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Orbital Space Plane Problems
FTL writes "NASA's next big step in space (after getting the remaining Shuttles flying again) is the construction of the Orbital Space Plane. It is a small vehicle designed to transport people to and from ISS. Jeffrey Bell takes a close look at OSP in this article and comes to the conclusion that it will result in yet another crippled vehicle. Sounds like what people were saying about the Shuttle's problems back when it was being designed."
Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture?O SP4.jpg
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/shared/news2003/OSP/
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
Maybe we can outsource it and have the Russians and Indians build it?
The X-prize is suborbital. Still, supporting a similar orbital prize may very well be a good idea.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Wonderful lines like:
Sound familiar? It should. The OSP is only the latest of many "Shuttle replacement" programs that have all failed dismally.
Most critics have focused on the suspiciously low development costs, or the embarrassing gap between 2006 and 2010 in which no ISS lifeboat is planned. In fact, the basic concept of the program is so stupid that every knowledgeable person involved in it must be perfectly aware that it will never fly.
Lost my attention at this point. If he had anything worth saying he destroyed his credability by that point.
I glanced through the article...this is unfortunate news, and I hope the author's conclusions are incorrect. The shuttle is aging, and I think we all expect it to go the way of the Segway pretty soon.
.NET Server Orbital Vehicle Edition failing to convert between metric and English units correctly as leading to the tragedy. Space travel is important to our culture, the future of our children, and our global economy...we in the open source community need to do our part to ensure its success.
Maybe with some more $$, NASA could do a better job of shoring up the space program, to ensure boy-band members will still have the opportunity to travel in space for the foreseeable future. Perhaps if they switched the shuttle's software to an open source alternative, like Linux, or even one of its flakier derivatives like BSD, they could save enough money to get this new space plane up and running. It may also improve safety, as some of the reports from the Endeavor disaster cited issues with Windows
Consensual sex is boring.
and the prototype is working.
they used a modified 747, and a special tow line. they then tow the orbiter up to very high altitutes and launch the orbiter.
the orbiter then ignights its rockets and because it it already high in the atmosphere, it can use half the fuel of bullistic launch.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I'm assuming you don't realize how many technologies you use on a regular basis that were developed by NASA.
I'm also assuming that you don't realize that due to NASA's charter, all the new technologies they develop are given away to companies for commercial development.
Calling NASA a 'money pit' is true in a sense - they can't actually make money - they're not allowed. If congress had written NASA's charter to allow for commercial development of technologies they invent, they'd have made a fortune on medical equipment alone... And on UV-filtering sunglasses, communication devices, fireproofing materials, life support equipment, remote-sensing weather prediction systems, composite materials development... etc... etc...
/sig
... or could it?
Simple lap belt replaced with 7-point harness.
In-flight movie would just have to be Apollo 13.
In-flight beverage would be Tang.
Mandatory cavity search at security gate.
No sharp or blunt objects allowed on board.
That includes shoes.
In case of decompression, a preferred religious object will drop from ceiling.
You omitted the real problem. We're not committed to spending what it will really take to do what we want NASA to do.
We spend tens of millions (hard to say, NASA won't disclose) training "astronauts", and then dedicate most of the lifting capacity of the vehicles to keeping them alive while they watch a board and occasionally push a button that could be pushed by the guy that trained them back at mission control. That's a hell of a lot of money per button push.
Buzz Aldrin says it best. He never thought space exploration would come to mean shuttling cargo up to low earth orbit. Let's leave that to the machines, and send men out to do what they can't. Explore and describe the wonders that are out there, so that us lesser men touch them by proxy.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Frankly, if you're proNASA you're pretty much a communist- (no I'm not trolling, not everything that seems controversial is a troll) NASA is run by the country 'for the good of the country'. I don't want that. I want launching into space to be done for profit, not because they want to be nice to everyone. Being nice does not scale like profit motive does. We need to scale space up to put a reasonable number of people into space, you and me.
That's not exactly correct. By saying that, you're saying that supporting the government at all is bad, because most of what the government does is 'for the good of the country'. If you want to get spacefight done, or at least develop spacecraft, it requires A LOT of money. It requires a lot of money to develop the spacecraft, which is before you would have any profits. Private companies aren't going to be able to run for 5-6 years without a profit to develop a spacecraft and test it without running out of money. The government doesn't have to worry about profits, so theoritacilly (sp?) it can fund the research and development of new spacecraft.
Funding is the reason NASA isn't doing so hot. It doesn't get enough money to fund the Space Shuttle, unmanned spaceflight, and development of new spacecraft. Saying "we'll just cut the shuttle" won't work, because after the shuttle gets cut, NASA loses that money, and then they're no better off than they were before, except that they don't have the thing that they're best known for. The author of the article doesn't make this point: If NASA could spend as much money on research as the military does, (or even half that amount), we'd probably already have a Shuttle replacement.
What surprises me is that it took less than 10 years to go to the moon, with primitive 1960's technology. This project looks like it's going to take just as long... even longer... and this is with more advanced technology, plus all the experience of over 40 years of spaceflight.
Something is seriously wrong...