Thoughts about Stephen Baxters Novels "Voyage" and "Titan"

[JoeSheridan]

hey, wow Someone anwers here again, what a surprise

No idea, the book is very sparse with specific dates

I don´t think there was a real date..... sometime after 2000, but who knows when?

Although I do find it hilarious that the DOD hates NASA so much that they barely even let the Titan crew have a comm dish to communicate

Hey: The US became a deeeple fundamentalistic and anti-science oriented church state.... i am not surprised that the military was written a bit crazy too. But i can understand their point: NASA coms and Military Coms should stay for themselfs. For security purposes.

And six months later Titan is still the best NASA book imo

Haven´t read the last of the books.... but i think Voyage was better. I was way less crazy then Titan ( IMO)

especially with how the public views NASA and space, (mostly bored)

Sadly i agree
And i fits our time again..... i get a feeling that the public get´s bored again when it goes to space-travel. We got some great years with big progress, but things get normal way to soon. Nearly nobody cares about SpaceX launching a booster for the 16th time, and the fact that most new western launchers just don´t come even close to getting ready on shedule doesn´t helps either. Our Arianes are just out of the picture for the time beeing, ULA moved from having two active launchers in production to working on getting one ready for it´s overdue first launch and one that they can only launch for fixed number of times until it´s done. Blue Origin doesn´t looks like they come around so soon and SpaceX is finally getting some backfire for their low performance regarding to working accordingly to decisions and requirements made by officials.

 

[Ry01tank]

hey, wow Someone anwers here again, what a surprise

had some life stuff and wanted to revive this twice-dead thread

I don´t think there was a real date..... sometime after 2000, but who knows when?

Columbia crashed in 2004, mission launched in 2008, and Saturn arrival in 2016ish (7.5-year voyage) so definitely the launch happened after June in 2008 and before the election in November

The world ends in 2017 if I'm not mistaken

Hey: The US became a deeeple fundamentalistic and anti-science oriented church state.... i am not surprised that the military was written a bit crazy too. But i can understand their point: NASA coms and Military Coms should stay for themselfs. For security purposes.

The US is the most backward country in the developed world imo, Education is not important and sports skills is more desired then intellectual skills, in Canada (my country) having a high school diploma is nearly universal (96 percent), in the US its like 70, and was near 50 percent 20 years ago

Religion has always been important in the US, but where education is higher, religion is less popular, but With how the US is, Democrats are more conservative than Canadian Conservatives
and the way the us government and state system is the structure is FUCKED

And people love FIRSTS, After the 20th time nobody cared, Apollo was front page news in Canada, but after 12 the US barely cared, to the point where 17 was nearly canned, and even Nixon had to be talked down from canceling 16 and 17

Haven´t read the last of the books.... but i think Voyage was better. I was way less crazy then Titan ( IMO)

Both have different strengths, Voyage is a realistic depiction of a Mars focus and especially the tunnel vision that comes with it, as yes the leadup to Mars and the cutting of probes and follow-on missions does paint a picture similar to OTL NASA post-Apollo

As 9 Saturn-Vb's would be insanely expensive for any mission, let alone 3 Ares missions
27 Saturn-Vbs would be the total for just Ares, let alone any spinoff missions like Venus orbiter, Mars space station, and base

Titan is a depiction of a world in which religion has become more popular due to the US being uneducated and the church being a bit more popular, with the destruction of youth culture and media shit leading to a more scared and malleable population, where people turn to god and Jesus like the Dark ages
With the US the way it is Right now, it is nuts seeing the similarities to how the world is similar in some cases, with Populist leaders, political division and some loss in youth culture and willingness to work

Sadly i agree
And i fits our time again..... i get a feeling that the public get´s bored again when it goes to space-travel. We got some great years with big progress, but things get normal way to soon. Nearly nobody cares about SpaceX launching a booster for the 16th time, and the fact that most new western launchers just don´t come even close to getting ready on shedule doesn´t helps either. Our Arianes are just out of the picture for the time beeing, ULA moved from having two active launchers in production to working on getting one ready for it´s overdue first launch and one that they can only launch for fixed number of times until it´s done. Blue Origin doesn´t looks like they come around so soon and SpaceX is finally getting some backfire for their low performance regarding to working accordingly to decisions and requirements made by officials.

Your right (this got long super fast sorry and sorry for it being disjointed)
SpaceX was insane during the early Falcon 9 landings and then the heavy landings, especially the Car. Starship has taken so long that it is become boring, ULA is becoming boring due to Blue Origin being total shit at everything outside of tourism. SpaceX has historically been easy to criticize due to it not being a member of the old gang of aerospace companies (Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and Northrop-Grumman), when the F9 was new it was understandable for it being delayed, but when the Falcon Heavy and THEN Starship being delayed like crazy, people are understandably tired and bored of the same thing. Artemis 1 suffered like crazy as its original launch date of 2015 was delayed till December 2022 due to funding and then 5 months of NASA being OCD over every part,
If Artemis 1 blew up the "lunar" program would be over

Like why have nearly 30 engines on the first stage of Starship, it is dumb, just make higher thrust engines the N1 had problems for a reason, i know people said the F9 "cured" N1 syndrome, but having 9 engines is easy, having 29 or whatever amount is dumb as heck
I think SpaceX as an organization expanded way to fast and cheapness in Starships design has effected it hard
Outside of that SpaceX is doing well with F9 and F9H

In the 70s JPL's head talked about "purple" and later "flagship" missions, missions which would capture the public, like Viking, Voyager and later Cassini and the mars rovers (in the rover's first month on Mars lol), These missions would be ambitious and would be firsts in history
When Voyager scored a planet, everyone watched and looked, same with Cassini to an extent, and the Mars rovers were followed in their early months, but by the time Cassini ended almost forgotten, and the Mars rovers were mere footnotes "water on Mars" "Conspiracy about a rock", "how big Curiosity is" are what i remember

and most importantly
All there is is dust and not much else
Why bother even leaving the atmosphere when there's nothing to make money off of?

Criticism overdrive
The worst offender is when NASA or another company talks about mining or orbital fuel stations and stuff
1, an iron-rich asteroid would be valuable, but would result in a per-pound cost average of a few million, gold would be the same
2, Orbital fuel stations are impractical due to orbital debris, boiloff if cryogenic, risk to surrounding space, and most importantly, orbital planes and inclinations, as it would be Fixed at one plane and inclination, so it would cost insane amounts in fuel to travel from a different orbit and be a headache when planning lunar or mars missions
3, lunar fuel depots are the same, to get there is expensive, and to then launch is even more, why bother landing a Mars ship when you can add more fuel and go to Mars, its a good idea on paper, but would be a political nightmare and safety would be FUCKED, due to by nature the fuel being explosive, and an Astronaut is a glorified refinery worker,
Armageddon gets it right when Bruce Willis says that Oil drillers would be better, as Astronauts are Astronauts, and drilling is WAY different to do, especially in the 12-day timeframe in the movie
And for fuck sake, space telescopes are dumb as hell and a waste, JWST was dinged in the first month by a rock, why bother taking photos of Galaxys when we will never go there?
I honestly wanted it to blow up or something as it would be a shitshow and cause a shakeup in how NASA works

 

[JoeSheridan]

Columbia crashed in 2004, mission launched in 2008, and Saturn arrival in 2016ish (7.5-year voyage) so definitely the launch happened after June in 2008 and before the election in November

The world ends in 2017 if I'm not mistaken

Sounds correct

And people love FIRSTS, After the 20th time nobody cared, Apollo was front page news in Canada, but after 12 the US barely cared, to the point where 17 was nearly canned, and even Nixon had to be talked down from canceling 16 and 17

Yeah That´s just crazy.... and then they decided to build the shuttle, just to give NASA not enough money to build it like it should have been build to get a real chance to make it into the system they envisioned it to be in the first place... and they probably made the Shuttle-program much more expensive then it could have been. But yeah: Space is just getting old news way to fast to keep explaining the people why it would be a good thing to keep up with programs or dump even more money to design a new system ( I DON`T speak of SLS and Orion. Those are parade examples for systems that were thought nice in the first place, but shouldn´t have been designed/ redesigned that way (On the one side i am glad that our ESA is building the service module, on the other side: Why?? Why are we doing this? Orion was on the way for years, damn that ship was getting ready for the OFT-1 flight when the decision to let us europeans build the SM came to be).

As 9 Saturn-Vb's would be insanely expensive for any mission, let alone 3 Ares missions
27 Saturn-Vbs would be the total for just Ares, let alone any spinoff missions like Venus orbiter, Mars space station, and base

I agree, but i really think that new missions should again include nuclear propulsion. The Apollo-N Nerva-Test became what it was because management fracked up again. The didn´t plan to check everything before launch. And then they had an idiot of a chief engineer for that nuclear stage who just failed to be honest and say: The stage has problems, we shouldn´t fire it.

Getting Nerva back would be extremely risky for publicity, but it could be the way to cut down missions costs massively. 1 or 2 VB´s per mission sound a lot better.

Titan is a depiction of a world in which religion has become more popular due to the US being uneducated and the church being a bit more popular, with the destruction of youth culture and media shit leading to a more scared and malleable population, where people turn to god and Jesus like the Dark ages
With the US the way it is Right now, it is nuts seeing the similarities to how the world is similar in some cases, with Populist leaders, political division and some loss in youth culture and willingness to work

Sadly i have to agree

Artemis 1 suffered like crazy as its original launch date of 2015 was delayed till December 2022 due to funding and then 5 months of NASA being OCD over every part,
If Artemis 1 blew up the "lunar" program would be over

Yes, it would have been. I don´t think the moon would have been gone, just because both China and Russia plan to travel there (Okay... Russia probably just with China), but not Artemis, that would have been blown up with SLS.

Like why have nearly 30 engines on the first stage of Starship, it is dumb, just make higher thrust engines the N1 had problems for a reason, i know people said the F9 "cured" N1 syndrome, but having 9 engines is easy, having 29 or whatever amount is dumb as heck
I think SpaceX as an organization expanded way to fast and cheapness in Starships design has effected it hard
Outside of that SpaceX is doing well with F9 and F9H

I agree, those engine number is just dump... 10 or 12 would be okay, but that high number? Why?. And yes: Their "legacy-launchers" seem to fly and fly and fly.

and most importantly
All there is is dust and not much else
Why bother even leaving the atmosphere when there's nothing to make money off of?

Yes, but what a lot of people forget is that there is money to make. The asteroid belt would be a great destination for resource exploitation and mars could become something of an operations base: Safer then beeing in space, you have gravity, you can dig into the ground to shield yourself from solar radiation, you can produce fuel and extract gasses to refill the reserves of the mining and transport-ships. There is defenitely money to be made, but first it needs a lot of money to be invested.

 

[Ry01tank]

Yeah That´s just crazy.... and then they decided to build the shuttle, just to give NASA not enough money to build it like it should have been build to get a real chance to make it into the system they envisioned it to be in the first place... and they probably made the Shuttle-program much more expensive then it could have been. But yeah: Space is just getting old news way to fast to keep explaining the people why it would be a good thing to keep up with programs or dump even more money to design a new system ( I DON`T speak of SLS and Orion. Those are parade examples for systems that were thought nice in the first place, but shouldn´t have been designed/ redesigned that way (On the one side i am glad that our ESA is building the service module, on the other side: Why?? Why are we doing this? Orion was on the way for years, damn that ship was getting ready for the OFT-1 flight when the decision to let us europeans build the SM came to be).

The shuttle was the cheapest option on the table, it was supposed to be the transport for satellites and station parts, heavier stuff like lunar bases would use Saturn Vs or whatever
its why its called the Space Transportation System, STS was the Shuttle, Station and tug
SLS was expressly made to keep politicians in power as the ending shuttle program would leave 40 000 people out of jobs, which is why it is congressionally mandated to use 70 percent shuttle components, to keep the contractor's jobs
and this is also why the SRBs won, Liquid boosters had no chance after Constellation was canned, and why NASA is tossing SSMEs and OMS engines into SLS and Orion

Orian was meant to be Dragon2 or Starliner, with Obama he made Orion tied to SLS, reducing flight numbers like crazy (I remember when SLS was considered for ISS crew rotations, not lunar and asteroid stuff)

The reason why Europe is making the Service module is money and politics, The ATV was expensive for Europe, so it was canned and NASA, looking to cheap-out asked Europe to make the Service module
Everyone said WTF when the ATV was canned, as it was one of the best cargo ships to the ISS

I agree, but i really think that new missions should again include nuclear propulsion. The Apollo-N Nerva-Test became what it was because management fracked up again. The didn´t plan to check everything before launch. And then they had an idiot of a chief engineer for that nuclear stage who just failed to be honest and say: The stage has problems, we shouldn´t fire it.

In Voyage, the Apollo-N disaster will shitcan every Nuclear proposal, its visibility and the fact it was controversial to begin with only made it worse
As the investigation after put it, Apollo-N should have never been launched considering the design and managerial and technological fuck ups, not to mention lack of oversight and a willingness to risk lives for progress, Conlig says this last part
and he was the dude overseeing the reactor during flight, he didn't scram or do anything because it would "ruin the mission"
aka
flight data for lives

The Nerva broke because a pipe during earth tests was stable due to ice, in space, the ice never formed and as a result, failed,
not to mention a positive coefficient, which is downright dangerous

Getting Nerva back would be extremely risky for publicity, but it could be the way to cut down missions costs massively. 1 or 2 VB´s per mission sound a lot better.

More like political suicide, it will fail in Congress long before failing publicly
As Michael or Muldoon said, with a failure like this (Apollo-N) there is no second chance. even with the economics of Vb's, using 9 Vb's is more viable then 2 on an Ares flight
And don't forget, this killed astronauts, one of which took a month to die in excruciating pain,
Nerva is dead

Yes, it would have been. I don´t think the moon would have been gone, just because both China and Russia plan to travel there (Okay... Russia probably just with China), but not Artemis, that would have been blown up with SLS.

China is still a decade away at minimum, Russia is never going alone, and the US is likely going to land around 2027 at minimum
2024 was unrealistic, 2025 is borderline dumb, 2026 is doable,

I agree, those engine number is just dump... 10 or 12 would be okay, but that high number? Why?. And yes: Their "legacy-launchers" seem to fly and fly and fly.

Because they didn't want to spend the money to develop high-thrust engines due to cost,
The F9 and F9H have been iterated on to an insane degree, The F9H was designed to launch heavier satellites, which improvements in the F9 took away these payloads,

Yes, but what a lot of people forget is that there is money to make. The asteroid belt would be a great destination for resource exploitation and mars could become something of an operations base: Safer then beeing in space, you have gravity, you can dig into the ground to shield yourself from solar radiation, you can produce fuel and extract gasses to refill the reserves of the mining and transport-ships. There is defenitely money to be made, but first it needs a lot of money to be invest

As I put in the list, money in space is still a pipedream, the upfront cost of these are insanely high and returns wouldn't be seen for a decade
Not to mention, imagine how expensive space minerals would be like an iron asteroid would be mined, but the cost per pound would be in the millions at least until tech improves to near the Expanse levels
it's economically unviable for space mining

1, an iron-rich, oil-rich, or gold-rich asteroid would be valuable but would result in a per-pound cost average of a few million, never going to sell

2, Orbital fuel stations are impractical due to orbital debris, boiloff if cryogenic, risk to surrounding space, and most importantly, orbital planes and inclinations, as it would be fixed at one plane and inclination, so it would cost insane amounts in fuel to travel from a different orbit and be a headache when planning lunar or mars missions

3, lunar fuel depots are the same, to get there is expensive, and to then launch is even more, why bother landing a Mars ship when you can add more fuel and go to Mars, its a good idea on paper, but would be a political nightmare and safety would be FUCKED, due to by nature the fuel being explosive, meaning it has to be far from the crew and launch site. and the other problem is that the Astronaut is a glorified refinery worker, which would be a pain in the ass to recruit for

 

[JoeSheridan]

Orian was meant to be Dragon2 or Starliner, with Obama he made Orion tied to SLS, reducing flight numbers like crazy (I remember when SLS was considered for ISS crew rotations, not lunar and asteroid stuff)

The reason why Europe is making the Service module is money and politics, The ATV was expensive for Europe, so it was canned and NASA, looking to cheap-out asked Europe to make the Service module
Everyone said WTF when the ATV was canned, as it was one of the best cargo ships to the ISS

Yes, what happend to Orion was really bad. The Ares I was a crazy design to launch a crew into orbit, but that doesn´t changes that Orion would have been a nice ferry to the station. Bring in a full ISS-Expedition in a single launch.

And canning the ATV was crazy, defenitely. It was the cargo ship with most payload and the highest flexibility at that point.

Conlig says this last part
and he was the dude overseeing the reactor during flight, he didn't scram or do anything because it would "ruin the mission"
aka
flight data for lives

Just a crazy ass. Conlig was a well writen ass, no human thinking, he worked just for the machines.

And don't forget, this killed astronauts, one of which took a month to die in excruciating pain,
Nerva is dead

We kept launching Shuttles, even after we lost two whole crews to it... i wouldn´t count on Nerva remaining dead for all time.

China is still a decade away at minimum, Russia is never going alone, and the US is likely going to land around 2027 at minimum
2024 was unrealistic, 2025 is borderline dumb, 2026 is doable,

I think 2028 is the earliest for US. Starship will need time, orbital refueling will need time and even if neither Blue Origin nor Boeing would have their hand in the second HLS: That contract just came tooo late in my eyes. I don´t think that any of those systems will take under 4 years to become reliable enough to use them as crewed vehicles to land people down there. We aren´t in the 60´s anymore. And China: I guess they could land there by 2027 if the would really try. I wouldn´t be surprised to see an announcement that they will launch a mission with two or three launches, just to get people there before their super-heavy-lifters are ready. Incase of Russia i agree: Their program is to underfunded, to understaffed und to corrupted to do it by their own.

Because they didn't want to spend the money to develop high-thrust engines due to cost,
The F9 and F9H have been iterated on to an insane degree, The F9H was designed to launch heavier satellites, which improvements in the F9 took away these payloads,

But that money would be well used: Bringing down the number of engines leads to a lower part-count and therefore higher reliability and much easier quality control.

And yeah: SpaceX practically ate up most of the market for their own launcher and then they remained (in my eyes) well to long on their standpoint that they wouldn´t like to build larger fairings for FH. Customers need not only payload, but also volume.

 

[Ry01tank]

Yes, what happend to Orion was really bad. The Ares I was a crazy design to launch a crew into orbit, but that doesn´t changes that Orion would have been a nice ferry to the station. Bring in a full ISS-Expedition in a single launch.

A USAF study found that in the case of abort, Ares 1 was unsurvivable due to the fact that SRB's are solid, so the fuel burns longer, meaning the parachute would melt

Orion was good on paper, but when matched with SLS got ruined, 7 crew to station is good, but this capability is replaced with Dragon and Starliner

And canning the ATV was crazy, defenitely. It was the cargo ship with most payload and the highest flexibility at that point.

ESA is Cheap as fuck, everyone was shocked when the announced ATV would end their "commitment" to the ISS

Like how Shuttle replacements started being funded MORE after Russia annexed Crimea

Just a crazy ass. Conlig was a well writen ass, no human thinking, he worked just for the machines.

Some people can only see their important stuff and not empathize with other stuff

he only cared that the mission complete as it would be "premature" to abort when the Nerva started fuckin up

We kept launching Shuttles, even after we lost two whole crews to it... i wouldn´t count on Nerva remaining dead for all time.

Challenger was viewed as a freak accident by NASA and framed as such by politicians

Columbia was negligence and the report after proposed to cancel Shuttle outright as being unsafe, it only flew to 2011 because of the ISS needing to be constructed, as NASA built the modules to Space Shuttle specs, and it would be a decade before another launcher could lob modules to the ISS (or go proton, but the US would be embarrassed)

Hell NASA was so OCD with Safety they had to be forced into the Hubble repair, Congress flipped and I'm pretty sure the administrator resigned. This is why Endeavour was on launch alert standby during the mission
NASA had to basically redo their safety standards just to continue flying, if they wanted to keep flying after 2010 (later 2011) the shuttles would have to be recertified for flight status, meaning redesigned everything (tiles, tps, aborts), this is why the Shuttles ended with the ISS complete

The Nerva would occur on a piece of tech already known to have issues and would be controversial during launch with protesters and everything wanting to stop it, Politicians would already be jumpy, and with disasters like Three mile island and later Chernobyl (i think three mile happens, but chernobyl would kill Nerva)

I do agree it would be a waste to not fly it. But due to what happened and public opinion, Nerva had to be perfect the first time. Udet wanted another testflight, but NASA was aware enough that any future flight is chemical.

I think 2028 is the earliest for US. Starship will need time, orbital refueling will need time and even if neither Blue Origin nor Boeing would have their hand in the second HLS: That contract just came tooo late in my eyes. I don´t think that any of those systems will take under 4 years to become reliable enough to use them as crewed vehicles to land people down there. We aren´t in the 60´s anymore. And China: I guess they could land there by 2027 if the would really try. I wouldn´t be surprised to see an announcement that they will launch a mission with two or three launches, just to get people there before their super-heavy-lifters are ready. Incase of Russia i agree: Their program is to underfunded, to understaffed und to corrupted to do it by their own.

To quote the best space movie of all time, First Man (Space Cowboys is second, then Apollo 13), "its a political rush job, congress wouldn't pay for us to come in second"
Thats why NASA did it so fast, as until Apollo 1, money was no object,

The second HLS is likely from lobbying hard, i highly doubt New Glenn will ever launch before 2030 (the launcher for BO's lander)

Funding is a huge issue, as when a job only gets less than 50 percent of the actual cost, it means the job takes longer, which costs MORE and delays everything
USS Gerald R. Ford cost so much due to this and delays (to reduce cost that fiscal year) which ballooned into a stupid price tag
they also wanted to delay the launch date (2009 to 2012, then 2014) which added shitloads

China is and the US are 50/50 for landing first (ill bet US), but Russia is simply too corrupt and cheap to fly anything new, let alone fund a lunar program
They have been trying to replace Soyuz for nearly 40 years, their rockets are mostly derived from the R-7, and heavy lifters are rare

But that money would be well used: Bringing down the number of engines leads to a lower part-count and therefore higher reliability and much easier quality control.

Yup, but thats business
and the fact that the SSME killed any medium to heavy lift engine, which is why it's only NOW that we are seeing new engines coming in. After Challenger, the US used leftover engines until the mid 90s until production lines could start up (this is why Ariane became popular, because they could still fly)
like Delta 2 used old Saturn 1 and 1b engines left over, and the second stage used to use a LM decent engine

Basically, the business became smaller more efficient engines for rockets, while Starship needs engines pushing 500k to 1 million N per engine to be reliable
(but these engines would be crazy expensive)

And yeah: SpaceX practically ate up most of the market for their own launcher and then they remained (in my eyes) well to long on their standpoint that they wouldn´t like to build larger fairings for FH. Customers need not only payload, but also volume.

The second stage is poorly designed, its designed for LEO insertions, and due to the fact its already heavy as fuck, theres a reason why Centaur is still flying (its insaely light)
Heck, Centaur was converted to be used on the Space Shuttle, but never flew due to how fucking DANGEROUS it was

After LEO the Falcon 9 and 9H suffer from this heavy second stage, Europa Clipper would be better launched on the Delta 4 Heavy, because the second stage really suffers when doing Earth escape injections

 

[e of pi]

Heck, Centaur was converted to be used on the Space Shuttle, but never flew due to how fucking DANGEROUS it was

This was really a lot less dangerous than the memes about it say, and more of the real risk was due to the need to run the SSME at 106% instead of 104%.

 

[Ry01tank]

This was really a lot less dangerous than the memes about it say, and more of the real risk was due to the need to run the SSME at 106% instead of 104%.

I thought it was dangerous due to Centaurs off-gassing and the need to have fuel dumps for off-gassing and dumping fuel during an abort

 

[e of pi]

I thought it was dangerous due to Centaurs off-gassing and the need to have fuel dumps for off-gassing and dumping fuel during an abort

Nope, that was pretty much solved. Actually, it was solved, and then JSC in Houston wanted to make trouble for Lewis and pitched a fit and demanded modifications, after a couple weeks of inter-center office politics they sat down and designed a fix Johnson liked together and built it, and were going to be ready to fly with it, but after Challenger anything that sounded risky could more easily be targeted and a bunch of the Houston people took their chance to kill and shame it despite having already fixed many of the issues they alleged it had.

 

[JoeSheridan]

A USAF study found that in the case of abort, Ares 1 was unsurvivable due to the fact that SRB's are solid, so the fuel burns longer, meaning the parachute would melt

Orion was good on paper, but when matched with SLS got ruined, 7 crew to station is good, but this capability is replaced with Dragon and Starliner

The first one should really have been found out BEFORE they build their hardware. That this thing was a bad idea for a crewed launcher didn´t look like a good idea from the start. Orion would have needed another launcher, something cheaper then SLS but without SRB´s as primary first stage propulsion.

And i wouldn´t count Dragon and Starline as replacements: Dragon remains at a crew of 4 and i don´t think that Starliner would carry more even IF they thing finally flies with crews. But yes: Based on facts and plans that were there when they took Orion away from the ISS-Missions, those two vehicles would have been a replacement.

ESA is Cheap as fuck, everyone was shocked when the announced ATV would end their "commitment" to the ISS

Like how Shuttle replacements started being funded MORE after Russia annexed Crimea

Yes our Space Agency is doing a lot in comparison with the little money our politicians give the agency, but still: The Ariane V´s were pretty expensive and the cost could have been lower if we would have build more of the ATV´s. If i would have had to decide, we would still have the yearly ATV-launch to the station, probably and upgraded version. And IIRC the ATV was capable to boost the station: A capability we need.

And yes: The funding is finally comming in a bit better, because nobody can denie that russia isn´t a reliable partner anymore and there is a second race to the moon going on right now. Without super-heavy-lifters there is no real chance to win this second race.

Some people can only see their important stuff and not empathize with other stuff

he only cared that the mission complete as it would be "premature" to abort when the Nerva started fuckin up

Yes, it´s human but he should have been supervised more closely.

Columbia was negligence and the report after proposed to cancel Shuttle outright as being unsafe, it only flew to 2011 because of the ISS needing to be constructed, as NASA built the modules to Space Shuttle specs, and it would be a decade before another launcher could lob modules to the ISS (or go proton, but the US would be embarrassed)

Hell NASA was so OCD with Safety they had to be forced into the Hubble repair, Congress flipped and I'm pretty sure the administrator resigned. This is why Endeavour was on launch alert standby during the mission
NASA had to basically redo their safety standards just to continue flying, if they wanted to keep flying after 2010 (later 2011) the shuttles would have to be recertified for flight status, meaning redesigned everything (tiles, tps, aborts), this is why the Shuttles ended with the ISS complete

I know all that. The Shuttle was done, but the ISS had to be completed to not loose the level of international cooperation the world had build up by then. But still: We kept a crewed vehicle flying after two catastrophies.

The Nerva would occur on a piece of tech already known to have issues and would be controversial during launch with protesters and everything wanting to stop it, Politicians would already be jumpy, and with disasters like Three mile island and later Chernobyl (i think three mile happens, but chernobyl would kill Nerva)

I do agree it would be a waste to not fly it. But due to what happened and public opinion, Nerva had to be perfect the first time. Udet wanted another testflight, but NASA was aware enough that any future flight is chemical.

I agree, Chernobyl would have been a killer, at least without a NERVA that has flown in a reworked, functioning, version.

And i really think that we will need nuclear systems for our future expansion into space, be it as power source or as a direct part of the propulsion.

In answer the rest later

 

[Ry01tank]

The first one should really have been found out BEFORE they build their hardware. That this thing was a bad idea for a crewed launcher didn´t look like a good idea from the start. Orion would have needed another launcher, something cheaper then SLS but without SRB´s as primary first stage propulsion.

NASA was forced into the SRB first stage by the SRB mafia and Utah senators, ill bet NASA was pissed at this but their hands are tied (as congress made it LAW they have to use SRBs and stuff

By the time Constellation was canned, Obama wanted the Commerical Crew (smarter imo), and Congress wanted SLS to keep the jobs for politicians
which is why NASA had to split funding

And i wouldn´t count Dragon and Starline as replacements: Dragon remains at a crew of 4 and i don´t think that Starliner would carry more even IF they thing finally flies with crews. But yes: Based on facts and plans that were there when they took Orion away from the ISS-Missions, those two vehicles would have been a replacement.

Not replacements more subsitutions, after Obama declared Orion would use SLS for a while there was talk of SLS doing ISS rotations, which is a waste of money
Starliner is hilarious, got more funding and less micromanaging by NASA and has the most issues, while SpaceX had NASA up their ass and less money overall, im pretty sure they got extended contracts past the 5 missions on contract

the funniest part is NASA moved Starliners Test Crew to the Dragon2 Crew 5 in october of 2022, ironically making the first female commander in a commerical crew mission (which Starliner would have had had it flown already)

With Dragon and Starliners 4 person crew, yes it does have less crew capability, but thats mostly due to size and NASA requirements (if they wanted 7, the ships would be designed for 7). And with the current crew on the ISS it covers all the needed spots for crew evac

Yes our Space Agency is doing a lot in comparison with the little money our politicians give the agency, but still: The Ariane V´s were pretty expensive and the cost could have been lower if we would have build more of the ATV´s. If i would have had to decide, we would still have the yearly ATV-launch to the station, probably and upgraded version. And IIRC the ATV was capable to boost the station: A capability we need.

The more you build something the cheaper it is, the shuttle could have had low kg to orbit costs if they flew once a week (but you'd need 20 Shuttles to do it). A yearly ATV to station would be crazy, but would kill some of the other cargo programs
and it had the unique feature of having Russian docking systems, which is why it was awesome for boosting, as you could put it on the end and fire the engines (others on the american side are a pain in the ass

And yes: The funding is finally coming in a bit better, because nobody can denie that russia isn´t a reliable partner anymore and there is a second race to the moon going on right now. Without super-heavy-lifters there is no real chance to win this second race.

Ya, because of necessity, which is why we have been in LEO for 50 years, NASA only took commercial crew seriously after Russia started annexing Crimea and stopped supplying their stupidly efficent engines


Honestly a book on how cheap and fiscally responsible the ESA is would be hilarious, instead of building their own manned spacecraft they nicked seats on Shuttle and Soyuz missions, rarely build deep space probes (once every 4 years or something like that), routinely cooperate with Space Programs for Science stuff, and their main launcher was adapted to launch two satellites at once for more money

Yes, it´s human but he should have been supervised more closely.

He was the supervisor, NASA MCC Controllers are supposed to be independent and serve the group, he froze and refused to do anything, and even the flight director was overruled by the NASA administrator, who told him that their response was too slow and to abort immediately
the guy was demoted to Flight controller and appears as one on Ares 1

I know all that. The Shuttle was done, but the ISS had to be completed to not loose the level of international cooperation the world had build up by then. But still: We kept a crewed vehicle flying after two catastrophies.

I'll bet that the US government had a say in the report for that reason, it was expected to take till 2010 for the ISS to be complete, and NASA asked for an extension to 2011 due to delays for the two Return to Flights
As STS-114 had tile trouble, which actually exonerated the Michoud plant as it was thought Michoud manufactured it wrong (human error), so Michoud was blamed for the loss of Columbia, After this mission they actually studied the foam loss (which they ironically didn't beforehand) and found it was due to thermal expansion in the foam after being sprayed on
Then STS 121 flew the next year

Grounding the Shuttle would effectively cancel the ISS, which would piss off allies and cause a geopolitical shitstorm,

I agree, Chernobyl would have been a killer, at least without a NERVA that has flown in a reworked, functioning, version.

I highly doubt that NASA would fly a nuclear mission while Ares 1 is still flying

And i really think that we will need nuclear systems for our future expansion into space, be it as power source or as a direct part of the propulsion.

We do, but thats a political and social issue that needs to be resolved