NASA Kicks off Study to Add Crew to First Flight of Orion, SLS

Megalith

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The agency is currently deciding whether it is feasible to add human crew to Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), which involves the most powerful rocket in the world for a moon mission. The maiden voyage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft hosting guinea pigs will be decided by early springtime, but EM-2’s 2021 launch is almost certain to be manned.

During the first mission of SLS and Orion, NASA plans to send the spacecraft into a distant lunar retrograde orbit, which will require additional propulsion moves, a flyby of the moon and return trajectory burns. The mission is planned as a challenging trajectory to test maneuvers and the environment of space expected on future missions to deep space. If the agency decides to put crew on the first flight, the mission profile for Exploration Mission-2 would likely replace it, which is an approximately eight-day mission with a multi-translunar injection with a free return trajectory.
 
I would think it's safer to wait until EM2 for humans. Allow EM1 be robotics only to prove it's feasible and to measure radiation exposure. That will give them more data to properly protect humans the second go around.
 
I think Trump's NASA is going to be interesting.
 
I would think it's safer to wait until EM2 for humans. Allow EM1 be robotics only to prove it's feasible and to measure radiation exposure. That will give them more data to properly protect humans the second go around.
I would think they already know the feasibility of radiation exposure when they did the Apollo missions.
 
I would think they already know the feasibility of radiation exposure when they did the Apollo missions.
More data the better. From what I understand these missions are going much further out than the Apollo missions did.
 
More data the better. From what I understand these missions are going much further out than the Apollo missions did.

they're doing exactly what the apollo missions did, it won't be til 2030 they even attempt to do anything mars related. the only difference is that they should be able to stay on the moon much longer this time around then they were able to during the apollo missions.
 
This is an incredibly stupid idea, and a waste of resources to even investigate it. How many space launch systems actually succeeded on the very first test launch? Hint: we definitely aren't batting 1.000 here.
 
This is an incredibly stupid idea, and a waste of resources to even investigate it. How many space launch systems actually succeeded on the very first test launch? Hint: we definitely aren't batting 1.000 here.

Neither did flight, probably should have eliminated that one too. Just because something is difficult or fails, is not really a reason to just give up. Just saying.
 
I think NASA is starting to get nervous and is trying to justify their budgets to Congress based on their extremely SLOW timetables for the SLS.

Unless the SpaceX Falcon Heavy is a total failure, many of the missions envisioned for the SLS would be easily handled by it, for a much lower cost to orbit, with a reusable booster -- and the FH will likely be available several YEARS before the SLS does anything other than flight testing. And the FH is designed to be man-rated as well. And, if the new Raptor engines work as they hope they will, the ITS (formerly MCT) may being doing test launches as early as 2022 -- and it is also designed specifically to be man-rated (up to 12 people or more). Furthermore, even NASA's Block 2 SLS is "only" designed to launch up to 130mt to LEO, whereas the ITS's design goal is 450mt.

The problem is that NASA's SLS is being built almost exclusively on older technologies derived from the Shuttle program -- and is STILL almost a decade behind schedule and has shown every indication of continuing to fall even further behind.
Even on NASA's most optimistic schedules, they are not showing a manned Mars launch before the mid-2030's at the soonest.

If SpaceX can continue to progress at even half the rate they have thus far and if any of their plans come to fruition, there is a good chance that by the time NASA mounts a Mars mission, they won't need to bother packing a lot of supplies because they can probably just plan to dine at the SpaceX commissary when they get there!
 
Neither did flight, probably should have eliminated that one too. Just because something is difficult or fails, is not really a reason to just give up. Just saying.

He wasn't saying give up or quit..he was saying don't stick people on your new rocket design until you've tested it with some crash-test dummies first.
 
If NASA decides to make the first flight manned, wonder how they will justify requiring SpaceX and Boeing to have unmanned flight tests of their respective rocket-capsule stacks before NASA grants man ratings?

We got lucky with the moon missions. Eisenhower created NASA, Kennedy gave it an audacious mission goal then got assassinated. His successor, Johnson was a space nut and Nixon didn't dare mess with the Kennedy legacy mission until after the successful landings. He then cut the NASA budgets and scrubbed the last three funded moon missions. The Saturn system was scrapped and we got stuck with the committee designed does everything except leave Earth orbit Shuttle that was sold as a cheap reusable system but wound up costing more per launch then a Saturn V. Every administration since has changed the previous goal to something new.
 
More data the better. From what I understand these missions are going much further out than the Apollo missions did.

EM-1 is a lunar orbit mission. Eventually they want to go a few weeks/months visiting near earth asteroids, perhaps move a small one into orbit around the Moon.

SLS started falling behind during the government shutdown. Congress and the Obama administration knew the costs, they chose to delay rather than fund the program (which further increases costs).

SpaceX has yet to perform a manned launch and they're going to run into the same difficulties as NASA getting parts human-rated. My concern is that the real goal here is to kill off manned spaceflight altogether. I certainly don't expect anything bold from the current Congress or administration.
 
SLS is just a scaled down continuation and reconfiguration of Constellation. Which was never funded properly under Bush.
 
SLS is just a scaled down continuation and reconfiguration of Constellation. Which was never funded properly under Bush.

It's a bit more complicated than that. Constellation with Ares I + V would have allowed for larger payloads, but every moon mission would have required 2 launches (Ares I for crew, Ares V for cargo). SLS is an evolution of the DIRECT proposal, which could have reduced dev time and enabled various configurations for different missions if the government had quit dicking around.
 
The first flight of any spacecraft should not be manned. Period. There are some things that should not be rushed, and this is one of them.
 
Apparently SpaceX just announced they're sending two tourists around the Moon for an Apollo 8-style mission next year.
 
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