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Hurricane Threatens Shuttle Program
evenprime writes "Hurricane Frances may end NASA's space shuttle program. John Logsdon, a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and the head of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., has said: 'If there were serious damage to one or two of the orbiters or the facilities needed to
process and launch the orbiters, I think it would raise a very large question about
the continuation of the shuttle program.'"
Of course it would be a disaster if the shuttle program was seriously damaged by this storm. But one positive by-effect would be that NASA would be forced to consider better booster solutions. A lot of the work done by the shuttles could be done safer and cheaper by a booster.
I doubt they (politicians and beaurocrats pulling the strings in NASA) ever planned to get it off the ground again. The direction NASA funding was going, I expect a lot of pencil pushers were relieved by the Columbia accident, since it made things a lot easier to shut down.
While i think that the space shuttle program itself is pretty ineffecient for what we need out of a space program right now. (why bring back so much of the stuff you just spent billions sending up there) I'd hate to see the space shuttles scrapped unless we had some plans to replace it with some other program.
I'm getting the feeling though, that it will not be replaced by anything for awhile to come, & this may signal the end of American manned spaceflight for a long time.
Finally the shuttle boondoggle would die a long deserved death, freeing up resources for real space travel. (as if). A 5-digit number of unique tiles? And they criticize software engineers for bad design. Meanwhile, look how much the Russians spend to put people in LEO!
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Except the space program in its current state is only a sideshow for the media. Most if not all of the manned space missions could be better accomplished by robots. The shuttle can barely get to low earth orbit. We need to scrap it all and start over. I hope no one gets hurt, but I don't think it would be such a bad thing if the hurricaine wrecked our space program.
The old Apollo missions were the right direction. Imagine what we could do now, or ten years from now, with better materials, infinitely better computer simulations, better communications, and a deep understanding of the conditions in space. Maybe if we start all over and reach further instead of not as far, we'll have some real progress. To quote Jerry Pournelle, "I always dreamed I'd live to see the first man walk on the moon. I never imagined I'd live to see the last."
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
The question I pose is that why werent the buildings designed to withstand a SUBSTANTIAL Huricane. It is not hurricanes are a new danger, designeing buildings not to be able to stand up to direct hit isnt a smart gamble in my books.
If I wanted water, I'd ask for DiHydrogen Oxide!
This is a very serious problem. The damage would have to fairly severe I would imagine, however it does have the possibility of ending the shuttle program.
I was lucky enough to be able to speak with one of the people in the group commisioned to investigate the columbia accident. He told me that one of the reasons they were adamant about finding the trouble behind the accident and making sure it did not happen again (beyond the paramount fact of preventing the loss of human life) was because it was a solid fact based on budgeting that NASA could not continue its shuttle program if it lost one more orbiter. He was fairly confident in the fact if one more was lost it would end program for good.
telnet://zombiemud.org:3000
Climatologists have been pointing out that weather patterns have been getting more extreme for some time now.
I'm sure we could all argue until the end of time as to why this has been happenning but I find it rather hilarious that, any time someone mentions the possible negative effects that mankind is having on his environment, hundreds of otherwise sensible people throw rational thought out of the window and refuse point blank to even concede the possibility - even the very smallest chance - that climate change for the worse might be partially our fault.
Here in Britain we've just gone from having the hottest August on record in 2003 to the wettest August on record in 2004. Climatic extremes like those experienced here, in the US and elsewhere aren't things to be taken lightly, they're things to be studied and, ultimately, acted upon. Collectively shrugging our shoulders and sticking our heads in the sand when it comes to finding out why these things are happening with ever greater frequency aren't model solutions.
But, hey, that's just my worthless point of view. Until there's more money in sorting out the problem than there is in exacerbating it, nothing's going to change. Well, at least not for the better.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
1. The Vehicle Assembly Building is built to withstand a category 5 hurricane. The accessory and newer buildings are only built against a category 3. However, nothing will save the VAB from a category 4 that tears the roof off a nearby cat3 hanger and mashes it into the side of the VAB.
2. KSC at current projections is in the worst spot possible. The eye passing overhead would be merciful if it happens - the eye passing south is worse. The N.W. corner of a hurricane is the strongest in the northern hemisphere.
3. Otherwise, there is still a (anyone?) 30 foot storm surge to contend with.
4. Does anyone know if Atlantis is still in the VAB? I haven't checked. If you do check, make sure you shut the lights off when you are done.
Best case scenario - no one is hurt, and NASA files a gianormous insurance claim Monday morning for a new manned space program.
Kulakovich
Whether or not manned spaceflight is worthwhile in itself is another argument (which I'm sure will be covered somewhere in this discussion). But spending vast sums of money just to duplicate what cheap and proven Russian equipment already does just fine thank you? That's a _massive_ waste.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Additionally, this project would be a spectacular demonstration of US technological and economic superiority - and let's be honest here, the US's prestige has been a little tarnished lately. Let's see what America's really capable of, shall we?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
There are large supplies of oil which are too deep (or a variety of other factors) to pump economically *at today's prices*. If prices rise, they become economic to pump. Canada's vast resources of tar sands, right near the surface, are barely even tapped currently, but will be quite economical if prices rise (they're starting to become economical on their own simply due to advances in technology). Methane hydrates are essentially untapped; while they wouldn't be general purpose, they could be used for heating in place of natural gas and heating oil. And, geez, I'm just getting into hydrocarbon energy sources here...
;)
Fission power is barely tapped; the main restraint is people's fear of it. If energy prices rise, people will have a clear choice, the way they do today with coal vs. solar/etc power (pay more for less theoretical risk, or pay less - which do people choose currently?). With today's inefficient fission power plants, we have enough known deposits alone to last 200 years. With advancing fission tech, that could be extended to 500 or so years. With unfound deposits (again, exploration has been largely limited by usage), you're looking at 1000, 1500, 2000, etc years worth of fission power. But it gets better! With breeder reactors, you can change U238 (normally not usable in fission power) into a usable fission power source, giving 10-50 times as much energy production from a given amount of ore.
We're looking at 10s of thousands of years of power at current rates. Even if we assume that our power consumption continues to grow (despite regular efficiency improvements in devices that consume power), we're still going to be looking at hundreds to thousands of years. If we haven't figured out fusion power by then, we don't deserve to continue on as a species
I just invaded Grammar Czechoslovakia and duped Grammar Neville Chamberlain; now it's on to Grammar Poland.
They must really hate to lose the Labor Day weekend revenue.
It is unlikely that the UK could have continued to fight Nazi Germany without the planes, tanks, ships, guns, food, oil, etc. we shipped them.
It is slightly more possible that the USSR could have continued fighting without the aid we sent them, but only just. Only thing the Russians built enough of were tanks. They built those at the expense of the other tools of modern war (trucks ;) ).
And while the Russians built a lot of tanks, they also lost a lot. Assuming that the Soviet Army was up to TO&E, they lost more than 2/3 of the tanks they built from 1941-1945. And they weren't up to TO&E....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Personally, I prefer having some attitudinal control during re-entry.
Personally, I'd prefer to survive re-entries after losing control.
When that happens to the Soyuz, the crew is lost in the wilderness for 10 hours until a retrieval team eventually finds them. When the Space Shuttle messes up a re-entry, the crew is scattered into a pinkish mist spread over 3 states.
unless you plan to do like the Soyuz, and just bail out the pilot and flight computer while the majority of the spacecraft smashes into the earth like a hypersonic missile.
Yep. That's the way to do it. Considering that building a whole new disposable spacecraft is less expensive (and more reliable, and even more scalable) than refurbishing a reusable vehicle, that's the prudent approach. (Building the disposable vehicle is cheaper, because the vehicle itself is a lot simpler, since it doesn't need features to survive re-entry)
Hmm... needs more maths. I suspect gliding re-entry is still going to win, though.
Wrong. It's not even close.
The shuttle's glide re-entry is a totally useless, counterproductive feature. Even if the wings did cause re-entry to need less fuel, it's not enough of the savings to make up for having needed to lift those wings into orbit in the first place. The wings were a drag on the liftoff, and a drag on all manuvering done in space. Just having them there increased the fuel-usage of every other mission activity.
The winged spaceplane is a project that justifies itself in terms of itself. The wing features allow the Shuttle to be reusable. That's good, because the Shuttle is expensive. And the Shuttle is expensive because it has wings....
Importing Earth Water to replace Lunar water makes no sense at all. Importing Earth HYDROGEN to add to Lunar Oxygen for fuel/reaction mass is a much better propostion. 1/9th the mass to be moved, and the moon has a lot of Oxygen bound up in the rock.
The factor supporting asteroidal materials is that the potentially could have high concentrations of useful metals. No proof of that, of course. But we do know that they're not common on the moon.
"Useful metals"? I happen to think aluminium is useful. And Iron. And Magnesium. All of which were found on the Moon by Apollo. Hard to extract? Perhaps, but we do have a lot of solar energy, and no atmosphere to obscure it there.
Are there other metals we'll want? Sure, lots. But we won't want too many others in large quantities. And so we can build most of a spacecraft (by mass) with lunar raw materials, once we have the base in place. WAY cheaper and easier than building it on Earth and putting it into orbit, given the original investment in infrastructure.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"