None of that is likely with Griffin in charge - no matter what happens to Columbia.
Columbia rescue - save the space shuttle !
- Thread starter Archibald
- Start date
None of that is likely with Griffin in charge - no matter what happens to Columbia.
Archibald
Banned
Griffin himself is hard to butterfly (he was made NASA boss in April 2005).
First Sean O'Keefe said from the beginning he wouldn't stay very long.
Griffin obsession with massive rockets is not new - it harcks back to 1992 and First Lunar Outpost study, which featured a huge launch vehicle called the comet.
FLO itself come from the Synthesis / Stafford blue ribbon 1991 report. Main recommendation of that report ? lunar landings can't be done without a huge, massive rockets. Saturn V -size is bare minimum. This is not exactly true, plus big boosters cost an arm and leg. But since 1991 and that report NASA is pretty convinced it needs a new Saturn V for exploration.
Not that SLS is bad; unlike Saturn V (in 1972) it even has massive support in Congress !! (for the wrong reasons however, it brings jobs to Shelby Alabama district)
It is just that if the SLS is ever build it will suck so much of NASA slim budget there is already no money for any payload to be placed under its shroud.
A rocket to nowhere. NASA manned flight has no money for SLS payloads; the science community said they might be interested by giant SLS-launched telescopes, but have no money. No commercial nor military use for SLS either.
First Sean O'Keefe said from the beginning he wouldn't stay very long.
Griffin obsession with massive rockets is not new - it harcks back to 1992 and First Lunar Outpost study, which featured a huge launch vehicle called the comet.
FLO itself come from the Synthesis / Stafford blue ribbon 1991 report. Main recommendation of that report ? lunar landings can't be done without a huge, massive rockets. Saturn V -size is bare minimum. This is not exactly true, plus big boosters cost an arm and leg. But since 1991 and that report NASA is pretty convinced it needs a new Saturn V for exploration.
Not that SLS is bad; unlike Saturn V (in 1972) it even has massive support in Congress !! (for the wrong reasons however, it brings jobs to Shelby Alabama district)
It is just that if the SLS is ever build it will suck so much of NASA slim budget there is already no money for any payload to be placed under its shroud.
A rocket to nowhere. NASA manned flight has no money for SLS payloads; the science community said they might be interested by giant SLS-launched telescopes, but have no money. No commercial nor military use for SLS either.
Yeah, but isn't the shuttle ssme, et, and solids already a Saturn V class launcher? A 'save the Shuttle' movement might push the politics towards Shuttle derived programs. NASA often makes decisions based on current politics, this would be no different. If they can throw something with wings that looks like a Shuttle in as the 'Crew Launch Vehicle' without the massive space bomber payload bay they may get that public support they need.
I'm fairly sure NASA has a design for something like that floating about.
But, if the author feels this excellent TL is finished, so be it.
Well there was the Orbital Space Plane Concept that came into existence during the early 2000's. Which, IOTL was dropped in favour of the CEV for the Constellation Programme.
OSP launched on MR-Delta IV Heavy
OSP in Orbit
Though to be honest. I'd still expect something like Ares I/V and CEV to occur.
OSP launched on MR-Delta IV Heavy
OSP in Orbit
Though to be honest. I'd still expect something like Ares I/V and CEV to occur.
Archibald
Banned
I have nothing spinoffs, protect and survive style
It is just that, I've spent the last five years learning about the Constellation debacle on NASAspaceflight.com forum, and I can say NASA manned flight face very big roadblocks - from inside and outside the space agency.
Some examples
- ATK insane lobbying to keep their SRB business alive
- Griffin suppression of the EELVs (the black zone affair)
- the DIRECT odyssey (for nothing, Ares V was replaced by the SLS)
More worrisome is the price NASA manned flight has to pay to politics - to Shelby (Alabama, Marshall) Nelson (Florida, KSC) and some others.
In the name of the thousands of jobs provided by the shuttle the Apollo / shuttle infrastructure has to be maintained at any cost. Even if it is 50 years old (like LC-39) even if ruinous to maintain, and even if unsafe or unefficient (SRBs).
Like it or not, but Launch Complex 39 as of today is a burden on NASA budget.
(end of the rant)
I have nothing spinoffs, protect and survive style
It is just that, I've spent the last five years learning about the Constellation debacle on NASAspaceflight.com forum, and I can say NASA manned flight face very big roadblocks - from inside and outside the space agency.
Some examples
- ATK insane lobbying to keep their SRB business alive
- Griffin suppression of the EELVs (the black zone affair)
- the DIRECT odyssey (for nothing, Ares V was replaced by the SLS)
More worrisome is the price NASA manned flight has to pay to politics - to Shelby (Alabama, Marshall) Nelson (Florida, KSC) and some others.
In the name of the thousands of jobs provided by the shuttle the Apollo / shuttle infrastructure has to be maintained at any cost. Even if it is 50 years old (like LC-39) even if ruinous to maintain, and even if unsafe or unefficient (SRBs).
Like it or not, but Launch Complex 39 as of today is a burden on NASA budget.
(end of the rant)
My point is that, with the additional attention of a successful rescue as well as a Ron Howard/Tom Hanks movie, NASA might make use of that up-swell of public support. I'd hate to see it go to waste.
The Shuttle IS a Saturn class lifter, sort of. Its just that the weight of the ET and the orbiter itself each massively outmass the payload.
Some sort of cargo shuttle derivative, like the Shuttle C, say would allow massive cargo launches.
As for spaceplane like orbiters, NASA spent billions on about a dozen concepts, and the only one that actually flew was the shuttle. Ok, the airforce dusted off the x37 recently, and a version of that has finally flown. But if theyd just spent a bit less money and actually carried through, they could have had something ' cheap'.
Archibald
Banned
And now ladies and gentleman... here's an unexpected appendix to that TL, something that struck me like a lightning bolt yesterday evening (more on this later)
AFTERMATH
Life went on, and so did NASA business - unfortunately.
History repeated itself.
In 1988 after a 30 months hiatus the shuttle had returned to space, even after the Challenger disaster. Before STS-107 NASA had a plan to fly the shuttles to 2020 and beyond. And of course this time the crew had survived.
The majority of NASA engineers were amazed at Columbia endurance; not only had the ship had kept its crew alive until the rescue mission, but Columbia itself had returned to Earth without a pilot !
NASA philosophy was that, provided the foam strikes could be limited, there was no reason the shuttles couldn't be flown to 2020 as per before the incident.
Meanwhile a new controversy erupted.
From 2005 onwards the Hubble space telescope urgently needed a repair mission; but, just like Columbia it was stuck on the wrong orbit, far from the ISS safe heaven.
NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe tried everything he could: a robotic mission was beyond the state-of-art, and he didn't wanted to risk a shuttle crew.
In april 2005 he was fired and replaced by another administrator, Mike Griffin. Griffin pushed hard for a fly alone shuttle mission to repair the telescope, but he ran into a brickwall.
That brickwall was the STS-107 crew itself. In an unprecedented move, they collectively pronounced AGAINST the mission. "You have no idea what we endured, the emotional stress, the devastating aftermath we are still stucked in everyday. As much as Hubble need repairs; as much as my fellows are professionals, I can't accept they end like we nearly ended - either dead, or with serious psychological burden. Everyday life is so hard for us, you have no idea."
The astronauts were, at heart, professionals, and so many of them were surprised; there was a lot of miscomprehension, and NASA ended with a deeply divided astronaut corps.
Griffin was stuck in a corner; and Hubble seemed to be lost. That is, until Boeing proposed an astounding idea.
Hubble would be tugged to the ISS by a solar-electric propulsion tug, a technology that would prove useful for many others missions, unmanned and even manned.
Facing no other solution, and stuck between the astronauts and scientists respective revolts, Griffin picked up Boeing solution. Truth is Griffin badly needed focus; a tentative return to the Moon plan, dubbed Constellation, had been considered but rejected by President Bush late 2003.
Bush had been happy enough with the crew rescue, and considered NASA a liability. Nothing changed.
So Hubble was slowly tugged to the ISS orbit, a move that took a complete year.
But ISS had not been build for Hubble servicing; it was a (dirty) place full of contamination. Although a servicing mission managed to save the telescope in 2009, it was definitively not satisfying.
Hubble couldn't manoeuver away from the ISS since it had no propulsive system of its own.
Ideally, a shuttle would have flown from ISS to faraway Hubble, allowing servicing to happen in a cleaner environment. But the last three shuttles were just too busy with ISS buildup - and of course the 2020 overhaul cut the fleet further.
In order to try and improve Hubble failing ISS servicing missions in 2008 NASA ultimately decided to re-introduce the long mothballed MMU backpacks. A much uprated variant was build with a huge amount of propellant - together with a new, very long endurance space suit, enough to perform 10 hours long EVAs.
The SEP tug remained in orbit; later it would rescue stranded satellites, unlocking the long-discussed business of satellite servicing !
Meanwhile the harrowing business of ISS buildup started again from July 2005.
Yet Griffin faced another crisis. After further near misses, in 2007 Congress forced the agency into the COTS program to complement (and later replace) the aging Shuttle fleet.
SpaceX won the first contract, but after Kistler went belly up, the second contract remained in limbo. Orbital Sciences looked like a possible winner, but a series of events happened that changed manned spaceflight forever.
Buoyed by Columbia (and Hubble) rescue, Jeff Bezos come with an audacious scheme.
Late 2003 the new National Air & Space Museum opened its doors in Dulles. With the battered Columbia as the masterpiece of the new space hall, the museum didn't knew what to do with the old Enterprise OV-101.
Jeff Bezos come with a daring proposal. Wasn't Entreprise a true shuttle ? He proposed to turn it into a dual Hubble / commercial space platform. Back in 1996 a proposal had been made to turn Columbia into a private, commercial shuttle for all kind of interesting missions.
Bezos spent four years refining the project, and he ultimately managed to earn the second COTS contract.
The refurbished Enterprise was rebranded "Explorer".
After Columbia the flight rate was cut to four missions a year; number of flights mounted slowly but surely; as of July 2011 the shuttle fleet had flown 135 missions.
Explorer was well on track for a 2017 Hubble SM-6 servicing mission; according to NASA numbering system it would be STS-155 or so, but soon slippages led to a renaming of the mission.
Meanwhile another country was facing politics weight on its manned space effort.
China was in trouble. Slowly but surely, riots and discontent were piling up in the provinces, until 2015 - when a series of car bombs in Beijing killed part of the corrupted nomenklatura and crippled the party elite. The crackdown that followed met stiff resistance, with hundreds of deads. More worryingly, corrupted police and PLAs officials proved unable, or unwilling, to restore order. As the world held his breath and China prepared for a civil war, the unexpected happened. A gang of moderates sized control of the state and immediately started relieving some pressure on the population. They introduced some limited transparency (glasnost !) everywhere, up to the space program. It was in this context that NASA, with US government approval, hold a hand. They proposed to add Tiangong 3 to the ISS. The Chinese government politely refused for a number of reasons, and instead proposed a compromise.
Tiangong 3 would go on the ISS orbit, a couple of hundred of kilometers away, and lower so that collision could never happen. That way, Shenzhou ships could paid visits to the ISS (and so could ISS Soyuz, Shuttles, JAXA, ESA and COTS ships), and or be used as lifeboats if the need was ever felt (it was !)
As of 2017 the 51.6° ISS orbit had become the centerpiece of internationa cooperation; it boasted the ISS, but also Hubble and Tiangong 3.
And then, in 2018 as the STS-157 crew (under a NASA contract) was servicing Hubble not too far away from ISS and Tiangong the worse happened... you guess ??!!!
THE REST IS HISTORY
AFTERMATH
Life went on, and so did NASA business - unfortunately.
History repeated itself.
In 1988 after a 30 months hiatus the shuttle had returned to space, even after the Challenger disaster. Before STS-107 NASA had a plan to fly the shuttles to 2020 and beyond. And of course this time the crew had survived.
The majority of NASA engineers were amazed at Columbia endurance; not only had the ship had kept its crew alive until the rescue mission, but Columbia itself had returned to Earth without a pilot !
NASA philosophy was that, provided the foam strikes could be limited, there was no reason the shuttles couldn't be flown to 2020 as per before the incident.
Meanwhile a new controversy erupted.
From 2005 onwards the Hubble space telescope urgently needed a repair mission; but, just like Columbia it was stuck on the wrong orbit, far from the ISS safe heaven.
NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe tried everything he could: a robotic mission was beyond the state-of-art, and he didn't wanted to risk a shuttle crew.
In april 2005 he was fired and replaced by another administrator, Mike Griffin. Griffin pushed hard for a fly alone shuttle mission to repair the telescope, but he ran into a brickwall.
That brickwall was the STS-107 crew itself. In an unprecedented move, they collectively pronounced AGAINST the mission. "You have no idea what we endured, the emotional stress, the devastating aftermath we are still stucked in everyday. As much as Hubble need repairs; as much as my fellows are professionals, I can't accept they end like we nearly ended - either dead, or with serious psychological burden. Everyday life is so hard for us, you have no idea."
The astronauts were, at heart, professionals, and so many of them were surprised; there was a lot of miscomprehension, and NASA ended with a deeply divided astronaut corps.
Griffin was stuck in a corner; and Hubble seemed to be lost. That is, until Boeing proposed an astounding idea.
Hubble would be tugged to the ISS by a solar-electric propulsion tug, a technology that would prove useful for many others missions, unmanned and even manned.
Facing no other solution, and stuck between the astronauts and scientists respective revolts, Griffin picked up Boeing solution. Truth is Griffin badly needed focus; a tentative return to the Moon plan, dubbed Constellation, had been considered but rejected by President Bush late 2003.
Bush had been happy enough with the crew rescue, and considered NASA a liability. Nothing changed.
So Hubble was slowly tugged to the ISS orbit, a move that took a complete year.
But ISS had not been build for Hubble servicing; it was a (dirty) place full of contamination. Although a servicing mission managed to save the telescope in 2009, it was definitively not satisfying.
Hubble couldn't manoeuver away from the ISS since it had no propulsive system of its own.
Ideally, a shuttle would have flown from ISS to faraway Hubble, allowing servicing to happen in a cleaner environment. But the last three shuttles were just too busy with ISS buildup - and of course the 2020 overhaul cut the fleet further.
In order to try and improve Hubble failing ISS servicing missions in 2008 NASA ultimately decided to re-introduce the long mothballed MMU backpacks. A much uprated variant was build with a huge amount of propellant - together with a new, very long endurance space suit, enough to perform 10 hours long EVAs.
The SEP tug remained in orbit; later it would rescue stranded satellites, unlocking the long-discussed business of satellite servicing !
Meanwhile the harrowing business of ISS buildup started again from July 2005.
Yet Griffin faced another crisis. After further near misses, in 2007 Congress forced the agency into the COTS program to complement (and later replace) the aging Shuttle fleet.
SpaceX won the first contract, but after Kistler went belly up, the second contract remained in limbo. Orbital Sciences looked like a possible winner, but a series of events happened that changed manned spaceflight forever.
Buoyed by Columbia (and Hubble) rescue, Jeff Bezos come with an audacious scheme.
Late 2003 the new National Air & Space Museum opened its doors in Dulles. With the battered Columbia as the masterpiece of the new space hall, the museum didn't knew what to do with the old Enterprise OV-101.
Jeff Bezos come with a daring proposal. Wasn't Entreprise a true shuttle ? He proposed to turn it into a dual Hubble / commercial space platform. Back in 1996 a proposal had been made to turn Columbia into a private, commercial shuttle for all kind of interesting missions.
Bezos spent four years refining the project, and he ultimately managed to earn the second COTS contract.
The refurbished Enterprise was rebranded "Explorer".
After Columbia the flight rate was cut to four missions a year; number of flights mounted slowly but surely; as of July 2011 the shuttle fleet had flown 135 missions.
Explorer was well on track for a 2017 Hubble SM-6 servicing mission; according to NASA numbering system it would be STS-155 or so, but soon slippages led to a renaming of the mission.
Meanwhile another country was facing politics weight on its manned space effort.
China was in trouble. Slowly but surely, riots and discontent were piling up in the provinces, until 2015 - when a series of car bombs in Beijing killed part of the corrupted nomenklatura and crippled the party elite. The crackdown that followed met stiff resistance, with hundreds of deads. More worryingly, corrupted police and PLAs officials proved unable, or unwilling, to restore order. As the world held his breath and China prepared for a civil war, the unexpected happened. A gang of moderates sized control of the state and immediately started relieving some pressure on the population. They introduced some limited transparency (glasnost !) everywhere, up to the space program. It was in this context that NASA, with US government approval, hold a hand. They proposed to add Tiangong 3 to the ISS. The Chinese government politely refused for a number of reasons, and instead proposed a compromise.
Tiangong 3 would go on the ISS orbit, a couple of hundred of kilometers away, and lower so that collision could never happen. That way, Shenzhou ships could paid visits to the ISS (and so could ISS Soyuz, Shuttles, JAXA, ESA and COTS ships), and or be used as lifeboats if the need was ever felt (it was !)
As of 2017 the 51.6° ISS orbit had become the centerpiece of internationa cooperation; it boasted the ISS, but also Hubble and Tiangong 3.
And then, in 2018 as the STS-157 crew (under a NASA contract) was servicing Hubble not too far away from ISS and Tiangong the worse happened... you guess ??!!!
THE REST IS HISTORY
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Archibald
Banned
Let's say it occurred to me that the two universes are, well, compatible...
I saw the movie yesterday evening and (like thousand of million of people) was pretty stunned by it.
Except that, of course, as a space cadet I regretted that Cuaron did not understood the logic of plane changes
- ISS: 51.6°
- Tiangong: 42°
- Hubble: 28.5°
over the equator.
Bullock and Clooney would have needed a S-IVB or a Centaur to hop from one to another. Not some ridiculous backpack.
Then it occurred to me - whatif they were all within the same orbit, so the movie was not wrong ?
And then I had that WTF moment - crap, this is compatible with my Columbia TL...
and damn it, it all fell into place pretty nicely...
I saw the movie yesterday evening and (like thousand of million of people) was pretty stunned by it.
Except that, of course, as a space cadet I regretted that Cuaron did not understood the logic of plane changes
- ISS: 51.6°
- Tiangong: 42°
- Hubble: 28.5°
over the equator.
Bullock and Clooney would have needed a S-IVB or a Centaur to hop from one to another. Not some ridiculous backpack.
Then it occurred to me - whatif they were all within the same orbit, so the movie was not wrong ?
And then I had that WTF moment - crap, this is compatible with my Columbia TL...
and damn it, it all fell into place pretty nicely...
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Maybe the Shuttle tiles could be replaced or augmented by PICA-X. Dragon uses it for a heat shield. Less vulnerable than tiles.
You gotta be kidding me! Oh boy! I'll consider this afterword like Stephen King's afterword of "The Dark Tower," where he warns readers to close the book, consider the story over with a happy ending, and not venture into the Tower with Roland. Completely alternate.
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Jeff Bezos, who never managed to get a rocket to successfully take off, not even talking about getting it into even a sub-orbital trajectory, and is considered by many a fraud (outside of his ONLY success..Amazon..that is), patent troll and the ally of the Devil Made Flesh that is the ULA, and NOT SpaceX?
Jeff Bezos and NOT SpaceX!?
Jeff Bezos!!!
That's it! You are going to die!
In fact. I am more pissed at you for this then connecting it with that "idiotic plot made movie-with-good-CGI" that is Gravity.
Jeff Bezos and NOT SpaceX!?
Jeff Bezos!!!
That's it! You are going to die!
In fact. I am more pissed at you for this then connecting it with that "idiotic plot made movie-with-good-CGI" that is Gravity.
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All right, I know what you are saying here, but am I the only person here sick enough to think this:
{Image link deleted to avoid future hassles}
Dirty, dirty space station!
-----
Drat, the image showed in preview.
Maybe just as well it doesn't show here.There were a couple episodes of Lexx Season 2, "Luvliner" and "Stanley's Trial," that featured space brothels. The former at least was designed along the lines of a hot dog stand shaped like a big hot dog, if you get the drift.
Dirty, dirty! Search appropriate Lexx episodes to find the images, but they are pretty tiny anyway. The best looking one was at a Russian site and included the old SciFi channel logo. Technically safe for work or perhaps even being shown to children, though one's boss could understandably wonder what the heck one is doing downloading that on company time, so don't.
Um, wait. I missed the "lower" part when I first read this.
That won't work. If it is in a lower orbit it will be going faster and will gradually drift ahead of the ISS, until it is practically out of reach anyway. They all three have to be at the same altitude. Then there is indeed a chance of collision I guess; technically they are all attracting each other so it would seem inevitable. But surely their masses are all so low we are talking centuries before they actually hit.
Also, I think they'd actually miss each other; as they are pulling toward each other the leading one will be slowed in orbit and so tend to drop down (which would speed it up again) while the lagging one would be speeded up and so tend to rise, again slowing it--I think they'd loop around each other--on the first pass; eventually they would collide, especially considering that other objects like the Moon are perturbing both of them, but not I suspect for many multiples of the period of time it would take for them to collide if they were both constrained to the same fixed orbital radius.
Of course perturbations from the Moon and Sun might send them on a collision course somewhat faster, I suppose. They'd just have to watch out for that and maneuver accordingly; they ought to have years or even decades to get it right.
But if they are in orbits of different radius--if they differ by just a kilometer or so the drift might be slow, but inexorably they'd drift apart, unless the faster one started out lagging--then it would catch up below, then pull ahead and thus drift apart.
Well, maybe that's what the Chinese want; start out near ISS but as the years go by get farther away.
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OK, it's high time I send you my corrected version of the rough text. I want to really see this in the Finished Timelines forum. I'll need to ask you a few more questions concerning a few places with odder phrasing I've run into, but that won't take long. All I have to do now is finally finish the bulk of the work.
I'll need to ask you a few more questions concerning a few places with odder phrasing I've run into, but that won't take long. All I have to do now is finally finish the bulk of the work.