Nitpicking Lockheed Martin's Infographics
Keith’s note: Lockheed Martin just started a big media rollout for their new cargo concept for NASA’s CRS-2 contract. Included in the PR effort are some infographics. Everyone makes mistakes, but given the large amount of money they are pouring into all of this, you’d think that they’d use a spell checker.
Keith’s update: Looks like they fixed the typos. Here are the original image files [1][2]
Yea, I wrote them once when they came up with their new slogan: “We never forget who we’re working for.”
Since it should of course be “whom” and not end in a preposition I wondered how much they spent on it and if they cared that it was incorrect.
They weren’t too interested in discussing it.
I’ll grant you the ‘whom,’ but the rule about ending sentences with prepositions is awfully prescriptive. That particular rule dates only to the 17th/18th centuries when certain writers thought English should conform to Latin rules. The end result is that going out of your way to avoid a stranded preposition can sometimes lead to sentences that are overly formal – or worse, unnecessarily complex.
Joe,
Proper usage and grammar in advertising and marketing is simply no longer a priority. “Think Different” was the start of it.
Cadillac’s “Dare Greatly” hurts my ears as well – but at least it left the adverb intact (and it’s a reference to an old Roosevelt quote).
There are scores of new taglines which are purposely geared to stick in our brains by throwing out the rules of syntax and usage.
I wouldn’t sweat Lockheed’s error. Besides, given how behind LockMart is- ask not for “whom” the bell tolls.
I am disappointed. I’d hoped for more from a Tug. It seemed such an important piece of space infrastructure a few years ago.
“Think Different” was the start of it.
Back in 1954 Winston started a controversy with its grammatically incorrect ad campaign “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.” (Instead of “as a cigarette should.”) Walter Cronkite refused to say the line. Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies had no qualms about it though, in the sponsor ads that ended early episodes she proclaimed that Winston tastes good “like a cigarette ought-a.”
In the 1970’s Winston tried to counter the unending complaints with a new ad campaign “What do you want, good grammar or good taste?”
Unfortunately it is believed that Winston benefited from rather than was hurt by the grammar controversy.
I thought Granny Klampett said, “Like a cigarette had oughta” but I may be misremembering.
I have the first season on DVD including commercials I’ll check it out.
Update: Your memory is correct that is how she said it, always in response to another cast member saying the first line “Winston takes good”. Although in a couple of commercials Granny is the one saying the first line, in one commercial she says the standard line “Winston tastes good” and in other she says “Winston tastes mighty good”, followed by the other cast member saying “like a cigarette should.”
There’s nothing wrong with ending with “for”.
http://blog.oxforddictionar…
Folks:
They never tell you how they plan to swap the cargo modules with just one arm!
Put ion drives on it and it can go anywhere in CisLunar space… if you don’t mind waiting months each one way trip.
Anyways, it’s a ‘solution’, just an inelegant one is all. Using this system to resupply ISS is the least of its potential and the hardest to pull off.
tinker
Only thing I can think of is a complicated song and dance, using the arm in the following sequence:
Fly to nearby vicinity of Centaur (maybe 100m)
Detach old Exoliner from Jupiter
Release old Exoliner to station keep (figuratively speaking, I don’t mean active station keeping, a little bit of drifting is okay)
Fly to Centaur
Grab onto the Centaur to stabilize it then let go
Pull the new Exoliner off of Centaur
Move away from Centaur
Release new Exoliner to station keep
Go get the old Exoliner and reattach to Jupiter
Fly back to Centaur
Grab onto Centaur to stabilize it then let go
Attach old Exoliner to Centaur
Go get the new Exoliner and attach to Jupiter
Fly to ISS and deliver the new Exoliner
But maybe they can avoid all of this by using the arm to fling the old Exoliner towards Earth, similar to how spacewalking astronauts and cosmonauts have disposed of things like antennas, science experiments and even old Russian spacesuits. The robotic arm of course wouldn’t actually flex and “throw” the Exoliner. Just extend the arm out with the Exoliner attached, then start Jupiter and Exoliner in rotation around each other. I realize there would be a lot of torque on the arm so the acceleration would have to be very gradual. I don’t know the mass of Jupiter but let’s assume it is a little less than Exoliner with trash. I still think it would work, get the rotation going, then at a precise moment let go of the old Exoliner and it will head towards Earth, Jupiter would head away from Earth a little bit so they would have to afterwards readjust its orbit.
They could do all of this soon after departing ISS, unless Exoliner carries fuel needed by Jupiter in which case they would hold onto it and not do the “flinging” until just prior to approaching the new Centaur cargo shipment. The resupply sequence would then be much more simple:
Grab onto the Centaur to stabilize it then let go
Pull the new Exoliner off of Centaur
Attach new Exoliner to Jupiter
Fly to ISS and deliver the new Exoliner
Here’s my guess:
1. Jupiter with old Exoliner grapples Centaur. (this they show in the video – I think)
2. Centaur releases new Exoliner, Jupiter maneuvers grappled Centaur away.
3. Jupiter releases Centaur, maneuvers old Exoliner into docking with Centaur (note that it connects on the other end)
4. Jupiter + old Exoliner + Centaur maneuver back to free floating Exoliner. Jupiter grapples new exoliner.
5. Jupiter disconnects from old Exoliner + Centaur, uses arm to dock to new Exoliner.
Note that in this plan, Jupiter is essentially always connected to an Exoliner. It may have some internal tanks for backup, but my guess is that the Jupiter’s primary tanks are in the Exoliner service module, which doesn’t so much “refuel” as “fuel”.
They would need two anchor points on the tug where the cargo modules could be temporarily attached. The space tug was proposed as part of the space transportation system way back in the 70’s and would still be a useful addition to the station. But is isn’t clear why the centaur stage is needed to deorbit the expended cargo pod; the tug should be capable of providing the needed impulse.
They will reuse the tug, so deorbiting it isn’t planned until the tug reaches its end of life. Since the newly launched cargo pods contain fuel for the tug, the tug’s lifetime is not limited by the fuel it can carry.
People who actually understand space flight ops can figure it out pretty readily …
Please explain????
Based on the pieces that need to be moved, the need to control all elements from start to finish, and the config of the tug I would guess the following:
1) The tub berths itself on the side of the trash container after transferring to the rendezvous point where the supply container will arrive.
2) The tug and trash container approach the Centaur-supply stack and grapples the stack with the robot arm,
3) The tug berths to the supply section of the centaur-supply stack (side mount)
4) The robot arm moves the Centaur stage from the supply canister to the trash container
5) The tug-supply canister stack unberths from the trash-centaur stack while the robot arm maintains its hold on the Centaur
6) The robot arm releases the Centaur
7) The robot arm repositions the supply canister on the tug so they are aligned to thrust along the stack centerline and transfers back to station
8) Centaur de-orbits the trash container
This way, the combined stack is always connected (via berth or robot arm) so that attitudes can be controlled and no free captures are required which introduces risk. Not too hard to decipher the conops on this.
Makes the most sense of any plan I’ve seen. It isn’t consistent with their promotional video, but I guess that doesn’t mean anything.
One added note, you have to realize that the tug can berth on either end so think of the two canisters as slices of bread and the tug is the piece in-between (2-D image) when both are berthed.
Seconded. I’ve been puzzling over this for a while and have come up with possible answers, but they seem complicated.
“Using this system to resupply ISS is the least of its potential “
It would be historic though, the first space tug.
I don’t see how this system improves the resupply of the ISS.
By reusing the most expensive part of the “cargo vehicle” on every flight, which is essentially a satellite bus.
It does little to reduce launch costs though. Since the first launch will carry the satellite bus, which will require more strap-on solids on the Atlas V, that is the source of the small delta in launch costs.
That’s only an improvement if it reduces the overall cost of the program to the point where it is competitive with the current standard for cargo resupply. There’s no evidence this plan will do that.
You’d have a point if NASA hadn’t picked the most expensive commercial crew option alongside the cheapest. NASA has made what I would consider to be dumb decisions in the past. I wouldn’t put it past them to pick a more expensive, but seemingly more reliable, option for CRS-2 to replace Orbital’s Cygnus which has had one launch failure to date.
I’m not arguing the wisdom or lack thereof of choosing CST-100 for commercial crew. That’s a different argument.
Well, if they can’t spell then they’re practically guaranteed the CRS-2 contract!
Arr dey gonna lawnch dis wit Rushin injuns? 😉
Who’s paying for it? CRS2 is a services context, not a development contract like COTS or the crew CCiCap contract. LM will have to compete with existing vehicles and find development funding elsewhere. Nice to see such concepts being created but until they’re funded, they’re just that, concepts.
Cheers
If they don’t fund the development themselves, they’ll lose out on this and future “commercial” contracts which are likely to increase in the future in order to cut overall program costs.
CRS-2 is a chance for “old space” to show “new space” that they can fund development of new concepts when the government forces their hand. I have a feeling that “old space” largely sat out CRS-1 hoping that “new space” would fail miserably, causing NASA to revert back to its old ways of procurement, which would be the US Government funding development of “old space” cargo vehicles.
I also have a feeling that the engineers at the “old space” companies weren’t happy with this, because they knew they could innovate, if they were only given the opportunity by upper management.
Yes, and I’m glad to see them actually jumping in, even though they don’t get the development money. The more players the better, and if LM can learn to compete on price again that would be great.
Putting aside how the song and dance of in-space ops may be, the real challenges for Lockheed or any competitor will be cost per delivery, a known target just going by the CRS awards in 2008, as well as the criteria of the award (best value, or more likely not).
Contrary to many such procurements, the industry counterparts know the answer, or at least I’d assume will study it to the degree that they can understand how the awards this go round will likely be decided.
For one, the follow-up award wants redundancy again, in all likelihood. SpaceX back in 2008 was much less $ than Orbital, both in absolute price per delivery flight as well as on a specific performance basis (Dragon delivering more kg per flight).
So assume the new entrants work out the numbers, they will know they have to knock off Orbital specifically, unless getting very ambitious about knocking their proposed price and capability down to below SpaceX levels. Basically, this round is Orbitals to lose on price alone.
That would mean a new entrant proposing a price of around $270M a delivery for at least a few thousand kg. Alternately, a new entrant can say they’ll deliver more per flight over fewer flights, to reach the total award kg requirements. At the Lockheed scale of 4000kg, as in the article, that can be 5 to 6 flights. For a grand total award of about $2B, that would be about $350M a flight. Atlas alone (including the Centaur) will be about $200-$250M of that. That leaves the $100M for the rest, the reusable propulsion and the throw-away canister. But the arm’s are on there, and other additions. This is the real challange, to see a company that has shown very expensive ways-of-doing business shed those ways to come down to these kind of numbers.
If I am guessing right as well, no up-front funding is to be provided by NASA this go round. SpaceX and Orbital each received about $300M in NASA funding (added to private funding) for development. If any new entrant spends this much, amortizing over the example of 5 flights, that’s $60M per flight baked in before recurring costs. In the Lockheed case that brings a per flight tally of Atlas plus development alone to between $260 and $310M a flight. That leaves $40M for the recurring service, operations and the recurring canister manufacture, etc. Again, key to this is shedding past, expensive habits and ways-of-doing business.
As to being more flexible, or having another use beyond ISS, it will be up to the award process as to if that counts for anything. My understanding is that firm fixed price service awards usually won’t consider or give brownie points for other factors beyond the stated requirements. To have other capabilities beyond ISS included in the selection the request for proposals will have to state this is allowed or expected, meaning all entrants will be given a chance to add value beyond ISS. Because this opens up a world of possibilities, and fairly assessing what is more value beyond ISS vs. another proposal is VERY difficult, “value” being vague vs. “requirements” being firm, this is why I’d speculate this will not be allowed in the award process. So any value beyond ISS will not affect any award, as legally it won’t be able to.
But hey, surprises do occur, and the point about “best value” could enter the fray, given certain forces at work, not all of which are well intentioned. Mostly this will come down to how much pressure is put on ISS and the JSC Transportation Office, probably from high levels, like Gerst, and from the Exploration office, to help out Exploration, with all the risk and none of the reward to ISS itself. Gerst will be thinking this one over long and hard, as many others will as well.
I would assume that the ability to bring cargo to earth was not a requirement since Orbital doesn’t support that but NASA is using SpaceX’s capability. I would expect LM to include some capability that NASA is willing to pay for that isn’t currently supported like the ability to carry to/from space heavy/oversized objects that SpaceX can’t.
Differentiating yourself is a good thing in this case. As the station ages, over-sized cargo (i.e. replacement parts) might very well be needed. The only downside is that you can’t bring back any of the failed over-sized parts for analysis on the ground.
Good discussion. I agree it will get down to the contractual requirements and if it follows on from CRS2 then there won’t be any points for capabilities that the ISS deliveries don’t require.
On the cost side, this may close if LM doesn’t include any development and just sucks that up. Their owners are big enough to do that but if you check Boeing and CCiCap, there was no evidence of such largess.
Cheers
LM might be willing to just eat the development costs if they think that more CRS contracts will follow. With the rise of commercial spaceflight, they might also be willing to do it just so all their eggs aren’t in the Orion basket.
Looks awesome, great to see something like this.
I agree, But can you trust L & M???
You can if CRS-2 is only paying for results, not development costs.
http://m.fool.co/investing/…
If fool is right and L & M loses their 1/2 of the ULA do little money, Won’t they be pretty desperate to game the system for extra cash?
NASA writes the contracts but…?
Link broken. Here is replacement:
http://www.fool.com/investi…
It also strikes me that Bigelow should really be getting into the cargo container business as it has a lot of overlap with what they are already doing.