Orion capsule's first manned flight

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

I came across this piece about the Orion capsule

http://www.space.com/16395-orion-space-capsule-nasa-unveiled.html

And was surprised to learn it's first manned flight will be in 2021 - 9 years from now, and work started on it in 2005 (according to Wikipedia). 16 years from the drawing board to manned flight! That is astonishing when you consider NASA developed four spacecraft and the Saturn V in less time.

What is the reason for this timescale? Is it simply pork, or funding issues, or something else - I'd like to hear what the more enlightened members of this board think.

[Peter B]

The first thought which came to mind was "No bucks, no Buck Rogers." This is all being developed on a much smaller annual budget than Apollo.

But another thought which came to mind was one I wrote about on the old board - without a Kennedy-style deadline there's a never-ending temptation to tinker, to constantly find ways to improve the spacecraft. This pushes costs up and deadlines back. At some point you have to draw a line in the plans and say, "No more tinkering". Whether this is an issue with Orion I don't know.

Another issue, which I also covered in the earlier posting, was how the design can be affected by intended missions. Apollo hardware was single-purposed - the CSM was designed to house the astronauts for lift-off and re-entry, and a completely differently designed LM had the job of taking astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon and back. On the other hand the Space Shuttle was multi-purposed and ended up being not very efficient at any of those purposes. I wonder if the new Orion is going to end up trying to be all things to all missions, but again I don't know.

It's interesting to compare this timeline with the development of the Dragon capsule, which gives me the impression of being design-driven (let the design influence the missions it can do) rather than mission-driven (let the missions intended influence the design). If nothing else, Spacex impresses me for the speed at which it has developed and flown Dragon, and I'm looking forward to seeing if they can maintain this speed; I'd love to see people fly safely into space in a Dragon capsule.

So the problem with all of this is that I don't know the details of either Orion or Dragon. Instead I realise I'm viewing both programs through a filter of expecting the worst in NASA and the best in Spacex; I don't know the relative sizes of their budgets nor the bureaucracy each side has to deal with.

[Echnaton]

Peter is on to something. 

The Orion is supposed to do everything, while NASA has no real way to do anything at all.  A Mars mission is a pipe dream and there is no impetus to spend the money needed to return to the moon.  It can ferry a large crew to the space station if NASA can get someones rocket under it, but that is not what the original primary purpose was.  Essentially it's progress can be slow because in the best light Orion is a pure research project needed to maintain our abilities to develop spacecraft.  Under less a rosy view, Orion is a jobs program for aerospace workers and corporate welfare for the contractors.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

I think you guys are right: it's down to purpose and lack of clear goal or deadlines.

When you consider the speed at which the Dragon was developed, or that ATK says they can have their Liberty capsule man rated and flying by 2015 it comes into focus: both SpaceX and Liberty have clear goals and funding. That is, they are to build spacecraft to travel to LEO and dock with the ISS and do not much else (I know about the proposed uses and variants or Dragon, but at the moment they're just hypothetical).

Also, I think pork has a lot to do with it - the companies building the SLS and Orion are the usual suspects who've made a lot of money out NASA contracts.

On a side note, does anyone think the SLS will actually fly?

[cjameshuff]

The Orion's not going anywhere without a SLS launch...there's one early unmanned test that's planned for a Delta IV launch, all subsequent missions are to use the SLS. There's little point in having it ready to fly before there's anything to fly it on.

And no, I don't think there'll be any SLS launches. There just isn't money for them together with any sort of mission, even assuming it's not even more expensive than predicted, and one of the primary goals of the program (as openly stated by its supporters) is just to keep Shuttle personnel employed and contractors working on Shuttle hardware...not a basis for a successful space program, or motivation to deliver on time and under budget.

[ka9q]

But another thought which came to mind was one I wrote about on the old board - without a Kennedy-style deadline there's a never-ending temptation to tinker, to constantly find ways to improve the spacecraft. This pushes costs up and deadlines back. At some point you have to draw a line in the plans and say, "No more tinkering". Whether this is an issue with Orion I don't know.

I hear you, but deadlines also have drawbacks. JFK's deadline may have gotten Apollo to the moon, but it arguably killed three astronauts in the process. There wasn't time to think about the risks of a pure O₂ atmosphere, or a lot of other things. They had many problems they knew they had to solve, so why fix something that wasn't broken -- at least not before January 27, 1967?

Even though Apollo did "put a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth" by the end of the decade, that's about all it did. It took a major effort to increase lunar stay times to 3 days for some actual scientific exploration. Skylab also managed to get some good scientific mileage out of the Apollo investment, but ultimately the whole program was so expensive -- because speed had been more important than cost -- as to prove completely unsustainable. So it was completely shut down and all the technology (and much of the know-how) sent to pasture. We haven't done anything like it since, largely out of fear that any new program would necessarily be just as expensive, if not more so.

There's gotta be a happy medium in here somewhere. You want a program with enough momentum to keep the people working on it (and Congress and the taxpayers) all happy, but you also want it to be sustainable, reasonably safe, and  adaptable to changing needs.

[raven]

Typical Soviet secrecy didn't help by not revealing the death of Valentin Bondarenko, whose death also directly stemmed from a pure oxygen environment.

[Peter B]

But another thought which came to mind was one I wrote about on the old board - without a Kennedy-style deadline there's a never-ending temptation to tinker, to constantly find ways to improve the spacecraft. This pushes costs up and deadlines back. At some point you have to draw a line in the plans and say, "No more tinkering". Whether this is an issue with Orion I don't know.

I hear you, but deadlines also have drawbacks. JFK's deadline may have gotten Apollo to the moon, but it arguably killed three astronauts in the process. There wasn't time to think about the risks of a pure O₂ atmosphere, or a lot of other things. They had many problems they knew they had to solve, so why fix something that wasn't broken -- at least not before January 27, 1967?

Fair point. I think that's why it's worth looking at how private industry develops its own products. Somehow objects like the Boeing 747 or the Falcon 9 emerge both safely and in a timely fashion.

Even though Apollo did "put a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth" by the end of the decade, that's about all it did. It took a major effort to increase lunar stay times to 3 days for some actual scientific exploration. Skylab also managed to get some good scientific mileage out of the Apollo investment, but ultimately the whole program was so expensive -- because speed had been more important than cost -- as to prove completely unsustainable. So it was completely shut down and all the technology (and much of the know-how) sent to pasture. We haven't done anything like it since, largely out of fear that any new program would necessarily be just as expensive, if not more so.

The thing I find so frustrating about Apollo is that despite the shortcuts and compromises in design which were necessary in a crash program, the Apollo spacecraft was a very good one. I get the impression it had a lot of potential for further use and development. Skylab, as you mention, was one such case, but I understand it could have gone a lot further.

There's gotta be a happy medium in here somewhere. You want a program with enough momentum to keep the people working on it (and Congress and the taxpayers) all happy, but you also want it to be sustainable, reasonably safe, and  adaptable to changing needs.

Hence my interest in private industry programs which aren't set up in response to government contracts.

I suppose the problem is that getting into space is fantastically expensive, and that sort of wealth has only been available to a few governments until recently. Now, however, there are people with this sort of wealth who can indulge these sorts of projects if they want. The thing is that these first steps will inevitably lead to the opportunity to exploit the resources of the Solar System, which could result in some fantastic wealth for the people and companies which can manage it.

As for government aerospace contracts, they seem to be part of the Washington money circuit, lobby groups convincing Congress to fund their projects, with 'fees' lining the pockets of all concerned, and American banks and taxpayers footing the bill. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be the political will to do anything about it.

I don't know that much about American history, but I get the impression the US Government didn't spend a lot of money exploring its newly acquired lands apart from the Lewis and Clark expedition. Rather, the land was steadily settled by ordinary people moving west. Perhaps that's a useful model for the US to consider with space exploration - leave it to the people.

[ka9q]

The thing I find so frustrating about Apollo is that despite the shortcuts and compromises in design which were necessary in a crash program, the Apollo spacecraft was a very good one. I get the impression it had a lot of potential for further use and development. Skylab, as you mention, was one such case, but I understand it could have gone a lot further.

"Good" in what sense? The CSM was pretty good at what it was designed to do: ferry three astronauts and some of their cargo safely into earth orbit and in some cases to lunar orbit and back. And it was a pretty good platform for scientific equipment on the J missions.

But the CSM was very expensive, and even the part that returned to earth could only be used once. Its flight endurance was only a few weeks, long enough for a quick trip to the moon and back but its utility was seriously limited for longer missions. For example, even though Skylab had solar panels that made the CSM's fuel cells unnecessary while docked, the fuel cells could not be shut down after docking and restarted before undocking and re-entry. Each cell required a minimum load of 563 W just to keep its KOH/H₂O electrolyte from freezing. The SM couldn't carry enough hydrogen to run the fuel cells even at minimum power for an entire Skylab stay, so they shut down permanently after just a few weeks at the station. (Fuel cell power from the first Skylab CSM did come in handy before the crew could deploy the remaining OWS panel.)

The CM entry batteries could not power the entire CSM between undocking and landing, so several large silver-zinc batteries were added to the SM just to support the CSM between undocking and SM jettison.

The CSM docking system left a lot to be desired. The crews dreaded it, and it almost ruined one mission (Apollo 14). Each retraction consumed a bottle of compressed nitrogen, so there could only be so many dockings on each mission. Pyrotechnics were used for the final separation, which always seemed dangerous to me. Apparently it did to NASA too, as they required the crew to be in suits when the jettison pyros were fired in case they caused a cabin leak.

Of course much of the CSM (certainly all of its electronics, displays and controls) is now horribly obsolete, but it wouldn't be fair to hold that against the CSM in its own time. I've mentioned things that could have been done differently even at the time, but weren't because the CSM was designed quickly, for a very specific purpose, and with cost as a secondary consideration.

[Bob B.]

Pyrotechnics were used for the final separation, which always seemed dangerous to me. Apparently it did to NASA too, as they required the crew to be in suits when the jettison pyros were fired in case they caused a cabin leak.

That's a lesson the Soviets learned the hard way after losing the crew of Soyuz 11.  From Wikipedia...

On June 30, 1971, after an apparently normal re-entry of the capsule of the Soyuz 11 mission, the recovery team opened the capsule to find the crew dead.  It quickly became apparent that they had been asphyxiated. The fault was traced to a breathing ventilation valve, located between the orbital module and the descent module, that had been jolted open as the descent module separated from the service module, 723 seconds after retrofire.  The two were held together by explosive bolts designed to fire sequentially; in fact, they fired simultaneously.  The force of this caused the internal mechanism of the pressure equalization valve to loosen a seal that was usually discarded later and normally allowed automatic adjustment of the cabin pressure.  The valve opened at an altitude of 168 kilometers (104 mi), and the gradual loss of pressure was fatal within seconds.  The valve was located beneath the seats and was impossible to locate and block before the air was lost. Flight recorder data from the single cosmonaut outfitted with biomedical sensors showed cardiac arrest occurred within 40 seconds of pressure loss. By 935 seconds after the retrofire, the cabin pressure was zero, and remained there until the capsule hit the Earth's atmosphere.

Film later declassified showed support crews attempting CPR on the cosmonauts.  It was not known until an autopsy that they had died because of a capsule depressurization. The ground crew had lost audio contact with the crew before re-entry began and had already begun preparations for contingencies in case the crew had been lost.

The cosmonauts were given a large state funeral and buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis at Red Square, Moscow near the remains of Yuri Gagarin.  U.S. astronaut Tom Stafford was one of the pallbearers. They were also each posthumously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal. Craters on the Moon were named after the three cosmonauts.

The Soyuz 11 landing coordinates are 47.35663°N 70.12142°E which is 90 km south-west of Karazhal, Karagandy, Kazakhstan and about 550 km north-east of Baikonur. At the site is a memorial monument in the form of a three-sided metallic column. Near the top of the column, on each of the three sides, is the engraved image of the face of each crew member set into a stylized triangle. The memorial is in open, flat country, far from any populated area. It is within a small, circular, fenced area.

The Soyuz spacecraft was extensively redesigned after this incident to carry only two cosmonauts. The extra room meant that the crew could wear space suits during launch and landing. A Soyuz capsule would not hold three crew members again until the Soyuz-T redesign in 1980, which freed enough space for three people in lightweight pressure suits to travel in the capsule.

[Peter B]

The thing I find so frustrating about Apollo is that despite the shortcuts and compromises in design which were necessary in a crash program, the Apollo spacecraft was a very good one. I get the impression it had a lot of potential for further use and development. Skylab, as you mention, was one such case, but I understand it could have gone a lot further.

"Good" in what sense? The CSM was pretty good at what it was designed to do: ferry three astronauts and some of their cargo safely into earth orbit and in some cases to lunar orbit and back. And it was a pretty good platform for scientific equipment on the J missions.

But the CSM was very expensive, and even the part that returned to earth could only be used once. Its flight endurance was only a few weeks...

The CM entry batteries could not power the entire CSM between undocking and landing...

The CSM docking system left a lot to be desired...

Of course much of the CSM (certainly all of its electronics, displays and controls) is now horribly obsolete, but it wouldn't be fair to hold that against the CSM in its own time. I've mentioned things that could have been done differently even at the time, but weren't because the CSM was designed quickly, for a very specific purpose, and with cost as a secondary consideration.

Fair enough, I stand corrected. I'd drawn that conclusion based on my reading of Murray and Cox's "Apollo - The Race to the Moon".

[Noldi400]

As always, it comes down to ca$h.

I don't believe commercial spaceflight is ever going to take hold until and unless someone finds a way to make it pay - and not by simply subcontracting its services to NASA like SpaceX or ATK or being a billionaire's hobby project like SpaceShipOne.

I certainly don't have the answer.  Like most sci-fi geeks, I think there are probably many opportunities for making commercial use of outer space, but getting that phase of human existence jump-started is, I guess, the 64 thousand... million... billion dollar question.

Sorry for the rambling. It's late.

[ka9q]

That's a lesson the Soviets learned the hard way after losing the crew of Soyuz 11.

Yes, it was. NASA instituted the practice of wearing pressure suits at LM jettison on Apollo 15 as a direct response to the Soyuz 11 accident a month earlier.

The Soyuz 11 decompression accident was a major topic of discussion between the Russians and Americans during planning for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. NASA quite reasonably wanted to know if the cause had been fully determined and fixed.

Even today, sudden decompression would probably be my biggest fear if I ever had the opportunity to fly in space, especially to the ISS. I think about how big it has grown, with innumerable windows, hatches, portholes and other pressure wall penetrations.