Can Orion Fly Around The Moon Without SLS?
Vložit
- čas přidán 13. 03. 2019
- On March 13th Jim Bridenstine told a Senate Commerce Committee that NASA was investigating switching the Orion capsule's first lunar mission from the SLS to a commercial launch vehicle. In terms of payload the SLS is more capable than any commercial option at this time, so any plan to launch this mission on a commercial rocket would require two launches and a docking.
- Věda a technologie
Just add two more falcon 9s to make falcon superheavy. That's what I'll do!
a very Kerbal solution
mor boosters!
CptnCleator ahhh beat me to it
With crossfeeding!
An excellent way to make your ascent an uncontrollable disaster!
as always, finish a multibillion project 80%, then cancel it. It ensures work because there has to be a replacement for what has been cancelled. Rinse, repeat. Perfect method, tried and tested for over 60 years!
Look at the James Webb.. even at 80%, the last 20% will cost 400% more.
@@thisguyhere85 Wasn't this telescope also damaged during a shake / vibration test because they had dialed the settings up by factor of 10??
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 yeah.. and it had to be redesigned because they missed the window to be launched in a space shuttle.
@@thisguyhere85 Something tells me that was not an accident. And if it was, they'd better check the personnel resumes. back in 1999, Mars climate orbiter crashed because one fo the two parties was still working with imperial measurements, and the other with metric.
@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 Right.
By the time SLS is ready I'll have already finished half life 3 campaign…
I’ll have 2000 hours in Team Fortress 3
That's Gold! Hahahahaha!
By the time the James Webb launches I will be as good as Bradley Whistance at Ksp
Dammit, I wanted to make the James Webb joke :(
Damn I'll be playing half life 5 by the time bfr comes out.
"How would you refuel an LH/LOX rocket in space?"
..ahem..
_Carefully_
In zero G and at cryogenic temperatures it's far from straightforward.
@@martinhughes2549
So, carefully then... 😉
Possibly docking full tanks would be better than the "hose" type method involving pumping.
Simplify your life. Take the refueling tanker and add some RL-10 engines, thus obviating the need for refueling.
Like the old joke...
'How do hedgehogs make love?'
'Verry carefully' 😉
If refueling can be done in space successfully and with a high margin of safety it could enable new options for reusable space craft. Imagine a large manned craft that is permanently in space and moves about the local area. Potentially a successor to the ISS.
25 tons always sounds so small to me now that I've played kerbal so much. Just tell NASA to use moar boosters!
Yes , it does seem fairly insignificant , given how long ago the space exploration started and the achievements in the early years , one would have thought we would be thinking how to get 500 or 1000 tons payload into space by now rather than 25 .
HEH, do keep in mind that while it's a paltry 800-odd m/s to the Mun in KSP, it's a good 4km/s to Luna. Not to mention it being around 3.4km/s per second to get upstairs from the surface of Kerbin in comparison to Terra's nearly 10km/s. The gravity wells may have the same field strength, but they're _biiig_ .
@@Archgeek0 please just call them by their real names; Moon and Earth. We're not in a sci-fi setting where we Latinised all names of celestial bodies.
@@HirosjimmaCome now, when having to differentiate betwixt the moon and another moon, literally named "Mun" in this case, it's just common decency to use an old name to differentiate. Same with the Sun. Technically, any planet with inhabited worlds is liable to be called a sun. Makes sense to recycle the old name for ours, preferably the latin one because Helios doesn't trip off the keyboard as easily as Sol. Terra's just in there for consistency.
NASA: straps 6 Delta IV cores around Delta IV
Sounds like a warning to the SLS project that patience is not infinite.
I was thinking the same thing. No more cost overruns, or we can drop you and go with something else.
Yep. Art of the Deal. Troublesome supplier...threaten to cancel the contract and start inviting other contractors to visit your HQ, specifically walking them past the liaison office of the troublesome supplier.
You don't have to outrun the tiger.
@@STho205 Exactly. Just the person next to you!
Right, because cancelling a project that is 95% complete and with 95% sunk cost is a great way of allocating resources. Nothing like paying twice for the same thing. I'm sure Boeing is quivering in their boots, when they hold a developed technology and any competitors would be starting from much further behind.
@@STho205 that rag of bad advice? Doubtful
The usual KSP thought process to get to the Mun...:
"I don't have powerful engines unlocked yet, so I can't haul lots of fuel... MORE SRBS!" *Explodes launch pad on take off, forgets landing gear, misses the moon and orbits Jool instead.*
"Success!"
@@gaydonaldtrump r/woosh
it's supposed to be a joke.
there is no moon, only Jool!
Drake Tamer I think you missed a couple o’s
How about Amazon Prime? Could they not just use that special offer?
Bezos rockets are still suborbital, so...not yet.
If they get help from Optimus Prime, probably. BADUM TSSS
hahahahahhaha Made my day :D
That would be fucking awesome.
Blue Origin and all other Space companies are run by businessman. SpaceX was run by a visionary. Bezos maybe a visionary, but he's a businessman at heart, and businessman always calculate risk. Musk on the other hand show willingness to put his company on the brink to realized his vision. And he's not afraid to ruffle a few powerful feathers to get what he want. No other CEOs are willing to do this.
Might as well wait for Starship, good chance that will reach orbit before sls.
Haha, you mean a MUCH greater chance than the SLS. Even if it does launch, it'll be a pile of junk shortly after unlike the fully reusable Starship.
$1 Billion+ per SLS launch is ridiculous, not to mention the 0% reusability and around 2 launches per year. When Starship starts flying, it’s *100%* reusability (compare to SLS’ 0%) and many missions yearly will very quickly put it’s efficiency/effectiveness higher than the SLS and Falcon 9.
Starship might take 3 years to be ready.
David Burnett that’s the joke it will be done before the SLS
David Burnett You are the perfect sucker for corporate America.
2:18 - if anyone is thinking of making this a standard way to get crewed Orions to the Moon, consider launching the TLI booster first, then the crew. Just in case the second launch is delayed, the booster probably doesn't mind waiting in orbit for a while.
If the booster is filled with cryogenic hydrogen fuel it might not take too kindly to waiting very long. The humans at least can be de-orbited and reused. Scrubs the mission, but the booster would probably be lost forever if liquid hydrogen blue balls is allowed to go on too long. But of course, the correct solution is to just use a rocket that actually has the berries to make it happen in one go.
I may have finally cracked the FH problem. FH can deliver the Orion/ESM/ICPS to LEO, but supposedly not to the energetic orbit required for the ICPS to make a small orbital burn, then TLI. And FH not crew-rated. BUT, only a relatively small amount of delta-v is missing, from what I can tell.
Proposal: Launch the Orion stack to a fairly high LEO uncrewed (has less mass than FH can get to "basic LEO", so higher LEO is reasonable). Launch the crew on a Dragon. Dock nose to nose. (Uses existing docking adapters, no hardware development needed like other assembly-in-LEO proposals.) Fire up the Dragon, use all fuel of Super Dracos, then all fuel of Dracos. Crew then transfers to Orion, Dragon is separated. Now going fast enough (I hope) for ICPS to make the small orbital burn. I know, the Dragon doesn't contribute a lot of delta-v, but only a little bit more is needed. And remember, the ISS has its orbit boosted by Soyuz and Cygnus cargo craft. The docking collars and other structures can take this amount of force. (This may be at the cost of the Dragon. Still cheaper than SLS.)
Edit: Also possible - put extra fuel tanks in the cargo trunk of Dragon.
One name comes to mind: SEA DRAGON!!!!
They are constantly delaying the SLS
I can't imagine how much they would do that with the Sea dragon
I'd expect it for 2100
@@Matt0sh well they’re launching it soon
@@alexwang982 yeah I heard the news
Hopefully they'll launch it in late 2021 and hopefully Jeff who won't make them delay the Artemis even more
@@cha7664 ikr😂
And the space suits won't be ready before 2025
And Jeff who did his thing
Now NASA has to select a second lander with 100M$
It's not going well for Artemis
I have been watching your videos more than often clicking on my recommended ones. So I subscribed :) Great content!
I think if Boeing didn't want to worry about NASA exploring other options they should have tried a bit harder to not make musk time look prompt. I agree FH isn't suitable for this but at this rate we may see BFR before SLS.
I just love how you actually took the time to recreate a simulation to explain everything on ksp... awesome
Wow i like this Upload Schedule!
As I understood it the falcon heavy in completely expendable mode can carry 63 ton to LEO, so it could carry the whole payload to orbit. Yes, it would need new fairings and payload adapter, plus some way to fuel the hydrogen upper stage. But all that would probably be easier than anything else and cheaper too.
I am surprised that no one is talking about using the ISS as a staging facility for space missions.
It is easy to launch to, high weight capacities with low delta v needed so easy reusablility and heavier payloads.
You basically send the empty Orion capsule up on whatever rocket works best, and berth it to the ISS.
Then you send up whatever works best as a space tug to get it to the moon, and using the Canada Arm on the ISS, and a space walk if needed, you connect them.
Then you send up fuel, and using the Canada Arm you fuel it. (if you don't want to fuel at the station, you just dock the tanker to the side of the moon assembly, connect the hoses using the arm, and then after it leaves the station and is a safe distance away, you start the fueling process).
Then to get the crew on it, you send them up on Crew Dragon, and either transfer at the ISS, or if you want to do the off-station fueling and not have astronauts on board during the fueling, you dock the Dragon to the Orion after fueling is complete.
Then you jettison the tanker, send the Dragon back to the ISS as a back up reentry vehicle in case Orion has issues, and blast off towards the moon.
And while this is a lot of steps, it requires very little additional engineering, because instead of having to design special automatic in orbit docking systems, you just have to make sure that things can be bolted together by the astronauts, and add Canada Arm grapple points.
You could probably send up the extra Falcon loads and do the extra engineering for less than a years budget for the SLS.
I do think it's the solution that makes the most sense, honestly the SLS mission seems as if it was just an update of some pre-Apollo proposals, but it _is_ worth remembering that the ISS is on a tilted orbit, apparently for the sake of the Russians. If the ISS was on a slightly more equatorial orbit, it probably would have been more likely.
@@absalomdraconis, yes, the ISS orbit isn't ideal, but that just means a little more maneuvering fuel to get there, but it is the best known launch profile of any, how many trips have we been to the ISS now?
Plus you have actual humans there that can go out and do things that can't be done remotely without vast new engineering programs.
That right there is worth a little extra fuel, which remember is the cheapest thing in this whole picture.
Not to mention the ISS houses astronauts trained for spacewalks and robotic arms
It makes sense for all projects that want to go to moon and beyond to use space tugs. The opposite is insane because you keep making bigger and bigger rockets as you want to go into space further and with bigger payloads.
Don't you ever heard the proposal of Space Transportation System (STS) which was proposed by NASA in 1970? Space shuttle was designed to ferry crew and cargo between low earth orbit and the earth and was only one component of the STS which includes 1. Space Tugs, 2. Nuclear Propulsion shuttle between low earth orbit and interplanetary deep space, 3. low earth orbit propellant depot, 4. Space Tug based transfer vehicle shuttle between low earth orbit and the moon,5 Space Shuttle that ferry crew and cargo between ground and low earth orbit. The Space Shuttle was the only component of STS proposal approved by Nixon administration in 1972.
Seeing you still provide a lot of content using KSP always makes me want to play this game again. Go through the learning curve over and over lol. on that note, it might be time for an updated video guide for the best visual mods and such ;)
If I didn't know any better, I'd say this was the first step to transitioning away from SLS all together and opening the door for reliable, affordable spacecraft.
Everyone knows (and presumably Jim bridenstine) that fully expendable rockets are a gateway to nowhere.
The insult to the injury is that despite reusing every piece of proven hardware possible, SLS still can't get off the ground.
Is this a political play to pry the funding away from the ULA, one missed contract at a time?
At the very least, it lights a fire under the SLS with the message that waistefull slothfulness will no longer be rewarded with Cost + contracts.
(i.e. if you can't do it, we'll get someone else who can)
What about using reusable Falcon 9 launched Dragon to get crew up to a Falcon Heavy launched Orion+Service Module? I think this could be fully recovered given the mass to LEO. Then combining this with a Delta 4 launched ICPS? You don't have to human rate anything not already human rated, and Dragon can potentially help handle the docking maneuvers. You trash a Delta 4 and two Falcon upper stages. Then scrap SLS entirely.
striatic Thanks, I was looking for this, or same plan with other boosters and ferry vehicles. (Amazon, Northrup, Boeing, French or Russian). With up to 6 possible bidders there are lots of options.
The stage attachment in space will probably require something stronger than a docking adapter, launching Orion itself to orbit on a rocket built for standard fairings will require a skirt + no fairing, or a slightly oversized (few inches) fairing. Crew transfer would be an EVA unless Orion has the standard docking adapter.
Yes it can fly around the moon without SLS. The problem is getting there without SLS.
Ba dum tss
If only NASA has Baldrick and a cunning plan.
@@blackhatfreak I haven't said it was a problem without solution. At the end of the day I only wanted to make a joke ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Get out!
@@benitollan well bad luck. It's nowhere near the end of the day.
@@5Andysalive I'm just 47 minutes away from the end of the day ;)
Thank you Scott 👍
Seems like abandoning SLS has opened up more options for getting Orion to the moon... NASA should just put the mission out to bid and let everyone put their proposals forward, and may the best company win.
Don't forget to add the development time. By the time they propose, design, construct, test and fly their alternative launcher, SLS would be done even with delays
@@k1productions87 My only question is, will it cost less to can the SLS and use an alternative launcher, or to build one and then phase it out of use after the launch.
@@k1productions87 that's my thinking too
K1productions but thats just very unlikely i mean they have been costing the US 2 billion dollars every year for almost 10 years and they are still far away from even a test flight
SLS still has allot of right wing support in Congress which has been the only thing keeping it alive these past 10 years. That support could dwindle when they finally realize that commercial launch providers are better less expensive alternatives.
Thanks Scott!
Very cool!
Yeah, NASA would never launch a spacecraft for the very first time with people on board
Actually yes they have: STS-1
But that is the *perfectly safe* Shuttle system!
Why, they promised the public a "less than one in a hundred thousand" chance for failure.
And see, history has supported their claim!
They didn't have an auto land system ready then. They did before the end of the program. They weren't confident of the performance parameters under mission conditions until they had flown a few missions.
Well, yeah your right, Sts 1, but did do tests of the orbiter, on the moc shuttle enterprise
Government is always inept, always wasteful and always wanting more power and money. Only private industry can take man to the stars and improve the lives of all mankind. But nothing is perfect.
@@garymccann2960 lmao no
For political reasons, maybe launch one part with a reusable Falcon Heavy, and launch the other part with a Delta Heavy. And mate them in orbit. The two parts need to only dock once, right? My dad was in WWII in the Navy. He talk about how thing could be done in a small amount of time. He said the engineers could repair a bombed run way in one day. So I have little doubt that wartime type motivation could do this. Of course, I don't want a war. Even Apollo had some of the "get er done" motivation. Say put 3 docking adapters on each. We have pinpoint accuracy for mating crafts. I think we need to make some of this technology modular, instead of each mission being done by different companies. This politics is what is slowing everything down, and adding cost.
Actually, it would probably be better to have a Canadaarm at the ISS put the together. Unfortunately, that's probably the wrong orbit.
@@absalomdraconis We should avoid putting anything risky (like a booster with enough fuel to make a trans-lunar injection burn) too close to the ISS.
"... slipping to 2021..."
Ah, the days of optimism.
Sort of reminds me, in an admittedly "stretched" way, about Apollo 8: the Lunar Module was late for tests, so they went around the moon without it with the #8 mission, also initially human rating the Saturn V at the same time, in Dec. 1968; then the tested LEM in Earth orbit later on Apollo 9, and of course for the moon approach on #10 and landing on Apollo 11. But that Apollo 8 mission turned out to be, in many ways, a truly iconic one, with the first pics of the Earth, alone in the blackness of space. Who could forget that image?! Sometimes the "contingency plan" can have surprise benefits!!
It’s 1:45 AM and I can’t sleep. Thank you Scott for always delivering great content.
This is why I enjoy your channel. You take a fact based objective look at all arguments, and through in facts I hadn't considered. Thank you for your service.
I just realized why NSA8 is in such a hurry. SpaceX has a moon mission planned. It would be embarrassing as hell if SpaceX beats NASA and the SLS to the moon. Elon already said SpaceX would be there to greet NASA if they ever get to Mars.
Cutting out the SLS (at this time?) means someone can enact serious budget cuts for the next few years. Plus, using Commercial rockets, shows the world we know what we're doing IMHO.
Orion capsule and ALSO are the old and old fashioned technology of the Apollo program.
2:46 Hey Scott, this figure is given on SpaceX's website, I believe it's about 68t to LEO in fully expendable mode. Also there is no fully recoverable mode, the FH is only partially reusable because the upper stage is always expended :)
Sott you are awesome. Keep posting videos.
Hello Scott, I'm confused why launching ICPS (30710 Kg), SM (15461 kg) and Orion (10387 kg) at one piece on Falcon Heavy (expandable) is not discussed as option, at the onset you correctly stated that FH is not able to deliver SM with Orion to TLI, but later when you include ICPS you seems to fail to consider entire stack can be delivered at once on FH. Expandable FH should be able to deliver 63800 Kg to LEO, while the ICPS+SM+Orion is about 57000 Kg...
Hi, Thank you for all your great videos. I have a question regarding Falcon Heavy: as it's LEO capability is advertised as 63.8T and the Orion's (CM+ESM) wet mass is 26.52T, would it be enough to launch Orion with some solid kick stage to propel it to TLI (I know the fairing would still be an issue)?
I volunteer to fly in the Orion. I'm fine with flying on a non-human rated rocket.
A human rated rocket is one which can be proved to be safe enough on launch, and will not subject the crew to G forces which will kill them at any point, including launch abort scenarios. NASA's upper G force limit is 6Gs, the Soyuz MS-10 failure had a ballistic re-entry which went up to 6.7Gs for 30 seconds.
I'm surprised no one has suggested launching the capsule and service module on the Ariane 5 (or perhaps the Ariane 6) and then sending the transfer stage on a Delta IV Heavy. I mean, EM-1 is a joint mission between NASA and ESA, so why can't NASA pay for the launch of the capsule section on Ariane 5, a human rated rocket? Plus, the ESM was developed from the service module for the ATV, and the ATV was launched on Ariane 5.
@@vaska00762 US government wouldn't allow it. It wouldn't look like US project anymore.
@@janskacel9480 Then why is Orion relying on the European Service Module??? Even LOP-G is going to be a mix of NASA, ESA, JAXA and RSA modules with CSA parts (another Canadarm).
I mean, Russia is going to eventually develop the Yenesei for the same kind of mission, that's before we talk about their plans for the Don (which seems much more like the crazy Soviet designs for a Mars rocket, where the Soviets planned to add more boosters to a Proton core).
@@vaska00762 of course i know that. But most americans don't. I don't think that America first government would outsource flagship spacecraft launcher. It would really blow my mind, if it happened. On more practical note: Ariane is too weak and is not human rated.
@@vaska00762 because it's a service module
Usually I'm upset when creators change their outro music but this is epic
Just bring Orion to its former glory, nuclear explosions :D
God was knocking, and he wanted in bad.
WHAM
WHAM
WHAM
quiet
finally. this is what we all wanted ever since falcon heavy was born
I miss video game reviews, but still love your content!
Minor correction: the Delta Cryogenic Second Stage (DCSS) and the ICPS that it is based on are 5-meter diameter, not 4-meter. Also, it was mentioned in the context of putting ICPS/Orion in a Falcon Heavy quasi-fairing... Which, even if it would fit (it won't), would mean the awkward situation of a ULA stage on top of a SpaceX rocket. Works in KSP... Probably not so much in real life :)
a fully expandable Falcon Heavy with an additional upperstage might be able to do it in one launch - mass wise - but the fairing and the loads on the second stage and adapter would indeed be a problem
but you could send a large upperstage into an almost low earth, high suborbital trajectory, then have the upperstage raise it all the way to lunar injection
not sure though, estimating the exact performance graphs for the heavy is a bit tricky without insider knowledge
Thank You. I really enjoy your video's. I must admit, about 85 to 90 percent of what you are saying goes right over my head.
Nice to see the shout out to the ACES project.
I'm still a little confused why there's no LEO construction space station. Cut your cargo into 4 pieces and assemble it in space. And since you can use cheap and reusable Falcon9s, you could stack propellant tanks for days.
Better off putting such a construction platform in high orbit or at a Lagrange point. Regardless, the logistics and cost to sustain such a large station would be significant. The costs involved at this point are not worth it because assembling pieces by docking them with each other has been sufficient for current missions. To build truly massive space craft some type of construction station would be useful but we are not ready for that yet. There are still challenges to be addressed with small craft first and there is barely enough budget even for them.
@@stupidburp I see your points, but it's sad nonetheless. Even a exclusively remote controlled simple structure with like 2 canada arms with electric screw drivers/welding heads would suffice, I think.
The main reason is that the ISS is in too steep of an orbit. For the sake of Russian launches, they inclined it a bit far for everyone else.
The second reason is that we're just not building that scale of stuff yet. However, this would be a perfect use-case.
"for days" and that's the problem. It adds complexity and time.
@@stupidburp Don't you ever heard the proposal of Space Transportation System (STS) which was proposed by NASA in 1970? Space shuttle was designed to ferry crew and cargo between low earth orbit and the earth and was only one component of the STS which includes 1. Space Tugs, 2. Nuclear Propulsion shuttle between low earth orbit and interplanetary deep space, 3. low earth orbit propellant depot, 4. Space Tug based transfer vehicle shuttle between low earth orbit and the moon,5 Space Shuttle that ferry crew and cargo between ground and low earth orbit. The Space Shuttle was the only component of STS proposal approved by Nixon administration in 1972.
The point of the statement by Jim was to signal how frustrated NASA is getting with SLS. Obviously NASA can't fund a $300 - 400 million EM1 mission using a different rocket while keeping SLS development going. Where does the extra money come from?
SLS cancellation?
The Senate Launch System will continue as long as Senator Richard Shelby is head of the Appropriations Committee. Too many jobs in Huntsville, AL and Michaud in Louisiana. Boeing has the best lobbying team. The best!
SLS and our Congress is a complete shit show and should be gutted like a pig. I am a raging proud American but man, this stuff embarrasses me to no end. I am NOT proud of this 15+ years fiasco. I am also not impressed with the tax payer money that has been wasted like its water.
We need a reboot.
Ahh new Music, but I loved the Trance outro at the end of your videos Scott
This is a truly random question but what is your KSP modlist? I love seeing you testing your theories/creations in KSP and I enjoy the ability to do the same! Thanks! Also, awesome video, as always!
just put the Orion capsule in BFR’s cargo bay!
very sensible,I wonder if it really can be done?
Muhammed Enes Düz it could easily be done starship has a 9 meter by 19 meter payload bay
Thanks
SpaceX has been behind on everything. They still haven't man rated the Dragon. I will believe the bfr when I see it.
@@bobmar9239 You belive it now?
Come on, Scott. It's Elon. He'll human-rate the Falcon Heavy on Twitter before breakfast. ;)
Falcon Heavy will not be human rated, per Elon Musk.
@@OptimusNiaa If NASA really wanted to use Orion bad enough, SpaceX could human rate FH. Anything can happen. It's more about politics than practicality.
@@VeryFamousActor I didn't say it's impossible. Just that Musk said they aren't doing it. They could change their minds, of course. But they seem more keen on doing human-involved stuff with Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon, and SHL and Starship.
It's not just about politics. With SpaceX, being a for-profit company, it's about good business decisions.
@@OptimusNiaa If NASA accepts Musk's suggestion to fly EM-1 on two Falcon Heavies, EM-1 could serve as a qualification mission to man-rate the system.
@@polygondwanaland8390 Has Musk suggested this? Is SpaceX interested in man-rating Falcon Heavy? Would one mission be sufficient? Would NASA want EM-2, which will carry humans, to be on commercial rockets, or would they expect SLS to be online by then?
The idea to use Kerbal Space Program to explain these concepts is truly genius! So much easier to understand, thank you!
Thanks for sharing 😀👍
This is foreshadowing what we already know, that SLS will never fly.
I don't know, that's what they said about the Aries I and it launched for it's only one waste of money mission.
SLS is dead it just doesnt know it yet... NASA blew it by allowing it to drag out...
@@chrisjohnson4666
NASA never had the choice.
NASA has always been under the thumb of spineless, shortsighted politicians.
Gawd, I always get mad when I start reading about Apollo 17, and how politicians scrapped the entire thing because of cookie points with Moron constituents.
@@ShadowFalcon we can thank the hapless Walter Mondale for killing Apollo... He was a huge critic and wanted the money for welfare.... Apollo was cheaper and more productive than shuttle ever could be...
@@chrisjohnson4666
Hell, I'm not even American, and I was born in 1992, and I still get mad because of dipshits like that.
Hell, if there was a vote here in Europe, about increasing the funding of ESA to 4% of annual EU spending, I'd say hell yeah in a heartbeat.
Ah well. One can always dream right.
I just hope we can still salvage Orion and continue using it. I don't want to see all this R&D go to waste. Honestly I could see this as a whole new way for Government established administrations to collaborate with private industry. I have even developed a re-usable version of the SLS core stage. Also the original Ares I rocket design still has a ton of potential and could easily launch Orion into LEO. If that rocket plan could be revived that would solve a whole lot of problems and save a TON of money.
The problem with the American presidential system: Four Year Plans.
In what way have you "developed" a reusable SLS? The problem is that in three or four years, BFR is going to render every other launcher and spacecraft in the world (in the solar system?) obsolete. It will be like the first steam ship two hundred years ago. Nothing will be of any particular use when BFR is available to do whatever it is you want done for a fraction of the cost.
Odysseus Rex honestly the way people keep talking about that and boasting about it among other things makes me doubt it's credibility. Honestly, I'm just really doubting SpaceX's credibility as a whole. They and Mr. Elon Musk specifically seem more interested in helping themselves than the betterment of all mankind. I just really doubt their capabilities. All the other private companies like Blue Origin, Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corporation look much more promising than SpaceX. Their Falcon Rockets just look extremely rushed in development. Like absolutely no thought was really put into the design the only point of them is to quickly build them and get them out there and launch them before anyone else even has a chance. All the other designs look like actual time, care and planning went into their development. I'm absolutely despise when companies just try to completely corner the market. Also designs like the BFR just look ugly and unnecessary. Maybe in 50 years we might be able to get full use out of something like that. But for now please stop trying to just completely corner the market for your own personal gains please? It's all just sounding like nothing but hype to me.
But, why? Once it’s finished development, SpaceX will be able to launch a BFR/Super Heavy/Starship with 100 mt & 50 crew into LEO for $7 million, to a lunar landing for $14 million & to Mars & BACK for $98 million. Assuming the absolute best case scenario (using Falcon Heavy’s as launch platforms, Orion can take 6 astronauts into LEO for $90 million & into lunar orbit for $240 million (using SLS increases that to $350-500 million).
‘’The first rule of holes - If you’re in one, stop digging.” If your program is over budget & so far behind schedule that you’re just meeting the program objectives from 3 years ago, & someone is developing something that will do the job cheaper, faster, safer & better, STOP the program & spend the money on the other program! And, there is such a thing as ‘sending good money after wasted money”. ALL of these apply to the SLS/Orion. That’s why the administrators at NASA have wanted to scrap the SLS & invest the money from the SLS in the CCP & BFR for the last 2 years.
The only reason why SLS/Orion hasn’t been scrapped is POLITICS - Congress keeps on insisting on funding this “cash cow” so their donors can continue to make money off of us!
TraditionalAnglican the only other somewhat mainstream launcher in development that I actually support is Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket. All of SpaceX’s designs just look like developmentally rushed cash grabs. Not to mention fugly. I’m just against them specifically. Everyone else actually looks good and promising. I just really hate it when a company completely corners a market for no other reason than their own personal gains. It's horrible. I just want to see someone else besides them developing in this field. I was somewhat interested in them at first but nowadays, after launch after launch and development after development and announcement after the announcement it got old really fast and now I'm just sick and tired of them trying to completely corner the market preventing any other industry from even stepping into the market for no other reason than their own personal gains instead of for the betterment of all mankind. I just want more variety, please. Is that too much to ask for?
1. Launch a Dragon V2 on reusable Falcon Heavy to make minimal use of 2nd stage, keep Dragon V2 attached to 2nd stage
2. Launch an Orion on a Falcon Heavy, also keep it attached to minimally used 2nd stage
3. Dock the Dragon V2 and Orion using International Docking adapters
4. Use 2nd stage attached to Dragon V2 for partial TLI Burn
5. discard Dragon V2 for early re-entry
6. Use 2nd stage attached to Orion for final TLI Burn
7. Mission success!
Essentially using the Dragon V2 as a "Fairing" and docking adapter for the TLI booster :D
If you discard the 2nd stages efficiently, you might be able to get Dragon V2 and Orion around the moon in tandem! It would be like the Apollo-Soyuz mission
It would work in KSP. But in real life, is the IDA strong enough under the force of a big thrust like that?
Also, why add the mass of a whole Dragon? Why not just mount the IDA directly onto the second stage?
That actually isn't enough to complete the mission profile. The Orion is supposed to orbit the moon for a couple weeks and then return. That requires a burn to get captured, and a burn to escape lunar orbit. So you would still need some sort of propulsion system also put into TLI with fuel to spare.
@@rapter229 the Orion service module can handle the deets, can it be a highly elliptical lunar orbit?
@@ChrisSham The Dragon was the "Fairing" and the SuperDracos might help a bit with DeltaV, otherwise you would need a cone shape about the profile of the Dragon anyway ... maybe an empty Fairing with an IDA in it tho!? The IDA is rated for ISS station boosting procedures, so it can handle some amount of thrust.
Hello Scott -- enjoy your videos. Have you recently, or would you be able to, produce an update covering all the problems that are delaying the SLS? I'm old to enough to remember the "good ole' days" when it seemed that the Saturn V went from speculation to space in a very short number of years. Of course I know that those "good ole' days" are but a fond memory, but still, what the hell goes on here?
the guy is drinking a mountain dew at the NASA conference...
The end is nigh for SLS, it's been a long time coming.
To get around the human-rating problem, maybe do it in 3 launches: 2 Delta Heavies to put an empty Orion and booster stage in LEO. 1 Falcon to put a Dragon Crew to rendezvous with the Orion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Orion and Dragon can presumably dock with each other as-is since they both support IDSS. (Or presumably by that time, Starliner is also ready and should also work.)
Only channel that i press like before i watch.
"im sure engineers could figure it out" nobody gives us any credit
I miss the Saturn V.
Raises an interesting idea, but what would be the point of not using the SLS? Since the SLS and Orion are tightly coupled and ultimately manned missions using Orion must use the SLS, I don’t understand the value in launching Orion on anything else. Perhaps what NASA should be doing in investigating alternate transportation entirely such as Starship or using CCP vehicles (C-Dragon, Starliner) to transfer crew to Orion? That would be an effort with potential usefulness.
You don't really need SLS if you develop the tech to just assemble everything in orbit. Even if they keep SLS for the manned missions, developing the tech to assemble in orbit and then sending Orion on a test run around the moon without SLS would be worthwhile. Honestly, we will likely need to use this approach to get to Mars anyways.
Classic case of government putting its eggs in one basket then getting jerked around by the contractor. The public statement was just negotiating.... Good Call Scott.
if dear moon happens before this NASA would be seriously shamed
Why are the solar pannels at return trajectory burn facing forward?
Felix P. probably because panels in KSP has sun tracking
I'm gonna jump to spacex but not necessarily the falcon heavy.
I'm gonna say its about bloody time they learn how to launch auto assembling modules.
If you can make a rocket land in it's own, you can make modules mate in orbit alone.
So keep using falcons in reusable mode but start launching, say, an Orion module, a fuel/resources module (ala Apollo command module) and a main engine module and just have them dock. Send up a dragon crew module, job done.
This should not be a difficult concept to come up with, the Soviets had auto dock in the 70s and it was probably made out of string
Seems a waste of all those 2 stages. Just wait for bfr and 100% reuse.
I wouldn't read too much into initial budget proposals. They usually include way to much of something you really want and not enough of something you don't care about too much but the opposition cares about a lot. That way once the negotiations are done, hopefully you get as much as you want of what you want to support while negotiating away cuts from things you don't mind giving back. Classic negotiating technique. It's what actually gets passed and signed that counts. I agree with Scott, the SLS will probably still be there when the dust settles.
1:22 oh no this graphic. I can already her the flate arthers coming!
And they will be mocked to within an inch of their (sad) life.
Maybe ignoring Flat Earthers will help you.
@@JoshSweetvale Kind of hard to do since every space related video is filled with them.
@Mew2Prince
Presumably few Austrialian students are flat earthers. They can see the southern cross.
@@digitalnomad9985 Oh, I don't know about that... There was this one guy, a FE-er, and serious moon-landing denier that we all called "the Blunder from Down Under" because of his sad, inadequate, and pathetic understanding of physics, science, maths, etc... Not to mention his blind hero-worship of Kaysing, who, as we all know, made up all that crap just to make money off of it. Last I heard, the Blunder was going back to University to finish his Physics degree, but I've not seen a lot from him lately. Perhaps that lawsuit he tried to file against another CZcamsr backfired on him... Of course, this one example is merely anecdotal, so to be precise, your statement of "few" is still accurate. Cheers!
It's been over 2 decades since the space shuttle, what's the rush. Both SpaceX and Blue Origin are currently building commercial rockets that can do it. It sounds like another attempt by NASA to save SLS.
Although it would have taken a little longer to develop, EOR would have provided more robust and flexible launches than Apollo’s LOR, so it’s good to see it may still find it’s way back after all this time. I think you are correct that the first Orion will be launched by the basic SLS vehicle, after that I really don’t see a future for either. If Orion needs to dock with a booster stage, it makes more sense to dock nose to nose, rather than to the rear of Orion for lunar transfer.
I'm guessing the answer is no, but would it be possible to launch a falcon heavy without a second stage and dock the core booster to the orion (or anything really) in orbit? I'm sure there are a lot of reasons you wouldn't want to, including lack of efficiency in vacuum, but I'm just wondering if it would be possible given a docking adapter of some kind.
Had to pause in the first few seconds. "all sorts of political type people" HA HA HA - love it...
I wonder if the Spacex stainless steel super heavy booster could be developed, completed, tested and ready to launch before SLS is ready. That’s a great near term possibility!
spoiler alert: no the fuck it could not 🤣🤣🤣
Not even close.
scott i like ur channel.very interesting
Hi Scott, I was wondering if you would make a video explaining how the Apollo missions orbited the moon, managed to send the lander, how the lander managed to get back off the moon surface and back into orbit, how fast the control module was orbiting when they had to rejoin etc etc... can’t quite get my head around it. Yes, gravity is reduced on the moon but it seems it didn’t take much thrust and burn time for the lander to get back up when we needed the monster Saturn V to get off the ground on earth. Cheers from Australia
Out of interest, what mass can FH launch into a trans-lunar trajectory?
That's hard to say, there are not a lot of hard figures on FH, but it can be bounded by its GTO and TMI capabilities, which are advertised on the SpaceX website. FH is said to be able to put 26,700 kg in geostationary orbit, and 16,800 kg on a trans Mars injection. So it'll be between those. I assume both figures are for expendable FH.
I think I saw some calculation putting TLI capability around 21 t, plus-minus a couple tonnes, but I can't find it right now. But, well, thereabouts.
@@crincon GTO is almost as high as LO so it can take nearly 26000kg to TLI
We will probably see a Space X Starship be man rated by NASA before Boeing starts to build the space station around the moon
With a Starship, a lunar orbital station is not needed.
@@davis.fourohfour It would help immensely. Have a spaceport with fuel production on the moon, fuel shuttling between the surface and the orbital station. Starship could go straight from earth to moon, refuel there really quickly and cheaply due to the low gravity, and go wherever within the solar system.
@@davis.fourohfour You've clearly never played Kerbal Space Program.
@@davis.fourohfour A lunar orbital station is not needed under any circumstances. That's the most maddening thing about NASA's plans.
@@UltimatePwnageNL It would take almost as much fuel to get to the Moon as it would take to get anywhere else in the Solar system. Burning the fuel needed to drop in to orbit and then lift back out of it again is just a waste. At some point, it might become economical to use Lunar water to make fuel, but it would be better to send the water down to Earth orbit and refuel there, than wasting time and fuel going to the Moon for it.
looks like we are still waiting, see y'all in a couple years!
Hi Scott, would it be too much to ask to share your mod list? Specifically I've been having a loooot of issues it RSS/RO and finding a good capsule, this one looks totally amazing.. Seems to be the SSTU Orion..
Could be a “Frankenstein” using a Russian or ESA rocket.
International backed moonshot... 🤔
The European Service Module is already an ESA constructed part, because ESA wants their astronauts on future EM missions. Plus, SLS is already a kind of frankenstien of parts. SRBs are Northrupp Gruman, main tank is Boeing, RS-25s are Rocketdyne, upper stage is ULA, ESM is Airbus and the Orion is Lockheed Martin.
I doubt that any Falcon vehicle will ever launch a non-Dragon capsule. It's more likely that New Glenn will be the preferred Orion launch platform so that Blue Origin can get in on the competition sooner than later.
Why not? Blue Origin haven't even fly people yet with they funny rocket and FH is just expanded Falcon 9 which is fine for manned missions.
New Glenn won't be human rated, at least, there won't be any plans for human rating it.
I think ULA is thinking about human rating Vulcan, which will use the same BE-4 engines for the booster stage, however Vulcan is the replacement for Atlas V. Starliner was designed by Boeing to be adaptable for any rocket, including Falcon 9, but also Delta IV (if they human rated it), Vulcan and possibly other rockets. This does allow Starliner to switch from Atlas V launches to Vulcan launches after some point, though I suspect that plan was started for when ULA can no longer buy RD-180s.
@@vaska00762 Hmm good point! You might be right. But one why you think NG won't be human rated? They are not planning it or what?
@@michaczajka3854 BO has not mentioned anything at all about human rating the New Glenn. It seems they intend to market it about launching heavy payloads into GTO and beyond. Perhaps BO sees more money in it, so they just think it's not worthwhile getting into the human spaceflight market, especially since their human spaceflight market will be in Suborbital space tourism to compete against Virgin Galactic.
They have to fly the rocket and human rated it before 2020. That's less than 2 years. Not gonna happen. On the other hand, F9 is almost human rated, and FH a flight proven rocket. Even Delta IV is more likely to be used than New Glenn. That rocket hasn't even flown yet. Not a chance.
Reusable falcon heavy with a centaur stage as a kick stage
Oh gee, I sure hope exploration 1 doesn’t get pushed to 2021
Bye SLS!
Surely the budget can stretch to buying a copy of Kerbal for the president. He's an expert in everything, by his own admission, and should be able to devise a mission to the moon.
How about a video with an update of the Saber hybrid engine and the Skylon Spacecraft? Thx!
Lockheed has a decision point ... Green Light the ACES project at ULA (rumored to be DOA) ...
OR Start serious discussions with Blue Origin (New Glenn).
NASA is looking for Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR) ... which NASA considered 1960-1962
using the Saturn C-3 (equivalent payload to LEO 45-55 mT as Falcon Heavy & New Glenn).
ISRO could launch it :) They would Kerbal this somehow.
Not really. It would need 5-6 PSLV's strapped together
Dude isro rockets are too weak to perform this
On the upside, the hopper has been moved to the 'launch pad' and the Raptors are supposed to be going in PDQ. Can't wait for the first hop! :)
And it's been revealed that the hopper will not get a new nose. It'll hop the way it looks now. The new fairing they have been assembling turns out to be sections of the first orbital prototype Starship. And they are building a second orbital Starship in Florida. First hop is rumored to occur within days on just one engine, the two other being added later for higher hops. Things are really starting to move.
@@user-lv7ph7hs7l I knew there was no plan for a new nose but didn't know they were starting a 2nd ship. The first Raptor is in and the first short hops will be 1 engine hops. Then 2 more are going in for suborbital hops. I think the last I read said the first hop would only barely leave the ground and that is thought to happen this week.
@@TheEvilmooseofdoom That's what I heard too. Very short hops with the single engine. Actually they are building two orbital ships, one at Boca Chica the much cleaner looking round sections and one at Florida.
i just love how you always say mun xD
The costs for launchpad changes and time to make such changes are also very expensive. That's on top of the issues from changing the faring and other aspects of the configuration.
For people watching in the future, this is just after the second Boeing 737 max 8 crashed in a 5 month period and there is mass groundings of that plane and high instability in Boeing's stock.
Good point. The implications are hard to judge though. My guess would be that SLS will be kept alive to prop up the rest of the company, while nasa do their best to at least get a rocket out of the deal by using space x to give them the hurry up.
Maybe if the government quit cutting the budget and sending it to the military we would be back on the moon by now
If by "the military" you mean the military of the USA, then I invite you to recall the creation of The Space Force and imagine what all it may be designed to do with funding that makes NASA look like peasants.
Now wouldn't that be an idea.
Increase NASA's budget to 4% of federal spending once more, and then remove congress' ability to cut the budget again, or dictate how NASA should complete its missions.
maybe if there wasn't such a thing as the van hallen radiation belt, we would have gone to begin with ...
SlCKB0Y
Do you even know what the Van Allen Radiation belts are?
Their location? Their distribution? What kind of radiation they contain?
@@ShadowFalcon pretty much every type, especially including gamma ray, who funny enough doesn't turn you into a big green angry giant, but irremediably fry your DNA.
now would you please tell me how many maned space flights, other than apollo, ever went further than low earth orbit ?
Scott Manly a question for you. By swapping out the SLS rocket for anything else would change Orion’s performance profile for example boosters that aren't human rated in particular?
If the timeline of the Orion keeps slipping into the 2020's and all the way to beyond 2022, then Angara A5 with the KVTK fairing #2 can also lift the Orion in LEO. Anyway, great video Scott!
Nope, Russia invaded Ukraine. There will be no use of any Russian launch vehicles by US spacecraft.
@@benjaminbrown3939 I posted that about 3 years ago, things have obviously changed alot since then (for the worse sadly).