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NASA Prepares Discovery for Launch

Posted by Zonk on from the up-up-and-away dept.

eggoeater writes "Yahoo! reports that Kennedy Space Center is buzzing with excitement over the likely launch of Space Shuttle Discovery this Spring. It's been just over two years since the Columbia tragedy and the Discovery has been outfitted with many new safety features, including the removal of the foam from the external tank and pressure sensors on the wings that would detect an impact. Quote from launch director Michael D. Leinbach: 'It's all converging on what looks like May 15 to start flying the shuttle again.'"

33 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Oh finally! by ForestGrump · · Score: 3, Funny

    They can finally service hubble, instead of letting it fall into the ocean.

    Grump
    no, i'm being sarcastic.

    --
    Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
    1. Re:Oh finally! by Keamos · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem with servicing the Hubble is that Congress is fucking retarded--they'll get rid of Hubble, saving a tiny bit of money, and then 5 years down the road they'll build another one, for 100x the cost it would've been to just service the Hubble in the first place.

    2. Re:Oh finally! by luvirini · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Nope, as NASA has become a bunch of scared old folks basically. Every mission they do has to follow a set of safety standards, among them the fact that the shuttle has to have the option of evacuating to the international space station. Hubble's orbit makes this impossible, thus no direct resque missions.

    3. Re:Oh finally! by Long-EZ · · Score: 3, Insightful
      You are laboring under the practical geek perspective. You definitely aren't seeing it from the congressional perspective. Their job is not to do as much science while spending as little money as possible. That would be practical. They're political. Their job is to spend as many tax dollars as possible, in their own districts. So, they make deals. I'll vote for your pork if you vote for my pork. Taxpayers vote for the biggest pork politicians, and the cycle repeats.

      The only cure is to stop voting for more pork, and I don't see that happening. As a nation, we're far too short sighted and self interested.

      So, if congress is the boss because it controls the purse strings, how do you think NASA will behave? Just like any employee, they quickly realize the boss's goal and agenda and make it their own. So, the people who manage NASA are not in the business of cost effective space exploration. In fact, quite the opposite. They're in the business of spending tax dollars in several congressional districts.

      And that's why we need private space exploration and development, and we finally have it. Many companies now see the possibility and they have the vision and motivation to do what NASA couldn't.

      It's sad that NASA did so much in the early years and then the political process ruined it late in the Apollo era. Despite some very bright scientists, engineers and astronauts, they just can't help being a government bureaucracy. Why? As usual, it has everything to do with the movement of little green pieces of paper. Lots of little green pieces of paper.

      --
      >> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
    4. Re:Oh finally! by endersdouble · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ....and private companies which have no interest in science at all, but instead are *officially* in pursuit of the bottom line, as compared to congress which at least in principle should want to do science the right way, will do that much more science? I'm not saying private spaceflight is evil; it's just that privitization isn't the solution to everything. Virigin Galactic or the like, frankly, doesn't give a shit what the universe looked like 14 billion years ago, and have even less reason than Congress to fund a telescope to find out.

    5. Re:Oh finally! by Long-EZ · · Score: 2, Insightful
      You're right in saying that the successful commercial ventures are not going to have lofty goals. They'll concentrate on the bottom line and compete to offer the best services at the best prices. Where science wins is on the cost end. A university astronomy department can build a satellite to study cosmic microwave background radiation and try to learn about the origin of the universe, but it does them no good if NASA only accepts one external science package a year to fill a payload. It's not likely that a university will get a 50 million dollar grant to pay for a commercial launch when they're competing with DoD spy satellites for low volume launch capabilities. But, when space is commercialized, launching your satellite might cost 50 thousand dollars in a commodity space launch market, and scientists can have a few bake sales and maybe get a small grant and fly their hardware.

      Free markets work. It's only a problem when monopolies are allowed to squeeze everyone else out through unfair competition.

      --
      >> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
  2. Sounds good, but expensive. by bigtallmofo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm glad the shuttle program is going back online but with the price of launching a Soyuz being about 1/25th the cost of a shuttle launch, I'm not sure how much we should depend on the shuttle.

    --
    I'm a big tall mofo.
    1. Re:Sounds good, but expensive. by ZeroZen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm sure it doesn't matter. Domestic investment is VERY important to the americans, just look at the softwood lumber dispute, or maybe even this beef thing.

      They'll spend whatever it takes, as they always have, to show up the competition. That's how it started, and innovation always comes from competition and need.

    2. Re:Sounds good, but expensive. by jokumuu · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The Real problem is that while the shuttle was being built (and fought over in budgets) NASA intentionally tried to stop all other forms of space flight to keep the shuttle program alive. The end result was the the shuttle had to fullfill so many missions that it became a "jack of all trades, master of none." So currently US does not have anything approachng Soyuz in capacity as alternative to the shuttle.

    3. Re:Sounds good, but expensive. by Docrates · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A Soyuz doesn't have the cargo capacity that the Shuttle has, which is why ISS construction has been halted and supplies are running tight.

      The real question is if America should continue supporting the construction of the ISS. Circumstantially I think she should, even if the scientific and engineering profit from the program is limited.

      --

      There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
    4. Re:Sounds good, but expensive. by demachina · · Score: 4, Informative

      Here is the proposed Russian replacement for Soyuz called Kliper. Astronautix has a little more detail on it. They are planning to show a full size model at the Paris air show in June.

      Its an interesting hybrid of lifting body and capsule, it will reenter like a lifting body but pop a parachute and land with a thud like Soyuz. I think its fairly similar to canceled X vehicle Burt Rutan was developing as the ISS lifeboat.

      It will carry 6 people or 700 Kilo's of cargo. If you hang one of these on the ISS as the emergency vehicle you could raise the manning level to six people and actually do some research on it for a change. The cargo capacity also appears well suited to resupply the ISS, it can carry a lot more than Progress and Soyuz.

      They hope to have it flying by 2010 which just happens to be about when the Shuttle stops flying. They need $10 billion roubles to finish it which sounds like a lot but the exchange rate is 28 roubles to the dollar so that is only $350 million dollars. By contrast NASA is wasting $500 billion on CEV this year alone and they wont get ANYTHING for it other than pretty computer generated images. Building CEV is going to cost at least 36 times as much as Kliper and is scheduled to be 4 years later for its first manned launch, 2010 versus 2014.

      Sure looks to me like Russia is hoping to fill the void the Shuttle is going to leave in 2010 with Kliper and essentially take over the ISS if they get the funding to develop it. Whatever happens the Russians are going to be the ONLY people putting people in to LEO on a regular basis from 2010 to 2014, maybe the Chinese will launch a few people too. NASA ought to be ashamed, very ashamed, again.

      Seems to me like the Europeans or Japanese should jump at helping with the funding for Kliper. Their investment in ISS has been largely destroyed by NASA's failures, most of their modules are sitting on the ground and they may never get the astronauts onboard the ISS needed to do their planned research. For $350 million they could save their ISS investment and in partnership with Russia develop their own manned space program free of the boat anchor that is NASA, Boeing, Lockheed.

      Seems to me like the Chinese could partner with Kliper as well with their new found wealth and jump start their rather slow manned space effort, especially if they get technology sharing in return for cash.

      P.S.

      I submitted the Kliper article when it came out a few days ago and it was rejected. It is real news versus this fluff piece. Hate to break it to you the shuttle has been scheduled to launch in May for a while now, its not news. The breaking news will be if they manage to stay on schedule for a change.

      --
      @de_machina
    5. Re:Sounds good, but expensive. by willith · · Score: 3, Interesting

      By contrast NASA is wasting $500 billion on CEV this year alone and they wont get ANYTHING for it other than pretty computer generated images. Building CEV is going to cost at least 36 times as much as Kliper and is scheduled to be 4 years later for its first manned launch, 2010 versus 2014.

      That's because CEV's intended role, as a platform that can be used for interplanetary expeditions, is much broader than Kliper's intended role as a bus to ferry people and cargo to LEO. The competing CEV design teams have a lot more complicated problems to solve, like, how do we keep the crew from being fried by radiation while they're hanging somewhere in the spaces between worlds, and how do we engineer a complex, multi-role vehicle that can launch, go to Mars, send down a lander component to deliver people and cargo, lift back off and rendezvous, and then return those people and cargo to earth?

      You're not just comparing apples to oranges; you're comparing apples to 747s.

    6. Re:Sounds good, but expensive. by demachina · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you read the article, and I should have mentioned it in my post, the Russians have plans to use Kliper to go to the moon too. I doubt there is really ANY difference in the mission requirements between Kliper and the first iteration of CEV.

      I hate to break it to you, the only reason CEV is so vastly more expensive is because NASA, Boeing and Lockheed are in the loop and of course the wage rates are higher in the U.S. than the U.S.S.R., especially after Boeing and Lockheed slap on their overhead. I assure you NASA, Lockheed and Boeing are experts at wasting money, you need look no further than the Shuttle and the ISS to see that.

      As best I understand it the CEV prototype launches in 2008 wont address ANYTHING involving manned flight, going to the moon or mars. Its going to be a tin can that isn't man rated launched on a more less existing booster, heavy lift versions of Atlas, Delta or Titan and will barely make it to LEO. Not sure the first launches in 2014 with men will do anything but LEO either. Somebody is going to have to build a major new heavy launcher to go back to the moon or do multiple launches (i.e. fuel and a space tug on one, and then the CEV on another).

      Its very much open to doubt if the CEV in its first iterations will address going to the Moon or Mars at all in 2014 either though it remains to be seen what they propose. I think there is at least a chance they will have to develop landers on top of the CEV to go to the moon(and a better booster). I'm skeptical that they are going to land the whole CEV on the moon and blast if off from there. The Apollo strategy was the right one for a lot of reasons. To do the Moon right chances are a several vehicles will be required.

      Its completely delusional to think CEV will be usable at all for going to Mars. The requirements for going to LEO and the Moon are VASTLY different from those for going to Mars. If you use the same vehicle for all three its going to be either complete overkill for LEO and the Moon or woefully inadequate for Mars. The Mars vehicle is going to have to a completely different vehicle and boosters, its going to have to be way bigger or the crew will both run out of supplies and go bonkers trapped for that long in a tiny capsule.

      I wouldn't be surprised if they try to do a shuttle with CEV, and do one size fits all for all three missions, but it will be the same disaster the Shuttle was, heavy and expensive, jack of all trades, master of none.

      --
      @de_machina
    7. Re:Sounds good, but expensive. by willith · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You'll note the capsule is a pathetic little thing nearly identical to the one Apollo had 40 years ago. In fact the whole lunar plan is just a regurgitation of Apollo, excepting they are missing one key component the Saturn V

      A capsule is an extraordinarily efficient way to design anything that you're going to be de-orbiting through earth's atmosphere. Heat spreads evenly over the heat shield, and it's self-righting. By comparison, the shuttle is a monstrously inefficient, draggy beast. For lofting crew and eventually returning through the atmosphere, capsules are where it's at.

      They're re-using the design because it works, and because it's a thousand times easier than designing a wasteful space-plane.

      I'll go ahead and out myself here--I work for, um, one of the companies we've been talking about, directly on the current shuttle and station contracts. If you don't see anything substantive in the pretty-pictures public web site, it's because the public web site is a sales pitch.

      And multiple launches for multiple components is indeed the order of the day. Delta IV Heavy's launch in December cleared the way for it to be the Boeing team's prime mover, at least during Spiral One, but I wouldn't be suprised if something bigger comes to the table eventually. Nobody said we had to loft the whole freaking assembly in one go.

      Believe it or not you want to get the habitat to the surface and leave it there so making it inflatible and like a LEM is not a great idea.

      Baby steps, man. Baby steps. First we gotta go there, then we get out and walk around and come back, and then we gotta stay there. Besides, those habitat mods link up, like LEGO, or like those multi-robot Transformer uber-robots, except minus all the destruction and ch-ch-ch-ch-ch noises.

      If you see elements of Apollo recycled in the new Moon/Mars plans, it's because those things worked. LOR works, and it works well. So, LOR is the way to go. By extension, MOR ought to work well, too. The LM design worked--you need four legs to support the weight of the craft when it lands, because three isn't enough and five is too many. That's why you've got a lander with a descent stage that looks like the LM.

      If Kliper flies, great. I'm all for it--I'm all for anything that continues space exploration, even if it's not my employer doing it, because we must go. But right now, all Kliper's got are some engineering plans and a mock-up, and the mock-up isn't done yet. They're not planning for it to fly until 2010, which is two years after the completion of CEV's first spiral.

      Whatever works, as long as it works.

  3. Best scientific quote ever by rbarreira · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Several important matters remain unresolved, including what to use for in-flight repair of the thermal tiles, which protect the shuttle's nose and belly from temperatures of more than 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit upon reentry.

    Five methods are being studied, including a giant caulking gun that dispenses pinkish-orange goo.

    --

    The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
    1. Re:Best scientific quote ever by mattkime · · Score: 4, Funny

      Five methods are being studied, including a giant caulking gun that dispenses pinkish-orange goo.

      Who knew that Taco Bell hot sauce was so versatile?

      --
      Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
  4. Typo by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's all converging on what looks like May 15 to start flying the shuttle again.

    It's spelled frying.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  5. Lazy reporting by novakreo · · Score: 2, Informative

    launch fever has begun to rise at America's spaceport

    There's just the one? The Ansari X Prize wasn't that long ago.

    --
    O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
  6. 70s technology by luvirini · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The basic problem of the shuttle come from the fact that it is mostly 70s technology with some glueover.

    Thus the materials are so much heavier than corresponding would be today an so on.

    The Way NASA has been trying to keep this program alive by more clue is likely to end in further embarassments.

    Too bad there is not enough focus to do great things, instead NASA has just become another CYA organisation.

    1. Re:70s technology by jokumuu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Seems to me they lost track of their vision somewhere as organisation. I am not saying there are not dedicated people as such there, there are many, but the organisation itself has lost it's goals.

    2. Re:70s technology by Long-EZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I find it to be amazing that 95% of NASA can be so talented, intelligent and motiated, and the organization can be so completely ruined and its effects minimalized by the 5% who are plugged into the funding and end up calling the shots based on the political process. When the entire organization exists to spend money, the science is often an unintended result, at least from the perspective of the people who are writing the checks and setting policy.

      NASA is now too political to be anything but a festering mound of poot. I feel sorry for the many technical people who are trying to do good work in that environment. I couldn't do it. Hopefully, the best and the brightest will get a good job in the new commercial space ventures that are popping up and can finally have their dreams realized.

      --
      >> My ultraviolent Linux switch video.
  7. Re:BOFH? by digitalchinky · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Doesn't snopes or one of those other urban legend sites have something about that pen, fully privately funded by fisher, nothing at all to do with NASA. Price tag was 2 million as well.

    The russians also use 'pens' by the way. Pencil dust and all.

  8. Re:BOFH? by vidnet · · Score: 4, Informative

    Which pen? This one?

  9. Re:BOFH? by luvirini · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Well the problem is, being a centralised bureucracy like NASA is, makes an organisation extremly everse to risk.

    The number of people who died in pioneering flight are extremly many, compared to those dying of space flight.

    Unfortunately to advance something you have to take risks, calculated ones, but risks nevertheless.

    NASA as organisation is not currently capable of that.

  10. Big Dumb Boosters by Peter777 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Anyone remember from 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress', that Heinlein predicts rocket tech will have evolved into something far simpler that what we have today (or back then even)? His summary of space tech for the next couple of hundered years went something like:

    1. Exceedingly basic and unreliable.

    2. Exceedingly complex and expensive.

    3. Basic, reliable and cheap.

    I wonder when no.3 will arrive...http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byte serv.prl/~ota/disk1/1989/8904/8904.PDF

    1. Re:Big Dumb Boosters by LWATCDR · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think Helnlein got this wrong. A better model would be Airliners.
      1. Is correct.
      2. is right.
      3 Exceedingly complex, expensive, reliable, and efficient.

      Modern jet airliners are not basic or cheap. But they are reliable and efficient. All this talk of going back to Big Dumb Boosters is like saying Lets stick with DC-3s they are so much cheaper and simpler than 777s.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  11. OT: Amusing contracted headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I opened this story in a new tab (in Firefox), and the title was contracted to "Slashdot | Nasa Prepares Disco...".

  12. Re:BOFH? by dbIII · · Score: 3, Interesting
    As Americans, we over engineer
    I think you'll find the phrase is really "micromanage and change direction often". Also the basics are not looked at sometimes. After reading "Dragonfly" about american astronauts on Mir, it appears that the psychological testing which I always thought was the only non-fiction part of "I Dream of Jeanie" was also fiction. People that were not suited to the task of working in a closed environment as a team for months were sent into space without being tested to see whether they were suitable or not. One glaring example of the management problems at NASA some years back was that the people who knew about the fault that led to the challenger accident did not have a way to get that inforamation to the people at the top of the organisation without going through an outsider that had a Nobel prize (so had some serious credibility).

    The pen story was a myth anyway - reality is far worse - components assembled at greater cost in different states for the purpose of political pork barrelling.

  13. And more seriously... by art6217 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Taking into account the launching rocket, the whole setup is not fully reusable. And the shuttle is indeed very bulky. If they get rid once of the launching rocket or make it smaller, the reusable ships might possibly become a relatively cheap and comfortable way of traveling to the Earth orbit.

  14. Finally by EaterOfDog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I am glad to see we are making some kind of effort to get our manned space program back online. These massive overreactions to shuttle crashes are a bit ridiculous. I realize some great folks died, but these people were pioneers, and the price of being a pioneer is sometimes your ass. I say we salute them and we get back out there any way we can.

    --

    Crushing my karma one post at a time.
  15. can the orbiter make it to the moon? by dizee · · Score: 2, Interesting

    i was brimming with pride when i annouced to the other guys at work that nasa was prepping discovery for launch.

    the new guy said, "what?"

    "discovery. you know, the space shuttle?"
    "where is it going? the moon?"
    "uh, no. it's going to the same place it always goes. into orbit. it can't go to the moon!"
    "why not? it's a rocket isn't it?"

    a rocket. :/

    more conversation continued, in which i exclaimed that the orbiter can't make it to the moon and back without shitloads of fuel. but then i began to question that, as i suppose it's possible to fit the cargo bay with additional fuel.

    so, it begs the question, can the orbiter make it to the moon and back? what about landing on the moon? obviously without an atmosphere, the fact that it is winged makes it quite useless as a traditional aircraft.

    comments from aerospace experts?

    -mike

    1. Re:can the orbiter make it to the moon? by oojah · · Score: 2, Informative

      Have a play with Orbiter using the shuttle if you're on Windows.

      http://www.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/~martins/orbit/orbi t. html

      You'll find it is not that easy to just get the thing into orbit at all. Going to the moon would be even worse.

      The Orbiter manual notes that the shuttle relies on the loss of weight as the fuel burns to make it into orbit. If you have unlimited fuel (that is, it is always full), then you can't make it into orbit apparently.

      Cheers,

      Roger

      --
      Do you have any better hostages?
  16. 8 missions left by scotty777 · · Score: 3, Informative
    Right now NASA has firm plans for eight missions to deliver space station structure. The ISS needs those truss sections and solar cell arrays to become fully functional. Those cargos are too big to fit under the payload shrouds of the other available launchers. I guess that a few modules may be lofted for ISS partners, but after that the shuttle has no mission.