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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?"
NASA isn't run by rocket scientists, after all. ...
Oh, wait,
-Chris
San Diego Padres, 100 Park Blvd, San Diego CA 92101
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by
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.
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.
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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-0
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=45
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/sta
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.
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
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.
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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
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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.
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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.