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Space Shuttles Survive Hurricane Frances
maggeth writes "In an update to a previous story, NASA damage assessment teams have begun work at the Kennedy Space Center, which was hit by Hurricane Frances. It appears that there was no damage to any of the space shuttles, according to the first word from NASA. Although more details still are to be released, we know that Frances died down in strength before making landfall, limiting the amount of wind damage."
Reader knix writes, though, that "It looks like NASA did have quite a bit of damage from Hurricane Frances," pointing to an AP story which adds some detail, and noting that besides a knocked over Mercury-Redstone rocket, the massive VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) had 1000 panels missing after the storm hit. According to the AP, "The holes left by the missing panels created 40,000 square feet of 'open window' on two sides of the building."
40,000sqf = almost an entire ACRE!!!!
wow
another one is headed that way now....
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From what I've heard the maintenance budget probably won't even cover replacing the torn off panels.
Manned spaceflight is essentially over as the shuttles survived and will further suck money and life out of NASA. As for losing the shuttles being the end of the space program I would disagree. Sure having them means we have "manned missions" but they also put us at an increased risk of having NO MORE. If one more shuttle goes, then what???
It is an amazingly engineered vehicle, over engineered. It also is nothing more than a jobs program for NASA and a bunch of support companies who all are based in areas with important Congressmen shoveling money for votes.
Kill the shuttle, I just wish nature had so an accident didn't. It would be better to have 3 orbiters for display around than the country than 2 or less.
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So the space shuttles survived Frances, huh? Good. But now, another hurricane looks to be barrelling down on them. Hurricane Ivan looks like it might be making an appearance in Florida next weekend. Shoot, at this rate, one hurricane per week, the shuttles may have a dozen or so hurricanes by the time hurricane season is over. If they can survive all of that, I'll be really impressed.
Open your eyes man!
NASA has no monopoly in sending men into space.
Russia still sends men into space and has a great deal experience in doing so. They have great technical knowledge in the field and built what many consider to be a superior shuttle vehicle, the Buran. Unfortunately they lack funding.
China also have a space program and have sent a man into space. They're newcomers in the game, but they're working pretty hard.
Then there's the X-Prize. Sure it's sub-orbital, but many of the competitors have scalable plans which are intended to go orbital in later versions.
It would be no great tragedy if the Shuttle program were over - it is way past its intended life anyway and should have been replaced by now. Also the whole design was a compromise, and it suffered from it to the extent that they lost two of them from design flaws. I also don't understand why they built a fleet either - they could have improved the design instead of making copies with the later models.
Maybe you haven't been paying attention. The only thing that would be FORCED if we lost an orbiter or two, would be the cessation of all funds related to manned space travel. Congress hates our expenditure on NASA. If you give them a reason, they WILL shut it down, and it will never restart.
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I'm well aware of the capabilities of the Saturn, and the Energiya. But, there aren't any to "grab". Crews to support and launch them do not exist. Missions requring them do not exist. Payloads with a mass of 100 tons do not exist and no one is planning to build any.
More importantly, no one in the private sector is going to spend $10 billion on an endeavour unless that mission earns more than $10 billion in revenue. Do you know how to get that kind of return from a single launch?
I'm not rejecting private sector space travel. I hope it happens. But, the private sector can't take on money-losing activities.
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