Why is the next NASA spacecraft, The Orion

going back to a capsule design?

why did NASA decide to go back in time?

it just werks

NASA is full of brainlets now.

It works. I guess. I feel that trying to further improve the shuttle would be beneficial, but ...no funding? I guess. Idk.

capsules are safer and there's no reason to haul wings into space.

o rly?

Dream Chaser is looking pretty good for its role. It's amazing how much simpler it became by transporting just crew or just cargo. Much better design than the Shuttle, made by one company rather than by committee.

Capsules are better, lifting body spacecraft that launch like capsules are the best, space-planes are the worst

This

Shuttle had a horrific failure rate. Capsules have a pretty damn good success rate.

>tfw

>Single black guy actually doing work while all the women are posing for a girl-power photo.

NASA is a meme place to work nowadays.

This like saying that semi-trucks are objectively superior to cars because they can hold more stuff, and thus everyone should be using them all the time. You don't always need a fuck huge amount of storage and equally fuck huge amount of expenditure that goes with it, whether or not you fill all it's space.

capsules are easier to build modular spacecraft with

>a meme place
Lrn2meme fgt pls

What the fuck!

How can a control room be mostly women.

Same way any other room can be. Put a bunch of women in it. Boom, it's now mostly women in there.

Does the capsule design cost less money? Does it allow us to go further without as much spending?

If so, what's the negative?

Orion is designed for missions beyond LEO, so it doesn't need wings.

If it's job was just to ferry people between earth and LEO, wings could be considered. However, if you want to tow a space rock into lunar orbit, you don't want to haul stupid ass wings while you are at it. Same if you wanted to visit mars or something. Wings have limited use in space

they already had a guy come out and announce they forgot how to get to the moon, bro, they have to work backwards.

Capsules allow for a greater variety of landings than space plane designs.

Want to land on the Moon? Wings are useless.
Want to land on Mars? Wings are useless.

You can keep the capsule in the stack, part of the landing craft, and then return it to Earth. Space planes just won't be as convenient for such a configuration.

Basically, space planes = LEO.

You mean the guy who said that the van Allen belts are a big problem?

Gotta take things on context mate. The electronics, especially computers, we use now are much more sensitive than those in the Apollo program.
Secondly, Orion is being designed for "deep space" missions, so paths through the upper van Allen belts may not be convenient like it was for the moon landings.

whats this thing gonna fly on, falcon heavy? vulcan? new glenn? SLS ain't ever gonna go up

>NASA
>Next spacecraft
You're a funny guy OP

Well it's already flown on a Delta IV Heavy.

Dream Chaser isn't remotely the same kind of thing as the shuttle, setting aside the fact that it isn't finished, may never actually fly, and if it does, may not live up to expectations.

The shuttle was simultaneously:
- a heavy lift launch vehicle
- a precision orbital maneuvering and docking vehicle, for its full heavy-lift payload, and with a 15 meter-long arm for deployment, capture, and other interaction with targets
- a heavy cargo return vehicle
- a habitable LEO vehicle for moderately lengthy stays (17 days demonstrated, 30 days proposed), with about 75 cubic meters of pressurized volume (which could be roughly doubled with modules in the cargo space), capable of supporting repeated spacewalks
- a crew transport vehicle to space stations

Dream Chaser well be, at best, only one of those things. The shuttle failed in its primary goal of demonstrating a cost-effective method of reuse and in its important mission of providing reliable, regular launch services, but it was still an extremely capable, versatile vehicle full of features which would be very interesting in a more economical system.

You might reasonably compare the complete Dragon/Falcon system with the space shuttle, but not Dream Chaser alone.

>Want to land on the Moon? Wings are useless.
Atmospheric entry capsules are also useless. For returning to Earth, winged vehicles have many advantages over simple capsules.

>Want to land on Mars? Wings are useless.
No, wings are very useful for landing on Mars, especially for a precision landing. It's even possible to fly helicopters on Mars. It would be hard to use fixed wings for the actual touchdown, unless you build a landing strip first (which might not be all that hard), but you can get to quite a low speed for rocket thrusters to finish the landing with.

And Orion would be entirely useless for landing on Mars. Orion's strictly for landing on Earth. It has no role in Mars missions. It's designed for moon orbit missions (and originally was supposed to mainly be for ISS visits).

The real issues are:
1) Wings are heavy. They add considerable mass, which is expensive for interplanetary missions.
2) Wings are hard. When you design a winged vehicle, you really want to test it out thoroughly before you depend on it for an important mission.

Because it's vastly more efficient and generally superior than a hueg spaceplane. Space Shuttle was a mistake.paraato orbit just to dissipate all the energy back.

MAKS/Spiral/manned X-37 proposal/Dreamchaser make much more sense than Shuttle, and aren't very different from capsules (although Klipper-like hybrid designs are more mass efficient).

>capsules are safer
Depends on many things. SpaceX-style landings are inherently more dangerous: you have a bunch of high thrust high chamber pressure hypergolic engines and fuel tanks right next to the crew.

For precise terrestrial landings, spaceplanes or hybrid designs like this are definitely safer. For not so precise ones, classic Apollo/Soyuz/TKS style capsules are way to go.