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  #21  
Old 03-31-2015, 08:52 PM
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Royatl Royatl is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ironnerd
I watched the launch, and found it interesting for other reasons.

1: It's a tiny capsule. Those guys were squeezed in there pretty tight.
2: Astronaut Kelly was using a STICK with a handle to manipulate something on the control panel - maybe MFD buttons, but still... a STICK?
3: He was using a tabled of some kind.
4: They reminded me of trips I took as a kid - crammed in the back of the station wagon surrounded by camping gear.

What must the Russians think of our new capsules?


That was the commander using the stick; Kelly was in the right hand seat.

Normally there is a small stuffed animal tied to the panel right in front of the commander. You can see it riding stiffly at the end of its string during burns. It jumps a bit at staging, but then usually smoothly indicates weightlessness at the end of the third stage burn. This time it was a much bigger stuffed animal, tied between the commander and Kelly, and you didn't see it until burnout, when its larger mass really reacted to the sudden lack of accelleration (as did everyone else).

Yes, the stick is to manipulate buttons, since the accelleration makes it a bit hard to reach out to the panel (and the gloved fingers probably can't get past the button guards anyway). It appears, however, that they now do some stuff through a computer tablet of some sort, so he didn't do a heck of a lot with the stick.

Oh, also, the return module is only occupied during launch and reentry, so they don't need a whole lot of room. As soon as they are in orbit, they move to the orbital module (which admittedly isn't that much bigger).
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  #22  
Old 03-31-2015, 11:22 PM
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luke strawwalker luke strawwalker is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ghrocketman
BIG combustion chambers = BIGG POGO/Oscillation.
That makes for excitement; little chambers = L*A*M*E*O, LAME-O BORRRRINNNGGGGG.
Git-ta-POGOin' !!!
SHAKE, Baby Shake !!!!

I like to hear about a quality, yet NON life-threatening, MAL-Function every flight.
Fun MALfunctions include BUSTICATED toilet/waste issues, along with other goodies floating weightlessly that cause a NUISANCE without any real harm.
The Captain's LOGG comes to mind....
Imagine an environment where FARTS NEVER really DISSIPATE. Hyuk, yuk, yuk !
Flights that are Nominal/AY-OKAY are of little entertainmunt.


So much for the "giving toilet humor a rest for a long while".... LOL

As long as we're on the subject-- do you remember the early shuttle flight where the toity malfunctioned and there was a big frozen "turd-sicle" stuck out the side of the shuttle from the waste dump port... and they were worried about what would happen on reentry if it broke off and slammed into the tiles...

Oh well... with Orion it's back to taping a ziplock bag to your @ss and hoping for the best... They had to dump the potty overboard during the "zero base vehicle" weight scrub years ago...

Later! OL JR
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  #23  
Old 04-01-2015, 03:53 AM
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ghrocketman ghrocketman is offline
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Uhh yeah.
The toilet-status for mega-billion dollar vehicles is ridiculous, and that is NO joke.
Taping a BAG to one's butt for the most basic human function above BREATHING is moronic.
WHY can't they get THAT right ?
C'mon now, and this is NOT meant to be some sort of joke.
NO prankin' whatsoever here, this is just idiotic.
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  #24  
Old 04-01-2015, 08:07 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ghrocketman
Uhh yeah.
The toilet-status for mega-billion dollar vehicles is ridiculous, and that is NO joke.
Taping a BAG to one's butt for the most basic human function above BREATHING is moronic.
WHY can't they get THAT right ?
C'mon now, and this is NOT meant to be some sort of joke.
NO prankin' whatsoever here, this is just idiotic.

That's what happens when you try to launch a big ginormous Orion on a little SRB stick. Ares-1 and Liberty were ugly, btw. We need good looking boosters to scale.
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  #25  
Old 04-01-2015, 08:23 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tbzep
Kinda like their ingenious solution to ink pens in space. Instead of spending tens of thousands on research, they just used a pencil.


That wasn't NASA that funded the space pen, it was the manufacturer of the pen (Mr. Fisher) that did that. He didn't receive any money for development from the gov't or NASA, he just designed the pen and asked NASA to try it out - it worked, they bought it, and Mr. Fisher made some money.

As it turns out, there were hazards in using pencils for space flight as graphite dust and broken leads could get into electronics and cause hazards. Eraser dust was also a concern. The quality of the documents made using pencils was not great either (since the pencil tended to smear, and were not permanent).

By 1970 both the US and Soviets had adopted the Space Pen for use in their space flights. The Soviet's simple solution to ink pens in space was to buy them from America. Yet another victory for Capitalism over Communism.
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Last edited by Ironnerd : 04-02-2015 at 11:20 AM.
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  #26  
Old 04-01-2015, 04:13 PM
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luke strawwalker luke strawwalker is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ghrocketman
Uhh yeah.
The toilet-status for mega-billion dollar vehicles is ridiculous, and that is NO joke.
Taping a BAG to one's butt for the most basic human function above BREATHING is moronic.
WHY can't they get THAT right ?
C'mon now, and this is NOT meant to be some sort of joke.
NO prankin' whatsoever here, this is just idiotic.


It's what happens when you compromise the mission design driving the spacecraft design and let it all instead be driven by politics driving the launch vehicle design... In short "Ares I" was too limp a noodle to lift the mega-size Orion (which was originally designed even bigger, to prevent it from being launched on either of the EELV's, Delta IV or Atlas V, but was downsized a bit in the drawing phase because it was found once the numbers were run that ARES I couldn't lift it either! Then of course with closer study revealing that an airlit SSME wasn't feasible either without TOTALLY redesigning the engine, which forced the switch to the J-2S, which wasn't powerful enough, causing IT to be totally redesigned into the "high thrust" J-2X, and then the motor buzz/vibration problems were discovered with the first stage solid rocket motor, requiring a heavy vibration damper system to keep the vehicle from shaking the astronauts to death, plus the heavier escape system required to abort the capsule off a faulty SRM that couldn't be shut down and would therefore "chase" the capsule in an abort, unlike a liquid rocket first stage... Hence Orion was the only thing that could be, and WAS, cut, to make up for all these inadequacies and deficiencies in the launch vehicle...

For those who don't remember, Orion was originally planned to land on solid earth using parachutes and landing bags inflated on the bottom after the heat shield was jettisoned just prior to touchdown. It was to be reusable ten times. Was going to have seating for six to ISS, and four for a lunar or deep-space mission... Full galley for food preparation and toilet for hygiene.... First the land-landings went, airbags were deleted, and the entire capsule reverted to ocean splashdowns ala Apollo... hence out went reusability, due to salt water dunking and corrosion, and damage to the pressure shell from the ocean impact. The plan reverted to "stripping out components" for reuse on a new pressure shell on a new Orion... Still overweight even as Ares I performance faltered, Orion was forced through a "zero base vehicle" weight scrub, where basically EVERYTHING that wasn't ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED for Orion to even function at the most basic level was stripped out, and had to "earn" it's way back into the design... hence the thing was stripped to the gunnels of all comfort and even functionality beyond basic transport, life support, and return to Earth and landing requirements. The galley and the toilet were the first things to go... hence the return to Apollo-style "tape a bag to your @ss and drop trow..." hygiene (which should be interesting with the presence of a mixed-sex crew-- something Apollo never had to deal with, and also with a mostly non-military crew (as most have been in the late shuttle era, anyway, especially among scientist astronauts and mission specialists...) unaccustomed to the hardships endured by the virtually all-military (or ex-military) Apollo crews during their military service... So it's back to eating cold grub from packets and toothpaste tubes, maybe injecting hot water into freeze-dried bricks of grub, that sort of thing... The argument went that "the toilet and galley will be in the mission module, so therefore it isn't needed in Orion... the astronauts can tough it out for a day and a half catching up to ISS before docking, or in LEO parking orbit awaiting docking to the mission module (Altair lander, before it was cancelled to free up money for Orion/Ares I development, or other module for deep-space missions, which has yet to appear as a powerpoint, let alone actually be developed or better yet, FUNDED!)" So, ALONE, Orion can at best sustain a four-person crew in primitive conditions for about two weeks in a stand-alone mission, perhaps to lunar orbit (IF it has an in-space propulsion stage to supplements its propulsive power-- Orion cannot even go into lunar orbit and get back out again by itself, unlike Apollo... it doesn't have enough propellant...) Hence the focus on this "dragging a washing-machine size asteroid back to cis-lunar space (NOT lunar orbit, since Orion cannot get there!) for astronauts to "explore" in a stand-alone up-to-two-week mission... Otherwise, there is NOTHING really even proposed with any seriousness for Orion... Let alone approved and FUNDED....

You're right... it is a joke...

Later! OL JR
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  #27  
Old 04-02-2015, 11:20 AM
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Ironnerd Ironnerd is offline
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I work at Lockheed-Martin, and they really did talk up Orion. They spent several weeks (months) after the flight to tell us how amazing the capsule was and how well it performed. And I wondered "Where was the Cheese?" We took a Delta IV HEAVY, and flew a mostly empty capsule to 3,600 miles? A Delta IV? Really? a 60,000+ lb to LEO machine to get most of an orbit out of a capsule... Granted it went pretty high up there, but there still seems to be something off on the Bang vs Buck chart.

Especially when we look at Orion from another perspective. Since it's inception, it has LOST CAPABILITY. Soyuz, has mostly held "as is" (some incremental gains over the year, but nothing dramatic - it's a Chevy Truck - it's reliable and hauls what you need to haul). Then you look at Falcon-Dragon which has been Gaining Capability - oh, and FLYING stuff to ISS like it was designed to do on (wait for it) a booster with LESS lifting capacity than the Delta IV heavy (about half the capacity, actually).

Still kicking myself for turning down the job at Space-X...
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