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Separate Cargo and Personnel Missions for NASA?

Posted by michael on from the riding-the-rocket dept.

l8f57 writes "Hal Gerham (from the NASA CAIB report) is calling for cargo and people to be separated into different missions. He also goes on about how a re-usable spacecraft may not be the most cost efficient vehicle."

6 of 284 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Is This Wise? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The odds are more like 1 in 65 for losing a shuttle.

  2. Irony of Ironies by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Columbia mission wasn't a cargo mission. It wasn't even an ISS mission. It was scientific mission using SpaceHab.

  3. Re:Is This Wise? by a_ghostwheel · · Score: 2, Informative

    It was Soyuz (replaced with Soyuz-T and later with Soyuz-TM) for people (and minimum cargo) and Progress (Progress-M now) for pure cargo.

    And they both are actively used even now with ISS.

    Plus, on top of that Russians have Energiya rocket, capable of lifting up to 100 tonns (value is subject to memory error) - much more than Shuttle can. However this rocket was used only once I think - during Buran launch (Russian analog of shuttle) and I am not sure whether or not they still have it operational.

  4. The biggest advantage by Mr.+Darl+McBride · · Score: 3, Informative
    The biggest advantage, partly addressed in the article, is that you can send non-living cargo up with a much, much, much hotter burn. The shuttle could accelerate many times faster than it does if the G force for the humans inside weren't an issue.

    Experiments have been done with animals, accelerating them more quickly by suspending them in liquids and otherwise distributing the G forces, but the advances in this area of research have been slow and often times erratic. Monkeys have seemed fine after the research, only to show internal damage months or even years later.

    That the idea of pre-shipping cargo is being taken seriously is a very, very exciting thing!

  5. Re-usability seen as harmful by PCM2 · · Score: 3, Informative
    He also goes on about how a re-usable spacecraft may not be the most cost efficient vehicle.
    That's not how I read it. To me, it sounds like he's saying that any efforts by NASA to divert time/energy/know-how/budget into making things more re-usable as a way of cutting long term costs will only divert those resources from the effort to make the space program more safe. If we agree that, having had some really bad setbacks, safety is now the top priority, then it doesn't make sense to keep focusing on issues like re-usability. The exact quote:
    "Any other requirements, like reusability to reduce costs, the ability to also carry cargo, or additional functions besides crew transport, would eat into the vehicle's safety margin."
    --
    Breakfast served all day!
  6. Re:Is This Wise? by red+floyd · · Score: 2, Informative

    Twice.

    Komarov's parachute failed.
    The atmosphere seals failed and three cosmonauts returning from Salyut died.

    I'm ashamed to admit that I don't remember the cosmonauts' names.

    --
    The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy