UPDATE: Florida Today's The Flame Trench blog has a transcript of its live blogging output from today's Norman Augustine's "Review of US human spaceflight plans" panel's visit to Cocoa Beach, Florida
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Space Shuttle: July 2009 Archives
UPDATE: Florida Today's The Flame Trench blog has a transcript of its live blogging output from today's Norman Augustine's "Review of US human spaceflight plans" panel's visit to Cocoa Beach, Florida
What people are saying about nasa_hsf
_Baylink: @NASA_HSF "Out there. Thataway." If you prefer, "second star to the right, straight on 'til morning". While practical, NASA's about dreams.
About 4 hours ago
Whateyupey: RT @NASA_HSF We leave you today with this image and a question. Where do you see NASA going from here? http://tinyurl.com/inspirat...
About 6 hours ago
Whateyupey: RT @NASA_HSF We will inform you when documents and video from this week's public meetings go online.
About 6 hours ago
Whateyupey: RT @NASA_HSF Thank you everyone for following along today. We will be in Washington, DC on August 5th.
About 6 hours ago
genejm29: RT @NASA_HSF: We leave you today w/ this image & question. Where do you see NASA going from here? http://tinyurl.com/...
About 6 hours ago
jimhillhouse: #NASA_HSF I hope General Lyles didn't hold the view, "Preeminence does not mean dominance." as an Air Force officer. Defeat != loss? Wrong.
About 6 hours ago
stratocumulus: RT @NASA_HSF We leave U today with this image & a question. Where do U see NASA going from here? http://tinyurl.com/...
About 6 hours ago
AmericaSpace: #NASA_HSF General Lyles comment, "Preeminence does not mean dominance." goes a long way in explaining what's wrong with our Space program.
About 6 hours ago
drewmanchu: Heh... RT @NASA_HSF: "Big dumb rocket" comment from the current public speaker referring to Ares rocket.
About 6 hours ago
genejm29: RT @CatherineQ: Catching up on @NASA_HSF Committee meeting Public meetings have been recorded are posted to http://hsf.nasa.gov
About 6 hours ago
jimhillhouse: #NASA_HSF General Lyles comment, "Preeminence does not mean dominance." goes a long way in explaining what's wrong with our Space program.
About 6 hours ago
stratocumulus: RT @NASA_HSF We will inform you when documents and video from this week's public meetings go online.
About 6 hours ago
genejm29: RT @NASA_HSF: We will inform you when documents and video from this week's public meetings go online.
About 6 hours ago
Unsurprisingly despite various reports on the blogosphere that Ares I is dead, or toast as some people like to call it, the rocket is very much still in the running according to Review of US human spaceflight plans committee chairman Norman Augustine in his progress report telecon to the media today
It did seem a bit odd when the first reports started to emerge about Augustine's committee asking for alternatives to NASA's Ares I crew launch vehicle. That was because looking at alternatives to that and the Ares V cargo launch vehicle is the whole point of the review
And we have known about that from the very beginning and at the 17 June meeting DIRECT and Heavy Lift Vehicle and others had their time to make their claims
What Augustine did say seems to repeat what he said to the NASA Advisory Council according to this blog post - link care of Clark Lindsey's excellent Hobbyspace.com - and more
During the 17 July telecon Q&A he started out saying that he expected to be able to give insights "in a couple of weeks" into the constraints his team would consider when drawing up the options they would supply NASA and the White House with
Hyperbola did not get to ask a question during the telecon but the most interesting questions centred around the idea of alternatives to the Ares rockets. Augustine said of the committee's views on Ares I, "It would be completely wrong to say Ares is dead in the water."
Continue reading OFFICIAL: Ares I is not dead says spaceflight review chairman.
Go here to download the update that chairman of the Review of US human spaceflight plans committee Norman Augustine gave to the media on 17 July 2009 and go here to hear the question and answer session
Hyperbola hears on the grapevine that Sally Ride's subcommittee for the Review of US human spaceflight plans is looking at those Space Shuttle extension studies
The review's ISS/Shuttle subcommittee is led by Ride and is charged with looking at the Shuttle schedule and the human spaceflight gap, among other things
While persons on the Space Shuttle Programme (SSP) tell Hyperbola that Florida is largely resigned to losing the orbiter in 2010 the review of extension options will be welcomed by many
However it is more likely that the extension plans' re-examination has more to do with evaluating the SSP Heavy Lift Vehicle proposal. Its advocates suggest the orbiter's final few flights could be stretched out to mitigate contractor capability loss and minimise the gap between Shuttle and HLV
credit NASA / caption: will it ever be crewed?
Flightglobal recently interviewed Space Shuttle Programme manager John Shannon about the Heavy Lift Vehicle (HLV). He gave a presentation about it to the Review of US human spaceflight plans commitee on 17 June. The Flightglobal article about HLV can be found here and also below and in the extended portion of this blog post are the notes from that interview that have information excluded from the article - due to reasons of word count limits for the web site's sister print title Flight International
The Shuttle-C separated from the External Tank (ET), the HLV doesn't. Industry looked at side mount for two years, 2004, 2005
A deployable fairing was added by the SSP HLV team, which added payload capability
Learnt from SSME about life cycle costs. "Reusability is a myth in my opinion" because of the parts that have to be replaced and associated costs with keeping the supply chain in place to keep the engines maintained
The cargo carrier boat tail is permanently attached to the ET while the avionics are at the front of it
I wish we had done Shuttle-C in 1980s and 1990s we could have tested upgrades, developments that could then be rolled into the Shuttle-Orbiter stack
The HLV block one will use existing Shuttle flight software, but would not use the full suite used on the Orbiter
The aerodynamics between the ET and the orbiter are complex, acoustic models, structural models, loads, trajectory models need to be done for the cargo carrier and crewed version
If you used a cargo carrier that has the same or similar mould line as shuttle stack has now you already have that history/data
Continue reading Shuttle derived Heavy Lift Vehicle: interview notes.
credit NASA / caption: The Shuttle derived Heavy Lift Vehicle lifts off from KSC
So now we see that some parts of the media are getting all excited about the Shuttle derived Heavy Lift Vehicle. This presentation is, Hyperbola thinks, from the NASA technical team that is reviewing the original work carried out by the Space Shuttle Programme (SSP) office. The presentation contains material previously seen by Hyperbola from briefings that were provided prior to the 17 June Augustine meeting presentation but not included within that presentation
NASA's SSP manager John Shannon told Flightglobal last week that a NASA team and a Aerospace Corporation team would look over the work started by SSP. Notes from the interview that were not used for the Flight International magazine spaceflight page HLV special, now online, will be posted on this blog soon
No doubt lots of fun will be had by various individuals leaking material to various journalists over the weeks and months to come, and all augmented by the grapevine. While HLV certainly hits a host of buttons what should be remembered is that it doesn't give NASA the same capability to go to the Moon as Constellation, the HLV crewed version has big questions hovering over it, as big as Ares I crew launch vehicle's oscillations, such as external tank proximity, and even the cargo version will still need to meet International Space Station human rating requirements
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