Poll Which NASA plan does the Orbiter community prefer?

[anemazoso]

Just curious to see what the majority think. Do we prefer Constellation or Obama's new plan? Also if anyone has any other plausible ideas please post them.

And let's try to keep it friendly, no Obama or Bush bashing.

 

[Unstung]

Keep the ISS up and re-do Constellation slowly to get to the moon around 2020, maybe up to 2030. NASA needs a bigger budget, but the economy's bad and nobody cares.
That's just my fantasy.

 

[Ark]

After giving it some thought, I'm with Obama on this one. Constellation was underfunded and doomed to failure, and even if it succeeded all we would get is a few more Apollo missions with better cameras. Investing in more propulsion tech research and getting cheaper private launch companies into the game will do a lot more good in the long run than another one-off footprints and flags stunt.

 

[jinglesassy]

i say we need a national space program and propulsion tech research but i heavily hated the ares rockets but i would love to see orion be real but as long as we went with the ares rockets constellation was doomed to fail we need a rocket like the saturn 5 a heavy lift vehicle that is reliable and pretty cool looking so i partilly agree with obama but we need a national space agency for major exploration the solar system but we also need to invest in cheaper and cheaper launch costs and all of that could be done if obama would just take a few billion away from the militaries 1.9 trillion budget oh well they wont be able to build a few abrams or apaches we have plenty for right now in the long run it would be worth it.

 

[Urwumpe]

I like the current plan, but I would prefer NASA still getting the task of landing on the moon later, not loosing this goal or Mars out of sight. Instead of building rocket propelled pork barrels, NASA should better explore on how to combine commercial services to LEO with government funded deep space exploration.

 

[earthorbit]

I don't really like the Ares Concept. I'm for reworking the Saturn V and using the Orion Module instead of an Apollo.

 

[Urwumpe]

I don't really like the Ares Concept. I'm for reworking the Saturn V and using the Orion Module instead of an Apollo.

Great idea... :dry:... the Saturn V would not be able to put the Orion capsule alone to the moon, since it is much heavier as the Apollo spacecraft. Also the Saturn V was a very expensive rocket, even more expensive as the Space Shuttle.

The Saturn V is not great for what it is, but for what was achieved with it. In terms of engineering, it was a brute force approach, with a pretty unreliable rocket. That no Saturn V rocket failed is not because it was much safer than other rockets, but because it did only fly very few times and the many near misses in its flight history are mostly forgotten. The Saturn V had just been designed with so many extra mass and margins, that it can compensate a rocket engine oscillating with 8 cm amplitude...

 

[garyw]

I like the current plan

As do I. The time of private companies getting into space is here even though it's still in it's infancy and that's the problem with the Obama space plan. Private enterprise are not ready to take over ISS crew rotation duties and don't have anything like the upmass of the shuttle.

so, my plan would be as follows:

1. Keep money going to private industry to develop a crew vehicle. Consider encouraging NASA personal to move to private industry/move a facility to private industry control.
2. Fly Ares-I - At least with this the USA aren't grounded
3. Scrap the rest of constellation
4. Scrap Atlantis and use her for spare parts
5. Add 1-2 shuttle flights per year to the manifest to close the gap - expensive due to how far spares have been run down and there is the problem of recertification.

This way, the USA keeps flying, the gap is minimised and private industry will gain from existing experience. It also keeps the skilled workforce within the space community. Getting Ares-I and keeping shuttle for a few more flights would be very expensive though.

 

[Revolpathon]

the russians can take care of iss crew rotations for a bit while the US would be researching the possibility and feasability to get a moon base going in the near/distant future, as a jump platform to mars.

and putting out a contract to private company's to develop a cheap and safe way of achieving LEO.

though i wonder, is the orion capsule fitted with an airlock? would make future repairs to sattelite's and telescopes and the like harder if they are on geo stationary and at the lagrange points

oh and i agree witht he plan to scrap atlantis for spare parts and keep the other 2 flying to close the gap till orion can replace the space shuttle in most of it's duty's

 

[garyw]

though i wonder, is the orion capsule fitted with an airlock? would make future repairs to sattelite's and telescopes and the like harder if they are on geo stationary and at the lagrange points

To EVA from Orion you depressurise the whole crew module and open the door.

Satellite repair wasn't a viable use for the shuttle which is why, aside from hubble, NASA hasn't reparied any satellites in over a decade. Also, Orion doesn't have the cargo hold to carry much uphill to the ailing satellite.

 

[JamesG]

If the STS had lived up to its promise, it would have had alot more sat service work. But because of the accidents and launch tempo wasn't there, it was simplier to trash and replace satilites instead of fix them.

Stop building (and throwing away) missiles.

Finish the NASP, Delta Clipper, or any of the other reusable solutions that have gotten have canned over the years.

 

[Star Voyager]

I hate Obama's plan, but I'm not for Ares. Stick the Orion and Altair on separate rockets (Delta IVH and Atlas V). Once in orbit, the two rendezvous and dock. From there, fire an EDS stage attached to the bottom of the Altair. From there, it's the same as planned.

 

[Istochnikov]

My space vision is more International/Commercial friendly, but also keeps NASA's role as US astronaut launcher. All the enterprises are of shared risk 51% Governement and 49% Private. It will require one or two levels of international cooperation stronger than the achieved at ISS.

Details:

1. For crew delivery to LEO Space Stations: a minishuttle, capable of sending 7 crew or 10-ton payload. Capable of riding on top a Falcon 9H (NASA/Commercial), Delta 4 (NASA/USAF), Rus MT 23 or Rus MT 38 (Russia), Atlas 5 (USAF) or even be air-lunched. My universal minishuttle candidate is the Molniya's MAKS. The development will be a shared risk enterprise between NASA, Roskosmos, Virgin Galactic, Scaled Composites and NPO Molniya.
   
2. Extension of COTS programs to Roskosmos and ESA. Both agencies use elegant unmanned air-launched shuttles loosely based on Molniya's MAKS-M (Roskosmos' COTS) or BAe HOTOL/Reaction Engines Skylon (ESA's COTS). Dragon and Cygnus will remain in service.
3. Heavy Launchers. For preserving the jobs on KSC, NASA uses the Jupiter DIRECT approach. Roskosmos uses the Rus MT 50 and a new launcher: the Angara 100, using the structure tankage of the Proton M Rocket. Vostochniy won't be built at least until 2030. Rus M uses the LC 110 pads at Baikonur and Angara 100 share the Baiterek program LC 250 pad. An US payload could be launched on Angara 100 and viceversa.
4. Exploration way: Is a Flexible-path-with-prority-on-Phobos initiative. This initiative needs a complete new generation of spaceships: the Interplanetary Exploration Complex. It will be 4 classes:
   1. Class 1 (yet unnamed): It replaces Zarya and Zvezda elements for ISS and will be a test bench for the systems that will be used for the next generations of modules.
   2. Class 2 (Yuri Gagarin or Buzz Aldrin): It will be used for short flights to the moon or Lagrangian points. One of this will be the core of a Lunar Space Station. It will include centrifugal modules, chemical, VASIMR or NTR propulsion.
   3. Class 3 (Cristobal Colon): Designed for NEO flights. It could even LAND on a NEO's surface. These modules will be employed mainly for mining efforts. It will include centrifugal modules, magnetic shield generators, chemical, VASIMR or NTR propulsion.
   4. Class 4 (Franklin Chang Díaz): La créme de la créme: this ship lenghts 1.6 times the size of the Class 1 Modules (48 m on lenght, 7 meters in diameter). It will be designed for going well beyond Mars. It combines all the efforts developed on the previous IEC. Its propulsion rides exclusively on VASIMR engines.
5. Lunar Base: It will pay the costly space program when it will be used for mining (and touristic) explotation. The explotation will be on selected places (honestly i don't want to see the "moon rabbit" ruined ). Exploration, mining and tourism could be done at the same time, but in separated places.

This space vision is possibly one of the most fictional extremist vision. If you want to add or modify... just tell me. (BTW, i'm workin on the development of this space vision )

 

[Urwumpe]

Why don't we already have a MAKS for Orbiter, BTW?

 

[T.Neo]

Landing on the surface of an NEO isn't that hard. It's like docking with moondust.

 

[dougkeenan]

I want a fleet of deltagliders.

 

[Tex]

i say we need a national space program and propulsion tech research but i heavily hated the ares rockets but i would love to see orion be real but as long as we went with the ares rockets constellation was doomed to fail we need a rocket like the saturn 5 a heavy lift vehicle that is reliable and pretty cool looking so i partilly agree with obama but we need a national space agency for major exploration the solar system but we also need to invest in cheaper and cheaper launch costs and all of that could be done if obama would just take a few billion away from the militaries 1.9 trillion budget oh well they wont be able to build a few abrams or apaches we have plenty for right now in the long run it would be worth it.

These are of much use for those attempting to read your post:

 

[Donamy]

I would like to see, the development of the side-mount heavy lift. It keeps the workforce and infrastructure, closes the gap, matches if not betters the up-lift weight. Also, launches would be much cheaper flying unmanned.

 

[Sky Captain]

I think the launch to orbit costs needs to be reduced at least by order of magnitude so if I were running a space agency I would invest heavily into research of more cheaper ways to reach orbit. Develop a Big Dumb Booster design that could be built by using shipbuilding hardware and workforce. Large rocket that supports high volume high mass payloads would allow mission designers much more freedom when designing spacecraft for interplanetary missions.

In space propulsion for fast interplanetary transit would be second goal so I would also invest in whatever propulsion method turns out to be most promising for that task.

Space program can`t be a money hog forever, it has to give money back so research into solar power sats and surveys of asteorids containing rare earth metals also would be high priority.

 

[zerofay32]

I would like to see, the development of the side-mount heavy lift. It keeps the workforce and infrastructure, closes the gap, matches if not betters the up-lift weight. Also, launches would be much cheaper flying unmanned.

I'm with you Donamy. I never understood why the Side-Mount was never thought of as the best option. DIRECT is good but a side mount Orion would be much better at presurving the workforce, and eliminating the gap.