Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Blame Game

Viceroy Hanley, standing on one leg with his fingers crossed behind his back, came as close as he's going to admit the real status of Orion at it's PDR. He's at least two years behind schedule. How do we know that?

"It'll take up to two years to fit a new rocket to the capsule," he said. Design changes to accommodate weight and size differences are required he says.

But at least one EELV provides more mass margin than the corndog does.

Oh well. What's another two years on a 14 year schedule anyway?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

When the requirements of an engineered system change mid-development, big problems are introduced. Experienced engineers know this from work on planes, trains, automobiles, space ships, and software.

The decision to change mid-stream is so perilous that it should be balanced with the decision to start from scratch. The more complex the system, the more problems that are caused, the more problems that cannot be foreseen.

It is entirely possible that Lockheed Martin could start a new capsule in parallel with Orion and meet the new requirements earlier.

Anonymous said...

Just pull out the Gemini budget and schedule and dare them to match it.
Goal: Put two men in orbit. (never been done before)
Develop capsule, fit onto ICBM. $9B (inflation adjusted), 3 yrs.

QuantumG said...

It's an unnecessarily large capsule.

Anonymous said...

if it takes hanley that long, why not task USAF with
doing an updated apollo capsule, to fit the EELV
and that they have 18 months to get to test
and 24 months to get operational.

Anonymous said...

Hey rocketman, it would be interesting to know just what your "vision" for NASA and the future of human space endeavor's is? I mean, "zinging wit" isn't really an end in and of itself, is it? Your moniker and the time you put into this blog would indicate you have more than a passing interest.If you were king, what would you do?

Anonymous said...

Five days later and no response....So, I guess it's really just "zinging wit", then eh?

Anonymous said...

No, I think it's rather that anybody with any critical thinking skills at all already knows what the answer is.

Anonymous said...

"Five days later and no response....So, I guess it's really just 'zinging wit', then eh?"

Maybe he's just too busy to respond to your taunts, Keith.