Berlin unveils 'crewed spaceship'

[Notebook]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7419793.stm

Key states - Germany, France, and Italy - are said to be very interested.

No change in the UK attitude then!

N.

 

[Urwumpe]

You should edit the title... The city of Berlin couldn't afford developing anything, it is EADS and the German Aerospace Center, who present this in Berlin.

 

[Notebook]

The 'single quotes' are a give away, and the interior...looks like a Bang&Olufsen design from the 1970's. Leather seats? Luxury, pure luxury!

More info here:-

http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/gsp/completed/C18303ExS.pdf

N.

 

[Urwumpe]

The 'single quotes' are a give away, and the interior...looks like a Bang&Olufsen design from the 1970's. Leather seats? Luxury, pure luxury!

Even sat in a German tank? You don't honestly believe we built something out of 40% Mercedes-Benz parts and leave the seats behind.

 

[simonpro]

No change in the UK attitude then!

The UK isn't a key player


(at least in terms of budget)


(edit) And on the subject of the interior, reading what you guys typed makes me think of that old ferrero roche commercial that was in the UK about 5 years ago.
I can just imagine a German tank driver talking to his commander (with crappy fake accent, of course):
"Sir, wif zeez new lether seets you are really spoiling us, ja?"

 

[Notebook]

Reading the ATV Evolution document from above link, I'm a bit confused...

They show a graphic of Australia on page 12, titled
"Possible Landing Area".
The section ends with the paragraph

The results of the analysis are the propellant needs in case that the landing area of the capsule should be in more distance to the fall-out zone as it would be without additional manoeuvres. The distance between both areas without any additional manoeuvre would be between 1000 km and about 2000 km depending of the capsule type and its lift-to-drag ratio. If it seems more useful to enhance both areas much more e.g. to land the capsule in Woomera and to locate the fall-out zone in the South Pacific the additional propellant need could be seen in the figure above. A decision about the most useful methode could be performed in a later project phase.

Are they discussing an abort or emergency situation? I'm assuming in a normal return, they would use a Soyuz type profile, and land in the steppes.
Why would they choose to land in Australia, or am I missing something?

N.

 

[simonpro]

Unless the Russians are involved or we hand out lots of money to them I can't see the ATV-E landing in the steppes. Woomera is the biggest piece of land available from 'friendly' countries, so we'd have to land there if we can't get the Russians onboard.

(edit) That's the problem with Europe, it's full of damned people and mountains and things

 

[Notebook]

Hmm, hadn't thought of that. I'd assumed the Russians would have an involvement in the return.
I'm not the only one confused, the graphic shows two Prohibited Areas, and Woomera is in one of them. Yet, from the quote above

If it seems more useful to enhance both areas much more e.g. to land the capsule in Woomera and to locate the fall-out zone in the South Pacific the additional propellant need could be seen in the figure above

N.

 

[Urwumpe]

Yes, instead of a skip reentry, which is complex (as you can see in the CEV development), they plan to slow down the resource module even more, so it falls shorter as the reentry capsule. That of course means, that propellant needs to be allocated for this maneuver.

The australians would not be very happy if we start dumping toxic rocket modules on their territory.

 

[Notebook]

Well, we've done it before...

http://www.spaceuk.org/bstreak/bs/bs_pics.html

but they've probably forgot.

N.