2012 Issue

30 Falcon 9 vehicle, with another test in December 2011. SpaceX in particular has done amazing things in a relatively short amount of time, it and other companies should be encouraged to continue along that path. Crew Capsules NASA has recently distributed a round of contracts (CCDEV-2) to commercial companies to develop crew vehicles (NASA 2011). The companies involved include Boeing, Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Sierra Nevada. Their crew vehicles range from winged lifting bodies to Apollo-style gumdrop capsules. Figure 1 summarizes the crew vehicles currently under development. Crew Launch Vehicles Launch vehicles are being developed separately to deliver the crew capsules. Figure 2 summarizes the major crew delivery vehicles. Only the Russian Soyuz is currently delivering people to orbit. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has flown twice, but has yet to carry people. ULA’s Atlas V has been delivering satellites to orbit for years, and plans are now underway to carry people, as well. And ATK and Arianespace are working on a new launcher, built from hardware from the Shuttle and the Ariane 5. These vehicles have several common characteristics, mostly driven by physics. • They are all multistage vehicles (2 or 2-½ stages), because single stage to orbit is very difficult. • They all have liquid propellant upper stages (liquid hydrogen or kerosene), because at high altitudes, with the effect of grav- ity diminishing, efficiency (specific impulse, or Isp, in rocket nomenclature) is most important, and liquid propellants have higher Isp than solids. • They all carry the crew on top of the vehicle. This was a major recommendation from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Cargo Vehicles For launching cargo into space, there are a handful of existing vehicles, including Falcon 9, Atlas V, Delta IV, Soyuz, Ariane 5, and H-IIB. Additionally, NASA has announced the configurations for the Space Launch System (SLS), utilizing shuttle strap-on boosters, tanks, and SSMEs (Space ShuttleMain Engines), as well as the J-2X engine that was being developed for the Ares program (NASA 2011). This vehicle would be capable of delivering 286,000 lbs to orbit. By comparison, the shuttle, fully loaded, weighed 240,000 lbs (Wikipedia 2011). Challenges Ahead There are still plenty of challenges ahead. We need to protect travelers from solar radiation. We know that the human body loses bone mass and muscle mass in prolonged low-gravity situations (NASA 2001), so we need to find solutions for that. We need water and oxygen and food wherever we’re going. We need scientists and engineers to step up and find solutions to these problems, and to the problems we have yet to discover. The first step, however, is to decide where we’re going. We need to lay out specific destinations and timetables, similar to Presi- dent Kennedy’s challenge to go to the moon. Our current space program lacks specific direction, and we’ve been adrift for several years. We need to start with a plan, then figure out how to make the plan happen. And it will be the engineers – of today and tomorrow – who lead the way!  SOURCES NASA. Commercial Crew & Cargo . April 20, 2011. http://www.nasa.gov/offices/c3po/ home/ccdev2award.html (accessed Oct 24, 2011). NASA Exploration . Sept 09, 2011. http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/sls1.html (accessed Oct 24, 2011). NASA Science . Aug. 02, 2001. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ ast02aug_1/ (accessed Oct 2011, 24). Space Travel News. Space Travel News . Sep 9, 2011. http://www.space-travel.com/re- ports/Russia_blames_chance_defect_for_space_crash_999.html (accessed Oct 24, 2011). Wikipedia. Space Shuttle Orbiter . Oct 19, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shut- tle_orbiter (accessed Oct 24, 2011). Mr. Haws is a graduate of Brigham Young University and a licensed Professional Engineer. He works for ATK Aerospace Systems in Promontory, Utah and is currently serving as past- chair for the Utah Section of ASME. SPACE PROGRAM | continued from page 29 Our current space program lacks specific direction, and we’ve been adrift for several years. We need to start with a plan, then figure out how to make the plan happen.