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NASA's moon rocket design looking shaky

Posted January 21, 2008 4:39 PM

From USATODAY.com Tech - Top Stories:

NASA is wrestling with a potentially dangerous problem in a spacecraft, this time in a moon rocket that hasn't even been built yet. Engineers are concerned that the new rocket meant to replace the space shuttle and send astronauts on their way to the moon could shake violently during the first few minutes of flight, possibly destroying the entire vehicle. "They know it's a real problem," said Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor Paul Fischbeck, who has consulted on risk issues with NASA in the past. "This thing is going to shake apart the whole structure, and they've got to solve it." If not corrected, the shaking would arise from the powerful first stage of the Ares I rocket, which will lift the Orion crew capsule into orbit. NASA officials hope to have a plan for fixing the design as early as March, and they do not expect it to delay the goal of returning astronauts to the moon by 2020.

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Sparkstation
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#1

Re: NASA's moon rocket design looking shaky

01/22/2008 1:37 AM

I fail to see why they don't use Russian designed engines for the lift-off.

Far more powerful, more controllable.

<"NASA engineers characterized the shaking as being in what the agency considers the "red zone" of risk, ranking a five on a 1-to-5 scale of severity.

"It's highly likely to happen and if it does, it's a disaster," said Fischbeck, an expert in engineering risks">

That's the experts a'talkin'.

Kind Regards....

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PlbMak
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#2
In reply to #1

Re: NASA's moon rocket design looking shaky

01/22/2008 3:16 AM

I fail to see why they don't use Russian designed engines for the lift-off.

Can you really see congress approving the use of Russian equipment on the US space program? Can you imagine the repercussions if something went wrong and someone was killed? We all know intellectually that going to space is a very high risk occupation, but thats not how we react emotionally.

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Sparkstation
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#3
In reply to #2

Re: NASA's moon rocket design looking shaky

01/22/2008 3:50 AM

Hello PlbMak

I thought is would be a good idea, since the powers at the top are the same in both Countries.

I do agree that OSH, other, and Insurance claims could be a problem, but little things like that are easily overcome with a new Law written by the Commander in Chief, as these new such Laws are being written every week.

Kind Regards....

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PlbMak
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#4
In reply to #3

Re: NASA's moon rocket design looking shaky

01/22/2008 5:11 AM

since the powers at the top are the same in both Countries.

Ouch! And I thought I was cynical!

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PWSlack
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#5
In reply to #2

Re: NASA's moon rocket design looking shaky

01/22/2008 5:42 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Space_Agency

Have the European countries + Canada already made some headway here?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here

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#9
In reply to #2

Re: NASA's moon rocket design looking shaky

01/22/2008 1:29 PM

the russians are why ahead of the U.S. gained with the experience that they have.

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T Man
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#6

Re: NASA's moon rocket design looking shaky

01/22/2008 8:21 AM

The thing that boggles the mind is that NASA DID have a heavy lift rocket. The Saturn V was extremelt reliable, they never had a failed launch of one. Why re-invent the wheel. Base the design on the V, and go forward. NASA is being cheap by taking things from the shuttle, which is not reliable, and working from that.

The Russians never had a succesful heavy lift rocket, theirs exploded either at pad or in early flight.

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taejonkwando
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#7
In reply to #6

Re: NASA's moon rocket design looking shaky

01/22/2008 10:21 AM

So true. The Apollo Program was a phenomenal success. The Saturn series which made up the Saturn Rocket had unparalleled reliability.

The vibration issues were solved 40 years ago. Lou Walkover was the head of North American Aviation's Design and Structures Department (N.A.A. was later purchased by Rockwell). He and his staff redesigned the interfaces between the separate stages to absorb longitudinal vibrations which were discovered in testing.

N.A.A.'s Jack Clifford (who later founded Clifford Electronics) led a team which found ways to reduce the overall vehicle weight which also contributed to the stability of the combined structure. Their efforts reduced the required thrust for the Saturn 5 to reach terminal velocity by 17,400 pounds.

Pete Dupaquier and his N.A.A.team of aerodynamicists designed a skirt to attach the Lockheed's Launch Escape Tower's base which produced enough drag to stabilize the vehicle by slightly loading the structure to damp the oscillations as the "stack" went through the sound barrier.

The net result of these and many other labors was the smooth ride the Astronauts experienced as the vehicle lofted them into space. Although at times the acceleration was close to six G's the vibration levels never exceeded +/- 4 G's at a peak resonance of 66 Hz, about the same as you'd get driving a pickup truck down a gravel road at 40 mph.

No one had ever built a space ship before. There had been several converted missels to loft man into orbiting the earth a few times but no one had constructed a purposebuilt space craft to go from one planet to another until we did in those heady years in the sixties.

NASA funded the program under the direction of Dr. Werner von Braun. But the real work of creating the spaceship was done by the engineers and technicians of Chrysler, N.A.A., Lockheed, Marquardt, Grumman, Rocketdyne, Douglas, and thousands of sub-contractors who pushed the limits of technology to extremes to make von Braun's dream and ours come true.

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T Man
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#8
In reply to #7

Re: NASA's moon rocket design looking shaky

01/22/2008 10:23 AM

And there you have it.

Great Post

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#10
In reply to #7

Re: NASA's moon rocket design looking shaky

01/22/2008 2:04 PM

Good on yer lass. Brilliant and concise as always.

Again, NASA seems to be trying to operate on the cheap and in doing so missing the point of their very existance. In effect they are there to advance mankind in his (and her) reach beyond this planet - no less than the long term survival of the human race. Not the survival of a bloated bureaucracy.

As a bureaucracy they have become excessively risk averse and this does not make for good science or for the advancement of mankind into the universe.

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