NASA announcing a return of manned space flight today.

[Brovane]

what ever happened with the group that was redesigning the Saturn V's F1 engines using modern tooling? thought they were getting ridiculous thrust out of them.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/

I would make a trip to see a heavy lift platform akin to the Saturn V with those F-1's tearing up the sky, people say the sound/concussion from shuttle launches were a joke compared to them.

They are still in play for the Advanced Booster program for SLS.

NASA will eventually switch from Shuttle-derived five-segment SRBs to upgraded boosters[29] These may be of either the solid rocket or liquid rocket booster type.[13] NASA originally planned to incorporate these advanced boosters in the Block IA configuration of SLS, but this was superseded by Block IB, which will continue to use five-segment SRBs combined with a new upper stage,[30] after it was determined that the Block IA configuration would result in high acceleration which would be unsuitable for Orion and could result in a costly redesign of the Block I core.[31] Prior to the selection of Block IB, NASA intended to begin the Advanced Booster Competition,[3][32][33] which would have selected an advanced booster in 2015. Though NASA is no longer planning on selecting new boosters for the first flights of SLS,[34] competitors for the advanced booster include:

Aerojet, in partnership with Teledyne Brown, with a domestic version of an uprated Soviet NK-33 LOX/RP-1 engine, an engine derived from the NK-15 initially designed to lift the unsuccessful N-1 Soviet moonshot vehicle, with each engine's thrust increased from 394,000 lbf (1.75 MN) to at least 500,000 lbf (2.2 MN) at sea level. This booster would be powered by eight AJ-26-500 engines,[35] or four AJ-1E6 engines[36] On February 14, 2013, NASA awarded a $23.3 million 30-month contract Aerojet to build a full-scale 550,000-pound thrust class main injector and thrust chamber to be used in the advanced booster.[37] Two standard Aerojet AJ-26 engines, together producing a combined 735,000 lbf (3.27 MN) of sea level thrust, successfully lifted the Antares rocket in 2013.[38]

Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne and Dynetics, with a booster design known as "Pyrios", which would use two F-1B engines derived from the F-1 LOX/RP-1 engine that powered the first stage of the Saturn V vehicle in the Apollo program. In 2012, it was determined that if the dual-engined Pyrios booster was selected for the SLS Block II, the payload could be 150 metric tons (t) to Low Earth Orbit, 20 t more than the baseline 130 t to LEO for SLS Block II.[39] In 2013, it was reported that in comparison to the F-1 engine that it is derived from, the F-1B engine is to have improved efficiency, be more cost effective and have fewer engine parts.[40] Each F-1B is to produce 1,800,000 lbf (8.0 MN) of thrust at sea level, an increase over the 1,550,000 lbf (6.9 MN) of thrust of the initial F-1 engine.[41]

ATK proposed an advanced SRB named "Dark Knight" with more energetic propellant, a lighter composite case, and other design improvements to reduce costs and improve performance. ATK states it provides "capability for the SLS to achieve 130 t payload with significant margin" when combined with a Block II core stage containing five RS-25 engines. However, the advanced SRB would achieve no more than 113 t to low earth orbit with the current core stage with four RS-25 engines.[3][39][42]
Christopher Crumbly, manager of NASA’s SLS advanced development office in January 2013 commented on the booster competition, "The F-1 has great advantages because it is a gas generator and has a very simple cycle. The oxygen-rich staged combustion cycle [Aerojet’s engine] has great advantages because it has a higher specific impulse. The Russians have been flying ox[ygen]-rich for a long time. Either one can work. The solids [of ATK] can work."[43]

 

[bradly1101]

'Manned' appeared nowhere in your original post. That's a tremendously different argument to make.

I thought this whole thread was about manned space flight. We lost one Apollo and two shuttle crews. The risks just don't seem worth it (or the costs).

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I thought this whole thread was about manned space flight. We lost one Apollo and two shuttle crews. The risks just don't seem worth it (or the costs).

All the astronauts think the risks are acceptable and the science we've learned from the manned program have paid huge dividends. Stay in your basement, I'd go in a heartbeat. Everyone loves to gripe about the costs but, they're a drop in the bucket next to military or social programs.

 

[Brovane]

I thought this whole thread was about manned space flight. We lost one Apollo and two shuttle crews. The risks just don't seem worth it (or the costs).

Anything Aerospace related is risky. So we shouldn't do anything risky?

 

[Sulaco]

Some rockets into space help us with satellites, communications, etc. but manned space flight never made much sense to me. We seemingly sent men to the moon to beat Russia there, but what did that get us? By the end of that program they were hitting golf balls up there. Such wisdom gained.

Now we can't stand that we're dependant on Russia to ferry humans to the space station. But what are we learning up there? How to survive long term space flight for a trip to Mars? What's that going to get us? I say use that money to pay teachers more.

Another fail "bradly" insight.

 

[Brovane]

Some rockets into space help us with satellites, communications, etc. but manned space flight never made much sense to me. We seemingly sent men to the moon to beat Russia there, but what did that get us? By the end of that program they were hitting golf balls up there. Such wisdom gained.

Now we can't stand that we're dependant on Russia to ferry humans to the space station. But what are we learning up there? How to survive long term space flight for a trip to Mars? What's that going to get us? I say use that money to pay teachers more.

You do realize that those astronauts brought back over 800+ Lbs of lunar samples and those samples are still being used today by scientists to make discoveries? Those Astronauts where doing a lot more than hitting golf balls.

http://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/index.cfm

Top Ten Scientific Discoveries Made During Apollo Exploration of the Moon


The Moon is not a primordial object; it is an evolved terrestrial planet with internal zoning similar to that of Earth.
Before Apollo, the state of the Moon was a subject of almost unlimited speculation. We now know that the Moon is made of rocky material that has been variously melted, erupted through volcanoes, and crushed by meteorite impacts. The Moon possesses a thick crust (60 km), a fairly uniform lithosphere (60-1000 km), and a partly liquid asthenosphere (1000-1740 km); a small iron core at the bottom of the asthenosphere is possible but unconfirmed. Some rocks give hints for ancient magnetic fields although no planetary field exists today.

The Moon is ancient and still preserves an early history (the first billion years) that must be common to all terrestrial planets.
The extensive record of meteorite craters on the Moon, when calibrated using absolute ages of rock samples, provides a key for unravelling time scales for the geologic evolution of Mercury, Venus, and Mars based on their individual crater records. Photogeologic interpretation of other planets is based largely on lessons learned from the Moon. Before Apollo, however, the origin of lunar impact craters was not fully understood and the origin of similar craters on Earth was highly debated.

The youngest Moon rocks are virtually as old as the oldest Earth rocks. The earliest processes and events that probably affected both planetary bodies can now only be found on the Moon.
Moon rock ages range from about 3.2 billion years in the maria (dark, low basins) to nearly 4.6 billion years in the terrae (light, rugged highlands). Active geologic forces, including plate tectonics and erosion, continuously repave the oldest surfaces on Earth whereas old surfaces persist with little disturbance on the Moon.

The Moon and Earth are genetically related and formed from different proportions of a common reservoir of materials.
The distinctively similar oxygen isotopic compositions of Moon rocks and Earth rocks clearly show common ancestry. Relative to Earth, however, the Moon was highly depleted in iron and in volatile elements that are needed to form atmospheric gases and water.

The Moon is lifeless; it contains no living organisms, fossils, or native organic compounds.
Extensive testing revealed no evidence for life, past or present, among the lunar samples. Even non-biological organic compounds are amazingly absent; traces can be attributed to contamination by meteorites.

All Moon rocks originated through high-temperature processes with little or no involvement with water. They are roughly divisible into three types: basalts, anorthosites, and breccias.
Basalts are dark lava rocks that fill mare basins; they generally resemble, but are much older than, lavas that comprise the oceanic crust of Earth. Anorthosites are light rocks that form the ancient highlands; they generally resemble, but are much older than, the most ancient rocks on Earth. Breccias are composite rocks formed from all other rock types through crushing, mixing, and sintering during meteorite impacts. The Moon has no sandstones, shales, or limestones such as testify to the importance of water-borne processes on Earth.

Early in its history, the Moon was melted to great depths to form a "magma ocean." The lunar highlands contain the remnants of early, low density rocks that floated to the surface of the magma ocean.
The lunar highlands were formed about 4.4-4.6 billion years ago by flotation of an early, feldspar-rich crust on a magma ocean that covered the Moon to a depth of many tens of kilometers or more. Innumerable meteorite impacts through geologic time reduced much of the ancient crust to arcuate mountain ranges between basins.

The lunar magma ocean was followed by a series of huge asteroid impacts that created basins which were later filled by lava flows.
The large, dark basins such as Mare Imbrium are gigantic impact craters, formed early in lunar history, that were later filled by lava flows about 3.2-3.9 billion years ago. Lunar volcanism occurred mostly as lava floods that spread horizontally; volcanic fire fountains produced deposits of orange and emerald-green glass beads.

The Moon is slightly asymmetrical in bulk form, possibly as a consequence of its evolution under Earth's gravitational influence. Its crust is thicker on the far side, while most volcanic basins — and unusual mass concentrations — occur on the near side.
Mass is not distributed uniformly inside the Moon. Large mass concentrations ("Mascons") lie beneath the surface of many large lunar basins and probably represent thick accumulations of dense lava. Relative to its geometric center, the Moon's center of mass is displaced toward Earth by several kilometers.

The surface of the Moon is covered by a rubble pile of rock fragments and dust, called the lunar regolith, that contains a unique radiation history of the Sun which is of importance to understanding climate changes on Earth.
The regolith was produced by innumerable meteorite impacts through geologic time. Surface rocks and mineral grains are distinctively enriched in chemical elements and isotopes implanted by solar radiation. As such, the Moon has recorded four billion years of the Sun's history to a degree of completeness that we are unlikely to find elsewhere.

 

[Paratus]

Yeah $18.4B is chump change According to this the total since 1958 is over $555B. What have we got out of it besides bragging rights and pretty pictures?

I just had to point out that 50+ years of NASA, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, 135 shuttle flights, ISS, Voyager, pioneer, Hubble , Mars all for less that one year of DOD funding. :hmm: