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NASA Satellite Stranded
Account 10 writes: "BBC News has a story about one of NASA's newest and most sophisticated satellites. Launched a couple of weeks ago, it was supposed to have moved itself up into the correct orbit . Once there, one of its roles would be to route data between the ISS, other satellites and the ground as aprt of the TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite) project. However a fuel tank is leaking and it cannot reach its orbit. One suggestion is that it maneuver itself into an orbit where the shuttle can reach and rescue it - to repair it and send it on its way, or bring it home to be launched again."
Wasn't there a recent slashdot story (in the past few months) about a budget sattelite put up for under 50k with a metal ruler for an antenna that's still working? I've got a 84 jeep bumper I'm willing to donate for the next communications sattelite. Hell, if they're willing to put my name on the sattelite, I'll throw in my old C64 to run it.
Find out about my new childrens book: SS Death Camp Criminal Batallion Go To Monte Carlo For The Massacre
1) Fire all the satellite's rockets to bring it screaming into the atmosphere on the 4th of July for one hell of a fireworks show.
2) Get Tommy Lee Jones and the rest of the crew from Space Cowboys to give it a good kick.
3) Replace the leaking fuel cell with a new one filled with Nitro Glycerin.
4) Mass-produce the same satellite and sell it in hobby shops under the name, "My First Satellite Set".
5) Sell it to the US Miltary as a target for the new missle shield.
6) "Fuck it, we're going to Mars now."
7) Call AAA for a tow. (or at least a jump-start)
8) Tell the monkey inside it to peddle faster.
9) Make up some ridiculous excuse to explain why you've wasted several million dollars on something that doesn't work - like a fuel leak from a damag... wait a minute...
10) Pretend everything's going as planned.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Well, NASA has 3 choices Re-entry, Retrieve and Relauch, or Repair.
The first choice, Re-entry, is just to give up on it (in otherwords, send it back into the atmosphere and hope it doens't hit anyone, or hit a target so we get free tacos). I doubt they will do this considering the astronomical (pun somewhat intended) amount of money they would have wasted on the whole thing.
Retrieve and Relaunch is probably unlikey too, because not only do they have to pay to send a shuttle up (although they can just do it on a regularly scheduled mission), but then they have to pay to launch it again. It would be pretty hard, IMHO, to snatch a sattilite, return it to earth, and relauch it without further damaging it. Plus, I'm sure it is more dangerous to land a shuttle with all that extra weight in the cargo area.
That leaves us with repair, the most reasonable option. Send up some guys on the next shuttle mission with Duct Tape (about $1.50 a roll, depending on store and brand). Voila! Problem solved!
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
NASA Engineer: I dont understand... I only shoved 3 gallons in that tank, it should be fine! Whats that? Litres you say? Oh not again...
In the past it has been the insurance companies that take the hit. Of course, with each failure to achieve orbit, insurance prices have risen and risen, such that now, there is a reasonable chance that Boeing has self-insured this satellite.
I work in the aerospace industry. It's not NASA that needs convincing. It's President Bush. He has cut funding severely on some NASA programs like the International Space Station, where that the U.S. will not even be keeping its promises to its partners. The Pluto-Kuiper Express and Solar Probe were both cancelled due to his budget. He cut $207 million from the overall budget of NASA's Earth Science program, which uses satellites to study the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment. (I worked on one of the satellites associated with that program and the satellite is now mothballed at my company.)
If you want rockets to be used in weapons, elect a Republican President. If you want rockets to be used for space exploration and science, elect a Democrat. Just look at history. It was Kennedy who saw space exploration as a source of national pride. He pushed the Apollo program. It was Nixon who cut Apollo short by three landings and basically gutted NASA. Nixon ignored the recommendatons for Mars explorations made by his own task force. He only agreed to fund the development of the space shuttle because it would "bring the price of going into space down".
Reagan pushed NASA and the shuttle into ever-increasing military roles, launching military satellites and contributing to the "Star Wars" efforts. In addition, the Reagan administration directed NASA to cancel one of its ongoing space science missions (the the International Solar Polar mission), and seriously considered terminating the entire solar system exploration program and transferring the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to some other government agency.
Of course, when the main thrust of an administration is tax cuts for the wealthy, it's not surprising when funding for NASA suffers.