Shuttle May Fly Again In '04

Space Shuttle by DaBjork · 2003-10-04 15:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

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 by tftp · 2003-10-04 21:01 · Score: 3, Interesting

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 :-)

I'm all for exploration too, but... by sonnik · 2003-10-04 15:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

...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...

Go Space Program! by GreyWolf3000 · 2003-10-04 15:45 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.

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Re:Go Space Program! by grozzie2 · 2003-10-04 20:13 · Score: 5, Interesting

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! by sql*kitten · 2003-10-04 21:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

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.

Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report by thedillybar · 2003-10-04 15:46 · Score: 3, Interesting

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:I wish I could believe it that easily by zulux · 2003-10-04 19:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

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.

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Shuttle has no future by steveha · 2003-10-04 19:46 · Score: 4, Interesting

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

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Re:Shuttle has no future by sql*kitten · 2003-10-04 21:46 · Score: 1, Interesting

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:Shuttles are unnecessarily complex by RedWizzard · 2003-10-04 20:26 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.

Meanwhile, Concorde goes out of service by panurge · 2003-10-04 22:11 · Score: 3, Interesting

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?

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"trivial" is not in our vocabulary by khallow · 2003-10-05 01:00 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.

Stop Repeating this Urban Myth! by DrMorpheus · 2003-10-05 08:34 · Score: 2, Interesting

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!

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Re:A sick joke... by bill_mcgonigle · 2003-10-06 01:19 · Score: 2, Interesting

"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.

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