NASA's Orion deep space craft goes under construction

[Col. Flagg]

I'm still trying to figure out why NASA is having to solve the problem of deep space travel when it apparently wasn't a problem in 1969 traveling 500,000 miles to the moon and back???

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... psule.html

[brianj]

You may not understand all the issues. Going 250,000 miles to the moon is hardly deep space travel.

The longest consecutive time in space for an American is about 342 days when Scott Kelly (accompanied by Mikhail Korniyenko) visited the ISS in 2015 and 2016. The longest spaceflight happened when Valeri Polyakov spent over two years, a total of 878 days, on Mir. But these missions were all well under the Van Allen belts and regularly resupplied by Soyuz and Progress capsules sent to Mir or ISS.

Going beyond the Van Allen belts is a different beast. The 12 days, 13 hours, 51 minutes, and 59 seconds spent off the surface of the planet by the Apollo 17 crew stretched the capabilities of the Apollo Command Module and LEM to the limit just carrying consumables. And the Apollo CM was only designed for relatively short term exposure to solar radiation because of the flights lasting less than two weeks.

A flight to Mars with a very high speed transfer (which requires a lot of propellant on each end of the journey) would take about 130 days. A more realistic trip would take about 260 days to get there, 260 days to return, and after about three months at Mars a launch window would open for the seven month return flight. So nine months to get there, three months there, and nine months to get back requires bringing consumables for 21 months plus providing enough radiation shielding to protect the crew for nearly two years in space.

Put another way, going from Earth to the Moon is similar to sailing from Miami to Bermuda and back. An Earth to Mars voyage is comparatively like sailing around the world. Nonstop circumnavigations are very rare because of how much the boat has to go through. The Volvo Ocean Race includes a bunch of stops during which the boats get overhauled because of how much stress the boats endure on each leg.

You could just as easily ask why, if planes were able to fly across an ocean nonstop and unrefueled in 1919 (Alcock and Brown in a Vicker Vimy), it took until 1986 for a plane to travel around the world without stopping or refueling.

[Col. Flagg]

Deep Space actually has two meanings… outside the earth’s atmosphere and outside the solar system. I’m still not 100% convinced we went to the moon – when you look at all of the problems, deaths, setbacks and issues NASA had on earth with not just the Apollo program but rocket science in general and then realize that most of the Apollo missions went off without a hitch to the moon and back multiples times, with men on the moon golfing no less, it insults your intelligence. And to think that a thin aluminum hull protected the astronauts from radiation through the Van Allen Belts not just once, but twice with no signs of even radiation poisoning, even an amateur scientist is going to laugh (and no, the alleged incredible speed they traveled through the belts is not why they were fine). And like I said, why is NASA trying to re-invent the wheel when they had the perfect technology to conquer outer space, moon missions, the Van Allen Belts and rocket science back in the 1960’s???

[brianj]

Deep Space actually has two meanings… outside the earth’s atmosphere and outside the solar system. I’m still not 100% convinced we went to the moon – when you look at all of the problems, deaths, setbacks and issues NASA had on earth with not just the Apollo program but rocket science in general and then realize that most of the Apollo missions went off without a hitch to the moon and back multiples times, with men on the moon golfing no less, it insults your intelligence. And to think that a thin aluminum hull protected the astronauts from radiation through the Van Allen Belts not just once, but twice with no signs of even radiation poisoning, even an amateur scientist is going to laugh (and no, the alleged incredible speed they traveled through the belts is not why they were fine). And like I said, why is NASA trying to re-invent the wheel when they had the perfect technology to conquer outer space, moon missions, the Van Allen Belts and rocket science back in the 1960’s???

After James Van Allen discovered the radiation belts really exist, they were mapped. The two belts were found to have a toroidal shape with the greatest thickness and radiation over the tropics. The simple, and what I think should be obvious, solution for the inner belt was to simply go around it. With even a quick glance at the Blue Marble photo from Apollo 17 you can easily see that when the photo was taken the vehicle was over a point well east of Durban, South Africa. If you understand the shape of an elliptical orbit and where the Moon was at that time, then you would easily accept that when the command module was passing the distance of the inner radiation belt it was well south of that belt.

And NASA didn't have the perfect technology in the 1960s. Compare the capabilities of the Apollo Guidance Computer to a Fitbit watch today. Compare the instrumentation used back then to what's available today. The Apollo capsule, Lunar Excursion Module, and Saturn V rocket were tremendous accomplishments but the Orion and Dragon capsules will be superior in every way. The Falcon Heavy is in many ways superior to the Saturn V, mostly lacking in payload capacity. With superior modern materials and equipment, even though the FH has less than half the lift capacity of the Saturn V, two Falcon Heavy flights could put everything required for an extended J type mission into Earth orbit. A rendezvous would bring them together before translunar insertion.

But, of course, I have no doubt that when NASA or SpaceX send people to the moon, we can all live stream the entire voyage, and anybody with a VHF receiver and directional antenna can use that antenna to find the exact altitude and azimuth of the spacecraft, there will still be people who don't believe what's right in front of them.

[capctr]

So, are we just going to dismiss the use of secret “exotic” tech? I used not give two thoughts about it; however, I remember in high school(1986ish) when the military admitted to having the stealth bomber, after years of blurry pics taken by the public. Now? I am sure that there are all kinds of tech we don’t know about. Enough to take us to the moon, or Mars? I dunno, is our “sphere of influence” referring only to our planet, or could it be our solar system?

[brianj]

So, are we just going to dismiss the use of secret “exotic” tech? I used not give two thoughts about it; however, I remember in high school(1986ish) when the military admitted to having the stealth bomber, after years of blurry pics taken by the public. Now? I am sure that there are all kinds of tech we don’t know about. Enough to take us to the moon, or Mars? I dunno, is our “sphere of influence” referring only to our planet, or could it be our solar system?

I have wondered about the Pioneer and Voyager space probes. When the Second Coming happens, or when the Earth becomes Celestialized, will those pieces of material be returned to the planet or will they forever wander the galaxy?

Yes, I wonder about some weird things.

[capctr]

Try living out near Saratoga. Spent my youth looking for , only to see them all the time after moving near military bases with(no doubt) plenty of $$$ for R&D. I no longer believe in little green men, but I am often dazzled by the ingenuity of man...though, not always in a good way.