Slashdot Mirror
More on Columbia
RodeoBoy writes "It seems that regardless of what NASA and Boeing wants the public to believe there are still questions about damage to the shuttle's left wing. Some Boeing engineers have raised concerns that proper analysis of the damage was not done at the time, due to changes and cutbacks in Boeing. It is also coming out that more than one chunk of foam might have hit and damaged the wing. With Boeing having some financial troubles and NASA under public scrutiny again, what is the future of the space shuttle program..."
Find problem, examine problem, fix problem, learn from problem, push forward. Sure worked (and still does) for trains, planes, and automobiles...
SecondPageMedia - Wha
I haven't been following this closely, but why would NASA want the public to believe in a non-foam-related cause, rather than a foam-related one?
I'd share your cynicism if they were saying, "It wasn't foam, it was Saddam!" But given a failure, why would the foam collision be worth burying in favor of something else?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
You know, it's quite easy to call the race after it's over. However, there are a whole lotta parts on a space shuttle that could lead to potential disaster, and all in all, I think reasonable precautions are being taken. Yes, you can't put a price on human lives, however, there's an associated risk with driving, flying, and launching into outer space, and I think reasonable precautions have been met. I find none of what happened to be neglegent or careless. That's just my $0.02 for what it's worth.
A column on the weaknesses of the shuttle program
Comments welcome.
what would the astronauts want? would they want you to stop exploring space because of them? they knew the risks of exploration, and took them. and let's face it, with NASA down, down comes the ISS, which signifies the unity of the human race dedicated to one cause. don't dishonor the memory of all astronauts by going under.
Does anyone know how dense this foam is? I haven't found any mention of it. Is it like styrofoam density or is it much heaver than that?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I think that we'll get to the bottom of this eventually. Given enough time, of course.
However, I must wonder about how much of the shuttle funds were diverted to help fund the ISS...
In any event, the loss of Columbia and its crew should not be a terminating point for manned space exploration; we all have to escape from Earth in the end!
Is here: http://www.io.com/~o_m/home.html
Excellent work by this guy. No irrational conspiracy theories, no useless speculation, no NASA asskissing.
Sorry if it's a dupe.
Shit happens. That's reality. Things are going to go wrong. Once that thing left the pad, (and at that point everything seamed as right as could be) there is nothing any engineering analysis could do. Even If they had worked 24/7 for the flight with every engineer at boeing and NASA working the issue and they had found there would be a problem there is nothing they could have done. The could have thought about it for the flight or have thought about it for 5 minutes and went to lunch, it would have had the same results. Everything will fail in time. And complexity accelerates this. NASA has list of plenty of single failures that will doom the shuttle.
Far as engineers saying something during the flight in emails. Well I could send out lots of emails saying it will blow up every time it goes up. Some day I would be right, but that wouldn't mean I warned them. If an engineer thought differant about the sitution it doesn't mean NASA ignored them and some is at fault. There were others who didn't agree with him. NASA has to make a call, and the might make the wrong one. This wasnt' preventable far as we know. Maybe it will come back to being some pre-flight thing that was done wrong of neglected, then it's differant, but if it's something that went wrong after launch it very well may be no ones fault. Things like challenger were differant. There engineers told officals before launch about the O-rings. Bulk of the engineers knew there was an extremely high chance it would fail on that day. When it blew they didn't even have to ask why it failed, they knew. They just had to investigate to show they were right. That was a preventable accident that was the fault of not listening to engineers.
who put that foam there. We must start the compaign to ban all foam from the United States of America. Think of the children! When, I ask you, when will the maddness end? How did it happen that we, as a country, did not see this one coming? All the products that could be potentially dangerous and/or used in a terrorist attack. First the trench coats, then the box cutters, the nail filers, the pointy umbrelas, the McDonald, and now the foam! We must open our eyes as a society. We must protect the children at all cost! The land of the Free and the home of the Brave must be cleared of all the dangerous items so that our children could go outside again. (wait, what am I saying?) Ban the outside! For the childrens' sake! It's dangerous out there, lets ban the outside!
You can't handle the truth.
The best outcome of the Columbia tragedy would be for NASA to get entirely out of the suborbital and orbital business altogether. As a pure launch vehichle, the Space Shuttle was not all that efficient, especially when considering the turnaround time involved. Handing over (what should be) relatively simple tasks to the private sector, would save millions of dollars of pork and mismanagement, thereby freeing said missions from a needless government bureaucracy and private sector 'contractors-for-life'. For it to remain viable, NASA needs to focus on extra-terran missions, both robotic and manned, if it wishes to remain a worthy vassal of the United States taxpayer.
For that matter, even lunar missions would be a better use of money than testing the effects of near zero gravity on ants.
You're only as smart as your brain.
The most important story of the past few days is the role of falling ice, not just "foam", from the central booster.
All of which were invented and developed in the public sector.
NASA is a monopolistic government agency which self evaluates, self polices and has little in the way of market pressures to deal with in order to continue to exist.
It makes a difference.
KFG
Really though. I thought that space exploration was a pretty risky endeavour. NASA tries to be as careful as possible, but they have a limited budget and finite resources. Given the staggering risks involved, I'd say that they are still doing pretty well. This latest explosion will cause a new wave of safety checking which is all good stuff. How many of you wouldn't give you left nut to be on that next shuttle anyways. Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!
No guts, no glory...
Clickety Click
people to know about the O-rings. The modern/post Apollo NASA has always been deathly allergic to admiting they just plain fucked up or cut corners.
m l
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77832,00.ht
KFG
What probably will happen is that our government will waste a lot more of our tax money and make a bunch of stupid decisions that nobody really cares about.
What I say is we should do the following
1. Sell the space shuttles to someone else, China?
2. Make NASA a regulator agency, like the FCC of FDA.
3. Privatize the space industry.
This will result in money being spent to do useful things with space travel. People will be able to put up sattelites, space tourism will begin and eventually flourish. Someone might set up a hotel type space station. Or a moon base, or go to mars. All in all it should boost the economy by creating a new industry for people to work in and new companies to work for, as well as making life a hell of a lot more interesting.
Of course there are reasons not to do this, but this is what I want, not necessarily the best idea in the world, or the most realistic one.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
My dad works for Boeing and does lots of stuff with sattelites and space, though admittedly not rockets specifically. He can't imagine how insulation could've caused the damage in question. The insulation is extremely light and low density; it would've had to have been going rediculiously fast to have the force to cause damage to the tiles, and launching speeds aren't that fast until you're a few miles up. Ice is a more likely contender than insulation, since it's very hard etc, but it's rare to have a piece fall off that is massive enough to have much kinetic energy, and most of the ice is kicked off before the rocket gets going very fast.
I find it pretty insulting when people try to imply that NASA and Boeing are being anything but absolutely forthcoming about information. Sure, it's in their best interest to displace blame, but this isn't the X-Files here. If NASA knows something, they're going to tell the public.
Where is the left wing? It disintegrated along with most of the rest of the ship. What do you expect them to find? They're finding tiny bits and pieces of the shuttle scattered across 4 or 5 states and you expect them to find an intact wing?? More than likely, like I said, it disintegrated during the breakup and was very likely the cause of the accident. It either broke apart or burned up and the biggest pieces they'll find are going to be less than the size of your fist.
Is it possible for the public sector to take on something like NASA though? Could the money be gathered? I can see where you are coming from, that the program would be better if it wasn't 100% government controlled and operated, but could such a huge, broad-based organization such as the present day NASA be assembled to successfully maintain a shuttle program?
SecondPageMedia - Wha
OK, we can't retire the space shuttle today. Nor tomorrow. But its time is drawing near...
Consider first that the shuttle was a massive compromise versus the original proposed designs. If the budget had been infinite, we would have had a better shuttle. If the budgeteers had had more foresight, we might (probably) have had a better shuttle. The shuttle we have now is a big series of compromises that limit its usefulness and safety.
Now consider that the shuttle program has been around since 1981. That's more than half of the time that's passwd since man first walked on the moon! It still seems shiny to some of us (myself included), because it was the only newsmaking bit of space exploration in our youth. However, it's old. It's an old (and limited) design, and we have learned a lot of what to do (or not) on the next go around. It's time to climb the next step of astronautical evolution.
So let's keep them in top shape, fly them as necessary (mostly as ferries to the ISS), while putting as much money as possible into a next-generation space vehicle.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
but this was a friggin car accident. Seven people died. The car happened to be very very very very very very very expensive.
Like this guy said. All this speculation is ridiculous. Let them do what they do.
Flame on.
3cx.org - A truly bad website.
It's simple math and economics. Financially the shuttle program has been a terrible disaster. Now you can't second guess anything and there have been advances in comfort and living conditions in space and such thanks to the shuttle but I'm sure the same kind of things would have been done without it. We've learned things because of the shuttle, it hasn't stopped science, it's just not delivered what it was supposed to have.
I also fear that NASA itself may be out of date and obsolete. Am I the only one who is disgusted by the notion of the beaurocracy? There are all of these emails surfacing. I've worked at IBM and other big places and I get this sick feeling of CYA going on. I can just see the Dilbert-esque rocket scientist sitting at his desk composing the emails to the director about the foam falling off and the other possible causes. "Properly documenting" the risk. I've read Feynman's report on the Challenger disaster and that's one of the issues he pointed out. The administration lives in make believe where the engineers make compromises to do things on time. It's kind of a bummer because there are people that die because of it. I'd like to think that someone will be held accountable, I doubt that anybody other than an administrative warm body will be and at best they'll be fired and get a really high paying job at Boeing, TRW, or Raytheon.
I think it's high time we start looking at splitting NASA up in to 2 or 3 groups and making them compete with each other. Let the beaurocracy die and the science come back, make them write proposals, beg congress and private parties for funding and then hold them accountable for delivery. Let different groups take different approaches. Reward success with continued funding. NASA is cheap, relatively speaking. We can easily fund 3 NASAs. Right now it all rides on the success and failure of one entity with nearly an impossible mission, logisitally speaking. NASA can't even admit that the shuttle program is a failure because then they lose face and funding and there isn't another organization in place to do the science. So science continues to limp and NASA continues to put bandaids on a very expensive wound that has taken more lives than all other space related accidents put together.
And for the record I am appriciative and recognize the hard work and accomplishments of everyone associated with the shuttle program. They have engineered some amazing things and I'm not attacking anybody personally. It's the program as a whole that hasn't delivered what it promised.
I bet they have found the wing. They just say they havent to cover up more information that they dont want us to see.
Note that I didn't make any particular value judgment, per se. I was simply stating facts that make it difficult or impossible for NASA to operate under what would be called "normal" circumstances. They are not truly a scientific or engineering firm. They are a political agency with all the faults thereof, which just happens to be in charge of building things that go "Whooosh" into the sky.
Certainly up to this point what they have accomplished would have been simply impossible otherwise. It would be like asking some ancient Egyptians to get together and build a pyramid in their back yard.
However, even a cursory examination of the history of the whole shuttle project will reveal it to be a purely political affair.
Apollo and its forbears may have had politics as their genesis, but then, at least for a time, the politics dictated that the politicians get the hell out of the way and let the engineers get the job done.
That time has long since passed, whether public perception has caught up with the times or not.
KFG
I was thinking to myself what NASA should do to increase mankind's presence in orbit and how to go about it. It is apparent to just about everyone that the current Space Transportation System (STS) is in need of replacement. The last time we tried to do that was under the Space Launch Initiative (SLI) under the Clinton administration. That program was a failure, not because of Clintons people, but because there were technological and monetary hurdles that couldn't be properly addressed. However there is a way to do this. Right now the STS fleet is grounded, so the immediate concern is how to keep the ISS in orbit and fully manned. Russian President Putin has promised to build more Soyuz space craft to insure ISS is manned and supplied. From what I've found, it cost Russian anywhere from 25 to 50 million bucks to launch a manned Soyuz and a little less for a Progress supply ship. I would propose that the US discontinue any crew transport missions for the Shuttle to ISS and pay a significant portion of the money needed to keep Soyuz ships flying to ISS instead. If these ships cost 50 million bucks then there is a savings of about 400 million bucks for each transport (the Shuttle cost an estimated 450 million to fly). When the Shuttle is back on in the air, it should ONLY fly construction missions to finish the ISS. The the STS should be retired. That begs the question, what do we do with 450 mil for each flight that doesn't go? Since there are typically 6 or 7 flights by the Shuttle per year, about half of them are for significant construction of ISS. So we are looking at a savings of nearly 1.5 billion per fiscal year. THAT money should be invested in a completely new Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) space shuttle like the X-33 was meant to be. But that's not all. In order for space travel to become affordable, space vehicles must become more affordable. Building 5 space shuttles cost the taxpayers between 3 and 5 billion for each one (the Endeavor cost 3 billion because it was built from spare parts). If we could build say 20 or 30 space shuttles, the cost could possibly be cut in half or perhaps more. NASA doesn't need 20 or 30 shuttles, however, if we could get the European Space Agency (ESA), the Russians, the Japanese, Aussies, and even the Koreans to join up with the promise of owning their own shuttles, the cost could be easily be spread out. You see, the Europeans would get out from under NASA's shadow which they have for so long hated. They wanted to build a ship back in the 80's called the Sanger but they didn't have the money for it. The Europeans don't have the experience of space travel that we or the Russians do but they do have a lot of technology and engineering that they can bring to the table. The Russians are obvious additions because of their experience. What they can't bring to the table in money, they can definitly bring in know how. The Japanese have always wanted a manned space program but they too don't have the money to foot the bill for all the R&D involved. In addition, their rocket program has suffered many setbacks. The Koreans might look on this as national pride IMO and a chance to play with the big boys. We of course know more about Shuttles than anyone and of course can bring more money to the table. America would still have it's leadership role in the project but would still have to work with members of the development and building team. You see, I no longer see space exploration as an American dream. This is a HUMAN endeavor. We as Americans (or Russians) just happen to be better at it than anyone else. If we build a shuttle or two that can haul cargo and personnel to low Earth orbit in a cost effective manner, we will see more and more people going and that is the goal. Get more up there so we can do more. NASA has already learned that it needs to get out of the space launching business and get into the Space Exploration and Space Science business. NASA was essentially going to sell the Shuttles to the United Space Alliance and lease them back. The USA was going to maintain the Shuttles and NASA or Air Force pilots were going to fly them. NASA needs to get away from the space monopoly that it has created so that competition can be built. The same thing happened when NASA got out of the satelite launching business after the Challenger disaster. Getting people to compete and getting a new reliable shuttle with the world behind it will establish a firm foothold in space for the human race. Right now we have had our foot in the door for too long and earlier this month it got jammed. Now it's time to kick open the door and step inside. Once we have a firm foundation in orbit and on the moon, then we can procede to the Planets and the stars.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
...because there's very little financial advantage to space exploration and science. It's mainly a military endeavor with the side-benefit of being able to place satellites in orbit (which is financially useful). But there's nothing else to make money off of. Nothing. If it wasn't for a governmental mandate, and if the resources weren't pooled into Nasa, there would be no space program in the U.S. We'd have the Ariana system, small rockets that do jack squat but place satellites. That's it. In fact, Nasa only is what it is right now because of the race to the moon. There is no competition in that. One company was asked to do it, funded and they went. If you busted up Nasa now, there would be nothing for them to compete for. They'd all be busy eating investor money until one of them decided to compete with Ariana and then they'd buy the other failing companies for whatever puny amount of technology they developed and they'd call the conglomerate "Nasa," and then start soliciting government contracts to develop space programs to keep our military dominance in space above the rest of the world.
Did I mention they'd call it "Nasa?"
For the most part this is not true. The military has poured vasts amount of *money* into certain areas (notably airplanes, their involvment in the others is actually miniscule).
Development, however, has almost all been by the private sector to compete for contracts. In other words, they develop a product and then try to sell it.
Fokker, Sopwith, Boeing, General Dynamics, SAAB, all private firms that develop most of their products, even the military ones, quite independently.
KFG
Aviation Week and Space Technology (which doesn't have a free web site, alas) reports this week that Columbia has had a problem in a few of its flights with a premature transition from laminar to turbulent flow. The Shuttle reentry profile nominally has the airflow under the wing transitioning to turbulent flow around Mach 9, but on a recent Columbia flight it happened much sooner, around Mach 19.
Turbulent flow mixes the air near the surface much more, causing far greater transfer of heat to the Shuttle. There was some 'slumping' of tiles in that previous flight, temperatures reached ~2000 degrees, right at the limit of what the tiles can take.
This happens because Columbia's wing was far less smooth than the other (remaining) orbiters.
If there was significant roughness added by the foam/ice/whatever gouging the wing, that would increase the heating even more.
Another problem they were concerned with was an asymmetric transition to turbulent flow, which would cause the drag on one wing to be higher than the other, yawing the shuttle -- but it seems that there is more than enough control authority in the elevons and RCS system to counteract that if it happens.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Even if the foam hitting the wing at launch was the cause of the reentry failure, there's nothing they could have done about it, even if they had positively known that was going to cause a catastrophic failure upon reentry.
A similar event occured during Apollo XII, the second manned Moon landing. During launch, the Saturn V rocket was struck by lightning, causing a number of failures which were rapidly corrected. After they were out of the atmosphere, back at Mission Control, they pondered whether or not the lightning strike might have damaged the pyrotechnics that cause the parachute to deploy after reentry (they could hit the "chute deploy" button, but nothing would happen -- the pyros would already be burned out). Just as in the case of the Columbia, to know this information they'd need to have done an unscheduled EVA, and the additional information would have really changed nothing: If they did an about-face and reentered right then, they'd have been just as dead reentering then as they would after a successful Moon landing. So there was really no point even knowing; the knowledge would have changed nothing about the reality of the situation. (Of course, in the case of Apollo XII, the pyros were undamaged and the chutes deployed without incident.)
The point is, even if they positively knew that it was a problem, knowing and then reentering and dying isn't any different from not knowing and then reentering and dying.
I think some NASA contractors are hoping that they can lay the blame on space debris or even another contractor rather then take the blame themselves.
Shuttle is and allways was a dangerous overrated toy. It is robbing the public of money that could be better used and taking the lives of men and women that could be doing more useful work then silly tests in space and housesitting a useless spacestation.
If we aren't going to colonize space, the moon, or mars then keep people out of it. Or let those who want to go there PAY for it themselves.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
So they will improve the safety of the shuttle and go on with it. Until a third accident proves the unsafety of the shuttle
Hey, despite the fact that fourteen lives have so far been lost in two shuttle accidents, it's still a whole lot safer than driving your car on a "lives lost per mile travelled" basis.
There's no way to change the fact that flying into space (even a low earth orbit) is always going to be an activity that carries a degree of risk.
If the astronauts are prepared to take that risk then I don't think some crazy belief that this should be 100%, absolutely, perfectly, flawlessly safe should get in the way.
Ultimately, the choice should belong to those who put their lives on the line. Has anyone (including the media) actually bothered to ask all those NASA astronauts still waiting in the wings whether they'd be prepared to fly the shuttle gain without modifications?
Imagine if we could only drive cars that were proven 100%, absolutely, perfectly, flawlessly safe... the roads would be empty and we'd all be walking from place to place. Even Segway's would be considered "too dangerous" to risk a single human life.
Come on folks, life is risky -- if it wasn't then where would the fun be?
Case in point
We're just one step away from conspiracy theory time here, folks, and I don't like it. I posted at the start of this whole thing several weeks ago that I thought the foam theory was a red herring, several of you argued with me and the next day NASA all but ruled it out. I suppose it's human nature - the foam theory is the simplest explanation (even if it doesn't make logical sense) and it's one that we can visually see with our own layman eyes (we've all seen the video of the foam hitting the wing).
The problem is the truth is almost never that simple when it comes to accidents involving complex and highly redundant systems. NASA is obviously having a hard time believing a 2 foot, 2 pound piece of foam could bring down such a technologically advanced piece of engineering (and yes, it was technologically advanced - much of Columbia's heat shielding, including the leading edges of the wings, was replaced with state of the art materials in 1999). I am having a hard time believing it too.
Anyone who has ever read a major aircraft disaster report from the NTSB knows that it is almost always a series of highly implausible events that conspire to cause disaster. Any one of these events would be remote; the chances of them coming together in the way they did would be almost impossible (but not completely impossible). This is the way it almost always is. We know that several shuttles - including Columbia - have been hit in their wings by launch debris in the past and suffered no ill effects. Why do we all suddenly want to believe that same debris brought the shuttle down this time? I don't believe it.
I do believe it could be part of the answer, though not the full answer. I believe it's possible (and I'm sure NASA's looking into this, among other things) that the foam hit was the first in a series of problems that compounded upon each other to eventually cause disaster. If it hit in exactly the correct (or incorrect) spot, where a fault already existed, then that's a different story. I know NASA's looking at the procedures used in the Columbia's last overhaul, for example (it's flown only once since then). In that case, the foam hit wouldn't be the cause of the accident - the faulty overhaul of the heat shielding would be. But NASA's looking at a lot of things, and I'm just speculating here, like all the rest of us.
The point is, NASA is an organization of scientists. They wouldn't know how to spin if they tried. They're looking at things analytically and none of their computer models are telling them that the foam by itself could bring the shuttle down. Who are you to argue with them? You'd think on this site, of all places, people would understand that scientists don't go rushing and jumping to conclusions - they examine all the possibilities and analyze everything very methodically. It has nothing to do with what they do or don't "want us to believe". I'm sure if they weren't so focused on their job at hand right now they'd be laughing at what so many of us apparently want to believe, whether or not there's actually any evidence to support our "theory".
Whether foam caused the catastrophe or something else did, no power on earth was able to save these astronauts once they left the ground. They could not have dropped by the space station and waited for rescue, no docking bay was attached to the shuttle. I cannot see how obfuscation of the facts will help NASA, they want to know what happened so that it doesnt happen again. By downplaying the significance of the foam, which seems the obvious cause to us armchair space directors, they are allowing for all options to be given equal weight in the search for the truth.
Do you need a website upgrade?
more in http://www.ralentz.com/old/space/feynman-report.ht ml
on a lighter note (not really light)
in http://www.terindell.com/asylum/filk/other/burton- west/nature.txt
you'll find a song
-- Avishalom is usually vish
The same ceramic tiles which, at least on Challenger and Columbia (the first two shuttles built), took years to install because they kept breaking my the force of being pressed by a human finger onto the hull.
The original tiles were very delicate and obscenely hard to attach. New glues were developed, but it still took a long time because they kept breaking. It wouldn't take much to damage it, especially since Columbia was the first operational shuttle of 20 years service, with all the first-generation problems that implies!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Soon after the accident, some people were correcting news casters that this would was not accident, but, like the Challenger, a failure of process. The media has been harking on certain reports that long ago reported the danger of certain tile damage. There are likely many reports on many of the shuttle systems that vulnerable under certain circumstances. Unlike many place, NASA does not hide it's head in the sand. It actively looks for problems and tries to solve them, if necessary. If the process works this makes the space travel safer. When the process does not work, as in Challenger, people die.
I have no doubt that whatever the cause of the accident, some report exists somewhere detailing the scenario. That does not necessarily mean NASA was negligent, just that NASA is thorough. Space travel is dangerous and as much as they might try, the process cannot be made so perfect as to catch and solve every problem. As many people have already said, you solve identify the problem, figure out the best way to solve it, and move on.
I would like to add one personal note. In my experience NASA is very focused on identifying problems, solving problems, and moving on. The step they don't do, and the step that many firms would do well to leave out the process, is the scape goating. It is as waste of time. In some companies in which I have work, fully half the time is spent figuring out how to blame other people for your fuck ups, and then participating in the ensuing punishment. It is inefficient and does nothing to create better products.
And one more thing. Under the the rules of the Clinton administration, all government agencies were required to do al they could to release documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act. Under the Bush administration, John Ashcroft has request the agencies do all they can NOT to release document requested under the FOIA. The implication of this is that the rapid release of document requested from NASA under the FOIA is totally voluntary. If they wanted to hide thing, Ashcroft has given them permission to do so.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I was thinking to myself what NASA should do to increase mankind's presence in orbit and how to go about it. It is apparent to just about everyone that the current Space Transportation System (STS) is in need of replacement. The last time we tried to do that was under the Space Launch Initiative (SLI) under the Clinton administration. That program was a failure, not because of Clintons people, but because there were technological and monetary hurdles that couldn't be properly addressed.
However there is a way to do this. Right now the STS fleet is grounded, so the immediate concern is how to keep the ISS in orbit and fully manned. Russian President Putin has promised to build more Soyuz space craft to insure ISS is manned and supplied. From what I've found, it cost Russian anywhere from 25 to 50 million bucks to launch a manned Soyuz and a little less for a Progress supply ship.
I would propose that the US discontinue any crew transport missions for the Shuttle to ISS and pay a significant portion of the money needed to keep Soyuz ships flying to ISS instead. If these ships cost 50 million bucks then there is a savings of about 400 million bucks for each transport (the Shuttle cost an estimated 450 million to fly). When the Shuttle is back on in the air, it should ONLY fly construction missions to finish the ISS. The the STS should be retired.
That begs the question, what do we do with 450 mil for each flight that doesn't go? Since there are typically 6 or 7 flights by the Shuttle per year, about half of them are for significant construction of ISS. So we are looking at a savings of nearly 1.5 billion per fiscal year. THAT money should be invested in a completely new Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) space shuttle like the X-33 was meant to be. But that's not all. In order for space travel to become affordable, space vehicles must become more affordable.
Building 5 space shuttles cost the taxpayers between 3 and 5 billion for each one (the Endeavor cost 3 billion because it was built from spare parts). If we could build say 20 or 30 space shuttles, the cost could possibly be cut in half or perhaps more. NASA doesn't need 20 or 30 shuttles, however, if we could get the European Space Agency (ESA), the Russians, the Japanese, Aussies, and even the Koreans to join up with the promise of owning their own shuttles, the cost could be easily be spread out.
You see, the Europeans would get out from under NASA's shadow which they have for so long hated. They wanted to build a ship back in the 80's called the Sanger but they didn't have the money for it. The Europeans don't have the experience of space travel that we or the Russians do but they do have a lot of technology and engineering that they can bring to the table. The Russians are obvious additions because of their experience. What they can't bring to the table in money, they can definitly bring in know how.
The Japanese have always wanted a manned space program but they too don't have the money to foot the bill for all the R&D involved. In addition, their rocket program has suffered many setbacks. The Koreans might look on this as national pride IMO and a chance to play with the big boys. We of course know more about Shuttles than anyone and of course can bring more money to the table.
America would still have its leadership role in the project but would still have to work with members of the development and building team. You see, I no longer see space exploration as an American dream. This is a HUMAN endeavor. We as Americans (or Russians) just happen to be better at it than anyone else. If we build a shuttle or two that can haul cargo and personnel to low Earth orbit in a cost effective manner, we will see more and more people going and that is the goal. Get more up there so we can do more.
NASA has already learned that it needs to get out of the space launching business and get into the Space Exploration and Space Science business. NASA was essentially going to sell the Shuttles to the United Space Alliance and lease them back. The USA was going to maintain the Shuttles and NASA or Air Force pilots were going to fly them. NASA needs to get away from the space monopoly that it has created so that competition can be built. The same thing happened when NASA got out of the satelite launching business after the Challenger disaster.
Getting people to compete and getting a new reliable shuttle with the world behind it will establish a firm foothold in space for the human race. Right now we have had our foot in the door for too long and earlier this month it got jammed. Now it's time to kick open the door and step inside. Once we have a firm foundation in orbit and on the moon, then we can procede to the Planets and the stars.
(I really don't see why 10+ paragraphs worth of stuff would ever be formatted is one giant blob. That this was modded up was incredible -- I know I can't read a 50 sentence blob!)
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
"It wasn't foam, it was Saddam!"
:-P
Dead right!
The foam is probably made from petrochemicals,
these were refined from crude oil,
probably originating in the middle east,
maybe even from Iraq!
You don't have to be Donald Rumsfield to put two and two together and blame Iraq for this heinous atrocity!!!!!
Either that or the shuttle was shot down by an Al Quaida operated railgun lent to Osama by Saddam and fired from Cuba! (those railguns have long range you know).
Honest.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
At no point has NASA or any investigator come out and said that it was "'X' that caused the shuttle to break up." If anything, they've been imploring to the press not to jump to any conclusions. The easy answer would be to say, "Gee, it was an ice-engorged chunk of foam that struck the wing and broke the tiles off that caused this terribly accident."
The problem is, the foam is the most obvious candidate for causing the damage. But what if it wasn't? What if it was actually a fuel line that cracked open, began to burn -- hydrazine's value to the space program is that it can burn in a vacuum -- maybe it burned a hole from the inside out, allowing plasma from the rentry to get into the wing. What if it was actually a piece of space debris that struck the shuttle? We almost lost a crew a few years ago when a paint chip almost penetrated through one of the windows.
We just don't know, If they say it was the foam and it was actually something else, then the actual problem will not get fixed, and we will lose more astronauts.
The answers aren't going to come instantly. It is going to take a long time. It can take experts a couple of years to figure out what made an airplane come down, in spite of the fact that usually with a plane crash, the debris is in one small area. The shuttle debris is scattered over several states. The further west a piece is, the more likely it is going to shed light on what happened. The first pieces to come off are the most critical.
The astronauts are well aware that with each launch, they have a 50% to 70% chance of being killed. It's a testiment to how NASA does things that we haven't lost more astronauts. They accept this risk, because the work they do does eventually help everyone else in one way or another. They feel that this is worth the risk, to do what they can to help other people.
Will we stop going to space? Hell no! Even if the government gives up, people won't. How many people have died over the centuries when sailing ships explored the oceans? How many Polynesians sailed away from their home islands to colonize somewhere else, never to see dry land again? We have a pretty good idea how many Spanish galleons were lost in the Carribean. With a crew of upwards of 400, one ship resulted in a lot of lives lost.
None of that stopped us. Losing Challenger didn't stop us. Losing Columbia won't either. But it clearly serves as a terrible wakeup call that we missed something, and a sad reminder that spaceflight is not without risks.
So before you cry 'foul' and 'coverup,' give the people a chance to find out what happened to their friends.
Last -- what if they did know there was a problem? Do you think the crew would have wanted their friends and family knowing? Sitting there for the duration of the mission knowing their loved ones were doomed? I wouldn't want my family going through something like that. I'd rather put on a brave face, do everything I can to finish my work and life in some meaningful fashion, and then face destiny without making them suffer.
Sorry about the sermon...
Whew! This water sure is cold!
Jerry Pournelle's Site has several interesting articles on the space program. He's a science fiction author (see 'Fallen Angeles') at the Baen Free Library who worked in aerospace for many years, has testified before Congress and given speeches to the Air War College.
Yes, but one factor you've left out is that in most cases, the goverment also funds the development and research. Most companies aren't going to risk the capital to develope something the goverment "might" buy. Sure, they might throw some bones at certain projects and programs which have great potential, but in reality, no dough - no show.
Why are they trying to hide the obvious possibility that it was ICE and not foam insulation that broke off and hit the left wing of STS-107?
o st s?page=1464
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/835531/p
Foam insulation is light and fluffy and reddish-orange. Ice is white and collects quickly on the outside of cryogenic containers, and near the leading edges of aircraft, and can be hard and heavy enough to knock a few ceramic tiles off when moving at supersonic speeds. These are not stupid people in charge of this investigation. So why are they so slow to make this disclosure?
The US needs to separate their manned space activities from cargo delivery. Sure, we can use the current design for a while more, but it would make more economic sense to stop driving an 18-wheeler to the supermarket. What we need is a toyota.
What I mean is that we need a smaller, manned spaceplane and a larger, heavy-lift system which can carry the spaceplane as an addition to a medium-size payload.
What I propose is to have a system where 8 SRBs launch two shuttle main tank assemblies. One filled with fuel, with a rocket motor on the ass end. The other can be filled with cargo. Some of the things we need to launch are not so much HEAVY as they are bulky. A good example would be an inflatable habitation module for lunar or ISS use. Not particularly heavy, but it's bulky.
The shuttle spaceplane should be much smaller and lighter. For operations requiring extravehicular manipulation of cargo, the shuttle and heavy lift system could simply dock in orbit. An added benefit could be that we build a spaceplane that can dock with a fuel tank in orbit and head off to the moon. We really should be building there instead of in low earth orbit. There are building materials on the moon, and none in the vacuum of space. The moon doesn't need energy to maintain orbit, and we can safely park a nuclear reactor there without worrying about reentry. That power can be used for excavation. This way we don't have to bring our entire living quarters with us. We can make cement structures on the moon instead. It seems very reasonable to do this instead of all this mars crap.
I did my own this animation of the shuttle sensor data found on the NASA page here. I have a /. journal entry for it here.
My, admittedly amateur, conclusion is that one of the carbon shields located on the front of the wing (right ahead of the wheel well) failed for some reason. Check out the animation page to see why I say this.
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
This just doesn't seem like good engineering. The traditional Apollo/Soyuz reentry vehicles had few if any of those risk factors. Compare what happened to Columbia with what happened to Soyuz 5: the reentry module failed to separate from the service module and entered into the atmosphere backwards. But when the service module had burned off, the reentry module righted itself (just because of its weight distribution--that's what it was designed to do) and Volynov landed and survived. Those reentry vehicles require no electronics and no flight control. The only thing that needs to happen is that the parachutes open some time before the capsule hits the ground. I think I'd have a bit more confidence in something like a Soyuz reentry vehicle than in the shuttle. And they are probably a lot cheaper, too.
Talk about Retarded logic. So you would give them a blank check? I want NASA's budget cut because they have failed to provide a ship that meets the original design parameters. Most notably the shuttle's turn around time and payload size. Both of which were cut way back from the original goals.
NASA in my opinion is mishandling our money. This has been my opinion for almost 20 years. Two shuttle accidents just prove my point. Ignoring for the moment the lives lost: If this had been a normal rocket we had lost then we would not have lost so much money. The financial loss would have been close to what would have been spent anyway.
If the shuttle flights were occurring more often then it would have been comparable with loosing say an airliner. Annoying but within expectations. The number of flights would pay for a shuttle loss quicker, maybe enough to be factored into the costs. As it is we have lost a very expensive craft used for very rare missions. 5-6 launches a year is a sorry waste of my tax money for a system designed as if it was running 50 times a year. This is pork barrel spending at it worst hiding behind science and patriotism.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
I recently saw an analysis of the space station that said most of the time spent by the ISS crew was dedicated to station maintenance and NASA's own research (how people work and live in space). Only about 15 man-hours of non-NASA research is conducted each week. Of that, Russia directs half and the US directs the other half.
So let's face it, NASA is unable to do real space exploration and instead is running an unreliable shuttle service to an incredibly expensive 7.5 man-hr/wk research facility. We have to make a choice. We can either continue to pour money down this hole or we can scrap it altogether and reset our priorities to fit whatever money we want to spend on truly worthwhile projects.
Unrelated to the news at hand....
I heard in the news that some 1,500 + parts have been recovered. Are there any estimates as to what percentage of the space shuttle this might comprise? It would be interesting to see how much of the shuttle they expect to recover and wether or not the amount recovered so far might help to elimitate other theories.
I want NASA's budget cut because they have failed to provide a ship that meets the original design parameters.
Yeah, if we just get rid of all their mechanical engineers, I'll bet they could build much more reliable shuttles!
Most notably the shuttle's turn around time and payload size. Both of which were cut way back from the original goals.
Yeah. Bastards. NASA is the only organization that doesn't meet initial estimates. Unlike, say, software companies.
No one else *builds* shuttles, you know? It's a little bit hard to *make* accurate estimates. If they simply underestimated everything, would *that* make you happy?
NASA in my opinion is mishandling our money. This has been my opinion for almost 20 years. Two shuttle accidents just prove my point.
You're cranky because of an accident a *decade*? Hell, Ford would *kill* for that kind of record, and they have a *much* easier task to do.
Ignoring for the moment the lives lost: If this had been a normal rocket we had lost then we would not have lost so much money.
The lives lost are essentially irrelevant. Maybe in a couple of hundred million years of shuttle flights, it'll measure up to some of the *other* things that we've done, like WWII or Vietnam. Why do you think they used only military personnel on the shuttle for years and years?
As for being a normal rocket and cost -- sure, it would have cost less. OTOH, the cost *per flight* would have been higher, because the vehicle wouldn't be reusable. There's a *reason* they built the shuttle, laddie buck.
If the shuttle flights were occurring more often then it would have been comparable with loosing say an airliner. Annoying but within expectations. The number of flights would pay for a shuttle loss quicker, maybe enough to be factored into the costs. As it is we have lost a very expensive craft used for very rare missions. 5-6 launches a year is a sorry waste of my tax money for a system designed as if it was running 50 times a year.
Had you been less ignorant about what you were talking about, you'd be aware that the reason shuttle flights were cut so far back from original design parameters is *because* NASA had their funding cut so much since the moon landings.
This is pork barrel spending at it worst hiding behind science and patriotism.
Yeah! We could *obviously* put the money into pursuits *far* more productive for the human race, like blowing up Iraqis! Are you stupid?
May we never see th
carried 25 tons of cargo with it into space.
Clear, Dark Skies
Richard Feynman once observed that he had seen NO science come out of the shuttle program - he was not aware of any articles resulting from shuttle research that were published in peer-reviewed journals.
If this is about the disapperance of the Democratic Party from national politics we might discover what went wrong with Columbia. That's not a sophmoric wisecrack but an observation that not much is likely to happen that makes sense -- such as properly funding a space program -- when there is no intelligent friction in our government. And we most certainly not likely to find a "real cause" when it may be the federal budget that caused the tragedy. If these guys keep rubbing each other's shoes under the table we're never going to recover any sense of the nation we once were.
Those who trade freedom for security will soon have neither.
How the heck did this ignorant A/C post get modded up to 5? NASA already has a big piece of the left wing, see here.
What they can learn from it, and what they will admit after they do are different issues, but moding someone up to 5 when they shoot their mouth off as an A/C and claim that something can't happen when it's well known that it already has doesn't make much sense.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
So, the US pours tons more money into their program, and gets the same amount of research time as the underfunded Russians. Hmm...
Here's my proposal: shut down NASA altogether, then take all the money we were using to fund it, and send it to Russia instead. Obviously, they'll make far more effective use of the money than we will.
The US won't have a real space program as long as NASA has any control over it. Real spacecraft will not be invented by a massive US govenment program any more than any other transportation system has been.
Government programs did not make the first aircraft, automobiles, locomotives, steamships (or sailing ships for that matter). Why should the first true spacecraft be any different? It does not take any more fuel to get a pound into orbit than it takes to fly a pound from the US to Australia. (yeah, airliners don't carry oxidizer - but bear with me).
The SSTO (X-whatever) that got funded and then killed was a damnable con job. It would be like Curtis Aviation promising to build a supersonic jumbo jet capable of flying 12,000 km at MACH 6 without refueling.
In 1908.
NASA does not "get" the idea of manned spaceflight. They "get" 20,000 jobs to keep some 20 year old experimental spacecraft flying at a cost of about 1 billion dollars per flight. Experimental spacecraft that were designed by political committes ten years earlier. Experimental spacecraft that the designers promised would be orders of magnitude cheaper to operate than the Saturn V (1970 cost to launch a Saturn was around 100 million). An experimental spacecraft that would be re-uasable. Well the solid fuel boosters cost more to recover and refurbish than paying for new ones each time. And the Orbiter itself has a tendency to be pretty well rebuilt between flights. (Maintenance and upgrades)
We still need the orbital equivalent of the Wright Flyer. Then data from that design can be used in developing newer, better designs. What is not needed is "the most complicated machine ever built" (NASA's favorite way of describing the Shuttle)
But don't fret about Mankind's destiny among the stars - there are other countries besides the US that have space programs. Once the US government realizes that lack of a real space program with cheap access to space means condemning the USA to a role in international affairs somewhat less prestigious than what France now enjoys, there will be a new Space Race - one that won't be looking to an organization whose greatest claim to fame now is that they once sent some powdered orange drink to the Moon. (Ok, I know that Tang never made it to the Moon, but hte makers of Tang claimed it did)
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
not worth it to any single company right now. Only boeing has the resources, and they get money whether or not they accomplish the above. If you want companies to be incentive-driven to accomplish these tasks, bump that price up at least 10 times per challenge. A billion won't even pay for chump change with space travel.
fslg503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8686503-985-8
That's complete crap. It is not safer than my freeway drive to work. Columbia was on its 28th mission. I've driven to work far more than 28 times without having it blow up as I pull into my driveway.
That's not to say that I don't completely agree with your last statement. I'd be on one in a heartbeat. Period. No doubt. I'd roll that dice with no qualms. Space exploration is simply to important to our evolution and survival as a species.
*** *** You're just jealous 'cause the voices talk to me... ***
I suggest looking in the New York Times editorial column. Or any major American news source. You look there, you'll locate nothing but left wing.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Contrast this with the solid rocket booster failure last time. That was an unexpected failure. Solid rocket boosters are proven, reliable components. The only reason they failed in 1986 is that the joints for assembling them into a stack were badly designed.
If you think about it, that means the shuttle is an even worse deal than usually assumed. Lifting mass into orbit is hugely expensive. First, we spend all that money lifting the huge mass of the shuttle itself into space, and then we bring it all back again? Imagine if every shuttle launch had left a carefully designed, multi-purpose transport vehicle and container of the size of the shuttle in space and returned the astronauts via a Soyuz-like capsule--the ISS could have been completed long ago from those vehicles and transport containers.
The more one thinks about it, the more wasteful and bizarre the shuttle program becomes.
I've seen a lot of comments about either privatizing NASA or doing something to otherwise make them compete. There seems to be an attitude that competitition increases innovation, but does it really?
It can, but it can also backfire. Examine the breakup of AT&T. Several good things came out of it: Better customer service, lower prices, more consumer freedom. But there were also losses. AT&T's entire research division is basically gone. Without it there would have been no C or UNIX.
The problem is that you have to make something profitable before a company will do anything, and generally it has to be profitable within the next three months. Remember, if you are running a company, you are answerable to the stockholders. If they loose money in a quarter, YOU get into trouble.
The problem is that a lot of cool things can't be done in three months, or eve three years. There has to be someone with deep pockets and less immeadate accountability to someone in order to try the financially risky stuff.
Major governments don't have the R&D money to get into space. Companies won't either, and if you privatize it, what you get is a space monopoly that can charge what it wants. It won't violate the antitrust act, because it won't have to. The massive money required to start anything will be sufficient barrier to entry.
What privatization often does is to set up businesses that don't innovate because they don't have the money to innovate. Everything has to go to beating out the other guy. Greater supply for less money is where all the creative energies go.
This will get us cheap sattelites, but very little in the way of scientific advancement or manned space travel, because it ISN'T profitable, and isn't forseen to be profitable in the near future.
Would hubble have gone up were NASA a private entity? Would it have even been built? There is no return on investment. Sure we've learned a lot of cool stuff, but it doesen't make people money tomorrow so it is of little value to a private company. Maybe it would have gone up, but then would the information recieved have been propritary? Only able to be looked at and used if you paid the price? Companies don't do anything out of the goodness of their hearts.
How many journals etc are starting to require fees for access? How many articles have there been about the conflicts between libraries and publishers?
If space travel enters the private sector, I fear that it will become something that doesn't benefit society as a whole, but only those with the money to pay.
No more pure science done in space. If there's immeadate profit you get something done, if there isn't it might get done if you pay them enough to do it.
Such is the problem with pure science. It takes years or even decades before practical results are found, yet most if not all of our technology was based on discoveries made far earlier than the practical application.
There is a civil war coming in the United States. Remember which side has most of the guns
All Bush needs to do to get funding is figure some way to work this disaster into the 'War On Terrorism' like he has done with CD copying, 'The War On Drugs', and a dozen environmental issues.
I mean, if he can get a bill that allows logging in a national park past , has a dozen national parks which protect endangered wildlife turned into army training grounds, and opens up artic wildlife reserves for oil drilling all in an 'effort to fight terrorism' I don't see why getting funding for building a better space shuttle should be that difficult.
Remember, if your using a regionless DVD player the terrorists have already won...
-Sternn
What wonders me most is not the talk about foam damaging a wing(thats so unbelieveable to me ... I wait some years before I consider to believe that) ... what wonders me is: it seems there was no man with a space suit on board who had the ability to go outside and examine the space shuttle in orbit. Right?
... I simply start to believe that NASA and even the pilots and commanders get realy uncautious. Obviously there is no safty margin at all.
... especialy if you consider the lost lives wich could have been saved easy.
... or a robot wich is able to walk on the surface of the craft?
... very sad.
If that is the case
I mean, why do we have an ISS? I would say to be able to stay there for some days if reentrance is to dangerous.
Why do we have EVA capabilities? To get out and investigate, I would say.
Obviously even that was to expensive, no person with the knowledge or training was on board, no one went outside and looked how server the space craft was damaged.
Wouldnd it make far more sense to drop one scientist and have an EVA specialist on board, allways? The extra weight for an additional suit can't be that much IMHO
Further more, why is the robotic arm of the cargobay not able to examine the outise with a simple camara, probably thats even easyer
I think the whole responisbility chain is run by idiots. A simple SF author would come up with 20s of scenarios how to react more proper in such a situation than the NASA did
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.