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

Scrapping the Shuttle?

[Kazrath]

I thought they were scrapping the shuttle? This might of been interesting if it was 20-30 years from now and they were taking their "restored 57 Chevy" out into space. Personally I am to the point where these shuttle flights are a big waste of money "if" they are not doing anything innovative to help the next breed of space capable crafts.

Re:Scrapping the Shuttle?

[Smoo_Master]

I don't see those options as being mutually exclusive. Temprarily continuing the space shuttle program while a new vehicle is being developed seems to be a good idea. Otherwise, NASA might succumb to pressure to rush the design, and the effects of that seem far more disasterous in my opinion.

Re:Scrapping the Shuttle?

[Rei]

> I assure NASA's manned space program nothing
> innovative to help the next breed

You assure wrong. NASA has done a *huge* amount of R&D in the last decade - in fact, they're the biggest space R&D spender in the world. They've developed dozens of kinds of ion/plasma propulsion systems (and are working on getting a better power/mass ratio). They've developed dozens of new fuels, lightweight alloys, and new structural materials. Heck, even without changing the shuttle's basic design, they've notably upped its payload even while adding in more safety features due to their advances. They've lowered the cost of shuttle maintinance (although its still very expensive, because - cue the "they don't do enough safety work!" people - they go so far as to dismantle the SSMEs each time for inspection, and SSMEs are very complex beasts). Just last month I was reading about a new method they developed for using CVD to deposit a liner on the engine nozzles so that there's no clear surface break for it to erode at.

Here - here's a google search for NASA's site just for the word "novel" (it occurs a lot in publications):

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-88 59 -1&q=site%3Anasa.gov+novel&btnG=Search

Note the 9,980 results for this search alone. NASA does a *TON* of research, on all aspects of space.

> they get paid pretty much the same whether the
> do anything or not

Apparently you've never heard of something called "budget cuts". Or "change of administrators", for that matter.

> Burt Rutan

Please excuse me while I go outside to laugh... ... back. :)

Please tell me you were kidding in your suggestion that someone who built an unscalable craft out of epoxy and didn't even make his own engine has accomplished much of anything toward getting craft to orbit and back. Please address the issues of delta-V, reentry heating, and manufacturing of the materials involved.

> "Black Sky" ... was deceptive concerning what was actually accomplished. SS1 is a manned sounding rocket. That's it. It didn't even go that much higher than the V2 did, for YHVH's sake (and had a lower payload even when you add in the ss1's weight of the pressurized cabin).

I thought...

[gandell]

I was under the impression that NASA may be considering a move away from the Space Shuttle projects. Could this be one of the last missions, or are the rumors greatly exaggerated?

Re:I thought...

[pointyhairedmba]

NASA is moving away from the Shuttle... but not for anouther 20-28 missions. There simply is not enough lift capability that can support the current design on the various ISS modules. They were built to fit in the Shuttle and not in another heavy lift booster. My guess is the net present value of the science + ecomonic gain will dip below 0 if the remaining components have to be redesigned. So we need to keep the Shuttle active for most of the remaining build out time of the ISS.

Hey, on the bright side, the Shuttle was built specifically to go to a space station (space station Alpha, then Freedom, etc) which never materialized until well into the Shuttle's life. So at least it's doing what it was supposed to do (hence the name Shuttle)...

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

[quigonn]

IMHO it was never bad engineering, but bad quality management. All the big catastrophes, be it on NASA's or ESA's side, could have caught by a rigorous net of quality management processes. But these net don't seem to exist in either of the two organization, at least not the extent where it makes them find errors.

The Shuttle is Dead...

[gandell]

The Shuttle is dead...Long live the Shuttle.

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

[rearl]

RE: the Columbia - I don't think the QC was missing - I think the QC'ers were suppressed.

NASA has no choice

[ghoul]

They may hate the shuttle but due to the short sightedness of the last few administrations they have no other viable space lift vehicle available. And they have contractual obligations on the International Space Station. The poor Russians (bankrupt as they are) are pulling more than their share and might get fed up soon if NASA doesnt start pulling its weight. After all the Russian part of the ISS is built independently. They can just close the doors and jettison all the US modules.

Re:NASA has no choice

[igny]

As usual in capitalist world, they put monetary equivalent for the obligations. A couple of years ago Russia was behind their obligations, which put them at ~$60-70mln in debt. Since they didn't have money to compensate, they used barter. Namely, Russian cosmonauts worked on American projects aboard ISS. I don't know exact figures, but they charged $500/hour or so. Russia have also been repaying their debt in the last months by supplying their Soyuzes. Their outstanding balance became officially $0 after that work they did to fix the break circuit in American segment of the ISS (I read somewhere that they charged 500 of work hours for that job).

From then on NASA has been falling behind. Since Congress prohibited paying cash to Russia, they will use barter again. Now American taxpayers should expect astronauts to work on Russian projects.

Re:NASA has no choice

[rikkards]

I think the reason that the there has not been a successor to the SR-71 is due to the quality of optics on satellites. Plus the fact that something in orbit is more difficult to shoot down. Course this is an unedu-ma-cated observation and may be completely inaccurate.

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

[jmcmunn]

A lot of those failed attempts could have been avoided if the launch supervisors had just listened to the engineers. There have been times when the engineers are saying that the weatehr is too bad, or that a certain component is questionable for launch.

Let's not blame the engineers...blame the safety inspectors, or the launch supervisors if we're blaming someone. :-)

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:The Shuttles are Being Phased Out

[Rei]

And Rutan has done what that would enable him to get to orbit or survive reentry?

He competed for a prize for which the requirements were in the range of his experience. I.e., it enabled him to do what he always did, build small craft out of epoxy with normal control surfaces, et al. He didn't even build the rocket engine himself - SpaceDev deserves the credit for that one (although we can go into why SpaceDev doesn't have the qualifications either for the next rocket engine if you want...)

I hate sounding like a broken record, but SpaceShipOne wasn't even a tiny fraction of the effort to get to orbit, and was hardly even a step in the right direction. 90% of SS1 doesn't advance the goal of getting to orbit, because it's specific impulse is just far too low for its required tank mass. You need to scrap the tanks, the engines, and basically everything but the cabin - and that's all *before* you deal with the reentry problem.

Re:The Shuttles are Being Phased Out

[Tackhead]

> Please explain how that answers my question. NASA doesn't fund the development of joyrides.

But neither does it fund the development of new manned space vehicles. It develops them until they get to a point at which they might threaten the entrenched Shuttle/ISS pork barrel, and then cancels the project.

With shuttle retirement now a reality, maybe this time it'll be different, but I doubt it.

Personally, I'd like to see NASA scrap the ISS and concentrate on unmanned space science, at which they're pretty damn good. Contract out the probe launches to commercial providers, which they're doing now. And have about $3B/year to use in either doing more science or in actually seeing a next-generation project through to completion.

I don't want NASA to "fund joyrides". I want the joyriders to fund themselves. Once that happens, the joyriders will produce other joyriders, because people will be making money in space. The more meat you can put up in orbit, the more of the meat's money you make. The price drops, and someday the scientist-meat can afford to go too. (Much like the scientist-robots are flying commercial, rather than Shuttle, these days.)

NASA's manned programme is a nest of perverse incentives: a space station that does no science, but requires the shuttle, and a shuttle that does no science, and requires a space station. They're both very good at "making money" (in the sense of burning through Congressional appropriations), but so long as the money keeps coming, NASA's manned programme has no incentive either to put meat into space or do science in space.

So yeah, Burt's a hell of a long way from orbit. But because he's motivated by profit (which he doesn't get if he doesn't build SpaceShip Two/Three), and because NASA has no motivation to do anything other than preserve its current bureaucracy, I'd put even money on Burt getting to orbit before the next-generation Shuttle will. If you give me 3:1 odds, I'd even put money on Burt making at least one orbit before the next-generation Shuttle gets off the drawing board.

Quality is part of engineering

[postbigbang]

Design and architectural engineering can't exist in a vacuum. Quality engineering must be part of the process. Too many times I've winced when NASA screws up. The accountability is terrible.

We need a newer, cheaper alternative...

[mOoZik]

The shuttles are nearly thirty years old, from the beginning of development to today. Each launch costs taxpayers nearly 1/2 billion dollars. Isn't there a better alternative? Can't we use technology to our advantage to design inexpensive machines similar to the shuttle? In my mind, the shuttle is comparable to bulky American 70's cars, while what it is really needed is the German Smart Car. Pardon the analogy.

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

[JJ]

I agree. The problem is sex appeal though. The cheaper alternative is disposable rockets, but for NASA they have zero sex appeal.

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.

I believe the plan is

[Timesprout]

To tie a giant piece of string and a couple of ribbons to it and launch it like a kite in the next hurricane.

Ohhh...The hangover...

[dnaboy]

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.

Tell me about it. If I went through a space shuttle disaster, my liver would be pretty damaged from drinking hurricanes (or, more likely Jameson's on the Rocks) too.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not bad engineering....blame the politicians and bureaucrats behind the scenes saying, "DO IT!" when the engineers are screaming, "NO!". That's why we lost the first shuttle...

Burt Rutan: 4 Days. NASA: 2 Years

[Nova Express]

What does it tell you about the state of NASA when it takes Burt Rutan 4 days to get his ship back into orbit, while it takes NASA two years? Granted, the Shuttles goes into a much higher orbit, and carries a lot more payload, but the difference is still ridiculous.

Despite the fact that there are many extremely smart and talented people at NASA, it, like every bureaucracy, has become an entrenched special interest, more concerned with preserving its budget than in actually moving the cause of space flight forward. The Space Shuttle, no matter how many times it has been retrofitted, is still 1970s technology. It's hideously expensive to launch and requires a vast support army to operate. But that vast support army is precisely why it exists. The space shuttle exists to serve the International Space Station. The International Space Station exists to be serviced by the space shuttle. Both provide lots of aerospace industry jobs and this is, in fact, their primary function. Turf and caution have become the watchwords at the highest echelons of NASA, who are more concerned with protecting their bureaucratic empire than moving the exploration and colonization of space forward. The shuttle monopoly has strangled the development of alternative launch vehicles, something the X Prize has only partially offset. A lot of people had predicted we'd not only have launched a manned mission to Mars by now, but set up a colony. See any sign of that?

Until there's a serious shakeup among the upper echelons of NASA bureaucrats, expect for the U.S. manned space program to creep along rather than soaring.

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

[AndroSyn]

What does it tell you about the state of NASA when it takes Burt Rutan 4 days to get his ship back into orbit, while it takes NASA two years? Granted, the Shuttles goes into a much higher orbit, and carries a lot more payload, but the difference is still ridiculous.

Rutan's ship didn't go into orbit, it simply went into space and just barely at that.

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

[rhsanborn]

If I remember correctly, his ship never went into orbit and went about 1/7th the height. It also never gets to the shuttles 17,000+ mph speed and thus doesn't have to deal with all that heat slowing down. It also has a small fraction of the amount of fuel. I'd rather they take their time and avoid burning men because they decided they had to hurry.

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

[Burdell]

Burt Rutan's ship has never been to orbit and never will go to orbit
(unless someone builds an orbital vehicle large enough to carry
SpaceShip One as dead weight to an orbital museum).

The X Prize was about recreating the X-15 program, nothing more. Nobody
with a clue would call 3 test flights (two of which experienced
significant control problems) a step towards anything except more tests
to better understand what happened. If they really cared about safety,
they wouldn't have launched again after the 30 rolls without a lot more
research and test flights, but they turned it around and launched it in
4 days anyway; it was all about the X Prize and the publicity.

After all, when NASA loses astronauts (and a vehicle), they have to shut
down, get investigated by Congress, hear calls for them to be closed
permanently, etc. If SpaceShip One had failed and killed the pilot, all
we'd have heard about was what a hero he was for trying.

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:Burt Rutan: 4 Days. NASA: 2 Years

[Zapdos]

Burt Rutan got his ship back into space. He did not go into any kind of orbit. Orbit requires way more energy than spaceship one could ever produce.

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

[logpoacher]

Granted, the Shuttles goes into a much higher orbit, and carries a lot more payload, but the difference is still ridiculous.

Other replies here have noted that S-S-1 didn't go into orbit, but it's worth emphasizing the difference between "touching space" and getting into orbit. If you do the sums, and work out just how hard it is to achieve 5 miles/sec when your propellant only leaves the nozzle at about 2 miles/sec, you'll see how staggering an achievement it is - a single stage craft would have to consist of approx 85% fuel by mass.

Burt Rutan's achievement was remarkable for the fact that he achieved what he did for less money than NASA spends on shoe care. But in terms of achieving orbit, he's going to have to solve the remaining 90+% of the problem.

Not that I don't agree with a lot of what you said! :-)

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

[Waffle Iron]

There's a good reason that the X-15 cost more: The X-15 was more capable than SS1. Not only could it reach 100km altitude, it could also fly like an airplane at hypersonic speeds within the atmosphere. SS1 just pops up and then floats back down like a leaf. Getting up to Mach 6 in the atmosphere and controlling the flight without melting is probably by itself much harder than reaching the X-prize altitude.

New tech needed

[goneutt]

The shuttles are masterpeices of engineering.... circa 1980. Unfortunatly they invested $$$ in a short production run vehicle that seems to still serve the original purpose. If you were to start building one new replacement it would take a long time and cost big bucks.

If they were to start off with a new design they could apply modern techniques/materials to create a lighter, stronger, more reliable system (i.e. a carbon monocot frame, carbon heat shield skin, computers that have more than 640k of ram, etc)

After working out the kinks on paper they could build a few dozen (price per unit should go down with increased volume) and launch more regularly. But then again, I'm just smoking crack here, NASA will never see that kind of budget again. Unless we can convience the public that Bin Laden is camped out in his secret moonbase.

NASA bashing: Think it through.

[Baumann]

Okay peeps:
1) Replacing the shuttle. yes we should. No we haven't. But we've got that great big investment up there called the ISS. Shall we just abandon it? Didn
't think so.
2) 'Disasters' - We've had two. Fewer than the Apollo program. They suck. Really they do. And they have been attributed to the 'make it work anyway' group. Who, I might add, are usually under $$$ pressure from those who are screaming for better "return on investment for the taxpayer". This is still, contrary to popular belief, exploration, and *THINGS WILL HAPPEN* - it is not airflight.

3) 'We should develop -insert your favorite space technology here-', Some of those technologies do need testing in space now.

4) 'what about spaceship-one' - what was the payload capacity? 200kilo? Roughly?

yes, NASA has problems - but contrary to popular belief - we really need the shuttles flying, if only to develop the replacements!

Re:NASA bashing: Think it through.

[Ironsides]

4) 'what about spaceship-one' - what was the payload capacity? 200kilo? Roughly?

Not even that really. Space Ship One can't get to Orbit and wasn't designed to. The shuttle can. The best comparison for space ship one might be to the early Gemini capsules.

Re:NASA bashing: Think it through.

[crawling_chaos]

Except that the early Mercury capsules only carried one, and they flew much higher than SS1 and led directly to an orbital craft. SS1 is essentially a stretch X-15, which was supposed to lead to the Air Force's Dyna-Soar, which was cancelled in favor of a civilian space program.

Re:NASA bashing: Think it through.

[jimhill]

"[W]e've got that great big investment up there called the ISS. Shall we just abandon it? Didn't think so."

Think again. If I take a thousand dollars in cash and throw it down a sewer drain I don't call it an "investment". The ISS has been so scaled down that even if completed its science value will be negligible. This is a pig in a poke, the countries that have pulled out have done so wisely, and only our pig-headed obstinance (or steadfast resolve, if you're on that side of the aisle) keeps us throwing billions at that turkey.

"'Disasters' - We've had two. Fewer than the Apollo program. They suck. Really they do. And they have been attributed to the 'make it work anyway' group."

I am admittedly not a space fanatic but I remember the Apollo 13 cockup -- which didn't kill anyone but really, really should have given the circumstances -- and the Apollo 1 fire, which killed three. 13 had a hardware fault, which is going to happen occasionally despite the best intentions and zero-defect policies. 1 suffered from a combination of poor engineering design (an inward-opening hatch? Oy) and the schedule-pushers whose successors killed the two shuttles.

Both shuttle accidents could have been averted if the engineers had been listened to by the managers. The Columbia report revealed that NASA didn't learn a goddamned thing from the Challenger disaster and I bet a dollar to a doughnut the Endeavour report will reveal that NASA didn't learn a goddamned thing from the Columbia disaster. (Not to pick on Endeavour, the next killemall shuttle cockup could just as well be one of the other two.) NASA's management culture is not capable of changing.

"[W]e really need the shuttles flying, if only to develop the replacements!"

Why? Not being snarky, but why will the presence or absence of shuttle flights assist in the design, manufacture, and testing of a next-generation (yet equally superfluous) orbital vehicle? Obviously NASA will _use_ the shuttle, if only to justify its continuing existence, perhaps to fly parts up and let them undergo the shake, rattle, and roll of a launch, but what makes the shuttle a _necessary_ part of the design effort?

I have made and continue to make a relatively unpopular statement. I'm not trolling or baiting or trying to be funny, but I feel strongly about this: De-orbit the ISS. Ground the shuttle fleet. Put all that money into the unmanned program and flood the solar system with rovers and parachuting probes and orbiting instrument platforms. They don't have to sleep a third of the time, they don't need air, or food, or water, or as much radiation shielding.

We won't, though. The US as a whole has an enormous amount of national ego built into its status as a space-faring nation. It's like cities that don't feel "world class" without a professional sports franchise writ large. Never mind that we spend way too much, go nowhere, do little of value, and periodically kill everyone onboard.

Perhaps things will change.

For that, we need carbon nano-tubes.

[arduous]

The biggest problem we have with making a space elevator, is making a cable/ribbon capable of supporting the massive weight of the cable.

For that, we need carbon nano-tubes

Once we can make carbon nanotubes of suffecient strength, length and quantity, then you will see the price per pound (the cost of getting 1 pound of matter into orbit) plummet. And that will open up space to many more viable uses.

NASA's ability to recover

[colonist]

NASA has a good record of recovering after a tragedy.

If you take the Apollo program as an example, the very first Apollo mission was a disaster with three astronauts killed. And yet after that, the Apollo missions were great successes (although Apollo 13 was a close call, of course).

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched with a faulty mirror, but this was fixed and Hubble's become a great success, too.

The shuttle program will probably go the same way.

Re:NASA's ability to recover

[drw]

Let's not forget the Challenger accident in the 80's...

There is a pattern emerging with NASA's space program:

1. Tragic accident occurs
2. The government/committees/advisory boards institute new safety regulations and guidelines
3. Everything goes great, guidelines are followed...for a while...
4. Pressure to perform causes shortcuts to be made
5. GOTO 1

Any other alternative is also a Libertarian horror

[gelfling]

I mean all the pooh-poohing about how old it is and how slow they are to get it running and how in the hell can Burt Rutan build a time machine that in 3 days and all that shit.

Well what's your "Jesus H. Christ this cost so much goddamn money that could be better used elsewhere" plan? How much should a very heavy reusable lifter cost and how complicated should it be?

Rutan didn't orbit, didn't carry a payload, can't dock with anything and at 20 million dollars per 175 pound man launched costs what the Space Shuttle costs.

Remember Challenger ?

[MosesJones]

The Engineers raised concerns but the system prevented them being voiced. Since then they have been very paranoid about any complaints and increased the level of checking.

So yes the organisation needs streamlining, but the reason for the concerns are two complete disasters where they were warned on BOTH occasions.

Re:False Information

[applemasker]

Mod parent as Troll - and dont visit that site if you're at work.

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:What we need to do...

[TheClassic]

I can just see it now: (from Red vs. Blue)

Simmons: Seriously though, why are we out here? As far as I can tell it's just a box canyon in the middle of nowhere...no way in or out.

Grif: uh huh...

Simmons: The only reason that we set up a red base here is because they have a blue base over there. And the only reason they have a blue base over there is because we have a red base over here.

Grif: Yeah, that's because we're fighting each other.

Simmons: No, no, but I mean, even if we were to pull out today and they were to come take our base they would have two bases in the middle of a box canyon. Whoop-dee-fucking-do.

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

[ckaminski]

Exactly 1 since the dawn of U.S. manned flight has ended up in the ocean before nominal mission end.

One was scattered all over the South.

One caught fire on the launchpad.

A pretty fucking remarkable record if you consider that a rocket is nothing less than a million pounds of high explosive in a tin can.

Damage?

[kzinti]

Considering the damage caused by the Hurricanes this season...

What damage? The VAB lost a number of sheet-metal panels. The tile fab shop lost a roof. Some other buildings sustained minor water damage. The OPF lost power once or twice. NO FLIGHT HARDWARE WAS DAMAGED. The schedule slip was due as much to the hurricane preparation exercises as to the repair activities. Schedule impact was measured in weeks, not months.

Re:X-15

[_Sprocket_]

The closest analogy to SpaceShipOne would be the X-15 test flights.

With the exception that the X-15 was able to do more and broke far more new ground.

Unfair to NASA

[Rei]

Too many times I've heard many people accuse NASA of not doing good quality management. At the same time, I've heard many people say that NASA costs too much - that they spend too much on everything. Sometimes, they're even the same people.

Well, to be honest, these two issues are largely mutually exclusive. More testing costs more money. The reason that the shuttle is so expensive to launch, for example, is because they put it through such an extensive review (dismantling almost the entire SSMEs for inspection of parts, for example). One can say "Well, they should do (insert person's favorite test here) and omit (insert person's least favorite test here)". However, others among you will insist on just the opposite. Or both. Or neither.

The people at NASA aren't Gods. They don't know in advance which tests will turn out to be important or not. They don't know in advance which sorts of inspections will be important. They have to make choices.

You people can't have it both ways - you can either have more testing/inspection or less, corresponding to more cost or less. Fight amongst yourselves (quality pushers vs penny pinchers), and leave NASA out of it until you've made up your minds.

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

[Rei]

While one certainly can say that for the Challenger disaster (there was pretty much a universal engineering consensus that they shouldn't launch, but political pressure due to budget cuts led to a launch anyways), you can't say that for the Columbia disaster. In fact, I'm only aware of a single engineer, out of the tens of thousands who have been involved on the Shuttle in some way or another, who raised the foam issue to NASA administrators. You'll probably get more criticism about the orbiter's toilet than that.

Part of the problem was that not only does foam seem like it wouldn't do damage, but if you do the calculations, it doesn't pack very much force either, even at the speeds it was falling. The problem turned out to be its impulse. At those speeds, the foam behaved as if it were rigid, and so imparted all of its force to the RCC leading edge in a tiny fraction of a second. Few working on the project knew about this property of the foam, or even really suspected it.

A more comprehensive testing suite could have caught this. However, NASA engineers aren't gods; they don't know in advance what will be the problem. To expand the testing suite would have made the project more expensive - and people are already complaining about shuttle costs.

There's always that nasty balance between economics and safety.

When did you ever see a giant bureaucracy reformed

[rlglende]

NASA is a huge waste of $. It accomplishes very little very slowly.

The idea that it can be reformed in some way is complete fantasy.

Think of its management processes as a code base that has been hacked by a lot of untalented people over 30 years.

Abolition is the only possible reform.

Lew

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.

Meanwhile in Russia

[bbc]

The Russians seem to have started building their Kliper lifting body space craft.

Re:Damn editors

[sharkey]

And it would be nice if they'd explain acronyms so that those of us who are not in the know can increase our knowledge. What does ITS stand for, anyway?