New Mars Forums

What?  No CVT?

...which is not a bad idea at all.

At forst, when I considered the CEV, I thought to myself "Whatta f*^%ing cop-out. Old technology-bleech."

And then I thought about it.  For a long time, I have looked at the Russian space progrm, and commented about how great it was thet they kept with proven technology, and only made small modifications to it to keep their program flying for what is, by comparison, nickles and dimes, in comparison to the US budget.

Russia even built their own shuttle, Buran, and flew it once.  They realized immediately that it was way too expensive, and it never flew again.  IIRC, Buran was actually destroyed a few years ago when the hangar it was being stored in collapsed.

And when we started to follow this path (CEV/ARES), I initially acted with disgust.

Now that I've had a chance to really think about it, I'm glad that they are looking backwards to something proven and (what will ultimately be..) cheaper than the space shuttle. 

So, we had it right in the first place.  Kinda makes you wonder where we'd be if we hadn't built the shuttle, and kept with what we had.  But there is no sense in thinking too much about that, as there were a lot of seperate developments that benefitted the space program that arose from the shuttle.  BUt in the monetary and human costs, the shuttle has been quite expensive.

Actually, when looking to what GCNRevenger was referring to, which was the preceeding post, then his post makes a great deal of sense. 

I believe Flashgordon was referring to long range plans, not the capability of the current Bigelow "Genesis" module.

But if Bigelow is half as smart as I'm thinking they are, there is a design in place for this module to be able to have all that in the future.  The artist's conception gives me the distinct impression that there is a docking port at the end opposite the end the panels connect on.  That way, if the hull test is successful, it could have the other necessary equipment installed.  And I bet that equipment is in storage awaiting that day, or exists in plans.  After all, it cost $75M to get it up there.  Why throw it away?  No sense in that.  Can't squander resources in space, after all.

Ever read about the Sea Dragon rocket proposal?  550 tons to LEO.  I think Truax had the design.

How adversely will leak mitigation effect the cargo capacity?

One thing I am not clear on: is this intended for reuse or not.  I'm guessing not, but am not entirely sure.

I'd like to add to this.  Not only would you have a ater landing, but a salt-water landing.  You would then be introducing galvanic corrosion along with all the inherent (if applicable) damage to the electrical system.

If you alternately chose to do a parachute landing to a land location, even if one could devise a softer landing method, there are still some nasty side effects associated with the shock of the landing.

The SSMEs are less expensive to refurb due to a nice, controlled, soft landing with little exposure to the unsavory elements of shock and/or saltwater.

Not trying to discourage you, just pointing out a few challenges.

Hello and greetings.  Yeah, I know, another newbie. Gotta start somewhere.

I have spent the last several hours reading the posts here, and I do have a few questions.

Some of you have posted information of NSWRs, NTRs and GCNTRs.

I realize that NERVA did a bit of research on much of these, but where are we now?  Please corect me if I have any errors in my understandings:

NTR: basically a Uranium core that heats H2 with Impuse of 900-1000.  Later NERVA experiments resulted in NTRs with around 10 hours of operation that had, for the most part, elminated the cracking of the fuel rods

GCNTR: NTR with a gas core, never actually built, but looks great on paper (?), Impulse of around 2,000-4,500? Uranium suspended in a magnetically confined reaction chamber-gas used is again H2

NSWR: Nuclear salt-water rocket?  It sounds similar to a GCNTR, but uses saltwater as propellant?  Theoretical Impulse=?, Operational hours=?, Does it require weapons-grade material or less (hopefully less)

I suppose what I'm really asking here is where does technology stand on a NSWR, and which would be a more practical powerplant for interplanetary flight: GCNTR or NSWR?

I'd like to have a better understanding of all this.

Apologies for the intrusion, and thanks for replying.