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NASA To Try To Resume Flights By Fall
underground alliance writes "According to BBC News, space shuttle flights could resume as early as this fall. The article says that 'Engineers have been put on standby to fix problems already raised by the investigating board, and devise a way of checking the exterior shuttle for defects while it is in orbit.' I think that this is a good move especially since ISS construction has been put on hold because without the space shuttle. The space shuttle is the only heavy freighter and the only means of putting a new ISS component in space."
Needs Another Seven Astronauts. I dont think I'd want to fly on the shuttle so soon after the Colombia disaster
"Dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire" --Robert Frost
I thought their flights were already falling?
Although I suspect you're just a a troll, I'll reply anyway.
You've got it all wrong- Future shuttle missions should almost all go *TO* the ISS. Why?
1) You can then inspect the shuttle, and if it is seriously damaged either attempt repairs and land it by autopilot (leaving the crew on ISS to be picked up by a subsequent shuttle), -or- abandon the shuttle at the ISS, making it an (expensive) additional module.
2) Regarless of weather the ISS is the best bank for the science/space dollar buck, it exists. As such, we should at least start using it for the real windfall that it represents- as a staging point to assemble future missions. Imagine if we sent up lots of quickly assembled modules for on-orbit assembly/deployment as complete spacecraft- without the insanely expensive test process needed for vehicles which need to be overbuilt to survive launch stresses 100% of the time. (in other words, sent up lots of similar but less overbuilt modules, select the ones that pass test on orbit, repair the rest, and make 10 missions on orbit for the cost of one present single launch)
The following is a rebuttal of your drivel:
>Most of the satellites that are "launched" by the shuttle suffer from the
>design constraint that they have to fit into the friggin' bay AND have room for the accompanying
> boosters that will put them into their real orbit once the shuttle lets them out.
>Again, the shuttle can't go high enough for real deployment.
Say What? *ALL* present launch vehicles deliver payload to space using a multi-staged approach. The shuttle happens to have one of the larger payload capacities of ANY existing launcher, although it admittedly brings humans up with it. We shouldn't be launching large missions that don't need human assistance from the shuttle- and, for the most part, we aren't. As for 'real' deployment, the shuttle can deliver payloads to LEO just as effectively as any other present launch vehicle. For geosynchronous orbit, most spacecraft are launched on existing commercial launchers and not from shuttles.
>The idea of capturing and reparing satellites is inherently absurd;
>most aren't where the shuttle can get 'em and the total cost of the program utterly dwarfs the
>expense that would have been incurred had they said of the Hubble "Well, we screwed it up...
>build another one and get it right this time."
Care to back that up with numbers? To turn over the hubble instruments 4 times without on-orbit servicing would have required 4 seperate spacecraft;
Hubble cost US$ 1.5B to build, four spacecraft would have been at least $6B. (not adjusting for inflation, or program feature bloat which certainly would have inflated the costs). The hubble plus all of the servicing missions are presently at $4.25B (with one more servicing mission in the planning stage if we can modify an existing shuttle to do it [columbia was uniquely configured and the only shuttle capable of HST servicing missions])
>and the nature of the shuttle is such that if someone dies, everybody dies.
Yeah. And when a commercial airliner crashes, that's still pretty much the case. Aerospace travel is *dangerous*. Get over it.
>Its payload capacity compared to heavy-lift rockets is a joke,
Really? A shuttle can deliver roughly 29000 Kg to LEO. An atlas 5 presently is around 12500 Kg to LEO, a Delta IV maybe 18000 Kg. An Ariane 5 is similarly around 18000 Kg to LEO. A russian proton is the only more cabable launcher in terms of maximum payload weight to LEO.
>Space isn't going anywhere.
Ahh, the basis of your troll!