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Originally Posted by cjl
If no delay is allowed, then why can vehicles get up to the ISS if they have any delays? That's an equally complex orbital rendezvous, and yet we achieve it all the time without difficulty (OK, we used to - however the problems have nothing to do with launching the vehicle to the right orbit). With the new vehicle's elimination of the need for massive cryogenic storage, it should eliminate many problems, and the lack of a parallel staging system eliminates even more. I fail to see what your issue is.
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I try to better explain my opinion.
The "no delay is allowed" is related only with the "one-and-half" launch not with the single-launch of the SLV (my proposal) or the Shuttle, Soyuz and Progress.
As I explain in my previous post, the ISS can wait many months a new launch, while the LSAM/EDS will have an "expiration date" of 95 days.
Also, a launch to the ISS can be done in the daylight or in the night while a launch to the moon must start in the moon night so the LSAM will land in the moon day (and not all dates are good because the LSAM can't land in the last moon days).
The ISS has
no "lunar" day-night, it's close to the earth and has
no "expiration date" (or, exactly,
a very long one) then, the Shuttle/Soyuz/Progress may have
dozens of delays for many months because they may have
INFINITE launch windows (not only "
30") they can be launched
when all systems are ok AND the launch windows is right.
You've seen... the Discovery is arrived to the ISS over 2.5 years after the Columbia accident and (after 2.5 years of research and delays) the Discovery have found the ISS in its orbit... because the ISS has no "expiration date"
...while the LSAM/EDS is like the milk, after its "expiration date" can be only thrown/burned in a trash can/atmosphere!!!
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