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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."
The space shuttle is the only heavy freighter and the only means of putting a new ISS component in space."
I mean no insult to the story's submitter, but that kind of thinking is the heart of the problem. NASA is not a freight service - they're a space program, dammit. Their job is not hauling stuff into orbit, but doing real, hard science.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
What about the possibility of using the Russian Space Shuttles? I havent heard anything about this. I did some research on the web, and the russian government said back in 1997 that they had the means and the will to get their program back online. The design is better, can carry more cargo, is safer to refuel and more modern! I think NASA should do some serious consideration into using MOLNIYA and the BURAN space shuttles as their 'cargo carriers'. Any comments anyone?
Unless Shuttle is going to the ISS, they can't go there for an emergency without alot of things all working out.
This was covered here at the time of the accident.
It needs to carry the orbiter docking system. In a bind, however, transfers via EVA (space suits) mightbe possible. The station has 2 Russian suits and 2 US suits. Shuttles typically have 2 US suits.
Shuttle and ISS aren't on the same orbit unless Shuttle is expressly going there, and for a mission like Columbia's there wasn't enough fuel to make the orbit change.
Columbia launched to a 39 degree inclination. The Space station is at a 51.6 degree inclination.
Only the OMS and RCS engines are available in orbit, and their capability is roughly 1250 feet per second, or about 1400 km/h speed change (delta v).
I'm sure many will disagree, but the cost of the shuttle program is horrendous, and NASA's insistence on using it has led to some cataclysmically stupid decisions. One example: the ISS (which is an utter joke compared to Skylab or Mir) was placed into a rapidly-decaying orbit not because that was a good idea (it isn't) but because the shuttle could get there.
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.
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."
The safety record sucks. After Challenger Richard Feynman put the probability of a fatal accident at one in fifty. So far, NASA's on the money and the nature of the shuttle is such that if someone dies, everybody dies.
Lest I be misunderstood, I understand the romantic and scientific appeal of manned space flight, of the visceral sense of satisfaction we can have as a species when we look up to the skies and say "We live there." I'm a strong proponent of that. I also recognize the complaints that the money spent on that is money not spent on (feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, inoculating the sick, fill in your pet cause). The manned space program is hellishly uneconomical and a great deal of that can be laid at the feet of the shuttle program.
It's a white elephant without a mission, a bastard child of a spacecraft and an airplane which like most gadgets that try to do two fundamentally different things does neither well. Its payload capacity compared to heavy-lift rockets is a joke, it's barely capable of crawling out of the atmosphere, it's presented a tremendous constraint to the rest of the space program by forcing many missions to be less than they could have been in order to be shuttle-doable, and it bears repeating that every fifty flights it kills everyone on board.
It's time to ground the shuttle fleet permanently. Space isn't going anywhere. Stop pouring the hundreds of millions of dollars into the shuttle program and pour them into a new design effort. Scrap the silly "space-plane" concept and develop a family of lifters and craft that _can_ be used for many things but don't back NASA into a corner that forces them to use it for all missions. Make crew safety an inherent feature (recognizing that there are tradeoffs and that getting out of the gravity well is a fundamentally dangerous activity). Stop throwing good money after bad on that ISS as well, and use the collective resources of the two programs to start over. It's not true that the second design is always better than the first (see again ISS and Mir/Skylab) but you're wise to play those odds.
Let's do it over. And do it right.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
At the risk of being flamed, are we putting too much emphasis on human life? Historically, all exploration has been risky, with significant loss of life. As an example, look at the original Jamestown settlers. The astronauts are well aware of the dangers involved in spaceflight. And if they didn't know before, they should know after both the Challenger and Columbia accidents. So if they are willing to take the risk with the current design, should we stop them? If the engineers say, there is no way we can improve on Feynman's odds of 1 in 50, should we stop them? It seems to me, that the astronauts should have the final say in what is safe enough. If they're willing to take the risk, as informed adults, I'm willing to let them take it.
Hell where's all the interest going that's being charged because of the deficit? How about this, balance the budget and give the money we would have thrown away in interest to the banks, to NASA!
My God! Where is the 380-400 Billion we spend a year on the Military Industrial Complex going? Why did we have to kill 79 American's during the Gulf War cause of friendly fire? Why does it seem every other day another Black Hawk or Offspree goes down - in non-combat situations!?! Any video game developer worth their salt would have invented a fully encripted, wireless battlefield tracking system so that a friendly couldn't even lock onto equivalent troops even if they tried - the system would lock them out! Those friendly troops would appear with colored markers over their heads/units/armory even if they were lost on the battlefield.
My point is, we, as a society, a nation, a civilization seem to reep so many more benefits from the work of scientists, and NASA specifically, and no benefits whatsoever with of all this money we are throwing at the military except how to kill each other more efficiently and in greater numbers.
Change our focus, end this path of destruction, embrace our enemies (aka the friendly-hug, no dictator will survive western cultural and economic influence because of it) and GIVE NASA A MUCH BIGGER BUDGET! They are not just about Space Exploration, you know?
Finally, lets have a national agenda to get to Mars. Once we do, we'll suddenly realize were killing our own planet burning fossil fuel's and dumping toxin's into the environment with no consideration of future generations. Please, let's stop thinking about what this means to the shareholder. We are all shareholders when it comes to the well being of this tiny blue world. NASA makes such a difference in all our lives, let's make a difference in theirs.
Peace.
JM