[FPSPACE] Dual Orion capsules studied for manned asteroid missions

[John]

My first thought was, "leave it to the prime contractor to suggest  
ways to increase sales of their product -- and exclude the  
competitor's product (the Altair)."

My second thought was, "why not?" Remember the fleet of LM variants  
that Grumman proposed to produce?  And North American had pages of  
viewgraph charts showing command modules in many possible  
applications, such as the "comlab" LEO laboratory. And McDonnell- 
Douglas offered a variant of its Gemini capsule for a direct lunar  
mission displacing both North American and Grumman products.

Desperation or just clever marketing?

John Charles
Houston, Texas

----------
On Aug 19, 2009, at 8:31, David Portree <dsfportree at hotmail.com> wrote:

> Just because an asteroid passes one million kilometers from Earth  
> doesn't mean one could reach it as easily or as quickly as an L  
> point. Furthermore, not all asteroids are worth reaching, and this  
> mission would focus on which are accessible by straining the Orion  
> system, not on the value of the targets; basically, it'd be a stunt.  
> Finally, for the cost of this stunt mission, we could send robot  
> explorers to a dozen more interesting asteroids.
>
> You'll note that I'm not talking about the mission concept; this has  
> more fundamental problems that kill it before we get that far. We  
> could come up with a grand design for launching a manned spacecraft  
> to Antarctica, but why would we want to, since there are more  
> sensible ways to do the job?
>
> David S. F. Portree
>
> dsfportree at hotmail.com
> dportree at usgs.gov
>
> http://robotexplorers.blogspot.com/
> http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/
>
> http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/About/People/DavidPortree/
>
>
>
>
>
> From: ljk4 at msn.com
> To: fpspace at friends-partners.org
> Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:00:51 -0400
> Subject: [FPSPACE] Dual Orion capsules studied for manned asteroid  
> missions
>
> Dual Orion capsules studied for manned asteroid missions
>
> BY CRAIG COVAULT
>
> SPACEFLIGHT NOW
>
> Posted: August 17, 2009
>
> A manned asteroid mission using two Orion spacecraft, docked nose-to- 
> nose to form a 50-ton deep space vehicle, is being studied by  
> Lockheed Martin Space Systems as an alternative to resumption of  
> U.S. lunar landing missions.
>
> The Orion asteroid mission concept is being unveiled just as the  
> Presidential committee reviewing U.S. human space flight is citing  
> asteroid missions after 2020 as a less costly alternative to NASA's  
> proposed lunar landing infrastructure.
> Results of the review will be briefed to President Obama by Norman  
> Augustine, committee chairman, by the end of August.
>
> Full article here:
>
> http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0908/17orion/
>
>
>
> Windows Live: Make it easier for your friends to see what you’re up  
> to on Facebook. Find out more.
> _______________________________________________
> FPSPACE mailing list
> FPSPACE at friends-partners.org
> http://www.friends-partners.org/mailman/listinfo/fpspace
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.friends-partners.org/pipermail/fpspace/attachments/20090819/a9debcce/attachment.html