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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.
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..
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Uh, this NASA module, the ICM, is not a total replacement for the Service Module. It only provides propulsion. The service module also provides living space and life support. If the service module is never launched the ISS will only be able to support 3 crew members, not the 7 originally planned.
Incedently, the ICM is not an original piece of hardware. It is based on a US military satellite despensing upper stage. The ICM modifications have been under development the at least a year now.
An on Proton's weight lifting ability: My source says a modern proton can throw 22,000 kg. to a 185 km orbit, whereas a shuttle can throw 24,400 kg. to a 204 km orbit... So weight isn't really a problem. As always with the shuttle, volume is the real limiter.
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.