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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.
saftey should be paramount, and if that isn't the case I would urge congress to put a stop all manned flights until that is the case.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
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
could it be they are just doing this to put the space program in limbo to save on money? They have some pretty expensive stuff to pay for these days. Iraq, war on terroism, weapon programs, etc ...
just a thought
With X Prize successes possibly being one year away, it sounds like a good opportunity to help this new industry.
Yeah, I see no problem there.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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?
On the third hand, our current space program is getting more unsafe because of the incompetence of NASA. Why give them more money to pour down the rathole? Apparently a lot of people think NASA hasn't tried to design anything since the Shuttle. They have. They failed. Multiple times. The OSP is just another link in a rotten chain.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
... these rocket things just tend to all blow up on the launch pad after all. We really need to realize that Space is a really dangerous place. I mean we have to take up all of our own atmosphere, and if even one thing leaks, we start loosing people.
And with the level of technology we have today, I mean really. Just this last summer, my inflatable raft was punctured by my cat walking on it. This is a really serious demostration of how poor our level of technology is.
If my cat can puncture an inflatable raft, there is no way I can believe that there is anything like safe space travle. And if we can't make travel in space safe, then we really shouldn't go.
Of course I have gotten to the point where the potential risk in my life is such that I don't even bother to get out of bed in the morning. You probably shouldn't either.
-Rusty
You never know...
Hope they weren't desuaded by the results of the "space debris" experiment from the Enterprise Model Test
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
I really thought this quote from the last man to set foot on the moon was particularly insightful :
"NASA is too old, too bureaucratic, and too risk adverse. Either a new agency would need to be created to implement such a program or NASA would need to be restructured largely along the lines of the NASA of the late 1960s," Schmitt said.
Schmitt said of particular importance is for NASA to consist of engineers and technicians in their 20s and managers to be in their 30s, and the re-institution of design engineering activities in parallel with those of contractors.
Sadly, it's very hard to get rid of an agency the size of NASA and replace it with a bunch of young turks. I agree that NASA does need new blood, a new direction and a kick in the pants, but how that will happen is beyond me.
>> ...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.
No. The idea behind the prbital space plane is find a way for NASA to shovel money to a few big quasi-monopolies.
NASA's been trying to put wings on spacecraft for decades. They've spent bilions and they still don't know how to do it. There's no guarantee that a space plane will be any safer than the Shuttle. Remember, old technology didn't crash the Colombia.
There are other, cheaper, ways to get people to and from orbit. We've been able to do that, safely, for more than 40 years. Since we know how to do that, we ought to concentrate on going someplace in space (where wings are pointless, obviously) rather than some useless technical chimera like the orbital space plane.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I've been often asked by friends and others just why it is we send people to space anyway. I fully understand all the inventions that we've gotten during the process, such as better rocket power, Tang, etc. But I have a hard time coming up with things that we've discovered because a person actually went along to accompany an experiment.
The best I know of is that humans are able to adapt to failures in space, so that if an experiment starts to go awry, an astronaut can fix things on the fly. But I have a hard time even coming up with human-controlled experiments that have had society-changing effects.
Can anyone here name some?
Since when was the job of those "Fearless and Brave" astronauts supposed to be "safe"?
Rockets, are by definition, controlled explosions! By parking your ass on top of one, you are exhibiting the ultimate example of informed consent!
.
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
We need manned spacecraft.
China gives us our answer!
By flying someone safely into space and returning him home, China bolted itself to a new level. The entire world had to admit that China was a new technological power. It's a trophy. It's a mark by which countries are judged.
The side effects of this? The people of China immediately (at least those who understood what happened) were filled with joy and respect for their government.
The space race is costly... but we use the technolgical research from it on a daily basis. Even more so, we must stay ahead in the space race for the respect of our citizens and the rest of the world.
In times like today... we need dreams. We need to know that we are exploring, researching, and reaching to new places. It's a part of the human desire to discover.
The old semi-dead people in the senate may not realize this. However, the majority of us thought about being an astronaut as a child. Even more of us would risk our life to see the earth from "out there."
We need to push into space... regardless of the cost.
Davak
Before we spend billions of dollars designing a new space plane, I think it's reasonable to ask exactly what we want to do with it. I'm not so sure that having people in space for the sake of having people in space is worthwhile anymore. It seems like just about everything the astronauts do these days could be simulated or automated, and yet there are no grander ambitions being seriously bandied about by NASA.
The space program can't take another shuttle or space station -- huge stacks of money wasted on things that don't do what we need them to do very well. No, they need a *visionary* program right now, not a space plane...
Mars Direct, anyone?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
You know, whats funnier still is that the Slashdot fortune cookie at the bottom of the page reads:
:-)
You got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there. -- Yogi Berra
What the hell? This sounds like my boss issuing a new "build me a brand new OS that is more secure than OpenBSD, runs all MS software, and will allow us to recycle Commodore 64s!" vision statement.
I mean seriously, what good will a vision statement do NASA? Space programs need money, not flowery vision statements. When Kennedy comitted the States would go to the moon, he didn't stop at the speech we have all seen at one point or another, he put his money where his mouth was (ok, he put taxpayers money where his mouth was) and made sure the deed got done!
The ridiculous amounts and money and engineering talent wasted on a Buck Rogers toy like the space shuttle, the international space station, and now the proposed space plane, have drained funds that could have been used for unmanned exploration of Mars, the moons of Jupiter, Titan, etc. We landed on the moon over 30 years ago, and haven't done anything interesting since. Sending astronauts into orbit around the earth is 1960s technology. It's pathetic that we are just building space toys instead of doing real space exploration. But hey, the shuttle looks cool, and the space plane will probably look even cooler.
"Manned spaceflight is going nowhere because there's nowhere to go." Seriously, who IS this genius?
Actually, the comment is much, much, much more sublime and sophisticated than you think. Stop reading science fiction, and actually think about space. Where are we going to go? The other planets are ROCKS. Sure, there are people who want to live on rocks. But not as many as you think. Asteroid mining? VERY unproven. Power generation in space? Also VERY unproven to be economical.
Sorry, but "because it's there" is not good enough.
I think we'll get there eventually, but there have to be solid economic reasons to get there. Remember, Columbus didn't go for the hell of it, he did it to find a new route to China. Exploration has almost never been done "because it's there".
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I dont know about the space shuttle, but planes are designed to last a long time and 20 years is reasonable. There havnt been any accidents because of old equipment - the accidents happen because of management PHB's who are the turds of any system and need to be flushed.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I think people like Heinlein saw things in our culture that would keep us from keeping our edge and staying out front. They might not have had every detail covered- they weren't clairvoyant - but they had an intuitive 'feel' for the reality of the situation.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
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.
According to this story, in the history of the shuttle program 15 flights have had tile damage due to debris falling off the external fuel tank and SRBs.
NASA's solution? Create a space plane that is entirely reusable, and doesn't require rebuilding/recycling SRBs with each mission and constructing a new external fuel tank.
So when a shuttle is destroyed by a technology known to be problematic, the House Science committee recommends... suspending effort on a project to remedy those problems?
<sarcasm>That makes a lot of sense... really</sarcasm>
Cuttings in space programs would probably seem less risky (in terms of reelection) than messing with cuts in social services, health benefits and pensions in the present economic climate.
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.
> On the third hand, our current space program is getting more unsafe because of the incompetence of NASA
Well, there's part of the problem right there - noone can count anymore! Either that, or there's WAYY too much genetic mutation going on lately. *eek* Still, if it's placed strategically, a third hand *could* come in...ahem...handy. I'll scratch my back, you scratch yours! Handy for those CIA missions in Mexico, too, ala "Once Upon a Time in Mexico." Or a dedicated hand for the joystick. Or the "joystick." Or one just for shaking hands with others - with a glove on, so you don't spread disease. You could use that same gloved hand for handling currency and opening doors (& wiping your butt). Yes, just think of all the diseases that could be eradicated with a single judicious genetic mutation here and there! And while we're at it...
1) No civilization has succeeded or advanced by curtailing their use of resources. Ours is no different, we are increasing, practically daily, our consumption of every non-renawable resource on the planet. It's pretty much a binary solution set, we either use those resources while they are still available to access other sources of those resources, or we fade away. Most of them are right in our own solar system, we just got to go get them.
2) The planet's population continues to grow, the sure fired cure to this is to materially increase prosperity for large sections of the planet. That will require resources, see 1 above.
3) Polution and ecological damage result directly from both of the above. Both will be attenuated if we derive most of our resources off-planet, which will require colonization efforts, which should have a small, but positive effect on population. One which can be expected to rise over time.
4) We still retain the means to turn the planet into a radioactive wasteland, we are also starting to play in technologies which have the potential to make life on this planet problematic. The universe istself could have a long period comet bearing down on us right now. The planet has been hit before and can be hit again. The best defense against this is to proliferate.
There most certainly are some massive obstacles to overcome, but we won't overcome them by curtailing our space program, including the manned portion.
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
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.
Here's a nice opinion piece suggesting that we go back to using capsules, like the Russians and now the Chinese are using. It doesn't sound like a bad idea to me - if a "reusable" craft like the shuttle costs orders of magnitude more than one-time-use capsules, why not just make a bunch of capsules instead? You wouldn't have to worry about retrofits, upgrades, wear and tear, etc.
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.'
Apparently Robert Zubrin, manned Mars mission advocate, is going to testify as part of this review. At the moment the US is spending $3 billion/year on the shuttle, and an unknown amount on the new OSP (Orbital Space Plane), all without any clear objective in mind. It is very hard not to feel, at least as far as manned exporation goes, NASA is floundering at the moment.
It is me worth re-posting this related extract from a piece posted on www.space.com, by Robert Zubrin - an advocate of reform in the US space program - interesting reading...
In the recent Columbia hearings, numerous members of congress continually decried the fact that the US space program is "stuck in Low Earth Orbit." This is certainly a serious problem. If it is to be addressed adequately, however, America's political leadership needs to reexamine NASA's fundamental mode of operation.
Over the course of its history, NASA has employed two distinct modes of operation. The first, prevailed during the period from 1961-1973, and may therefore be called the Apollo Mode. The second, prevailing since 1974, may usefully be called the Shuttle Era Mode, or Shuttle Mode, for short.
In the Apollo Mode, business is conducted as follows. First, a destination for human spaceflight is chosen. Then a plan is developed to achieve this objective. Following this, technologies and designs are developed to implement that plan. These designs are then built, after which the mission is flown.
The Shuttle Mode operates entirely differently. In this mode, technologies and hardware elements are developed in accord with the wishes of various technical communities. These projects are then justified by arguments that they might prove useful at some time in the future when grand flight projects are initiated.
Contrasting these two approaches, we see that the Apollo Mode is destination driven, while the Shuttle Mode pretends to be technology driven, but is actually constituency driven. In the Apollo Mode, technology development is done for mission directed reasons. In the Shuttle Mode, projects are undertaken on behalf of various internal and external technical community pressure groups and then defended using rationales. In the Apollo Mode, the space agency's efforts are focused and directed. In the Shuttle Mode, NASA's efforts are random and entropic.
Imagine two couples, each planning to build their own house. The first couple decides what kind of house they want, hires an architect to design it in detail, then acquires the appropriative materials to build it. That is the Apollo Mode. The second couple polls their neighbors each month for different spare house-parts they would like to sell, and buys them all, hoping to eventually accumulate enough stuff to build a house. When their relatives inquire as to why they are accumulating so much junk, they hire an architect to compose a house design that employs all the knick-knacks they have purchased. The house is never built, but an adequate excuse is generated to justify each purchase, thereby avoiding embarrassment. That is the Shuttle Mode.
In today's dollars, NASA average budget from 1961-1973 was about $17 billion per year. This is only 10% more than NASA's current budget. To assess the comparative productivity of the Apollo Mode with the Shuttle Mode, it is therefore useful to compare NASA's accomplishments between 1961-1973 and 1990-2003, as the space agency's total expenditures over these two periods were equal.
Between 1961 and 1973, NASA flew the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Ranger, Surveyor, and Mariner missions, and did all the development for the Pioneer, Viking, and Voyager missions as well. In addition, the space agency developed hydrogen oxygen rocket engines, multi-staged heavy-lift launch vehicles, nuclear rocket engines, space nuclear reactors, radioisotope power generators, spacesuits, in-space life support systems, orbital rendezvous techniques, soft landing rocket technologies, interplanetary navigation technology, deep space data tr
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Robert Park is best known as the wit behind the APS What's New newsletter, a fantastic weekly mailing of science and policy-related blurbs. Park is also responsible for Voodoo Science, a book that debunks science myths and demonstrates how to identify science scams.
While Bob Park's name still appears in the credits, I think his involvement with the newsletter has lessed somewhat since his run-in with an oak tree a few years back. The witty remark per sentence ratio just hasn't been the same.
The problem is that NASA doesn't have the same backing as it did back in the 60's. We went to the moon because it was a priority, and a lot of money and effort was thrown at it. Now NASA is constantly struggling to make as much as they can out of a diminishing budget. I believe that this, more than anything else caused the accident.
If you are an administrator at NASA and you are told that their might be a problem with the age of the fleet and you know the odds of getting funding for a new project are near zero, do you keep that fleet flying? Of course. That's hardly the safest thing to do, but it's either that or close up shop and go work the chinese space program.
NASA puts safety as first as it can afford to. You can argue that NASA is an inefficent bureaucracy, but we seem to have no trouble financing the inefficent military bureaucracy. It's the nature of government, cope.
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This is something I don't get. Astronauts have been telling congressmen since the beginning of the space program three things:
1: Going into space is necessary
2: Going into space is dangerous
3: They understand it's dangerous and they're willing to take the risks
What part does the government not understand. Space is never going to be safe. Just as going underwater in a submarine is never going to be safe. Comparatively speaking, of course. In both places you're in a very hostile environment to life (or at least our kind of life).
Every astronaut knows the dangers better than any congressman (except maybe John Glenn), and they're willing to do the job anyway. Why? Because it's necessary if we want to advance ourselves as a species. It's part of what humans do.
And really, if you look at it, going to space is probably safer than it was to pack all your stuff in a wagon and head west of the Mississippi back in the 1800s, but people did it, because that's what people do.
Going into space certainly won't get safer if we don't keep going. Man, this stuff just really irks me.
But I have a hard time coming up with things that we've discovered because a person actually went along to accompany an experiment.
I suppose it's simplistic, but what about experiments that look for answers about humans? For example, research into the effects of zero gravity on the body and ways to combat it.
Of course, research into keeping humans healthy in space is only beneficial if you believe that we should explore space at all. But if someone doesn't believe we should explore space at all, I see little point in discussing the space program at all with them. All I'm left with is this nagging feeling that they wouldn't have considered colonization of the Americas to be worth the trouble.
Another project I'd like to cite is the Hubble, which, while not necessarily an endeavor requiring humans to deploy it, did require humans to fix the thing. I'm certain that without a manned space program, the Hubble would've been launched, declared broken, and promptly abandoned. Why? Well, I think they would've deemed the cost involved in developing some sort of robotic repair crew to be prohibitive. Easier to just ditch it and try again.
I think we'll get there eventually, but there have to be solid economic reasons to get there.
So the first trip to the moon was a waste then, right?
Seriously, since when does there have to be a "solid economic benefit" BEFORE doing anything new? You don't think the pursuit of knowlege of space is good enough? What about the POSSIBILITY of finding economic benefits? We'd be completely ignorant right now as a people if everyone shared yours and Mr. Park's pessimism.
My view on it is this: Safety is important, but with all great things in life, there is risk involved. Space travel is by no means an exception to this rule.
If NASA isn't willing to take risks, then who is?
If someone doesn't do something *no progress* is going to be made. Well, at least China and Japan are putting some effort in to their space programs...
--Tim
Seriously. Who do you think is more concered with the safety and welfare of our astronauts - the guys who work with them everyday and build the fireworks that they ride in or politicians?
If our boys in labcoats are ready to build another rocket, then they should be able to have at it.
--
The idea of a winged space craft is stupidity. What purpose do those wings have in orbit? The only thing they do is reduce payload capability and greatly increase complexity. NASA is not gaining anything in reusability. Put a capsule on a simple liquid fuel mostly expendable rocket, strap on the current shuttle SRB's for a little extra boot and you have a sensible space platform.
Got Code?
John Harrison wasn't a cabinet maker. He was a clock maker and an unschooled mechanical genius. He was also, apparently, almost impossible to understand. You failed to mention an important constraint: The chronometer had to keep time while at sea, which is what made the task so difficult. The british wanted this because it would give them the ability to determine longitude accurately on long voyages.
What you also don't mention about Harrison is that he was not a member of the Royal Society, and had powerful enemies inside it. This made it very difficult for him to collect his reward. He had to wait many many years.
The current X-prize task is one thing. Getting a substantial payload into orbit is another. The other goals you mention are even more lofty. I don't think any organization could afford to do it just on the hope of winning a prize.
MM
--
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
So, in other words, Columbus was a complete, total and abject failure because he never did find that route to China. I think I beg to differ on that. The thing that becomes the wild success is almost never the thing that is looked for. You may be right, orbital power may not pan out. But who's to say what other things unlooked for will emerge if we try?
As to "unproven" concepts, it's not even proven that I will successfully navigate home tonight, much less something not mundane and trivial. If all we do is wait to do stuff that's proven, then we might as well just stay in bed.
If anyone's interested in the current state of asteroid mining tech, have a look here. Thought provoking stuff.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
The answer to the question is not as straight forward as you might think.
I remember reading that the astronauts of Apollo 15 were able to gather an equal the amount of gross geological survey information of all the unmanned spacecraft (the rangers and surveyors totalling about 45 hours) in the first 15 seconds of being on the moon. The astronauts, trained in the expected geology of the moon were able to observe and develop plans for closer study much faster than what was possible with the probes and humans have the ability to move about very easily compared to a robot. Apparently this ratio (three hours of machine time equals 1 second of trained human time) has been proven repeatedly in different studies.
Along with this, despite some amazing work arounds over the years (I'm thinking of the Pioneer 10/11 stuck bits and Galileo's faulty high gain antenna specifically), humans can fix problems at the source and have a high degree of success working with damaged equipment.
So, I think the answer is that we do want a human presence in Earth orbit, the moon is probably just as certain, but going further out, the costs in supplying and protecting humans quickly outweigh their usefulness. I would think that it would never be cost effective to send humans to any of the outer planets.
Probably the more important question is, is it appropriate/cost effective to send humans to Mars and the asteroid belt?
myke
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