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House Asks NASA to Postpone Space Plane
PipianJ writes "The House Science Committee has requested NASA to postpone the orbital space plane program (official letter (pdf)), thanks to lingering concern about the safety of the existing space program. On the other hand, isn't one of the ideas behind the orbital space plane program the fact that our current space program is getting more unsafe through the use of 20-year-old equipment?" The Senate is also getting into the act.
The board that investigated the Columbia space shuttle disaster recommended that the future goals of human spaceflight be subject to a national debate before any replacement for the shuttle be considered.
Do we need manned spacecraft to do our research? This is the important question that is being floated under the surface.
Davak
Right, it should be as safe as possible. But there is a limit. What, exactly, would be the point of making manned space flights as safe as, for example, commercial air-travel? The space program is about risk and reward, and I'm sure that the astronauts are well aware that they may be killed.
If I was wearing a flame-retardant suit, being tested for G-tolerance, I would assume there is some risk involved. If you negate the risk, you will negate the reward as well.
Yep, we can't fund the space program because we are running up a bill for the wars we are waging. Pretty soon other government programs will see the axe.
After all, terrorists hate us. Why do they hate us? Because we like to attack their country and tell them how they should run their government. Sure, some of the citizens, mabey even most, don't like their current government. But, you will always have those that hate us for it. As you build up more and more hate, you get more and more terrorists, and more and more wars to wage to fight them.
The biggest problem is that most of the governments we install become dismal failures. Why?, you ask. We had to work for our democracy. We saw that the situation was bad, we wanted a change, and we faught to get it. The problem with Iraq, Afgahnistan, etc, is that the people, by and large, did not have to fight to get their democracy. It was handed to them by us. When we turn over control, they don't know what it takes to really make it work, so some dictator will exploit this vulnerability and turn the country into a shit hole again. This breeds more hate towards us by the people we were trying to help because they think we packed up bags and left them stranded. It is a vicious cycle.
We could grow up, however, and realize that people in different places of the world share different opinions than ours. We could accept this and let them go about their business. If they decide they want a change, let them work for it so they respect it and know how to handle it. If we did this, we could save our money to fix the problems within our country. We would probably have less of a terrorist problem to (or at least they wouldn't hate us for being arrogant pricks.)
</rant>
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
That the government doesn't have money! Instead of using lame excuses as safety issues for people who knows its unsafe, they should just say it straight out that they don't have money left over from the wars to fund space program. And the only reason why we are not getting anywhere is because the government don't want to pay for it. We already have the technology to go to Mars or the ability to adapt existing technology to do it.
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
You've made a very good point, disguised as a silly joke.
... unfortunately it also triples the mass of the system and the number of interconnects between components, which correspondingly increases the cost and the chance of failure in some component of the system.
The name of the game isn't safety. As you point out, space travel is inherently unsafe. The focus of the space program, then, should be on the efficient mitigation of risk.
For every action a planning team can take to mitigate risk, there is an associated cost. If I include three redundant valves in my liquid propellant delivery system, let's say that reduces the chance of a catastrophic failure by 25%
NASA's mandate should be to find the optimal balance between high cost and low risk. Of course, we also need to distinguish between risk of mission failure and risk of people losing their lives...but that's a stickier issue.
Okay, for the 1000th time, let's get this straight people:
WE NEED space exploration. Just because some people died, doesn't mean we should completely stop space exploration. People who think like this should be shot. Following that logic, Spain, France, etc shouldn't have tried to sail "around the world" and find a new way to get to India. A lot of explorers died then, should we say that the discovery of America should never have happened because explorers died? Boo hoo. Cry me a river. Damn it, the human race will ALWAYS look for more adventures. WE will always try to search for new lands. WE will always keep researching new and better technologies. It's built into the human psyche; to always want for something new.
For you people who don't want to explore space, fine. Stay home and cower. Build a tinfoil hat manufacturing facility. The rest of us, the ones whose blood runs hot, will go out a blaze new trails for the rest of you to follow.
I don't know about you, but I would be happy to go up into space. Damn straight I would be more than happy to put my life in NASA's hands, because those people are doing the best they can. If they make mistakes, so what? Lots of astronauts died during the space race, but we NEVER gave in. If I died going up into space, I wouldn't blame NASA, and if anyone of my family did, I'd haunt them.
Exploration has almost never been done "because it's there".
Lets tweak that shall we?
How about
Exploration has almost never been FUNDED "because it's there".
If the barrier to entry is low then people will just wander off and do it.
But if you need ships and provisions and pay for hundreds of people then you need to show the investor a chance of getting something back.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
"But you don't care about that kind of stuff. Dont care about spreading freedom! Stop being a patsy of the negitive media. Wakeup and get educated."
You assume of course, as do so many, that this is what the people we are spreading our idea of freedom want. When the truth of the matter is they might not particularly care for our idea of freedom. Either because they haven't experienced it, or because they believe that things should be done differantly. Forcing the American idea of freedom on the rest of the world is no better than a dictator forcing his ideals on his populace.
NASA is old. They still work under the weight of a crusty 60s-era layer of bureacrats. They are dogmatic, self-important and no doubt there are employees at every level of the organization who are more concerned with their jobs (after decades of having them) than with their work.
;)
You do realize that those 60's era bureacrats accomplished more in a decade than we've been able to try and do in the last 30 years?
I think the problem is that NASA *isn't* being run by 60's era bureacrats...