Eyes Turned Skywards

[Michel Van]

Indeed, Freedom construction is very much faster than ISS IOTL. I think this is a factor of both heavy lift (one of those huge truss segments with solar arrays in a single H03 launch!) and NASA's impressive flight rate ITTL: by my count, there were 8 launches between November 1988 and July 1989 to get to IOC (3x H03, 5x M02), not including any AARDV missions, so almost 1 per month, all from the Cape. That beats the hell out of OTL's Shuttle maximum sustained rate of around one mission every 2 months and is starting to look closer to the Soviet 'sausage-factory' launch rate (or SpaceX's flight manifest).

One thing I think Griffin got right: "If we build another station, I hope we're smart enough not to do it in 20-ton chunks again" (or words to that effect)...

Do not forget that ISS IOTL had 2 year delay unlit Russian module were delivery, then was the Columbia Disaster in 2003 what interrupt the ISS assembly for 2 years.
defacto is ISS not complet, there missing a Russian Module Nauka (aka Russian Research Module) that supposedly to be launch in December 2013.
I hope the Proton rocket work this time right

Freedom in Eyes turned skywards is not assembly piece by piece by shuttle flights, but launch the Parts by advance Saturn rockets what goes much faster

Freedom (Liberty in ver 3.0 ) in Ronald Reagan's Space Exploration Initiative, Imitative is launch by two Shuttle-C flights and 4 shuttle flights in 1992/1993
the two Shuttle-C brought the Truss and 2 Nodes in 28° Orbit, the Shuttle the Habitat and 3 lab module and Crew rescue/ resupply capsule

After finish my Technical advice for How Silent Fall the Cherry Blossoms
and the Drawing for Eyes turned skywards, I will overwork Ronald Reagan's Space Exploration Initiative completely.

 

[e of pi]

defacto is ISS not complet, there missing a Russian Module Nauka (aka Russian Research Module) that supposedly to be launch in December 2013.
I hope the Proton rocket work this time right

Haven't you heard? The people at Khrunichev (the same bunch who screwed up that last Proton so impressively) seriously borked the fuel transfer system. They're going to have to make major repairs--it's slipping into September 2014. It's...astounding. In the 9 years since they started work on Nauka in 2004, the launch date has slipped from 2006 to late 2014--a slip of 8 years. It's almost as bad as fusion power!

Anyway, in "burying the lede" news, I am proud to announce that progress here at Eyes Writing Control continues to looks good. We've completed a final round of polling the contributors, and Part III is now GO at T-7 days and counting! Given my schedule, our update window for the fall will be Fridays at 1700 UTC (1300 local). Go ahead and mark your calnders, because we're back!

 

[Talwar]

Sounds like a splendid way to start a weekend.

 

[Athelstane]

Indeed, Freedom construction is very much faster than ISS IOTL. I think this is a factor of both heavy lift (one of those huge truss segments with solar arrays in a single H03 launch!) and NASA's impressive flight rate ITTL: by my count, there were 8 launches between November 1988 and July 1989 to get to IOC (3x H03, 5x M02), not including any AARDV missions, so almost 1 per month, all from the Cape. That beats the hell out of OTL's Shuttle maximum sustained rate of around one mission every 2 months and is starting to look closer to the Soviet 'sausage-factory' launch rate (or SpaceX's flight manifest).

One thing I think Griffin got right: "If we build another station, I hope we're smart enough not to do it in 20-ton chunks again" (or words to that effect)...

Indeed.

Griffin was undoubtedly right that the Shuttle had been a mistake, and that EELV's were the most efficient way, given the technology, for putting heavy lift into orbit.

Where he screwed up was his insistence on replacing the Shuttle with what amounted to a clean sheet set of boosters, rather than a truly Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicle that would make maximum use of heritage systems to keep the cost down to something NASA might actually be able to afford. To this day he seems not to get that NASA will never get the money needed to build Ares I and Ares V, let along the manned vehicles they were supposed to loft.

Yet I am sure that in the Eyes Turned Skywards world, there will be more than a few people like the ones in the opening post, looking at Freedom with regret that we don't have reusable shuttle to build it or service it. Instead, NASA is stuck with these dumb capsules dreamed up back in the 60's.

 

[Bahamut-255]

Anyway, in "burying the lede" news, I am proud to announce that progress here at Eyes Writing Control continues to looks good. We've completed a final round of polling the contributors, and Part III is now GO at T-7 days and counting! Given my schedule, our update window for the fall will be Fridays at 1700 UTC (1300 local). Go ahead and mark your calnders, because we're back!

Hooray!

Indeed.

Griffin was undoubtedly right that the Shuttle had been a mistake, and that EELV's were the most efficient way, given the technology, for putting heavy lift into orbit.

That's for sure. But by that point, STS was the only real heavy lift left in the NASA arsenal.

Where he screwed up was his insistence on replacing the Shuttle with what amounted to a clean sheet set of boosters, rather than a truly Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicle that would make maximum use of heritage systems to keep the cost down to something NASA might actually be able to afford. To this day he seems not to get that NASA will never get the money needed to build Ares I and Ares V, let along the manned vehicles they were supposed to loft.

Unfortunately true. Ares I & V really did mutate into what amounted to all-new Launch Vehicles that had almost no relation to STS.

1. SRBs. New on account of being 5-seg instead of 4
2. Engines. From SSMEs to redesigned RS-68s and J2-S to all new J2-X
3. Ares V Core Stage. From 8.41m to 10.06m diameter

So it's easy enough to see just how much it had changed and how it could never be called Shuttle-Derived by the time of cancellation.

Yet I am sure that in the Eyes Turned Skywards world, there will be more than a few people like the ones in the opening post, looking at Freedom with regret that we don't have reusable shuttle to build it or service it. Instead, NASA is stuck with these dumb capsules dreamed up back in the 60's.

Which is something to look at. I can certainly see a lot of people there going "Oh if we only had that Shuttle, our manned flights would be so much cheaper! We'd be flying weekly! We'd already be back to the Moon and at Mars!"

'Grass is Greener on other side' is how E of Pi put it I think.

 

[Michel Van]

On Michel Van post on Russian Module Nauka (aka Russian Research Module)

Haven't you heard? The people at Khrunichev (the same bunch who screwed up that last Proton so impressively) seriously borked the fuel transfer system. They're going to have to make major repairs--it's slipping into September 2014. It's...astounding. In the 9 years since they started work on Nauka in 2004, the launch date has slipped from 2006 to late 2014--a slip of 8 years. It's almost as bad as fusion power!

i lost the overview on "what to hell the Russian want to launch fora module to ISS???"

on current Russian space program

 

[Michel Van]

Anyway, in "burying the lede" news, I am proud to announce that progress here at Eyes Writing Control continues to looks good. We've completed a final round of polling the contributors, and Part III is now GO at T-7 days and counting! Given my schedule, our update window for the fall will be Fridays at 1700 UTC (1300 local). Go ahead and mark your calnders, because we're back!

in my time zone, that is on my birthday !
Thanks for present, e of pi

 

[Shevek23]

...

'Grass is Greener on other side' is how E of Pi put it I think.

No, that was the first comment on the thread.

 

[Durabys]

On Michel Van post on Russian Module Nauka (aka Russian Research Module)



i lost the overview on "what to hell the Russian want to launch fora module to ISS???"

on current Russian space program

I am starting to think that with the current stream of "problems" the Americans, Russians and Chinese have..the Indians are going to have this century's first man on the Moon..closely followed by Elon Musk, literally. What a surprise..no, it isn't actually.

..snippet..

Anyway, in "burying the lede" news, I am proud to announce that progress here at Eyes Writing Control continues to looks good. We've completed a final round of polling the contributors, and Part III is now GO at T-7 days and counting! Given my schedule, our update window for the fall will be Fridays at 1700 UTC (1300 local). Go ahead and mark your calnders, because we're back!

YES!!!

Guys. I think this timeline is worth being posted on spacebattles.com forums. Really. This is something the guys and gals there would love.

 

[Tizoc]

I am starting to think that with the current stream of "problems" the Americans, Russians and Chinese have..the Indians are going to have this century's first man on the Moon..closely followed by Elon Musk, literally. What a surprise..no, it isn't actually.

Don't Indians keep having problems with thier heavy launcher? And their spaceship is still in the woods?

Guys. I think this timeline is worth being posted on spacebattles.com forums. Really. This is something the guys and gals there would love.

I can imagine that - 1 post and 10 pages of comments.

 

[Bahamut-255]

Don't Indians keep having problems with thier heavy launcher? And their spaceship is still in the woods?

That would be their GSLV which has failed in four of its seven flights. While their GSLV Mk III is slated for a test launch in 2017.

Their PSLV, however, has proven to be rather more reliable having succeeded in 22 of its 24 flights - with one partial failure.

But they're not expected to be able to conduct manned flights until at least the early 2020's.

 

[e of pi]

Guys. I think this timeline is worth being posted on spacebattles.com forums. Really. This is something the guys and gals there would love.

I can imagine that - 1 post and 10 pages of comments.

We've talked about posting this elsewhere in the past, and generally we're inclined to say no. First, the early sections of the TL are much rougher than the current material. It'd take a lot of overhaul to bring them up to the current standard, not just to Part I but also to Part II and even Part III--and that's work that'd otherwise be on new material. At the same time, though, I don't feel comfortable re-posting that early material as it currently stands. The other thing is that adding a new whole discussion thread that'd need time and attention.

So while you're free to recommend Eyes to people over there (and note that it's accessible here for anyone to read, even if they need to register to comment), given the effort required to repost it, doing the work necessary to repost it is something of a low priority.

 

[nixonshead]

Another Freedom update to keep everyone going until the launch The last assembly pictures were perhaps a nice overview, but didn't show so much detail. Hopefully this shot will remedy that

 

[Bahamut-255]

Another Freedom update to keep everyone going until the launch The last assembly pictures were perhaps a nice overview, but didn't show so much detail. Hopefully this shot will remedy that

And it does!

From the looks of things, only three major pieces need to be launched now to see the Station completed. And something tells me that that's within their capabilities. Maybe a delay here and there, but I still predict a complete Station.

 

[e of pi]

And it does!

From the looks of things, only three major pieces need to be launched now to see the Station completed. And something tells me that that's within their capabilities. Maybe a delay here and there, but I still predict a complete Station.

Six, technically. The two outboard solar panel modules, the second node, the cuploa, the Japanese lab, and the CGL. (Note that's only five launches--cupola flies with the node.)

 

[Athelstane]

Six, technically. The two outboard solar panel modules, the second node, the cuploa, the Japanese lab, and the CGL. (Note that's only five launches--cupola flies with the node.)

Quite a change from the 30 zillion launches that STS (and the very occasional and belated Proton booster) took to put ISS into orbit.

Another great render by Nixonshead. I hope we can get all of these up on the wiki page at some point.

 

[e of pi]

Quite a change from the 30 zillion launches that STS (and the very occasional and belated Proton booster) took to put ISS into orbit.

Another great render by Nixonshead. I hope we can get all of these up on the wiki page at some point.

Well, I've been meaning to, but have been really busy. OTOH, it is a wiki--if others want to start pulling them together, you can see the code in the wiki source, it's pretty self-explanatory.

 

[Durabys]

I want to see how the sci-fi scene looks in the 90's. Some things could stay the same..like the main plot of Babylon 5..others, like the years and centuries when the plot takes place could change, with the main plot of B5 being set in the 2150's instead of 2250's.

 

[Michel Van]

Another Freedom update to keep everyone going until the launch The last assembly pictures were perhaps a nice overview, but didn't show so much detail. Hopefully this shot will remedy that

Wonderful, all those little details.
you made all this with Blender ?

 

[Bahamut-255]

I want to see how the sci-fi scene looks in the 90's. Some things could stay the same..like the main plot of Babylon 5..others, like the years and centuries when the plot takes place could change, with the main plot of B5 being set in the 2150's instead of 2250's.

I'm certain that Sci-Fi shows in the 1990's would be covered at some point in Part III. Though I can speculate that should Babylon 5 exist in ETS, it may have required a re-edit on account of new information coming to light.

In any case, just a few short days left 'til PArt III begins in earnest!

Btw, what is 17:00 UTC in GMT+1?