Astronauts Face Bleak Odds For Spaceflight

Abhishek writes "According to a Space.com report, Astronauts at NASA fear that they won't be able to fly until 2015 and that, for some, would be too late. The space shuttles that NASA have are almost at the end of their lifetimes and any shuttle can take years to be built. Though almost everybody is involved in some way or another in looking after a shuttle, only a lucky few actually gets the chance for a ride."

Comments

Begs the question...

[tabkey12]

What do they do every day? They are unlikely to be training for a specific mission at the moment with no shuttle...

hmm

[Tibor the Hun]

Don't mistake my sarcasm for flamebait, but does this then mean that ex-commies will have to ferry our capitalist asses to space?

Re:hmm

[MosesJones]

And the genius of the Russian programme is that they took an engineers approach to the whole thing of "if it ain't broke don't fix it". So they built simple, and built to last. The mechanics are miles simpler, and are a major reason for the Russians keeping going despite budget reductions.

Maybe NASA should be made to concentrate on basic engineering rather than fancy shuttles.

What do you call an astronaut who won't fly?

[FunWithHeadlines]

Right, an astronot.

OK, more seriously, I think the era of NASA is in decline and the era of private spacecraft is in ascent. Some of those astronauts may yet fly, but they might have to retire from NASA to do it.

Work Wanted

[chowdmouse]

They should apply to the privatized space flight companies. I'm betting they'll have a better chance to to get into space with them than NASA.

So?

[glrotate]

The space program doesn't exist for their personal egos. There are a heck of a lot of things I'd like to do but will never get the chance, and it doesn't merit a /. story.

What were they thinking?

[christopherfinke]

Didn't NASA realized that their shuttles were becoming obsolete? Shouldn't they already be building to next shuttle in order to avoid 15-year downtimes?

Re:What were they thinking?

[afidel]

They were thinking that the post Regan era slashing to their budget means that it's awfully hard to complete all of their mandates: scientific satelites, unmanned missions, manned mission using current (expensive to maintain) equipment, and designing and testing next generation equipment. Today the US uses the smallest percentage of their wealth for exploration of any large world power in history, heck even at the height of our spending on the Apollo program we barely matched what the Spanish did with Columbus. I think that NASA needs to do some overhauling to their PR machine if they aren't able to convince the public that they are worth more money then is currently being spent on them.

Why is space flight so difficult politically?

[October_30th]

All face an uncertain future and development of the next-generation space vehicle could take until 2015.

Why is that?

The first shuttle was built in the 70s using decades old know-how. Why has it taken so long to produce its successor?

Is it the technological challenge, or is it just politics that keeps the manned space exploration down?

why don't they build a couple more copies?

[WormholeFiend]

The current design is proven, it's not like they'd have to go through the whole design process/testing again.

Just order the same parts, new, and put them all together.

Re:why don't they build a couple more copies?

[Anonymous Coward]

The current design is inefficient, expensive
(because it's inefficient,;), unsophisticated, unsecure and uneconomic. Even spare parts are rare
(remember the NASA's search for used i8086 and i8088...).

Re:why don't they build a couple more copies?

[Bender0x7D1]

Do you really think that we lack the capability to make something that was made in the 1960s? Yes, there might be a large start up cost since many of the tools are no longer in use, but we also have technologies and automation that was unimagined in the 60s.

I have heard this argument time and again - we can't make the parts anymore, we don't know how. I am waving the BS flag on that. I challenge you, or anyone else, to point to a part used on the Saturn V rockets that can no longer be made. I am not saying that it can be made inexpensively or mass produced in a factory, but point to something that absolutley cannot be made.

Also, do you need something made to spec? What size? I'll measure it with my laser. Need to examine it for flaws? I can use my PC and a camera to look it over for you. Need an X-Ray of it? I can do the same thing. Need to check calculations? Forget your slide rule, I've got a TI-92.

In short, I doubt there is anything technologically impossible about creating more Saturn V rockets. I doubt there is even a financial reason it can't be done - NASA declaring they are spending billions to buy a new "fleet" of Saturn V rockets will motivate companies to produce what is needed for a reasonable cost (in most cases). What we really need is the political will to say this is important and we need to fund it.

No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

Just the American ones?

[PxM]

Maybe they could jump ship and try for one of the proposed manned space programs in other countries. The pilots and engineers shouldn't have a problem finding jobs in the private sector as it begins to take off (no pun intended) since there will be a need for people who know how to get a hunk of metal moving at 7km/s on the ground in once piece. The scientists and other mission personal would have trouble finding spots in the private sector unless it becomes profitable. This would require something like feasible zero-gee engineering that NASA has always been looking at. Maybe one of the big biotech or chemical companies would pay for a science team to spend some time in orbit to do some material engineering research. However, it would be harder to get private science crews into space who can't show short term profits. This would probably require a government for funding.

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Private Companies

[randall_burns]

Odds are the Bigelow space prize will be won well before 2015. That means a private space shuttle will be available for purchase. The best thing nasa can do is focus on scientific missions and provide a market for the contestant in that prize-instead of trying to compete against them.

Re:If Rutan had NASA's budget

[afidel]

Yes, because there were SO many existing ways to keep a glider from going over MACH before Rutan built his craft. NOT. Rutan researched and designed a novel way to accomplish his goal and did so with a budget of only $20 million to research, design, test, and launch his craft three times. I'd say that's pretty damn good use of money and he even managed to do some R&D along the way =)

Too many astronauts

[Yeechang Lee]

Deke Slayton, one of the Mercury Seven and the longtime head of the astronaut corps (i.e., the guy with the final say on flight crew assignments), pushed hard to use an airliner-style crew system for the shuttle. That is, have a small group of pilots and mission specialists that would fly repeatedly together, with one-off payload specialists handling mission-specific duties. He'd seen how frustrating life was for the later '60s astronaut classes that only saw a few members fly, and sometimes not for decades. And this was back when NASA genuinely believed each shuttle would spend as little as two weeks before launching again.

Instead, we got the worst of both words: A launch schedule in which four shuttles did at most a dozen launches a year together, little likelihood of even that annual figure in the three remaining shuttles' lifetimes, and an astronaut corps that numbers in the hundreds with new inductees coming in every two years. That's just crazy.

The "Excess Eleven"

[Animats]

NASA's done this before. NASA's astronaut class of 1967, hired for the "Apollo Applications" program that didn't happen, called itself the Excess Eleven. Most of those guys quit or were laid off in the early 1970s.

One wrote a book, "The Making of an Ex-Astronaut".

Nuclear Rockets?

[serutan]

When somebody mentions the shuttle program ending, I never miss a chance to plug nuclear rockets. I know it's the "N" word, but read this fascinating article detailing a design for a fully reusable, non-polluting rocket ship based on the Saturn-V form factor. Powered by Gas Core Nuclear Reactor engines emitting only non-radioactive hydrogen, the ship would be capable of carrying 1000 Tons of cargo into orbit and returning an equal amount of cargo to a powered landing. For comparison the shuttle's cargo capacity is less than 30 tons.

Voting with Tax Dollars

[MonkeyCookie]

Now that would be an interesting form of democracy. You vote for politicians to come up with different programs, and then each person gets to vote for where their tax dollars go: a bit like allocating where your 401K money gets invested. The gun nuts can have their tax dollars go to the military, the geeks can have their tax dollars go towards NASA, and the hippies can have their tax dollars go towards environmental protection.

I imagined that there would be a lot of boring, yet essential for a smoothly running country, items that would be almost ignored under such a system.

Re:math genius

[LiquidRaptor]

Just like to point out that the richer are not taxed more. When I made 150k a year, I paid about 5000 in taxes and 2000 to my taxman. Now that I make 20k a year I paid 6k in taxes and 500 to a taxman(admitidally a diffrent taxman)

PS I know admitidally is spelled wrong, I just really don't care at the moment