New NASA Shuttle Program "Doomed To Failure"

Heartbreak writes "In a recent press release, the Space Frontier Foundation warns that NASA's Oribital Space Plane program, its latest initiative to take the load off the aging STS (the 'Space Shuttle'), is essentially doomed before it starts. 'NASA's unbroken string of cancelled vehicle programs' going back 20 years makes it a good bet that OSP will also fail. Is this just really, really, bad luck, or is NASA little more than a multi-billion-dollar jobs program for important U.S. aerospace contractors?"

Comments

At least you have space travel...

[Anonymous Coward]

We in Sweden have yet to send a person into space.

We did get the record for longest Wi-Fi link though :-)

well

[simontek2]

i look at it this way, they will upgrade their computers, and we can get their old sgi's

Re:well

[LooseChanj]

The shuttles have IBM AP-101(S?)s. They *have* been upgraded since the ships were originally built. Hell, they even got rid of the core memory in '95! :-) And last I heard (ok, a couple years ago) they were working on getting rid of the tapes in favor of something a little more modern. Most stuff like payloads/experiments/whatnot use (gack) Win98 laptops.

How can...

[WolF-g]

...the /. crowd help!

Re:How can...

[LooseChanj]

Seriously? Well, the bucks go to stuff that congress critters think will get them re-elected. So...write'em all and ask why we don't have a space Hilton yet. This *is* the future, isn't it?

Shame

[Daveman692]

It seems a shame that a war, the Cold War being the main boost, is what is needed to get support behind NASA.

Re:Shame

[Wyatt Earp]

That's what pushed NASA and the Soviet program in the first place, and there is nothing wrong with using increased defense spending to fund technology. It's what drove pretty much every advancement in aviation, ships, cargo handling, communications, materials science, and aerodynamics in the last 100 years. And in the US intergration of the races in the military happened before the private sector intergrated. Military doesn't always mean bad.

All the early launchers were based on MRBM/ICBMs, getting a man in space simply meant you had the throw-weight to get a bigger fusion bomb to New York or Moscow. Back in the 50s and 60s fusion bombs were big.

Joint USAF/NASA work pushed technology in the 1960s. What became Skylab was going to be an Air Force Orbital Workshop. In Chuck Yeager's bio he talks about training pilots with F-104s modified to manouver with thrusters the same way that Dyna-Soars or X-15s would operate as they went to orbit.

The Soviets worked on the same sorts of military stations. Even MIr was designed to have a military application.

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/mir.htm

"The original Spektr design was to be armed with Oktava interceptor rockets and equipped with sensors to identify and track ballistic missile re-entry vehicles as well as discriminate decoys. In 1992, as directed by the Soviet Union's military and political leadership, all work on such projects was discontinued. The Spektr module was mothballed, then later converted into a civilian platform, partially funded by the United States."

"Minister of Defence Ustinov requested that the Americans be challenged. As a 'warning shot' the Terra-3 complex was used to track the space shuttle Challenger with a low power laser on 10 October 1984. This caused malfunctions to on-board equipment and temporary blinding of the crew, leading to a US diplomatic protest."

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/almaz.htm
http ://www.astronautix.com/craft/mol.htm
http://www.a stronautix.com/craft/speginal.htm
http://www.astr onautix.com/craft/usb.htm
http://www.astronautix. com/craft/terra3.htm

Re:Shame

[Anonymous Coward]

If You're Happy And You Know It Bomb Iraq
by John Robbins

If you cannot find Osama, bomb Iraq.
If the markets are a drama, bomb Iraq.
If the terrorists are frisky,
Pakistan is looking shifty,
North Korea is too risky,
Bomb Iraq.

If we have no allies with us, bomb Iraq.
If we think that someone's dissed us, bomb Iraq.
So to hell with the inspections,
Let's look tough for the elections,
Close your mind and take directions,
Bomb Iraq.

It's pre-emptive non-aggression, bomb Iraq.
To prevent this mass destruction, bomb Iraq.
They've got weapons we can't see,
And that's all the proof we need,
If they're not there, they must be there,
Bomb Iraq.

If you never were elected, bomb Iraq.
If your mood is quite dejected, bomb Iraq.
If you think Saddam's gone mad,
With the weapons that he had,
And he tried to kill your dad,
Bomb Iraq.

If corporate fraud is growin', bomb Iraq.
If your ties to it are showin', bomb Iraq.
If your politics are sleazy,
And hiding that ain't easy,
And your manhood's getting queasy,
Bomb Iraq.

Fall in line and follow orders, bomb Iraq.
For our might knows not our borders, bomb Iraq.
Disagree? We'll call it treason,
Let's make war not love this season,
Even if we have no reason,
Bomb Iraq.

Re:Shame

[Anonymous Coward]

And in the US intergration of the races in the military happened before the private sector intergrated.

Ahh yes, operation human shield

Re:Shame

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems a shame that a war, the Cold War being the main boost, is what is needed to get support behind NASA.

Well, if Americans would see the big picture (especially Bush!) they would understand we're in a space race against Iraq and North Korea. We can't have Saddam Hussein launching the first Mars mission now can we? We need $20 billion a year more for NASA! Instead of spending it on tanks and missiles, why not give 5% of the DoD's budget ($400 billion or so) to NASA to use for research and exploration? I'm sick of my tax dollars being used to fund the war machine of this country when there's so much more we could be funding. Besides, it doesn't even seem like the DoD budget even covers wars. Everytime one comes up the money spent is in ADDITION to their already massive budget. Bush says we need $60 billion to invade Iraq.. and for what? To depose a corrupt dictator? How much did the Panama invasion cost? Send in special forces and quit showboating for the voters you mickey mouse eared fuckhead. God I wish I had voted for Gore instead of Bush.

Re:Shame

[blitziod]

well i like funding war machines. I think they are cool. But that aside why not make extra funding for nasa optional. Put a boc on every tax return. Check here to have 5 dollars of your refund go to NASA. NASA's budget is tiny. If 25 million or so people gave 5 bucks it woudl really help. We could do the same thing with disease research too.

Re:Shame

[Anonymous Coward]

Wyatt Earp wrote,

That's what pushed NASA and the Soviet program in the first place, and there is nothing wrong with using increased defense spending to fund technology.

following it with numerous example of military impetus driving NASA programs. However, NASA's glory days were short and it's been a struggling organization since men last walked on the moon a quarter century ago. The military in contrast hasn't suffered significantly over the same period. It seems the opposite conclusion is more likely correct, justifying NASA's exisitance on military applications hasn't served the organization well since the Red Scare days of the sixties.
That makes sense. The military would want close control of their development funds and would fight funneling them through an outside organization like NASA.

Re:Shame

[bujoojoo]

That's what pushed NASA and the Soviet program in the first place, and there is nothing wrong with using increased defense spending to fund technology. It's what drove pretty much every advancement in aviation, ships, cargo handling, communications, materials science, and aerodynamics in the last 100 years.

Increased defense spending? I thought it was porn...

Re:Shame

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken like a true lifetime civilian...

As a veteran, I can personally tell you just how full of horseshit you are in implying that minority soldiers are somehow recruited to serve as "human shields."

When I served, during the GW I era, promotions, assignments *AND* day-to-day treatment were honest-to-god color-blind. Any exceptions were dealt with immediately, effectively -- and publicly. It was crystal clear that if you did have racist inclinations, you needed to find some other line of work. Act on those inclinations, and the command would find that work for you -- making small rocks out of big ones in Leavenworth.

Because the military offers a truly race-neutral means of gaining job experience (and even mere employment) to all comers, it is no doubt perceived as a threat to the power base of the race-baiting demagogues who claim to represent "black Americans." I'd say that they're idiots, but that would insult idiots of good conscience everywhere. They are, not to put too fine a point on it, evil.

Re:Shame

[SubtleNuance]

Except that the US military is a horde of war mongers who kill people.

i dont care if the tech is the used in civil products - the fact that the american military-industrial-complex gaurantees war is sick... really man, stop and think about your GOVERNMENT BOMBING PEOPLE.

Re:Shame

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, what you're data try to tell? No matter how well and good warfare pushes technology, it still *is* a pity.

Use the space shuttle design

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just upgrade the internal of the space shuttle to use up to date technology rather than mid 70s computers?

Re:Use the space shuttle design

[jdhouse4]

You're right. But first, a slight correction. The shuttle's technology is actually a mix of 70's and 80's technology. The propulsion system is actually only about 10 years behind and the cockpit about 5 years.

Still, your point is well taken. NASA-Johnson Space Center always argues that any changes represent an unwise risk to the astronauts' lives. They argue that because NASA-JSC doesn't have to worry about costs.

And when NASA-JSC has upgraded the shuttle, the cost over-runs would take your breath away.

Jim Hillhouse (recovering aerospace engineer)

Re:Use the space shuttle design

[jeroen94704]

Space is all about launch-costs. This is determined by several factors, including effective payload. Decreasing the weight of a vehicle in favor of the payload is a good way to cut costs, but a large part of modern developments center around improvements in structure and materials, not the computers and stuff inside the vehicle.

NASA is, in fact, already upgrading the Shuttles to have a lighter, flat-screen based cockpit instead of using those heavy CRT-screens, but it will simply not change the fundamentals of the vehicle.

Re:Use the space shuttle design

[3030]

hmm, and I thought we had all come to a consensus on how bad WinCE was for vehicles...

Re:Use the space shuttle design

[silentbozo]

Government noodling will never deliver a vehicle that will be mass produced, and without mass production, costs will NOT drop. The military already knows this, which is why a lot of new tech is assembled from off the shelf stuff. The only off the shelf stuff for launching humans into space is the Russian equipment - and why we aren't using their capabilities more is way beyond me.

Declare proceeds from space exploration and space exploitation free from taxes for 20 years (think land grants during the Westward expansion of the United States.) Everyone will throw money into space, some as a tax dodge, some as legit ventures now that they can drum up investment (a permanent presence in space needs infrastructure, which means many subcontractors and entrepreneurs.) Some of it might come back (orbital manufacturing, refining, and energy production), and with interest to boot.

The key thing is all this investment will drive a new economic boom, as people build stuff, take home paychecks, and spend their money. Eventually, these investments will pay off, or get written down, and EVERYONE benefits. At least this way, we don't need to blow up the items we're building (ie, million-dollar cruise missiles) in order to employ people. And, because it isn't a government program, with government pork, we don't have to spend tax money to do it - and decisions on where and how money is spent can be made on an economic, not a political basis.

Re:Use the space shuttle design

[Anonymous Coward]

Declare proceeds from space exploration and space exploitation free from taxes for 20 years (think land grants during the Westward expansion of the United States.)

I don't know, for that analogy to work we'd need to find aliens already inhabiting the area so that we could steal it from there whilst making the most astoundingly hypocritical proclamations of our morality at every turn.

Without the forces of self-deceit and the joy of plundering what is others' behind it, I can't see that this scheme would have the same pull to it.

Re:Use the space shuttle design

[EvilTwinSkippy]

That's like giving tax incentives to build vacation community in Antarctica. It sounds like it will work until you realize that except that your average joe sees Antarctica as a giant snowball. Add to that the fact that beyond penguins, all other food sources would have to be imported. And did I mention the weather?

At some point some guy is going to discover that some product that people want can only be found/produced in space. They will set up a trillion dollar mining/factory facility and in the process develop all of the infrastructure to get there and back quickly an cheaply.

Americans went west originally in search of Gold in California. Along the way they noticed a rather large land mass in between. (And I wouldn't exactly call Alaska a popular place to live these days.)

Conversely look at the war on drugs, and the prohibition. In both cases the government put its foot down, and got it run over.

I will sum it up as follows: There has to be some intrinsic value for something to be done. Government can either get in the way or profit from it.

Re:Use the space shuttle design

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you're wrong.

If the government declared a 20 year ban on taxation from building in antartica, there WOULD be people that would go there. If for nothing else, for the tax advantage.

Build a manufacturing plant there, and employ people that you have to fly there, and for the next 20 years you don't have to pay taxes on what you earn. People would do it.

Re:Use the space shuttle design

[Anonymous Coward]

The energy costs for heating and plane propulsion wouldn't be worth it. Where do you suggest they fly from? Surely people aren't /that/ desperate to evade taxes.

Re:Use the space shuttle design

[Anonymous Coward]

The cost of implementing NASA's "OneNASA" centralized MS Exchange mail system will take Slashdotters breath away when they announce it to. :-) "MS Exchange? No way, they'll use open standards". Pffft. O'Keefe and Strassman LOVE Johnson's MS Exchange setup (while their employees, especially the UNIX guys, HATE it). Why oh why do we let inept beaurocrats run multibillion dollar agencies?

Re:Use the space shuttle design

[benzapp]

Conversely look at the war on drugs, and the prohibition. In both cases the government put its foot down, and got it run over.

Of course, find a politician to admit that there are more Americans who find the Heroin production industry to be more valuable than a new launch vehicle put out by NASA...

I will sum it up as follows: There has to be some intrinsic value for something to be done. Government can either get in the way or profit from it.

This is the big problem we have had for the last 100 years. Countless freedoms have been lost, whole communities destroyed, lives ruined, all in the name of the "Progress". But I still live in a 100 year old apartment and take a 100 year old subway to work every day.

First they created an indoctrination system known as public schools to train the masses to accept their place as a worker and consumer caste, then they created wars and armies, as well as prisons to keep the discontents busy, and created a huge industry to support the military industrial complex...

See government isn't concerned with intrinsic value, it does stuff just to keep everyone busy in castes so the people at the top continue to be at the top.

Prohibition of mind altering substances doesn't work because the masses are not happy with their fate. Alcohol and opiates provide a welcome relief from the drudgery of modern life. The majority of people need frequent escapes from life. Remember, it was only recently new drugs were created to provide the same relief as alcohol and opiates. They still used morphine for severe depression in the 1950's. So drugs and alcohol are a bad example.

Unfortuantely, most people willingly join in the social system we have in place. They have no problems spending half their productive life in school rather than doing something useful. They have no problem working in a bureaucratic organizational system. Government is the MASTER at convincing people they are doing something when in reality they are doing nothing but keeping themselves out of trouble. The reality is if anything DOES come from space, it will be a manufactured need. It will be easy to get the educational and media establishments to train the consumers to want what space offers. Hell, even if its a vacation in space... Maybe we can even convince all those poor people to take a permanent vacation on Mars. Wouldn't they like that.

Re:Use the space shuttle design

[silentbozo]

The energy costs for heating and plane propulsion wouldn't be worth it. Where do you suggest they fly from? Surely people aren't /that/ desperate to evade taxes.

You'd be surprised. It's a routine practice for large corporations to "sell" intellectual property (trademarks, patents, etc.) to subsidiaries in "tax-free" havens, and then lease back those assets at a big cost to the parent corporation. Parent corporation shows a loss in taxed jurisdictions, and can write the lease cost off, subsidiary corporation shows a profit from the leases, which can offset real losses in other subsidiaries after taxes (like in Europe), and thus make international performance look better than it is, while avoiding taxes on their IP assets.

How would this play out in space (or in Antarctica, as was in the example)? They'd have to actually man the outpost with a bean-counter in order to "prove" to the IRS that they actually have operations there. Take a look at Enron, and the amounts of money they spent on the lawyers and accountants to set that scheme up. You give 'em a bona fide tax free haven in space, and a way to get up there, and they'll go. Besides, they can write transport and life-support off as overhead...

Soon, they set up a subsidary to produce oxygen, which they can then sell at a profit to other companies that are setting up shop, all tax-free. Next thing you know, someone starts manufacturing habitation modules and control circuitry in space, tax-free. You'll need maneuvering jets and propellant, and on and on. Next thing you know you'll have a thriving manufacturing base, producing tons of crap because you don't need 80% efficiency to make money, you only need maybe 60% efficiency since you don't need to pay taxes on the money you make. That's a lot of money saved when you don't need to achieve that extra 20%.

Think about it - would internet commerce have taken off if they had begun taxing it in it's infancy? The dot-bombs would all have said yes, but all those mom-and-pop shops that are doing good business today probably wouldn't have come into existence.

Finally, once you cross the threshold of maybe two or three dozen people, you have to shift from the disposable "camping in space" approach we currently have, to a "living in space" approach. Right now, missions on the ISS have us compacting waste, and shipping it back to earth. There is no closed loop - it's all disposable, as if we were on a camping trip. Once we get beyond a certain number of people that are there permanently, you should see implementation of closed-loop technologies to recover water, oxygen, metals, organics, etc. simply because that's cheaper for a long-term operation. This will spur other technologies necessary for exploring and exploiting the rest of the solar system.

Re:Use the space shuttle design

[silentbozo]

Well, if you were smart, and Antarctica was a tax free haven, you'd build a refinery anchored right off the shore, ready to take tanker shipments of oil, and exporting tax-free fuel to ships at sea, and the scientists on the continent. If someone actually did build a resort there, you could make money by supplying them with fuel oil, and they'd make money by giving your refinery workers someplace to go Friday nights.

With enough people there, you can start looking into closing the loop by building hydroponics farms under the ice, the local ports closest to Anarctica would do thriving business shipping supplies in bulk, etc. Remember, in the gold rush it wasn't the prospectors who made money, it was the inkeepers, saloon owners, whores, suppliers, outfitters, etc. who supplied the poor schmucks, and then took their money when they came to town. The city of San Francisco wasn't built by miners, but by merchants. Same idea in Anarctica - the people who want to have a tax free haven go there, someone has to feed, clothe, and entertain them. That's where the real (and hopefully at some point self-sustaining) economy begins.

Re:Use the space shuttle design

[Doubting Thomas]

Because the Space Shuttle is by far the most complicated piece of equipment ever built?

A lot of the thrust in new designs is to reduce the complexity of the system, and thereby reduce maintenance costs. Simplifying and lightening the Space Shuttle design by 20% just isn't going to cut it.

rising facist state

[Anonymous Coward]

it is no more than a multi-billion-dollar jobs program for important US aerospace contractors.

Just like US aircraft constructors and much of the american economy, which is maintained by military spending, and a general war economy.

anyone still suprised that bush wants to beat the shit out of someone ? (irak, for the moment..)

it sure ain't the good old US of the second world war, but a rising facist state...

Re:rising facist state

[SparafucileMan]

Fascists are everywhere because war is everywhere! War is everywhere because people are everywhere! People are everywhere because FOOD is everywhere! Food is everywhere because.....? Fire? Brains? Luck? Sex?! You decide! Either war, we're fucked!

Re:rising facist state

[money_shot]

If Bush had been President in '39, the Allies would have had the will to make the Germans keep to the disarmament treaty. As it was, there was no negative consequense nor was there military action to stop the Germans in Czechslavokia. Everyone knows the end result.

Call us facists if you want, but just keep in mind that whatever well-being your country has is probably due to America's military budget. Personally, I think we should close down most of the overseas bases and make the rest of you punk countries take some responsibilty for regional problems.

money_shot

Re:rising facist state

[ChaoticLimbs]

You cannot spell, and you are completely ignorant of the subject manner.
Welcome to slashdot, friend!

Re:rising facist state

[ChaoticLimbs]

er, subject MATTER.
....See what I mean?

Re:rising facist state

[GMontag]

Get rid of our Socialists and then you no longer have a key element of fascism.

Yes, I am with you brother! Right after we straighten out the world AGAIN.

Of course there will be a lot of failures ...

[Vertex Operator]

NASA isn't run by rocket scientists, after all.
Oh, wait, ...

-Chris

Re:Of course there will be a lot of failures ...

[Bladesnitz]

Its run by a bean counter, interested in making sure the tables balance.

Not much room for the dreams of space geeks

Re:Of course there will be a lot of failures ...

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA is being run by *administrators*. Whenever economists or lawyers run a company, say goodbye to initiative, innovation, and imagination.

Re:Of course there will be a lot of failures ...

[perfects]

VO >> NASA isn't run by rocket scientists, after all.

AC > NASA is being run by *administrators*.

No, that's not right either. And it seems to be a very common misconception among SlashDotters.

NASA is, in fact, run by Senators and Congressmen. You could install the world's best brains in NASA's management and the most they could ever do is propose projects and hope that government committees -- politicians, not scientists or engineers -- approve them, and approve sufficient funding. They often do one and not the other.

Anybody who thinks that the U.S. government hands NASA billions of dollars every year and then says "do whatever you want with this" doesn't understand the first thing about government.

Anybody who thinks that the Space Shuttle is an example of inept engineering doesn't understand the political history of the U.S. space program.

And anybody who thinks that government-funded R&D in the Basic Sciences doesn't pay for itself many times over doesn't understand the basics of large-scale economics.

So even though the history of NASA is full of decisions that are easy to second-guess in hindsight, the result is far, far, far better than doing nothing.

All that being said... Like many, I am an advocate of both Space Exploration and Space Exploitation, and moving large parts of it (basically everything within the Moon's orbit) from government control into the hands of private industry. But the undeniable fact that private industry has not yet managed to do it means that the government needs to continue subsidizing it for a while longer.

Re:Of course there will be a lot of failures ...

[blitziod]

I think NASA needs more money. In 2001 they only ASKED for 14 billion and change. Considering what they do( launches cost a bunch) that leaves little for R&D.

Re:Of course there will be a lot of failures ...

[Wampus Aurelius]

But the undeniable fact that private industry has not yet managed to do it means that the government needs to continue subsidizing it for a while longer.

The reason private industry has been unable to get into the space program is that they aren't allowed to without government permission. In 1966 the UN passed the "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies," which states:

The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty.

Translation: No one goes into space unless their government says so. This means you.

The Shuttle is the best replacement

[Bladesnitz]

Whether the OSP fails or not, I don't know. I do know that NASA greatly trimmed down the grandiose plan they had to ask only for a simple orbiter to complement the Station, rather than some super multifunction vehicle capable of doing more than we need.

NASA's problem is that they are trying to focus on doing something other than the Shuttle. The reasons the other programs failed is because NASA keeps trying to find better ways to do things. The same things they did in these programs, they did in the 60's and 70's, and the result of those experiements was the Space Shuttle.

The line of failures is due to the fact that NASA can't realize that the Shuttle is the compilation of the best ideas we have. If they want to really boost their space program, they should focus on building a new fleet of SPACE SHUTTLES, with new (lighter) computer systems, and incorporating other modifications, such as an crew ejection/escape system and modules that allow the shuttle to perform more tasks (that it is capable of). Examples of these tasks include the current research lab role, whereas a slight modification could turn the Shuttle into a heavy lifter capable of carrying the biggest of payloads to the Station.

I also think the failures are due to a huge lack of incentive. In the Capitalistic society we live in, there is no monetary incentive for a new shuttle; we can send satellites up on cheaper expendable rockets. The dreams for moon and mars colonies are so far in the future that the risk is far too great for anyone to invest in.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[jeroen94704]

The bulk of a launch vehicle's mass, especially the Shuttle, is NOT it's computer-system, but the super-structure. It is there that advances in material and construction can make the difference that will make reusable launchers cheaper than expendable ones. We're not there yet, but it's not distant Sci-Fi either. X-33 had some interesting things going on in that department.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

Just the other day I saw on Discovery Wings a part all about the Russian built shuttle called the Buran. See http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/rsa/buran.html for details. The part I found interesting is that since they were running low on budget (you thought NASA has a budget problem, look at Russia!), they only flew it once, and since they didn't have money or time for life support systems, they flew it by autopilot! I thought that was pretty incredible. A Shuttle took off, orbitted twice, and landed, with no one flying the thing.

In related news, it appears that they were trying to auction the thing off, and for only $6,000,000!! Google for more info.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[grmoc]

It is very arguable that the shuttle itself is the ruination of NASA as an interesting exploratory entity/department/whathaveyou.

THe shuttle is incredibly expensive to launch. The Saturn-V was (if I remember correctly) much cheaper, and could put up almost as much payload.

As it stands, we have a vehicle that does two jobs terribly inefficiently-
1) Putting people in space, and
2) putting payload in space.

The shuttle was originally conceived as a device to accomplish task #1, but was unfortunately subverted and became a compromise vehicle.

Unfortunately, this is one place where compromise can be a terrible thing.

As it turns out, creating seperate launch vehicles, one small one for people, and a big one for big payloads, makes a whole lot more sense.

Oh well, thats politics for you.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[sql*kitten]

The line of failures is due to the fact that NASA can't realize that the Shuttle is the compilation of the best ideas we have. If they want to really boost their space program, they should focus on building a new fleet of SPACE SHUTTLES, with new (lighter) computer systems, and incorporating other modifications, such as an crew ejection/escape system and modules that allow the shuttle to perform more tasks (that it is capable of). Examples of these tasks include the current research lab role, whereas a slight modification could turn the Shuttle into a heavy lifter capable of carrying the biggest of payloads to the Station

You gotta wonder why NASA aren't cranking out Shuttles like Boeing crank out 747s. Any first year MBA will tell you that the key to funding any development that requires substantial upfront investment is to realize economies of scale in production. If there was a weekly - or even more frequent - shuttle run to LEO, that anyone could buy passage on, and shuttles with life support in the unpressurised cargo bay, the economic exploitation of space would happening orders of magnitude quicker than it is today. And ultimately, space exploration has got to pay for itself if it's going to happen.

I also think the failures are due to a huge lack of incentive. In the Capitalistic society we live in, there is no monetary incentive for a new shuttle; we can send satellites up on cheaper expendable rockets. The dreams for moon and mars colonies are so far in the future that the risk is far too great for anyone to invest in.

I'm not so sure that's true. Consider trading missions to the far east in the 16th century. Voyages took years, with no guarantee that everything would not be lost in a storm or other disaster. The banking, insurance and reinsurance industries were created to manage that risk, and make it acceptable to investors. A similar thing will happen with space missions.

As soon as there is a demand on Earth for products from space - raw materials, components or devices that can only be manufactured in low gravity or with plenty of cheap vaccuum, etc - Capitalists will find a way to make it happen.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[LooseChanj]

And it'll never fly again.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[LooseChanj]

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt, wrong answer. It wasn't cheaper, and it could put A HELL OF ALOT more payload into orbit. The real shame is that the Saturn V only had one production run, if they'd kept making them there would have been improvements, and who knows what we could have come up with to do with them?

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[LooseChanj]

You gotta wonder why NASA aren't cranking out Shuttles like Boeing crank out 747s. Any first year MBA will tell you that the key to funding any development that requires substantial upfront investment is to realize economies of scale in production. If there was a weekly - or even more frequent - shuttle run to LEO, that anyone could buy passage on, and shuttles with life support in the unpressurised cargo bay, the economic exploitation of space would happening orders of magnitude quicker than it is today. And ultimately, space exploration has got to pay for itself if it's going to happen.

Well, that's the problem innit? There's just no reason to have hundreds of shuttles. Hell, we got 4 and they want to fly'em less, even tho' it saves little or no money. AFA tourism goes, is there really a market? A very small one, capable of paying the kind of $ it takes nowadays. Definately not the kind of critical mass you need.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[Detritus]

Many of the costs of a shuttle launch are fixed costs. There is an expensive infrastructure that is needed to launch and maintain the shuttle. The problem is that when you cut the launch rate to save money, those fixed costs are spread over fewer launches. That makes it look more expensive than it really is to launch a shuttle. This is the same problem the Defense Department has when they buy an airplane. Congress cuts the number of airplanes that are built and slows down the production rate. This makes the airplane look very expensive because the research and development costs, along with the costs of keeping a production line running, are spread over fewer airplanes.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

The line of failures is due to the fact that NASA can't realize that the Shuttle is the compilation of the best ideas we have.

I'm sorry, but somebody has to say it. The shuttle is a piece of shit. It's a prototype designed by committee 30 years ago. The only nice thing I can say about it is it does work, barely, as long as you can have about 20,000 people to recover, rebuild, and launch the thing. Which is why it costs between between 1/2 and 3/4 of a billion dollars for each launch.

It's even more expensive, per pound of payload, than many expendable rockets in use today. The only real advantage is it's huge payload capacity.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[rworne]

And you know that one was a scale-model mockup?

The full-scale model is now a restaurant at an amusement park.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[pfdietz]

You gotta wonder why NASA aren't cranking out Shuttles like Boeing crank out 747s. Any first year MBA will tell you that the key to funding any development that requires substantial upfront investment is to realize economies of scale in production.

The shuttle is expensive because of the army of people needed to operate it, not the cost of building the orbiters themselves. So mass producing orbiters is not a solution.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[JaredOfEuropa]

The sad part is that apparently one of the reasons they stopped the Buran program was a relatively minor glitch, and politics. The following story comes someone who has worked in the Russian aviation authorities and one of the design bureaus. It may be complete bollocks.

[rumour]
Apparently the Buran did a very short dive on the glide path to the runway, the quickly correcting itself. It was the Russian equivalent of the FAA that demanded to know why that happened before they'd approve Buran.

After an investigation they found that it was likely that one of the transmitters guiding Buran on an approach path, had failed. But no one could be sure, and apparently this report has circled offices and organisations for a while, with no one daring to sign the thing in cas ethe report turning out to be wrong. There was an attempt to have a whole department sign the thing collectively, but it came to nothing, and the project was delayed.
[/rumour]

Without this glitch they might well have continued the Buran programme, with success even. The basics of the Buran might have been copied from the US Shuttle design, but the overall design of the Buran is supposed to be much better, being the work of smallish groups of engineers and designers working closely together, rather than the gazillion design committees working individually on every Shuttle subsystem, leading to a horrible design. (Feynman wrote something about this in one of his books). Also, Buran was capable of lifting a far larger payload than the shuttle, and it could be piggybacked onto a Proton for an even larger payload.

By the way, the shuttle is almost completely automated as well.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[pfdietz]

The sad part is that apparently one of the reasons they stopped the Buran program was a relatively minor glitch, and politics.

No, Buran was stopped because it was ridiculous and useless. It was much more expensive than the expendable launchers they already had. They should never have built it.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[ek_adam]

There is a full scale production run for the shuttles. Unfortunately it isn't for making new shuttles. It's for practically rebuilding the shuttles every time they land. The turnaround maintenance for the shuttles is huge.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[hughk]

The shuttle was only ever a prototype, yes a couple more should have been built but that is all. The redesign process should have been started immediately for version 2. As flight experience was built up, then this could be incorporated into version 2 which would be truely reusable.

This version 2 shuttle is the model that should have been mass produced.

Your references to the merchant adventurers is quite accurate, and is the foundation of double-entry accounting and the company limited by shares (I believe both started in Venice). The first English company was founded in the 16th Century for the exploration of a new route to China via a North-East passage. The voyage failed because of the ice and ship wintered in Archangel. The crew eventually were taken to Moscow and met up with the Czar and ended up with special trading rights. An excellent example of how you may fail to achieve the primary objective but achieve something else which is also profitable.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[pfdietz]

The shuttle was only ever a prototype, yes a couple more should have been built but that is all. The redesign process should have been started immediately for version 2. As flight experience was built up, then this could be incorporated into version 2 which would be truely reusable.

The problem with that argument is that if the shuttle was only going to be a prototype, then it would not have been possible to justify its construction, since the development costs of it and its successor could not possibly have been earned back in savings on launch costs.

The real answer is that reusable launchers cannot be justified until either the launch market is much larger or the development cost is much lower. The natural and economically rational path would have been to continue developing expendable launchers, gradually reducing launch costs and increasing the size of the market. NASA shouldn't have been involved except as a customer and perhaps as a developer of pieces of the technology, in a mode similar to the old NACA. However, that approach would not have suited NASA's institutional agenda, which was to preserve their budget.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[LMCBoy]

The Saturn V was designed for super-orbital travel (i.e., going to the moon). It would be somewhat wasteful to use it in the Shuttle's role of placing payload into low earth orbit. Kind of like driving an 18-wheeler from the garage to the mailbox to drop off a letter.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[hughk]

The problem is that when the shuttle was designed, everything was new. The basics of the Saturn V went back to Werner von Braun's ideas developed at the time of WW2. The ideas then evolved over a series of disposable boosters.

A disposable booster is a little like a formula one car, it only needs to last one race so it doesn't matter if you overrate it, because you will rebuild it from scratch. The Shuttle concept should have been more like the rally car, needing some maintenance but not a total rebuild between races.

What I don't understand is how management ignored the fact that the shuttle would need so much work between flights. The fact that the components were being overrated should have triggered some warning.

Yes, I agree with you that a more commercial approach would have been sensible, but who would want to take the risk?

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[Anonym0us Cow Herd]

The Saturn V was designed for super-orbital travel (i.e., going to the moon). It would be somewhat wasteful to use it in the Shuttle's role of placing payload into low earth orbit.

It wouldn't be wasteful if it is cheaper to launch, and could put signifantly heavier payloads into LEO.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[kzinti]

The bulk of a launch vehicle's mass, especially the Shuttle, is NOT it's computer-system, but the super-structure.

Yes, but that weight can't be changed unless you're talking about a new airframe, which essentially means a new vehicle. But if you can replace a 25 year old 100 lb computer with a modern 10 lb computer, that's ninety pounds of payload you can gain on the current orbiter. Do that eleven times (obviously I'm talking about more than just the five General Purpose Computers) you can gain nearly a thousand pounds more payload. You also reduce power requirements and reduce the heat load on the orbiter, two significant gains. I'd say off the top of my head that there might be as many as fifty such boxes you could replace with modern but reliable technology.

There's also a tremendous weight on the orbiters in just plain wires which deliver both power and data. Replace those with something more modern and you can make significant payload gains.

Of course, replacing an entire orbiter avionics system is going to be an expensive and risky undertaking (risky from the ain't-broke-don't-fix-it point of view). If you're willing to do the job, though, it would probably cost less than a whole new spacecraft program. It would be nice to do both, though. The shuttle's a great workhorse and we should keep flying it as long as possible, but we also need to be committed to building a new spacecraft for manned space flight.

--Jim

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[kzinti]

There is a full scale production run for the shuttles. Unfortunately it isn't for making new shuttles. It's for practically rebuilding the shuttles every time they land.

Your implication is that we tear down each orbiter following a mission and rebuild it with new components, which is simply not true. Consider the recent case in which cracks were found in the MPS flow liners. To replace those would have taken the entire fleet out of operation for many months, maybe a year, because they hadn't been produced in years, and the maker would have to tool up again to make replacements. Instead we repaired the flow liners with welds and got the shuttles back in the air.

You're right that the turnaround maintenance is huge, and that there are significant recurring costs in the program. But we absolutely do not have an ongoing "production run" for building shuttles.

--Jim

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[blitziod]

10 lbs is a lot. How much does it cost per pund to launch stuff into space. If we can save 1 pund it is surely worth it.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

they should focus on building a new fleet of SPACE SHUTTLES

Can you explain why our tax dollars should be spent building a new and improved space plane with wings? I like wings as much as the next guy, but they don't really do that much good in space.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[PD]

Depends on what you launch. Last thing the Saturn V sent to space was Skylab.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[foistboinder]

The real shame is that the Saturn V only had one production run, if they'd kept making them there would have been improvements, and who knows what we could have come up with to do with them?

For example there were plans to make the first stage reusable and the 3rd stage had potential as a space station component. The Saturn 5 never did see its full potential.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[foistboinder]

The Saturn V was designed for super-orbital travel (i.e., going to the moon).

But the Saturn V was useful for putting very large payloads into orbit (people forget how big Skylab was). There was also the Saturn 1b for putting smaller payloads into orbit (the Apollo CM/SM).

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[darkwhite]

A Shuttle took off, orbitted twice, and landed, with no one flying the thing.

Just so you know, the STS flies fully on autopilot, except for the final landing approach, which it would also be able to fly on autopilot, but they decided that it was too risky.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[gorilla]

What I don't understand is how management ignored the fact that the shuttle would need so much work between flights

I think you'll find the documentation on the process here/A.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[cathouse]

The cause of a recent Mars probe failure was an error in ONE line of code. Tne investment in software is far more of a factor than the cost of replacing hardware.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[joeljkp]

The shuttle can land on autopilot, it's just that none of the astronauts want to be the first not to land the thing. (NASA official)

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[cowtamer]

>rather than some super multifunction vehicle >capable of doing more than we need

Great mentality. You will never get anywhere (especially in a large-scale endevaour like space exploration) by looking only a couple of years ahead. Had you lived in the 1800s, we'd still be riding horses on Main street...

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[Bladesnitz]

I think you got my point quite well : ) But it isn't >me that thinks like this... I would love to have a brand new fleet of awesome spaceships : ) But I don't have any money either. The people with money want returns they will see, and stuff like space exploration wont have a return for a couple decades, if not centuries. The risk of losing their money is much greater than the chance of making a helluvalot.

The money has to come from somewhere.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[John Harrison]

Some of the computer systems have been upgraded over time, but you can bet that NASA is very conservative when it comes to replacing computer components. The code that runs on the shuttle is some of the most expensive, carefully written code that exists. They are not going to just pop in a "modern" less reliable computer system.

One of the areas where they know they can save weight and easily increased heavy lift capacity is the boosters. In 1986 the military had a shuttle ready to launch with composite (instead of steel) boosters. After the Challenger explosion the launch was scrubbed. The black composite segments are still kicking around. I saw one two years ago.

Another option is to add another segment to each booster. This would be a relatively simple way of increasing the capacity of the shuttle.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[kzinti]

The GPCs have seen minor upgrades, as have the MDMs, MMUs, and probably lots of other systems. The displays have been upgraded, in what is a fairly major upgrade to replace the old "steam guages" and green screens with a "glass cockpit". The Mass Memory Units have been replaced, or are scheduled for replacements in which the magnetic tape system is being replaced with solid state memory. None of these upgrades substantially change the flight software in that the replacement units "look like" their older counterparts to the GPCs.

The group that developed the flight software was one of the first SEI level-5 shops in the country (the group that developed the backup software was certified level 5 even earlier) and they have some rigorous test and certification procedures. A major cost for a complete overhaul of the avionics would be the recertification process. Don't think that people aren't seriously considering such a replacement - however, because NASA is a risk-adverse organization, it seems unlikely (ain't broke-don't-fix-it).

One upgrade that will put modern computers into an orbiter is the Cockpit Avionics Upgrade currently under way. User-interface code will be taken out of the primary avionics software and moved into PowerPC SBCs running VxWorks and coded in C++. This is a major opportunity for modern hardware, operating systems, and programming languages to prove themselves in critical systems.

--Jim

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[Moofie]

Lots of people. Only problem is, NASA is more interested in remaining a monopoly on heavy launch vehicles than in staying out of the way of innovation and technology development.

Read more here.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[hughk]

Regrettably for NASA it isn't the only show in town. If I want serious heavy-lift then I should go to the Russians, otherwise there is always the new Ariane (as long as they can get it flying better than windows). Then if I have to buy US, then there is always Sea-Launch (a US-Russian cooperation), but I understand this isn't for very heavy payloads.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[Moofie]

They don't count, because they're not American. That seems to be NASA's perspective.

You are right, the Russians and the Euros have some good rockets, and we don't really have anything to compete against them at the top end. Except for Shuttle, which is absurdly expensive for what it does.

Me, being a graduating aerospace engineer, I have a vested interest in NASA getting their thumb out of their collective arse and nurturing some good systems out there.

But they won't. Maintaining a monopoly on American heavy lift is too profitable.

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[hughk]

What about cooperation? Sea Launch is a Boeing project, but the bits come from the Ukraine and Russia. Interestingly, it doesn't even launch from the territorial US, but rather moves into position somewhere near the equator. I guess that NASA's monoply can't touch it directly. The launch capacity is 6000Kg payloads to geosynch orbit, which is definitely the heavy side of medium.

The sad part of it is that all that Boeing are doing is building the payload module and the interstage stuff. The rocket is to all intents and purposes an import.

I wish you the best of luck with your career. Maybe NASA will slacken up on their control of commercial launches. Otherwise, maybe you should learn French and move (pay is still a problem in Russia/Ukraine).

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[Moofie]

NASA can kill any program by any US-based company any time it wants to. SeaLaunch is a GREAT idea, and it seems to work well...but it exists at NASA's sufferance only.

Et je ne parle pas Francais tres mal. : )

Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[grmoc]

The other thing to think about is that the Saturn V could put many smaller payloads into orbit simultaneously. Just because it can lift more doesn't instantly invalidate it for the small payloads.

Difference

[Wyatt Earp]

The difference right now at NASA is that the USAF wants an orbital vehicle as well for sat delivery/recon/weapons deployment. They have the pockets and project management abilities NASA doesn't have.

After all, USAF was first to go supersonic with X-1. First to go to Mach 2 with X-1A, first to launch a vehicle get it into space and land it with X-15, first with a lifting body with Dynasoar, etc.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/orbitalexpress-02 a. html

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=452 2

So when it comes time to write the checks for something that will cost as much as the replacement for SST comes around, USAF will be able to say it has a greater need. Love it or hate it, when it comes down to it, National Defense and Intelligence Gathering gets the bucks. Launching rats and sunflowers for 10 days at a time doesn't really seem like a good spending of 5 billion dollars to Senators.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/star li ght.htm

USAF/NSA/NRO/DMA/CIA/DIA want to launch a number of birds. Discoverer II calls for 24 new birds. Future Imagery Architecture calls for up to two dozen.

Currently the US has around a dozen spy sats, so within the next decade the number could increase to around fifty. If one looks at articles about the follow-on to B-52/B-1/B-2 it seems more and more likely that USAF will move to an "Orient Express" type aircraft, or even launch conventional weapons from LEO.

I just think that since the DoD is going great guns with more and more systems in space, thats where a reusable launch vehicle will be.

Re:Difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote " Love it or hate it, when it comes down to it, National Defense and Intelligence Gathering gets the bucks. Launching rats and sunflowers for 10 days at a time doesn't really seem like a good spending of 5 billion dollars to Senators."

And people do wonder why most country hate and fear US aside the cultural problem... This is a country where they keep saying they are not here to invade us but research weaponry far beyond the capability of any other country and concurrence.

For what purpose ? Right now the argument "the baddy will overtake us technologicaly if we stop" is a moot one. Terrorist use at best low tech or high tech they buy from other country. They don't develop anything themselves, and russia is now ages behind US and has other more important problems.

Maybe it is time that the US and EU break a bit of the military budget and give 10-20% of it to education ?

Re:Difference

[Anonymous Coward]

you forget: War is Peace Freedom is Slavery

Re:Difference

[foo12]

Assuming what you say is true, there is a non-insignificant chance that such a beast exists already. Take a look at past black projects history (from the U2 on through the B2).

Re:Difference

[BerntB]

I don't agree. The US Air Force can't be worse than NASA at building launch capability!

Military R&D do things differently from research done at universities and private companies. In the long run, it is probably an advantage to have multiple research methods. (As long as NASA's space program isn't one of them.)

Otherwise, the money would have been wasted on SUVs, or something. For humanity it is, in the long run, probably better to get lots of research into e.g. better lasers.

(-: Actually building most of the non-space stuff is a waste of money, though! :-)

Nasa is doing right...

[Helpadingoatemybaby]

Think about it -- you're in charge of a project not unlike the complexity of the Mars landers. You can see the project through too completion and risk public humiliation and a very public failure, or you can say "Well, it's over budget, let's start all over again." The larger the bureacracy the less impetus there is to finish a complex task.

Like all managers, NASA managers do not want to be in the public humiliation business, after all. Much better to start a project and leave NASA with it on your resume than have it punch a hole in Mars!

Now, having said that, let's look at the source, shall we: "Rick Tumlinson is a founder of the Foundation for the International Non-Govemmental Development of Space (FINDS), a multi-million dollar foundation which funds breakthrough projects and activities, and a founder of LunaCorp, a 7 year-old firm planning a commercial return to the Moon."

Do these lightly nutty folks have an agenda, or what?

Give NASA a goal, a date to achieve it and the threat of a budget cut and they'll work wonders. All they need is something to work towards. Why not Mars?

Re:Nasa is doing right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Really,

You end you little talk with "why not mars?"

Lets check the record last time there we send a RC/rover there with enough power to last a few months, A CRIME in my book, anyone spending that much to get a hunk of something/junk to mars had best power it to last a few years.

I'm sure you have never actually worked for any Department of Whatever projects, well i have and the first thing i'd do if in charge is fire 1/2 the people at the place.

Re:Nasa is doing right...

[Anonymous Coward]

The larger the bureacracy the less impetus there is to finish a complex task.

I think that sentence says it all. NASA is one of the biggest bureacratic organizations in the Federal government, and most managers are more concerned about their retirement than finishing a project. Ask anyone who works there.

Re:Nasa is doing right...

[LooseChanj]

Give NASA a goal, a date to achieve it and the threat of a budget cut and they'll work wonders. All they need is something to work towards. Why not Mars?

Uh, because if Congress got the fainest whiff NASA was spending *any* money on a manned Mars program, you'd be able to hear the sound of the blood spurting out of their budget.

Re:Nasa is doing right...

[Lars T.]

Umm, the Apollo project was (mostly) a success, both the Shuttle and the ISS (the space station formerly known as Freedom), errm, well, they exist. Now let's look at the budget and analyze if a budget cut leads to success.

Re:Nasa is doing right...

[Liquidrage]

"Well, it's over budget, let's start all over again." I point you back to: "or is NASA little more than a multi-billion-dollar jobs program for important U.S. aerospace contractors?" By now you think NASA would realize that if every project is over-budget that they needed to accept the fact that their budgeting was too low. But thats not whats going on. Its corporate welfare. This is how government works and its not just NASA nor is it just the DOD but goes down to state and city levels. I've seen (1st hand )in place million $ state IT contracts canceled overnight for political reasons. If you can find a way to get some money back to the political world, they'll do all they can to keep you in business. In fact the whole "small government" trend is really nothing more then a diversion of money from government employees to hand picked contracts. By hand picked I don't mean the "winner" of a bid, I mean "lets give these to Joe's company". But back to NASA. The problem is that the average Joe just doesn't care as much about NASA as the average Geek. By bringing this dissatisfaction to the public eye we risk NASA loosing its budget, not getting their spending habits fixed. I'm sure I'm not alone in the wish that NASA would start doing more long term missions of "mythical" proportions. Give Zubrin the money, put men on Mars. Or really move forward with the Hubble replacement. Do something to inspire humanity. I just don't get worked up over the study of bacteria in weightlessness anymore.

new shuttle

[XavierXeon]

i guess there will be a new shuttle once the chinese have been to the moon.

Re:new shuttle

[turgid]

Yes, and before then things will really hot up. India is also planning on sending humans into space. The next race for the moon could be between India and China. Will the US go one better? Or will they continue to rest on their laurels? China wants to send a man into space in October this year

Re:new shuttle

[AKnightCowboy]

Yes, and before then things will really hot up. India is also planning on sending humans into space. The next race for the moon could be between India and China. Will the US go one better?

No, the USA will sit back, drink a cold beer and say "Been there, done that, got the dirt and the rocks already. Boooooorrring." :-) Face it guys, there's nothing on the moon. It's as barren and lifeless as it looks down here. The only thing that might be on it is shit that's kicked up from the Earth. Even then it's too expensive to mine it.

Re:new shuttle

[Vuarnet]

Face it guys, there's nothing on the moon. It's as barren and lifeless as it looks down here

Well, I may just be fantasizing here, but I can easily picture something in, say, 20 years or so...

A bunch of scientists find a weird combination of substances can be used to create ambient-temperature superconducting cables. The only problem is that it takes a mix of weird materials that can't be found on Earth. But guess what? You can find them (and mine them) in the Moon. So the U.S. Corporations say, "lets put a mining base in the Moon!".

Whoops, too late. The Chinese and/or Indians are already living there and they are taking all of the best mining and living spots in the Moon.

By the time the US is ready to set up operations there, the Chinese have started mining such materials and are making a killing in the markets. China becomes the first economical superpower in the Globe. The US gets relegated to second or third place. France surrendes.

Anti-NASA group writing anti-NASA press release

[chascarrillo]

I can't say that I'm surprised that an organization that's so biasedly anti-NASA would write an anti-NASA press release (this hardly fits any definition of a news story). Before you give this "story" credence, look into the background of the Space Frontier Foundation. They basically want the first McDonalds on the Moon by 2020. They want to - get this - privatize and commercialize the International Space Station! They're one step from the Raelians.

From their statement:

Our definition of a "frontier enabling" technology or policy is one which has as its effect the acceleration of the creation of low cost access to the space frontier for private citizens and companies, enables or accelerates our use of space resources, and/or accelerates the rate at which wealth can be generated in space. In other words, is the project or policy going to provide a return on the national investment, if we define "return" to be the economically sustainable human habitation of space?

Policies of the Space Frontier Foundation

Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NASA press release

[smasherbob]

Eww, thanks for pointing that out. If I had points to spare, I'd spare them for you =P

I had a knee-jerk response when I first read this, as NASA seems less and less interested in, well, space now that nobody else is really going up there. I'm still waiting for that Mars trip, dammit! But after reading your link... it restored a little lost faith.

Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NASA press release

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah they are a bunch of crazies...

Yeah right.. like NASA is anything better?

Oh lets see we went to the moon '69 early '70s and we have been back when?

hmm, yeah look to nasa for progress.

nasa is nothing but welfare for .mil plex contractors. when they land something for long term on the moon i'll pay attention to them,,,,heck is it so freaking hard to land a RC rover on the moon that ppl can look at move around? Nasa should be liquidated end of story imho, give the business to the private sector.

Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NASA press release

[sql*kitten]

They want to - get this - privatize and commercialize the International Space Station!

What's wrong with that?

Right now, the space programme is going nowhere. We have been able to place objects in orbit in the 1950s. Apart from the occasional scientific probe, NASA is basically the Greyhound bus service of LEO.

Space exploration won't happen for real until miners, production engineers, manufacturing corporations, porn stars, hoteliers ands couriers are using space as an everyday part of their jobs.

Apart from the commercial satellite users - telcos and broadcasters mainly - space is a black hole for money. It's got to pay for itself, or we won't be going anywhere.

Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NASA press release

[pfdietz]

They want to - get this - privatize and commercialize the International Space Station!

What's wrong with that?

No company in their right mind would want the space station. It's horribly expensive and basically useless.

Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NASA press release

[Master of Transhuman]

Ever read any of the studies that show massive economic return from industrial activities (and I don't mean something as big as asteroid mining, I mean much smaller activities) in space?

Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NASA press release

[pfdietz]

Ever read any of the studies that show massive economic return from industrial activities (and I don't mean something as big as asteroid mining, I mean much smaller activities) in space?

Yes. They're garbage, mostly. Even NASA's last administrator came out and said the spinoff argument is insupportable.

There's an economic return from some unmanned uses of space, certainly. But that's no justification for most of what NASA does.

Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NASA press release

[LaissezFaire]

Even I wouldn't ever compare NASA, and maybe no govenment organization, to a UFO cult that is mostly interested in sex parties. (google a bit for the Raelians)

One big problem is the Shuttle program NOW is a failure. It is prohibitively expensive, and has more than blown out the cost estimates from the early days of the program.

NASA would be better off using throw away rockets. Or better off again releasing all their scientific docs and info to the public. Let the Chinese have space. The US gov't doesn't seem to want it.

Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NASA press release

[SparafucileMan]

Because originally, EVERYONE paid for it (i.e. through public taxes), and if its privatized, than only the RICH people will be able to use it. That, my friends, is theft. Go ahead, look it up.

Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NASA press release

[sql*kitten]

Because originally, EVERYONE paid for it (i.e. through public taxes), and if its privatized, than only the RICH people will be able to use it. That, my friends, is theft. Go ahead, look it up

Two words, my friend: airline industry. From a toy for the rich to mass transport in a couple of decades. What about cellphones? From wealthy stockbrokers to teenagers in mere years. And computers: from the most massive corporations paying millions of dollars for each unit to the average consumer paying $500 for a machine that makes one of those multi-million-dollar monsters look like a joke.

Your argument that only the rich will benefit simply does not stand up to historical fact.

Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NASA press release

[SparafucileMan]

Heres a better analogy. Ships. Your average person couldn't buy a ship in Europe and sail to America. They had to whore themselves out for 7 years to pay off the right to travel there. It'll be the same with space travel. And you're really not thinking big enough here. Think BIG. Think, Americans can now use Airplanes (well, maybe HALF of them), and 3/4 of the rest of the world can't either. The reason that consumer products get shelved out to the "common man", or seem like they do, is only because of the rising standard of living that comes with being as ass-kicking militaristic country. You have no military, your economy will sink, and the wealth will never trickle down to the masses. Just look at Japan since 1988.

Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NASA press release

[sql*kitten]

They had to whore themselves out for 7 years to pay off the right to travel there.

They weren't paying for the "right" to travel, they were paying the cost of the passage, which is different. I would be willing to bet that if a corporation said "work for us for 7 years and we'll pay for your passage to Mars" they would have more volunteers than they knew what to do with.

The reason that consumer products get shelved out to the "common man", or seem like they do, is only because of the rising standard of living that comes with being as ass-kicking militaristic country. You have no military, your economy will sink, and the wealth will never trickle down to the masses. Just look at Japan since 1988.

What about Sweden? Denmark? Switzerland? Canada? Singapore? New Zealand? Ireland? All wealthy, prosperous countries with a high standard of living, yet all are well known for avoiding foreign "adventures".

Military strength is important, because without it you cannot have sufficient certainty about the survival of what you have built with your economy, but it's by no means the sole condition for wealth. Look at the old Soviet Empire: a full-blown superpower in its own right, with plenty of raw materials under its control, but its people lived in poverty.

Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NASA press release

[Vuarnet]

Space exploration won't happen for real until miners, production engineers, manufacturing corporations, porn stars, hoteliers ands couriers are using space as an everyday part of their jobs.

Space Porn. Now THAT would really get people up (if you pardon my pun).

NASA critical parody

[scottmartinnet]

This is one of the most on-target criticisms of NASA's operations that I've seen.

Perhaps it is time to move this effort to the private sector. On the other hand, I would really like to move to Mars (assuming I can get Internet access there), and I don't see a profit-driven operation accomplishing that anytime soon.

Re:NASA critical parody

[Drakonian]

I wonder if it will be hard to get a First Post from Mars...

Re:NASA critical parody

[DrLudicrous]

Maybe, but playing quake, counterstrike, and battlefield with that kind of lag is going to SUCK.

Re:NASA critical parody

[eatdave13]

OK, mods, you fucking fags, where the fuck is my karma?

Fuck fuckitty fuck fuck shit shit fuck!

Re:NASA critical parody

[sql*kitten]

On the other hand, I would really like to move to Mars (assuming I can get Internet access there), and I don't see a profit-driven operation accomplishing that anytime soon.

I know lots of Slashbots hate patents, but the reason a pharma corporation invests hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D every year is because the regulatory environment is such that if you discover something, you can have exclusive rights to it for a few years.

Now consider the state of Alaska. The problem: a lot of land, but no-one who wants to colonize it. The answer was called "homesteading". This basically meant that if you showed up on a plot of unclaimed land, fenced it and farmed it, after a certain amount of time, it was yours legally.

The commercial exploitation of space will be driven by similar concepts. Let's say a treaty is signed that any corporation who lands on the moon gets exclusive mining/colonization rights for a circle x km around their point of landing. That creates the incentive for investment, now a business plan can be written. Unless there's something in it for the investors, why would they invest their money?

Right now money spent on space is not an investment, it's a donation.

Re:NASA critical parody

[LooseChanj]

I imagine that 20+ minute lag would be the killer.

Re:NASA critical parody

[buzzbomb]

Internet access on Mars? Hmmm...

buzzbomb@mars:~$ ping yahoo.com
PING yahoo.com (64.58.79.230): 56 octets data
64 octets from 64.58.79.230: icmp_seq=0 ttl=242 time=757610.6 ms
64 octets from 64.58.79.230: icmp_seq=1 ttl=242 time=757638.2 ms
64 octets from 64.58.79.230: icmp_seq=2 ttl=242 time=757620.5 ms

--- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 757610.6/757623.1/757638.2 ms


Well, it's faster than the actual implementation of RFC 1149.

Re:NASA critical parody

[bace]

No multiplayer games with people on earth though, ping times would be REALLY BIG.

Re:NASA critical parody

[AKnightCowboy]

That won't work. Everyone knows US businesses only think a couple of years ahead at most. A Mars mission takes decades of planning. Japan might have beat us to it if their economy hadn't tanked. Alternatively the other way to explore is to get a government in competition with another government in order to "beat" them. It's good old nationalistic pride. Governments usually have more disposable income than corporations do and can afford to lose it if the whole mission fails. Just tax their citizens more. :-) Corporations can't just magically remake those profits lost.

Re:NASA critical parody

[Matthias Wiesmann]

I agree with you on the basic idea: if people could claim areas and/or resources outside of earth, this would encourage space exploration. The main problem is how to you accept a claim?

If we take the Alaska analogy, you have multiple things:

• An authority that can grant property and police conflits (in this case the US governement).
• A clear definition of how a claim is accepted (fencing the area and farming it).
• A reasonably level playing field (while farming in Alaksa certainly involves some money, I think money is not the prime factor).

The problem is that for space affairs, the situation is not that clear.

• There is no clear authority on space - the UNO has trouble enough solving problems on earth. What if a conflict occurs between different claimants? Do you really think that the US or China will accept a UNO ruling they don't like?
• The basic idea of the Alaska is that you improve the area, make it civilised, livable. I agree that if an entity (state, corporation whatever) terraforms a planet, it ought to have claims on it. But defining this in a clear way will be tricky (and probably imply a new race of lawyers). To take your proposal, does landing imply a human being? Very restrrictive, robots could be sufficient for mining. If not what if a country / corporation sent a thousands micro-robots scattered around the moon, they could claim most of it.
  You made the comparison with patents, and the analogy holds, the problem is not so much with the concept, most people agree that a person should be able to claim an idea. The problem is to prevent some entity of claiming to many things.
• The playing field is not level at all. There are basically five players: the US, the EU, China, Japan and Russia. Dividing extra-terrestrial ressources between those five entities would further the divide between rich and poor countries, this could lead to more anger from third world countries.

Yet I agree with you that this is probably the way to colonise space, simply I doubt this can be done in a peacefull way like Alaska. You might argue that space is big, the problem is, space is not very equal, it is full of unintersting places, with a few places with many resources, or a very strategic importance.

Speaking of supersonic...

[Anonymous Coward]

have you ever hear of the avro arrow??

That baby could make nearly into space!

For those of you who havent heard of it, here's a link to a great site about it.

can't say they are wrong, capitalism help advance

[aepervius]

Let me explain : militair/scientist wants to be able to send their stuff in space and make it cheaper and easier but they have only THEIR application in mind. Whereas the public [private people and corporration] would have all sort of applicaiton in mind (some silly some very interresting).

So a widening of the space usage to the public would probably allow for more efficient launcher, more research and discovery , (and more accident too...). But it certainly would be a better return to the humanity in general than spy satellite and the ISS.

A world of fear

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe how right Micheal Moore is. We live in a world of fear. NASA is a perfect example. It's clear that it's priorities are only in protecting itself. After working there for 10 years I realized it was just white collar welfare. They told us to "do research", but gave us no money. We were just suppose to write papers and create things for the commericalization office to try to sell to investors. So totally broken on so many levels.

The top priorities for the Center admin. when I lefts were: (1) Safety, (2) Security, & (3) ISO 9000 compliance. He never even mentioned space flight! It's all about covering your ...

This war on Iraq is the same thing as well. We have to control everyone in the world, because we're so scared something bad is going to happen.

Everyone goes to chain resturants, because they're afraid to try any place they haven't been before. "Better to play it safe."

As they just look at you like your crazy if you question putting safety or security as number one. "What sane person would disagree with safety?"

I no longer fear a world quite like 1984 where governments control you're every move. I fear a world where everyone is afraid to do anything because they'll get in trouble, or something bad might happen, or you might lose you're insurance. It's really happening as we speak.

The media talks about terrorists or criminals so much that people think they're everywhere. The truth is it just gets the media higher ratings, but that there's very few of either. (ah, now did you just react negatively to that last sentance? That's because you've also been conditioned in to thinking it's not politically correct to ever underestimate the level of threat we are constantly under.)

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I never understood that when I was younger. Now, I found it to be more literally true than ever.

Remember, "Fear is the mind killer." and American's addicted to it.

With regard to NASA, they put all the managers in charge of the whole org. and it just hopeless now. None of the higher management care about getting anything done, except "avoiding risk". I would argue HUD gets more done than NASA.

I know there's a lot of support for the space program on Slashdot and I would love to see it too. But believe me, NASA not ever going to get anywhere w/o major change.

Rick.

Re:A world of fear

[Anonymous Coward]

well put Rick, i think you just clarified what sane people was thinking,

of course i am sure no one has an answer to the fear problem but will anyone else notice that USA is self destructing in front of our eyes and reverse the situation before it reaches the point of no return, or have we reached that point a while ago and collapse is imminent ?

NASA has spent 280billion in its entire existence, GWB is spending 300 billion this year alone when he already has enough weapons at his disposal to return this globe to a simmering wasteland where only bacteria and insects could live and he/usa still wants more ?! how much is enough ?

just imagine what science and research could of been performed with 300 billion, alas we shall never know

anyway bravo, Michael Moore IS right

Andy

Re:A world of fear

[plasm4]

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Safu that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stain, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion." dune

Re:A world of fear

[Anonymous Coward]

He is a crackpot...if you can't see through it, your not looking too hard, which isn't surprising when you happen to be a crackpot who agrees with him.

http://www.theatreguidelondon.co.uk/reviews/mich ae lmoore02.htm

Or check out the text of this article...it's easily found on google:

American satirist Michael Moore has stormed out of Britain after a bust up with the London theatre hosting his one-man show. The Bowling For Columbine moviemaker performed Michael Moore - Live! to packed audiences for two months before Christmas at The Roundhouse in Camden, North London. But on the penultimate night he reportedly flew into a rage, verbally attacking everyone associated with the theatre because he thought he wasn't being paid enough. During the performance he complained he was making just $750 a night. A member of the stage crew says, "He completely lost the plot. He stormed around all day screaming at everyone, even the £5-an-hour bar staff, telling them how we were all conmen and useless. Then he went on stage and did it in public." Staff retaliated by refusing to work the following night, which led to the show being held up for an hour. Eventually he made a groveling apology to staff and the angry audience finally took to their seats. A source reports that Moore then packed his bags and flew to New York the next day without saying thank you or goodbye to anyone.

For additional fun, check out: http://www.moorewatch.com/index.php

Re:A world of fear

[drooling-dog]

Truer words were never spoken.

The media talks about terrorists or criminals so much that people think they're everywhere.

Here's a thought experiment: Suppose there was only one homicide every month in the entire United States, rather than thousands upon thousands. Would we feel safe even then? I don't think so! In that case the media would treat each one like the OJ Simpson case, and we would still be cowering in fear of the murders happening all around us.

I was watching the local news on a Detroit television station a few years back on the day before Halloween. With great alarm, the reporter was urging parents to bring their kid's haul of candy to the nearest police station to be x-rayed for all of the nasty metallic objects that had surely been inserted by the depraved people that we all know are out there. The police had been doing this for years, but when the reporter asked one of the officers how many objects had been found this way, he had to admit that none had ever been found, and furthermore (if I remember correctly) that he couldn't recall any case of booby-trapped candy ever having been reported!

Re:A world of fear

[TheSync]

This war on Iraq is the same thing as well. We have to control everyone in the world, because we're so scared something bad is going to happen.

It already did (9/11). That is why we are engaged in the War for Islamic Democracy.

Re:A world of fear

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe how right Micheal Moore is.

You had me right up to that point.

Re:A world of fear

[R.Caley]

This war on Iraq is the same thing as well. We have to control everyone in the world, because we're so scared something bad is going to happen.

It already did (9/11).

Of course, responding to 9/11 by attacking one of bin Laden's two greatest enemies is, er, surreal.

Litany of failures

[toxic666]

NASA has failed to implement a manned project since the existing Space Shuttle. Its about time the taxpayers (and their representatives in Congress) take a critical look at what we get from the funding. If there have been six failures and two projects that are over budget in 20 years, we need to take a very close look at how this agency is held accountable.

ISS is a failure. It requires three people to maintain little more than life support. When was the last time ISS did any science? Can't think of a good answer? Well, that's because it never has and never will. ISS is Spam in a Can.

Not that it's all been a failure. They have done well with un-manned projects. The Mars and Solar probes have collected quality information.

However, NASA has had a goal to develop a new manned launch platform for 20 years, but we've allowed them to fail without accountability. They have failed privately with this task and publicly with ISS.

It's time to look at where the money is getting flushed and where it works.

Re:Litany of failures

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll never forget the first Lunar landing - at the height of the Cold War that was so inspiring a moment to a 14 year old kid that I just can't explain it.

That said, after the Apollo program NASA went for orbital missions or probes ... and a lot of the impetus that NASA had generated was lost.

With the Shuttle, they invested in an expensive, way complex, incredibly inefficient means to truck stuff into orbit ... that probably could have been better done by building cheap mass boosters. I haven't looked at the economics big-time, but I'd be way surprised if the economics of a single shuttle mission are ANY better (and more probably worse) than using unmanned booster buses to get stuff into orbit.

As you said, in terms of science, the missions that have paid off are the probe missions (Solar, Mars, Venusian, Mariner, Voyager, the comets etc etc), the Hubble (which they contributed to big-time) and basically the unmanned program. Sure there have bene some flops with the probes ... but ther ehave been some astounding successes too.

I think the 'manned' emphasis and focus detracts from NASA's mission in many ways ... because vehicles and systems for same have to have so many levels of redundancy, so much added mass for life support, so much added complexity, so much added cost, and this reduces payload and efficiency like you wouldn't believe, and introduces ever more possibilities for failure because of the added complexity.

If they want to continue with the Shuttle concept, then they have to do away with vertical launch, they have to think of more fuel and mass efficiecnt ways to get there (HOTOL, RAMjet, etc etc), they have to provide more ROI per mission ... otherwise Ariadne and other simple launch enterprises will sweep the floor with them.

And they've got to have a long term inspiring plan again. I mean JFK's lunar goal by the end of a decade was cool ... but the idea of a spac estation in which one can conduct null grav experiments doesn't really grab me.

If they want to continue with manned ... Mars would be a great target. Just getting people to an orbiting station doesn't cut it. But if they just want to be a trucker to low orbit then the shuttle doesn't cut it on a number of grounds already mentioned.

Lack of vision. Over commitmment to already failed programs. Inability to accept risk. Complexity, complexity, complexity.

Perhaps private industry would be better at the job ... I don't know ... but there has to be some huge culture shift (at NASA and in the US government) if NASA is gonna inspire me again.

Maybe Von Braun was right ... and if they reduced the focus on manned missions NASA might be able to score a few big ones that would give them the impetus to push things like Mars.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHahahaha!!! /nt

[Anonymous Coward]

No Text.

Why Failure?

[GnuPengwyn]

What NASA really needs is an Open Source Hyper Dimensional Model Space Craft. ;o)

Maybe they can ask Richard Hoagland or Art Bell (retired, I guess I mean George Noory) for help?

Re:Why Failure?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I can't understand why they insist on using chemical rockets to get into orbit when Lockeehd and the USAF and have perfectly good gravity-drive "vehicles" sitting out in some hangar in the middle of the desert.

Release that stuff already. Right Art?

Re:Why Failure?

[GnuPengwyn]

My timing on that suggestion was really not far off.
Tonight (Tonight being 24-25th Jan) on Coast to Coast AM Richard suggested we contact
the Whitehouse regarding Promethius and show our support for it.
A new article: 01/24/03 - President Set to "Steal Fire From the Gods" ...?
up on enterprisemission.com today/yesterday.
(server seems down at the moment?)
As Bush must have made some kind of anouncement regarding a nuclear space ship.
I guess Richard is asking for the public's help email/writing
to get Promethius going. If there is support then it will be a go.

Funding is NASA's primary problem

[Dark Bard]

An earlier writer said the space shuttle is a near perfect space vehicle. This is far from the truth. The shuttle's primary function is satilite maintainence. The military pushed for the shuttle. For pure science the space shuttle is expensive and impractical. The problems became glaring when they had to bring the Russians in on the space station because NASA no longer had the heavy lift rockets required to lift the components into space. A large percentage of shuttle missions are blacked out because of the military involvement. Recovering and refitting the shuttle parts is extremely expensive. Several people have mentioned NASA's "X" program. The original X program in the 60s was highly successful and nearly achieved a aircraft capible of making orbit without booster rockets. Sadly the program was dropped. NASA's budget has been cut severely in recent years. They are forced to attempt missions for a tiny fraction of what they did in the 60s and 70s. If the military was forced to defend this country with a tenth of their current budget I wonder what their success rate would be. Given that standard NASA is still a massive success over all. Let's give NASA a tenth what the military gets and see what they accomplish.

Re:Funding is NASA's primary problem

[pfdietz]

The military pushed for the shuttle.

Bullshit. The military had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the shuttle. They were much more realistic about its chances of success than NASA was. NASA was the one pushing for the shuttle, since it was to be NASA's big moneypot after Apollo.

Re:Funding is NASA's primary problem

[hughk]

The shuttle isn't that useful for satellite maintenance. It has been useful for Hubble and some other low orbit stuff (military spy satellites) but it can't get anywhere near geostationary orbit where the expensive birds sit. Anything going to geostationary orbit from the shuttle needs an auxillary booster (Payload Assist Module) for deployment and it is one way only.

NASA responds to its environment

[njdj]

NASA does what it has to do in order to get funding. That means that it has to have jobs in several different states, to get support from Representatives and Senators in those states. It spends a significant amount of money just to deal with the fact that it's split up into so many different centers.

Then, it has to award contracts into other different states to get support from the politicians in THOSE states. Ever wondered why Shuttle boosters are constructed in segments so that they can be conveniently shipped halfway across the country? Maybe you thought it had something to do with reliability or safety? (For the humor-impaired, that last sentence was sarcastic.)

It's a tribute to the few idealists left at NASA that it ever got anything done. Its main goal today is to preserve its own funding. It's become a nearly-complete waste of money.

Re:NASA responds to its environment

[weave]

NASA does what it has to do in order to get funding. That means that it has to have jobs in several different states,

Sounds like the same problem Amtrak has. It has to ensure it runs money losing routes through every state to get support from that state's congressmen. When they try to cut non-profitable routes, those congressmen scream. When they lose money because of it, those congressmen scream.

(Please don't start an Amtrak thread. This post is to relate that NASA isn't the only publically-funded agency that suffers from the selfish stupidity described in the parent post. I'm sure the military does as well, with bases and operations all over...)

Re:NASA responds to its environment

[Beowabbit]

It's become a nearly-complete waste of money.

Hmmm. The Hubble Space Telescope. Mars Pathfinder. NEAR Shoemaker mission to Eros. Voyagers 1 and 2. Magellan.

Sure, there have been some spectacular failures. But there have been spectacular successes as well. There's an awful lot we know about the Universe we live in, and about our own planet, that we would not know if it were not for those missions. For that matter, the Apollo project, expensive as it was, and despite the fact that it was not focussed on science, told us a huge amount about the past, present, and future of Earth.

(I have to admit, much though I emotionally like the idea of humans in space, that the uncrewed missions are a lot less expensive per quantum of discovery than the crewed ones.)

Re:NASA responds to its environment

[ChaoticLimbs]

So, from what you're saying, coupled with other comments on /. from other posters, if the US govt spends money on pyramid-building busywork to keep employment numbers up and provide a place for engineers to think big, they will be ridiculed for failure. If they instead take those tax dollars and give them back to those who paid them in the proportions in which they were paid, they will be ridiculed for "giving tax breaks to the rich". If they simply keep the money and maybe pay down the debts the country has accumulated, our economy tanks, unemployment goes through the roof without government contracts, and the once-proud USA becomes tenth in material production in the developed world. Where are the good choices? How come slashdot is a place where criticism is common but suggestions (with a basis in reality) are so rare? Also- if it's a waste of money, how come satellites are so valued in our society? Why do we even need to EVER go to space?

"The case for mars"

[BuR4N]

I would recomend reading Robert Zubrin's "The case for Mars", its a good read that shows things can be done in a different, more (money) efficant way than they are done now and in the past.

ISBN: 0-684-83550-9

oh...

[m1chael]

i thought it was called "doomed to failure"...

hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm usually a big supporter of NASA but it is true they seem to cancel alot fo programs midway through, shouldnt they just finish off the program even if it doesnt meet all the goals? space flight is super expensive right now, any decrease in the cost would be good.

What they should be doing is atleast retrofitting the shuttles with anything new they learned from the canceled programs.

Or classify one of the shuttles as a test shuttle where new technology is tried on it. and if it helps it gets ported to the other shuttles.

Re:hmm

[GnuPengwyn]

Quote Anonymous Coward:

I'm usually a big supporter of NASA but it is true they seem to cancel alot fo programs midway through, shouldnt they just finish off the program even if it doesnt meet all the goals? space flight is super expensive right now, any decrease in the cost would be good. What they should be doing is atleast retrofitting the shuttles with anything new they learned from the canceled programs. Or classify one of the shuttles as a test shuttle where new technology is tried on it. and if it helps it gets ported to the other shuttles.

When I was young (I forget now, but it was back in the 1970's) I had a brochure from Nasa's Space Shuttle, and the Brochure said that they were going to have to fly 100 military missions before they would put the shuttle to Civilian Use. So I wonder, have 100 Military Missions been Flown since 1970? if not, then quit bitching, if so then why haven't more things to the public been disclosed, unless. . . God Forbid . . . there's something up there they need to hide. ;o)

Wayne green - Baaaaagh, go to hell. We been to the moon bud.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

>they seem to cancel alot fo programs midway through

NASA doesn't cancel the programs. Congress cancels the programs. They (politicians) control the purse strings and the overall agenda. NASA has to make do with what it has to do what it is directed to do. THAT is why NASA is the shite it is today.

Risk

[Detritus]

Part of the problem is that every time something does fail, every yahoo who has ever seen a rocket launch on TV starts whining about how NASA is a big waste of money and is incompetent. Success is expected, failure is punished. Engineering, testing and operations budgets get slashed, and then people wonder why stupid mistakes slip through the system.

Every year, for decades, the budget shrinks and some more people die, retire or get laid off. The organization is slowly being hollowed out from within. Every time there is a reorganization, more people disappear. New hires are scarcer than hen's teeth. In many places, much of the electronic equipment is broken or out of calibration because most of the technicians were eliminated due to budget cuts.

Re:Risk

[pfdietz]

starts whining about how NASA is a big waste of money and is incompetent.

That wouldn't matter so much if NASA weren't (collectively) incompetent and a waste of money. They're an organization with no good reason for existing, which is the root cause of all the organizational pathologies we're seeing.

Every year, for decades, the budget shrinks and some more people die, retire or get laid off. The organization is slowly being hollowed out from within.

This is the normal mode of death of useless government organizations. It's hard to kill the programs outright, but they can be slowly eroded. NASA is still big enough to avoid outright closure, but that day is a lot closer than it used to be.

ISO9000 isn't a bad thing

[hughk]

The top priorities for the Center admin. when I lefts were: (1) Safety, (2) Security, & (3) ISO 9000 compliance. He never even mentioned space flight! It's all about covering your ...

ISO 9000 and its successors are about ensuring that everyone knows what they are supposed to do and how they are supposed to be doing it. It really isn't a bad thing even on projects the scale of the space program. ISO 9000 isn't a goal, it is a process. Using it reduces project risks by increasing transparency. If used properly, it even reduces bureaucracy.

When NASA wants to make a mission statement, it should start with space and aviation research and end by stating that it should be achieved via ISO9000. Risks are part of research, you don't want to blow anyone up or to lose the mission but if risks are quantified and accepted, no individual should be blamed.

I have spoken with people who worked in the Soviet Union. One of the biggest problems was whenever something went wrong, there would be a formal inquiry. Someone would whisper "Sabotage" and the KGB would be involved. Generally the blame would be transferred to the politically weakest person who could be blamed, and the person fired.

Sound a little like NASA now? That is, except the bit about the KGB (I'm sure that the FBI would be pleased to help).

Don't be harsh on NASA

[c0d3h4x0r]

Is this just really, really, bad luck, or is NASA little more than a multi-billion-dollar jobs program for important US aerospace contractors?

Neither! NASA is a multi-billion-dollar program that tackles the most difficult engineering problems known to man. When you're specifically in the business of doing things that have never been done before in the history of mankind, and every project is its own new engineering nightmare of complexity, and the human safety matter is thrown in making the entire thing have to be perfect without exception, then yes, it's going to cost tons of money, and yes, it's going to be absolutely impossible to correctly estimate the work involved. That's why I don't understand everyone who bitches about NASA cost overruns or timetable slips -- that's just an unavoidable part of exploring the unknown.

A lot of us here are software developers. Imagine for a moment that you had to GUARANTEE with KNOWN, STATISTICALLY VERIFIABLE CERTAINTY that your application was defect-free. I would love to see you achieve that level of quality right on an original estimated budget or timeline even 50% of the time. It's simply not realistic. It's very possible (and especially important in space applications) to do the "we won't release it until it's right" thing, but that by its very nature means accepting that you're gonna have to deal with unforeseeable problems and not stick to estimates.

If anything, NASA should simply learn to stop making promises in the first place. If you know a project can't possibly be delivered to perfection on a timetable or on a budget, then don't promise to. Say, "We can do this, but the nature of the problem makes it impossible to estimate budget or deadline. Still want to do it?" Then if the project gets approved, no one has any right to bitch about it being "too late" or "too expensive". Ahh, there's nothing like honesty :-)

Re:Don't be harsh on NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

Flamebait?!? Hardly. This is my genuine, honest opinion. Just because you disagree with it, that doesn't mean it's flamebait, you jackass.

Of course it's about jobs for US companies!

[melonman]

In these days of allegedly free trade, governments can't just throw money at their high tech companies to help them to develop new technology, so they fund them via groups such as NASA instead.

In Europe, it's even more explicit. The European Space Agency was created with the stated aim of producing technology that is not compatible with NASA. European nations contribute varying amounts, and the contracts are dished out according to how much money each country puts in. Thus the UK, which has a lot of aerospace know-how, never gets any big contracts, while the ESA has to dream up reasons to give contracts to countries that contribute loadsa money but don't have any useful skills. I worked on a UK pilot study for the ESA, and we knew that the main contract had to go to Austria or Norway, regardless of which country had the right companies. One of the contracts awarded to one Scandinavian country around that time was for research into computer-generated art...

Personally, I can live with this state of affairs. Governments are always going to find ways to subsidise their key industries, and I'd rather they did it by ordering Space Shuttles than by ordering ICBMs.

Re:Of course it's about jobs for US companies!

[j-b0y]

It is certainly not ESA's stated aim to be develop technology incompatible with NASA, that is just wrong. ESA and NASA are partners in varying proportions on a substantial number of projects, past, present and future, such as IUE, SOHO, Ulysses, Hubble and JWST. EURECA was flown on a Space Shuttle, which you cannot do if you don't interoperate with the Shuttle's systems. Huygens is the ESA Titan Lander piggy-backing on Cassini on its way to Saturn. ESA uses the NASA DSN for up/downlink if their stations cannot provide coverage. ESA certainly competes with NASA (albeit on unequal budget terms) but that's good as it keeps things focussed.

And as for the UK, ESA and geographic return; the UK does get big contracts, usually through Astrium UK, but this is but part of a multinational company based elsewhere. The space segment market in Europe is as much of a oligopoly as it is in the US. In the ground segment market, the UK competes very effectively through companies such as Vega, Serco, Logica and Science Systems.

The fact is that the UK does not contribute the money that other contries do because of its typical anti-European attitude, so it doesn't get the work. The UK was a founder member of ESA but gave up this leadership position because it thought it could do better by itself.

Re:Of course it's about jobs for US companies!

[melonman]

It is certainly not ESA's stated aim to be develop technology incompatible with NASA, that is just wrong.

I'm basing this on my recollection of the charter they had pinned up on the wall, the first point I think (but their website is down at the moment). Which doesn't mean they don't co-operate with NASA, but it does mean a tendency to reinvent the wheel for the sake of paying European companies to do so. That was exactly the case on the project I worked on: NASA had an off the shelf solution, so we had to think of another solution...

Re:Of course it's about jobs for US companies!

[j-b0y]

I think there's a certain amount of Not Invented Here around (and it goes both ways) but that probably comes from:

Every project manager believing that they can do a better job than the last by bringing their vision (read: buzz-words) to the project,

a need to develop the European space industry to get a competitive mix of companies

And last but not least

redistributing money from the European tax-payer to the space/defense industry.

Galileo certainly is a major case of this.

It cuts both ways; I believe it is very nearly impossible for a European firm to win any work for NASA and NASA would not buy in anything European.

Things are slowly changing though. Both the NASA and ESA budgets are being squeezed so I think we will see a lot more of organisations such as CCSDS being used a way of reducing needless duplication of effort and encouraging more open systems.

See My Sig

[Rayonic]

I thought my sig would come in useful some day.

Modern Management

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I work at a Science Museum and I see a lot of the same factors for failure at work here as I see at NASA.

In both organizations the actual working staff has been reduced sharply over the years. Large projects are farmed out to contractors at great expense, and the in house folks are just supposed to keep it running until the next big project.

What management doesn't realize is that if the spent the same amount of money on staff and materials that they spent farming it out, they would have a sustainable environment instead of an underfunded mess.

Re:Modern Management

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh. Careful there. You're speaking actual reality. Officially, costs were cut by outsourcing...

But it did make it into space . . .

[Latent Heat]

I suppose you know about Project Apollo and how Canada put a man on the Moon? When they cancelled the Arrow, all the engineers moved to California where they worked on the Apollo CM, and now you know the REST OF THE STORY.

By the way, the thing looks pretty much the same in appearance and performance specs as a U.S. Navy/North American A5 Vigilante, except the Vigi had this central tunnel-bomb bay-fuel storage bay while the Arrow has the engines closer together.

Buran replacing Shuttle

[Anonymous Coward]

The Shuttle is certainly the best available replacement for itself.

That is, the Russian shuttle Buran... it can operate without a crew if need be, every part of the assembly is reflyable, and the engines are much simpler so there's less maintenace time between flights. Oh, and it runs on kerosene rather than LOX, so it's a whole lot cheaper to fly.

Of course, buying a former Soviet product would make NASA look too bad....

(In soviet russia, the space shuttle replaces YOU!)

http://k26.com/buran/ for more inforamtion.

Re:Buran replacing Shuttle

[hughk]

LOX is oxidiser and kerosene is the fuel. The only time that Buran only needs kerosene is when it transports itself around (A very neat trick, the US shuttle requires a special version of a 747 to transport it). Normally, LOX is required as well. You were probably referring to the Liquid Hydrogen fuel used in the US shuttle.

Yes, Buran could fly itself (it did to orbit) and I believe it was able to land in winds far higher than the US Shuttle can achieve.

Re:Buran replacing Shuttle

[pfdietz]

The Shuttle is certainly the best available replacement for itself.

Nonsense. The shuttle is very expensive; Buran was very expensive too. The Shuttle, when it finally retires (probably after the next fatal accident) will be replaced by expendable launchers.

Re:Buran replacing Shuttle

[ChaoticLimbs]

But the Buran IS the American Space Shuttle! IT IS IT IS IT IS! Some very minor refinements and they say they "designed" it. HA. I might point out that Buran is a MUSEUM DISPLAY, not a space vehicle.
spacecraft (n.) Pronunciation: 'spAs-"kraft
Function: noun
Date: 1930
: a vehicle or device designed for travel or
operation outside the earth's atmosphere
Okay, maybe it's DESIGNED for it, but until it works, I won't consider it a spacecraft. Otherwise, I could build a "spacecraft" in my backyard out of a septic tank. It just lacks funding, fuel, engines, and some electrical equipment. Same as buran.

That's not flamebait

[thasmudyan]

While I don't agree with parent post, it is certainly NOT flamebait!!!

Re:That's not flamebait

[c0d3h4x0r]

Thank god, some common sense finally prevailed.

No, military bad (at least, inefficient)

[MacAndrew]

That's what pushed NASA and the Soviet program in the first place, and there is nothing wrong with using increased defense spending to fund technology. It's what drove pretty much every advancement in aviation, ships, cargo handling, communications, materials science, and aerodynamics in the last 100 years. And in the US intergration of the races in the military happened before the private sector intergrated. Military doesn't always mean bad.

I think you're 100% right on the history, and am surprised by how often people don't know of or deny the link between the Space Race and Cold War. Aside from the interaction with military ICBM technology and the like, going to the Moon out of nationalistic pride was for the Americans another way to show we were better than the communist Soviet Union. Now that the competition is settled, it's difficult now to imagine of our nations as economic and scientific competitors that tried to show the world, and themselves, they would outlast the other. Victory and not armageddon was what Khrushchev meant when he declared, "We will bury you." (Sorry, Sting.)

I don't agree with the logic that military spending in excess of our need (however one defines excess) is good for science, though realistically it is probably necessary. To the extent their are collateral benefits to essential expenses, wonderful. Beyond that, military programs are not known for their efficiency, and using them as an indirect method to pursue peaceful goals is even worse -- a "trickle down theory" of aerospace. If you want to hit a target, aim at the target.

What's necessary is necessary, but spending what is likely even more with the expectation of a peace dividend, or holding back on direct spending, is unwise. But the argument we need something for defense is what lights the fire under the camel.

As alluded to above, the healthy alternative to overspending that ALSO was a major force behind Apollo is a healthy sense of competition, on ego rather than power, and it now appears very likely that space is going to be a thoroughly international affair. As someone here put it, if China were close to reaching Mars, we'd kill ourselves to be first. Would America have gone to the Moon if not for the Soviets? I don't think so. Thank you, communist dictators. ;-)

Re:No, military bad (at least, inefficient)

[Anonymous Coward]

Military spending to advance scientific knowledge is one half of national socialism: that is "socialism" but only for the military and related industrial companies, ie: the opposite of what all pre-Leninist theories of socialism historically, philosophically are and advocate.

The other half consists of a military takeover of civilian institutions, and a promise to the military to destroy external enemies, while terrorizing and mesmerizing the populace with a war on "the enemy within".

It's not just an inefficient way to drive "progress", it's horribly inefficient and destructive; and it sets the country up for the drift into a complete fascist reordering of society.
Such as we're seeing now in the USA.

Re:No, military bad (at least, inefficient)

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. But what's the downside?

Re:No, military bad (at least, inefficient)

[Wyatt Earp]

What about when the military gives control of a military institution to civilians.

In the US the military gave control of the nuclear weapon production to the Department of Energy. Control of nuclear weapons in the US is in the hands of civilians.

You claim the military is taking over civilian institutions, in the case of NASA/NACA/USAF, NASA took experimental and space flight over from the Air Force, so since then we've had USAF/NRO/DMA working on thier own launchers, thier own testing facilities, thier own optics as NASA does the same thing. It's obvious that USAF and NASA should work togeather since the paths are the same. It's not as if systems designed for the military never get into the hands of civilians. Humvees, A-10 engines, M-16s, megalithic ship building, GPS and a host of other things have crossed the line from military to civilian.

USAF has deeper pockets and better large-scale project management than NASA has, so they should run the program for a next-gen shuttle.

In the case of space systems, no one is saying USAF is going to destroy external enemies with a launch vehicle. The fact is, the Air Force has a real tangable need and use for a SST replacement, NASA doesn't know what the hell it's doing. Thus USAF should be the one to do it.

As for fascism, I've been to fascist countries and studied it, the US has a LONG way to go if it's even going to be a fraction fascist.

Doomed?

[yellowstone]

I'm gonna sing The Doom Song now!

o/~ Doom doom do-doom, doomy doomy doom-doom... o/~

Funding is a secondary problem

[jmichaelg]

It doesn't matter how much funding you pour into NASA if NASA consistently lies to itself.

For those of you too lazy to read the Feynman appendix, the key message Feynman added to the Challenger report was that the Challenger accident wasn't so much a result of the wrong kind of o-ring rubber as much as a result of NASA management's inability to hear the truth from its engineers and suppliers.

When an organization fosters dishonesty, as Feynman documented, you can pour trillions in and not get results.

The perspective from space

[money_shot]

I'll be the first to criticise NASA... for being a government agency and inheriting all the problems that come with that (if you don't know what these are, consider yourself lucky.)

Now, time for a reality check. To the best of my knowledge, simple low-earth orbit satillite launches by purely commercial entities have only just started. This puts them into line with what, the early 60s? So far, even with it's problems, NASA is the only agency that can do what it does: put people into space on a regular basis and bring them home.

China might get somebody into space this year. They have high goals, but space isn't cheap and it isn't easy. Once they they get someone into space, this will only leave them more than 30 years behind. I suspect they will cover the gap quickly, but not easily. Don't forget that the Chinese program is completely run by the military. I think China is doing this for respect as they already launch satillites and have ICBMs.

Russia... do they really have a space agency anymore? It seems like the last thing I heard was that they couldn't afford to finish up the current projects. Maybe the Chinese should hire the engineers? Personally, I think this is sad because their space agency has such a proud history despite Soviet management. Doesn't it seem like the Euros should be helping these guys out and making a mutually helpful deal?

Japan... they made some interesting announcements lately about a reusable low-earth orbit space plane. Easy to announce... I'll be happy for them when it flies. I think Japan has only recently realized how helpful pushing space tech could be for them.

Europe... didn't Europes new rocket just go to hell a couple of times in a row? Like everyone else, they have been making big plans and announcements. Europe has a lot of potential, but no military spending to back it up. It will be interesting to see where they go in the long run. Nothing would please me more than having French have to speak English all the way to Mars...

So then, NASA doesn't look so bad considering the lack of competition. This is bad as nothing sparks Americans to do great things like being challenged. For God's sake, somebody give us some competition outside of doing things cheap! I want a moon base!

Money_shot

Re:The perspective from space

[pfdietz]

So far, even with it's problems, NASA is the only agency that can do what it does: put people into space on a regular basis and bring them home.

This, of course, begs the question of whether sending people into space on a regular basis is something that anyone should be doing. After all, governments can do all sorts of economically senseless things that companies cannot do. That's no justification for having the government do them.

Re:The perspective from space

[Shafe]

I want a moon base too, dammit! I am afraid though that the first moon base will be established by people not speaking English. But, if NASA doesn't have the courage to beat them back to the moon, then so be it. We'll have ourselves a red moon.

Man, if they only made me dictator. I'd end the crisis in Iraq by immediately switching us over to a hydrogen infrastructure at WHATEVER the cost, consequently letting that whole primitive area of the world die off. Then I'd focus our energies on conquering the moon. If only the US were an empire and I were its emperor, we'd be back on the moon in less than five years.

Re:The perspective from space

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Interesting set of points.

I don't think it's really fair to say that China will be "30 years behind" if they get a human into space this year. It could reasonably be argued that the US is now "behind" where it was 30 years ago, since at that time we had a launch vehicle (the Saturn V) that could lift considerably more than the Shuttle, and we were regularly putting people on the Moon ... And, of course, aerospace tech hasn't stood still since then; China isn't starting from the same nearly-zero level as the US and USSR did. The Chinese can and will take advantage of all the advances in materials science, computer science, etc. since then. And to be blunt, China can and if necessary will kill people in pushing the envelope, just like the US and (especially) the USSR did in the early days.

I strongly suspect that Russia will essentially sell their space program to the EU at some point, yes. I also suspect that, with the way the US is pissing off the major European powers, they'll do the same with their military, but that's another story ...

Japan has the technology and the ambition but not, by themselves, the money. They'll have to partner with someone, either NASA or the expected EU/Russian team. (The chances of them partnering with China are roughly the chances of Bill Gates suffering a sudden attack of conscience and giving all his money to Richard Stallman.)

Europe: see above. Also, the recent Ariane failures do not detract from what has generally been a very successful program. (I believe, though I'm not sure, that Arianespace now has a greater total lifting capacity than NASA, though NASA can still put bigger individual loads up.) European money + both European and Russian tech (especially if Russia ever is actually invited into the EU, which could happen in the not-too-distant future) will be a powerful combination.

The US -- well, let's hope the competition gets us off our asses, because apparently nothing else will.

Re:The perspective from space

[j-b0y]

There is already joint venture between the Russians and Europeans to provide Soyuz launch services (Starsem), but this seems to be just a method for hiking prices for Russian launches so they are not undercutting Arianespace prices enormously. Guess where the extra money goes? Yep - Arianespace.

There seems to be a plan to shift Soyuz launches from Baikonur to Kourou as the Kazakhstan government is getting edgy about exploding Protons wiping out land downrange. Plus it is closer to the equator, so you get a greater delta-V from the Earth's rotation.

In any case, Arianespace decided early on in the Ariane 5 program that man-rating it was going to be prohibitively expensive with no real Return on Investment. So it's going to be up the the US and Russia to keep manned space flight going. I'm sure the Chinese will be only too happy (propaganda-wise) to shuttle westerners up to LEO but we'll all be juggling snowballs through hell before we see that happening.

Re:The perspective from space

[DarkKnightRadick]

So then, NASA doesn't look so bad considering the lack of competition. This is bad as nothing sparks Americans to do great things like being challenged. For God's sake, somebody give us some competition outside of doing things cheap! I want a moon base!

I'd rather have a Mars base, but I understand what you're saying. The only reason we landed on the moon when we did was so we can say we did it before the Russians (who orbited the first satellite, animal and man).

Stop Building Trucks To Nowhere and Explore Space

[reallocate]

Projects that don't fly, literally, should be no surprise when the U.S. can't give NASA a target. We've been able to put people and hardware in low Earth orbit for 40 years, yet that's all we seem to ask NASA to do -- stay on the same old treadmill. Sure, NASA should be tasked with building cheaper, more efficient boosters for that particular job, but let's don't pretend that's the end of it.

NASA needs to be given a real mission -- a destination. Until then, they will keep on building trucks with no place to go.

Bring back the X-33!

[Shafe]

I think the X-33 had the most potential. They had already invested $1 billion into it, why not just spend another billion and get the damn thing flying? The VentureStar would have been a damn sexy vehicle! And a single stage to orbit? WOW! It could work. Perhaps they should redesign parts of it to lower weight even more, or maybe design some sort of carbon nanotube housing for the LH2 (as the aluminum (I believe) tanks kept rupturing). Either way, the shuttle can't survive much longer. It's a set of dinosaurs just waiting to die off.

Re:Bring back the X-33!

[pfdietz]

The X-33 was a mismanaged mess. The economic justification for VentureStar was nonexistent (notice that LockMart did not decide to spend its own money on it.)

The shuttle will die, yes, and be replaced by expendable launchers.

ISO 9000 - Great theory, not so great in practice

[sjbe]

ISO 9000 and its successors are about ensuring that everyone knows what they are supposed to do and how they are supposed to be doing it. It really isn't a bad thing even on projects the scale of the space program. ISO 9000 isn't a goal, it is a process. Using it reduces project risks by increasing transparency. If used properly, it even reduces bureaucracy.

That is true *in theory*. Sometimes it even works that way. (rarely in my experience) But more often it is done because it is required by the company you are supplying. Big assembly companies (Ford, GM, Boeing, NASA, etc) need to have ways of managing the complexity of large supplier bases as well as their own processes. So ISO-9000 helps them create transparency in how they are doing things. (in theory) But automotive suppliers don't get QS-9000 certification because they think it is a great idea for them. They do it because Ford and GM require them to. In theory these registration processes help to manage the work flow and can improve the product. More often they are treated as just a few more hoops to jump through.

For those who might not know ISO9000 and it's bretheren (QS-9000, AS-9100, ISO-14000) are really just documentation processes. The overly simplified explanation of that is you establish a process, document it, and then follow it while documenting the fact that you are following it. They are called quality processes but they really are about consistency of processes. Quality in manufacturing terms is about reducing variability. You can have the worst process in the world but if you document it and follow it, you can be ISO-9000 registered. Granted that's a slight exageration, but only slight.

If someone brags that they are making a quality product because they are ISO-9000 registered they are claiming that their products are great because they document how they make them.

Why there is nothing new

[Veteran]

Building a new Rocket requires that you have one man who understands the whole project in order to lead it. Historically there have only been a few people in the history of the world who have had that level of expertise. In order to be the chief architect of a new rocket here is a quick summation of the fields in which that person has to have the equivalent of a Ph.D. in for the project to succeed:

Mechanical engineering. A rocket is just about the toughest mechanical engineering job there is. Example: there is a problem in rocket design known as 'pogo' instability; the thrust is not instantly delivered to all parts of the rocket at the same time - the distributed masses of the rocket interact with the spring constants of the structural material to cause resonance problems along the length of the craft which cause it to behave like a pogo stick. A rocket's mass is continually changing - so all of those resonance problems change as the fuel is burned off - and it can't have pogo instabilities during any of that process. That is just ONE of the mechanical engineering problems.

Electrical engineering. The electrical engineering problems in a rocket are also profound: a rocket requires all sorts of electrical control systems. You not only need to have a Ph.D. in power engineering you need one in control theory, and one in analog design, and one in digital design.

Chemical engineering - Rockets use exotic chemicals and you had better understand them completely.

Materials science: what materials are appropriate for use where? Better understand that at a deep level.

Combustion engineering. Rockets represent the epitome of combustion engineering; the burning has to be smooth without instabilities (that all ties back to the mechanical engineering problem).

Computer science. Uh, computers are pretty important in rocketry - everyone on this site understands what happens with computers if you don't know what you are doing.

Management skills - a new rocket is a huge management problem.

Political and social skills - If you can't shmooze the politicians at a world class level you won't have any funding to accomplish your goals.

It is more than politics - you need sales skills - you have to be able to sell yourself and your project to everyone involved.

Mass marketing: the country has to buy into what you are doing.

Hydraulics - how do you pump the fuels - do you understand standing wave problems in the hydraulic systems? What happens when all of that is subjected to varying accelerations? Better understand that deeply.

Communications - and radio engineering - don't understand antenna theory - whoops sorry no communications with the space craft. Better understand microphones and cameras, and the problems with audio and visual production and distribution.

Cryogenics - Low temperature physics comes into play in a rocket.

Aeronautics - part of the flight is at very high speed in the atmosphere.

Biomedical issues. How do you keep the crew alive and functioning?

Psychology - how do you keep the crew from going crazy?

Going to Mars? Better understand nuclear physics and plasma physics completely. How to you shield a nuclear reactor from the crew - or better sill - how do you build a fusion rocket? How do you build a magnetic nozzle - what are the plasma containment problems. What is Bremmstralung - why is it important?



The list goes on and on. The architect doesn't do all of the work in each field - but he has to understand all of it deeply because he has to be able to pick the people in each specialty who will solve the detailed problems. One Bozo in the bunch and the project is doomed. Most people outside of computers would pick Bill Gates and Microsoft for the software end of things -not deeply understanding the real issues involved leads to poor choices being made. The architect has to be able to give guidance when the people in each field get stuck. He has to fit all of this together; if he doesn't understand it all who will? If somebody somewhere doesn't understand the whole problem - the project is doomed.

When the Soviet architect - Korolev - was killed in a launch accident that was the end of the Russian moon project - nobody could complete his unfinished designs. We had Wherner Von Braun as our architect. We also had Charlie Feltz - who worked on the P-51 Mustang - designed the X-15 and spear headed the shuttle. Sadly Mr. Feltz passed away earlier this month. I don't know the name of the chinese architect. Do any of you?

Such people are very rare If we decide to go to Mars a person like that is necessary.

Re:Why there is nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

In order to be the chief architect of a new rocket here is a quick summation of the fields in which that person has to have the equivalent of a Ph.D. in for the project to succeed:

bullshit

Re:Why there is nothing new

[Veteran]

Normally I wouldn't bother to respond to a comment like this - but in this case I will make an exception.

There are many people who believe - as Professor Coward does - that a single star architect such as I described is not necessary for a project like a Mars shot.

People of that mode of thought believe that having a project manager who - while not at the level I described - has a general idea of what is going on and who referees a team design - deciding along with a steering committee - what is to be done and when; is the proper way to do such a project..

We at NASA are very familiar with that project design philosophy. In fact there is even NASA terminology for such a team directed project; it is called a Cluster Fuck

Re:Why there is nothing new

[zCyl]

In order to be the chief architect of a new rocket ... that person has to have the equivalent of a Ph.D.

Most people outside of computers would pick Bill Gates and Microsoft for the software end of things -not deeply understanding the real issues involved leads to poor choices being made.

The degree of expertise you mention in each field is not needed to be a good administrator in charge of such a project. What IS needed is a high level of organizational skill, wisdom, and the intelligence necessary to know how to choose the appropriate people to head each of those subdivisions. You don't choose Bill Gates to run the software end because you've heard of him, this is poor logic. Instead, you ask many respected academics in the field of computing who appropriate people to head a division would be.

You don't need to be an expert in everything, you just need to know how to find them. Such knowledge isn't spontaneously generated inside of experts, it travels by word of mouth.

Re:Stop Building Trucks To Nowhere and Explore Spa

[pfdietz]

Projects that don't fly, literally, should be no surprise when the U.S. can't give NASA a target.

NASA hasn't been doing much worthwhile because noone has been able to find much that is worthwhile for it to do. So it gets given poorly justified makework projects to keep money flowing to congressional districts. Since the projects aren't worth doing, there's no real cost to anyone (except the taxpayers) if they're starved of funds or poorly managed.

Buran stopped because the funder no longer existed

[fantomas]

Um, wasn't one of the reasons for Buran development stopping that the entire superstate funding the project (USSR) collapsed at that point, so the contributing nations had more on their minds than space research? (like defining their nations, sorting out their economies, avoiding military coups..) I thought this was a main reason for the research getting shelved?

Re:Buran stopped because the funder no longer exis

[pfdietz]

Um, wasn't one of the reasons for Buran development stopping that the entire superstate funding the project (USSR) collapsed at that point, so the contributing nations had more on their minds than space research?

That certainly was a part of it, but notice they kept flying the expendables even through the collapse. They could sell launches on the expendables, since they had the most economical launchers in the world. Buran wasn't competitive, and retaining it would have meant preserving the entire Energya production line, which had no other customers.

What X Program Was That?

[reallocate]

>>,i>The original X program in the 60s...nearly achieved a aircraft capible of making orbit without booster rockets.

What was that? The X-15 was a long way and about 13,000 mph from orbit. I believe someone toyed with the idea of strapping on a bit of throw-away boost and giving it enough oomph for a single high-altitude traverse of the globe, but that's not equivalent to reaching orbit.

Re:What X Program Was That?

[gailwynand]

You're right - the X program was far from making it to orbit in the 1960s. The use of the word "Nearly" is a matter of personal judgement. but just think where the program could be today if it had been continued by some very paranoid cold warriors...

The best thing about the X program is that it was Piloted flight in a craft suited both to atmospheric and non-atmospheric flight. It proved that it might be possible someday for a man to take off in a craft like an airplane, fly to an orbit, and land like an airplane, even if that particular feat was still years off.

What's wrong with NASA and aerospace in general.

[TerraFORM]

The problem with NASA and the aerospace industry in general is that programs that are funded initially often fall to the whims of current, typically uninformed and shortsighted politicians who control allocations, axing appropriate funding for R&D. The industry is further handicapped by an employment atmosphere entered through a revolving door of sorts--i.e., new, young, energetic aerospace professionals are dissuaded from even entering the arena because it is often they who are first cut when the funding evaporates. Thus there is a dearth of qualified personnel in aerospace to replace the boomer crowd who (unfortunately for me, who was born later) got to actually actively pursue to fruition the accomplishments of the 60s and 70s. We need to realize what's happening, and do something about it.

Re:ISO 9000 - Great theory, not so great in practi

[hughk]

It depends upon the practice, but in general, when I have worked in places which were ISO9000 certified, at least they knew what they were doing, even if it was producing crap. In theory at least, whoever is your customer can then understand that you are producing crap and to act accordingly (unless they too are producing crap - arguably true in the case of Ford).

Re:Stop Building Trucks To Nowhere and Explore Spa

[reallocate]

Here are a few missions that we might task to NASA:

1. Permanent human presence on the Moon
2. Mission to near-Earth asteroid with an objective of eventual commercial exploitation
3. Develop space-only propulsion systems with the objective of "going faster", and capaable of sustained 1-G acceleration.

The third point is important. Earth-launched orbital, lunar, and planetary missions in effect have self-imposed speed limits of about 18,000 mph and 25,000 mph, respectively. That's as fast as they need to go to get the job done. Propulsion systems designed only to work in space ought not to be as constrained. If you're going to Mars, travelling at 100,000 mph is better than 25,000 moh.

Re:Stop Building Trucks To Nowhere and Explore Spa

[pfdietz]

None of those is really worth doing, unfortunately. The 1-G acceleration system, btw, is not possible with any technology we'll have soon -- the power density is simply far too high at the Isp that would be required.

Re:Stop Building Trucks To Nowhere and Explore Spa

[reallocate]

My basic point is that space exploration, fundamentally, is about going to other places in space. Along the way, scientific research, commercial exploitation and all the rest will happen. But until we actually decide to go someplace and build the capability and infrastructure to get there, none of those other secondary benefits are possible. Because leadership outside NASA hasn't ddemonstrated the vision and interest necessary to make that decision, NASA is left, almost literally, spinning its wheels. It's difficult to get excited about putting people into orbit; we've been doing that for 40 years.

privatize the freaking space program

[Anonymous Coward]

duh!!! Get the government out of space!!!!!

A word of caution

[JediTrainer]

Be sure to thoroughly research any technology before entrusting the lives of our astronauts to it. Last thing we want is a WinCE-powered deathbox.

Maybe it's bad physics

[adruvius]

If there is ever a group of people who could interpret a technical presentation, it ought to be /. http://www.g2mil.com/SRT.htm

Blame Nixon

[Detritus]

Aerospace engineering never really recovered from the post-Apollo funding crunch. It put a huge number of engineers and technicians out on the street.

path to success

[727scotty]

NASA had two big successes: the moon program, and ICBM's (where they collaborated with DOD). NASA success depends on a common objective uniting everyone concerned - including Congress and the Administration de Jour...

I'd like to see a series of prizes for achievements.

Let Congress, or ESA, or private people pay into the prize pools. And of course, invest the money so that it's increasing all the time.

Possible prize-worthy achievements: (i)getting any single stage vehicle into orbit w/no throw-aways. (ii) getting a whole launch system back to earth and refurbishing it for reuse. (iii) finding water on the moon, and breaking it into H2 and O2. (Or doing the same on Mars.) Or...

The 1973 layoff and its discontents

[Animats]

The basic problem with NASA is that all the good people were laid off in 1973, when Apollo closed down.

There aren't many experienced aircraft designers any more. When Apollo was being ramped up, there were whole armies of engineers who'd worked on aircraft from WWII through the early 1960s, the great boom period of aviation when jets came in. There was a big pool of people who'd built machines that fly.

They're gone. Ben Rich, head of the Lockheed Skunk Works wrote in the 1990s that he'd worked on 23 aircraft in his career, and that today's engineer will be lucky to work on one. The Skunk Works itself is gone, lost in the Lockheed-Martin merger. The hangars in Burbank are empty.

Missile design is dead, too. Nobody in the US has designed an ICBM in a while. When the US developed missiles in the 1950s, they had a huge number of failures in a small number of years before the things worked. That was expensive, but it got the job done. The people who worked through those failures are all gone now.

So who's going to design a new spacecraft that will work the first time? Nobody working today has done it before.

A Constitutional Convention is Needed

[Baldrson]

The fact that the feds didn't do something like the X-Prize long ago, and on a much larger scale, is proof they are not worthy of the position of power they have usurped. They're afraid of letting the best men win and will continue the long and sordid history of claiming "you can't keep a good man down".

The feds could have pushed on things like prize award incentives for technical achievements in energy or space transportation or scientific discovery.

Think about Henry Ford and The Guggenheim Trophy or Charles Lindbergh and the Orteig Prize.

Of course, I think we all know why prizes that let the best man win (AKA "fair contests") are anathema to the guys who run things.

The feds have become the enemy not simply of the people but of the planet. They're going to grind the United States, and with it life on earth, into the dust. Nanotech grey-goo won't be an issue if the feds aren't removed from the seat of power by something at least as radical as a Constitutional Convention.

Re:Stop Building Trucks To Nowhere and Explore Spa

[pfdietz]

And you have failed to explain why 'going to other places in space' is worthwhile. NASA's problem is that it hasn't been seen as worthwhile. Now, you can just blithely dismiss this as 'lack of vision', but all that's going to do is make spacefans seem like cult members. The public and the powerful largely don't give a damn about space advocates' ideas of what's worthwhile to do in space.

Re:Stop Building Trucks To Nowhere and Explore Spa

[reallocate]

I don't have room or time here to explain, or persuade, anyone why going into space is worthwhile. It will be motivated by the ame things that motivated human exploration and settling of the Earth: curiosity, search for wealth, power over others, etc.

The argument that the public hears so often from the anti-space crowd -- spend the money here and don't even think about space until we've solved all Earth's problems -- is bogus. We will never solve all our problems, because we keep creating new ones. We change our own environment and then we have to deal with it. That's what we do.

Besides, most people who argue "spend the money here" just want it spent on there own pet interest.

Central Florida Government Contractors

[lanner]

"'NASA's unbroken string of cancelled vehicle programs' going back 20 years makes it a good bet that OSP will also fail. Is this just really, really, bad luck, or is NASA little more than a multi-billion-dollar jobs program for important U.S. aerospace contractors?""

You just figured it out.

I live in Orlando Florida, on the east side of town where there are a lot of government contractors, including Lockheed Martin's big IT and research center just down the street. Orlando is all about two words, "cheap labor." The people who live here are cheap labor for Disney, the other theme parks, gas stations, food related, lodging related, and for the few companies that have built offices here that has resulted in some call centers and paper filing mills. A few other businesses lay in the area, but it is nothing like any other major metro area. The rest of the jobs just don't exist here in Orlando. The cost of living is high like Denver Colorado, but the standard of living is much lower for most people.

Orlando has only one freeway, and it is terrible. The rest are toll roads -- toll roads like I have seen in no other city anywhere in the U.S. There are no bridges here to go over or anything, they just feel like taxing the local public since Florida does not have a state income tax (stupid). I have been told many times that the toll road just south of my home is the most expensive toll road in the U.S. per mile. If you have ever been in traffic in Seattle, think of that, on the city streets, but worse -- and there is no bad weather here.

The one exception to all of this is the government contractors. They drive around here in their luxury cars and SUVs. There are a lot of nice houses (mansions) just north and just south of the government contractor center. I have had the opportunity to talk to many of them since I moved here about nine months ago, including an MCSE neighbor of mine who works as support staff for Lockheed Martin. I have been told by nearly all of them that they are very happy with their jobs, they have great job security, and that they mostly sit around and do nothing, working on meaningless projects and get paid for it by the U.S. Government.

To quote one of them who worked for L3, "...To work in government contracting you just have to get a contract, then sit back and do nothing. Don't complain, just be late with your project and you will get even more money in hopes that it might ever get done."

A few of the government contractors that I have spoken with have expressed that the new wave of security related contracts will benefit them a lot and that their shops are trying desperately to land some of those. One of these shops was a flight simulation shop that was trying to change it's image over night to be a "security software" shop, so that they could land a contract. This came from one of their software developers.

There may be some shops that are doing something good that gets used by the government or eventually by the U.S. population, but I have generally attributed the technology workers around here as being old fat do-nothing's with no ambition or drive to have pride in their work. It is nothing like the western U.S. technology social environment where there are mostly young and middle aged workers who want to be proud of their work and have lots of ambition. I don't see this from the government contractors around here at all. They are all middle aged or older and almost always bitter.

Split NASA into manned and unmanned

[Tablizer]

It is very arguable that the shuttle itself is the ruination of NASA as an interesting exploratory entity/department/whathaveyou.

I think they should *split* NASA into manned and unmanned divisions and budgets. I am tired of seeing Pluto probes scrapped because the ISS's toilet gets clogged, requiring a 1/2 Billion launch to fix it.

Unmanned is mostly about scientific exploration, but manned is more about stupid politics (so far).

Not: Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[WolfWithoutAClause]

No, the Shuttle is not the answer. The problems the Shuttle has are:

• lack of credible abort modes
• extremely long turnaround times
• use of solid rocket boosters during ascent
• use of bulky hydrogen during ascent to LEO
• use of expensive launch pad
• whole armies of people needed to maintain it
• extremely high cost of launch
• lack of full reuse
• main engines are too complex, too near to the engineering edge

Some of these are fixable with enough money; the boosters might be replaced by liquid engines, or hybrid engines, but most of them are pretty much inherent in the design. The main engines are gradually improving, and need less maintenance now, but the vehicle still is never going to be able to turnaround quickly; it's never going to launch every other day, or once per week. And that's what it would take to make it cheap.

Re:Not: Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[Bladesnitz]

Ok, when you can design a new system from scratch that solves these problems without overruning your budget, then you've solved NASA's problem for the past 10 years :)

You can take the Shuttle's design and modify to solve problems and improve efficiency more coest effectively than building a brand new orbiter.

Re:Not: Re:The Shuttle is the best replacement

[WolfWithoutAClause]

You can take the Shuttle's design and modify to solve problems and improve efficiency more coest effectively than building a brand new orbiter.

No. The cost of the shuttle is the wages of people working on it. The vehicle is designed to need lots of people, and it will remain so till it dies; because it is good for the politicians that way.

Re:Stop Building Trucks To Nowhere and Explore Spa

[pfdietz]

I don't have room or time here to explain, or persuade, anyone why going into space is worthwhile.

No, what you don't have is a persuasive argument to back up your article of faith.

It's painful to question deeply held subconscious beliefs, but it would do you good to question yours. I used to be a big supporter of space exploration myself, until I realized how fraudlent and manipulative the whole enterprise has been. You just haven't yet figured out how you've been suckered.

NASA is also science, not just manned space flight

[internic]

Before you go calling NASA a glorified jobs program, remember that NASA also has scientific missions not directly related to manned space flight. These scientific segments, such as most of the activity as NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, do a lot of scientific work that is very valuable to the scientific community, obviously especially astronomers. Projects such as the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center provide invaluable reseach tools to scientists. Another example is the Laser Interferometry Space Antenna project, which will be invaluable to physicists in testing Einstein's theory of general relativity, cosmological theories, and possibly "theories of everything".

While I think there are some valid goals for manned space flight, and I think that getting man into space can also have positive social effects, many things like the Internation Space Station have very questionable scientific value. This is clear to many inside NASA as well, but in the case of the ISS this has more to do with the fact that budget cutting in congress cut out most of the valid scientific componants of the mission as to expensive. So, first of all, don't blame all of NASA for the failing of the manned space flight program, and second don't think that many of the people within NASA aren't just as frustrated as those on the outside.

NASA == elitist tax absorbing do-nothings

[Anonymous Coward]

Much like the DoD IT world you have the rule of incompetent, buzz fanatic, self-serving bureaucrats... and then there are some notable exceptions. However, the environment is not conducive to promotion of hard work and talent but is very proactive in the "snake oil salesman" department. Words will not improve it. What will solve the problem is forcing congress and the president to overhaul these programs both for the sake of more efficient use of our tax dollars and to actually enforce proper (and professional) productivity from these organizations.

Nice Troll: Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NASA p

[WolfWithoutAClause]

They want to - get this - privatize and commercialize the International Space Station! They're one step from the Raelians.

Nice troll. What a bunch of weirdoes they must be to want to do capitalism in that most right wing of places America. Yup, uh huh. You're right.

MOD PARENT UP!

[Wolfrider]

--Geez, this could be the thing that brings the economy back from toilet-land! Dibs on the first Hilton-in-space room reservation!

Re:Nice Troll: Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NAS

[Jazu]

How exactly does building things with taxpayer money and then giving them to some random company factor into capitalism?

Re:Nice Troll: Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NAS

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Well, they historically did pretty much the same thing with land, the government acquires it militarily using public money, and then auctions it, or rents it off. What's the difference?

the only tinfoil hat I see is the one you wear

[alizard]

Science Magazine recently ran an article on future energy alternatives which discusses space-based energy programs like powersats. Making those work is going to require privatization and commercialization of space and everybody knows it.

Except you.

Science Magazine is credible. At this point, even the Raelians are more credible than you are. Though that isn't saying much.

The burden of proof that privatizing and commercializing space is a bad idea is on you, and you aren't remotely capable of meeting it.

Though if the black helicopter boys let you go today, you can provide us with entertainment by trying.

tax write-off program for space development

[perfessor multigeek]

Declare proceeds from space exploration and space exploitation free from taxes for 20 years (think land grants during the Westward expansion of the United States.) Everyone will throw money into space, some as a tax dodge, some as legit ventures now that they can drum up investment . . .

I *like* it. It might actually work and it's the sort of the thing that Shrub II's friends would back simply to ensure their own payoffs.
Gotta be better then just cutting taxes on dividends, let alone another ill-managed NASA fiasco. Maybe we would even see another attempt at a Beal Aerospace-scale venture. Would sure make a great tax shelter for Texas Enron booty.

Here's hoping,
Rustin

demand for space travel cost of more shuttles

[perfessor multigeek]

Well, that's the problem innit? There's just no reason to have hundreds of shuttles. Hell, we got 4 and they want to fly'em less, even tho' it saves little or no money. AFA tourism goes, is there really a market? A very small one, capable of paying the kind of $ it takes nowadays. Definitely not the kind of critical mass you need.

This, on a grander scale, is the same argument that happens a thousand times a year about bus routes. "We only do one unpredictable run every three hours or so in dirty, busses and nobody rides it so obviously a.) there is no demand and b.) cost per passenger is huge".

If, as NASA does, you run a system at very low capacity (admittedly, in this case, under massive Congressional and contractors pressure), then only the most desperate will use it and cost per unit delivered will *ahem* soar.
If, on the other hand, you scale up AND OPEN TO THE MARKET'S DEMANDS then costs go down, not just from linear economies of scale (like part prices going down) but from the sorts of exploring other options that happens when you're receptive to the customer who says "Is there any chance you could use X Widget to make my satellite take up less room in the bay and thereby charge me a lower rate?"
Do you really think that the tourism market is small? Do you have any idea how much people pay for the chance to go on, say, cruises to Antarctica, let alone how rabidly they need to limit visitors due to constant demand exceeding tolerance of the ecosystems? We have a huge worldwide affluent class (yup, when you rape the middle class, that's what happens) be it Saudi/Pakistani princes (of which there are thousands), Russian mafiosi, Japanese/Hong Kong/Chinese rich kids (still more around then you'ld think), the beneficiaries of all the money stolen from Enron/Adelphia/etc., and even those who got their money legitimately such as the lords of Silicon Valley and the young media moguls around the world. They're rich, they're bored (trust me, I've had to work with quite a few of them), and they show their power to their friends/competitors by doing/getting the coolest things. It's as old as the patrons of Rome, well documented (from Veblen to Edith Wharton), and a reliable money source.
If the cost could be brought down to, say, two mil to start, and keep dropping from there, the only risk would be NASA's legendary ham-handedness at being cool.
Of course, personally, I'm a lot more interested in geek stuff, but tourism was the comment so tourism is what I'm addressin'

Rustin

Re:ISO 9000 - Great theory, not so great in practi

[ChaoticLimbs]

Yeah, ISO9000 is great. You can manufacture lead frisbees and cast-iron dirigibles under ISO9000 so long as they're built exactly according to the engineering drawings and procedures.

Re:Nice Troll: Re:Anti-NASA group writing anti-NAS

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the defense.

We aren't really as anti-NASA as some paint us to be. It's just that NASA has this habit of doing things that really tick off some of our Advocates.

We can see ways NASA could actually help and we've mentioned them. Those messages haven't received the same level of exposure in the media, though.

-adiffer

You got that backwards.

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing was originally
designed with aluminum fuel
tanks. They changed them to
composite tanks, and had
several failures of the
composite tanks. The aluminum
tanks would have been a better
choice. Aka, they were heavy,
but at least they would have
worked.

Space is not the Earth

[tjstork]

>I will sum it up as follows: There has to be >some intrinsic value for something to be done

I have an instrinsic reason: THE EARTH SUCKS.

We're all slaves of giant megacorporations and giant governments. Our leaders, both corporate and political, are all droning gutless idiots. I think if we can build a technology to sustain life on another planet, people would go in a heartbeat.

Why do they cancel the successful approaches

[Flyer]

Over the years NASA has had a few successful programs that were swept under the carpet or killed. These were always low cost projects that never got much support and were progressing quite well for the money invested. Not only did they not get support the support they needed but they often had to fight for every dime against NASA.

The first example is the Lifting Body program in the early sixties. The Lifting Body Fact Sheet outlines the history of this project similar to the DynaSoar project of the Air Force at about the same time frame. The biggest difference was that the Lifting Body program cost about 3% of the other program and had real flight data from hundreds of flights. Guess which one got cancelled first?

Then there is the DCX project and thats an interesting study of how successful projects are quietly killed off. For general info see Delta Clipper and DC X FAQ for grneral info. I have run across several documents over the years that highlight how congress and others tried to kill off the DC X. Initially it was under DARPA (the Internet folk) and later it ended up under NASA budget. After NASA got it it was quietly eliminated in favor of the X33. Now the X33 was a great public works project as it required development of new technology where the DC-X was designed to be inexpensive and be iteratively developed to its full potential. Which one was selected for development into the next generation space craft?

Maybe the X33 was retasked for airforce use as the Arora. Hows that for a wild speculation?

In the Moon shot NASA iterated through several platforms while learning and growing along the way. The STS was more of a waterfall big bang approach and when it arrived it was already obsolete. Maybe NASA is just a public works errort after all.

Re:Buran stopped because the funder no longer exis

[fantomas]

Mmm, fair point. I guess the hardware making the bucks would still be churned out and the R and D would go to the wall.

Damn it's a pity they stopped at that point, though, from what I've read it seems as if it was a better machine in quite a few ways than the US shuttle. Let's hope some of the Buran engineers got taken on by NASA, or at least kept their jobs doing something else at Energia.