Pretty rocket, or lipstick on a pig? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 01:26:54 am
content: NASA appears to have adopted a "Moonraker" style paint job for the upcoming SLS vehicles.Cool? No? I don't recall them ever "dolling up" a rocket before. Perhaps makes it look too commercial?Source article:http://spaceref.com/sls/nasa-completes-critical-design-review-for-space-launch-system.html

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 01:32:00 am
content: They've always painted up their rockets to look good. Putting things like "NASA" in huge letters along the length of the rocket never resolved an ambiguity for anyone. It just got their name on TV more.

author: Muttley Snickers
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 01:33:07 am
content: It looks like surface rust to me, a wire brush in an angle grinder should fix it......

author: Stuart Coyle
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 01:52:35 am
content: Those stripes make it go faster.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 01:55:19 am
content: They could have gotten a better designer. The basic shape betrays its "Back to the Past" design philosophy, and the paint job doesn't really cover it. I am sure someone could have made this pig look prettier.

author: apis
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 02:08:39 am
content: I always assumed rockets were painted white to prevent uneven heating by sunlight and the risk of warping. But maybe it doesn't matter in practice.

author: Muttley Snickers
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 02:18:04 am
content: At least it wont clash with Mars, actually they might have trouble finding it again with that colour scheme, camouflage perhaps.

author: bills
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 02:31:23 am
content: It's not paint it is the color of the insulation on the hydrogen tank, saves 600 lbs.http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2015/20151022-sls-now-orange.html

author: bills
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 02:43:39 am
content: It's probably some wiz bang special foam ( they don't want it falling off during launch)

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 06:12:39 am
content: The orange of the core stage is of course the natural color of the insulation (and it does fall off--see Columbia disaster), but the interesting thing is the swoopy stripes on the boosters. It's like the choice of how to deal with an unavoidable element between hiding it or celebrating it, they chose "celebrate."Nominal paint schemes on rockets often included black roll stripes against white to make optical rate measurement at a distance easy, or for thermal management, but this is obviously completely cosmetic. It's rather more "Hollywood" than NASA usually goes. At least they're not selling ad space.

author: forrestc
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 06:41:39 am
content: Quote from: bills on October 23, 2015, 02:43:39 amI'm sure it's a close cousin to, if not the final formulation of the foam on the shuttle external tank.

author: GNU_Ninja
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 07:22:54 am
content: If they stick a couple of Batterisers on them boosters they could get up to 800% more boost

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 07:34:46 am
content: Sure, the orange is the usual insulation. The shuttle saved lots of weight when they stopped painting it white, IIRC.But I assume that the OP is talking about the diagonal stripes on the SRBs?(also, it's an "Artist's Concept", not an actual photo. Just NASA doing their best to fuel those conspiracy theories, you know. (hyper-realistic CGI/drawing))

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 10:10:28 pm
content: Looks good, better than the black and white Apollo era paint job. I just hope that the damn thing works and they land on Mars in my lifetime.

author: Deathwish
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 23, 2015, 10:23:27 pm
content: They need to paint go faster stripes down the sides.

author: HP-ILnerd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2015, 03:32:13 am
content: A friend of mine suggest they go seasonal, so like green for St. Patrick's day.Seriously though, the more I think about it the more like floral prints on toilet paper it becomes. Presumably they're planning on recovering/refurbishing those SRBs like they did on Shuttle, so the paint will be ruined after the flight, adding one more thing to fix.

author: LukeW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2015, 06:03:35 am
content: They painted the external tank white on STS-1 and STS-2, but they stopped doing this since there's about 300kg of paint added there for no reason, and you can use that weight budget for payload instead

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2015, 10:26:58 am
content: Just like aircraft generally have a bare skin with a gloss polish, so as to save the 100kg of paint added to it that costs fuel to move around. The only places that need a protective coating on the skin are the joins, which generally have a sealer applied to the surfaces before assembly to hold them together, the rivets just being there as back up support and to keep any delamination from being an issue.Now as it costs at a minimum of $2000 to lift a kilo of mass into LEO any mass saving is very visible as an extra payload item. Incidentally that is why cubesats are so cheap to launch, as they simply take up unused space in a fairing that would otherwise be unused, and also the mass is removed from the ballast mass, required to balance the payload mass to have a centre of gravity that coincides with the thrust axis of the rocket. Minimal choice as to final orbit there, and no launch power provided though you will need to have a deployment system that powers it on only when deployed after the main payload leaves the frame.

author: crispy_tofu
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2015, 10:39:29 am
content: Quote from: HP-ILnerd on October 23, 2015, 06:12:39 amIt's all about the Pentiums...

author: lapm
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 24, 2015, 12:51:39 pm
content: Maybe its color coded. If its rust red, do not puncture plates because it will explode in your face..