Slashdot Mirror
NASA Gets Smart
Shadrone writes "There is a article on CNN which discusses NASA thinking about sending up another U.S. module to serve as the main Service Module if Russia continues on its MIR first schedule." International cooperation sounds great on paper, but NASA got hosed - Russia took our money, then took some more, and NASA's finally giving up on them.
Russia took our money, then took some more, and NASA's finally giving up on them.
WTF?? The USA is complaining when it leverages its own hegemony over the unipolar political landscape to crush whomever it wants? Slashdot needs to grow up and learn some journalistic intergrity here. Bias is not looked upon very kindly and your shareholders will realize it in a hearbeat. Try looking at the other side of the story. Jealous with Mother Russia's technological leadership in long-duration spaceflight, the USA decides to use its money and corrupt power to broker an end to the successful Mir program. How is Russia stealing money from the USA? If only we had less scruples, we could beat the USA at its own evil game. Perhaps if the USA spent as much money educating their children as they spend buying votes in Latin America, they will not need to peddle their influence elsewhere.
...not to module itself but to Proton, how is NASA going to launch their new module, that I can't expect weighting less than Russian one? Using a giant slingshot? By three shuttles, tied together by a rope? By assembling all Republicans together and praying? The whole point of using Proton was that it's the only currently available vehicle that can launch heavy modules reasonably cheap, and the whole space program, including the station is already underfunded.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
The point here isn't that we're expecting russia to do something we shouldn't, it's that russia has been stalling and stalling saying "Okay, okay, no problems comrade, just a little more time and we'll have the module ready. And how about a little more cash while we're at it?"
How often NASA itself manages to fit into originally planned cost and do everything without delays? And was there ever as heavy as this criticism of NASA for anything short of blatant mission failure?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Don't blame Russian economy either -- I lived there, and it worked just fine until governmental control was dismantled (1988-91). The problem was entirely political -- government managed to piss off intellectual elite so much, and corruption was so widespread, that nothing short of complete reconstruction of political system ("reconstruction" => "perestroika" in Russian) seemed to be sufficient to keep the society together, yet economy worked fine just like it worked for decades. When political changes started, government simply screwed up too much to do any kind of transition to society that was supposed to be more free and democratic in both politics and economy -- at that moment economy started going downhill very fast and came to the current sorry state.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
One way it could make sense would be if corporations fund it, in exchange for research of manufacturing in a low-G environment... Once the doors are opened, we would likely see consumer demand for these products, which would spur more private funding, etc.
Hopefully, NASA will wake up to the fact that the only people to have witnessed man's walk on the moon are all over thirty years old.. Could NASA put another man on the moon? Let's forget about manned Mars missions for a bit, and let's go back to the moon, it's a lot closer...
<rant>
And while I'm on the topic, I cringe every time any press release about Mars includes any comments to the fact that there 'may have been life' there. Who cares? Just trying to drum up NASA interest in the drooling media-sheep in the US...
</rant>
Yeah, they bought a spare service module from the Air Force for $150 million and abandonned it. Second rule of government spending: if you can't find outside solicitors, buy stuff from other divisions of yourself and complain about not being able to tax mail order catalogs.
Hold on a bit man. Russians are not red commies. As frequently red commies are far from loving Russia. And on what counts about the "civilized world" I would put a lot of ... here.
Russia is hard to understand even for a Russian. No wonder everyone here says "Rossiya umom ne ponyat" (Russian cannot be understood by reason).
About downhills. "Khotelos kak luche a poluchilos kak vsegda". (Wanted the best but got the usual as always)
There is one such platoform. Russia and Ucrania had a big role on it. And it was built during the current state of affairs.
Sorry but is not maybe because corruption and graft have lowered downhill? Frankly things are much better now. With exception of a few big towns that seem to run the other way...
Man, this is Russia. To get into it you must be a Russian. Even if your father was a jew, your mother a german, your roots from China and you have lived among Papuasians. "To be a Russian you must become a Russian".
Yes there is corruption, crime, moneylaundering, the economy is in bad state and democracy is still far from being perfect. But Russia still lives. 17 of August 98 passed by and we are still living and running on. Chechnya is in its second war and this time we are going to kick these bandits outta here. Yeap everyone thought that cutting IMF credits would "reason" Russia but it is now that Russia is pushing the new phase of the Space Program.
Personally I live much better than 10 years ago. And many of my colleagues have noted a serious lifwe improvement since 1995. My living conditions are not the same as in America. But they are not worse or better. They are _different_. Please note this. We are _different_. we would be glad to work with you on ISS but it seems that politicians and some burrocrates are messing a lot around here. That is there main reason why ISS is not going further. Please understand, can you accept the command of someone that thinks "my country is a worldleader and yours a banana republic". Meanwhile you carry almost 20 years of round-the-clock space experience and no one has nearly such experience.
Frankly I know what will be ISS if such thing happens. A wholescale mess. In Siberia I have worked with a few westerners. One thing I remember. Panick in their eyes when, in the middle of a serious problem, someone cries "I have an idea". Yeah the crazy Russians decided once again to "go through the ass"...
They just never got anywhere
That's exactly my point. NASA/DOE and Co just had 4 crashes in a year, resorting to buying engines/boosters from competitors, while spitting PR bullshit on how Russia is setting back ISS. AFAIK, it was US people who were positevely insisting on skipping November window for launch after Proton crash. (Though Proton still has a better record than Delta's say nothing latest Titan)NASA bought shitload of know-how for peanuts - the money Russia got will not buy a toilet seat for shuttle -- and still spinning it as if Russians are only ones to blame for delays.
beause the Rusians haven't figured something out.
Why is then they were thinking on adopting Russian spacewalking suit design?Knowing a lot of guys from NASA, and some Russian engineers now working there this PR spinmastering makes me sick..
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
The West isn't propping up Moscow out of simple charitable feelings. The money is to stop the Russian Federation from collapsing. This is important because:
(i) If the government can't keep its people fed, there will be revolution. Remember that; they have a century-old tradition of it in that part of the world. In case the younger generation should forget (unlikely), there are still a number of Russians alive who remember 1917.
(ii) If there is revolution it might put Russia and its neighbours back in the hands of the Communists but judging from recent events I'd say it's far more likely that the Nationalists would take over. There's a lot of racism in Russia, particularly anti-Semitism; what with the need for scapegoats and economic collapse It wouldn't be much different from the Nazi Germany of the 1930's.
(iii) If Moscow loses it's grip, the Federation would break up. Russia would probably invade some of its neighbours to take back what they see as rightly belonging to them.
(iv) Not only Russia but several present members of that Federation are nuclear states. If basic necessities were scarce, and the people desperate enough, and those states were at war with each other, those weapons might well get used. Apart from the radioactive contamination of the rest of Europe, there is a significant risk that other powers would get involved and that the conflict could not be contained.
(v) Even if Russia managed to survive all of that without starting a local nuclear war, it would necessarily be a much tougher, more militant, fiercely Nationalist Russia than we see now. A Russia once again in total control of the region's resources, and just as much of a threat to the West as the old 1960's USSR if not much more so.
(vi) Apart from all of that, if Russia doesn't ally itself to the West in the long term then we always run the risk that they will ally themselves with China, with potentially disastrous results for the West.
If the only way to avoid these risks is to pump money into Russia until their democracy matures and they manage to get their economic act together, then so be it. We have no choice really. The Russians know it, too.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
In the abstract that might be true. With the europeans in particular. But in this case, Reagan's original plan for a station was LARGER that the current station, and projections predict would have probably cost the american taxpayers less.
This is an interesting argument. Can you provide specific references to back it up?
Two important points:
1. We can't count on congressional budgeting for anything, much less an "American Only" space station. Without international political pressures and the political dimension in general, do you really think it likely that congress would have continued to provide funding for a project which was certain to go over budget from day one? (This is, after all, the first time we've done this, and the first time anyone has done something like this on this scale. I don't know anyone who expected it not to run into unexpected glitches and cost overruns.)
2. The political dimension should not be dismissed so quickly simply because we all, justifiably, feel a great deal of contempt for politicians. In addition to building an important scientific platform we are building social and political infrastructure and institutions to facilitate internation cooperation which I think can be expected to lead to cooperation in other areas once the IIS is a success. In a time where Austria, birthplace of Hitler, has chosen (democratically, no less!) to move back to the extreme right, when Yugoslavia has torn itself apart in genocidal madness reminiscent of World War II, when Russia stands in political and economic turmoil the consequences of which are known to know on, etc. etc. we need all of the stabalizing factors in the international milieu we can get. The ISS is a small, but physchologically (and politically) very important. Of course, the UN, which we've finally begun paying our dues to again, is a much bigger and more important component, but that is a tirade for another day.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
It's short-sighted to blame NASA for the problems with ISS.
ISS is first and foremost a politically-based program that is underwritten by Congress for reasons other than advancing science. It may well help advance science in certain ways, but it explicitly will not help us get to Mars, except in generating more reams of data on weightless living.
What ISS is, mainly, is a prototype international PROJECT that only incidentally happens to be an engineering feat at 212 nautical miles above sea level.
The Interim Control Module was first proposed a long time ago, and initial construction took place last year (converting some prior classified project's equipment that had never been launched). The schedule was revised many times to allow for the ICM launch if the Russian control module wasn't ready by N; N has come and gone and been reset a couple of times since then, for both US and Russian reasons (shuttle wiring, Proton launch failure).
NASA, all things being equal, would readily launch the ICM in a New York minute if it would keep the ISS project funded and running. Unfortunately, the decisions about such things are really made at a very high political level, and launching the ICM would be a major embarassment for Russia. The White House doesn't want that, so the ICM will <b>only</b> be launched if there's <b>no other way</b> to prevent the existing pieces (Zarya, Node I) from de-orbiting on their own.
NASA was always smart about this; their hands were tied. If you'd like to know more about how the ISS came to be a US/Russian/European/Japanese project, I suggest reading Brian Burroughs's _Dragonfly_ (about the Shuttle-Mir astronauts, including the fire and collision).
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
While I commend the engineers who designed the ISS i truely feel bad about the blueprints needing a political stamp on them. Some of the reasons for building the ISS is as a stepping stone to the moon and Mars. This is nice in theory but remember the ISS will be orbiting a few hundred scant miles while the moon is a couple hundred thousand miles and Mars is half an AU. In relative terms the ISS is not a stepping stone, rather a pepple displaced by your foot. Besides not being very effective as a stepping stone to the solar system it also has too low of an orbit to get really useful information about longterm spaceflight. Namely the station orbits under the Van Allen radiation belts which would provide a good training area for both design engineers and the crew of the station. High energy particles are indeed dangerous but they can be worked around. If the station were put into a geosynchronous orbit it would require alot of energy to get it up there but the power to keep it up there would be negligible whereas the low orbit needs almost constant correction. A geosynchronous orbit IIRC is in the realm of 12000 or so miles which would bring it just that much closer to the moon. I figure the station can be built in low orbit which requires smaller amounts of energy to reach and then boosted into a much higher orbit using ion propulsion or some such means. The shuttle might even be equiped with ion thrusters of its own to use once it reaches low orbit to get up to the station. Another benefit of a geosynchronous orbit would be the ability to fit the ISS with measurement and communication gear so it could doubly serve as a space platform and communication/weahter satillite. NASA could make some extra revenue by renting out a spare pylon to rent out as an independant commsat or such. The real problem with the ISS in my estimation is it is trying to spread itself too thin, I personally think a handful of smaller stations ought to have been built a la Skylab to perform a specific function. One for 0g medical research, one for industrial research (both in mid-level orbits) and then a proof of concept "deep space" research station in a higher orbit to test design and crew stresses in more hostile parts of space. Dedicated task stations would have the ability to be upgraded but wouldn't need to cram everything together giving the crew much more living space so they didn't end up going crazy like the people on Mir.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
While I think that since NASA is the single largest Space Agency in the world, and therefore should have a leading role, it should not be the only player when it comes to advancing our progress into space.
It does not make sense to NOT use the resources of the many other highly advanced space agencies (inclding Russia, Japan, and Europe) and their supporting economies to build a large platform orbiting the earth. If the US did it alone it would be smaller, less diverse, and while still invaluable, ultimitely a burden on the US economy.
The problem with the ISC and Russia is not anything technical, it is Russia's lack of economic and political stability. It will be some time before those issues resolve themselves, but I'm sure they will. I think that within the next 5-10 years Russia wil be strong both internally and economically and will be a valuable partner.
It will help when MIR finally hits the Deck too...
So does anyone know what is wrong with the Proton rockets?
I know, it's terribly amateurish and boneheaded to point out that NASA has paid hundreds of millions of dollars and that Russia has fulfilled their end of the bargain by sending up ... nothing.
I'll do my best to keep up this level of amateurishness and boneheadedness in the future. Thanks for your input.
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Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
The US has designed engines since the Saturn V days. They just never got anywhere. There was a cool nuke based one that was even test fired but it was designed by a completely different set of now retired Germans. We need to point out to congress that the people who put the first man on the moon are rapidly taking a huge amount of information to their graves. I've meet a number of these men and the stories they tell are great. I remember having a long talk about the space suit by the head of life support for the Apollo program where he was telling me the details about some of the space suits that is still considered secret beause the Rusians haven't figured something out. I've been told that most of the Apollo documents no longer exist.
Keep in mind NASA is still running the Jet Propulsion Laboratory which has lead the way in ummm... wait a sec they don't don't do jet propulstion research but they did do lots of other cool things like perl.
A Saturn V launch was a damn impressive sight.
Space Station Freedom is a watered down version of something that was more or less completely useless to begin with. We don't need another SkyLab or Mir which only exists for scientific purposes. We need something that can build things in space.
That would help the space program, and have a chance at being worth the money.
Artist's conception of International Space Station BURNING IN HELL.
It makes me angry.
Ignore Alien Orders
admittedly, many red commie russians and chinese are scum and not fit for the civialized world. of course, every other country faces the same issue. The USA (for example) has a lot of hate filled people who would rip you off in an instant.
it seems (from somes russians i've had the pleasure of meeting) that russia is kinda in a state of economic upheaval, with many power factions, some of which are nothing but corrupt organized criminals.
it wouldn't suprise me if the people doing the organizing had the best of intentions, but it went downhill from there.
isn't there multinational effort to launch sattelites froma floating platform in the pacific? based in long beach or therabouts? that project went well, but i think it was organized and built before the current state of Russia.
one person i respect very much used to visit russia twice yearly, but stopped two years ago; he could no longer stand the corruption and graft everywhere.
it's a shame to see such a wondrous nation fall so low, but "mother russia" has a long history of these cycles.
maybe a nice thread would be "How does a country recover when it sinks into chaos and corruption, as the United States did a few times in the earlier part of this century? What can be done to help them? These are people we're talking about, a lot of good people.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Ok Russia has problems and serious ones. Starting from all the mess that came out from the fall of Soviet Union and its crappy economy. Sincerly what have happened with the Soviet Space Program in its last years can be called only a circus. There was one cosmonaut that had to pass almost an year on Mir because there was no money to pick him up... :) he lift-off from USSR and landed in the Russian Federation).
(Besides he became the first time-traveller
That Russian Space Project is suffering a lot of drawbacks is a fact. And that Mir has to be sent to ground sooner or later is also a fact.
However when NASA is playing a lot of negativisms all over that state of Russian cosmonautics, when Russians only hear that they have crap, dissidency and corruption, when they only hear ISS rulez and Mir sucks, then they start seriously thinking.
Frankly the problem is not only money. It is more a political problem than financial. Yes there is crap, dissidency and corruption. But there is a piece of metal and electronics that's still working after 15 years and Russians are damn proud of it. Because after the all mess that is passed through the thing still works. And Russians should be damn proud for it. Because after all attempts made by other countries have FAILED. Note: FAILED. And one reason for ISS was the fact US had big troubles to proceed it on their own. Remember where project "Freedom" was ending into when people arised ISS idea.
I am pretty sure that Russians could have ended ISS module long ago. Among all the crap, dissidency and corruption they have. However when some distinguished American citizens made a lot f silly comments about ISS and specially about some "foggy" leading role of the US on it, then it is natural that there is no money for ISS. Russians are not rich but also not stupid. They will not make a favur to the US and then get kicked of Space while Mir is laying 2 kilometers under water.
Note that the last of the least on ISS started when these "foggy" comments appeared on mass media and when all over we heard about how Mir sucks to the bottom of the heart. Naturally Russian started thinking. And now they made a choice. Resources dedicated to ISS are being redirected to Mir. Why? Because they are not willing to build "Freedom" station to US. They cooperated with the US as long as ISS was a cooperation enterprise among several countries. It is no more.
If anyone thinks that Russians are in this way buuilding their own grave then beware. These guys have surprised everyone everytime. Just in case remember that Mir II is still on the ground... I wouldn't be very surprised if suddenly they took it, made a wholescale refurbisment and sent it to Space. They are smart to deal with resources.
Easy to blame.. Did you know - The Russian module is ready, sitting there at Baikonur. It is not launched because of two recent Proton crashes. It does not strike me as anything out of the ordinary - remember 2 Titan-IV in a row? And 2 delta III's Russian rockets are surprisingly reliable - it is no coincidence Lokheed Martin is going to use Russian engines for its new booster while Boeing is bying Zenith III's for the Sea Launch. US companies did not design new engines since last German engineers, who made Saturn V retired. Gimme a break. Let NASA launch it's own shuttle first, then start pointing fingers. Me thinks its all political - looking for somebody to blame for NASA's own setbacks..
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
If NASA were "smart" it would have become the anchor tenant of the Commercially Developed Space Facility recommended by the Dept. of Commerce's Office of Commercial Space rather than killing it. By the way, but Malcolm Baldridge, champion of the CDSF approach to near-term access to space for commercial enterprises, financed by private capital, was killed when his horse got spooked while he was in a parade. The Commerce Department's Office of Commercial Space was subsequently taken over by a man who had been chief counsel for NASA.
Seastead this.
Washing ton Post
BBC News
Most people forget that the reason why the Russians are involved in the ISS is because of their long experience of long-term human spaceflight and spacestation construction, i.e. Mir. The idea was that the ISS would be a great political exercise, and NASA would be able to learn a lot from Russians.
Problem is, the Russians are getting (justifiably? who knows) annoyed at the larger and larger role the US is playing in the ISS - they're being forced into the position of junior partner. Then they realise that they have a perfectly good (well, operational, at least) space station in orbit that's been there for god knows how long, and exactly why do they need the ISS in the first place?
Now that they've got corporate buyers interested in Mir, they'd rather go and do their own thing.
As a Russian emigrant, I can tell you right now what will cure most of these misunderstandings -- have a couple of senior NASA officials live in Russia for a year. Outside the "foreigner" protection shield. Let them feel the corruption, realize to what extent the country is in political, economic, and social ruin, and then judge as to whether expecting them to produce something that works, let alone flies, is reasonable.
As much as I respect my motherland, I must admit that the US is consistently underestimating just how f@$*ed up it is right now and will be over the next several decades.
// zyqqh
This is wishful thinking on a number of fronts. First, the space station program pre-dates Ronald Reagan's first term by many years, so he gets no credit other than that due for taking a space program that was looking at the moon and Mars and trapping it in low earth orbit for the next 50 years.
Second, I had the dubious honor of being one of the first members of the first contract ever awarded for the construction of the station. I can tell you from long, painful, inside experience that the space station was never intended to be anything more than an aerospace contractor welfare program during the downsizing of the US military and the end of the Cold War.
The large aerospace companies, especially Boeing and Lockheed, staffed these contracts to the gills with all of their cast-off, marginal, low talent employees in the early stages because the only work product was a mountain of documentation and anybody can create documents by the pound. All their talented people were still on lucrative military contracts.
Later, when it was time to bend real metal to make the station, NASA found that these programs were now all being run by these marginal bo-bos that had been promoted to senior project management over the preceding years. Coupled with repeated cuts in NASA's budget by Congress, NASA was stuck trying to build the station with 3rd string management, no dollars, and no public support.
The only choice they had was to bring in ESA, NASDA, Canada, and later, Russia, to get the thing built. It was never driven by some lofty ideal of "international cooperation." It was simple economics. We needed to suck cash out of the International partners to be able to maintain the level of contractor staffing and inefficiency that had been created around the station program in its first five years.
You can take it to the bank that no contract was ever scaled back below its original award amount, no prime contractor was ever fired, and no award fees were cut nor penalties assessed when the original launch date for the first station components ended up slipping from 1991 to 1998. A seven year slip with a 250% cost overrun has to get funded somehow. Thanks Europe, Canada, and Japan!!!
In this whole game, Russia was the only nod to an actual attempt at "international relations". If we hadn't paid money to all those ex-Soviet rocket scientists, they'd be working for hard currency in some bunker in Iraq or North Korea, building indigenous ICBM technology for countries that could give a rat's ass about international treaties against lobbing a nuke into NYC. That we got access to their robust LEO launch technology was a nice plus, too, since the flying the shuttle only 8 times a year meant that we could never construct, much less resupply, the completed station ourselves.
Don't throw too many rocks at the poor Russians for dropping the ball. You should squarely place ALL of the blame on NASA and Congress. The latter made the project 100's of times more difficult by gutting the budget and demanding pork barrel deals that moved key station tasks to 46 different states instead of keeping the work centralized. The former ensured a fiasco by mismanaging its contractors, allowing an outrageously inefficient distribution of work to over 150 individual contractors in 46 states and 15 foreign countries, and never articulating a clear vision of the station's value to the US people.
So, explain to me again how doing ourselves would have worked...?
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
The benefits of the space station are minimal compared to the cost to build it.
No offense, Joseph, but this is the same arguement that's been raised since Apollo 11 got home. The basic fact is that we don't have the slightest inkling what could come out of the ISS, especially with the interest in using it as a R&D platform. If the earth-bound Apollo program gave us microcircuitry, tennis shoes, and several insights in both astronomy and medicine, such as reliable CAT scans and better treatments for stroke victims, what might a space-based program develop that we never expected? With the increased freedom of 0g, and the large amount of postulated technology that needs only the correct research environment, especially with building materiels and pharmecuticals, the ISS could bring home a hell of a lot more bacon than a few shots of the martian plateaus.
Now, I am not knocking the Mars programs, and dearly wish to see a man walk upon Mars in my lifetime, but realistically, we need stepping stones, and the ISS is one big step. On the issue of the Mars or other intersystem probes, wouldn't it be nice to have a place to launch them from that didn't involve extrememly tempramental rockets? (If memory serves, 5 payloads were lost last year when Titan III boosters exploded? And I think 2 of those were commercial?)
Could NASA put another man on the Moon?
Probably. But if we want regular missions and expansion, once again the ISS or something similar would be a good waystation/resupply point. Especially with the growth of several movements who want to see a permanent presence on the moon in the next 15-20 years. (That's something that seems to wax and wane every few years, hopefully it will stay high this time.)
Finally, yes, NASA has been harping about Martian life, but the fact that they've been getting more interest from the public lately, even with their screw-ups, is a good thing. When was the last time you saw Newsweek do a NASA cover piece before their spread on the Mars Lander the week we lost contact? Personally, aside from a MIR issue, I can't remember one since Challenger. The fact is, NASA needs more public support if it's going to have a prayer of getting more funding, and if mentioning the possibilty of 100,000,000 year old fungi on Mars and Pyramids at Cydonia Planitia is what gets them that funding, then that's what they have to do to accomplish all these wonderful dreams we have for them.