Space Shuttle to re-launch in May

Goeland86 writes "CNN reports that NASA is on it's way to prepare for a shuttle launch in may. Considering the damage caused by the Hurricanes this season, I think it's quite impressive that they're even thinking of a launch next year altogether."

Comments

The Shuttles are Being Phased Out

[Smoo_Master]

From the Article:

The shuttle program has 28 flights remaining on its books before the orbiters are scheduled to be mothballed toward the end of the decade. All are in support of the International Space Station, which remains under construction.

The shuttles are back, but only temporarily. Work on their replacements is likely being done now.

Re:The Shuttles are Being Phased Out

[pudknocker]

Replacements for the shuttle won't be flying anytime soon. The X-33/VentureStar was canceled a couple of years ago. The X-38/Crew Return Vehicle/Space Taxi, which was being considered as a crew module atop an expendable rocket, was canceled even though development seemed to be proceeding well.

And then there is the new CLCS (Command and Launch Checkout System) a replacement for the shuttle launch consoles and computers which was also canceled after 100's of millions of dollars.

NASA should fund Burt Rutan (if he'd take the money), then something would get done.

Re:Burt Rutan: 4 Days. NASA: 2 Years

[angusr]

when it takes Burt Rutan 4 days to get his ship back into orbit Bit of a fallacy here - Rutan is doing nothing even vaguely similar to the Shuttle (or even later Mercury flights).

SpaceShipOne was nowhere near going into orbit. Orbit requires horizontal speed, not vertical height, and - more importantly - a way to safely bleed off that speed on re-entry without burning or breaking up.

SpaceShipOne is not capable of going into orbit, and never will be - it has neither the power to reach the Mach 25+ speeds required for orbital velocity, nor the ability to withstand the heating required to lose those speeds on reentry.

It's the equivalent of the early Mercury-Redstone flights from 1961(Freedom 7 and Liberty Bell 7) - short sub-orbital hops. The difference is that with a new booster (the Atlas) Mercury was capable of re-entry from orbital speeds.

Re:What we need to do...

[Macgruder]

Then you have no idea how the space elevator works.

It's not anchored (structually) to the surface of the Earth. It's connected, but that's only to keep the lower end from moving around do to the effect of the atmosphere (wind)

The anchor is a point in geo-synch orbit, the midpoint of the full length of the elevator. The lower terminus is at Earth's surface, but its upper end is as far away from the midpoint as the lower end is (think equal mass). The whole thing actually orbits the Earth just like a geo-sync satellite.

Re:We need a newer, cheaper alternative...

[LWATCDR]

The shuttle was a good idea. To get into space cheap you need a reusable space craft. Think how "cheap" your german smart car is if you have to replace it after every trip to the store.
The Shuttle should have been an experiment. We should have been working on it's replacement the day it first flew. The improved shuttle should have flown in 1992 and another improved shuttle in 2002. The shuttle was GROSSLY under funded from day one. The Goverment traded lower development costs for higher operating costs. Here are some of the concepts that where turned down due to cost of development http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/p219.htm

If you want to learn what the Shuttle might have been take a look at this
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/ch8.htm
Ide aly there should have been two programs one low risk maybe expendable launch vehicle and one high technical risk shuttle that pushed the state of the art.
We are not going to get anywhere with Big Dumb Boosters. But we are also not going to get anywhere with the goverment cheaping out on development at the cost of operation expence like it did with the Shuttle.

Re:By the grace of God, let's hope NASA's fixed th

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up....

I heard it straight from the horse's mouth. I attended two talks in the last week presented by Allan McDonald (although there were MANY engineers who initially called for the halting of Challenger, Allan was the head of these). The facts are:

Allan and his company at the time, ATK Thiokol, had actually given the "no go" for launch due to many concerns... cold weather affecting o-rings, high wind shear forcasted, and the SRB retrieval team was leaving their post due to high sea swells. What did the management do? They called a midnight meeting between the engineering heads and the Mission Management Team. They then would not accept "no" as an answer, and finally got a "go" after an anonymous vote among Thiokol engineers (note: anonymous meant any one individual could not be blamed). Anyone see a major problem here? The bigwigs wanted to launch at all costs. Similar problems occurred right before Columbia.

Face it people, NASA has become a "Prove that it fails or we will launch" rather than a "prove it will work or we won't launch" organization. Slight difference in wording, but huge gap in meaning.