Government funded CATO

[Bobosan]

Privately-built NASA Antares rocket spectacularly exploded at launch to ISS

 

http://www.aol.com/article/2014/10/28/nasas-antares-rocket-exploded-at-launch/20985420/?icid=maing-grid7|aol20-g|dl1|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D553748

 

Video clip;

 

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/10/28/unmanned-nasa-rocket-explodes-after-liftoff/

Edited October 28, 2014 by Bobosan

[MrB]

Damn. I knew i should have used a bigger press. I must have got the increments to large.

Oh well. I'll make a new one.

B!

[pyroman2498]

I was just about to post a topic on this xD , I saw in right after it happened ....atleast no one died

[mkn]

Wow, glad no one was hurt, as they say xxit happens. Catos happen to the best of us !! puts it all in perspective when a header is lost, some time and chems invested oh well, Just imagine the $ and people who lost their jobs lost at that launch operation.

[rogeryermaw]

most. expensive. creamora. ever.

Edited October 29, 2014 by rogeryermaw

[taiwanluthiers]

It could be caused by cats...

[nater]

My great-uncle is a retired engineer for NASA, he was around during the days when they would test all sorts of balistic missiles and rocket designs. He has some great stories of interesting launches.

 

 

It is sad to see a failure like that, but a good reminder about the dangers of space travel and that things can go wrong for the best too. No injuries are reported, but heavy damage to the launch tower. Hopefully none of the supplies were critical until a new mission can be scheduled to the ISS.

[taiwanluthiers]

I'm not even sure privatizing space programs is such a good idea. Governments might be rather inefficient money wise but they don't cut corners, however companies have every incentive to cut corners. Remember the Soviet Union, why do they have a less reliable space program compared to NASA? Because they cut corners like crazy, after all to them lives are cheap so losing a few cosmonauts means little to them.

 

I just wonder if it has to do with private firms cutting corner, thus causing increased failure rate? Time will tell...

[Maserface]

Did you really just say that government doesnt cut corners? ok then

[taiwanluthiers]

Ok, I can't say NASA doesn't cut corners but they do it a lot less than the USSR/Russia, so they never lost so many astronauts compared to Russia. Though the space shuttle is pretty much a disaster compared to previous rockets like the Saturn V... It would be nice if they could bring Werner Von Braun back from the dead...

[nater]

The Space Shuttle program had 2 major catastrophes during its span, with a crew of 7 for each mission we lost 14 in space. A few others have been killed in industrial accidents related to the shuttle.

 

Similarily, the rocket programs have also been responsible for a similar amount of deaths. More were killed in training mishaps than on a spaceflight.

 

Worldwide, rocket programs have caused a number of deaths. History shows us that exploring the unknown is dangerous. I would say that compared to other explorers in history, the shuttle program was quite successful.

[Maserface]

If our civilization doesnt take these types of risks, we will be set to a certain fate of war and famine, raise your eyes to the skies and observe!

[Bobosan]

The Space Shuttle program had 2 major catastrophes during its span, with a crew of 7 for each mission we lost 14 in space. A few others have been killed in industrial accidents related to the shuttle.

 

Similarily, the rocket programs have also been responsible for a similar amount of deaths. More were killed in training mishaps than on a spaceflight.

 

Worldwide, rocket programs have caused a number of deaths. History shows us that exploring the unknown is dangerous. I would say that compared to other explorers in history, the shuttle program was quite successful.

 

Don't forget the astronaut deaths (3) that occurred during the Apollo era. (Apollo 1)

 

The Antares rocket first stage uses Russian designed & built AJ26-62 engines and are basically the NK-33 engines designed by the Kuznetsov Design Bureau for the Russian N-1 launch vehicle, and remarketed by Aerojet under a new designation.

 

http://www.orbital.com/LaunchSystems/Publications/Antares_factsheet.pdf

Edited October 29, 2014 by Bobosan

[Bobosan]

Ok, I can't say NASA doesn't cut corners but they do it a lot less than the USSR/Russia, so they never lost so many astronauts compared to Russia. Though the space shuttle is pretty much a disaster compared to previous rockets like the Saturn V... It would be nice if they could bring Werner Von Braun back from the dead...

 

Actually, there have been more American astronaut deaths than Russian cosmonaut deaths. In training modes, the Americans still have more space related deaths than Russia.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents

Edited October 29, 2014 by Bobosan

[Oinikis]

Now I have to disagree with Taiwan. I have been reading about space exploration history, and I can tell, your opinion and statements are based upon beliefs, and in some sense, little knowledge.First, USSR lost 4 people in flight, while US lost 14. Second thing, funding. Soviet Space Programs (SSP) funding rarely exceeded 1 % of total income (military was getting 25%, and most of them were wasted, and thrown away), while in late 1960s, NASA's funding exceeded 4 % income of much larger economy. Now lets look at the achievements. First Satellite, man into orbit and space, and extra-vehicular activity was done by USSR, while US landed on the Moon. Later, after early 70s came space station age, and it was Soviets time to shine. First space station, Saliut 1 (and the notorious Soyuz 11) were launched and used in 1971, while US launched theyr Skylab mission in 1973, but by the end of the decade, Soviets had more space stations. During this time, USSR developed the Soyuz, basically the best system to get people into orbit and back, it's cheap, it's time tested, and it is very safe, not suffering a single failure for over 20 years of intense operation. During the 80s, USSR launched Mir space station, which was world first modular space station, and in the end it had 6 modules, and mass of 120 tones. Soviets perfected space stations, and long duration living in space, and they did quite a lot of science and helped us understand our atmosphere and space. Meanwhile, US developed Space Shuttle (STS), which wasn't exactly the cheapest way of getting into space, but it sure did the job. Now, you know when the greatest things happened? When they collaborated! After fall of USSR, during 90s, there was Shuttle-Mir program, where STS docked to Mir space station, and they both did science, and it was great. However, due to gross underfunding not everything worked out, like N1/L3 Soviet moon shot, and Buran-Energya. N1 used 30 NK-33 engines in it first stage, and the program was soo grosselly underfunded, that these 30 engines weren't even tested on ground as a cluster, while government pressed the engineers, and this was the problem. However, technology from that program is still in use today, as Bob said, some US rockets use NK-33, becouse those engines are quite efficent and nice. Another one is Buran-Energya. Buran program consisted of several part, the shuttle and carrier rocket for payload. Buran might look similar to STS, but the staging and technology behind is vastly different. Buran used 2 stage with booster staging, and Buran acted only as the second stage,and source of circularization bur. Instead of Buran, you could attach second stage, and have a nice launch vechile capable of 100 tones of payload. There were some other configurations, heavier, lighter, and even completelly reusable. The variation of the engine of these motors used in boosters is in use today in US. Both programs were awesome, but the fact how USSR managed to do such amazing things with little funding is amazing. Needless to say, i'm sensitive on this topic. Edited October 29, 2014 by Oinikis

[taiwanluthiers]

In Soviet Russia, rocket launch YOU!!!

[Oinikis]

Usually that's what happens all around the world during manned space exploration.

[taiwanluthiers]

Rockets are expensive, inefficient, and dangerous. It would be nice if there were something better and cheaper to send stuff to space. Not to mention with each launch they're leaving tons of junk in space that just makes future space mission harder and harder.

[MrB]

It would be nice if there were something better and cheaper to send stuff to space.

There is. A couple, actually. Most designs have a comon flaw. The acceleration is such that you wouldn't survive it. It's fairly close to be launched out of a cannon. Some actually suggest a railgun. The designs that would be survivable mostly rely on a combination of maglev tech, and vacuum filled launch-tubes. Well, low pressure, not exactly vacuum. They aim to reduce the friction of the air by having the end(s) at 12miles up, and matching the air pressure inside the tube to that on the outside. I never figured out how they intend to do that, since gravity would pull what little air there is at 12 miles up, in to the tube, and rebuild the pressure at ground level, in the tube. Putting a lid on it, in some way, and keeping the air out, would mean that the moment you open it, air will rush in, and the at takeoff speed "train" would rush head on in to it. It would be a close equivalent to slamming in to a wall, i imagine. So even if you survive the acceleration, i have doubts about the tube exit... Weirdly, they estimate things like 30 billion dollar costs for projects like these. Which is less then the subway costs in a good size American city.

 

About debris. Tons of junk really isn't the problem. Large chunks can easily be tracked and accounted for, as well as, if one decides to, taken out of orbit, simply by shooting small masses on them. Personally i'm fond of squirt guns. The water should be collected from the asteroid belt, which would take some time, but be real cheap. And it would provide ample scientific opportunities as well.

Anyway. The large chunks isn't the problem. It's the small stuff that gets you.

B!

[Oinikis]

Well, rockets might not be the best method, but the way we launch rockets is also very inefficient. Most of the price of the rocket is not fuel, it is equipment, the mostly the engines. If one could make a launch system, which is recoverable and reusable, without having too much empty weight for recovery, or being done in a very inefficient method/staging *cough*space shuttle*cough*, then you could use bit more expensive, but extremely efficient engines. Then you would need less fuel to have same dV, and if you have less fuel, you need less thrust to have wanted TWR, all this resulting in higher payload fraction, thus requiring less fuel each launch, and instead of making new equipment you just recover and reuse the used equipment. If done correctly, this would cut launch cost up to 2-3 times. Future of space travel is something more advanced than rockets, but for now, we have ways to go with rockets.

[taiwanluthiers]

I think with the discovery of carbon nanotubes some think a space elevator could be built, except I am not even sure if it could be done in my grandson's lifetime...

 

Also, is it really that hard to recover pieces jettisoned from rockets? Space shuttle SRB seems to be recovered successfully all the time. But I don't claim to understand all there is to know about it so what could be done to cut costs?

 

Back in the day I did HPR because it was a lot cheaper than model airplanes, but then again we reuse our rockets and only pay for the rocket motor reload kits, which isn't really too expensive. So what's stopping NASA from say reusing all the lower stages of Saturn V rockets, so that the entire rocket would be reused for subsequent launch.

Edited October 30, 2014 by taiwanluthiers

[Oinikis]

Now i'm a bit skeptical about all those space elevators, because, a space elevator is essentially a cable connected to a heavy thing, past the geostationary orbit, but going at a speed, that it would go around the circle in 24 hours. Of course, if it would go at that speed at that height, it would simply go further, because it is going too fast for that orbit, and would go into eliptical one, but the cable holds it, and stuff is great. Now, you need to put that heavy thing in that orbit, and connect it. There's your firsts problem. Another one, is if you climb that cable, and put heavy thing in orbit, you're just slowing the heavy thing up there down, because energy can't be created nor destroyed, so I don't see a point in this. You could theoretically make a rigid structure, and when putting stuff into space sow down the earth, but it would slow down the earth quite rapidly, and there is no point here either, and I don't understand whats the fuss is about.

Now, reusable rockets. Let's pretend we are launching from US. For booster or first stage of 3 stage rocket, which doesn't go fast and farm, there is no real problem, just put some parachutes to it, and recover it somewhere 300 downrange. In this case, it would land in Atlantic, and salt water ain't good, so you need to design it to be resistant.to salt water. The real problem arises for stages who in staging sequence are one stage below the upper stage (orbital injection stage). These would be first (core) stage in 2 stage with booster configuration (or first one, in plain 2 stage configuration), or second stage in 3 stage configuration. Said stages go into so called high energy sub-orbital trajectory They go into space (about 200 km apogee) and are traveling at 5-6km/s horizontally, depending on rocket. Now they are traveling fast enough, that reentry heating and stuff would be similar to reentry from orbit, except, they go into shallower trajectory, and paradoxically, this reentry is way more aggressive than higher velocity orbital one. Good example is Soyuz 18a where second stage seperation failed, and 2 cosmonauts did a high altitude abort, from high energy suborbital trajectory. They experienced peak G force of 21 G, which broke theyr ribs, but they survived to fly another day. Same goes here, and you would need heck lots of heatshield to survive balistic reentry from that trajectory. Unless you use something called lifting body reentry. Basically, your craft is sort of flat, and enters the atmosphere at an angle of atack, and skips in the atmosphere nice and slow, like a skipping stone on water. This way, you don't experience much heating and G force. So, you could design sub orbital and orbital stages to be of lifting body design, so they would reenter softly, and land on an airfield as an aircraft. Now, rises another problem, orbital stage can land basically everywhere on earth, but sub orbital one already traveled far downrange, and now it skips, and travels even more. Don't forget, I didn't said that we are launching from US in this example. The sub orbital stage would reentry, and land, somewhere thousands of kilometers away. For our convenience, Europe happens to be there, so sub orbital stage could land in europe, on runway, and be shipped back to US for reuse, while orbital stage would start reentry over pacific, and land into US. Now, reentry sequence is hard stuff, and we need some lightweight materials to shield the components, without having too much dead weight, and also there is a problem, that you need a rocket to be stable aerodynamically in flight, while seperate components are still aerodynamically stable and ready for reentry while are empty empty. These problems are being solved, because we know about this sort of reentry from space shuttle, and with new technologies, we aren't very far from reusable launch vehicles.

Edited October 30, 2014 by Oinikis

[taiwanluthiers]

So it looks like the Obama administration scrapped the space shuttle, so what is NASA designing that is similar but more workable (budget wise)?

 

I think according to a documentary they were claiming one launch a week at a cost of about 100-200 dollars per pound, similar to space elevator... but reality proved different.

 

For cargo a space cannon would be workable, after all they should be able to survive much higher G than humans. So then they can save the expensive rocket for humans and they can shoot supplies and construction materials with a cannon. I think the problem now is there's no conceivable use for putting more man and material into space. I mean back in the 50's they were in a race with USSR, and the race was about ICBM's and spying on Russia. I suppose if there are commercial value of going into space (for example mining rare earth minerals from space) then there would be far more incentive to put more funding into space programs.

[ddewees]

Pluto is made out of Plutonium.

[Bobosan]

...and Uranus is made from ....er, never mind.