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

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.

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

[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

[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

[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.

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 ...

[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.

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]

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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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...

[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.

new shuttle

[XavierXeon]

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

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

[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.

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

[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

[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.

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.

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.

"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

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.

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 :-)

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

[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.

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.

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: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: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.

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.

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.

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.