The History And Logic Behind NASA's New Deep Space Transportation System

By Wes Oleszewski, ANN Space Analyst

In the wake of the loss of the Space Shuttle COLUMBIA as well as subsequent studies and commissions, the Bush administration decided that the United States needed to replace the Shuttle system with a new architecture that would take crews to the Moon and Mars and would also have the capability to safely abort during all phases of boosted flight. A key in that architecture was a spacecraft that NASA named “Orion.”

Orion looked a bit like Apollo, but to anyone who was actually familiar with the Apollo spacecraft, the comparison largely stopped with the shape of the vehicle. The new spacecraft was going to be nothing like Apollo. With a habitable volume inside the vehicle of 316 cubic feet, the Orion is far larger than Apollo which had 218 cubic feet. Thus, Orion can carry six crew members into space compared to Apollo’s three crew capability. Additionally, Orion will have state-of-the-art computing and electronics. Apollo’s Command Module Computer had a memory that, in modern terms, was equivalent to about 72 Kb. A modern MP3 player has over 50,000 times more memory than that. Orion will carry with it advanced computers and the latest in crew interfaces. Additionally, Orion is planned to have aboard one other feature that the Apollo crews could only wish for; a toilet.

To NASA, perhaps the most important aspect of Orion was the ability to safely abort and allow the crew to escape a catastrophic launch failure. In this way it is similar to Apollo in that the crew can use a Launch Abort System (LAS) that consists of an escape rocket and boost protective cover. The LAS allows the crew to get clear of the launch vehicle while it is still on the pad up to and a bit beyond the point of SRB staging. It is a safety feature that was missing from the Shuttle. Following staging the LAS is jettisoned to scrub weight. By that time the spacecraft is able to abort by other means. Following an abort, the Orion would return to earth by way of parachutes and a splashdown in the Atlantic, again in a manner similar to that used in Apollo.

As the Bush administration announced the Constellation Program, which was supposed to replace the Shuttle, NASA set its sights on returning mankind to the moon and then moving on to Mars. Yet that same administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) began to short NASA on the funds needed to make it all happen. Although Constellation enjoyed an amazing level of support in the Congress, (which passed the program by a vote of 385-15 in 2005 and 409-15 in 2008) the progress on Constellation began to slow. The OMB's under-funding of NASA led to Constellation’s deadlines being pushed ever farther back until eventually a “gap” between the first launch of a crewed Orion and the last flight of the Shuttle were three or more years apart and NASA was forced to rent seats on the Russian Soyuz in order to reach the International Space Station. Critics of Constellation gained a loud voice and the stage was set for a president who was anti-NASA to come in and cancel everything; enter Barack Obama.

In his first budget proposal, FY2011, which was served upon the nation on February 1st, 2010, President Obama included zero funding for Constellation. Along with that budget, he effectively ended work on every aspect of the program, including Orion. Of course no one in the Congress had a hint that Obama was going to do that. In fact prior to his election he had specifically said that he would do just the opposite. There was immediate outrage in the halls of Congress on both sides of the aisle and the White House soon responded by saying that the president would change the situation when he visited the Kennedy Space Center to speak about space issues on April 15th, 2010. On that day, Obama announced that, although the rest of Constellation was gone by his hand, he would grant new life to Orion… as a “rescue pod.” Indeed his new plan was to have a single Orion, or perhaps two, constructed, flown up to the ISS and attached there to act as a lifeboat. The president then flew off to attend a fundraiser.

That re-purposing of Orion did not go over well in the Congress. A bill was drawn up that insisted that the United States must have a heavy-lift capability and, with the full guidance of NASA engineers, and a well-earned mistrust of the Obama administration, the Congress outlined what that capability had to be. Included in that requirement was the full restoration of Orion. Of course in politics names mean a lot, thus the Orion was given a new name so as to keep the president from looking as if he had been over-ruled by the Congress. Orion was officially re-named the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, or MPCV. That new vehicle would be launched atop a heavy lift booster monikered the Space Launch System or SLS which was authorized by S.3729 that later became the “National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2010.” Obama reluctantly signed the measure into law and work was again started on Orion.

Although NASA’s politically appointed upper management tried to re-name Orion as MPCV, their effort went over much the same as when a similar gang tried to re-name the Lunar Excursion Module. Thinking (if you can call it that) that the word “Excursion” made it look as if the LEM was going off on some sort of vacation, the ever-doubtful folks infesting some branch of NASA management decided that as of May 19th, 1966, the word “Excursion” would be removed and the vehicle would only be known as the Lunar Module or LM. Of course everyone at NASA, including the astronauts, just ignored that order and kept calling it the LEM. Likewise, the official moniker of MPCV, is now being routinely ignored and everyone, aside from NASA’s politically appointed bosses, has been just calling it Orion. Even the official Orion logo, which was supposed to die with the Obama’s FY2011 budget request, has simply come back to life.

Scheduled to be test flown atop a Delta IV Heavy booster on December 4th, 2014 the first Orion vehicle is ready for its initial unmanned test flight into space; the EFT-1 mission. Some of NASA’s highest management are now touting that this mission clearly demonstrates the wisdom of the president who has set us onto a pathway to Mars. In fact, Obama did no such thing. Yet, there is a general feeling in the spaceflight community that the flight will go well, after all, Orion has been underfunded, cancelled, returned as a rescue pod and finally resurrected by an act of the US Congress; it is a  very determined vehicle.

(Images provided by NASA)

FMI: www.nasa.gov