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?

Keeping things in perspective...

[reiggin]

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

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.

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'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.

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.

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

[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.

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?

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: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: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.

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: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: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.

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: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: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.

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: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......