henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (05/11/89)
USAF team tours Kourou to study Ariane launch facilities, notably the site design that permits payload/vehicle stacking to be done away from the launch pad, permitting one booster to be stacking while another is readied for launch. The USAF team is overseeing design of a new Titan 4 launch site at Vandenberg. US scientists examining protein crystals recovered from a Chinese satellite observe that many were broken by reentry and landing forces. Complete crystals are important for protein-structure determination. Glavkosmos examines use of Proton to launch payloads to the US space station. Proton from Baikonur could take about 5.5 tons to the station, a fair load despite the dogleg trajectory needed to reach the station's orbit (which never gets as far north as Baikonur). Phobos 2 contact lost March 27 after the spacecraft is ordered to turn to photograph Phobos and then turn back, and doesn't turn back. Similar maneuvers earlier had no problems. The ESA people (who had an experiment on Phobos 2) say that the flight was not a total loss, since some of the experiments had already returned quite a bit of data. SDI's Delta Star plume-observation satellite launched (by Delta, obviously) March 24. A plan to have the satellite watch the second-stage de-orbit burn was partly spoiled when a sensor door failed to open quickly enough, but otherwise everything is working. Delta Star's fuel is expected to last about nine months, with primary objectives probably taken care of in the first three. It will watch a number of launches, including several shuttles, some Deltas, some Titans, some underwater Trident 2 firings, and several specially-instrumented Black Brant sounding rockets. Delta Star was dubbed "Wooden Stake Spacecraft" [really -- you can see that name painted on the side of the booster in the photos!] after a crazy SDI scheme to have a joint US/Soviet team recover a package from it and deliver it to Mir (!) was rejected last year with the comment (from a White House official) "the concept's got a wooden stake driven through its heart now, but you never know what's going to come out of the SDI during the next full Moon". [AW&ST notes that Delta Star was launched three days after a full Moon!] NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel recommends dropping the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor project, on the grounds that ASRM safety will be inferior to existing SRBs until considerable experience is built up, and that the money would be better spent on other safety improvements. The panel also observed that many of the manufacturing changes proposed for ASRM could be applied to the existing SRBs. NASA management agrees that the existing SRBs could be improved, but wants ASRM partly so that there is a second source for shuttle boosters. Truly also observes that money cut from ASRM probably wouldn't go into other safety work. The response from Congress is also a bit chilly: the implication that the shuttle still needs major safety improvements doesn't go over well after all the money that's already been spent on safety, and the fact that the panel didn't speak up earlier in ASRM's two-year history isn't well liked either. The betting is that NASA will basically ignore the panel, which is widely considered ineffective and alarmist: "The safety panel's basic position has been to point with alarm to anything that could happen... they have very little credibility as a result..." The panel also urged more work on liquid boosters, observing that the $4M NASA has spent on liquid-booster studies in the last two years has lead to a clear conclusion that they have many advantages. General Dynamics, one of the study contractors, says liquid boosters could be operational by 1996, only about two years behind ASRM. They would permit a boost-phase abort, could (if designed with engine clusters as GD has proposed) operate despite a single engine failure, and would give a much bigger performance improvement than the ASRM. NASA predictably says it would take longer and cost more. Fire at Hercules Inc. destroys solid-booster-production equipment being used to make Delta SRBs. Hercules is unhappy but says that it's not a disaster, since a second mixer facility was not damaged and a third is already under construction. Tokyo Broadcasting System signs with Glavkosmos to fly a Japanese journalist to Mir for a week in 1991. He would transmit daily TV and radio reports. Price tag, about $11M. Some Soviet commentators have protested that a Soviet journalist should fly first! More on Brilliant Pebbles. Supporters observe that some of the money now being spent on finding ways to attack mobile missiles might be more productively spent on attacking them after launch -- they are much easier to locate then! Lowell Wood argues that B.P. could also be useful to the reconnaissance community -- they would have a lot of sensing and computing on board. Wood is careful to say that if they were built, "they certainly will be produced in the traditional fashion by one or more aerospace companies". [That is, aerospace contractors should not lobby against them due to fears of lost business. On the other hand, it's hard to reconcile this business-as-usual view with Wood's expressed conviction that major reductions in cost are possible -- not with business as usual, they're not!] Japanese refine plans for their HOPE unmanned spaceplane, now aimed at launch on an H-2 in 1996. It looks rather like a shuttle orbiter with a somewhat fatter fuselage and with the tailfin deleted and replaced by wingtip fins. It's much smaller, 8.8 tons total with a 6m wingspan. The cargo bay is sized to hold three standard space station equipment racks. The Japanese are looking at high-temperature metal-skin concepts, believing that tiles have durability and repair problems. Japan investigates Liquid Air Cycle Engines (which liquify atmospheric oxygen on the way up rather than carrying it all with them) for both aerospace planes and conventional boosters. The engine proper would resemble the LE-7 oxyhydrogen rocket motor of the H-2. One concept is to replace each of the H-2's SRBs with a liquid booster using three LACE engines, which would have almost double the performance despite the weight penalty of air intakes and the liquifaction system. The engines would run as LACE up to about Mach 5 and 40 km, after which it would run as a pure rocket. Much existing cryogenic-rocket technology would be directly applicable. Mitsubishi has been working on LACE heat exchangers for some time, and is testing small ones. Final testing of the first Milstar comsat to start next year. This is the Pentagon's next-generation strategic-forces comsat. Of note is that Milstar will use satellite-to-satellite links to give global coverage without ground relay stations. The cross-links will run at 60 GHz, a frequency that is heavily absorbed by the atmosphere and hence is hard to eavesdrop on from the ground. -- Mars in 1980s: USSR, 2 tries, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 2 failures; USA, 0 tries. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
kluksdah@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Norman C. Kluksdahl) (05/11/89)
Before Henry gets a chance to post his summary of the last week's Av Leak,
let me get my one shot in.
The USSR has (in conjunction with their US marketing firm) proposed using
Energia to boost the US space station components to orbit. The rationale
is that it would save development costs for Shuttle C, and cut down the
number of Shuttle flights necessary to assemble the station.
On another page, there was a photo of the mockup of Shuttle C.
Why the *(&) did we throw away Saturn V????
**********************************************************************
Norman Kluksdahl Arizona State University
..ncar!noao!asuvax!enuxha!kluksdah
alternate: kluksdah@enuxc1.eas.asu.edu
standard disclaimer impliedjmckerna@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John McKernan) (05/12/89)
In article <136@enuxha.eas.asu.edu> kluksdah@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Norman C. Kluksdahl) writes: >Why the *(&) did we throw away Saturn V???? We threw away the Saturn V because it was a very expensive, virtually hand built rocket that was thrown away after every use. The idea of a reusable rocket is really very sound in theory, although it turns out to be a bit difficult to execute (especially by a government bureaucracy). With 20/20 hindsight a big dumb booster made with relatively low performance parts was probably the way to go. John L. McKernan. Student, Computer Science, Cal Poly S.L.O. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The future is rude and pushy. It won't wait for us to solve today's problems before it butts in with tomorrow's.
larryb@tekred.CNA.TEK.COM (Larry Brader) (05/12/89)
In article <1989May11.050951.11130@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: > >US scientists examining protein crystals recovered from a Chinese >satellite observe that many were broken by reentry and landing forces. >Complete crystals are important for protein-structure determination. > From what I understand they do most of the crystal analysis on earth. Has anyone engineer a piece of test equipment to actual perform analysis in space? It would seem to make a alot of sense check out a micro-g crystal structure in space in addition to analysis on earth. Gravity and re-entry will cause deformation to various crystaline structures. How about a satellite that grows crystals, performs analysis and beam the information to earth? I'm sure someone has already thought of it. Is it possible, worthwhile, or simply another idea to be noted and log? >-- >Mars in 1980s: USSR, 2 tries, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology >2 failures; USA, 0 tries. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu Space 90's : Japan buys NASA -- Larry Brader :: larryb%speed.cna.tek.com@relay.cs.net timesurfing the new temporal sport
Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (05/14/89)
In article <11316@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>, jmckerna@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John McKernan) writes: }In article <136@enuxha.eas.asu.edu> kluksdah@enuxha.eas.asu.edu (Norman C. Kluksdahl) writes: }>Why the *(&) did we throw away Saturn V???? }We threw away the Saturn V because it was a very expensive, virtually hand }built rocket that was thrown away after every use. The idea of a reusable }rocket is really very sound in theory, although it turns out to be a bit }difficult to execute (especially by a government bureaucracy). With 20/20 }hindsight a big dumb booster made with relatively low performance parts was }probably the way to go. Compared to the Shuttle, the Saturn *is* a BDB.... And, as has been discussed many times before, there was a lot of politics involved in making sure that the Saturn V would never fly again, even before the Shuttle was complete. Why, oh why do we have to throw away proven hardware before the new technology proves itself (or is even available, for that matter)? The Soviets are still launching many of their payloads on the same boosters they had 25 years ago, and doing so in rain, freezing weather, snow storms, etc. When you've used the same launcher over a thousand times, you have a pretty good idea how it will behave.... -- UUCP: {ucbvax,harvard}!cs.cmu.edu!ralf -=-=-=- Voice: (412) 268-3053 (school) ARPA: ralf@cs.cmu.edu BIT: ralf%cs.cmu.edu@CMUCCVMA FIDO: Ralf Brown 1:129/31 Disclaimer? I claimed something? Intelligence is when you spot a flaw in your boss's reasoning. Wisdom is when you refrain from pointing it out. --James Dent
jmckerna@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John McKernan) (05/16/89)
In article <246da016@ralf> Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes: >In article <11316@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>, jmckerna@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John McKernan) writes: >> With 20/20 >>hindsight a big dumb booster made with relatively low performance parts was >>probably the way to go. > >Compared to the Shuttle, the Saturn *is* a BDB [deleted] >Why, oh why do we have to throw away proven hardware before the new technology >proves itself (or is even available, for that matter)? [deleted] The Big Dumb Booster idea was not formulated as relative to the shuttle. When it was built the Saturn used a lot of very advanced technology for its time. It was a very complicated and high performance system. The BDB idea is to make a booster using only a moderate level of technology with as few parts and as simple a design as possible. This reduces performance but should reduce cost and improve reliability. This idea has merit. I stated in a recent posting that the major principle NASA violated in developing the shuttle was developing new technology when existing technology (Saturn V) was well suited to their needs. Indeed, since the BDB is an idea that has not been developed, probably the best thing NASA could have done was to continue work on the Saturn V. The shuttle project has resulted in immense damage to the US space program. John L. McKernan. Student, Computer Science, Cal Poly S.L.O. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The future is rude and pushy. It won't wait for us to solve today's problems before it butts in with tomorrow's.