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| Title: | Space Exploration |
| Notice: | Shuttle launch schedules, see Note 6 |
| Moderator: | PRAGMA::GRIFFIN |
|
| Created: | Mon Feb 17 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Thu Jun 05 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 974 |
| Total number of notes: | 18843 |
580.0. "Joint US/USSR Mini-Shuttle Satellite Inspector" by HYDRA::BIRO () Wed Nov 15 1989 09:00
Executive News Svc.
WP 11/05 Soviet Proposes Joint Mission to Inspect ...
Soviet Proposes Joint Mission to Inspect Satellites;At Conference
of Warplane Designers, Official Describes Plan for Manned Mini-
Shuttle By George C. Wilson Washington Post Staff Writer
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - A top Soviet aerospace official has called
for the United States and the Soviet Union to build and
operate together a manned space vehicle that would inspect the
growing number of satellites orbiting the Earth. At the Friday
windup of the first-of-a-kind conference here at the
University of Michigan, at which U.S. and Soviet warplane
designers discussed the aircraft they had developed to shoot
down each other's pilots, Pyotr Balabuyev, head of the Soviet
Antonov Design Bureau, said the time has come for people on
Earth to keep track of what is in space. "Mankind should have
knowledge of what is orbiting the Earth and what is inside"
space vehicles, Balabuyev said. He "dared" the United States
to redirect its B-2 "stealth" bomber money into a joint U.S.-
Soviet effort to launch a manned satellite inspector. The
Antonov Design team has sketched out a way to launch a two-
person inspector into space from the back of the huge Soviet
AN-225 transport plane -at 600 tons, the largest aircraft in
the world. The midair launch from the AN-225, Balabuyev said,
could be done for one-fourth the cost of rocketing a shuttle-
like vehicle into space from a ground launching pad.
Elaborating on the concept in an interview here, Balabuyev
said the AN-225 would take off with the mini-shuttle on its
back, climb to 30,000 feet, dive to gain airspeed and then
shoot the launch inspector into space during the transport's
pull up. The mini-shuttle, as the Antonov team has designed
it, would weigh 20 tons and carry a payload of five tons.
Adding the weight of the strap-on rockets for the mini-
shuttle, the appendage on the AN-225 would weigh 250 tons,
Balabuyev said. After the inspection vehicle was launched and
had shedded its strap-on boosters, the Soviet designer said,
the crew could fly it from one satellite to another at an
altitude of up to 120 miles. He said one crew member should be
an American and the other a Soviet. The United States and the
Soviet Union engaged in a joint space mission in 1975, when
the Apollo and Soyuz spacecrafts linked. Because Soviet
President Mikhail Gorbachev not only cleared Balabuyev and
other top aircraft designers to attend the three-day seminar
here but also encouraged their presence, the satellite
inspection idea almost certainly represents an extension of
Gorbachev's proposals for open skies. The U.S. Air Force in
the 1950s studied a space inspector vehicle, called Saint, but
it was never built. The current Strategic Defense Initiative
program includes research into unmanned inspection vehicles
for space, with the emphasis on tracking missiles and their
warheads. U.S. aeronautical engineers who attended the seminar
said they were surprised and sometimes stunned at the openness
of the Soviet engineers and test pilots in discussing their
warplanes. Until Gorbachev came to power, these same Soviet
aircraft designers were usually restricted to their home
ground and could say little about their work when they left
their laboratories to attend scientific meetings. "It's
fantastic what they'll tell and discuss now," said C. William
Kaufman, a professor at the University of Michigan's aerospace
engineering department who helped arrange the meeting. Apollon
Systsov, director of Soviet aircraft production, had barely
exchanged greetings with James J. Duderstadt, University of
Michigan president, when Systsov asked how soon they could
begin an exchange program of teachers and students, Kaufman
said. Duderstadt and Systsov agreed on the spot to establish a
program as early as next fall, under which U.S. aeronautical
professors and students would study at the Moscow Aviation
Institute and a Soviet group would come to Michigan. Alexander
Velovich, a branch manager in the Mikoyan Design Bureau who
served as translator during the delegation's weeklong visit
here, said one reason the Soviets came to the university for
this broadest-to-date exchange of technical information on
warplane design was "to realize ourselves as a part of a
worldwide aeronautical community." Kaufman, other U.S.
aeronautical engineers and the Soviets themselves said one of
the main reasons Gorbachev allowed his top scientists to
attend the seminar was to learn how to make a profit on their
aircraft and sell more of their aeronautical products to the
West. A U.S. aerospace executive agreed. "They're selling," he
said.
Bye for now,
JB
| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 580.1 | Never Happen | VOSTOK::LEPAGE | Truth travels slowly | Wed Nov 15 1989 10:33 | 46 |
| Re: .0
I think that in principle this mini-shuttle satellite inspector is
a sound idea. However, I doubt very seriously that we will see such a
jointly developed vehicle for several reasons:
- The people currently in power in Washington are products of the
McCarthy era Cold War paranoia and won't trust the Russians under any
circumstances. I'm not saying that they should be trusted all the time
but the current adminstration has so far shown a profound lack of
imagination in its dealings with the new political climate in Eastern
Europe.
- The US government has for the most part never publicly acknowledged
the existance of most of its sensitive spy satellites. It is not about
to contribute to the development of any sort of vehicle that anyone
especially the Russians (and the American public) could use to actually
see and inspect those satellites.
- American hubris won't allow us to develop anything that will only
make us equal with the Russians. We'd rather go it alone and out do
them.
- The US government will not allow a joint development program of this
sort to proceed due to technology transfer issues and the all
incompassing "for national security reasons" (ever notice when the
President needs a good excuse to do something or not to talk about
something he always uses "for national security reasons").
- This plan is dependent on the use of the Soviet's An-225 cargo plane.
There is no way the US government would allow development of such a
system that relied so heavily on the availability of single a Soviet
component.
- Most American and Soviet satellites (whether military or civilian) fly
higher than the proposed 120 mile altitude ceiling of this mini-shuttle
making it virtually useless.
- Probably most importantly, the administration would consider this
proposal "empty Soviet rhetoric designed to give the Soviets the
diplomatic intiative for making peace with the West and for undermining
the American position in the free world".
Well, nobody asked; it's just my opinion.
Drew
|
| 580.2 | Bad Deal | LEVERS::HUGHES | TANSTAAFL | Wed Nov 15 1989 14:29 | 12 |
| Two more points:
1- The challenge was to take funding from B2 to implement this.
This lets you know what the Soviets think about the B2.
2- The sketchy specs indicate a capability roughly equal to
the National Aerospace Plane currently under development.
All in all, I'd say it's not a serious proposal, but it must have
been an interesting conference.
Mike H
|
| 580.3 | a few more coals in the fire | GUESS::STOLOS | | Thu Nov 16 1989 07:37 | 18 |
| a few more points...
1. the soviet's could build the sat. inspector by themselves,
a sat. inspector can also be a sat. deployer.
2. such a deployment of radar sat. could easily defeat the purpose of
the steath bomber, looking down from space the bomber would be real
noticable.
my humble opinion...
scrap the b2, use the technology in carbon fibers to build large
spaceous inexpensive mobile homes for the working and middle class.
cooperate with the soviets, and hang around where they build their
engeria boosters, take whatever looks good for ideas and go home
and build a booster out of the technology we prefected with the
b2 and the mobile homes.
pete
|
| 580.4 | HL-20 full scale model built | VERGA::KLAES | All the Universe, or nothing! | Thu Jun 04 1992 17:48 | 42 |
| Article: 2429
From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: clari.tw.space
Subject: NASA Langley looking at VW version of space shuttle
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 92 13:37:40 PDT
HAMPTON, Va. (UPI) -- Researchers at NASA's Langley Research Center
are displaying a full-scale model of what they believe could become a
Volkswagen version of the space shuttle.
The HL-20 is designed to be about the size of a small business jet.
It would be launched from atop an existing rocket, such as a Titan III
or Titan IV, carry up to 10 passengers, and be able to glide to a
landing on just about any runway in the world, needing just 10,000 feet
to land.
The prime impetus behind the project is cost, as each shuttle flight
costs an estimated $1 billion. The idea behind the HL-20 is indeed
similar to a Volkwagen -- it should be easy to drive and relatively cheap
to maintain and repair.
The craft has a modular design so NASA can swap out entire units --
from passenger cabins to wings to heat shields. The shuttle long has had
problems with the 27,000 special ceramic tiles that it uses as
protection against the tremendous heat generated in re-entry. This craft
would have just 1,000 tiles.
The HL-20 -- the letters stand for ``horizontal landing'' -- is the
sixth prototype from NASA researchers. Five made it as far as the
prototype stage for testing during 1969 to 1975.
For now, the HL-20 remains a paper project only, and NASA has no firm
plans for building the structure. The need is there, however, said Del
Freeman, assistant chief of Langley's space science division.
``We are exploring ways to reduce cost,'' Freeman said, ``We realize
that's going to be one of the keys to a more robust space program.''
Students at North Carolina A&T and N.C. State universities built the
full-scale model for wind-tunnel tests. A full-scale working model could
be built with off-the-shelf materials and technology, researchers said.
|
| 580.5 | | CHRCHL::GERMAIN | Improvise! Adapt! Overcome! | Mon Jun 08 1992 14:23 | 1 |
| Dyna-soar lives.
|