Note when track sounds stop ever so often the pod is levitating.
NASA and the Private Sector - Page 110
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Keep debates civil. | ||
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41088 Posts
Note when track sounds stop ever so often the pod is levitating. | ||
LegalLord
United Kingdom13774 Posts
Honestly I feel that it's a revamp that is very necessary. The safety record of Proton simply hasn't been up to par lately and painful as a year offline might be, manufacturing has sucked and needs improvement. | ||
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41088 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41088 Posts
The Obama administration wanted to send humans to Mars. But the Trump administration wants to put them back on the moon first, and quickly. That ambition is inside internal documents reported by Politico on Thursday that describe what would be a dramatic shift in mission for NASA. According to the documents, created by the transition team assigned to the agency, President Donald Trump’s advisers want NASA to send humans to the moon three years from now, nearly five decades since the last astronaut left his footprints there. NASA would focus on boosting human activity in the cislunar region—the space between the Earth and the moon—as opposed to venturing deeper into the solar system. The space agency’s main goal, they say, should be “the large-scale economic development of space.” “NASA’s new strategy will prioritize economic growth and the organic creation of new industries and private sector jobs, over ‘exploration’ and other esoteric activities,” explains a summary of what’s next for NASA in the documents. “Done correctly, this could create a trillion-dollar per year space economy, dominated by America.” It’s not surprising for a new administration to want to take NASA in a different direction so soon after its arrival in Washington. Eight years ago, Barack Obama canceled the Constellation program, created under George W. Bush, which planned to return humans to the moon by 2020. Obama believed the program was too expensive and that NASA had “lost focus,” especially as it began to wind down the space-shuttle program, the country’s pioneering pride and joy. He told NASA to put people on Mars by the 2030s, and lasso an asteroid somewhere along the way. If the Trump administration’s picks for space-policy advisers are an indication, the country will remain on a long-term mission to Mars. Wrenching the idea of a Martian journey from the American public after two terms of successful NASA public-relations campaigns and Hollywood space movies would be a difficult exercise. Plus, there’s strong bipartisan agreement in Congress that the Mars deadline can’t move. But the next four to eight years may see an aggressive push for more movements in Earth’s backyard, where hundreds of satellites and the International Space Station reside. Politico reports Trump advisers want “private American astronauts, on private space ships, circling the Moon by 2020.” That vision puts a lot of faith into private spaceflight companies that are developing and testing rockets capable of carrying payloads and people to low-Earth orbit. The company SpaceX especially stands to benefit from this ambition, because its CEO, Elon Musk, meets often with Trump as a member of the president’s advisory council of business leaders. Increased investment in private-public partnerships in human spaceflight would actually be an expansion of Obama’s hopes for NASA. But spaceflight is blind to the origins of funding, both private and federal. SpaceX and Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’s spaceflight company, are already behind schedule on perfecting the rockets they’ll let NASA use to carry astronauts into space next year. SpaceX has seen two rockets blow up in less than two years. The funding isn’t there yet, either; Trump has not announced a budget proposal for the next fiscal year, a process that usually begins in February. “This is not a bad idea, but the timeline that’s implied in this article would be an unprecedented speed,” Casey Dreier, the director of space policy at the Planetary Society in California, said of the Trump advisers’ ambitions. “Just because you have private companies involved doesn’t mean you can ignore physics or the harsh environment of space.” The president’s advisers favor these private spaceflight companies, considered “New Space,” over “Old Space” contractors, like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. “We have to be seen giving ‘Old Space’ a fair and balanced shot at proving they are better and cheaper than commercial,” the documents say. This likely won’t sit well with Congress. In 2010, Congress instructed NASA to develop a heavy, expendable launch vehicle that would replace the shuttle program and carry transport astronauts into orbit. The Space Launch System, or SLS, is being manufactured by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, with plans for a first flight in late 2018. Source | ||
LegalLord
United Kingdom13774 Posts
Driving the price down while making big promises, that's what matters. | ||
LegalLord
United Kingdom13774 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada15564 Posts
On January 31 2017 12:44 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: Expect to see variants on the Moon and even Mars one day. This was the first test/competition for the hyperloop so the future and redesigns should be interesting. when will this "one day" be? in a 1994 interview i saw with Buzz Aldrin discussing the 25th anniversary of the moon landings he predicted NASA to return men to the moon by 2010. in a 1972 interview Wehrner Von Braun predicted re-usable shuttles going to and from the moon by 1982. in 2006 president bush announced a return to the moon. Musk started his SpaceX thing talking about complete and total reusability. Years later... Musk has used 2 more rockets than launches into space. So far his product is not even 100% usable much less re-usable. | ||
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41088 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41088 Posts
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micronesia
United States24342 Posts
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13774 Posts
Given the tendency of these rockets to have delay after delay I think 2019-2020 is when they should aim for. Buying more seats, even if as a backup, should have been done as a safety measure. | ||
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41088 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41088 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41088 Posts
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oBlade
Korea (South)4616 Posts
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ShoCkeyy
7814 Posts
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13774 Posts
On February 21 2017 00:35 ShoCkeyy wrote: It feels great watching this happen during my life time, but damn, imagine what 100 years later could be... If we have the same wishy-washy commitment to space development we do now? Disappointingly weak. | ||
LegalLord
United Kingdom13774 Posts
ORLANDO, Fla. — NASA plans to complete by the middle of March a contingency plan for ensuring access to the International Space Station should its two commercial crew partners suffer additional delays. In a response included in a U.S. Government Accountability Office report issued Feb. 16, Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, concurred with a report recommendation that NASA develop alternative ways of getting astronauts to and from the ISS if commercial crew vehicles are not certified once NASA’s current contract with Russia for Soyuz flights expires at the end of 2018. “NASA will develop a contingency plan for maintaining a presence on the ISS beyond 2018 if the Commercial Crew Program’s partners experience additional schedule delays,” Gerstenmaier wrote. That report, he said, would be completed by March 13. The GAO recommended the report because of concerns that Boeing and SpaceX will not have their commercial crew vehicles certified to carry astronauts by the end of 2018. Those certification reviews, which will come after both uncrewed and crewed test flights of their vehicles, are intended to confirm that the vehicles are able to safely transport astronauts to and from the station. The certification review for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vehicle is currently planned for the third quarter of 2018, after an uncrewed test flight in November 2017 and a crewed test flight in May 2018. That review is at least 15 months later than the original schedule for the vehicle in SpaceX’s contract with NASA. Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner is currently scheduled to have its certification review in the fourth quarter of 2018, after an uncrewed flight test in June 2018 and a crewed flight test in August 2018. That review is at least 14 months behind the original schedule in Boeing’s contract. While both companies state they are making good progress on their vehicles after encountering a range of technical issues, NASA is less confident in their ability to remain on their revised schedule. “The Commercial Crew Program is tracking risks that both contractors could experience additional schedule delays and its own analysis indicates that certification is likely to slip into 2019,” the GAO report stated. One challenge in coming up with a contingency plan is that the advance time for purchasing Soyuz seats from the Russian space agency Roscosmos has traditionally been three years, which would have required NASA to purchase seats for 2019 flights to the ISS in 2016. As of last fall, NASA officials had indicated that they had no plans to purchase additional seats. According to the GAO report, NASA and Roscosmos are discussing one option where they would repeat the “year in space” experiment of 2015 and 2016, when NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko spent nearly one year on the ISS. A second one-year mission, starting in late 2018, would eliminate NASA’s need for one seat in mid-2019 as that astronaut would remain on the station until late 2019. Another option not directly addressed in the report is for NASA to purchase Soyuz seats from Boeing. In January, NASA announced it was considering a Boeing proposal to purchase two Soyuz seats in the fall of 2017 and spring of 2018, with an option for three additional seats in 2019. Boeing acquired the seats from Russian company RSC Energia as part of a settlement of a lawsuit between the two companies about the Sea Launch joint venture. NASA issued a “sources sought” announcement Jan. 17 seeking responses from companies before entering into negotiations with Boeing for a sole-source contract to acquire the seats. Neither Boeing nor NASA have provided an update about any negotiations since that announcement. According to the announcement, NASA has until the fall of 2017 to exercise the option for the Soyuz seats in 2019. As NASA examines its options, Boeing and SpaceX are dealing with technical issues with their vehicle designs. Boeing’s top risks, according to the GAO report, include obtaining adequate information about the capsule’s parachute system and getting data on the design of Russian-built RD-180 engines used by the CST-100’s launch vehicle, the Atlas 5. The engine data is needed by NASA to verify the engine meets human certification requirements, but access to the data is restricted. SpaceX’s risks involve a number of issues with the design of the Falcon 9, including a concern that frequent updates hinder the development of a stable design of the vehicle. Another issue is previously-reported criticism by some NASA advisers about SpaceX’s plans to fuel the Falcon 9 after astronauts have boarded the Dragon spacecraft, rather than fueling the rocket first. A recent news report stated that NASA had also raised concerns about cracks seen in the turbines of the Falcon 9’s engines that NASA deemed an “unacceptable risk” for crewed launches. That issue was included in the GAO report, but it also noted that SpaceX has already made design changes to the turbine that “did not result in any cracking during initial life testing.” Source Should've purchased a few backup Soyuz seats *giggle*. Could still work out but damn, what a bout of overconfidence not to plan for this. It was almost assured that schedules would continue to slip and 2019 as a deadline is probable. | ||
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41088 Posts
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pmh
1344 Posts
On February 21 2017 00:35 ShoCkeyy wrote: It feels great watching this happen during my life time, but damn, imagine what 100 years later could be... Curious what this will bring tomorrow: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/listen-nasa-wants-talk-discovery-152113525.html Looks interesting,with the option to ask questions on twitter/reddit,will watch this. 100 years from now we will still be where we are about now I think. Lets make a timeline prediction for future developments in space exploration,highly speculative off course. Trip to mars and back: 50-150 years. could be done now if they set everything to it. Permanent colony on the moon to be used as a base for further exploration:100-200 years. Only feasonable if the moon can provide rocket fuel. New propulsion system for use in space with a 10 fold+ increase in efficiency:200-500 years New colony on an exo planet:2000-10.000 years Travel with at least 10% of light speed:1000-2000 years. dyson spere:i doubt this will ever be build but maybe it could be possible in 100.000-1.000.000 years just some wild guesses,based on not that much. Feel free to make yours,i am kinda curious what peoples expectations are. Progress on earth is not that fast, The romans already knew about steam power 2000 years ago,yet we did enter a period of virtually no progress that did last for over 1000 years and it took 1500 years before a steam engine was finally build. The Chinese knew about the basic principle of the rocket 1000 years ago (the fireworks). | ||
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