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 :-)

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

[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

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.

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

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: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: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.

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: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.

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

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: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.