice of the 21st century back to the 60s and 70s.

It's worth noticing that if NASA today had the same political support that they had back then, we would be living on Mars right now.

 

[LordFrith]

It's interesting to me that the key point mentioned many times was "safety." To me, this is a problem.

If safety is your primary concern, the safest thing you can do is simply not launch -- think of the money you would also save.

If it really is important to put people somewhere else, there must be a value of doing it -- the fact that we are so worried about safety that we are putting a huge amount of effort into a system to reduce the danger as much as possible likely means that the reward of space travel isn't seen as that large. If the reward is small, why make the risk high?

Also, with a focus on safety, are astronauts doing anything heroic or brave, or are they just spam-in-a-can? Thus, are they actually proving to be role models for the next generation of scientists and engineers?

I think I'd be happier with a cut-down fast paced program with an increased chance of astronaut death with a faster development cycle.

 

[TBoneT]

Tom the Melaniephile[/url]":5cl3itrl]Is there any way to have playback speed control on these videos? The guy was quite slow in his pacing.

Playback controls? I don't know if it is the adblocker or not, but I don't see a video at all on my iPhone! I thought this was a solved problem!

 

[Hydrargyrum]

Are Orion's landing systems and heat shield sufficient for a Mars return trajectory?

 

[okami]

Statistical[/url]":xkv7vraz]

2. If our Orion is truly 'light years' ahead of the Apollo's Saturn rockets, then I believe we have a very, very wide lead ahead of China.

Orion (like Dragon or Apollo command module) is a capsule not a rocket. The SLS which is the rocket that will boost the Orion spacecraft into orbit is not light years ahead of the Saturn. It is space pork based on the Shuttle components.

Honestly nobody will probably make something like the Saturn again. The Saturn was essentially hand crafted and unbelievably expensive. It was built under a scenario where we would beat the Russians at any cost.

What exactly is wrong with using shuttle components? Like most projects that serve many masters, the shuttle program as a whole was overpriced and fell short of its promise, but many of the individual components are quite fantastic pieces of engineering, and it would be foolish not to build off of those. It's solid rockets boosters are still state-of-the-art, and performance-wise there is nothing that is going to beat a PBAN-APCP solid-fuel rocket engine. The Falcon 9, for example, by using more pedestrian, kerosene-fueled liquid rockets, is probably a good choice for routine launches as the relatively cheap fuel should keep the price down, but when performance really matters, they won't keep up with those "old" shuttle components. Also, the boosters have been improved over the years, and I believe that SLS will actually be using a derivative of the shuttle boosters that will include an extra segment for bigger/further missions.

 

[Lee L]

LordFrith[/url]":27ibwjqi]It's interesting to me that the key point mentioned many times was "safety." To me, this is a problem.

If safety is your primary concern, the safest thing you can do is simply not launch -- think of the money you would also save.

If it really is important to put people somewhere else, there must be a value of doing it -- the fact that we are so worried about safety that we are putting a huge amount of effort into a system to reduce the danger as much as possible likely means that the reward of space travel isn't seen as that large. If the reward is small, why make the risk high?

Also, with a focus on safety, are astronauts doing anything heroic or brave, or are they just spam-in-a-can? Thus, are they actually proving to be role models for the next generation of scientists and engineers?

I think I'd be happier with a cut-down fast paced program with an increased chance of astronaut death with a faster development cycle.

As a society, we have fallen into the "if any small reduction in risk or death is possible we should do it at all costs" mentality over the last couple decades. So many things we do are designed with that philosophy and made things worse in many ways, IMO.

 

[Buran]

I don't see a way to turn on closed captioning. How do I do that?

At least this seems to be HTML5.

 

[DJG7777]

But what will be the launch vehicle? Are they going to go through decades of research and testing to get one? Why not just re-do a manufacturing line for the wonderful Saturn V?

 

[snowman<ca>]

windnwar[/url]":2km40vl5]What has been left out is the fact that the current heat shield that was tested is being completely redesigned and may or may not work as well, we won't know till the next test, the life support system may not be complete for testing by the next launch, and the first launch of crew will likely be the first launch of the exploration module being built. So there will be many systems tested for the first time with the crew on board. Provided it continues to be funded for the next 5 to 7 years.


This has been the most long winded development project ever.

Well at least as of like two years ago the heat shield was only going to work if the destination you were coming from was around the distance of the moon, so it was going to have to change eventually if they wanted to go to the destination they said they were planning.

Granted that was not the only reason why it was completely incapable of going to Mars or an Asteroid recovery mission like had been the publicly stated destination for several years. Though at the time it did not even seem likely even one would fly so maybe they had just quietly been operating under the guidelines of working it as a test article to at least get a modernized Lunar Capsule / Service Module.

 

[Christopher James Huff]

okami[/url]":155roxmp]

Statistical[/url]":155roxmp]

2. If our Orion is truly 'light years' ahead of the Apollo's Saturn rockets, then I believe we have a very, very wide lead ahead of China.

Orion (like Dragon or Apollo command module) is a capsule not a rocket. The SLS which is the rocket that will boost the Orion spacecraft into orbit is not light years ahead of the Saturn. It is space pork based on the Shuttle components.

Honestly nobody will probably make something like the Saturn again. The Saturn was essentially hand crafted and unbelievably expensive. It was built under a scenario where we would beat the Russians at any cost.

What exactly is wrong with using shuttle components? Like most projects that serve many masters, the shuttle program as a whole was overpriced and fell short of its promise, but many of the individual components are quite fantastic pieces of engineering, and it would be foolish not to build off of those. It's solid rockets boosters are still state-of-the-art, and performance-wise there is nothing that is going to beat a PBAN-APCP solid-fuel rocket engine. The Falcon 9, for example, by using more pedestrian, kerosene-fueled liquid rockets, is probably a good choice for routine launches as the relatively cheap fuel should keep the price down, but when performance really matters, they won't keep up with those "old" shuttle components. Also, the boosters have been improved over the years, and I believe that SLS will actually be using a derivative of the shuttle boosters that will include an extra segment for bigger/further missions.

The Merlin 1D uses a gas-generator cycle that is simpler and easier to develop, but provides lower performance than more advanced engine cycles. It has a specific impulse of 282 s at sea level. The older but relatively advanced RD-180 used on the Atlas uses a staged combustion cycle and achieves 338 s with the same propellants. The Proton M uses hypergolics that bypass numerous complexities of ignition, again trading performance for simplicity, and its engines get a specific impulse of 285 s. The Space Shuttle SRBs? 242 s.

Performance-wise, there's nothing being used for boosters that doesn't beat PBAN-APCP solids. They aren't designed for performance, they are designed for storability and ability to keep ready to launch nuclear warheads at a moment's notice. Their use to launch a spacecraft full of humans was politically driven to direct pork to the right areas, as was the reuse of expensive, obsolete Shuttle technologies for the SLS.