Artist concept of the Ares 1-X launch. Credit: NASA
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At a session today from the International Space Development Conference going in Orlando, Florida, the CEO of the commercial space company XCOR Aerospace had a few suggestions for all the eager space enthusiasts out there concerning test flights. In so many words Jeff Greason said everyone needs to chill out about the results from initial test flights. Of course, he was talking about all the test flights taking place with commercial space endeavors, but with the Ares 1-X getting ready to head to the launch pad for its first flight test, scheduled for August, perhaps we all need heed Greason’s advice and let the experts do their jobs.
Greason said in the past when they first started testing their early designs, “no one knew where Mojave was, we could test all sorts of strange things, and people would not be Twittering and blogging about what we did every day. But now it’s going on under a glare of publicity.” Jeff Greason. Credit: XCOR
While he appreciates the interest everyone is showing in the nascent commercial spaceflight industry and how people are watching with great enthusiasm and consuming every scrap of news, he is not exactly thrilled with tone of some of the commentary on what is being said on commercial flight tests.
“It’s called flight test for a reason,” Greason said. “You find problems, you always do. Any airplane you’ve ever ridden on had problems turn up on flight test program. Some of the most successful aircraft programs in history had a ridiculous number of problems show up in the flight test program. There is no correlation whatsoever between whether you or not you have problem in the flight test program and how good the finished product is. But there is a huge correlation whether you fix the problems you find in flight tests. ”
Greason said it isn’t helpful for journalists and the public to jump on every glitch and issue that comes up in every mission and say the sky is falling. “Just wait until flight tests to finish and by then there should be an answer. I see lot of blog posts three minutes after a flight test, saying the sky is falling. Stuff happens. So, I have a plea for the knowledgeable people out there: When you’re neighbor says ‘The sky is falling,’ tell them, ‘No, it’s just flight tests.”
Greason said flight tests are designed to find the problems and allow the engineers to fix the problems. But they take time. “That’s why I or anyone else never commits to how long flight tests lasts. Flight tests take as long as it going to take. When you fix the problems, that’s the end of the flight test program.”
Greason said he knows everyone is enthused because they want to see the missions happen, but every vehicle is a “new beast with their own design issues.”
The Constellation program's Ares rockets. Credit: NASA
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The White House is expected to announce on Thursday that they will order a full review of the NASA’s Constellation program. The reason for the review is to determine whether the Ares I rocket and the Orion crew capsule are the best options for replacing the space shuttle. According to the Orlando Sentinel, this announcement will coincide with the release of the Obama administration’s $18.7 billion spending plan for NASA. Obama has said little about NASA since he took office in January, but altering plans for the next generation of crewed space vehicles would be a major change of course for the space agency.
This review follows decisions by NASA to alter the Orion spacecraft – decreasing the crew size from six to four in order to save weight – as well as months of critical reports questioning whether the new Ares I rocket and Orion capsule will be ready to fly to orbit by 2015.
Other problems with Ares have surfaced, such as potential violent shaking caused by vibrations in its solid-rocket first stage, and the rocket’s tendency to drift on takeoff into its launch tower. Also, its estimate costs through 2015 have risen from $28 billion in 2006 to $44 billion today.
Agency and industry insiders said this budget proposal should offer the first major clues as to the new president’s plans for the agency, the Sentinel reported. Without an administrator NASA has not had clear direction from the current administration.
The news of a possible review of Constellation have given hope to the proponents of an alternative rocket system called Direct 2.0. The Direct system proposes a Jupiter 120 rocket, which is essentially the shuttle’s fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters with a capsule mounted on top in place of a side-mounted orbiter.
This plan was designed in part by NASA engineers working on their own time who were frustrated with the Ares rocket.
One study, called the Exploration Systems Architecture Study, or ESAS, ruled out using the military rockets and other systems while another independent study commissioned by NASA found that rockets currently being used by the military to launch top-secret spy satellites could be affordably and safely adapted to ferry humans to the international space station and, eventually, the moon and beyond.
But under administrator Mike Griffin, NASA decided against that course of action. The ESAS study was protested by many as having little input and participation from contractors and rocket companies.
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The blogosphere and Twitterverse has been buzzing the past couple of days with NASA what-ifs and possibilities. But that usually happens whenever there are Congressional hearings about our favorite space agency. Here’s the run-down of what is really happening: No extra money has been given to extend the shuttle program as of yet but it is a possibility. NASA is not going to abandon going to the Moon. And no, President Obama hasn’t named a new NASA administrator yet. Want the details?
House and Senate leaders have agreed to authorize $2.5 billion to keep the U.S. space shuttle fleet flying through 2011. While no money has actually been appropriated for that yet, the extension would happen only if necessary to complete currently planned missions to the international space station. If another flight were added to the shuttle manifest, it’s possible the controversial Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer instrument would be brought to the station. AMS was mothballed after the Columbia accident in 2003 as a cost cutting move, but the because of the international scientific community’s outcry about cutting the one really exciting science experiment to fly on the space station (that was mostly paid for by other countries) last year Congress told NASA to reconsider. They are supposed to make a decision today. Space shuttle Endeavour. Credit: NASA
But the shuttle retirement is controversial from a political point of view because it affects thousands of aerospace industry jobs, not only in Florida, but nationwide. Retiring the shuttle in 2010 would also give a five year gap (at least) until the Orion crew vehicle is ready to fly, making the US dependant on Russia for bringing humans and supplies to the ISS. This week House and Senate budget conferees agreed on “the strategic importance of uninterrupted human access to space” and said the extra $2.5 billion is provided “in anticipation that the funding is needed” to safely “complete the construction and equipping” of the space station.
But some NASA officials and contractors worry that giving more funding to the shuttle program would hamper the efforts for the Constellation program, funneling money away from the new rocket that will help return humans to the moon, hopefully by 2020. The Constellation program has already begun shifting gears and figuring out how to make flying by 2015 actually work. Ian reported last week that the Orion crew size would likely be decreased from six to four, which also makes the spacecraft lighter. One issue engineers have been facing has been excess weight. Other reports look like this is likely a done deal.
Speaking of returning to the Moon, Wednesday’s appropriation hearings created some buzz when Chris Scolese, the agency’s acting administrator, said he anticipates changes. Some reports said Scolese gave vague answers. Others had NASA abandoning the a base on the Moon, but that is likely an exaggeration. Moon base. Credit: NASA
“I just can’t tell you what those changes would be,” Scolese told members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies. “We’re still looking at options for what do we mean by the moon. Do we mean a colony on the moon? That’s clearly very expensive. Are we looking at something along the lines of what we did with Apollo?” he said.
But that correlates completely with legislation passed in October, 2008 that says:
“As NASA works toward the establishment of a lunar outpost, NASA shall make no plans that would require a lunar outpost to be occupied to maintain its viability. Any such outpost shall be operable as a human-tended facility capable of remote or autonomous operation for extended periods.”
Scolese also pointed out that the budget overview released earlier this year by President Obama clearly backs the previous administration’s goal of sending astronauts to the moon by 2020, a decade after the scheduled retirement of the shuttle fleet.
“It will probably be less than an outpost on the moon, but where it fits between sorties — single trips to the moon to various parts — and an outpost is really going to be dependent on the studies that we’re going to be doing,” he said.
What will really end up happening on the Moon is likely to change over time, just as the Constellation program already appears to be changing.
And finally, the current administration has yet to name a new NASA administrator. One person whose name had been floating around recently, General Lester Lyles, withdrew himself from consideration Wednesday. Another name that has surfaced is Lori Garver, former NASA associate administrator who headed Obama’s space transition team.
A cut away graphic of the Orion Crew Module... with six seats (NASA)
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To save on weight, NASA engineers are considering the option to remove two seats from the Orion crew exploration vehicle. According to the manager of the Constellation Program, a possible redesign option has been discussed with the International Space Station (ISS) partners despite the fact that the initial operational capability (IOC) to deliver crew to the ISS calls for a six-seat version. Although the space station crew will have expanded to six by the end of next month, NASA is confident the loss of two seats on Orion won’t cause any operational problems… at least we’ll still have Soyuz.
Today, the Orlando Sentinel reported that the Constellation Program, due to budget problems, probably won’t be ready for a return trip to the Moon until 2020, two years later than officially planned (NASA hoped for a 2018 mission). Now NASA engineers are concerned that the lunar mission may slip even further behind schedule.
To compound this bad news, NASA is weighing up its options to free up some mass from the initial Orion launches atop the Ares I rocket. This issue arose after Jeff Hanley, manager of the Constellation Program and Orion developer, said the Orion design was within “plus or minus a couple of hundred pounds” of the 21,000-pound maximum for the command module set by a safety requirement to land with only two of the three main parachutes deployed should one fail after reentry.
“Right now we’re studying and really on the verge of deciding that we’re going to start with four,” Hanley said. “That gives us a common lunar and ISS version, but we’ve sized the system and have a design for six, so we’ll grow our capability as we need it.” So it’s not all bad news, the first launches may consist of four astronauts, but Orion could be modified to cater for six.
Hanley is keen to point out that although the brand new NASA manned space vehicle may be operating at a reduced capacity, at least Roscosmos will be able to help out. “Our Russian partners are always going to fly Soyuz or something derivative to that, so we’ll have the full coverage of being able to get the crew off the station in a pinch on the Soyuz and in the Orion,” he added. Soyuz is a three-crew space vehicle and is currently used by the space station as a “lifeboat” should an emergency crop up in orbit.
Apparently the Orion weight problem has been around for a while as the design of Orion is based on predicted weights, and not actual launch weight; if the actual weight exceeds that of the safety margin, cutbacks would be required. In this case the cutback may include two crew members.
Hanley points out that although the early Constellation flights may include a four-crew IOC, it would stand NASA in good stead so a good understanding of how well it performs with four seats before the possibility of expanding it to six.
Using infrared telescopes, European and American astronomers have peered through the opaque molecular cloud that obscures much of Orion’s stellar nursery from view.
They’ve discovered a rowdy scene there — a crowded stellar nursery, with young stars shooting supersonic hydrogen jets in all directions — and they’re reporting there is much more going on in Orion than previously thought.
The new survey is the most wide-ranging census ever produced of dynamical star formation in and around the well-known Great Nebula of Orion.
In the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope/Spitzer Space Telescope image above, parts of the Orion Molecular cloud are illuminated by nearby stars and glowing an eerie green. The jets punch through the cloud and can be seen as tiny pink-purple arcs, knots and filaments. The golden orange young stars that drive the jets can usually be seen nearby.
Below, a gas jet (seen in red) pops out of a busy region of star formation in Orion. All the red wisps, knots and filaments are in fact associated with jets from young stars, which in this figure are colored orange. The data were acquired with the Wide Field Camera at the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope. (Story continues beneath image.)
The Orion Molecular Cloud is more than 20 times the angular size of the full moon, spanning from far above the hunter’s head to far below his feet. Most of the action is hidden from view in visible light. Earthbound stargazers can see he brightest stars, like Betelgeuse and Rigel at the shoulder and knee of the constellation, and perhaps the Orion Nebula as a vaguely fuzzy patch around the sword. The nebula, which is really just a blister on the surface of the cloud, gives the only indication of the chaos within.
The team studied the region with the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) on Mauna Kea, the Spitzer Space Telescope, which works at even longer “mid-infrared” wavelengths, and the IRAM Millimeter-wave (radio) Telescope in Spain.
The power of the census came from the combination of data from all three facilities, the researchers say. Inspired by the richness of his images from UKIRT, Chris Davis, of Hawaii’s Joint Astronomy Centre, contacted colleagues in Europe and on the United States mainland.
Tom Megeath, an astronomer from the University of Toledo, provided a catalogue of the positions of the very youngest stars – sources revealed only recently by the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Thomas Stanke, a researcher based at the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany, then provided extensive IRAM maps of the molecular gas and dust across the Orion cloud.
Dirk Froebrich, a lecturer at the University of Kent, later used archival images from the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain (data acquired by Stanke some 10 years ago) to measure the speeds and directions of a large number of jets by comparing them with their positions in the new images.
Armed with these data, Davis was able to match the jets up to the young stars that drive them, as well as to density peaks within the cloud – the natal cores from which each star is being created.
“Regions like this are usually referred to as stellar nurseries, but we have shown that this one is not being well run: it is chaotic and seriously overcrowded,” Davis said. “Using UKIRT’s wide field camera, we now know of more than 110 individual jets from this one region of the Milky Way. Each jet is traveling at tens or even hundreds of miles per second; the jets extend across many trillions of miles of interstellar space. Even so, we have been able to pinpoint the young stars that drive most of them.”
Andy Adamson, associate director at the UKIRT, added that the dataset “demonstrates the power of survey telescopes like UKIRT. With on-line access to data from other telescopes around the world, and the ease with which one can communicate with collaborators across the globe, massive projects like the Orion study are very much the future of astronomy.”
Several of the researchers are presenting their discoveries with colleagues at this year’s annual National Astronomy Meeting of the UK (NAM 2009).
Source: Joint Astronomy Centre. For more information, visit
Earlier this week, Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Thomas wrote a scathing opinion piece on how NASA has been scamming the American taxpayers for decades, delivering very little for a whole lot of money. Additionally Thomas believes the Constellation program needs to be stopped to allow the concepts and technologies to be reviewed before more money is spent. The view from Thomas’ desk doesn’t seem to include a solution to any problems NASA may have, or any reasons why NASA might be in the predicament he proposes.
So, how do others see NASA’s current situation, particularly someone who might have a closer view of what NASA is trying to accomplish? I recently had the chance to talk with Taber MacCallum, CEO of Paragon Space Development Corporation, a company working with NASA to help develop the Orion and Altair spacecraft. His opinion of NASA’s state of affairs is that the space agency is working as hard as it can and as best it can, given the constraints imposed by the US government.
“I think NASA has done an incredible job of getting Constellation this far with the funding they’ve received,” he said. “The more of us who have gotten into this program, the more we have appreciated how much of the things we derogatorily attribute to NASA are really things that Congress has created. I think all Americans need to realize that when we say NASA has problems, the problems are really with Congress. NASA has become the organization it has in response to what Congress has made it do.”
“Congress has asked NASA to do things and not given them the money, or marked certain money for this or that or tied their hands a certain way,” MacCallum continued. “The more we’ve gotten into this the more I think that NASA does an admirable job given the challenges Congress gives them. Taber MacCallum, CEO of Paragon Space Development Corporation.
It should be noted that MacCallum’s opinions are not in response to Thomas’ article, and they came unprompted during a generic interview a couple of weeks ago about Paragon, their work with the Constellation program and their recent partnership with Odyssey Moon in the Google Lunar X PRIZE.
Paragon is contracted by NASA to help develop the thermal control and life support systems for the Orion and Altair spacecraft, as well as doing preliminary work on a series of life support technologies for spacesuits for Mars.
When asked about the challenges of helping to creating a new human spacecraft, MacCallum said that the biggest challenge for NASA is that Congress needs to fund the Constellation program at a level where it can be successful. The Constellation Program. Credit: NASA
“Congress keeps putting NASA on continuing resolutions, but doesn’t have them on a funding profile that the program needs to be successful,” said MacCallum. “Its lots of money, yes, and you can’t equate Constellation to Apollo. Apollo was different because Congress and the Administration gave it a different agenda. NASA makes the smallest mistake now and it’s time for a congressional inquiry as to why all this taxpayer money is being wasted rather than saying that NASA is trying do something really hard and this time it didn’t work. Instead of an investigation we need to go try it again. We don’t seem to mind when a test pilot crashes a hundred million dollar aircraft into the ground. That’s part of developing high tech airplanes; that’s part of being on the cutting edge of defense. We accept all that. But when NASA plummets a spacecraft into the surface of Mars it’s time for a Congressional inquiry. It’s a whole lot harder to land a spacecraft on Mars than fly an airplane. But somehow, we treat this differently, and I haven’t figured out why that is, aside from congressmen trying to get brownie points.”
MacCallum said Americans need to see NASA’s mission with new eyes.
“The paranoid, risk-averse, over-conservative appearance that we see NASA in currently is their response to Congress raking them over the coals repeatedly,” he said. “When you talk to people at NASA at an individual level they are so dedicated and really want to do the right thing. I think there are very few people just sitting on NASA’s laurels. For the most part these are people who want to see an aggressive space program and are working night and day to do it.”
“The other real challenge we have is because we’ve put NASA in this sort of stand down mode for the past 30 years, we haven’t designed a new spacecraft. So there’s nobody around, literally, who has designed a manned spacecraft before,” MacCallum continued, “so all that experience from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and the shuttle isn’t around. Even if they all were around, the tools are so radically different that we have to manage the technical side of these programs in a different way.” The Ares rockets. Credit: NASA
However, MacCallum said these are good challenges to have. “Gosh, we as a nation really need to learn how to do this. We have woefully under-challenged our youth, our people and our NASA. JPL does a great job, because every couple of years they crank out a new space mission. The planetary science people and companies like Lockheed have cranked out spacecraft regularly, so they have people who are used to that cycle; they’ve gone from concept to mission closeout. But a human spacecraft that goes in all the different environments from launch to on-orbit to around the moon to re-entry to landing, with all our of our human safety requirements, it’s a surprisingly new deal.”
So, what if the Constellation program were halted and NASA had no way to fly humans to space?
“Soon we’re going to be at place, and people will wake up one day and realize we are in stand down mode and America can’t fly people to space, but only current and former communist countries can,” MacCallum said. “It’s going to be an interesting day. That gap is going to be pretty big. It terms of NASA’s charter to lead and Congress’s charter to give them what they need to lead, we’re in an interesting position where the most modern human spacecraft is made by China – not to demean the Chinese at all, but it’s not what we think of as American’s leadership in space.
MacCallum said he will be interested in how the Obama administration deals with everything on NASA’s plate in addition to everything else currently facing the country. “They are clearly fighting lots of fires, and NASA has certainly been without an administrator longer than this before,” MacCallum said. “I think Obama realizes we need to be a leading country in science and technology. That’s our only chance to hold our own in the global economy. I was certainly inspired by space to take a career in science and be interested in engineering. I think a lot of kids are. We need to be doing interesting things that inspire kids and make them want to study math and science.”
The injured long-tailed bat clings onto Discovery's external fuel tank (NASA)
[/caption]NOTE:This was the Universe Today’s contribution to April Fools Day, just in case you were wondering. However, it isn’t a joke that a bat died during a shuttle launch. Brian will forever be remembered by the Brian Bat Foundation…
On Sunday, March 15th, Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Cape Canaveral, beginning the highly successful STS-119 mission to “power up” the International Space Station (ISS). Unfortunately, a tiny stowaway was discovered clutching onto the external tank of the shuttle and refused to budge. For the whole of Sunday, NASA waited for the free-tailed bat (unofficially named “Brian” by yours truly) to fly away. Alas, Brian held on to Discovery all the way up to launch. NASA even took a photo of the shuttle as it cleared the launch tower, Brian still attached. He wasn’t frozen to the external tank (infrared images showed the bat was warm), a wildlife expert studied the last pictures of Brian, informing the space agency that Brian had in fact suffered a broken wing and was unable to fly away, even as the rockets ignited.
Although NASA was not thought to be responsible for the death of the little animal at first (calling the whole incident “sad but unavoidable”), a Florida state official is pursuing legal action against the ground staff at the Cape. According to state animal protection law, NASA may be charged with negligence, after making little effort to prevent “animal interaction” with the launchpad and apparent unwillingness to remove Brian by hand before launch. However, as investigated by the local press, there are far more animal deaths during shuttle launches than we realise…
NASA can be prosecuted under the same animal protection rules that cover Florida highways (Ian O'Neill)“First and foremost, the safety of the crew must be ensured,” said NASA spokeswoman Francis Rae, “it is unfortunate that the agency could be reprimanded over the death of an animal, but in the interest of safety and smooth launch operations, we will enact any preventative measures deemed necessary by the state.”
It turns out that NASA is a little shocked that a Florida official has decided to pursue the issue. NASA and Florida have enjoyed very close ties ever since the beginning of the Space Age and this is the first accusation of criminal negligence over the death of an animal (possibly in reaction to the huge international interest in the story). Little did the agency realise that the death of one unfortunate bat could land them in court.
“NASA enjoys total freedom of the airspace above the state, however the agency must still abide by the laws of the state, no matter how insignificant the rules may appear when compared with the endeavors of US activities in space.” — Statement by the District Attorney’s Office, Florida
According to local press, NASA can be fined for the preventable death of the bat under the same state laws that govern goods transportation (i.e. company-owned vehicles are liable if they hit endangered animal species on Florida highways). Therefore, if a truck hit a free-tailed bat on a freeway, and the driver was pulled over by a police officer, the company who owns the truck would be accountable. “This is exactly the same rule that is being applied to NASA, a free-tailed bat was killed during the operations of the shuttle. In the county’s eyes, that’s no different from a Walmart truck running over a protected animal. Like a cougar [the state animal],” reported the Orlando Sentinel.
The Ares V at the launchpad, plus artist's impression of what the anti-bat mesh would look like on launch day (NASA)Regardless of the outcome to the possible legal action, NASA has already prepared plans for an anti-bird/anti-bat mesh that will surround the launchpad after exterior inspection but before launch. This is where NASA tripped up, they performed an inspection on Saturday, March 14th, of Discovery’s external tank, but the pneumatic cranes (used to lift inspectors to the upright shuttle) were removed from the launchpad on launch day. Therefore, if NASA had to remove Brian by hand (if they knew he was injured), the Discovery launch would have been delayed further still, to wait for cranes and personnel to arrive on the scene.
This preventative measure isn’t thought to affect the remaining shuttle launches (before the shuttle is decommissioned in 2010), but the mesh will be built into the launch tower of the Constellation Program scheduled for launch in 2015 (pictured above).
“Estimates place the cost of the mesh at around $10 million,” said Rae. “However, if you factor in unforeseen project overruns and design issues, that cost could easily triple. Possibly more. We simply do not have the technology to fabricate such a large, lightweight net. It will, however, be worth it in the long-run.”
It would appear the mesh couldn’t come too soon for one NASA employee. Soon after Discovery launched on that fateful Sunday night, the Orlando Sentinel interviewed launch safety officer Aniline Lo who went into some detail about the real costs of a shuttle launch.
“…of course animals die during launches. We’ve had collisions with eagles during ascent, we’ve even found dead rats, mice and gophers left on the pad, there has also been injuries to some larger animals in the past. As the Cape is surrounded by water, it is hard to prevent alligators straying too close […] shuttle exhaust can hurt these reptiles, making them difficult to treat. It also seems the flash from the boosters cause confusion in some animals, including rabbits, actually attracting them to the launch pad at lift off. That always ends very badly.” — Aniline Lo, NASA Safety Officer
Lo then went into detail about the clean-up operation after launch. “It’s a shame, the adrenaline is pumping through your body before launch, but it is up to my team to clear up the mess which is the downer,” she said. “If you thought roadkill was bad, imagine it roasted. Hundreds of thousands of dollars post-launch could be saved in man-hours [for clean-up operations] if these animals are prevented from getting near to the rockets.”
The sad story of Brian the Bat captivated the world, but it looks like his demise was the tip of the iceberg. He was first named on the social networking site Twitter and on Astroengine.com. On launch day @DiscoveryBat appeared on Twitter, apparently tweeting from space and tweeting to this day. Even mainstream media refer to the ill-fated free-tailed bat as “Brian”. Consequently, the Brian Bat Foundation was set up to recognise animal endeavours in space. However, it appears the Foundation’s scope must now be extended to all the birds, angry alligators and rabbits on, or near, the shuttle’s launchpad during lift-off.
Launch abort system mock-up for Orion hits the road. Credit: NASA
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Imagine driving along in your car, minding your own business and getting passed by this. It could happen to you this week. This is a 13.7 meter (45 feet) -long full-scale mock-up that’s part of the rocket assembly for the launch abort system for the new Orion crew exploration vehicle. The system hit the road on Tuesday, March 3, 2009, and is traveling from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico to undergo the first flight tests of the system. The launch abort system will allow the astronaut crew to safely escape in the event of an emergency during launch.
The mock-up, also known as the LAS pathfinder, represents the size, outer shape and specific mass characteristics of Orion’s abort system. Artist's rendering of a Launch Abort System (LAS) in operation. Credit: Orbital
The real system will be composed of solid rocket motors, separation mechanisms, and an adapter structure to provide escape capability for the Orion crew from pad operations through ascent. The new design, built by Orbital Sciences Corp. is key in vastly improving the safety of the flight crew as compared to what the shuttle has.
In case you’re wondering, in the background are large, white vacuum spheres used at the hypersonic wind tunnel complex at Langley.
Artist impression of the Ares I-X at the launchpad, plus labelled sections of the rocket (NASA)
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Approximately $400 million extra has become available for NASA manned space flight and managers are currently discussing the possibility of using it toward a second test flight of the Ares I-X. The first test flight of the next generation launch vehicle is planned for a summer 2009 launch, and with this extra funding comes the possibility of a second test flight dubbed “Ares I-X prime”. In a renewed vigour for getting the US back to the Moon by 2020, and the looming “5-year gap”, it appears the extra funding may allow NASA to hasten the development of the Constellation Program…
So it turns out the economic stimulus package will affect the development of NASA’s Constellation Program after all, possibly speeding it up. Of growing concern is the fact that it is looking very likely (according to the White House budget blueprint) that the shuttle will be retired as planned in 2010, leaving five long years until the planned 2015 completion of the Constellation Program. This 5-year gap has spawned all kinds of political problems (i.e. depending on the Russian space agency to get US astronauts to the International Space Station), but it has also stimulated investment in private space launch companies.
Although details are still being worked out on how the extra money will be distributed, it is hoped that the $1 billion allocated to NASA from the stimulus package may “save or preserve 7,000 jobs”. The money invested in manned spaceflight could also speed up technological advancement, possibly speeding Constellation progress. Managers hope an extra test-flight of the Ares I-X could also be used to hasten development of prototype flight systems. Doug Cooke, associate administrator for exploration systems, confirmed that to use this extra funding for a second test flight “certainly is within the realm of possibility.”
By laying on a second test flight after the Ares I-X scheduled for this summer, Ares I-X prime could substantially accelerate progress, possibly reducing the 5-year gap by as much as a year. The second flight of the Ares I-X would test the five-segment version of the four-segment solid fuel shuttle booster that will act as the first stage of the Ares I. The solid fuel launch abort system would also be tested at high altitude.
Artist concept of Altair on the Moon. Credit: NASA
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What will NASA’s next generation of lunar landers be like? Well, right now the Altair lander is just a concept and the fine details of what the inside crew cabin will look like are still being figured out. But there are some general parameters the Altair program uses as a guideline, such as the lander needs to carry four astronauts to the lunar surface and serve as their home for up to a week. So that means Altair has to be much bigger than the Apollo lunar landers. (See below for a comparison of Altair and Apollo) There are Altair mock-ups already built at the Johnson Space Center in Houston where habitability teams are working inside, trying out different configurations. These teams are taking a look at how astronauts will live and work inside, so that Altair can be built in the best way possible for the mission. So what is their idea of how the inside will look? The folks at NASA have created a video depicting a 360 degree tour, just like the online home tours that realtors have for selling houses! So take a spin around inside! Click here for Windows Media, and here for RealPlayer.
NASA has a few other great videos of what landing on the moon will be like with Altair:
And check out this page on NASA’s website for an interactive Flash feature about Altair, and a concept video about landing, living and working on the moon.
How do Altair and the Apollo lander compare? One current concept for Altair is that it will stand more than 9.7 meters (32 feet) high and have a volume of 31.8 cubic meters (1,120 cu ft). The 1960’s-70’s Apollo lander stood 6.37 meters (20.9 ft) high and had an interior volume of 6.65 cubic meters (235 cubic feet).
