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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 2459800" data-attributes="member: 14159">We know disposable rockets work.  Rockets that have been human-rated for space launches have had a much higher safety record than the shuttle actually.  We've never had a failure with an ablative heat shield, and pound-for-pound the Shuttle is an extremely inefficient launch vehicle.  The only thing it has going for it is that it can put 7 people in orbit and double as a cargo lifter, but it does neither cheaply as a dedicated crew capsule or a heavy-lift rocket.  Remarkably, everything I've read says that a full Saturn V stack for a moon launch costs less than a shuttle flight, when you factor in upkeep and refurbishment of the shuttle over time, dividing out the cost of the orbiter over the multiple launches, dividing out the cost of the initial development, reprocessing the SRB's, and replacement of the ET.Project Constellation goes back to what we know works: rocket stacks and capsules.  The CEV is meant to be a modular system, which means we can launch a smaller rocket with a CEV Block 1 capsule to access the ISS or other low-earth-orbit missions, or assemble a larger stack to reach the Moon, Mars or even a NEO Asteroid.  It's meant to be an expandable, modular system that balances a degree of reusability with the long term costs of wear and refurbishment.  The CEV is also designed to be improved over time, with new models coming into service regularly, and since it is a modular design, improvements in the design can be implemented in one element much more easily.  Once we have working moonbases, private space stations, a mars base, and missions to NEO's, we'll have enough of a space presence to justify a space-located shipyard for construction of dedicated spacefaring craft.  One leading concept behind Project Constellation is: Get it working quickly.  We have the design legacy of things like the Crew Escape Vehicle concept and the DCX to work with besides the Shuttle, as well as the huge engineering lineage of the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo programs.  Instead of reinventing the wheel, we're using the best parts of everything we've done and making a vehicle that can be brought into service quicker, and presumably safer by using time-proven technologies.In a perfect world, SSTO (single stage to orbit) spaceplanes would be perfect, and it looks like Scaled Composites is working on that in the private sector.  However, SSTO will probably lack the heavy lift capacity, at least for a long time, needed for space construction as well as reaching beyond LEO.  Private SSTO spacecraft will be good for reaching the ISS (or private space stations, like the Space Hotel concepts under construction), and once there is a moonbase established I can imagine a SSTO launch mating with a booster for a translunar flight, for private spaceline access to the base.Also, as was noted, to build a space elevator requires, among other things, the ability to visit an asteroid and move it into a geosynchronous orbit.  Project Constellation has as a design capacity the ability to reach such an asteroid, and a feasible mission for a CEV could include astronauts mounting thrusters on an asteroid to shepherd it into a viable orbit.</blockquote>

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