Space Launch System - Orion

[MartG]

Well...

"Then NASA - still with the plans and knowledge of Saturn V - scrapped it (and actually threw 2 perfectly good rockets away!!) " - NASA didn't scrap it - they actually had a whole load of plans for further, more advanced missions like Venus and Mars flybys, extended lunar missions, space stations etc. based on Saturn launch vehicles. The Nixon government scrapped it by deleting all funding for it and the advanced missions from the NASA budget.

Why is it taking so long to get SLS flying ? Well, again it's the politicians to blame. Work was quite well along on the Ares 1 and V under the Constellation programme when the Obama administration cancelled it in 2010, wasting 5 years work, and told NASA to start again with SLS, even going so far as to tell NASA it had to use a core stage based on the Shuttle external tank as well as SRBs provided by ATK - and then chronically underfunded the entire programme so any progress has been at a glacial pace

Why has Orion taken so long - started under the Constellation programme on 2005 it barely survived the cancellation in 2010 ( the Altair lunar lander didn't ), its development has also been chronically underfunded in the NASA budgets passed by the federal government.

You may spot a theme here - since Apollo the US government has regularly told NASA to deliver something, then refused to give them the money needed to actually do as they have been told. It's all politics and repeated, gross underfunding.

As I said previously, reverse engineering the Saturn V from the remaining hardware and what documentation survives would be a herculean task - and the recertification of all the components for manned flight an even greater task - it would be much simpler and cheaper to recreate a Saturn V lookalike vehicle from scratch using modern technology. No need to take a museum display to pieces to find how to do something by exactly copying how it was done 50 years ago - we already know how to do it using modern materials and technology. What is lacking is the money and political backing such a project would require.

As far as the F-1 and J-2 engines are concerned, Aerojet Rocketdyne do have the knowledge needed to put them back into production through research carried out under the Constellation programme for liquid boosters ( for the F-1 ) and the Ares upper stages ( for the J-2 ). Again all that is lacking is political will and money to do it.

So don't blame NASA for the long gestation of Orion and SLS, blame the guys sat in the Capitol and White House

[AshVX220]

Indeed, I don't know a lot about this, but even I can see that the issues lies firmly with government. Working in defence I know exactly the problems that government cuase when it comes to purchasing new "stuff".

I think my concern for NASA is the fast rise of SpaceX, with Blue Origin also closing the gap too. SpaceX is not constrained by the US government, they can do what they want and in fact everything they do is driving towards Musk's vision of colonising Mars.

SpaceX will quickly make NASA completely irrelevant as far as manned exploration is concerned and will also completely take over NASA as far as deployin gsatellites for customers are concerned (as they can do it cheaper, even the US government will eventually turn to them to deploy satellites). I think NASA's very existence is threatened to be honest, the best outcome IMHO for NASA and it's employee's would be for the US government to agree to sell it to SpaceX or something, on the proviso that whoever takes NASA o continues with the science experiment side of things that would be funded by US government.

If that makes sense.

[Eric Mc]

NASA already doesn't deploy satellites for anybody now. They gave up trying to be a commercial satellite trucking service during the Shuttle era.

NASA is fundamentally a research and development organisation and it will have a role in that area for decades, if the US government deems that they need it.

[AshVX220]

Eric Mc said:

NASA already doesn't deploy satellites for anybody now. They gave up trying to be a commercial satellite trucking service during the Shuttle era.

NASA is fundamentally a research and development organisation and it will have a role in that area for decades, if the US government deems that they need it.

Fair enough, thanks for clarifying. But as far as going to the moon and Mars are concerned, surely SpaceX are a major competitor that (at least for now) seem like they'll get there first, so projects like Orion, must be at risk?

[Eric Mc]

Perhaps. SpaceX certainly has big ambitions and I wish them well in what they intend to do.

BUT, they have yet to even fly a manned craft in earth orbital flight (or even sub-orbital flight for that matter) let alone send a craft 250,000 miles out to the moon and back, with people.

We know at least that NASA has done that, multiple times. And we do know that the first SLS rockets are being built right now - so progress is being made, even if it is painfully slow.

There is the possibility that the slowness of SLS/Orion (due to the restricted budgets mentioned above) could result in SpaceX and perhaps Blue Origin overtaking NASA in its manned spaceflight capabilities.

Time will tell.

[Globs]

Eric Mc said:

Perhaps. SpaceX certainly has big ambitions and I wish them well in what they intend to do.

BUT, they have yet to even fly a manned craft in earth orbital flight (or even sub-orbital flight for that matter) let alone send a craft 250,000 miles out to the moon and back, with people.

We know at least that NASA has done that, multiple times. And we do know that the first SLS rockets are being built right now - so progress is being made, even if it is painfully slow.

This seems to be a case of 'past performance may not guarantee future results'.

NASA says it can't get a man into Orion until 2023, which gives SpaceX 7 years. Remember it only took 1960s NASA 2 years to go from a wrecked, late, disaster prone situation with the death of three astronauts and the quality manager: to a error free series of moon trips including jumping about, golfing and driving buggies around. So if SpaceX is anywhere near as competent as Apollo's NASA they'll take the lead.

I was looking up a bit about Orion and found this:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/orion/2014/11/

It seems their last flight was for:

NASA blog said:

Orion will not carry any people on its flight test, it’s designed for astronauts, and engineers want to find out what conditions will be like inside the cabin as Orion travels through high radiation and extreme temperatures during this flight test.

In other words a complete waste of time and money,

a) Apollo never bothered with this and
b) We already know the numbers from Apollo, and we know it's safe so we can measure pointless stuff during a moon mission.

I could understand if they were going straight Mars, but they plan to return to the Moon first.

I'm finding a very schizophrenic NASA here, like two different organisations.
NASA of Yesteryear:
The 1960s one actually did stuff, proved that deep space flight was not only possible but almost routine. This proved that thermal issues were easily solved and radiation was a non issue. In fact it got so routine everyone got bored and then eventually stopped, had a go at Skylab (not sure why exactly, the moon is better), and then set down to re-inventing a crappy version of the wheel they'd just used.

I'd say the character change came around 1972-1975.

Timid NASA of today's millenials:
The modern NASA appears to be doing far too much testing and research to solve a non-problem. Even here:
https://srag.jsc.nasa.gov/SpaceRadiation/What/What...

NASA today said:

Except for the Apollo missions to the Moon, NASA's manned spaceflight missions have taken place within the cocoon of the Earth's magnetosphere. Between the Apollo 16 and 17 missions, one of the largest solar proton events ever recorded occurred, and it produced radiation levels of sufficient energy for the astronauts outside of the Earth's magnetosphere to absorb lethal doses within 10 hours after the start of the event. It is indeed fortunate that the timing of this event did not coincide with one of the Apollo missions.

As NASA ponders the feasibility of sending manned spaceflight missions back to the Moon or to other planets, radiation protection for crew members remains one of the key technological issues which must be resolved.

so here they are again, bleating about pointless testing when they should be going already.
Radiation protection is NOT something that needs to be resolved, WTF are they on? Seven perfect flights, days standing around on the moon, 48 years to prove there were no ill effects on the astronauts and _now_ they want to go all Health and Safety?!?!

HELLO NASA, remember Apollo? I understand that some fkwit has lost all the Apollo 11 tapes, some retards shredded the SaturnV plans and the millenials running NASA are too spastic to go look at Apollo CM and LM sitting the fking museum down the road, but you've got the journals right in front of you.
E.g. : https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap11fj/02earth-orbit-...

No radiation hazard AT ALL. NADA.
I do despair, I really do. It's almost like they don't want to go.

[Eric Mc]

Globs said:

Eric Mc said:

Perhaps. SpaceX certainly has big ambitions and I wish them well in what they intend to do.

BUT, they have yet to even fly a manned craft in earth orbital flight (or even sub-orbital flight for that matter) let alone send a craft 250,000 miles out to the moon and back, with people.

We know at least that NASA has done that, multiple times. And we do know that the first SLS rockets are being built right now - so progress is being made, even if it is painfully slow.

This seems to be a case of 'past performance may not guarantee future results'.

NASA says it can't get a man into Orion until 2023, which gives SpaceX 7 years. Remember it only took 1960s NASA 2 years to go from a wrecked, late, disaster prone situation with the death of three astronauts and the quality manager: to a error free series of moon trips including jumping about, golfing and driving buggies around. So if SpaceX is anywhere near as competent as Apollo's NASA they'll take the lead.

I was looking up a bit about Orion and found this:
https://blogs.nasa.gov/orion/2014/11/

It seems their last flight was for:

NASA blog said:

Orion will not carry any people on its flight test, it’s designed for astronauts, and engineers want to find out what conditions will be like inside the cabin as Orion travels through high radiation and extreme temperatures during this flight test.

In other words a complete waste of time and money,

a) Apollo never bothered with this and
b) We already know the numbers from Apollo, and we know it's safe so we can measure pointless stuff during a moon mission.

I could understand if they were going straight Mars, but they plan to return to the Moon first.

I'm finding a very schizophrenic NASA here, like two different organisations.
NASA of Yesteryear:
The 1960s one actually did stuff, proved that deep space flight was not only possible but almost routine. This proved that thermal issues were easily solved and radiation was a non issue. In fact it got so routine everyone got bored and then eventually stopped, had a go at Skylab (not sure why exactly, the moon is better), and then set down to re-inventing a crappy version of the wheel they'd just used.

I'd say the character change came around 1972-1975.

Timid NASA of today's millenials:
The modern NASA appears to be doing far too much testing and research to solve a non-problem. Even here:
https://srag.jsc.nasa.gov/SpaceRadiation/What/What...

NASA today said:

Except for the Apollo missions to the Moon, NASA's manned spaceflight missions have taken place within the cocoon of the Earth's magnetosphere. Between the Apollo 16 and 17 missions, one of the largest solar proton events ever recorded occurred, and it produced radiation levels of sufficient energy for the astronauts outside of the Earth's magnetosphere to absorb lethal doses within 10 hours after the start of the event. It is indeed fortunate that the timing of this event did not coincide with one of the Apollo missions.

As NASA ponders the feasibility of sending manned spaceflight missions back to the Moon or to other planets, radiation protection for crew members remains one of the key technological issues which must be resolved.

so here they are again, bleating about pointless testing when they should be going already.
Radiation protection is NOT something that needs to be resolved, WTF are they on? Seven perfect flights, days standing around on the moon, 48 years to prove there were no ill effects on the astronauts and _now_ they want to go all Health and Safety?!?!

HELLO NASA, remember Apollo? I understand that some fkwit has lost all the Apollo 11 tapes, some retards shredded the SaturnV plans and the millenials running NASA are too spastic to go look at Apollo CM and LM sitting the fking museum down the road, but you've got the journals right in front of you.
E.g. : https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap11fj/02earth-orbit-...

No radiation hazard AT ALL. NADA.
I do despair, I really do. It's almost like they don't want to go.

Where are you getting your Apollo history from? It contains a number of wild assertions and errors.

You seem to think that the first flight of Apollo (Apollo 7) was a manned flight. That could not be farther from the truth. There were a number of unmanned Saturn and Apollo flights flown unmanned dating as far back as 1961.

There were TWEN unmaned Saturn I launches
There were FOUR unanned Saturn IB launches
There were TWO unmanned Saturn V launches.

A number of the above launches carried unmanned versions of the Apollo Command and Service Modules and Lunar Modules.

And as for the Apollo 1 fire, most of the changes needed to upgrade the Apollo Command Service Module to make it a better and lunar capable craft had already been made years before the fire.

Orion/SLS is following, to a large extent teh testing schedule carried out with Apollo - although some of the flights that were needed for Apollo are not needed for SLS/Orion - and the other flights which are necessary are spread out because of budget limitations.

[Beati Dogu]

Globs said:

I'd say the character change came around 1972-1975.

NASA cancelled long-lead time items for Saturn V as early as 1968. They never really cancelled the build program, they just didn't place a second order once the original 15 were completed.

They were already thinking about the Space Shuttle and the concept of a "space truck" held out a lot more appeal once the moon landings had been done with. Sadly, the Space Shuttle, with the technology available, turned out to be somewhat of an evolutionary dead end. So we're back to big rockets again, but not with a war footing budget.

[Eric Mc]

Globs is right about the change coming about in that 1972-75 time frame.

However, it was entirely down to Congress completely throwing out virtually every manned parogramme NASA had announced in 1969/70 - further manned trips to the moon, a permanent manned lunar base, a permanent earth orbiting space station, a space tug to transfer people and equipment from the station to the moon, a manned mission to Mars and finally, tucked away amongst all that, a reusable Shuttle vehicle to carry people to and from the space station.

Out of all that, only the Shuttle survived - although the eventual vehicle was a far cry from what NASA had envisaged in 1970.

[AshVX220]

Eric Mc said:

Globs is right about the change coming about in that 1972-75 time frame.

However, it was entirely down to Congress completely throwing out virtually every manned parogramme NASA had announced in 1969/70 - further manned trips to the moon, a permanent manned lunar base, a permanent earth orbiting space station, a space tug to transfer people and equipment from the station to the moon, a manned mission to Mars and finally, tucked away amongst all that, a reusable Shuttle vehicle to carry people to and from the space station.

Out of all that, only the Shuttle survived - although the eventual vehicle was a far cry from what NASA had envisaged in 1970.

I wonder how much farther man would have gone (scientifically and physically) if all of those aspirations had been implemented.

I think another of the problems that Globs is talking about now comes down to how much more "Risk averse" corporations are in the world today, gone are the days when we took risks on a regular basis just to see if it could be done. It seems that only individuals take risks these days, which is why it needs people like Musk (with the wealth, ability, intelligence and gamblers nature) to make the big things happen.

[Globs]

Eric Mc said:

You seem to think that the first flight of Apollo (Apollo 7) was a manned flight.

Oh, I can't find any reference to that - did I say that?

I recall the LM was late in production so IIRC some missions that should have tested it didn't, in fact the first time it was tested was in Apollo 11. Didn't seem to bother Buzz and Neil mind, risk-wise Michael was the lucky one!

I can understand Orion wanting to test a landing, but no government forced them to do a pointless radiation and temperature flight. When did NASA become obsessed with radiation?! Did they test anything else? I.e. life support systems on board and running?
Did the government force NASA to scrap the world's best rocket launch system ever? If they considered getting rid of it in 1968 I'd suspect not.

Useful that the CM is bigger than the Apollo capsule though, Apollo 8 must have been like spending a two week camping trip with a couple of mates in a two man dome tent and not being allowed out for any reason! I always thought it was odd they threw the waste out into space too, something to hit on the way back.

AshVX220 said:

it needs people like Musk

Musk seems like a useful idiot to me. IIRC he said he'd start an atmosphere on Mars by setting up a series of explosions when any 2 year old knows it's the magnetic field that keeps an atmosphere and any gases will find their way out naturally.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/2/9441029/elon-mus...

He's got one or two rockets to actually work and now he think's he's going to arrange Moon trips? What's he on?

[AshVX220]

Globs said:

Musk seems like a useful idiot to me. IIRC he said he'd start an atmosphere on Mars by setting up a series of explosions when any 2 year old knows it's the magnetic field that keeps an atmosphere and any gases will find their way out naturally.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/2/9441029/elon-mus...

He's got one or two rockets to actually work and now he think's he's going to arrange Moon trips? What's he on?

He's got more balls than any government and puts his money where his mouth is, and he now has a number of succesful lanches and recoveries under his belt.....

If he tries and fails, at least he would have tried and he wouldn't have spent public money doing so.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Musk fan-boi, I think Tesla is a load of bks born out of the current trend/fashion to want to reduce plant food (those attributes of course that are completely wiped out with a single SpaceX launch ), but he does at least have vision.

[Eric Mc]

Globs said:

Eric Mc said:

You seem to think that the first flight of Apollo (Apollo 7) was a manned flight.

Oh, I can't find any reference to that - did I say that?

I recall the LM was late in production so IIRC some missions that should have tested it didn't, in fact the first time it was tested was in Apollo 11. Didn't seem to bother Buzz and Neil mind, risk-wise Michael was the lucky one!

Your post seemed to indicate that you thought Apollo kicked straight off with manned missions - which of course, it didn't. Indeed, this most most recent statement that I've quoted above seems to reinforce my view that you don't really have a good knowledge of how the Apollo systems and components were tested with unmanned missions.

The Lunar Module made quite a few flights before Apollo 11 one of them definitely unmanned.

The first Lunar Module tested in space was LM1 which was tested in unmanned earth orbit flight on the Apollo 5 mission in January 1968. Apollo 5 was launched using a modified Saturn IB



Next up was Apollo 9, which was a manned mission and tested the LM in earth orbit in March 1969 -



Third flight was Apollo 10 which took the LM down to 50,000 feet above the lunar surface, but didn't land -



So, three LM flights before one was used to land men on the surface.

[Globs]

Eric Mc said:

Your post seemed to indicate that you thought Apollo kicked straight off with manned missions - which of course, it didn't.

Indeed, sorry I gave that impression.
I may have mentioned Apollo 7 was the first manned Saturn V flight but I couldn't find it on the page so maybe I didn't.
Anyway, only an organisation with serious suicidal tendencies would scrap the V in favour of the dangerous, expensive and less powerful shuttle launcher.

http://www.space.com/18422-apollo-saturn-v-moon-ro...

As I said, either it didn't work very well or they were insane. No government made them abandon it, when the shuttle money came along they could have used the lower stages and for ISS if would have made perfect sense. Since when does an organisation abandon a successful rocket? Is there any other example in history - apart from Saturn V - where this has happened?

And still, 48 years later while the Orion team discuss (and do test flights about) the non-existent radiation problem it's still the best rocket.
As a kid I had a model of the Saturn V, but never bothered with the shuttle.

I had an action man lunar rover too, took Boeing 17 months flat to create that. I'm still puzzled about the rover deployment mind, there were a series of straps, pins and ropes to lower it to the lunar surface. Why? It only weighed 36kg. Shame kitcar firms had no imagination, that would have been a fun kit .

[MartG]

Globs said:

I may have mentioned Apollo 7 was the first manned Saturn V flight but I couldn't find it on the page so maybe I didn't.

Apollo 7 used a Saturn 1B, not a V. First V manned flight was Apollo 8

[Eric Mc]

Globs said:

Indeed, sorry I gave that impression.
I may have mentioned Apollo 7 was the first manned Saturn V flight but I couldn't find it on the page so maybe I didn't.
Anyway, only an organisation with serious suicidal tendencies would scrap the V in favour of the dangerous, expensive and less powerful shuttle launcher.

http://www.space.com/18422-apollo-saturn-v-moon-ro...

As I said, either it didn't work very well or they were insane. No government made them abandon it, when the shuttle money came along they could have used the lower stages and for ISS if would have made perfect sense. Since when does an organisation abandon a successful rocket? Is there any other example in history - apart from Saturn V - where this has happened?

And still, 48 years later while the Orion team discuss (and do test flights about) the non-existent radiation problem it's still the best rocket.
As a kid I had a model of the Saturn V, but never bothered with the shuttle.

I had an action man lunar rover too, took Boeing 17 months flat to create that. I'm still puzzled about the rover deployment mind, there were a series of straps, pins and ropes to lower it to the lunar surface. Why? It only weighed 36kg. Shame kitcar firms had no imagination, that would have been a fun kit .

At the time construction of the Saturn V ceased (1968) , NASA had not given a lot of thought to what their future Shuttle would look like.

So, you can't accuse them of abandoning a "safe" Saturn V for a "dangerous" Shuttle. In 1968, NASA would have loved to have had funding for more Saturn Vs, but their budgets were already declining and Congress wouldn't give them any more funding beyond the construction of 15 actual "stacks".
NASA loved their Saturn Vs. Congress didn't love their cost.

The definition of what a Shuttle might look like was very much in its earliest phase and at the time the plan would have been for a fully reusable system using liquid rocket engines only. The "dangerous" configuration finally adopted in 1972 was nowhere in sight in 1968.

As for the car, the reason it had to be stored folded and flat was not due to weight but due to space. It had to fit inside the already limited space available inside the adaptor section of the Saturn V.

[Globs]

MartG said:

Globs said:

I may have mentioned Apollo 7 was the first manned Saturn V flight but I couldn't find it on the page so maybe I didn't.

Apollo 7 used a Saturn 1B, not a V. First V manned flight was Apollo 8

Oh yes LOL, the first manned Apollo flight after the Apollo 1 fire, but using the 1b.
That makes Apollo 8 quite a leap - was Apollo 8 the first craft to leave LEO?

Orion's obsession with radiation reminded me of when I looked around Concorde in Duxford: There's a giant radiation detector in it. So I looked up Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde#Radiation_c...

and here's what they say

Wikipedia_on_Concorde said:

To prevent incidents of excessive radiation exposure, the flight deck had a radiometer and an instrument to measure the rate of decrease of radiation.[117] If the radiation level became too high, Concorde would descend below 47,000 feet (14,000 m).

So was Apollo 8 the first craft to use this, or did other high altitude test planes (SR71?) prompt this?
Why didn't Concorde use the same lightweight shielding/alloy that Apollo used?

One thing is Orion's millenials being paranoid and H&S obsessed, but Concorde too? ISS is fine and that's much later and higher than Concorde. Maybe I'll look into ISS next, as I think that agrees with Apollo: no radiation.

[Globs]

Eric Mc said:

At the time construction of the Saturn V ceased (1968) , NASA had not given a lot of thought to what their future Shuttle would look like.

Are you sure the shuttle was a new idea?
The moon race was a political act by Kennedy that probably interrupted their schedule. It could be the shuttle was the original plan, interrupted by Apollo, then the returned to the shuttle - then they realised it was a cul-de-sac - and returned to the proven Apollo stuff with Orion. And then ignored Apollo completely and went about re-inventing the wheel. Apollo 1 to Apollo 8's moon shot took around a year. What's taking Orion so long?

Eric Mc said:

So, you can't accuse them of abandoning a "safe" Saturn V for a "dangerous" Shuttle. In 1968, NASA would have loved to have had funding for more Saturn Vs, but their budgets were already declining and Congress wouldn't give them any more funding beyond the construction of 15 actual "stacks".

I can and do accuse them of this. You do realise they actually scrapped two entire SaturnVs already paid for and assembled?
Funding is one thing, breaking up what you have already paid for and spending your remaining funds on a dangerous, inferior alternate is something else.
If I was building Ultima's in my garage and her indoors cut the funding I wouldn't scrap the part finished ones, the new budget would be used to slowly complete the 2 part built ones I had first, anything else would be a waste of money in the face of budget cuts. In the extreme budget case I'd mothball them for later. Destroy them? Never. Wouldn't you?

And yes it was known to be dangerous, solid fuel can't we switched off or controlled. Liquid fuel is far more controllable - if a booster failed you shut it down - I think the middle of the 5 nozzles got shut down sometimes. Additionally those solid fuel boosters caused the loss of an entire craft - proven dangerous.
The loss of the 2nd shuttle wouldn't have happened with SaturnV either as the delicate heat shield would have been safely on top, away from the chunks of falling ice.

Switching from the Saturn V was a dangerous, expensive mistake that cannot be explained by budget cuts, the launcher R&D (the lions share of the cost) was already paid for, the launching towers and buildings were paid for, it was proven as a LEO launch with Skylab and they had two spare rockets to play with while they dealt with the budget cuts, part of a launch system capable of moon shots which they still haven't got today, nearly half a century later. Thanks for trying to explain, but it still makes no sense at all.

Eric Mc said:

As for the car, the reason it had to be stored folded and flat was not due to weight but due to space. It had to fit inside the already limited space available inside the adaptor section of the Saturn V.

I didn't comment on the need for folding, I commented on the weird way it was lowered to the surface with ropes and pulleys. All they needed to do was unclip a couple of pins, carry it out to the lunar surface (36kg for two fit astronauts is 18kg each), and unfold it there. Save a lot of weight, time and complexity.
They wouldn't need a jack to unfold the wheels either, an astronaut could simply lift up the front. So I don't understand the rover deployment system. Why design a system for earth gravity on a moon lander?

Sometimes when working on my cars I wish for 1/6 gravity LOL. Think how easy gearbox and engine changes would be!

[Eric Mc]

Apollos 4 and 6 boosted the Command/Service Modules to altitudes up to around 10,000 nautical miles altitude - well into the Van Allen belts.

In other words, Apollos 4 and 6 had the same objectives of the Orion Experimental Flight Test One (EFT-1) which pushed the Orion to high altitude so it could

a) be tested in the radiation environment of the Van Allen belts

b) re-enter the earth's atmosphere at a speed close to those experienced by craft returning from lunar or deeper space missions

Regarding the Rover, do you realise how difficult it was to actually move in an Apollo moon suit? Tasks that you could easily do in your garage in a shirt sleeve environment would be virtually impossible to do in a moon suit. The torso was very stiff as were the gloves - and of course, you wouldn't have the fingertip dexterity required for normal mechanical assembly. They simply could not have bent down to the level the chassis sat to do any work on it.

The system derived for the Rover meant it virtually assembled itself. All the astronauts was plug in some additional equipment without having to bend down much, once the rover was sitting on its wheels.

I'm pretty sure Boeing knew exactly what they were doing when they designed it.

[MartG]

Globs said:

....stuff...

I don't really know where to start - you seem to have a rather superficial view of things.

The Orion test flight wasn't 'obsessed' with radiation - monitoring the radiation environment was merely one aspect of the test flight. More importantly it tested the heatshield and recovery systems - a bit like the unmanned Apollo 6 flight did – as well as a host of other aspects of the Orion design.

Dragging Concorde into the argument really is going off at a tangent - and a cockpit radiometer is hardly a 'giant radiation detector' ! You need to remember that Concorde crew ( and some passengers ) were flying several times a week over a period of years, so monitoring their cumulative radiation dosage during flight was important, quite apart from the need to descend in the event of major solar activity causing a spike in high altitude radiation levels.

You also seem to be confusing an acceptable dosage rate with ‘no radiation’. Astronauts on the Apollo flights did receive a radiation dosage greater than if they had remained on earth, but the dosage was acceptable as it was for a relatively short duration – the area of greatest risk being as they passed through the Van Allen belts. However very little time was spent in this region as they passed through the belts in only a few hours. The Apollo flights also took place during a time of minimum solar activity, and had a solar storm occurred prior to launch the mission would have been delayed, or aborted if one occurred during a flight.

The ISS orbits well within the Van Allen belts, so is in a relatively benign radiation environment. However the ISS astronauts do occasionally have to take shelter in a specific area of the ISS if there is a risk from increased solar activity ( e.g. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2000-11-11/news/0... ) . Radiation exposure is a very complex subject ( try reading https://www.quora.com/How-much-radiation-does-the-... , and look at https://i0.wp.com/tehnocultura.ro/wp-content/uploa... for a start ) and your pronouncement about ‘no radiation’ is simplistic in the extreme.

As Eric said, in the mid 60s when funding for the later planned Apollo missions was cut, the design for the shuttle was very nebulous. The idea of spaceplanes had been around for a long time but actually building one that worked was another thing. It was a big step from the models von Braun displayed in the Disney TV shows to something which could actually be built using the materials available. What NASA plans did exist were based around a two-stage fully reuseable system, with a manned liquid fuelled booster. When you say “It could be the shuttle was the original plan” you miss the point that at the time in the mid 1950s when manned spaceflight was just starting the technology to build a reuseable spaceplane simply did not exist, and even 20 years later much of what went into STS was very much leading-edge technology at the time.

“Apollo 1 to Apollo 8's moon shot took around a year.” The Apollo 1 flight was scheduled for February 1967, Apollo 8 flew in December 1968 – that is just short of two years – and ignores the fact that all the hardware development and test flights had kicked off years previously and that unmanned test flights continued during this period – AS-203 and AS-204 flew on Saturn 1Bs and Apollo 4 and 6 flew on the Saturn V during this period. The progress of SLS and Orion is much slower as they have only a small fraction of the budget Apollo and Saturn did.

Again, as Eric said, NASA would have loved to have continued flying the Saturns, and had a whole host of missions in mind under the Apollo Applications Program (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Applications_Program ). A second batch of Saturn Vs would have incorporated lessons learned from flight experience – reduced weight ( e.g lighter structure, removing superfluous fins on the 1st stage ), more thrust ( F-1A and J-2S engines ), giving greater payload capability. Similarly advanced versions of the Saturn 1B were also on the drawing boards which would have benefitted from the same engine and structural improvements, while a range of intermediate vehicles using a mix-and-match approach to combinations of stages would have given cost-effective flexibility in available payload – and example of one of these intermediate vehicle configurations ( INT-21 ) launched Skylab.

No Saturn Vs were scrapped – after the last three Apollo lunar missions were cancelled due to funding being withdrawn ( actually flying a mission costs a LOT more than just the cost of the launch vehicle ) one of the Saturn Vs was converted and used to launch Skylab, while the remaining two are on display in museums. All but three of the twelve completed Saturn 1Bs flew – after Apollo 7 they were used for the three Skylab ferry missions and ASTP, while SA-209 was stacked ready for a potential Skylab rescue mission should there be a problem with the Apollo in orbit – this one is now on display at KSC. SA-211 first stage is on display, while its second stage was converted to the Skylab mockup and is also now on display. SA-212 First stage was scrapped while its second stage became Skylab. The remaining two ordered were never completed – their second stages were not even started after the funding cuts meant money was used to fly existing missions instead of completing them.

“I think the middle of the 5 nozzles got shut down sometimes. “ – again, superficial knowledge. Centre engines were cut first during staging, followed by two of the outer ones, to make the engine shutdown process smoother and reduce the strain on the rest of the vehicle. In addition there were instances where second stage engines shut down prematurely due to a fault.

You seem to persist in thinking that NASA had free rein in spending its budget how it wanted – it didn’t and still doesn’t. Congress, Senate, and the president decide what NASA can spend its money on, with budgetary approval only being given for specific projects – an example being the current budget cancelling the asteroid return mission along with a host of other specific projects. NASA were not given a budget nor approval to continue flying Apollo missions, so had no choice but to move on to something else.

In the post Apollo years NASA had hoped to develop a space station and a shuttle to service it – after the budget cuts the station had been dropped ( only later to re-emerge as the ISS after a very prolonged gestation ) and the shuttle became Shuttle with a capital S, as that was all they could get budget approval for. Even so they had to discard the reuseable booster ( e.g. https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/mode... ) as the budget they did have couldn’t be stretched to develop that as well as the Orbiter, and so they ended up with the kludge of external tanks and boosters – they even had to give up on the boosters being liquid fuelled due to lack of development funds ( original booster designs used a pair of F-1 engines in each booster ).

As for LRV deployment, in your scenario the astronauts would be required to lift and carry the rover from its stowage position on the LM descent stage, then manually lift it while unfolding various parts – all while wearing a spacesuit. Instead they pulled a couple of lanyards and it unfolded automatically. Given the risks associated with working in those conditions, and the limited manual dexterity and physical stress of simply moving around in a stiff spacesuit, I’m happy that they chose the auto-deployment method !