There's been a debate raging within the space technical community and inside NASA over whether or not the Orbital Space Plane should have wings. Obviously, it was named before anyone realized that there would be a debate and the assumption was that, of course, it would.

Jeff Foust has a good overview of that debate, but I want to make a different point, because I strongly disagree with Bob Walker's comments here, and if they're true they're profoundly depressing.

While OSP is portrayed as an interim vehicle, a stopgap between the shuttle and a future RLV, some caution that whatever approach NASA selects it may be stuck with for decades. ?Whatever we design and spend money on is going to be the vehicle for the next 20 years,? said Walker. ?You can kid yourself that there are going to be follow-on vehicles and all that, but we kidded ourselves that way throughout the shuttle program. So you can depend upon the fact that whatever we do here is going to be around for a long time. It seems to me that you want something that at least will be adaptable.?

Two problems. First, I don't accept that there will be, or at least that there should be, "the vehicle for the next 20 years." The notion that NASA should have a vehicle is the source of much of our inability to make major space accomplishments.

We have to get out of this monoculture. We need multiple vehicles. And of course, because NASA has no grand ambitions, there's no way to support their development.

But even if he's right, and that NASA will have a new vehicle that will be "the" vehicle, it's not at all clear that simply putting wings on the thing gives you much leverage into the future. It might be necessary (though I'm not sure that's even the case) but it's certainly not sufficient. Some fantasize that they can build this vehicle as a payload for a Delta IV or Atlas V, and then later use it as an upper stage for a fully-reusable system.

The problem with that is it implies that that system will be a three-stage system, because the delta-V capability of the OSP is not meant to help get it into orbit--the expendable launcher is supposed to do that--it's only enough to meet the requirements for maneuvering on orbit, and deorbiting.

If you were designing a fully-reusable launcher right now, I suspect that it would optimize out to two stages. This probably balances the margins needed for operability (provided by staging) against the operational complexity of too many stages. But an OSP designed as a payload for an orbit-capable launch system won't be optimized for that future vehicle--it will simply be a payload for it as well--not part of the launch system per se. Thus, the notion of using it as the upper stage of a new launch system is a non-starter. That means that the new system must have enough capability to deliver an OSP sized payload to orbit, and, by the logic above, be a two-stage system itself (meaning that the OSP will be the third stage).

If the goal is really to have a space transport, then they should simply build one, instead of building evolutionary dead ends that they hope can be adapted later on.

Of course, this is all beside the point, because what we should really be doing, as a nation, not just NASA, is figuring out how to encourage and nurture a private industry that can not only satisfy NASA's requirements, but those of the rest of us as well, something that OSP will never be able to do.

One of the signs of an entrenched bureaucracy is that they would rather plan things than build them. The more grandiouse the better, as planning can go on forever, but when you start building, you have to produce something, eventually.

Here in the Seattle area we are fortunate to not have a Light Rail System (Trolleys -- "the 19th century solution for 21st century transportation needs"). It's not for a lack of trying. Since the the RTA was approved in 1995 (in a narrow revote after the boundaries of the district were "adjusted"), they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on other stuff while managing to not lay one inch of track. For a single line system that goes nowhere, stopping short of the airport by a mile, for example.

I see the same mentality at work with NASA-- they are so caught up in the "planning process" that they haven't bothered to figure out who will be their customers, or even where they plan to go once they build the things. But they've been given a big budget, and damn well are going to spend it all, even if they produce nothing in the process.

We’ve been through the wings/capsule thing often -maybe you could condense what’s been said from all the posts - you know a pro and con list?

As a person who studies theoretical design, I have problems with labeling the thing as merely as an emergency escape vehicle in a one-time station disaster (which would only warrant having a non-reusable capsule), when, in reality, they really seem interested in producing something on the order of a ‘workhorse’ Soyuz-type vehicle. The mere notion that NASA has to label things wrongly/deceptively and go about under estimating cost just to get the idea past congress
is totally wrong. Either they need a new PR person or should hand it over to congress and say “you do it!” Stick to your guns in other words - stand for what is right or at least what you believe. Such deception only shows a total lack of commitment and the lack of requirements to fulfill (i.e. some sort of ‘overall plan’ that directs the design process) on both sides.

I know NASA and the US would insist on their own vehicle, but if all you are going to do is ‘duplicate’ the work of the Soviet Soyuz, you might as well just have them build more. International projects only serve a purpose when they ‘streamline a package’ so that there are no overlaps in mission capability. Packages take many designs to fulfill correctly, thus congress has to find a way to either accept a project as a whole or not. You can just cut off critical pieces (like the NLS rocket in the early 90’s) and expect the thing (the package) to work.

I know it's a long shot, but why not just dust off the plans for Big Gemini and build that? We know Gemini works; we know it's reusable; and the ?retro? approach (taking an old design and recreating it using modern materials) seems to work for the Canadian Arrow team.

(In any case, we already had an Orbital Space Plane. It was called DynaSoar, and Robert MacNamara cancelled the living s--t out of it because it ?didn't have a mission?. We should have built it anyway -- we'd have thirty years of reusable spacecraft behind us instead of an uncertain road ahead.)

Calling the latest NASA effort an ?orbital space plane? is goofy anyhow. Calling it ?Spacecraft, Multipurpose, Reusable? ( or ?Aerospace/Civil Service Income Assurance Vehicle? would make better sense.

Reusing Big Gemini (or Apollo) designs right now is economically impossible -- just as is building another Shuttle Orbiter. Many of the materials are no longer available from the vendors, and the tooling is long gone also. It would definitely be cheaper to redesign the beast, incorporating modern materials and technologies, than to attempt to recreate the original.

The problem is that NASA won't do that -- they will want to use it as a takeoff point only, and insist on advancing the state of the art in the process... just like they've done with every other spacecraft they've initiated since the Apollo Program (including X-38, regardless of what the JSC/Dryden boys say).

That Big Gemini and Apollo weren't designed to be reused and therefore aren't built for cheap refurbishment, only makes their use less desirable.

So, do these folk ( www.liftport.org ) have a clue, or are they doing the snakeoil routine that I suspect ( www.freedomship.com ) to be doing, as in all hat, no cattle.

Oh, I've about concluded that civilian taxpayer-funded space agencies are by definition all hat and no cattle.

Sheeeeeesh!

I still say a capsule system has more future use potential as it can be adapted easily to a high delta V re-entry from deep space. We will ultimately need a capsule for other uses so its development will not be a wasted effort.

A winged craft would be a stupid design for deep space exploration.

1966 technology

If we could build it in 1966, we could build it now, and with better materials. I'm not saying we should necessaily build the Big G (although I do believe it to be possible), but designing a simple, rugged logistics spacecraft based upon the Gemini design ought to be doable.

Troy states:
"That Big Gemini and Apollo weren't designed to be reused and therefore aren't built for cheap refurbishment, only makes their use less desirable."

Point-of-fact. We DID resuse a Gemini capsule. We used an early unmanned Gemini capsule, (WITH a hatch cut into the heat shield I might add :o)during the one unmanned MOL lab flight. The capsule returned safetly to the Earth.

A capsule DESIGNED from the start at resuable should be, (and probably would be) as easy to service and reuse as a winged/lifting-body design.

Speaking of the OSP though. If anyone has taken a look at the requirements, I'd point out that we already HAD a design that was rejected by ONE NASA center during the intial stages of SLI.
If you go here:
>http://www.hmx.com/
and download the PDF.. (it took be several tries :o) you note that the design fits all the parameters of the OSP.

Just a thought.

Randy

After the X-33 fiasco (billions spent, no result) I see absolutely no point in worrying about details of NASAs next craft. Either somebody else will get us moving forward, NASA will purchase what THEY build, or we'll continue with this decaying system we have now. NASA has had too many chances, and they just get worse. They USED to be a government agency you could be proud of, and there are still some good people there, and some good things are done there, but general planning there is simply terrible.

bchan,

The problem with building copies of Gemini and Apollo are huge, even with modern materials -- the designs were for low-pressure pure-oxygen atmospheres, they weren't modular, and they weren't even particularly robust... they were just light, and they were in many ways kludges built to meet the deadline of "end of the decade".

I have nothing against using the concept of a capsule, nor of reusing the aero data from Gemini and Apollo (although we might be able to do much better now with fast CFD).

Randy,

I'm aware of the MOL test of the refurbed Gemini capsule. "Possible" still isn't the same thing as either "practical" or "cheap", and the problems with recreating copies of those ancient vehicles are practically insurmountable (as I pointed out to bchan above).

A capsule designed for easy servicing and reuse would probably be cheaper (and certainly lighter, which means cheaper to orbit) and easier to work with than a similarly-designed winged craft; you don't need work-arounds to avoid the wings, for starters, and volume utilization is much greater. But Gemini and Apollo derivatives simply aren't that beast, any more than the Shuttle Orbiter truly was the all-round space truck.