----- Original Message -----
From: "Henry Spencer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "ERPS" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, September 19, 2003 12:27 PM
Subject: Re: [ERPS] Return of the space capsule [slightly OT]
> On Thu, 18 Sep 2003, Sander Pool wrote:
> Correct, but there is no question that capsules are easier and quicker to
> design and develop.
Sure. But their argument was 'more experience' not "it's easier" :-)
> > ...They'd need a different (telescopic)
> > robotic arm so that's good news for Canada :-)
>
> Depends on what you're doing. For station operations, the station arm
> will handle most arm chores just fine.
Yes, I wasn't thinking of the station though. I know it has an arm. AFAIK
the arm can be used to manouver astronauts around and deploy/grab payloads.
If the new vehicle doesn't have these tasks then it can do without an arm.
>
> > Mostly payloads will be shot
> > into orbit on disposable rockets I suppose.
>
> Not just "mostly". No matter what OSP looks like, it will go up on an
> expendable rocket.
I'm hoping that eventually we'll get more reusability but for now expendable
is what we have, yes.
> Very much depends on how you do the accounting -- an area that NASA was
> notoriously slippery on. Some satellites (e.g. LDEF) had to be
> returnable, or otherwise used human capabilities during deployment.
> In fact, most satellite owners would really prefer to do final assembly
> and checkout in orbit, after the bouncy, noisy part is over... but it
> was difficult to pursue that much with the shuttle.
Could satellite parts be launced separately from the assembly crew? I don't
think the space station is in the right orbit to be a standard assembly
point for satellites but maybe you could do two launches and a redezvous?
You wouldn't launch the crew until automated processes have confirmed that
the components survived the launch. Sortof like a smoke test. It would be
terribly expensive to launch two rockets for 1 payload but you'd only do it
when the conditions required it.
I suppose (day dreaming here) we could build a small space station in an
appropriate orbit that is specifically designed to support satellite/probe
deployment. You'd need to launch a lot of satellites for that to make sense
of course.
Sander
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