AH Challenge: Hermes flies

[TheLoneAmigo]

Hermes was an ESA project to develop a re-usable crew transportation vehicle. Launched by an Ariane 5 rocket, the vessel would transport three European astronauts and 3000kg of cargo to orbit. The project was terminated in 1992, when the fall of the Soviet Union and the increased co-operation between the RKA and the ESA left no need for a European crew transport system.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to see a Hermes program fly before 2010.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

One of the problems with Hermes was the budget. Just like NASA couldn't build both a shuttle and a space station in Nixons time, ESA couldn't afford to build both Ariane 5 and Hermes.

Since Ariane 5 was specifically developed to launch the Hermes (making it too large for commercial satellites), this was a problem. (They got around that by making most launches dual launches, with 2 satellites at once.)

The biggest problem with Ariane 4 was the fuel - they used very toxic hypergolics, which meant that, when the rocket was fueling, they had to shut down the main highway in the Department(!!).

If the whole series had started with Lox/Kerosene (e.g. using the British Blue Streak as the first stage, as the original ELDO launcher did - and note that that was the ONLY stage that was consistently successful), it would be a lot easier to move up a size to launch a Hermes size craft.

OTOH, a PoD that early probably butterflies away the Hermes craft (in that form, and probably by that name). It would not likely butterfly away a similar craft.

For a more recent PoD, how about - after the commercial success of the Ariane 2/3, ESA decides to go Lox/Kerosene for Ariane 4? That would involve a lot more work, and might have been politically/financially infeasible, but still...

Anyway. If we end up with a modular *Ariane 5 (much like the Ariane 4, but bigger), then the Ariane5 4L (4 large liquid boosters) with an enlarged LH2/Lox upper stage might be just the ticket for launching a Hermes, while e.g. a 5 2P would do for launching most satellites.

The peak spending for development could be kept manageable, IMO, and could give us a Hermes.

 

[Beedok]

Canada is in the ESA?

 

[Thande]

The only thing I can think of is that the ESA brings in private investment the way they did with Galileo many years later to help cover the costs, perhaps in exchange for carrying space tourists. But that seems a bit out of character in the late 80s/early 90s.

 

[Xavier]

Honestly, Hermes wasn't the best option for a manned European spacecraft, a boring two/three-module single-use spacecraft like Soyuz would be much better than making a baby-shuttle.

IOW, this or this

 

[Telemond's_Lamb_Chop]

Honestly, Hermes wasn't the best option for a manned European spacecraft, a boring two/three-module single-use spacecraft like Soyuz would be much better than making a baby-shuttle.

Bog off! I did some analysis for the Hermes programme, it was cute to the point of adorability!

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Honestly, Hermes wasn't the best option for a manned European spacecraft, a boring two/three-module single-use spacecraft like Soyuz would be much better than making a baby-shuttle.

IOW, this or this

Bog off! I did some analysis for the Hermes programme, it was cute to the point of adorability!

True, but capsules were passé, and winged shuttles were 'the future', whether or not they made sense economically!

There are a few advantages to winged/lifting body craft - for instance, they're a lot easier to steer back to a landing site. The weight penalty sucks, but that was supposed to be made up for by reusability. Of course, they could have done reusable capsules a lot cheaper....

 

[Archibald]

True, but capsules were passé, and winged shuttles were 'the future', whether or not they made sense economically!

There are a few advantages to winged/lifting body craft - for instance, they're a lot easier to steer back to a landing site. The weight penalty sucks, but that was supposed to be made up for by reusability. Of course, they could have done reusable capsules a lot cheaper....

For the very same crew number a capsule will weight 5-6 tons when anything with lift (wings, lifting body, biconic) will be past 10 tons.

the best ESA could have done would have been an Apollo-like capsule atop an Ariane 44L.

The biggest problem with Ariane 4 was the fuel - they used very toxic hypergolics, which meant that, when the rocket was fueling, they had to shut down the main highway in the Department(!!).

If the whole series had started with Lox/Kerosene (e.g. using the British Blue Streak as the first stage, as the original ELDO launcher did - and note that that was the ONLY stage that was consistently successful), it would be a lot easier to move up a size to launch a Hermes size craft.

A hidden advantage of hypergolics is that, when the rocket explodes on the pad, the fireball is much smaller than LOX/kerosene. That's the very reason why Gemini had ejection seats only.




The early Ariane (1 through 4) were very, very reliable. Even more reliable than Ariane 5. Which is supposed to be man rated. Which proves, by the way, that the term "human rated" is just bollocks.

There were seven failures between 1979 and 2003. Of the seven failures, FIVE (1982, 1985, 1986, 1994 two times) were traced to the HM-7 cryogenic third stage. Ner use that for manned flight, unless you want GEO astronauts

The very two stage core, Ariane 1 > 44L only had two failures over 150 flights or so.
- the second flight, May 1980, was first stage pogo, and never manifested again.
- The other failure is probably The Most Silly Rocket Failure Ever.

February 24 1990. A cloth, a handkerchief a mecanician had forgotten in an engine coolant tube.
The engine overheated, stopped, and the unbalanced Ariane 44L veered off course, missed the launch tower by 2 meters (!) and had to be destroyed later.

Beyond that, no failure of the core. Reliability of Ariane 1 - 4 core was something like 99%. Enough to launch astronauts, even if the rocket was never build for that in first place !

 

[Archibald]

Running in parallel with Hermes erliest studies (1977- 1983) the CNES also studied unmanned material processing platforms called TRIAS, MINOS and SOLARIS.
All featured a very large reentry capsule to bring the processed materials back to Earth.
I've found some bits of information on google books. The Solaris capsule was to be as heavy as 4900 kg. Perfect for an Ariane 3 or 4, and big enough to be manned by astronauts.

But, as said above...

True, but capsules were passé, and winged shuttles were 'the future', whether or not they made sense economically!

Spot on.

There was a kind of shuttle hype at the time. The soviets themselves knew the Space Shuttle economics were crap, from 1972 onwards. Even after Nixon decided to build the shuttle, they were still not convinced !

The soviets really scrapped their Moon plans and build a shuttle they never want from 1974.
The reason ? almost too stupid to be true ! Matematician Keldysh was a paranoid, and then he saw that a) USAF build a pad in California b) the shuttle could land there after a single orbit.
So Keldysh said "Holly crap ! That shuttle is a nuclear bomber ! We have to build a copy of it, just for the sake of balance of military power".

and they build Buran. This is a true story.

 

[Michel Van]

there is other way: East Germany
if the East German leadership had taken "the Tiananmen Square massacre" solution.
there no reunification of two Germany's in 1990, and East Germany become Europa analog to North Korea

so wat has that to do with Hermes ?
one reasion the west Germany kill the mini shuttle in 1991, was they neede the money for reunification.
but with out reunification, they hab give the Money neede for Hermes in 1991
so 2000/1 it had made first test launch in orbit

 

[Shevek23]

there is other way: East Germany
if the East German leadership had taken "the Tiananmen Square massacre" solution.
there no reunification of two Germany's in 1990, and East Germany become Europa analog to North Korea

so wat has that to do with Hermes ?
one reasion the west Germany kill the mini shuttle in 1991, was they neede the money for reunification.
but with out reunification, they hab give the Money neede for Hermes in 1991
so 2000/1 it had made first test launch in orbit

Well, heck, if you want to go that way, why not just have the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact survive intact?

For this purpose, I'd go with a minimal muddling along sort of survival. Mind, even a minimum-frills Soviet regime limping along probably requires a POD back in the early '60s or before that, to explain how a Soviet command economy could get its act together well enough to visibly if perhaps slowly be closing the gap with Western ones.

It helps, in a sad sort of way, that Western capitalism fell on hard times itself in the '70s--so even if the overall rate of Soviet-sphere progress were less than the overall rate in the West, if the Soviet system could soldier on while capitalism was in crisis, that makes up for not doing so well as the West during a boom. That's actually more or less the point of a Leninist planned economy. And is one reason Soviet society had some legitimacy during the 1930s despite the outrages of Stalin--because during the Depression the USSR was the only big economy that was growing.

Anyway, if the Soviet system could make some kind of limping progress, then it would not be ASB for it to survive. They'd be in a better position then to sustain and grow their own manned space program. Dunno if the USA could or would have then been spurred to do more than we did OTL in space, but if that happens, then Europe is as it were caught between two live space programs and thus is spurred to come up with the money to try and catch up.

Meanwhile we get the no-unification scenario you specify quite easily and without condemning East Germany to some kind of self-inflicted special gulag, one that is pretty hard to imagine could exist without the Soviet Union to back it up. But here we can have a much less nasty East Germany and still get the benefit you want, and more.

 

[Telemond's_Lamb_Chop]

For the very same crew number a capsule will weight 5-6 tons when anything with lift (wings, lifting body, biconic) will be past 10 tons.

the best ESA could have done would have been an Apollo-like capsule atop an Ariane 44L.

There is a certain illogic at the heart of your argument. I would not necessarily dispute your first statement but the second is wrong, especially so in the context of your first statement. The best that ESA could have done [one presumes in weight terms] would have been a Soyuz type assembly which is both more weight efficient than Apollo and better aerodynamically.

 

[Telemond's_Lamb_Chop]

and they build Buran. This is a true story.

Buran-Energia was a good design, not high efficiency but a good design, much better than the shuttle. Pity the Soviets and then the Russians couldn't afford it.

 

[Winston Smith]

You know, I thought you meant HMS Hermes and my first thought was that it would take some ASBs to make that happen.

 

[Telemond's_Lamb_Chop]

You know, I thought you meant HMS Hermes and my first thought was that it would take some ASBs to make that happen.

Space Battleship Yamato eat your heart out!

 

[Tovarich]

You know, I thought you meant HMS Hermes and my first thought was that it would take some ASBs to make that happen.

Heheh, yeah, me too.

I suppose deck-crew maybe forgot to untie the Harriers before launch, and they just carry the ship up with them?

That would've been an impressive way for them to bow out!

 

[G.Fieendish]

Canada is in the ESA?

In short, Yes, Beedok, Canada is indeed a paying member of the European Space Agency (Esa for short...).

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

In short, Yes, Beedok, Canada is indeed a paying member of the European Space Agency (Esa for short...).

Actually, I believe that Canada is not a MEMBER state, but something else. There are certainly far closer ties between Canada and ESA than between the US and ESA (at times, I THINK Canada was called an Associate member or something), and Canada has certainly bought into several ESA programs. However, I don't believe that Canada was ever a full member. Certainly a quick perusal of the ESA site doesn't suggest that.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

There is a certain illogic at the heart of your argument. I would not necessarily dispute your first statement but the second is wrong, especially so in the context of your first statement. The best that ESA could have done [one presumes in weight terms] would have been a Soyuz type assembly which is both more weight efficient than Apollo and better aerodynamically.

Better aerodynamically, how? I believe the Apollo capsule has the best lift to drag ratio of any of the capsules, although I could be wrong on that.

Since he said Apollo CAPSULE, I think the statement stands. While the Soyuz system, with 3 modules is far better than the Apollo system with CM and oversized SM, a Gemini style system with a small transtage to support orbital operations with an Apollo style capsule is likely actually your best bet. If you can then get the capsule reusable, why, you're in better shape yet. Only 1/3 of the Soyuz would be reusable if they ever tried to do so (which is no doubt one reason they never tried).

 

[simonbp]

The Apollo-shape is the optimal shape to optimize internal volume per heating load. Soyuz has unnecessarily large sidewall heatshields because of this. The ESA apparently agreed that it was the best shape for a capsule, as they built and flew one...