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Bring it on...... ORION. seems old is better?


jetboy

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Great test. It was almost too perfect.

The only areas that didn't work out exactly as planned were the righting balloons - only three of the five inflated - and the recovery team were unable to recover all the parachutes.

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Awesome indeed. I collected my winnings when I bet against another moon landing before 31/12/1999. I would like to live to see Moon Tourists 13 et. seq. Maybe, just maybe.

Any ideas on when they're planning the Lunar orbiting flight for?

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2021.

Flight EM2 will be the first manned mission and will either go around the moon once and come back or actually go into orbit around the moon before returning to earth (a repeat of Apollo 8 essentially).

The main pacer will be the development of the SLS booster system. Delta IV Heavy is way too weedy for full-on manned Orion missions. It needs the lifting capacity of the SLS rocket.

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Thanks for that Eric.

My dad has been keeping me up to speed on the welding technology they're developing for the SLS. What they've achieved in New Orleans is quite staggering already.

I definitely had flash backs not only for the chutes but also the capsule bobbing in the ocean. The pity is that they didn't start the Apollo Applications Programme once they'd designed the Saturn V stack.

I've just finished Voyage by Stephen Baxter and the parallels are pretty amazing. Buzz Aldrins Return to Tiber is pretty good as well.

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I've just finished Voyage by Stephen Baxter and the parallels are pretty amazing.

Then you'll like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrbvM5HuQRE

Did anyone else of a certain age get flashbacks to Apollo when those red-and-white 'chutes came through the clouds?

Did you spot that each parachute had a different pattern of stripes? Presumably so that in the event of a problem like they had on Apollo 15 they could tell which one it was.

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I did. The problem with Apollo 15 was caused by the dumping of excess attitude thruster fuel during descent. The fuel burned the shroud lines and caused the parachute to collapse. They were very lucky as another set of lines had almost burned through as well.

I suppose they aren't dumping this excess fuel on the Orion to ensure this type of incident doesn't occur.

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There was no way they could rely on early 1960s technology as the Apollo used. Most of the REAL computational power of Apollo came from the large mainframe computers on the ground.

Orion has to have that capacity (and greater) on board so the option of something like Apollo's "core rope memory" systems was just not tenable.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Then you'll like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrbvM5HuQRE

Did you spot that each parachute had a different pattern of stripes? Presumably so that in the event of a problem like they had on Apollo 15 they could tell which one it was.

Yes. I have very much enjoyed that. Some minor errors in configuration but a great visualisation of the story. Now reading Titan.

Orion re-entry - astronaut's eye view:

Graham

Enjoyed that as well. Here is Tilly the Tortoiseshell also enjoying it

tumblr_nh8ousyp7b1t8blhlo4_1280.jpg

She watched the whole thing from start to finish and never moved. Usually she sits in front of the screen. Sounds like Brian Eno but I've no idea what it is :shrug:

A Delta IV would be good in 1/144 of course. Been around long enough....

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