A step backward?

[theletch1]

I always thought that the next stage in spacecraft would improve upon the current shuttle style and be piloted very much like a standard airliner or in the case of a moon landing perhaps like a harrier jet. Seems NASA has taken a page out of the 1960s for the new stuff though. What do you all think?

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/orion/index.html

 

[jks9199]

I always thought that the next stage in spacecraft would improve upon the current shuttle style and be piloted very much like a standard airliner or in the case of a moon landing perhaps like a harrier jet. Seems NASA has taken a page out of the 1960s for the new stuff though. What do you all think?

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/orion/index.html

I agree. It seems like in the interests of doing stuff quicker, they're going back. I think we need to move away from the simple "throw it up and let if fall down approach" of the Apollo, Gemini, and Mercury programs. The Space Shuttle was movement away from that to something more like "throw it up and let it come back down under some control" -- but we really just need to get away from the "throw the rock in the sky" model.

I've wondered for years why we can't make something that's essentially a jet engine which switches to a rocket engine as it leaves the atmosphere, so that it can take off more like a plane, and come back and do powered landings, as well.

 

[Empty Hands]

I've wondered for years why we can't make something that's essentially a jet engine which switches to a rocket engine as it leaves the atmosphere, so that it can take off more like a plane, and come back and do powered landings, as well.

The Earth is one, big, massive gravity well. Slinging something into space takes an enormous amount of energy. That is why those huge rocket engines and staged boosters are used, just to give enough power to reach orbit. Without the big rocket engines and fuel stages, I doubt a smallish ship could carry enough ft-lbs of thrust in fuel to get into space.

 

[Sukerkin]

There was a credible European alternative to the rather 'clunky' Space Shuttle (it always tickles me when it's pointed to as some sort of pinnacle of technology) that used a transition from air breathing to rocket propulsion.

As usual, tho', the big bucks went to the least advanced proposal (this time because it was the Yanks pocket book paying for the ride).

Ah well, it's not like it's the first time that progress has been sacrificed at the alta of political/financial expediencey (VHS/Betamax, UNIX/Windows).

 

[Ninjamom]

Have to disagree here. The Saturn V rocket was a much greater 'pinnacle of technology' than either the US Shuttle, Euro version, or Soviet Buran. It had a much greater payload capacity than anything else available at the time, or currently. With the end of the NASA moon program, the Saturn V technology retired as the engineers who worked it retired. Now, much of that technology must be re-invented (hence why it's taken so long to go back to the moon).

Don't expect space probes to look like air-breathers anytime soon. And why should they? What would be the point of having an aerodynamic shape to a space vehicle?

 

[flashlock]

Sometimes you have to take a step back when you realize you took the wrong fork in the road.

I read somewhere a few years ago that one of the reasons they were going back to the older design was for safety. In the shuttle, all that fuel is right by the ship itself where the astronaughts are. With the old design, the fuel is all behind you, so if that explodes, you have a chance to eject.

 

[Ninjamom]

The Earth is one, big, massive gravity well. Slinging something into space takes an enormous amount of energy. That is why those huge rocket engines and staged boosters are used, just to give enough power to reach orbit. Without the big rocket engines and fuel stages, I doubt a smallish ship could carry enough ft-lbs of thrust in fuel to get into space.

True enough but there have been some interesting approaches to bridging that problem. The Pegasus launch vehicle put small satellites into orbit, repeatedly and reliably, by launching them from under a B-52 in flight - this gave the space vehicle a good 'boost' against gravity. A much earlier version of the same technology launched the X-15 vehicle, into space (but never into orbit) at over Mach 5.

 

[jetboatdeath]

The Earth is one, big, massive gravity well. Slinging something into space takes an enormous amount of energy. That is why those huge rocket engines and staged boosters are used, just to give enough power to reach orbit. Without the big rocket engines and fuel stages, I doubt a smallish ship could carry enough ft-lbs of thrust in fuel to get into space.

Ft-lbs is a measurement of torque
Newtons are the measurement for thrust.

 

[jks9199]

The Earth is one, big, massive gravity well. Slinging something into space takes an enormous amount of energy. That is why those huge rocket engines and staged boosters are used, just to give enough power to reach orbit. Without the big rocket engines and fuel stages, I doubt a smallish ship could carry enough ft-lbs of thrust in fuel to get into space.

I understand that... But what says you have to give all the push in the first few seconds? I'm not saying the engine design would be as simple as I make it sound; in fact, I'm certain it wouldn't be. But there's two ways to get up a steep hill. You can blast up it in a burst of energy, and end up exhausted but at the top quickly... Or you can wind your way up in a series of switch backs, and take longer, but get to the top with more energy.

Why can't we apply the same idea to reaching low earth orbit?

And I'm certainly not suggesting the shuttle was a peak of technology -- even in the late 70s or early 80s. I am saying that we need to look beyond the idea of just throwing "rocks" up and letting them fall back to earth when we're done with them.