Re: NASA moon trip video

Wesley Struebing (strueb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) writes:
> On Sun, 22 Jan 2006 05:02:32 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Swallow
> <am.swallow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>NASA's administrator talked to the BBC about NASA's future missions.
>>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4627246.stm
>>
>>The reported commented on the body language as much as the launches.
>>
>>Completion of the International Space Station (ISS) appears to be just
>>possible but high risk.
>>[quote]
>>Now Nasa has to make up for lost time and somehow finish off the ISS
>>before the remaining shuttle fleet is retired in four years' time.
>>
>>Dr Griffin claims it can be done, but only by using all the remaining
>>planned shuttle missions to take up and bolt on the outstanding modules.
>>[/quote]
>>
>>Going back to a previous thread, are there any other rockets that could
>>be used to get say a quarter of the ISS parts into orbit? The shuttles
>>can then link up with the parts and drag them to the ISS. The final few
>>shuttle missions can then be used for moving people and performing
>>experiments.
>>
> Don't think so - at least currently. Soyuz, but that means one can
> launch people or supplies (and not much; some pieces, I believe are
> too big/heavy for soyuz to carry) - but not both.

Thats a no. The very first ever launched piece of ISS, Zarya, was
sent up on an unmanned Russian Proton rocket ( The same booster
type that used to loft the Salyut and Mir space station pieces ),
but modules to be launched by unmanned rocket need to be designed
and built to be so launched, as the loads that the modules
have to take, on a booster flight, V/ a shuttle flight, are
quite different.

For one point, a shuttle lofted part, needs to be connected to
the orbiter payload bay at it's sides, not it's bottom, where
it would be connected to the upper stage of the unmanned rocket.

Flight loads are also a factor, in the shuttle, the payload rides
well inside the payload bay, while a rocket lofted module would
just have an aeroshell covering it's front and all sides.

Its worth noting that when the Challenger loss caused NASA to
reconsider what would, and would not be launched via the shuttle,
it was many years before the last of the " can't be launched without
the shuttle payloads were cleared from the backlog.

Galileo flew to Jupiter many years late, as it could not be fitted
to any expendable launcher, while the later designed Cassini Saturn
probe, being designed after the post Challenger changes, was designed
and built to fly on a Titan IV/Centaur expendable rocket.

> I don't think the EAS (I could be wrong) has anything to use - the
> Japanese certainly don't, and I doubt the Chinese do - or would share,
> anyway.

Only the Ariane V is of a similar lifting capability to a Proton,
but the issues with payload bay tended modules remains the same.

Andre


.

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