Shuttle May Fly Again In '04

giantsfan89 writes "A report from CNN says that a shuttle (possibly Atlantis) could fly again next fall. "The latest launch window is September 12 to October 10, NASA said Friday." A conference call referenced in the NY Times (free reg or via Google News) says it'll be an uphill battle (obviously) but that 'I'll also guarantee you that we're getting an awful lot smarter about this and we're going to come back stronger and safer as a result.'"

Comments

Come back smarter?

[BizidyDizidy]

Doesn't it seem at this point that "coming back smarter" is getting away from the shuttle system in general?

I'd be much happier to hear that we could expect spaceflight based on rocket technology in 2004. Whatever happened to that article?

Re:Come back smarter?

[Tomorrowist]

I'd be much happier to hear that we could expect spaceflight based on rocket technology in 2004.

We can expect private parties to reach space in 9-12 months.: "In a race to achieve the first privately funded manned spaceflight, rocket engineers are poised to compete for the $10 million X Prize by launching people to the edge of space and bringing them back safely twice within a two-week period. Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, said he expects that a teams will launch within the next few months, using rockets and spacecraft that are already being tested and prepared for the daring venture."

Space Shuttle

[DaBjork]

I'm glad they are keeping this program....IMHO the space shuttle is what has kept us from mars...too expensive and very not reusable.

Re:Space Shuttle

[VanillaCoke420]

And that is good in what way? In my opinion, they should keep the shuttle but complement it with another system. Here is my idea:

• The Shuttle, for use when they need to launch a crew and cargo at the same time, or when they somehow need the land-like-an-aeroplane ability.
• A Reusable Capsule, for about 5 people perhaps, when all they need is to ship people to and from orbit. This capsule should be modular in that they can attach, say, a modul underneath with heatshields and gasbags when they land on earth, and perhaps a module similar to the lower stage of the Apollo LEM, with legs and landing rocket if they want to launch people to the moon.
• Cheap launch rockets, when they need to launch cargo only and a crew is not necessary.

Re:Space Shuttle

[tftp]

when they need to launch a crew and cargo at the same time

This is needed on every flight to the ISS, since the station wants lots of big thingies all the time (until it is built; then it will require lots of food and water instead.)

or when they somehow need the land-like-an-aeroplane ability.

I doubt this was ever needed. You want to land, and that's pretty much all. Only the most sensitive experiments could benefit from softer landing; I don't know if that was ever the case; and relatively hard capsule landings never stopped earlier spacefarers.

A Reusable Capsule, for about 5 people perhaps

NASA does not have a man-rated rocket for the capsule. Reliability of most cargo-rated rockets is about 95% - which is OK for satellites, but hardly sufficient for people. Soyuz rocket, for example, is man-rated; Proton is not.

Cheap launch rockets, when they need to launch cargo

Those are plentiful indeed.

Re:Space Shuttle

[Anonymous Coward]

This is needed on every flight to the ISS, since the station wants lots of big thingies all the time (until it is built; then it will require lots of food and water instead.)

One word: Progress

How do you think ISS survived without a problem half a year without a shuttle and will survive at least year to come? (and could survive...whole its life, just like Mir)
Of course you can say "but I meant assembly also". Well, there's nothing stopping us from using cargo rockets.

Re:Space Shuttle

[VanillaCoke420]

when they need to launch a crew and cargo at the same time

--This is needed on every flight to the ISS, since the station wants lots of big thingies all the time (until it is built; then it will require lots of food and water instead.)--

That's probably true, yes. The food and water and other things they need could be launched with the to-be-built Automatic Transfer Vehicle by the ESA, which is an unmanned cargo ship for such things. It will also be able to adjust the ISS orbit.

A Reusable Capsule, for about 5 people perhaps

--NASA does not have a man-rated rocket for the capsule. Reliability of most cargo-rated rockets is about 95% - which is OK for satellites, but hardly sufficient for people. Soyuz rocket, for example, is man-rated; Proton is not.--

Hm, didn't know that. But I doubt that it would be too expensive to develop such a launch system? The Ariane 5, for example, was initially developed with the french shuttle Hermes in mind.

Re:Space Shuttle

[tftp]

But I doubt that it would be too expensive to develop such a launch system?

It would require redesign of a lot of systems. Soyuz, for example, is powered by kerosene + liquid oxygen, but Proton (designed by a different team) runs on dimethylhydrazine. The former is harmless; the latter is deadly. Guess which one would you choose for a manned flight? Then we would go into redundant, voting systems, crew ejection tower, and many other things that do not even exist on cargo rockets.

Some people would even say that you need to design the whole rocket from scratch. Imagine, for example, that you need to upgrade your Ford Taurus to win Indy or F-1 race. Where would you start? And consider that failure of any single part can doom the mission; so you need to go through *all* parts and improve them or make sure the failure will be contained.

It's not like NASA haven't done it before. The trick is that the old rocket scientists of Von Braun vintage all retired long ago, some are dead already. Nobody at NASA (or at Boeing, etc.) has a clue about where to begin. Design from scratch, and then testing, and then inevitable failures will take many years (say ten) to reach good reliability numbers.

If you compare this situation to Chinese, Russian and European efforts - which are up to date, and quite finely debugged by now, and for which trained technicians and engineers exist, then you will see that NASA painted itself into a corner. It has only Shuttle, and nothing but Shuttle. Today it can't operate anything else, and it can't develop anything else either (proof of that is in many canceled X-projects which were meant as a replacement or a companion for the Shuttle.)

The Ariane 5, for example, was initially developed with the french shuttle Hermes in mind.

Show me this Hermes thing in orbit, and then I will take it seriously :-)

Re:Space Shuttle

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine, for example, that you need to upgrade your Ford Taurus to win Indy or F-1 race. Where would you start?

Monster Garage.

Re:Space Shuttle

[HeghmoH]

Whenever people quote ten years to design a good man-rated rocket, it makes me alternately laugh and cry.

Don't forget that the old NASA went from no manned spaceflight whatsoever to building Saturn V's and putting people on the moon in just slightly more than eight years. And these were with people who not only had no prior experience with manned spaceflight, but people who couldn't even read about it because nobody had ever done it before.

I am fully confident that a competent organization could duplicate that feat and then some, just because we already know that it's possible. Sadly I am just as fully confident that today's NASA is not that organization.

Re:Space Shuttle

[Dashing Leech]

Actually, NASA is full of some very smart people who could easily do this job. While it's true that the manned spaceflight program went from zero to the moon in less than 10 years, it only happened because of the huge budget, and they didn't have to deal with splitting their budget between maintaining existing programs (Shuttle, ISS) and developing new ones at the same time.

Sure, there are problems with the way NASA is run, particularly managers who micro-manage. For example, I had to make a 15 minute presentation of an informal study to a group of engineers (information only, not used for any decisions), and it took thousands of dollars with 10 internal reviews over 4 months with up to 5 internal managers -- not to review the information (after the first review), but to make sure the fonts were ok, the plots were well aligned and zoomed they way they wanted them, etc.

But really, the problem is money. Their budget may seem huge, but in comparison to the 60s it is a small fraction and they've got to split it many more ways now. In fact, it's a tiny blip compared to the U.S. defense budget. The new launch vehicles could probably be built in a couple of years if they diverted on the order of 1% of the defense budget for that purpose.

Re:Space Shuttle

[pmz]

For example, I had to make a 15 minute presentation of an informal study to a group of engineers (information only, not used for any decisions), and it took thousands of dollars with 10 internal reviews over 4 months with up to 5 internal managers -- not to review the information (after the first review), but to make sure the fonts were ok, the plots were well aligned and zoomed they way they wanted them, etc.

This must be heaven for middle-managers. There was a time where type-written reports with all the figures in an appendix was perfectly acceptable and encouraged.

I'm all for exploration too, but...

[sonnik]

...after seeing an article like this, it does seem that NASA is more reactive than proactive in fixes of this nature.

Granted, we're only going to hear about stuff like this after something happens...

However, I'm really wondering why we still spend a crapload of money more or less flying around in circles above the Earth.

How much more can we really learn from the shuttle? Put the money in some other form of space research...

Re:I'm all for exploration too, but...

[SoIosoft]

For the work that goes on in the shuttle, it's probably the least expensive way to fly circles around the Earth. A lot of experiments are conducted in zero-gravity and a lot of worthwhile inventions and discoveries have come out of research conducted for and by the space program.

I think that NASA should have probably made sure to be better prepared for repairs to be conducted on the space shuttle. On the other hand, sometimes it takes a catastrophe like this to bring it to the attention of the rest of the government and the public. And that's about the only way to secure the funding that's needed to make improvements and reforms to the space program.

It's too bad that it takes the lives of seven astronauts to get government officials and Congress to wake up and figure out that they can't keep cutting funding to the space program and still expect it to still be successful.

Re:I'm all for exploration too, but...

[JVert]

About those discoveries in space and expermients. Seems like stuff like that in a controlled environment can be done without sending people? VNC anyone?

I work on computers all around the world. But I dont FLY there.

Re:I'm all for exploration too, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me, but "proactive" and "paradigm"? Aren't these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important?

Not that I'm accusing you of anything like that.

Re:I'm all for exploration too, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

VNC is great, but you can't fix hardware with it.

The Shuttle has made many trips to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) for repairs, maintenance, and improvements. The HST was a very expensive instrument to build. Besides correcting the flawed optics in 1993, the Shuttle has made it possible to greatly extend the capabilities and useful life of the HST.

Re:I'm all for exploration too, but...

[pfdietz]

The cost of the shuttle program would have enabled an entire fleet of HSTs to be built and launched on expendable rockets. So what if some had flaws, or failed after some years?

HST's successor, the JWST, is being launched into an orbit where it cannot be serviced.

perseverence

[potpie]

I don't think there is any limit to how far mankind can progress... Labor omnia vincit. Labor overcomes all. The computers and hardware in most of the shuttles, however, is very outdated. While space travel seems at this stage to be inherently dangerous, perhaps giving the shuttles some new computer components and software would help. [insert pro-Linux comment here].

Re:perseverence

[wrmrxxx]

New computer hardware and software is the last thing they need. What they've got is highly reliable, very thoroughly designed for safety, and a very well known quantity. Sure its old, but so what? When was the last time we heard of a computer problem in the shuttle endangering the astronaut's lives? The big dangers are the propulsion system and the complexity of a horizontal landing vehicle that was designed to be (but fails to be) re-useable.

A change to hardware or software is a very big deal because it's all so complicated: there are so many potential points of failure that maintaining quality is very difficult and expensive. I'd hate to think what we would get now if we changed software just for the sake of change. We'd probably end up with something that was built to a budget, not a quality standard.

Re:perseverence

[Kulic]

There is a reason for the shuttle using *outdated* technology. It is because of the need for rigorous testing of the systems intended for use in manned vehicles.

The shuttles use 486DX66 processors in their flight control systems. Actually, they use 4 processors which each perform the same calculations and then submit the results to a fifth processor. This processor then takes the (hopefully identical) results and control the shuttle in whatever it is doing. The reason for this is that any potential damage caused by radiation in space can cause anomalous results to be produced. If only three of the processors agree, then the extra result is discarded.

The other issue I mentioned earlier is testing. The 486 processor has been around for so long that its behaviour is extremely well known and it has had no flaws found in it (would you want to man rate a new processor every 6 months, with a real time OS which needs to react in sub-millisecond time frames, and verify that all of your code executes exactly the same)? Since essentially the same operations are performed today in getting the shuttle to orbit as were performed 20 years ago, the processing speed is still more than adequate.

Not everything in the shuttles is outdated though. Discovery (and maybe the other shuttles) had their cockpits upgraded in the early 90s to allow the pilots to interpret more information at once, and in a more intuitive fashion.

Of course, any new space vehicle development (eg OSP) will likely incorporate new computer hardware and software components.

Re:perseverence

[sxpert]

huh ???
where the hell did you find that information ?
The shuttle uses 5 identical IBM special purpose-built computers (currently, they are AP-101S).
These things are all but intel-based machines.
here you will find more info on those machines.

Simply put, they are based on the IBM-360 architecture, and where programmed in a language called HAL/S (High-Order Assembly Language / Shuttle).

Do some research before saying stupid things, pal !

Re:perseverence

[Kulic]

Sorry, you are correct. Thanks for pointing that out.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/comput er s/Ch4-2.html

Don't know where I got that information (OTOH).

Everything else I said appears to be correct though.

Article Text

[Anonymous Coward]

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Texas (CNN) -- NASA set a September 2004 target date for the next space shuttle launch, CNN has learned.

The space agency decided in recent weeks that it needed more time to develop systems for detecting and repairing damage to shuttles in orbit, forcing the agency to retreat from plans to launch in March or April.

The space shuttle fleet has been grounded since the Columbia disaster in February in which all seven crew members died. Insulation debris from the external fuel tank has been blamed with damaging the leading edge of the left wing soon after launch, which doomed the Columbia as it returned from space.

Modifications to the external tank design, development of a boom to inspect the shuttle's exterior during orbit and kits for repairing tile and wing damage are under way.

The latest launch window is September 12 to October 10, NASA said Friday.

If NASA sticks with its current rotation, the Atlantis would be next in line for space flight.

Keeping things in perspective...

[reiggin]

There is a big difference between "smarter... safer" and "smart.... safe."

Go Space Program!

[GreyWolf3000]

Maybe this is that eight-year old Trekkie in me, but I really believe we need another space race. Our overall progress in space during the first thirty years of the Cold War greatly overshadows anything since that time, and I wholly reject this apprehension towards more people going into space after tragic accidents. My condolences, of course, to the friends of family of those who've died in a space suit.

Let's see if we can dump some of that massive defense budget and sink that cash into a more active space program. Let's see if we can get to the moon. We already know we can blow up the world pretty good. We don't need to prove that we can, and if the situation actually arose where we needed to unleash our arsenal, then the world would be screwed anyways.

I bet I sound like a naive, idealistic fool...sue me.

Re:Go Space Program!

[Jeremi]

Bah. What we need isn't another space race -- what we need is a better way to get out of our gravity well. Blowing ourselves into orbit with explosives isn't much safer or more practical for our astronauts than it was for Wiley Coyote. If NASA were to ask my opinion (and rest assured that they won't ;^)), I'd say take all the money from the space shuttle program and invest it into developing a nice Space Elevator.

Re:Go Space Program!

[fingers1122]

Your post is reminiscent of Adam Smith's free-market philosophy: Without competition, there is little progress. I agree. The only thing that will really stimulate our development of better space technology is competition from another government. It's sad, but true. Right now, there is no real incentive for our government to invest lots of money into improving a system that--at its most basic level--already works well. In short, we will not see big improvements in space technology from NASA until we see big improvements in space technology from other countries.

Re:Go Space Program!

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe we need a competition on the private market. They want to do these things too, but at lower cost, and to make money out of it. And that is exactly what will truly make this species a space faring one.

Re:Go Space Program!

[grozzie2]

Maybe this is that eight-year old Trekkie in me, but I really believe we need another space race.

There's 2 factors that come into play, economics, and political will. Political will is generated by 'the masses', and the economics are generated by political will. The 60's were a wonderful time to grow up as a young boy interested in science and exploration. As a pre-teen i watched the first landing on the moon live, on a black and white tv. Even then, I knew, I was watching one of those historical moments that happens but once in a century.

The environment of the space race in the 60's was brought on by a political will to make it happen. The entire country was focussed on the space program as a point of national pride. It wasn't there to be efficient, it wasn't there to be 'cost justified', it was there so folks could watch with pride, wave the flag, and say 'we are the best'. It worked, and worked well, the focus of the entire country was on research, development, and 'do the impossible'. Nasa was the fledgling young organization tasked with 'do the impossible', and they did it with tremendous pride.

The political will does not exist today. The politics of today are focussed on military expenditures, and doing whatever it takes to contue justifying the existence of the military industrial complex. During the cold war, this wasn't to difficult, the percieved threat was real enough that everybody 'bought in', and life went on happily. Nasa got shovelled aside to play with shuttles, while the real expenditures went into the military.

Today, the achievements of Nasa are viewed by most as 'just a money pit' for tax dollars. National pride is focussed on the military invasions overseas. It will take time, but that tide will shift once again. Folks are already tired of hearing about body counts, and little things like 'we need another 87 billion dollars to keep this up'. it would have been easy to keep the momentum in this area, but, the politicians are finding, they have been called up on statements, and, cant back them with enough facts to convince folks anymore. The population is rapidly losing the political will to continue feeding the military industrial complex now that the price is measured in bodies as well as dollars.

Achievements in space have always been a big point of national pride in the USA, but it's something that is kind of taken for granted today, most americans believe that the USA is still the leader in space development and exploration, and this is something that goes without question, is taken for granted. But, one has to look at a few facts, to check this out carefully, the assumption is no longer valid.

As it sits today, the american space program consists of sending american astronauts to an international space station, riding up and down on soviet hardware. That's not much of a 'leadership' role. Now, look around, the Europeans are flight testing the next generation in space propulsion that is required to do longer range missions. The Chinese are launching rockets on a regular basis, and will have a manned mission in orbit before the year is out. They have a stated goal to reach the moon with a manned mission, while the european flight test hardware is already on it's way to the moon, to validate the new concepts in propulsion.

The ducks are starting to line up for a major shift in the cards of political will. Joe average on the street doesn't even realize that the Chinese are going to be launching people into space imminently. When it happens, it's going to be a wake up call to todays generation, similar to what sputnik was to mine. I dont believe Joe Average is willing to conceed the leadership as a space exploration nation, it's far to big a point of national pride.

It isn't going to happen for 2004, but, the ducks are lining up to create a groundswell of support for a 2008 campaign, one that is prepared to de-emphasize military conquest, and re-emphasize scientific achievement.

Then again, I could

Re:Go Space Program!

[sql*kitten]

The politics of today are focussed on military expenditures, and doing whatever it takes to contue justifying the existence of the military industrial complex.

You are forgetting where all the dollars spent on the space race actually went: into the so-called "military industrial complex". Saying that politics today is all about that is missing the point; the politics of the 1960s were all about that too!

The finish line is a permanent installation on the moon, and a year or two from now, we'll find out if there's more than one competitor in this race.

No, the finish line of this particular race is a permanent settlement on Mars. There's simply too little by way of resources to build a self-sustaining colony on the Moon, sure you've got a lot of silicon and oxygen, but it's all in a very hard to get at form, and there's no readily accessible carbon, hydrogen, etc etc. Dr Robert Zubrin has written extensively on the feasibility of colonizing Mars using present-day technology - there's surprisingly little that we'd need to do that we can't already do, if the will was there. His main idea is to do it in small stages - there is a proven process for generating rocket fuel from the Martian atmosphere, so the first thing to do is to send an automated fuel extraction plant, and set it running. Once it's up and running, the manned mission won't have to carry fuel for the return trip. Supplies such as food can also be sent in an unmanned module, and cached on the surface waiting for the astronauts to arrive.

According to Zubrin, however, NASA has too much ego tied up in using one vast spaceship to go there and come back, assembled in orbit. They'll never adopt an incremental strategy because too many managers have staked their careers on orbiting shipyards and the like. If NASA is left in charge, the US has already lost the space race.

Re:Go Space Program!

[pmz]

Let's see if we can dump some of that massive defense budget and sink that cash into a more active space program.

Social security is a much larger slice of the pie that could be better spent on technology development. Regardless, it is getting to the time where the private sector can take over. I think Rutan's X-Prize entry is an example of how entrepeneurs can take us forward.

Re:Go Space Program!

[pmz]

The politics of today are focussed on military expenditures...

Don't forget that universal healthcare might be on the horizon. I can't wait to wait for three hours to get a check-up by a civil servant with guaranteed job security and a pension who says I don't qualify for treatment XYZ because I don't fit the racial or economic profile alloted by Congress.

Wheeeeeee...thud.

Re:Go Space Program!

[GreyWolf3000]

I agree.

This is a case where both parties are sinking cash into big government programs that are wasting taxpayers dollars. We need strong businesses and individuals to come forward and work towards a bigger goal than funneling tax tollars through beaurocratic super-networks.

Free Link

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Link

NYT Reg free link

[FannyMinstrel]

Here

Re:NYT Reg free link

[davidesh]

oh goody, two free google links in a row!

Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report

[thedillybar]

I think it's great that NASA can recover so quickly from such a tragic incident. I think it's very important that they launch another shuttle to show the public they're still hanging around.

However, I think the CAIB Report released in August raises some very interesting points that need to be addressed (if they haven't already been). It mostly discusses long-term issues that will only be solved over the long term.

The last thing NASA wants to do is jump into anything to quickly. Let's face it: one more accident resulting in injury/death will destroy NASA's reputions for many, many years to come. Maybe they should elect to take some years off now, watching out for their own future? Let's just hope they've got 100 people thinking about this...and everyone else actually listening to them this time...

Re:Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report

[Ty]

Your horrid use of bold makes me NOT want to read your comment despite any insight you might actually have.

Re:Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report

[zulux]

I'd like to use bold too, but they diden't cover that in my MCSE training. Where's that paperclip when you need him?

Re:Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report

[Anonymous Coward]

You Bold Nazi

Re:Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report

[ThePlague]

NASA's reputation was destroyed with Challenger back in '86. The latest incident with Columbia just proved the point to any lingering doubters.

Re:Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report

[_xeno_]

Wow, it's like those Comic Books where for some reason character's words are almost randomly bolded so you can't help but think that they must be voiced by Shatner or something.

Re:Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the shuttle is probably as safe as (or even safer than) driving in the US.

In the US, the rate of fatal accidents is about 1.5 per 100 million vehicle-miles travelled.

The orbit of the shuttle is roughly 25,000 miles in circumference, and takes about 90 minutes. That makes about 100 orbits in a week. If we conservatively assume that the average mission is only a week long, that's 2.5 million miles per mission. IIRC there have been roughly 100 shuttle missions, so we'll call that 250 million miles. The shuttle carries 7 people each time, and 14 people have died in shuttle accidents, so the rate of fatal shuttle accidents is about 1 per 125 million person-miles travelled, or 0.8 per 100 million person-miles travelled.

In the US, most of the time there are only 1 or 2 people in a car, so I would guess the accident rate of shuttle and automobile are quite comparable when measured in person-miles travelled.

Re:Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report

[Anonymous Coward]

The last thing NASA wants to do is jump into anything to quickly. Let's face it: one more accident resulting in injury/death will destroy NASA's reputions for many, many years to come. Maybe they should elect to take some years off now, watching out for their own future? Let's just hope they've got 100 people thinking about this...and everyone else actually listening to them this time...

When did the USA become so cowardly in the pursuit of new frontiers anyways? If you ask the astronauts, they'd willingly go up in a vehicle that is less safe than the current shuttle.

More military hardware and personnel are lost on training missions (cost and people) every year, than what NASA lost with the shuttle, yet there's no outrage about the fact that new weapons systems don't work, the V-22 is crashprone, etc.

extremely limited launch windows

[shams42]

A more detailed version of the article can be found at the NY Times site. According to this article, the restrictions imposed by the new safety regulations constrain the shuttle to daylight launches, where adequate ascent video can be obtained. This unfortunately results in am extremely limited number of launch windows to reach the ISS. (It seems that there are only 4 between September 2004 and March 2005, and two of these are very narrow.)

Now I certainly want the thing to be as safe as possible, but is anyone else think that the level of acceptable risk has gotten too small? We should make the shuttle as safe as possible, but we shouldn't do this by compromising the shuttle's ability to fulfill its mission. Remember, we now have a space station up there that is going to need lots of maintenance, supplies, and fresh crews if it is going to be able to carry out any of the science work that are ostensibly the reason for its existence. Albatross or windfall, we put the thing up there, now we have to take care of it -- otherwise we've wasted a lot of money and political capital.

Re:extremely limited launch windows

[pmz]

adequate ascent video can be obtained

I thought we had non-visible-light cameras by now...perhaps even hundred-dollar camcorders have it already...but what do I know--I don't work for NASA.

I wish I could believe it that easily

[coolmacdude]

I'll also guarantee you that we're getting an awful lot smarter about this and we're going to come back stronger and safer as a result.

The same kind of stuff was said after Challenger. Then over the years everyone got complacent again and reverted to the old attitude. Maybe they've learned that lesson now and won't make the same mistake three times. It remains to be seen though.

Re:I wish I could believe it that easily

[zulux]

Maybe they've learned that lesson now and won't make the same mistake three times.

If they make the mistake two more times, then there won't be *any* more problem to worry about.

Re:I wish I could believe it that easily

[tftp]

Actually, you can be sure that the Shuttle program will be scrapped in case of another catastrophe. There simply could be no "program" with only two vehicles remaining.

Re:I wish I could believe it that easily

[Boglin]

No, they will make another mistake again. Normalization of deviance is a basic human instinct. Think about it. Your car starts making some weird noise while you're driving along one day. You get worried about it, so you pull off and look under the hood. You can't find anything wrong though. You then sit at home and analyze what was making the sound, but you can't think of anything. So you take the thing to a mechanic, but he tells you that everything is fine. So you just keep driving with the weird rattle. Eventually, after enough miles, you get used to the rattling and don't even notice it's there. Basically, if space launches halted everytime something went outside of spec, we would probably be preparing for our third launch right about now. For every O-ring or falling problem, there's plenty of other problems that occur that never amont to a darn thing. Once we get all of those fixed, a hundred new things will pop up in the repairs; once again, most of those will never be an issue. And some day, one of them may cause a problem. However, the odds are generally in favor of them not being a problem today, just like the odds are against an astronaut getting hit by a bus on the way home today. There are things that you can do to improve your odds, but there's also a law of diminishing returns. I ultimately comes down to how safe you want to be.

Re:I wish I could believe it that easily

[Anonymous Coward]

Aw nuts man, I just wish people wouldn't freak out so much about it. I'm old enough to remember the Apollo oxygen fire, I saw Apollo 13 in real life on TV, Challenger, and Columbia.

I hate to metaquote Star Trek, but frankly if you can't stand to get a bloody nose now and then then don't bother pretending you have a space plan. (Astro/Cosmo/Teiko)nauts die, like clockwork. The public seems to fail to understand that they themselves are aware of their risks before they go. It's okay. Don't let it slow us down.

Re:I wish I could believe it that easily

[coolmacdude]

I am not advocating that space travel be stopped or slowed down. But that is not an excuse to be any less vigilant. When it's people's lives you are talking about, your attitude can't just be "oh well, its necessary and going to happen occasionally."

Re:I wish I could believe it that easily

[Anonymous Coward]

We are more in agreement than you think. I'm just trying to echo the opinions I've read from various Astronauts: yes of course they want safety, but ferchrissake they also want to get up there.

You said "volunteers". They are volunteers. Look, there is no shortage of space shuttle passengers! It's a privilege like none other on earth.

safer?

[mOoZik]

C'mon now. The shuttles can't be safer because it takes a disaster for a potential problem to come to light. Challanger blew up. Columbia blew up. What's to keep from Atlantis or Enterprise from blowing up? I think they are fundamentally flawed and just making changes to them as disasters happen is a poor way of going about it. NASA needs to re-evaluate the way it conducts research and development and start from scratch.

Re:safer?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's to keep from Atlantis or Enterprise from blowing up?

I don't know about the former but, for the latter, has NASA considered keeping a Vulcan in the warp chamber?

Re:safer?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't speak for Atlantis, but Enterprise is probably pretty safe considering it was a test vehicle only and has not nor will it ever fly in space. I think it's in relatively little danger of exploding sitting in the Smithsonian. ;)

Re:safer?

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA still got Endeavor, Atlantis and Discovery left. Enterprise was just a testbed and never flew into space.

Re:safer?

[Murdoc]

What's to keep from Atlantis or Enterprise from blowing up?

Well, I can guarantee that the Enterprise is the safest shuttle of all of them. Unless you'd like to go and bomb the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

Re:safer?

[Anonymous Coward]

OV-101 Enterprise
isn't spaceworthy. NASA chose to retrofit OV-99 Challenger over Enterprise... and chose to build OV-105 Endeavour instead of refurbishing Enterprise

OFcourse, if they do need another shuttle, they could just rebuild Enterprise. It was supposed to be done up for spaceflight anyways.

They could give it its old name back... OV-100 Constitution, to wave the flag, so to speak.

(The Constitution class shuttles:
Challenger, Enterprise, Columbia, Atlantis, Discovery, Endeavour)

Of the "block-1" shuttles, only Enterprise remains, Atlantis and Discovery are "block-2" and Endeavour "block-3"

Re:safer?

[pmz]

I think it's in relatively little danger of exploding sitting in the Smithsonian. ;)

Err...I think they're hiring writers from The Simpsons to work out the new security procedures, so I wouldn't rule out any spontaneous unjustified-yet-massive explosions.

Re:safer?

[pmz]

They could give it its old name back... OV-100 Constitution, to wave the flag, so to speak.

Well, if the Constitution blew up, would the irony of that situation suprise anyone, given recent Democratic and Republican rule?

Wher do I sign up?

[No_Weak_Heart]

Maybe they could give Hell on Earth a couple of seats.

Other Changes Needed

[Omega037]

I think there needs to be a lot more changes at NASA than just shuttle design before they try to go back to space. Repeated failures seems to be the norm for this agency, and the Columbia disaster, while tragic, should not have been that surprising. I feel the problem isn't jsut the technology, but the organization behind the program.

My best friend's father is actually an engineer at NASA and I would sometimes talk with him about some of the problems there. He said NASA has become too bureaucratic and that the management barely communicates with the engineers or with other managers. He also said that NASA was lacking an atmosphere where innovation would be welcomed and that there was no big goals for them to strive for.

I personally think that NASA either needs to completely recreate itself or it should be replaced with a new organization altogether.

Re:Other Changes Needed

[Le Marteau]

Flamebate follows. Mod me down, I don't care anymore.

He said NASA has become too bureaucratic and that the management barely communicates with the engineers or with other managers.

Well, there's a shock. Imagine that, a government buracracy, with management problems. Say it isn't so, Pa.

Would we be happy with government made shoes? How about if the government went and made cars. Would you want to ride in D.C. engineering? Why is it that most rational beings agree that when you want a good product, get private enterprise into it (rah rah capitalism and all that), but when we want to go to space, we employ socialism?

Get some profit motive in there. Some accountability, instead of the old 'gimme your taxes or you go to jail' bit followed by the tossing of money at thet issue. I can just imagine the heads that would roll if this happened in a real business, instead of the racket they've got going down at NASA.

Re:Other Changes Needed

[sgage]

Regarding private industry and space:

First of all, private industry has been building the space program hardware all along. And they profit from it. Their customer is NASA.

Developing man-rated space hardware is hideously expensive, which is why governments foot the bill. Just like governments foot the bill for building bridges and roads and such. A space program is not like making cars or some other consumer item. It's more like public works.

Space travel is difficult, and the profit from going there is hard to see. If there is any, it will be long-term and after a huge investment. That's why you don't see private corporations avidly going after space programs on their own. As far as I know, nothing is stopping them, other than the fact that there's no good business reason to go there.

Other than commercial satellite launches, wherein private corporation make profits from employing technology derived from years of research and development funded largely by public money.

The idea that all we need to do is "get some profit motive in there" sort of ignores the fact that there is no profit to put there! At least not the kind of profit that shows up within the planning horizons of most any corporation on Earth. How do you propose to get some profit motive in there?

I'm not defending NASA - there are real flaws in the culture there. But invoking the idea that "private enterprise" as some sort of magic incantation that is going to solve every problem is a bit over the top.

Re:Other Changes Needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Here are some other changes I think there needs to be a lot more changes
This should be "need", not "needs".

Repeated failures seems to be the norm
"Seems" should be "seem".

... and that there was no big goals for them to strive for.
"Was" should be "were"

Conjugating verbs correctly. It's not just for breakfast anymore.

Re:Other Changes Needed

[sxpert]

At least not the kind of profit that shows up within the planning horizons of most any corporation on Earth.

About 6 months tops ?

That should be *somewhat* stronger and safer

[Y-Crate]

How many problems with the shuttle can we really hope to fix?

When the shuttle launches again, the current problems will still remain:

- There is still no viable crew escape system. During launch you theoretically have a chance to abort as long as the emergency doesn't involve the SRBs. In reality though, there is not much you can do. A mid-launch abort is more of a fantasy concocted to make astronauts and the public feel better. Once you're in space, hope that you can either get to the ISS (assuming all your navigational and propulsion systems are working properly), or that there is another shuttle almost ready to go...and you manage to survive the shuttle-to-shuttle transfer.

- Repairing the shuttle is still pretty iffy. NASA developed a substance that can be injected into small breaches in many parts of the shuttle to ensure the craft survives re-entry. Note I said *some* parts. The repair does not work on leading edge of the wing and you couldn't really hope to fix it in orbit even if you happened to have just the right spare part with you. (which is unlikely in of itself)

Repairing the shuttle can actually inflict more harm on the craft. There is a good chance anyone going over the side to look at the heat tiles will actually damage more in the course of the repair.

- The launch systems....mainly the SRBs are still horribly broken technologies that are absolutely not fault-tolerant whatsoever. Hundreds of things usually go wrong with the shuttle during the course of a mission. Little things here and there. If something goes wrong with the SRBs, you will probably die.

Re:That should be *somewhat* stronger and safer

[tftp]

There is a good chance anyone going over the side to look at the heat tiles will actually damage more in the course of the repair.

That would be the case if an untrained spaceperson does that (like those on Columbia). However it is trivial now to establish means for safe inspection, and all astronauts can be trained to use them.

I don't work for NASA, but even I can think of soft rubber shoes and gloves that would allow you to touch the surface w/o damaging it. The spaceman would be weightless, so no static pressure would be applied; he only needs to keep his moment in check, which is easy as long as he is not in a hurry (and does not weigh a ton :-)

Re:That should be *somewhat* stronger and safer

[Timesprout]

However it is trivial now to establish means for safe inspection

I know this is /. home of the bland statement but come on. This is space we are talking about, not your garage. Nothing is trivial. If it was we would all have our own orbiters and I would be abducting Venusian women. Inspection is not easy and repairing any damage is considerably more than your average stroll in the park. Procedures must be designed and verified. Tooling must be designed and built to carry out repairs. The Austronauts must be trained. Then if things go pear shaped and a repair is required they must do all this in what is a very unforgiving environment. I dont see where trivial comes into this at all.

Re:That should be *somewhat* stronger and safer

[tftp]

If it was we would all have our own orbiters and I would be abducting Venusian women.

Come on, abductions are not politically correct any more; don't give the Venus government the chance to blame Earth again :-)

Anyways, it is most definitely understood that anything involving space is a little bit more difficult than eating a pretzel. In this context (which is presumed to be blatantly obvious to /. readers) it _is_ trivial to equip an astronaut with soft gloves, compared to the much less trivial matter of launching him to the orbit in first place.

Re:That should be *somewhat* stronger and safer

[ottawanker]

NASA developed a substance that can be injected into small breaches in many parts of the shuttle to ensure the craft survives re-entry. Note I said *some* parts.

Actually, you said many parts.

Re:That should be *somewhat* stronger and safer

[iJed]

Anyways, it is most definitely understood that anything involving space is a little bit more difficult than eating a pretzel. President Bush found a pretzel very difficult to eat indeed. ;-)

Re:That should be *somewhat* stronger and safer

[applemasker]

One of the return to flight requirements is that NASA develop an "extension" to attach to the end of the RMS (robot arm) that can be used to inspect otherwise not viewable / inaccessable areas of the orbiter.

Spaceflight now (http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts114/0310 03target/) indicates that there are multiple technical goals for the first return to flight mission: "Mission STS-114, currently assigned to the shuttle Atlantis, will include a robot arm extension and sensors to look for damage to the ship's heat-shield tiles and leading edge panels; a spacewalk to test tile and leading edge repair techniques; another spacewalk to install a new gyroscope on the space station; and supply and equipment transfers to and from the lab complex"

As for the repair techniques and possibility that additional damage could occur... I would think that the RMS would be used as the work platform, as it has for other satellite-service missions. Depending on the kind of repair (I'm envisioning some caulk or spackle-like substance), it should be fairly easy to apply without too much danger of additional damage. The problem with this inspection or repair with Columbia was that there was no robot arm onboard for this mission. CAIB report, however, demonstrated that a scaffold/ladder of some kind could have been devised to allow inspection and access to the left wing leading edge.

Re:That should be *somewhat* stronger and safer

[sxpert]

Hundreds of things usually go wrong with the shuttle during the course of a mission. Little things here and there.

Such as their Windows and Outlook going haywire at times ?

Re:That should be *somewhat* stronger and safer

[Anonymous Coward]

Repairing the shuttle is still pretty iffy. NASA developed a substance that can be injected into small breaches in many parts of the shuttle to ensure the craft survives re-entry. Note I said *some* parts. The repair does not work on leading edge of the wing and you couldn't really hope to fix it in orbit even if you happened to have just the right spare part with you. (which is unlikely in of itself)

I call bullshit on that.

IANARS, but would not 150 pounds of asbestos matting over the initial tiny crack have possibly meant that Columbia just might have made it down?? I realize that walmart epoxy and asbestos mats arent's exactly high tech, but during this event it wasn't even an f*ing option.

Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

"May" is the operative word when using "Shuttle" and "Fly" in the same sentance.

Ok, it shouldn't be a huge deal.

[YahoKa]

Really, it shouldn't be a huge deal. We're launching ourselves into space and we expect it go problem free? Ok, no matter how great you are you'll make mistakes, people will die & money is lost. It happens, but it's not a good reason to stop doing it (although there may bemany other good reasons.) There are probably more people who die of starvation each minute than have ever died related to accidents in spacecraft (and the people in the spacecraft knowingly take a risk.) We probably spend as much on porn as we do in space research. So what's the big deal?

...Yeah...

[RyanFenton]

...And penguins will fly!

[Looks at a model of the space shuttle, thinks of what animal the shuttle most closely resembles.]

Um... never mind.

Ryan Fenton

Good ol' Nasa

[Streiff]

I can't wait to see what happens to Nasa if China starts a new space race.

Re:Good ol' Nasa

[tftp]

Probably nothing will happen. NASA, that young sprinter of 70's, now looks like old Sumo wrestler, and is as agile as a snail. If China challenges NASA, it will take years for the bureaucracy to even comprehend the challenge!

As matter of fact, China already announced its intentions - to fly to the Moon and beyond. What transpired at NASA? You guessed it. Nothing. As if China does not exist.

On the other hand, NASA does not have resources to do anything even if the challenge is valid and immediate. Imagine that China establishes its Moon base in June 2004. What NASA can possibly do? It is even cut off of space at the moment, and its best chance to launch anyone would be ... in a Chinese capsule :-)

Re:Good ol' Nasa

[RayBender]

It is even cut off of space at the moment, and its best chance to launch anyone would be ... in a Chinese capsule :-)

I for one welcome the prospect of going to sleep by the light of a Communist moon. :) Seriously, though - it's the only way we'd ever get people interested enough to do more than keep NASA barely on life support.

Re:Good ol' Nasa

[pmz]

As matter of fact, China already announced its intentions - to fly to the Moon and beyond. What transpired at NASA? You guessed it. Nothing.

What if China announces the moon sovereign territory? Or has an international treaty already covered this?

Re:What is flying already is

[Anonymous Coward]

lame

Who knew?

[akunkel]

Well, I take back everything I said about Rocket Scientists reading /.

Statistics

[benntop]

The report still doesn't address Richard Feynman's analysis after Challenger that even with good odds we are probably going to lose 1 in 50 shuttles.

I am all for a new launch system. But who do I write?
~CB

Re:Shuttle Overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

Atlantis, eh? I hope you can tread water...

Shuttles are unnecessarily complex

[melted]

And that's their main problem. In order for something to work reliably this something MUST be simple.

USSR had a superior shuttle program, "Buran" which got cancelled because of three simple reasons:
1. It was way more expensive than rocket-based space launches (which kinda defeated the purpose of having a reusable spacecraft).
2. It was less reliable than rocket-based stuff.
3. Russians had proven they can build a better shuttle than Americans (Russian shuttle flew its first flight unmanned and landed all by itself) which back then was a big thing.

Here's more info on Buran: http://www.buran.ru/htm/molniya5.htm

Re:Shuttles are unnecessarily complex

[RedWizzard]

Buran was technically superior, mostly since the Russians got to see the US' attempt with the Space Shuttle before they designed their own.

USSR had a superior shuttle program, "Buran" which got cancelled because of three simple reasons

Your reasons are wrong. Buran was launched via a rocket-based system (Energia). It is essentially just one type of payload for the Energia system. It did not have significant expensive/reliability disadvantages compared to other rocket-based systems. Buran was cancelled because there was no clear, compelling role for the vehicle, and with the breakup of the USSR there was no money available to continue the project without a very strong reason.

Re:Shuttles are unnecessarily complex

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia they build superior shuttles that never fly.

Re:Shuttles are unnecessarily complex

[melted]

>> Buran was technically superior, mostly since the Russians
>> got to see the US' attempt with the Space Shuttle
>> before they designed their own.

FYI, that's also why MiG and SU fighters are superior to their american counterparts. They started out as carbon copies but were then improved a lot, because American stuff in its original form didn't cut the mustard.

The newer MiGs and SUs are another story. I've seen an American military pilot's jaw drop when I showed him a video of SU-30 doing all those "impossible" aerobatic figures. And Russians can build something like this for a "mere" $30M a piece!

Re:Shuttles are unnecessarily complex

[tftp]

18 SU-30MKM were sold to Malaysia yesterday for $50M each. But the customer requested a lot of optional equipment.

Re:Shuttles are unnecessarily complex

[norite]

More info on the Buran:

http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/rsa/buran.html

Some nice pictures on this website - they were using a MiG 25 "Foxbat" as a chase plane!

Re:Shuttles are unnecessarily complex

[CrazyTalk]

According to the article,

The Buran 1 mission was limited to 2 orbits due to computer memory limitations.

Wonder if they were running an old version of DOS and ran over 640k!

Soyuz safes money and lifes!

[axxackall]

Hey, jokes aside, THAT's the vehicle NASA should use: Soyuz. It safes money and lifes. Hmm can be used in a slogan :)

Re:Soyuz safes money and lifes!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's partially a myth. Yes, it is very expensive to recover, refit, and inspect the SRBs, build a new main external tank, and move, refuel, and inspect the orbiter.

But when everything is working right, the Shuttle has significant cost savings over Soyuz (so far as they can be compared) and Buran. Most of the savings are because, for the Shuttle, the main external tank is a tank, and not a booster rocket. Reusing the SRBs also saves some money, but not much.

Of course, when things do not go well for the Shuttle, such as the destruction of an orbiter and loss of astronauts' lives, then the economics do work out at all.

(Also it's not always obvious how best to compare the Shuttle and Soyuz, since they have different capabilities.)

Re:Soyuz safes money and lifes!

[sxpert]

too bad, the russians already have a contract with the European Space Agency to launch from Kourou, now that Baikonur is located in Khazakhstan ;)

Re:Soyuz safes money and lifes!

[axxackall]

too bad, the russians already have a contract with the European Space Agency to launch from Kourou, now that Baikonur is located in Khazakhstan

And why exactly it's too bad? IMHO it's good for russians to specialize on a technology, where they have all benefits of the strongest aero-space engineering education all over the world (many people even in North America would be agree with me) while still pretty low prices for labour ($300/month - where else for the same quality?). As for a launchpad? It doesn't bring enough money to Kazakhstan either, so nothing to worry about. The strongest point of russians is not to support a lunchpad infrastructure (they were never efficient in infrastructures), and not in mass-production (they were never efficient in economics), but in single-quantity manual assemblying of super-complicated electro-mechanichal systems. I wish them further good luck to take more business from NASA, where the most typical american business/management rules are failed to work ("it's never simple or easy", "it should work", "ship the prototype anyway").

Shuttle alternative launch system unveiled...

[khenson]

NASA administration officials have determined that rocket fuel is "dumber and unsafer" and discontinued its use throughout the organization. When questioned about the decision, part of NASA's "smarter and safer" initiative, Patalie Nortman of NASA's alternative propulsion division had this to say:

"It was simply a matter of investing our money, well, YOUR money actually, in the right place. We opted for a launch system comprised of thousands of high strength polymer rubber bands to effectively 'sling' the shuttle into space. It was incredibly easy and inexpensive to implement. The real cost shifted to our computerized targeting system capable of aiming the shuttle into the proper orbital launch trajectory. Microsoft software was chosen for this critical system because system failure was simply not an option."

Further discussion was cut short as the final seconds of the launch arrived.

T MINUS 5 SECONDS AND COUNTING...
4...
3...
STOP 0x000000D1 DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (0x0,0x0,0x0,0x0)
Gah...!
Thwiiiiip!!!

Try something new. less expensive. more reliable

[zymano]

I don't like the shuttle at all . Way too complex and too expensive.

Just scrap it and go with a capsule or lifting body concept.

Don't have any links but there was an article on slash 2 days ago(too lazy to search for it).

How about sticking an astronout on titanium carbide bucket and putting C4 underneath it ?

Stanislaw Lem said...

[SharpFang]

"If a chance of failure of one element in the device is one to billion, in a device with a billion components something HAS TO fail."

KISS, the more complex it is, the more it will cost. Reentry and horizontal landing cost fortune in development cost, fuel, payload capacity and quite a few other domains. Carrying all the life support space and devices on flights that could be perfectly performed by unmanned devices is plain stupid.

Re:Stanislaw Lem said...

[Prof.Phreak]

"If a chance of failure of one element in the device is one to billion, in a device with a billion components something HAS TO fail."

Reminds me of the improbability drive (in HHGG); with an improbability drive, even the most improbable things are very likely to happen as soon you turn it on. (or something to that effect).

Re:Stanislaw Lem said...

[gblewis]

If the chances of failure are independent, the actual formula for the chance of failure of the entire device is: 1-(999,999,999/1,000,000,000)^1,000,000,000 or 63.2% Something does not HAVE TO fail. 1 out of 3 chance nothing will fail.

Shuttle has no future

[steveha]

Individuals inside NASA may be genuinely smart and caring, but NASA as an organization is a horrible morass of red tape. Nothing important will change. They will slap a bandage over the Shuttle's current problems and that will be that.

The Shuttle is only about 99% reliable. In other words, if you fly it 100 times it is pretty much certain to have a fatal failure. We have two Shuttle orbiters left; that's about 200 flights we have left. Maybe less.

My suggestions:

Make sure anyone who flies on the Shuttle is a volunteer. You will get volunteers who want to be in space so badly they are willing to risk a 1% chance of death, so that's okay.

Immediately start finding ways to ship people and supplies to the Space Station without using the Shuttle. Never again use the Shuttle for any mission that could be done by, say, a Russian rocket.

Immediately offer a large, tax-free, cash prize for the first company to put 1000 kilograms in the same orbit as the Space Station, and then do it again within three weeks. Offer another, almost as large prize for the second company to do this. Also offer contracts for delivery of supplies and people to the Space Station.
Something everyone needs to realize: there is no amount of money that anyone could spend that will buy another Shuttle orbiter. They are done. There are two left in the world, and that's all. When those two explode or whatever, there will be none left.

Something else everyone needs to realize: NASA is incapable, as an organization, of building any reasonable system for going to space. If we let NASA build a "Shuttle II", they will first spend billions of dollars, hire many people, and conduct many studies and write many documents. Perhaps even, someday, some hardware might fly. That hardware will be a haywire monstrosity almost as bad as the current Shuttle. Conclusion: don't give any additional money to NASA, and don't ask NASA to design any new spacecraft.

steveha

Re:Shuttle has no future

[bcombee]

Aren't there three shuttle orbiters left? I count Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavour in the current fleet, with Challenger and Columbia destroyed and Enterprise never made spaceworthy.

Re:Shuttle has no future

[sql*kitten]

Immediately start finding ways to ship people and supplies to the Space Station without using the Shuttle. Never again use the Shuttle for any mission that could be done by, say, a Russian rocket.

You know, the original plan for the ISS was to assemble the whole thing on Earth in a collapsible form, strap it to the back of a shuttle booster in place of the shuttle itself and launch the whole thing in one go, unmanned. NASA's engineers thought this was a good idea, Lockheed-Martin's engineers thought this was a good idea, the independant review board at MIT thought this was a good idea. NASA, however, felt the need to justify its great white elephant, the shuttle, so the idea was killed.

Conclusion: don't give any additional money to NASA, and don't ask NASA to design any new spacecraft.

Damn right. NASA is an obstacle to space exploration, the sooner it is disbanded the better for everyone - apart from useless career bureaucrats that is.

Re:Shuttle has no future

[GauteL]

"The Shuttle is only about 99% reliable. In other words, if you fly it 100 times it is pretty much certain to have a fatal failure."

I liked reading your posting, but I'm pretty glad you were not the one teaching me statistics.

This is almost like saying that you are pretty much certain to get a six by throwing the dice six times.

--
Gaute

Re:Shuttle has no future

[applemasker]

From the "nothing is easy for NASA these days" department, Atlantis may miss its turn in the flight rotation after all. Although Discovery is currently in OMDP (Orbiter Maintenance Down Period), it or Endeavour may be the first to fly. With the loss of Columbia, the remaining orbiters are comparable in terms of capability, with the newer ones being slightly lighter thanks to new manufacturing techniques.

The reason for this is that Atlantis' nosecap (made of the same RCC material as the leading edge) was *NOT* inspected during its most recent OMDP period, even though someone generated paperwork saying it was. Evidently, it's a fairly complicated inspection that is expected to take several months. USAToday has a nice story on it: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-10-02-shu ttle-bottomstrip_x.htm?csp=19_wxia

Re:Shuttle has no future

[steveha]

Er, sorry about that. You are right, of course.

steveha

Re:Shuttle has no future

[steveha]

What, "pretty much" isn't enough handwaving in front of "certain"? I never said it is impossible to fly more than 100 times. I'm aware that you can throw a die six times without seeing a six, flip a coin twice without it landing heads, etc. Would you have preferred "the estimated probability becomes 1"? Would "extremely likely" have made you happier than "pretty much certain"?

If I were teaching statistics I should be very careful how I phrase things -- more careful than in a Slashdot discussion about the Shuttle.

steveha

Re:Shuttle has no future

[slyborg]

1) There are 3 orbiters still on flight status. By your logic, that's 300 flights. Note that NASA put up ISS, Hubble, Solar Max, a bunch of comm satellites, several Spacelab missions, fixed Hubble, retrieved several dead satellites - all in a little more than a 100 flights. Geez, with 300, the sky's the limit (no pun intended).

The Shuttle, by NASA's own estimates, would have a loss of orbiter accident every 100-120 missions. This is based solely on reliability engineering calculations. People have this idea that the Shuttle is some kind of big bottle rocket or Testors model, just with really big engines. It is an enormously complex piece of engineering. For all this complexity, both mission losses were caused by bureaucratic ineptitude, not engineering issues.

2) Everyone who flies on the Shuttle IS a volunteer. You think NASA pushes its astronauts into the Shuttle cabin at gunpoint? You want them to sign an affidavit on the tower every flight, or what?

3) Most supplies to ISS are delivered by Progress supply ships, Shuttle brings up components and crew for the most part.

4) Putting any amount of mass into the same orbit as the ISS wouldn't warrant any kind of prize unless it docks with it. That, unfortunately, is the hard part. Unless of course your objective is to DESTROY the ISS, in which case you would need a lot less than 1000 kilos, probably 10 kilos of hex nuts dispersed would take out the solar panels pretty effectively.

I'm not a big fan of bureaucracy, which once developed has only one mission - perpetuate itself. However, if we have, as a society, an interest in developing a presence off the planet, a big organization is the only way to do it. And if you think corporate America is the way to go, well, read the history of the Challenger disaster - it was Morton Thiokol management that gave NASA the green light to launch at low temperatures.

Re:Shuttle has no future

[pfdietz]

For all this complexity, both mission losses were caused by bureaucratic ineptitude, not engineering issues.

Actually, the losses were caused by interaction of bad design with programmatic imperatives. The shuttle is too expensive to really justify its operation, so NASA is pushed into operating it in a way that inhibits addressing the safety issues.

This implies another accident of the same general kind is inevitable.

Re:Shuttle has no future

[digger3001]

Immediately offer a large, tax-free, cash prize for the first company to put 1000 kilograms in the same orbit as the Space Station, and then do it again within three weeks.

The only drawback to this is then you could end up with 100 failed attempts polluting the ISS orbit or orbital paths to the ISS with more space junk than you could wave a stick at. Not to mention you could actually have one of them actually damage the ISS incredibly with one slip-up. Who do you blame then?

I'm all for privatization, but it must be done in a very monitored approach, not in a shotgun fashion. We have no way to clean up our orbit as of yet and if we clutter it with failed amatuerish attempts it could really limit us in the future.

Dig

Re:Shuttle has no future

[fingon]

Would you have been more happy if the original poster stated that probability of one or more fatal failures is 1-0.99^100, e.g. 0.6339676? (That's roughly 2 out of 3, which in my book is fairly certain)

Re:Shuttle has no future

[steveha]

Fine, make that "capable of putting 1000 kg into the same orbit". No need for the test to actually do it; come up with some other orbit for the test.

The important part of the idea is money for results, and no money for no results. With NASA the money is for studies and red tape, more than results. (And I mean modern NASA. NASA in the late 60's was by all accounts a very can-do sort of operation.)

steveha

Re:Shuttle has no future

[Anonymous Coward]

Make sure anyone who flies on the Shuttle is a volunteer.

uh, can you show me anybody who flew a shuttle mission unwillingly??

Re:Shuttle has no future

[steveha]

The Shuttle, by NASA's own estimates, would have a loss of orbiter accident every 100-120 missions.

Since when has NASA been that honest? In the book What Do You Care What Other People Think?, Richard Feynman wrote about his role in the Challenger investigation. I recall his saying that the official NASA estimate was five-nines reliability (99.999% chance of survival) and that to get that number, various sub-systems had estimated reliabilities of seven or eight nines; it appeared to him that they had "cooked the books", that they started out with the five-nines number and ginned up supporting numbers to make it look real.

(I can't find my copy of that book. Maybe it was only four nines. The important point here is NASA cooking the books.)

Has NASA, post-Challenger, actually started publishing real numbers?

[The Shuttle] is an enormously complex piece of engineering.

More complex than it should be, and worse-designed. It lands like a brick with wings, which flies differently than any normal airplane, and with no ability to make a second approach for a landing (you only get one chance to get it right). It uses solid rocket boosters that cannot be switched off and cannot be jettisoned until after they burn out on their own; if anything goes wrong on takeoff, everyone dies. If the insulation is damaged, everyone dies on reentry. The engines have to be torn down and overhauled after every flight.

We need something that is built for actual use. Top priority is safety and recoverability. Second priority is ease of reuse. A simple rocket design, with enough redundant engines that you can simply shut down a malfunctioning engine and continue the mission. A simple landing design -- probably just land on "a tail of fire" with the main rocket engines. (The vehicle will burn almost all of its fuel taking off, and it will be dramatically lighter for the landing, so landing by the rockets isn't as dumb as it might sound.) If you land on the rockets, you can control your speed -- no need to scream in so fast that the slightest flaw in your insulation means death. And you can come back around for another try if there is any problem with the landing area, and you only need a small flat spot to land instead of a huge long runway that has to be totally swept clean of debris.

Everyone who flies on the Shuttle IS a volunteer. You think NASA pushes its astronauts into the Shuttle cabin at gunpoint?

Four words: Teacher In Space program.

All I'm saying is that NASA needs to stop pretending that the Shuttle is or ever could be "safe" as normal people define "safe". If my car had a 1% chance to kill me each time I used it, I wouldn't use it.

The whole point of the Teacher In Space was that the Shuttle is so safe we can put a teacher on it. The Shuttle isn't safe and NASA shouldn't try to pretend otherwise.

Most supplies to ISS are delivered by Progress supply ships, Shuttle brings up components and crew for the most part.

I want components and crew delivered by something other than the Shuttle, ASAP. The Shuttle does have a great huge payload capacity, and if there is anything truly big that needs to go up, the Shuttle is the obvious way to go. But people and supplies shouldn't go up on the Shuttle -- and with small modules that interlock to make bigger modules, you could even send up new pieces of the space station without using the Shuttle.

steveha

Smarter is as smarter does, doesn't it?

[kfg]

Yeah, I know, I know. It's true that every time I jab myself with this pointy stick it hurts and I bleed, but I'm "coming back smarter" this time.

I've invented Fleshtone Band-Aids.

KFG

Re:Try something new. less expensive. more reliabl

[Simple-Simmian]

I think those are called single use rockets and capsules. They work really well. They still build them in Russia and ISS will be using them for ever I bet.

Well, it's one thing to "announce intentions"

[melted]

Well, it's one thing to "announce intentions", and another - to actually fly somewhere. There's substantial amount of science and "know how" involved and terrifying number of trial and error experiments must be performed to actually make their dreams a reality.

Right now they only have "intentions" and NASA is absolutely correct in not reacting to them. NASA has proven time after time they can fly whatever wherever given the right financial resources and prioritization of goals. Will they prove this again? You can be sure as heck they will.

Good to see

[ScurvyDawg]

Good to see them get going again.

I look forward to seeing what they come up with for a replacement. The suttle design has worked out fairly well as a low earth orbit vehicle. If they can work out the catastrophic bugs, the next generation should be impressive.

I think we need to get back to the moon and create vehicles that are appropriate for moon travel. The where further inovation will gestate.

Re:Good to see

[sxpert]

If they can work out the catastrophic bugs

That's the easy part: fire those inept managers that refuse the photo opportunity (Lynda Ham (sp?) in particular seems to be the culprit here, according to the CAIB report)

Smarter and safer...

[Anonymous Coward]

and more determined than ever! Fear the power of Spectra, puny....Oh, never mind.

I hope this is US grammar ...

[BillsPetMonkey]

a shuttle (possibly Atlantis) could fly again next fall.

"Fall" is a comment on the reliability of the shuttle program, or the US for Autumn?

Re:I hope this is US grammar ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fall" is a comment on the reliability of the shuttle program, or the US for Autumn?

We ain't cottoned t'them new-fangled Norman words.

Re:I hope this is US grammar ...

[_xeno_]

So in what country does "grammar" mean "lexicon?" :P

Shouldn't that be "I hope this is from the US lexicon?" or something along those lines?

But, yes, pairing "next fall" with "shuttle launch" would seem to be... well, wrong.

Energia was the most expensive booster ever built

[melted]

Energia was the most expensive booster ever built by Russians (if the same thing was built by NASA it would be the most expensive booster ever built). Boosters required to propel equivalent payloads via more traditional technologies were almost an order of magnitude cheaper and did not require an insane number of subcontractors to build parts (Energia/Buran as far as I know required more than a thousand subcontractors).

At one launch per year (which was a tentative plan) it did not make financial sense to keep Buran around and that's in essence why it was canned and rocket-based stuff was not.

Re:ALL YOUR BASE BELONG TO US

[kickball]

wow... i so wish i was you...

A sick joke...

[nicodemus05]

On July 28 a CNN.com Article posed the question, "Should we send a manned mission to Mars?",and gets the answer,

"We can go there after all the things wrong on Earth are fixed," said Betty Collatrella, a retiree from Caldwell, New Jersey. "I'm totally against any of it. It's a total waste of money we need for our kids, for illnesses, could put somebody's kids through college, could cure so many diseases."

And why don't we cure injustice and human suffering first as well? Bleh. We have heard those arguments for decades, but they scare the ever living hell out of me... What's the good of sending kids to college if we stagnate here doing nothing? What good is one more .com founding MBA if the taxes they pay aren't going towards something other than money for more kids to go to college and start more .coms?

Enthusiasm for the program of space exploration was greater among younger adults, those with more education and those with higher incomes. Whites were more likely than blacks and men were more likely than women to think the shuttle should continue to fly.

Let's all just stay home and knit sweaters. Liberal women and their damn social welfare concerns.

More than half, 56 percent, said they believe civilians should be allowed to participate in shuttle missions, while 38 percent said they should not.

This makes no sense to me... Should we send soldiers off into space against their will, or should we ask for volunteers? I think astronauts understand the risks involved pretty well. This article concerns me because the polls show ignorance and lack of ambition. There are also priceless lines like this:

"I think it's all bogus," said Claudette Davidson of Jonesboro, Georgia, who does accounting work for physicians. "I just do not believe they've gone to the moon. I saw Capricorn One," she said, referring to a 1978 movie that featured O.J. Simpson and included a faked trip to Mars. "That did it for me."

My head was about to explode after reading that.

Well, Claudette, do you believe in alien abductions? Maybe the extensive education necessary to perform your job doing 'accounting work for physicians' gives you a unique insight into the veracity of the government's claims regarding the space program. I've got to say, though, that I've seen Catch Me if You Can, and I feel fairly certain that your employer is not only a con artist, but that he is in fact Leonardo DiCaprio.

It's too bad that people like Claudette get to vote.

So the government isn't going to get us to Mars as long as people like Claudette and Betty have any choice in the matter. What we need is a private venture to take us there(see the X Prize) or a good scare provided by the Chinese (see the 100 Day Countdown until China puts a man in space, which may or may not be on hold or on target, I haven't checked) to jumpstart the government program. China is already talking of a moon base. Would that be enough to wake the government up?

Probably not. Claudette wouldn't believe that they had actually gotten there.

Re:A sick joke...

[tftp]

We can go there after all the things wrong on Earth are fixed," said Betty Collatrella, a retiree from Caldwell, New Jersey.

Yea, right - find a person who has no clue about anything, and ask her "a question of cosmic proportions", to cite Prof. Preobrazhensky... I bet she also has a fully formed opinion about usefulness of synchrotrons, and is ready to advise humanity on how useless tensors are (since she can't buy them at Wal-Mart.)

These people are flatlanders - always were, and always will be. People that can't lift their eyes off the ground and look into the sky. People who think inside the box and are proud of that. People who want to stop you from looking up.

This is a well known flaw of democracy. It breeds mediocrity, because every social innovation tends to be suppressed if it does not serve the most immediate needs of the society, since the society in its voting average is stupid.

One truly may wish to have a Space Tyrant as a ruler; maybe ruthless sometimes, but smart and with a vision - not that circus of politicians who don't even know what a vision is, and who bury the society deeper and deeper every year.

Re:A sick joke...

[bill_mcgonigle]

"We can go there after all the things wrong on Earth are fixed," said Betty Collatrella, a retiree from Caldwell, New Jersey.

Betty hasn't heard about our sun. And yes, that means I believe we'll never solve every problem everybody has on Earth to the satisfaction of everybody. Until that condition is fulfilled, Betty's argument stands.

I think J. Michael Straczynski said it best:

Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this .. all of this was for nothing, unless we go to the stars.

Re:A sick joke...

[pmz]

It's too bad that people like Claudette get to vote.

Having a right to vote is good, but the downside is that there is no way to enforce that people actually make an informed vote. How many people actually read the newspapers and the canidates' platform document before voting? How many people just vote for who their parent/preacher/boss/Britney Spears tells them to? How many people vote just because they want more free money and services from the Democrats?

Re:Come back smarter? -- Disgusting

[passthecrackpipe]

That would assume that the shuttle system is somehow deficient. It more or less serves its purposes, and it would be unwise to give up on it now. While I agree that a new method of spacetravel should be developed as fast as possible, realism dictates that this will take at the very least another 15 years, if not much longer then that.

what is truly disgusting though is the fact that this article, as well as almost all others written about the subject drive readers to the conclusion that the shuttle needs to be "fixed" somehow. That this was purely a technical issue. While it is true that at the end of the day, a hole in the wing caused the shuttle to disintegrate. While it is true that this is a mechenical issue that can be fixed, it is also true that this accident *may* have been avoidable, were it not for the utter, complete and total incompetence, dereliction of duty, mismanagement and criminal neglicence shown by NASA Shuttle management *during* the flight. While engineers *knew* the shuttle was in deep shit, continuous efforts by engineers to escalate the issue were consistently pushed down by NASA Shuttle management.

And rather then round up all of the incompetent management team that was at the heart of this tragedy, and sending them all to jail for a very long time for multiple manslaughter, if not murder, they were - in true PHB Politicking fashion - "relocated" to different positions within NASA. The fuckers were not even *fired*.

Typical......

I call...

[Anonymous Coward]

Shotgun!

Flawed logic?

[WIAKywbfatw]

So, let me get this straight, you say that the shuttle is the one thing that has kept us from going to Mars, the logical next "giant leap for mankind", and you're glad about it?

Sorry, when something as old and dangerous as the space shuttle stands in the way of change, and change for the better, then there's something seriously wrong. Especially so when you're cheering such a luddite view.

Do we need to be making real strides into space? Yes. Is the best way of doing that by clinging onto old technology that the best scientific minds (Feynman, etc) reckon has a 1 in 50 failure rate? No.

Re:Flawed logic?

[Anonymous Coward]

No no no, you are misinterpreting his position. By "mars" he of course did not mean the planet, but the Roman god of war.

The key is that, by using an inefficient and expensive method of transport (rather than developing next-generation technologies), we were able to convince Soviet Russia that we were not a real threat, thus forestalling World War III.

The continued primacy of the Shuttle in NASA is also important, since it allows Russia's superior launch vehicles to make significant contributions to the ISS. If instead we abandoned the shuttle and made our own, improved versions of Soyuz, it would be publicly viewed as a disaster in Russia, thus destabilizing the government.

In these ways, the Shuttle program has contributed immeasurably to the great goal of world peace. But it is not just the US which makes these sacrifices; almost all developed nations have worked towards this goal in their own way. Thus, programs which have kept us from Mars include: the Boeing SST, the Concorde, Buran, and countless others.

Meanwhile, Concorde goes out of service

[panurge]

I guess the European equivalent of the Shuttle program was the Anglo-French Concord(e) aircraft. Loads of national pride involved, and basically no-one liking to admit that it was fast but cramped, low payload, expensive to maintain and never covered development costs (the weasel expression "operating profit" was a giveaway.)

Just as with the Shuttle, a fatal (and much more lethal -113 people were killed) crash occurred as the result of a known weakness - easy projectile rupturing of fuel tanks.

Despite attempts to bring it back, the thing is finally going out of service. It's old technology, and it is always expensive to maintain small volume old technologies. Of course, there is no replacement supersonic passenger air travel. But it hardly matters. Long haul flight is now cheaper and more fuel efficient than ever before for "normal" passengers, and the thing that did not exist when Concorde was first built - efficient video conferencing and around the world networking - is now commonplace for urgent communications.

I think the analogy is worth pushing. Why is the Shuttle needed? The Russians have shown that bread and butter manned flight can be done relatively cheaply and more reliably with non-reusable rockets. The things that didn't exist when the Shuttle was first launched - really sophisticated, small robotics systems - are now commonplace.Eyes, ears and other sensors can be put on other solar system bodies using increasingly sophisticated remote robots. The development of miniaturised electronics and ion drives gives the enabling technologies for really interesting long range missions that would not be possible in manned versions for many years to come. So why keep the Shuttle flying at vast expense rather than do something new? Inertia?

Re:Meanwhile, Concorde goes out of service

[DerekLyons]

The Russians have shown that bread and butter manned flight can be done relatively cheaply and more reliably with non-reusable rockets.

More cheaply, yes, kinda. For your lowered price you also get vastly lowered capacity. (You are comparing the cost of 747 to a Piper Cub, but ignoring the difference in capability and flexibility.)

More reliably? If anything, the Soyuz is *less* reliable than the Shuttle. The Shuttle has two LOCV (loss of crew and vehicle) incidents and one partial mission loss in 113 flights. The Soyuz has had two launch failures (the booster blowing up), multiple (6+) complete loss of mission failures (mostly being unable to dock and having to return to earth), 4 reentry failures (2 of them fatal), and multiple landing accidents/incidents in 112 flights. So it can be plainly seen that the Soyuz capsule is *far* less reliable than the Shuttle. If you compare boosters, the Soyuz booster fails, manned or unmanned, the failure rate is roughly the same (between 96-98% reliable).

FWIW, on the most recent Soyuz flight, the very first flight of a new model, it suffered a significant problem (near complete failure) with it's guidance computer.

Re:Meanwhile, Concorde goes out of service

[thompson42]

FWIW, on the most recent Soyuz flight, the very first flight of a new model, it suffered a significant problem (near complete failure) with it's [sic] guidance computer.

Yet the consequences of this failure were no more than missing the targeted landing point, and experiencing higher (but still tolerable) deceleration during reentry. The guidance failure was unfortunate, but the backup guidance mode was completely successful. The only effect on the mission was a delay in recovering the reentry vehicle and crew. The American media made more of this than was justified by the facts.

A blunt body like the Soyuz is clearly a more robust design than any lifting body can be in the case of a guidance failure during reentry.

Don't remember where I read it, but I agree with the person who said that space flight will not be affordable until we build our launch vehicles in something more like a foundry than a clean room.

Re:Meanwhile, Concorde goes out of service

[DerekLyons]

Yet the consequences of this failure were no more than missing the targeted landing point, and experiencing higher (but still tolerable) deceleration during reentry. The guidance failure was unfortunate, but the backup guidance mode was completely successful.

Handwaving away a major systems failure 'because the backup worked'[1] is what killed Challenger. Handwaving away a major systems failure 'because the damage wasn't too bad'[2] is what killed Columbia.

[1]The primary O-ring nearly failed and the backup O-ring was damaged on multiple flights prior to 51-L. But because the backup held, NASA chose to ignore the fact that the primary should never have failed.

[2]The Shuttle had damage to it's TPS on nearly every flight from foam shedding from the ET. Yet, because the damage was never too bad, NASA chose to ignore that it's own specs were 'foam will not be shed'.

The only effect on the mission was a delay in recovering the reentry vehicle and crew.

That's fine for *this* mission. What about one that drops the capsule into the mountains in winter? Or worse yet, does the same on the edge of a cliff? (As has happened.) What about the same failure on a medical evac mission?

Again, dodging a bullet once does not mean the next one won't splatter your brains across two counties.

The American media made more of this than was justified by the facts.

The American media hardly noticed the failure, coverage disappeared even from the specialist press within days. Nobody mentions that fact that months later the Soviets have failed to find a cause.

A blunt body like the Soyuz is clearly a more robust design than any lifting body can be in the case of a guidance failure during reentry.

Unless you have *redundant* systems (which the Shuttle has) rather than *backup* systems (which the Soyuz has). If the Shuttle loses a guidance computer during re-entry, two identical computers stand ready to fly the identical trajectory.

Don't remember where I read it, but I agree with the person who said that space flight will not be affordable until we build our launch vehicles in something more like a foundry than a clean room.

Considering that nothing even as remotely complex as a space craft is currently built in a foundry, I'd say that statement is unfounded in fact. What will make spaceflight affordable is re-useable vehicles, simplified maintenance and operations, and high flight rates allowing the amortization of the development and operational costs across many flights. (In other words, the same features that have made most other forms of travel affordable.)

spam in a can

[goon]

after seeing a bbc horizon television report on shuttle design flaws ... spam in a can.

Smarter

[Anonymous Coward]

If they were really smart, they'd launch on the 4th of July.

"trivial" is not in our vocabulary

[khallow]

Anyways, it is most definitely understood that anything involving space is a little bit more difficult than eating a pretzel. In this context (which is presumed to be blatantly obvious to /. readers) it _is_ trivial to equip an astronaut with soft gloves, compared to the much less trivial matter of launching him to the orbit in first place.

Several points here. First, soft gloves aren't sufficient for handling tiles in bulky spacesuits, these things are too delicate for that. Ie, astronauts shouldn't be touching tiles under any conditions. That brings me to the second point. Never ever use the word "trivial" when discussing a space walk.

It sure is a lot harder to launch a shuttle for the ground controllers and the people repairing the shuttles and building the disposable parts. But the astronauts are just along for the ride.

In a space walk, on the other hand, they risk not only their lives, but the integrity of the equipment that took so much effort to get into space. In other words, a space walk merely to look for damage on the bottom might cause more damage through accidents than it finds.

Then there's the matter of training astronauts to repair the space shuttle. A lot of this sort of work can be done on the ground. But because the tiles are so delicate, the first real test of the repair material, kit, and process will be when something gets punctured.

Re:Come back smarter? -- Disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

And rather then round up all of the incompetent management team that was at the heart of this tragedy, and sending them all to jail for a very long time for multiple manslaughter, if not murder, they were - in true PHB Politicking fashion - "relocated" to different positions within NASA. The fuckers were not even *fired*.

Have you ever tried to fire a government civil servant? It's easier to kill an elephant with a spork than to get rid of one of them short of retirement age. They're like cockroaches.

NASA escapes full-fledged revamping (again)

[Ars-Fartsica]

So after a perfuctory review, NASA will be back flying the same shuttles with the same safety procedures with the same goals. All of which are outdated and outmoded.

NASA will go back to building the ISS - aside from Star Wars in the 80s, the largest transfer of public money to a military contractor in history. Who knows, maybe missile defense will end up being a bigger boondoggle, but right now ISS is the white elephant to beat. Just what is NASA doing up there? The crew has only one job really - janitor/superintendent services. The scientific motivations are as meaningless now as they were a decade ago, and the notion that ISS would build US/Russian friendship hasn't paid off either. Last time I checked they still pointed ICBMs at Washington. The money squabbles have probably pushed these two nations further apart.

Back again with the shuttle will be the flawed premise of manned spaceflight. You would think the relative success (on a cost basis) of NASA's own unmanned probes would point the way, but no, we need to get back to the bizarre and thoroughly debunked notion that we can survive and prosper in space or on a nearby rock (and hence no need to stop polluting our own rock).

Human's aren't leaving this planet folks! Exposure to space is toxic to humans, this is well understood. Radiation and/or tissue/bone loss cannot be countered through any technique we know, and we haven't found any place else remotely nearby that is a better place to live. Forget your star trek fantasies of 'warp drive' instantly transporting you to a lush oasis.

Lastly NASA continues to pre-empt private exploration of space for meaningful purposes. It will likely take Chinese incursions into space to shake lose the notion that NASA and the USAF own space.

But in reality the reitrees are right

[Ars-Fartsica]

Earth-bound R&D has a much greater chance of paying out to humanity now than anything done on the shuttle or ISS. The space program has not paid off in terms of R&D in quite some time - how could it when the program itself is using such outdated technology?

Nanotech. Quantum computing. Genomics. Protein research. All of which stand to pay out much higher dividends for humanity and frankly have nothing to do with space research. All manned spaceflight has really taught us is that space is inherently toxic to humans.

Re:But in reality the reitrees are right

[sxpert]

Shows your total ignorance. Most of the research done on the ISS is of what you describe in the second paragraph.
For example, microgravity is useful in growing crystals for computing (allows extremely large samples of perfectly aligned atoms), and protein research (allows for protein folding that can't be done on earth because of gravity))
Research before you post !

putting people in space

[rebelcool]

is far more inspiring to future generations of scientists and engineers than moving people faster than sound across the atlantic.

Re:putting people in space

[pfdietz]

Yep, future generations can see their souls bled away working as contractors for giant ossified government bureaucracies. A real inspiration for everyone.

Re:Come back smarter? -- Disgusting

[pfdietz]

The shuttle system has failed to meet most of the design goals that were used to justify its construction. In particular, its flight rate, reliability, and cost are all far worse than promised.

'Deficient' is an excellent word to describe the shuttle.

But, you are right, the shuttle does not need to be fixed. It needs to be abandoned.

Re:Come back smarter? -- Disgusting

[passthecrackpipe]

yes, I agree, however, what alternative do you see right now? There is nothing on the table today that can be implemented in less then 10 / 15 years - what do you want to do until such time?

Re:Come back smarter? -- Disgusting

[pfdietz]

I suggest nothing be done. The shuttle is producing essentially nothing of value, so if a replacement is not much cheaper (and it's not likely to be if developed at NASA) then continuation of the manned space program at this time is just foolish.

This may force individuals to confront the sad reality that the visions of manned exploration of the solar system in their lifetimes were just bad science fiction. Too bad for them. Next time, don't be conned so easily.

Re:Come back smarter? -- Disgusting

[passthecrackpipe]

ok, let me try and understand what you are saying (sorry to come across all daft, but I want to get this right) - are you saying that a manned space program has no value, that it has value, but it is too expensive, or that the shuttle is useless, or....

As to your point about costs of NASA developing any replacement - I quite agree - NASA spent a million dollars developing a pen that works in zero/micro gravity. The Russians just used a pencil......

Will we ever hear Birdsong in sp

[G3ckoG33k]

Will we ever hear Birdsong in space?

[Birdsong = Fuglesang = family name of Scandinavian astronaut whose space trip has been postponed three times for various reasons]

Stop Repeating this Urban Myth!

[DrMorpheus]

NASA spent a million dollars developing a pen that works in zero/micro gravity. The Russians just used a pencil......

ARRRGGGHHH! No they didn't! Both NASA and the Russians used pencils until Fischer (the pen manufacturer) approach NASA with a pen of their design which would work. NASA didn't pay them a dime, they did it out of their own pockets!

Re:Try something new. less expensive. more reliabl

[sxpert]

or lifting body concept.

hmmmm, what do you think IS the shuttle ???

Re:Energia was the most expensive booster ever bui

[RedWizzard]

Energia is estimated to have cost $764M (in 1985 USD) per launch. Comparatively the Saturn V D cost $736M, and the N1 cost $604M. The cost of Energia was high, but not unusually so given it's 100,000kg payload to a 200km orbit. In terms of development cost Energia-Buran totalled some 16B roubles. I believe that was significantly less than the cost of the shuttle program (which was itself something like a quarter of the cost of the Apollo program).

Boosters required to propel equivalent payloads via more traditional technologies were almost an order of magnitude cheaper

From a Russian point of view the only thing non-traditional about the Energia technology was the size of the engines. Liquid propellant design was very well understood by the Russians (they were well ahead of the US in this regard), who had far more experience with it than with solid propellants. They tried more smaller engines with the N1 project and it was a disaster. The Energia design made a lot of sense, though it may have been a bit ambitious.

yep

[rebelcool]

the new and 'improved' soyuz landed several hundred miles off target.

Amusingly, all soyuz capsules come with sawed off shotguns. Why? The russians had problems with them going off course and landing in the woods and one crew found itself staring down hungry wolves while they waited for a rescue team.

try cnn /tech

[zymano]

they had the article with pictures.

Not the rube goldberg shuttle.

It was more of a glider. Not like the shuttle with the motors.

Re:Come back smarter? -- Disgusting

[pfdietz]

I'm saying the manned space program does not have a value that comes anywhere close to justifying its cost.

Re:Energia was the most expensive booster ever bui

[melted]

You can not compare Rubles and dollars here. Considering that back then Russians spent about 10 times less on their multiple space programs than americans, $764M is a heck of a lot more than was economically reasonable.

American space (and military) programs have historically been orders of magnitude more expensive than Russian ones. If we're talking equal prices, for Russians this meant exorbitant costs sucking in the entire space budget.

The high cost of Energia wasnt caused as much by technologies used (as you've pointed out they were totally nailed by then) but by the sheer size of it. Non-standard XXL-sized parts meant that they had to use significantly different manufacturing techniques and a lot more subcontractors, and that (according to the book by one one of the designers) was a disaster due to traditionally bad quality control by subcontractors. On top of that it required its own huge launch pad and landing strip along with all associated equipment. Sure, these are one-time investments (more or less), but they are significant, and even more so if you have 10 times less money than your direct competitor.

So if you were a manager there, what would you have chosen: A huge ambitious shuttle program that's less reliable, more expensive and a PITA to build, or a well-debugged, cheaper, easy-to-make rocket-propelled systems that had an excellent track record and were (and still are) perfectly adequate to support MIR orbital station? I think the answer is clear here.

Re:Energia was the most expensive booster ever bui

[RedWizzard]

You can not compare Rubles and dollars here. Considering that back then Russians spent about 10 times less on their multiple space programs than americans, $764M is a heck of a lot more than was economically reasonable.

In the mid eighties Russia was making something like 10 times as many launches as the US (see the graph here), and had accumulated 3 times as much manned time in space. NASA's budget in 1985 was about USD 7B. There is no way Russia was making 10 times the launches on a tenth of NASA's budget. Don't forget that the Russian space program was part of the military. There was still plenty of money. Of course everything changed in the late eighties and early ninties. But when the designs were created Energia made sense financially.

On top of that it required its own huge launch pad and landing strip along with all associated equipment.

They did build a dedicated landing strip for Buran, but they reused the existing N1 facilities (built in the 1960's) at Baikonur for launches and a lot the assembly and testing requirements. In fact much of the Energia design was predicated on existing facilities, e.g. the 7.75 metre diameter stage 2 was the maximum size that could be handled by existing stage handling equipment developed for the N1 program. It did not require completely new facilities at all levels as you are claiming.

I don't disagree that canning the project was the right decision. You can't spend that sort of money on space flight while your population is starving. However the project itself made sense when it was concieved and was well excuted, one of the Russian space program's few genuine triumphs. The Russian's certainly had plans for Buran-Energia that where not possible with smaller rocket systems. Supporting MIR was not their only objective.

Not particularly surprising...

[WoTG]

Did anyone expect NASA to remain without manned transport until a new machine was designed, tested, and built?

That would take years... and they certainly don't want to rely on Russia (or anyone) for that long.

OT

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to post under the name of morbid, but I too was bitchslapped. It mysteriously happened when I was arguing against a pro-Microsoft/intel troll about operating system kernels and multi-threading issues.

The way I read it.

[Anonymous Coward]

If NASA sticks with its current rotation, the Atlantis would be next in line.

Re:Come back smarter? -- Disgusting

[ThereIsNoSporkNeo]

"It's easier to kill an elephant with a spork than to get rid of one of them short of retirement age."

You're obviously using the spork wrong. You should consult the ancient monks of the hybrid path. Their spork-fu is world renowned. They could kill a whole -herd- of elephants with a spork.

cost, really? or is it just a job?

[Anonymous Coward]

spaceflight is horrendous expensive. yeah so was sailing from spain to america.

i'm still waiting for that lost XEON to come back to
earth. it's just amazing how we keep polluting
our atmosphere and beyond. i hope somebody is going
to put up a sign saying: "dear warp-drive user
beware, you are now entering a discarded XEON cloud.
please move out of warp and kill your engines or your hull and intace manifold will be instant fry.
thank you and sorry for the inconvenience."

but then there's a huge abundance of XEON on this
planet and the univers.

please sumebody explain to me why gold is more
valuable then say, bismuth or uranium?

anyway, in MY univers, XEON comes just after
BISMUTH in terms of VALUE (then the "rare" earths,
if you're interessted), and BISMUTH is at the
first place.

nevermind.