Space Shuttle Goes Back to Work

dalewj writes "The Discovery rolled over from the Orbiter Processing Facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center this morning. May 15th is the scheduled launch for STS-114. I was at NASA last month and got to see the payload for the space station thru lots of glass and I have to wonder, how far behind is the space station at this point?"

Comments

About time.

[heauxmeaux]

I don't pay the space shuttle to sit around all day waiting for the phone to ring. Goddamn lazy space shuttle.

So, going to repair the Hubble?

[WillAffleckUW]

Otherwise, why should the vast majority of taxpayers care?

Re:So, going to repair the Hubble?

[Anonymous Coward]

But the vast majority of taxpayers don't care about hubble either.

Re:So, going to repair the Hubble?

[Martin Blank]

Unless you have some poll data to back this up, I would tend to disagree strongly with you. Hubble has been one of NASA's biggest PR coups, and ranks up with the Mars rover missions in terms of overall public success. We've seen the destruction of two shuttles on live TV, whereas Hubble continues to return spectacular pictures at which people still marvel, even if they are touched up a bit for public viewing.

Re:So, going to repair the Hubble?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, as far as I can tell the only people in the entire country who want to see Hubble scrapped are the top NASA brass and George W Bush. EVERYONE else is pretty much appalled at the idea that NASA is too gutless to go fix it!

What Space Station?

[technoCon]

I think the Space Staton is scheduled to arrive about six months after my nuclear-powered flying car.

Re:What Space Station?

[ackthpt]

I think the Space Staton is scheduled to arrive about six months after my nuclear-powered flying car.

I think we're closer to it's decommissioning. They'll finish the ISS just before it plummets in a great fiery storm over the Southern Pacific (and subsequent sale of bits on eBay.)

Re:What Space Station?

[Anonymous Coward]

> It's not a moon.

Unfortunately, it's also not a space station.

Re:What Space Station?

[iamlucky13]

Well, it's still on pace to beat Duke Nukem Forever. But hey! Now at least the astronauts can play Half Life 2 on their laptops when they get bored.

Re:What Space Station?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it was a stupid post, but Flamebait?????
If that post baited you to flame, than you are very very desperate to flame, and very very impatient (since /. always has plenty of actual flamebait just a quick scrolly away).

Re:What Space Station?

[n6kuy]

Not likely.

The Southern Pacific doesn't exist anymore, because it was absorbed into the Union Pacific in 1996....

Re:What Space Station?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think so. the laptops they have onboard the shuttle are all IBM 760xd's (166mhz). They'll be lucky to play solitaire.

Re:What Space Station?

[mattspammail]

Sweet! Do you have any pictures? And is that fission or fusion? I wouldn't buy a fission-powered nuclear flying car. They suck. Wait for the '06 models. They have bigger cupholders too.

I know what you're thinking. Fission vs fusion. Classic flamebait/troll. All I have to say is, "Judge not, lest yer sense of humor be absent."

Interesting Date

[StratoChief66]

The day before my birthday. Too bad I'll be too busy working off my student loan to go see it. Its about time they went back up.

Re:Interesting Date

[Anonymous Coward]

The day before my birthday.

Of course how could I forget.

Re:Interesting Date

[naelurec]

The day before my birthday. Too bad I'll be too busy working off my student loan to go see it. Its about time they went back up.

Interesting. Thats a day before my birthday. :) Luckily I don't have any student loans to pay off. :)

Re:Interesting Date

[Anonymous Coward]

Columbia blew up on my birthday.

Re:Interesting Date

[krysith]

Challenger blew up on mine:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137610&cid=115 05919

How far behind

[OAB_X]

how far behind is the space station at this point?

Very.

Good to see the Space Shuttle working again, now NASA really needs to get working on the replacement to the Shuttle, they cant last much longer at this point.

Re:How far behind

[steve_vmwx]

how far behind is the space station at this point?

How about measured in billions of dollars? :o

S

Re:How far behind

[JoshRosenbaum]

Agreed. These things are over 20 years old, and operating off an old design. You can't tell me that we can't do better after 20 years. Heck, they even started on new designs, and didn't finish up on them. Why keep wasting money like this?

DOS was rock solid and stable, and I loved every minute of it. However, I sure as hell can get a lot more done in Windows XP than in DOS.

Perhaps NASA just plans on waiting for the private space companies to take over their deliveries to space. They'll just keep eating the free donuts until then. :)

Re:How far behind

[ackthpt]

NASA really needs to get working on the replacement to the Shuttle, they cant last much longer at this point.

Meanwhile, Russia gets by on old-tech rockets.

Re:How far behind

[DustyShadow]

There is currently new vehicle program in proposal stage called the CEV (Crew Exploration Vehicle).

It'll probably be a very long time before this thing flies though.

Re:How far behind

[OAB_X]

Its more of necessity then anything else, they dont have the money to develop new tech.

Re:How far behind

[Rei]

That, and low labor costs and surplus capacity after the collapse of the USSR. :P

That said, I am fond of their (kerosene, etc) lower stages. They found a formula that worked well, and stuck with it. They might get left behind in the future, but for now, only India and China can give you comparable costs to orbit, and their payloads are pretty small. Of course, the Delta-IV Heavy should give them a run for their money...

Re:How far behind

[TheKidWho]

meanwhile Russians live in poverty.

Re:How far behind

[StratoChief66]

Don't be dense, the Shuttle is re-usable and what the Russians use is not. Not a fair comparison in that regard. I'm sure the Russians equipment could use a redesign as well.

Re:How far behind

[Hiroto. S]

Considering last completed mission was in November 2002, it must be a couple years behind from the schedule at that time.

Re:How far behind

[StratoChief66]

you could reuse the debris to make a smashing hobo shelter

Re:How far behind

[LastRitea]

Could you imagine if we spent the past three years worth of the U.S. Military Budget on space??? Lets see the CIA is missing 1 Trillion. LOL See former CIA Director, now living in Israel. 2.5 Trillion in the Past three years on Military 3.5 Trillion now what could you build for that??? Anything

Re:How far behind

[Patrick Mannion]

Heh. They have a shuttle (Orginally two, the orginial one and the only one that went into space was destroyed in 2002 when a roof collasped). Let's l00t theirs!!! Other than that, I knew about this a few weeks ago.

Re:How far behind

[Anonymous Coward]

Since it was proposed in the 1980's by Ronald Reagan for completion in the early 1990's, the original schedule would have it de-orbited and retired by the time it's currently estimated to be complete.

THAT's how far behind it is.

GD budget-sucking POS. Kill it now before it kills the rest of the space program.

Re:How far behind

[lostchicken]

Russia's "old-tech" rockets are far more reliable/effective/economical than the shuttle could ever hope to be. The shuttle was supposed to drop launch to LEO/GTO from $150mil to $10mil. Instead, it costs $500mil to fly the thing, and you don't get nearly the payload of a heavy-lift booster, nor the reliability. The shuttle hasn't been used for commercial or military launch in quite some time. That's because of one simple fact.

It's really hard to get shit out of space. We've got the launch thing down (light a big fire at the top of a cone, and go up for a while, then go over really fast), but it's really hard to get things back. Both shuttle failures have been as a direct result of their reusuable nature. If you didn't need to reuse the SRBs, you wouldn't need the field-joint O-rings to come on and off, and STS-51L would have flown safely to orbit. If you didn't need to bring back the same vehicle you launched with, you wouldn't need the giant delta wings, nor the overly complex thermal protection system, and then no amount of falling foam would have done jack to STS-114, and they'd be fine.

People like SpaceX have the right idea. Keep it simple, keep it cheap, reuse what you can, but what goes to orbit stays in orbit except for what you absolutely have to get back (i.e. crew). Yes, a reusuable spacecraft would be nice. However, right now, it's just not the way to go.

Re:How far behind

[Jivecat]

no amount of falling foam would have done jack to STS-114, and they'd be fine. Correction: The last flight of Columbia was STS-107.

Re:How far behind

[mattspammail]

I don't care who you are. That's funny right there. -Larry

Re:How far behind

[Anonymous Coward]

And think about the children! Oh, the children! Won't anyone think about the children?!

I think we should spend it on world peace.

Re:How far behind

[Anonymous Coward]

So how much does the shuttle's reusability actually save us? And how much of that goes into the extra cost of maintaining its more complex design and repairing damage to get it spaceworthy again.

Re:How far behind

[tokabola]

So do a lot of Americans, what's your point?

Tommy

The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Steven Edwards]

Compare the cost to launch per pound via a rocket vs the Shuttle. The Shuttle has turned in to one of the most wasteful pork projects the US has undertaken. I am all for porkbarrel spending in space such as a moon base or mars mission but this project has got to be killed.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[StratoChief66]

I don't know about killed... how about replaced? It would be nice to see the revenue from today's costly reusable craft going to fund tomorrow's slightly less expensive (or crash prone) reusable craft.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[bostonsoxfan]

The shuttle served its mission but is ending its useful life now. NASA should have started ten years ago thinking about a new system but they thought they could keep extending the life of the shuttle. Which they can but at what cost. Right now space shuttles would be more cost effective as museum exhibits than anything else.

There has been some good stuff coming out of the space shuttle and space station but I would rather see a permanent colony on the moon, that is something that could truely benefit man. And it would be more cost efficent than a space shuttle in the long term.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[alienw]

What's the point of making it reusable? That's the main reason the shuttle is so expensive. They would save a bunch of money if they started building lots of single-use rockets on an assembly line, rather than having to repair, rebuild, and recertify 20-year-old spacecraft.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[iamlucky13]

Yes the space shuttle has to be decomissioned, but for the near future, it's the only way we've got to finish the space station. If we abandon that, then we won't have come close to getting our money's worth out of it. Unfortunately, that project has fallen terribly far behind schedule and over budget, and is becoming a pork barrel of its own.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[StratoChief66]

What true benifit for man would a permanent moonbase have? Other than the lower gravity much about the moon could be simulated here on Earth, no? Sure the coolness factor would be great, but it would be quite a while off as they would have to design something to get them there or fly the same stuff they used back in the 70's. (man I would laugh at that) I've seen some states that would sue the moon for copywrite infringement if they had thought to copywrite their bleakness and what not. Don't many people believe that the original moon landing video was faked as the location looks exactly like the desert near Area 51?

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Rei]

Shuttle payload: 27,500 kg to LEO
Shuttle launch costs: Varied; generally believed to be 350-450m$
Price per kg: ~15k$/kg
Price per kg for Pegasus: ~25k$/kg
Price per kg for Saturn-V: ~20k$/kg (modern dollars)
Price per kg for Ariane-V: ~10k$/kg
Price per kg for Proton: ~7k$/kg (modern dollars)

Honestly, for when it was designed in the US, it's only so-so in terms of cost effectiveness. It doesn't beat Russian costs by a long shot, and European costs are cheaper too (although they benefit from modern rocket design, unlike the old Protons).

Now, lets mention the shuttle's orbital maneuvering capabilities and cargo return capability (something that has really been problematic for ISS - Soyuz has been unable to take its trash back as fast as it builds up), and the fact that it's man rated.

Then, lets mention how shuttle launch costs are calculated. They take the shuttle's annual launch budget and divide by the average number of launches per year. However, there's a problem with that: a sizable chunk of the shuttle's budget goes toward research on improvements (which will have benefits to its successors); in short, part of the shuttle's ongoing costs are really just R&D.

Most importantly, however, is to look at the history of the shuttle. Its budget was almost halved during development; it's pretty impressive that they came out with anything at all. The reduced capital costs led to most of the problems they've had so far: instead of a titanium frame, they used aluminum, which gives a ~40% worse payload ratio and requires an elaborate, espensive to maintain, and damage-risky TPS. They used SRBs because they pretty much already existed. They used a nonflyback main tank because it was cheaper to develop. Etc.

A next gen reusable, if given proper capital costs, should be an incredibly impressive vehicle. You get a greater payload, almost no fatigue wear, a very simple (and cheap to maintain) TPS, greater resistance to debris damage, and many other benefits that will hugely reduce cost per kilogram. Combined with a reusable main tank, next-generation engines (there have been a lot of advancements in reduced maintenance and performance since the SSMEs were designed), etc, we're looking at cost per launch being a small fraction of what it is presently.

The shuttle should be seen as a test bed; they've done a lot of great research in the shuttle program (especially concerning engines - a lot of the modern, low-cost US rockets have really benefitted from SSME research), and now it's time to move on to a next gen reusable craft. Some people argue that disposables are the only answer; however, even if you can justify mass production of a single rocket line, there's only so far you can go with disposables. There are too many parts to be machined, too much labor, too much material, etc. Fuel is incredibly cheap by comparison, and there is no reason why the maintenance costs on reusables can't being lowered greatly.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[StratoChief66]

No, the shuttle is so expensive because the turn around time far exceeds what was estimated when it was designed. Look at a car, I can drive it cross country and back, give it an oil change and a few other maintainance things to put it back in good condition. I don't need to buy a new car, just some routine maintainance and she's ready for another run. Another reusable craft would have to have a shorter turnaround time and generally a lower cost per kilo put in orbit, basically a large redesign based on new technology and what we've learned from the Shuttle.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Vellmont]

but I would rather see a permanent colony on the moon, that is something that could truely benefit man.


I'm really quite curious as to how this will benefit man? Unless you're mining for He-3, what would we be doing on a moon base? It's not zero-G (or micro-gravity which is the more accruate/preferred term) so any long-term human microgravity experiments are out. Re-fueling inter-planetary spacecraft? Maybe, though I don't know if it's really worth it or not in terms of launch costs since you could probbably equally launch a seperate fuel payload from earth. (Compare that cost to maintaing an entire moon base). We originally went to the moon as a political show of power over the Soviet Union, and because the space program was a good way to get everyone onboard funding balistic missile technology. Now that the cold war is over, what's the impetus?

My point is there has to be a tangible goal for having a moon base that isn't more easily achieved by other means. The cool sci-fi factor just isn't enough.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[InfallibleLies]

I used to live in Rankin Inlet, Canada (about 1500KM north of the US border), and I remember that it cost $50 to send a 10lb package one time. So, it would actually have been cheaper to shoot my package into space. Not to mention way cooler.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[TheKidWho]

Wow what an ignorant...

"Other than the lower gravity much about the moon could be simulated here on Earth, no??"

Umm no? Unless you know of some way to control gravity...

"Sure the coolness factor would be great, but it would be quite a while off as they would have to design something to get them there or fly the same stuff they used back in the 70's."

They are, its called getting to the moon by 2020, not tomorrow. They are working on the Crew Exploration Vehicle to get to the moon and also will be working on designs for a base and for shield from cosmic/solar rays.

"Don't many people believe that the original moon landing video was faked as the location looks exactly like the desert near Area 51?"
No, the Moon landings were NOT faked... It's just like those conspiracy theories that the US government started 9/11 and that the US has a tsunami generator which caused the Tsunami in december.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[StratoChief66]

Well Put

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[0123456]

"Shuttle launch costs: Varied; generally believed to be 350-450m$"

LOL. The shuttle program costs around $3.5 billion a year, I believe. The average launch rate has been about four a year, so that's close to a _billion_ dollars a launch.

It's true that the fixed costs are huge, so that if you could launch an extra flight a year it would only add a couple of hundred million, but that's not going to happen often with only three orbiters.

"However, there's a problem with that: a sizable chunk of the shuttle's budget goes toward research on improvements (which will have benefits to its successors)"

What shuttle 'improvements' will benefit the CEV, which is a simple capsule on top of an expendable commercial launcher?

"You get a greater payload, almost no fatigue wear, a very simple (and cheap to maintain) TPS, greater resistance to debris damage, and many other benefits that will hugely reduce cost per kilogram."

No, that's what you _want_. What you get is likely to be something completely different... if nothing else, it almost certainly won't have wings (and if NASA build it, odds are it won't meet any of your goals).

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[TheKidWho]

"
What shuttle 'improvements' will benefit the CEV, which is a simple capsule on top of an expendable commercial launcher?
"

Ohh you seem to have the designs on hand for the CEV which hasn't even been designed yet? Hey I want in on the time machine too!!!!

"
No, that's what you _want_. What you get is likely to be something completely different... if nothing else, it almost certainly won't have wings (and if NASA build it, odds are it won't meet any of your goals)."

Like I said, gimme your time machine! NASA is going to build the best ship that they can possibly build, if it means adding wings to it so that it can manuever better in the atmosphere of earth/mars then so be it. And Odds are, if NASA builds it, it will meet all goals and exceed them. Contrary to what you might think, NASA is not run by a bunch of idiots. They don't go around shouting "Hey wings might look cool lets add them without weighing the risks/benefits!" Or maybe they should listen to you right? Yeah maybe you should run the space program since you seem to know more then all the rocket scientists and engineers working at NASA.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[StratoChief66]

I mentioned the lower gravity as a benifit of a base on the moon, don't get violent. The poster I responded to was complaining about the shuttle now, not in 2020. he also said there should be a moonbase, he didn't say he was willing to wait. I was saying why they have to wait. I hope the CEV gets the funding it should get, not like the way the Shuttle project was underfunded and forced to go with cheaper solutions like aluminum instead of titanium and unreusable main fuel tank. Also, I said the desert looks a hell of a lot like the moon, look at the moonlanding video and try to convince yourself that it doesn't look like a desert. I don't believe that the moonlanding was fakes, I used the conspiracy theory to show how they do in fact look similar.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[TheKidWho]

ok sorry for misreading your post.

Also, sure the desert might look like the moon, but so does mars. Are you going to go ahead and believe theories that say that we never landed probes on mars? I think not.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Anonymous Coward]

look at the moonlanding video and try to convince yourself that it doesn't look like a desert.

Well seeing as how I live in the desert and look at the desert landscape multiple times, every single day of my life, I can say that the moonlanding video looks nothing like the desert.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[StratoChief66]

Hehe, also said I don't believe that theory, just used it as an example. I'm sure when we land on Mars someone will rehash that theory with the word Mars instead of Moon, bet it'll make an interesting documentery though. Just saying a place in the desert may be a drastically cheaper way to simulate moon liek conditions, but I suppose nothing models the conditions of the moon better than the moon, especially unknown conditions of the moon. Still think it'll be quite expensive but thats why the world lets the Americans shoulder the majority of the cost.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Rei]

First off, the CEV is still in the design phase. However, in general, the concepts have been a capsule on top of a Delta-IV heavy or an Atlas-V. Atlas's lower stage's oxidizer turbopump and its upper stage's LH and LOX turbopumps directly benefit from SSME turbopump research. All of the Delta's engines benefit heavily from SSME research. Both Atlas's upper stage and all of Delta benefit heavily from shuttle research on tanks and insulation.

Guess who provides and services the SSME high pressure turbopumps. If you answered "Pratt & Whitney", you're correct. Now, guess who developed the RL-10B-2 used by the Delta-IV heavy. If you guessed "Pratt & Whitney", you're right again. Now, guess who developed the RL-10A-4-2 used by Atlas V's upper stage. If you guessed "Pratt & Whitney", you're right once more.

Lets keep going with this angle, shall we? What method did they develop for the shuttle to keep insulation from peeling off? Laser shearography. What technique does Delta-IV heavy use? Same. What about the centaur? Same. What type of insulation do they use on their tanks? SOFI (Spray-On-Foam-Insulation). What alloy does the shuttle use for most structural components, and the Delta-IV and Altas-V are considering? An aluminum-lithium alloy. Etc. I could keep going for hours; the shuttle is the core of a lot of modern US rocketry technology.

> No, that's what you _want_.

Ok, praytell, explain how a titanium-alloy frame would not:

* Produce a ~40% increase in payload for a shuttle-sized craft
* Allow for a much simpler TPS (as titanium alloys allow for a "hot frame", eliminating the need for tiles altogether, although you still need some leading edge insulation and internal thermal blanket insulation)
* Reduced fatigue (and thus longer lifespan and simpler inspection)
* Greater resistance to frame damage

You're basically arguing against the fundamental property of titanium and majority-titanium alloys there. It's not what I "_want_"; we're talking about basic properties of the metal. Argue against physics all you want.

As for wings, if you want to try and make a fully reusable capsule, go for it. I'm not enthusiasic, to say the least, for such prospects. Just ignoring that issue, you (like most other people here) seem completely unaware that wings are for a lot more than landing. They make reentry of large craft, and craft with return payloads, a lot easier, because you can skim the upper atmosphere for a longer period of time by using lift from the wings. They're also a larger radiating surface area. Lastly, the space in the wings isn't wasted; it is used. The only "waste" is control surfaces and associated mechanics, plus some loss due to having a less geometrically optimal shape for internal storage (although it is a benefit, not a drawback, when it comes to reentry, as discussed earlier).

BTW, NASA builds few of their craft. It's all the Boeings, the Lockheeds, the Orbital Sciences, etc, that do the construction. Blame them if you want to blame someone. Of course, I'm sure you're ready to start citing companies who have been widely successful with orbital craft in the US (i.e., US labor costs, part costs, etc) for comparison to those funded by NASA. Right?

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

a very simple (and cheap to maintain) TPS

At long last, pay off for those thankless mounds of TPS reports.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[tmortn]

You sure they could actually do a Ti hot frame? As I recall this is sort of what they did for the SR-71, hell the frame on that was annealed every time it flew which actually strengthend the thing over time. But it also caused some major problems with expansion... they never could fully seal the gas tank through all ranges of the flight envelope.. damn thing leaked fuel till it heated up enough to tighten the seals. Sealing the crew compartment through the full range might be a bitch if you are going to incure that much heating of the frame and the inherrent expansion. Granted that was the late 50's and early 60's. Might could do better now.

Be nice if you could cut the weight of the TPS like that. Would remove most of the weight penalty incurred by the wings in the first place... not to mention if the orbiter were that much lighter it would deffinatly glide better , probably be able to lower its stall speed and angle of attack for landing which might lead to some landing gear weight reductions as well. 40% increase in payload would kill most of my problems with the current shuttle stack. I think tossing 120k into orbit of which the large majority (~100k, orbiter 75k + 21k for 3 SSME's ) consists of the TPS and engines is pretty damn silly. But then again it was a first effort the we should have moved beyond long ago.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[BorgHunter]

Contingency plan for if a major disaster happens on Earth. We need to be able to set up self-sufficient colonies somewhere other than Earth. "Don't put all your eggs in one basket," and if we're smart, don't put all your humans on one planet. All it would take is one nuclear war and a fair portion of Earth could become uninhabitable.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[tmortn]

Moon dosn't make much sense as a refuling station... at least not in terms of chemical systems. Takes almost the same Delta V to go to the moon as to mars. So to go to the moon and to mars takes almost double the Delta V. In other words why drive somewhere to fill up a tank of gass to go somwhere else if you could have just driven straight there with the first tank of gas? Remember, distances vrs fuel requirements don't work the same in squirt and coast interplanetary travel as they do driving down the highway.

However, if you established a more or less self sufficient base on the moon that dropped supplies into earth orbit that were available that would make sense. Inherrently cheaper (in terms of delta V) to get things from the moon to earth orbit than from earths surface to earth orbit. But that is only if you are using lunar resources to accomplish that. IE an engine that uses Lunar Derived fuel and nothing from earth. Cause anything from earth already incured the delta V penalty and has to show and enourmous return in order to offset that. The engine for example would likely need to be good for several trips.... unless we could built it there.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't go around shouting "Hey wings might look cool lets add them without weighing the risks/benefits!"

Actually, one of the biggest drivers behind winged spacecraft has been the astronauts themselves, who have generally been ex-airforce pilots with the attitude that dangling from a parachute in a capsule is for girlie-men. They want to fly back from space, land like an airplane, and look cool stepping out of the cockpit, regardless of whether it makes sense to bolt heavy fragile wings on a space vehicle (which it doesn't).

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[rbanffy]

He3 is not a very good idea - you would have to process hundreds of tons of rock to extract just a tiny little bit. And we still don't know how to do it. Solar + fission makes more sense on the Moon. Energy-efficience plus safer fission and Deuterium fusion make more sense here. Perhaps solar transported by hydrogen (solar electrolysis of water and using hydrogen as a storage/transport medium) also makes sense.

The far side of the moon seems a natural place to put radiotelescopes that would not suffer any interference from Earth sources. Optical telescopes also could be assembled on the Moon and the lunar poles are a natural place to put infrared telescopes.

Assuming we could build automated self-contained raw-material processing factories, we could use local materials to build most parts of them (at least structures). This would be a big incentive to develop such things and could enormously reduce the costs of assembling and launching spacecraft both to the outer solar system or to Earth orbit.

Optical and radio interferometry also could easily be done with ground-based equipment. If the equipment is within a reasonable distance from a settlement, it is far easier to fix and upgrade. Just imagine having a dozen Hubble telescopes working in concert and that could be serviced on a next-day basis.

Other side benefit would be the development of the technologies and procedures required for a successful Mars mission. If something goes awfully wrong on the Moon, a rescue mission could be there in a week. Nothing can go wrong in a Mars mission as a rescue mission would only be there to pick up the corpses a couple years after the mishap.

Most important of all, it increases our very remote chances of spending some time there.

And, perhaps for the current US administration, making people look to the Moon may avoid having them look to Afghanistan, Iraq, the soon-to-be-done mistakes on Iran and the mistakes already not done in North Korea. It's just... convenient.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[alienw]

A space shuttle isn't a car. I really doubt you could make a craft that can go into orbit and re-enter the atmosphere without any damage. This means you have to service the spacecraft, which will always be more expensive. It is rarely, if ever, economical to do major servicing even on a car. Once the engine or transmission needs rebuilding, the car is often sold or junked. And a space shuttle is infinitely more complex. How do you make sure that every one of thousands of hoses, wires, and other parts is not damaged after a flight?

From an engineering standpoint, there isn't a single design goal that demands a reusable spacecraft. By removing the requirement of reusability, the design can be made simpler, cheaper, and more robust. Another shuttle could be made cheaper, but it could never be made as cheap as a mass-produced rocket. It's kind of like trying to make reusable bullets.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[clanky]

>>And Odds are, if NASA builds it, it will meet all goals and exceed them.

Hmm. you should really think twice about making grandiose statements like that. In the recent (30 years) past, NASA does not in fact have great track record for exceeding expecations (see the original plan for 40 shuttle flights a year; the dubious early perfromance of their "faster cheaper better" initiative) . And by the way, they generally don't build this stuff - outside contractors do. The lack of internal expertise on the shuttle due to rampant outsourcing was one of the major contributing factors quoted in the report on the loss of columbia.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Anonymous Coward]

Price per kg: ~15k$/kg
Price per kg for Pegasus: ~25k$/kg
Price per kg for Saturn-V: ~20k$/kg (modern dollars)
Price per kg for Ariane-V: ~10k$/kg
Price per kg for Proton: ~7k$/kg (modern dollars)

Not exploding and killing people: priceless

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Eunuchswear]

It would be nice to see the revenue from today's costly reusable craft going to fund tomorrow's slightly less expensive (or crash prone) reusable craft.

Huh? Revenue? You think the shuttle makes money? Care to inform us on step 2?

1. Launch shuttle.
2. ???
3. profit!!!

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Minna Kirai]

No, the shuttle is so expensive because the turn around time far exceeds what was estimated when it was designed.

The only reason the turn around time is nonzero is BECAUSE it's reusable.

Another reusable craft would have to have a shorter turnaround time and generally a lower cost per kilo put in orbit,

Alienw just said that there is no reason for it to be reuasble, so why do you think "its better than other potential reusable designs" is any kind of defense?

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Minna Kirai]

Honestly, for when it was designed in the US, it's only so-so in terms of cost effectiveness.

And the chart only tells half the story. When the STS program came on, development on other launch vehicles slowed drastically or stopped completely.

It's rather like you're comparing 1960s rockets with a 1990s shuttle, because the shuttle is benefiting from the decades of R&D it received while expendable vehicles stagnated.

If the ELVs had gotten equal usage and investment as the STS did, then their numbers would improve to beat it across the board. And if the shuttle had only been used for those handful of missions where it's unique cargo return capability was genuinely needed, then it would look 10x as bad.

The shuttle should be seen as a test bed; they've done a lot of great research in the shuttle program

If they'd actually treated it as a test bed, instead of performing multiple annual launches for orbital busywork that hardly qualifies as scientific, then you might have a point. But the STS wasn't advertised as an experimental vehicle, but a productive platform.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Minna Kirai]

Care to inform us on step 2?

??? = the USA federal budget gives you $15,000,000,000 each year.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Minna Kirai]

In other words why drive somewhere to fill up a tank of gass to go somwhere else if you could have just driven straight there with the first tank of gas?

If we had more advanced atomic power technology, then we might be able to use the moon itself as fuel (or just reaction mass).

Plus, one of the reasons we don't have better atomic power is that experimentation is hazardous, and a moon lab could alleviate that.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Minna Kirai]

BTW, NASA builds few of their craft. It's all the Boeings, the Lockheeds, the Orbital Sciences, etc, that do the construction. Blame them if you want to blame someone.

BTW, George W. Bush invades few of his targets. Its all the soldiers, marines, and sailors that do all the destruction. Blame them if you want to blame someone.

Of course, I'm sure you're ready to start citing companies who have been widely successful with orbital craft in the US (i.e., US labor costs, part costs, etc) for comparison to those funded by NASA. Right?

Like your chart earlier, this is an appeal to history. "The football team I joined won, so this proves they were the better team, not that I am an 8000 lb gorilla"

"The government backed something, and it got better results than the other choices. That means we MUST have made the right choice! It can't possibly be that the very existence of our tremendous investment is what pushed these companies over the edge, or that the total non-productivity of the majority of NASA's work in the past 20 years is what kept private industry out of the sector"

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Anonymous Coward]

And then you would have to use the Shuttle to retrive it from LEO!

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Eunuchswear]

So, the shuttle program costs the US govt $15,000,000,000 a year.

And it makes $0 a year.

So, once again, where's the revenue?

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Minna Kirai]

And it makes $0 a year.

No, it earns tax dollars from voters.

Voters, for whatever stupid reasons, like to have manned spaceflight. They get entertainment value from it. Even though they probably watch an average of 13 seconds of NASA footage annually, just the thought that the USA is world leader makes them warm & fuzzy inside.

So its profitable just like Star Wars III is- doesn't do anything good, but people like the idea enough to pay $10 from each of them.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Minna Kirai]

AC: Not exploding and killing people: priceless

Exploding and STILL not killing people: $100,000,000.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[mpe]

What's the point of making it reusable? That's the main reason the shuttle is so expensive.

Considering the amount of maintanance which is needed after each flight it barely qualifies as "reusable" in the first place.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[mpe]

Another reusable craft would have to have a shorter turnaround time

The original estimate for the shuttle was around 2 weeks. Which was way, way off.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[mpe]

A space shuttle isn't a car. I really doubt you could make a craft that can go into orbit and re-enter the atmosphere without any damage.

IIRC quite a bit of damage was being caused by sand on the runway.

How do you make sure that every one of thousands of hoses, wires, and other parts is not damaged after a flight?

These arn't very different from those on a commercial aircraft. Boeing and Airbus appear to have worked out how to do it. The major difference on the shuttle is the heatsheild. Which is constructed of materials which are highly fragile.

From an engineering standpoint, there isn't a single design goal that demands a reusable spacecraft.

In which case why isn't NASA looking at alternatives, rather than returning their "deathtrap design" to service.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[reifchen]

> Unless you're mining for He-3, what would we be doing on a moon base?

Putting Solar Panels on the moon.

Using the moon as our next source of energy (mining/solar/whatever) is most likely going to be impetus behind anyone going to the moon long-term.

But a far cheaper method of doing that is to send a few von-neumann machines up there to build it for us.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[pixelpusher220]

These arn't very different from those on a commercial aircraft. Boeing and Airbus appear to have worked out how to do it

lets see *any* commercial aircraft hit exit velocity, then slam into the atmosphere at multi-THOUSAND mph and see how well they fare.

It's NOT the same or even close, the pounding the shuttle takes is many many many times greater than that of commercial aircraft.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Rei]

NASA may be an 8,000 lb gorilla, but Boeing and Lockheed are at least 4,000 lb gorillas ;) As per your analogy to war, it depends what you're criticizing about NASA. If you're criticizing the design or construction, you need to blame the aerospace contractors (or fault NASA for relying on them; however, who else are they going to rely on?). Only if you're criticizing the idea (not the design, just the idea) should you blame NASA. NASA itself doesn't do much related to rockets apart from research and small projects in-house.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Rei]

I hate when people try and use this as an argument. Because, well, if you look at rocket failure rates, the shuttle has a *very low* rate of failure at under 2%.

Orbital rockets simply tend to blow up; you're using tanks built at the very edge of their structrual limits, holding highly combustible reactants right next to each other, accelerated at several Gs with high vibrational and thermal loads, by engines that not only have to deal with temperatures hotter than the boiling point of iron and horrible corrosion, but need to produce dozens of times as much power as jet engines (already expensive, physically stressed devices) for the same weight. When in space, you deal with debris moving well faster than bullets, temperature swings worse than going from Antarctica to the Sahara every couple hours, and many other problems. And do we even need to get into reentry here?

It's amazing that we can get to space at all. Now, suborbital is easy; all of your requirements get greatly relaxed.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[tmortn]

Hence Why I said with Chemical Power. Atomic is a whole other ball of wax. But even with atomic that will not change the delta V requirements. In fact to make use of the faster transit capabilities a longer sustainable, or just higher power, propulsion system would entail it would require more delta V... and it STILL wouldn't cahnage the fact that you could have gone to Mars with the same delta V expenditure you went to the moon with.

If we were using moon rock as reation mass then I am willing to bet we would be better off getting it to earth orbit from the moon than going to the moon to get it. The exception would be if we had a technology that pretty much didn't care about delta V expenditures on those levels. IE not squirt and coast propulsion. An atomic rocket would still be a squirt and coast system unless it were used to power an Ion drive. But to date they really can't extract much propulsion from Ion. You have to be going a Loooooooooong way before Ion pays off and the Moon, and even mars are to close to give it an advantage over chemical much less an NERVA style atomic rocket.

If this dosn't make sese go pick up Zubrin's "Case for Mars". He has a chapter or two in there about what it takes to get stuff to mars vrs going to the moon then mars.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Anonymous Coward]

But even with atomic that will not change the delta V requirements. In fact to make use of the faster transit capabilities a longer sustainable, or just higher power, propulsion system would entail it would require more delta V...

You can get higher delta Vs with nuclear-electric propulsion. Take ion drives or Holl-effect thrusters for example. The thrust would be about an order of magnitude lower than chemical, but the Isp is 2 to 3 orders of magnitude higher! You can leave the engine on for nearly half the flight and not get into a positive feedback loop of increasing mass devoted to fuel. All of this put together means you while the instantaneous acceleration is lower, you have enough time to accelerate to a much higher velocity.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Minna Kirai]

Only if you're criticizing the idea (not the design, just the idea) should you blame NASA.

No, NASA was under fairly direct orders from the USA President at the time, Richard Nixon. The idea was handed down from above (just as it was for the Apollo program)

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[alienw]

These arn't very different from those on a commercial aircraft.

I think the other comment pretty much took care of this one.

In which case why isn't NASA looking at alternatives, rather than returning their "deathtrap design" to service.

Lots of reasons. Money. Politics. Publicity. Admitting that they were wrong. None of this is good for business.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[tmortn]

Da I know about what ION can do. Will have to look up Holl effect or is it a specific kind of ION system ? While the end result of an Ion system represents much higher Delta V from a given fuel source it takes a LOOONG time to build that speed up. What can be done in seconds with a chemical system can take months with an ion system.

For those that don't know the LOX and LH reaction utilized by the shuttle is just about the most energetic chemical reaction and maxes somewhere in the high 400's for isp, SSME's extract around 452 in vacumm if memory serves. NTR's utilizing superheated hydrogen can achieve somewhere around 900 (achieved by nerva program). However ion systems achieve isps well into the thousands. The problem is how fast your can extract that energy.

isp, or specific impulse, refferes to how long a pound of fuel can produce one pound of thrust... or conversely how many pounds of thrust one pound of fuel can deliver in one second. Example. a 400isp means one pound of fuel can produce one pound of thrust for 400 seconds, or it can produce a maximum of 400 pounds of thrust for one second. Chemical systems work at either extreme. IE you can slowly extract the energy over time... or combine it faster and get the higher max amount. ion drives, on the otherhand, currently don't work that way. While they have fabulously high isp's you can't extract more than a small fraction of that at a time. If they solve that problem then alot of our space propulsion problems will be solved. In fact ion already represents the best option for outer solar system exploration.

Feynmann predicted 1/50 rate of failure

[PxM]

when he was part of the Challenger investigation team. Hopefully, this means that the chance of another accident is improbable given NASA's desire to phase out the Shuttle and replace it with something more 21st century. Hopefully the winds won't change and the Shuttle will be replaced with something better before the next accident. NASA should really start pushing for more private groups to do this rather than just handing out paltry prizes. Or maybe the Chinese will end up giving NASA the drive it needs to get a working space program. China's economy isn't on the rocks like the USSR during the space race so they would actually be able to compete with us.

--
Want a free iPod?
Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof

Re:Feynmann predicted 1/50 rate of failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you walk across the street at 1/50 odds?

Re:Feynmann predicted 1/50 rate of failure

[Skalizar]

No, but I absolutely would jump at the chance to go into space with those odds.

Re:Feynmann predicted 1/50 rate of failure

[StratoChief66]

No, but I'd hire 50 'Walkanauts' to do it for me while I tape it.

Re:Feynmann predicted 1/50 rate of failure

[Mercuria]

China's economy isn't on the rocks like the USSR during the space race so they would actually be able to compete with us.

What are you smoking? for one thing, nobody here knew that the economy of the USSR and other Commmunist countries wouldn't work back in the '50s and '60s -- we'd just come off of WWII, and it seemed like that had proved beyond a doubt that a planned economy can deliver the goods. We treated them like they could outproduce us at our maximum without having any consequences, and they responded by doing things to their people that we find horrific, but we didn't know any of this till after the Wall came down. Until after we'd landed on the moon and by the mid-70's it was clear they weren't going to put a human there, the space race was a very close thing -- and from here, it looked like they were doing it without breaking a sweat.

For another, China's actually in some pretty deep shit right now economically speaking. The lending practices of their banks ought to scare everyone. If they let their currency float with respect to all major foriegn currencies rather than pegging it to the dollar, the whole thing would just go *poof*. But, they've still got the same attitude toward their economy and their citizens that the Soviets did, so it's not going to be any more of a damper to China. It's just that we've managed to pry our way into their society a little better, so when dozens of people die on the pad time after time, we may actually hear about it. Maybe.

Re:Feynmann predicted 1/50 rate of failure

[FleaPlus]

NASA should really start pushing for more private groups to do this rather than just handing out paltry prizes.

Unfortunately, merit-based funding of private projects and pork-barrel politics are rather at odds with each other.

Re:Feynmann predicted 1/50 rate of failure

[bigpat]

Would you walk across the street at 1/50 odds?

Depends what is on the other side.

Re:Feynmann predicted 1/50 rate of failure

[bigpat]

"Would you walk across the street at 1/50 odds?"

Depends what is on the other side.

I meant the other side of the street, just to be clear.

Re:Feynmann predicted 1/50 rate of failure

[6th time lucky]

I think it was funnier when it was ambiguous :)

Re:Feynmann predicted 1/50 rate of failure

[ocelotbob]

Point still stands. Doesn't matter what the journey is if the payoff is good enough. Even when you trivialize it to something like going across the street.

ISS Schedule

[caryw]

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/assembly/
--
Fairfax Underground: Where Fairfax County comes out to play

Re:ISS Schedule

[deglr6328]

7 years ago when that site went up initially it had the finish date as being this year. Now, everything past the next two flights is "under review". nice. Prediction of time remaining untill cancellation of project completion by congress (a la SSC): 2 years. Prediction of time remaining untill cancellation of all project funding and decision to deorbit: 5-7 years.(though I hope I'm wrong) When the first parts of the ISS started to go up I was in high school and while I can't say that I actually found the mission exhilirating, I did think it fascinating and thought it held promise for real scientific discovery. ~8 years on and it's seeming more and more like giant waste of money. I follow space science and astronomy/planetary science very closely but if I were asked to name even one major accomplishment of the ISS thus far, I would be very hard pressed to come up with anything at all. In the end it will be seen as an almost entirely uncharismatic venture that the public could'nt have cared less about, and that will be the cause of its final demise. sad.

Why does...

[iminplaya]

Liliana Villarreal need a bachelor's and two master's degrees to work on a suitcase?

Because somebody changed the combination.

Re:Why does...

[iminplaya]

Hello moderator:
I figured you would pull that stunt. Read the the very first sentence of TMFA, you fool! Then try to make the feeblest effort to understand. Someone needs to watch the watchers.

Like a batter at the plate...

[Stanistani]

NASA only has one strike left before they're out of the game.

If they lose one more shuttle, they'll never fly again.

My prayers will be with the astronauts.

It's waaaay past time to build those unmanned heavy lifters and redundant crew vehicles.

Re:Like a batter at the plate...

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA lost people before the first shuttle accident. So technically, they already had their third strike and they are still going.

So much for your pessimistic theories.

Re:Like a batter at the plate...

[Stanistani]

No, that's not my theory... it's NASA's. They have stated that if they lose one more Shuttle they will have too small a fleet to continue flying, and making another (as they did after the Challenger tragedy is not longer cost-effective, as the jigs and patterns no longer exist.

Re:Like a batter at the plate...

[matth]

Good grief they BETTER not lose another one! If I had a fleet of 5 cars, and over the coarse of 10 years I had major accidents with them that resulted in the death of the passengers.. I sure wouldn't be allowed back on the road after #2....

How is it NASA gets away with homicide?

Re:Like a batter at the plate...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you implying that nobody died during the discovery and exploration of the Americas? And those guys had an atmosphere and could find food along the way!

Re:Like a batter at the plate...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good grief they BETTER not lose another one! If I had a fleet of 5 cars, and over the coarse of 10 years I had major accidents with them that resulted in the death of the passengers.. I sure wouldn't be allowed back on the road after #2....

Actually, it's been almost 20 years since the Challenger explosion. There's an inherent risk in space travel, all astronauts are aware of that; just like we all know that there are risks in driving a car. These are all calculated risks... stuff happens no matter how much we try to prevent it.

How far behind?

[pavon]

how far behind is the space station at this point?

Hehe, when I was in elementary school I remember hearing about how great the space station (then S.S. Freedom) was going to be when it was built. Expected completion date - the late 80's.

May 15...

[ackthpt]

"The Discovery rolled over from the Orbiter Processing Facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center this morning. May 15th is the scheduled launch for STS-114.

May 15th!?!?!? It'll be out of date by then and they'll have to upgrade everything!

I was at NASA last month and got to see the payload for the space station thru lots of glass and I have to wonder, how far behind is the space station at this point?"

Not to worry, maintenance and such have been outsourced to Venus.

Missed watching the launches

[LiNKz]

To be honest, I look forward to this launch. In the past five years we have had terrorist attacks, wasted wars, and sad accidents.. and I really miss watching the launches too. I'm going to enjoy this launch.. and you know, it is good that we're still going up, instead of becoming too scared to tinker and explore.

A piece of advice...

[nazzdeq]

If something hits the wing this time and the shuttle is in orbit, do a spacewalk and take a freakin' look. If that's too dangerous to do, then stay on the ground and stop wasting our money. The space shuttle is old and busted, time for the new hotness.

Re:A piece of advice...

[Anonymous Coward]

And what would "looking" have done?

The ultra complicated hand controlled maneuvers that they came up with to attempt to soften the reentry impact on the wing would have been only about 2% likely to have suceeded.

All it would have done is make the crew have to live with their impending death for a few days. :(

Not far behind

[bogaboga]

thru lots of glass and I have to wonder, how far behind is the space station at this point?"

Not very far behind...the Russians, whose Soyuz system is "decades behind ours", and have had almost 2,000 successful launches with it, have been very helpful in keeping the ISS going. I have also heard that they (the Russians) have been giving us some technical ideas on how to deal with the complexities of space travel. Of course NASA administrators will not admit this.

Re:Not far behind

[Anonymous Coward]

We need advice from them on running our space program with no money, they seem to be good at that.

Re:Not far behind

[salemlb]

Given that Soyuz is the result of the Russian attempt to copy the hugely successful US Apollo program, I'd expect the Soyuz to still work well. As space craft go, the Apollo series was not that complex... almost no re-useable components... small to nonexistent cargo capacity... cramped... small crew... useless in satellite retrieval... Yep. It's decades behind the shuttle alright. But that doesn't mean its useless. A horse may be decades behind a pickup truck... it may not have as much power and versatility as a pickup truck... but if you want to get something from A to B, odds are that outdated, decades old horse will do it, every time. That doesn't mean the truck maker is taking advice from the horse trainer on how to handle cargo transport, though. Nor does it mean that the horse is better than the truck.

Re:Not far behind

[_Sprocket_]

I have also heard that they (the Russians) have been giving us some technical ideas on how to deal with the complexities of space travel.

I've heard the Grey have been providing us with technical ideas on how to deal with the complexities of space travel for years.

Of course NASA administrators will not admit this.

Of course not! Then they'd have to use words like "partners" to describe the Russians.

Re:Not far behind

[tmortn]

Not very far behind ? Not quite sure how you arrive at that notion. We were supposed to be about 20-24 some odd launches along by now and I think either just have or just about to deliver the last bit of core complete construction payloads. At a launch rate of 10 a year that is almost 2 and half years behind if we start launching at the same rate we were before columbia which was the heavist launch schedule in the entire history of the Shuttle program.

Soyuz kept Station manned.... barely. We had to cut to two crew because they could not have supplied 3. Science upmass is all but nothing. 50kg or some such silly pathetic amount. Not knocking it but the program has not advanced in the interim. It has survived on a minimal existence.

Station is VERY behind. To the point where it is a very real possibility that its usefull completed life will be less than half of its planned life. It quite possibly will never house its inteded full crew complement of 7 for any longer than shuttle docking events. You want to know something crazy about that? If the Russians build and deliver their lab (doubtful at this point) and the COF and JEM get delivered, we will have more Labs (4) on Station than Crew (3).

Re:Not far behind

[dunkelfalke]

wrong, absolutely wrong.

the soyuz launch vehicle is a version of the r-7 icbm (actually world's first icbm) which had its maiden flight in 1957.

the soyuz spacecraft was actually a heavily modified voshod, which was a heavily modified vostok (first launch afair in 1961)

first soyuz launch was in 1966, first apollo launch was in 1967.

no copies there, sorry.

Re:Not far behind

[Richard_at_work]

The reason that the ISS will never house more than 3 permanent crewmen is because NASA cancelled the Crew Return Vehicle, which was supposed to act as lifeboat for up to 9 people. Because thats now cancelled, we are relying on the venerable Soyuz docked with the ISS to act as lifeboat, and of course it can only carry 3 people.

Re:Not far behind

[CrimsonAvenger]

the Russians, whose Soyuz system is "decades behind ours", and have had almost 2,000 successful launches with it

The Soyuz booster has had more than 1600 launches. With a 97.5% success rate. Note that not all (or even most) of these launches were manned. There were 89 manned Soyuz launches, of which two failed (well, more than two failed, but only two resulted in loss of crews. 97.7% success rate)

The SST has done 113 flights, with a 98.2% success rate.

Re:Not far behind

[Anonymous Coward]

Cramped? Apollo put Skylab up. It could put about 4x times the mass into LEO than a shuttle can, and do it without a crew if they're not needed. And the crew could survive pretty much any disaster on the way up and down. Only NASA has been idiotic enough to put SRBs on a manned craft.

And what exactly do you need satellite retrieval for? The Long Duration Exposure Facility is about the only thing I can think of where there was any possible reason to return something to earth.

Saturn V could go to the moon or put more stuff in orbit than the shuttle and could do it cheaper. In what possible way is the shuttle better?

Didn't count?

[StratoChief66]

From the NASA site: The last shuttle mission to visit the ISS during 2002 was STS-113, which delivered the Expedition 6 crew and the P1 (P-One) Truss. The STS-113 crew performed three spacewalks to activate and outfit the P1 after it was attached to the port side of the S0 Truss. Expedition Five returned to Earth on Endeavour, wrapping up a six-month stay in space. Following the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle fleet was grounded. Four crew exchanges have occurred since then using Soyuz spacecraft instead of Shuttles. NASA is targeting no earlier than Spring 2005 for Shuttle's Return to Flight with Discovery flying for STS-114. Ok, STS-113 in 2002, crash in 2003, now the next one is STS-114? What is the designation for the one that crashed? Is it only counted if it lands? Not Flamebait, just curious. Did the other crash not count?

Re:Didn't count?

[BigGerman]

Is it because Columbia was not going to the station?
The thing is it would have not even been able to reach station's orbit. Columbia belonged to the museum and not to the launch pad. I wonder what was the point of having a space station AND STILL sending Columbia on a "stand-alone" mission?

Re:Didn't count?

[Anonymous Coward]

STS-107 was the last Columbia flight, which crashed.
The mission had been planned for a long time, but quite a few missions with higher numbers seem to have moved ahead in the priority list.

Re:Didn't count?

[nbehary]

I think it's more because that mission, STS-107, had been delayed several times. If you look back, a lot of the missions were flown out of order. And 107 was always purely scientific, so Columbia was a "good" choice, since the mission didn't need to go to ISS.

Re:Didn't count?

[Bad Vegan]

If I recall (brother of a good friend is an astronaut), the flights are numbered when they are scheduled and sometimes the schedule changes, but the numbers don't. Think of it like a project plan, with each task given a separate number. The task may move within the overall schedule, but to make sure you're all referring to the same task you use the "absolute" number assigned, even if it's out of order with numbers of tasks that occur before it in "relative" terms. Man, I just used way too many characters to explain that.

Re:Didn't count?

[B747SP]

The Challenger incident (you Americans like to call it 'disaster' apparently!) was mission STS-51-L. The Columbia incident was mission STS-107.

AFAICS, NASA assigns a new mission number pretty much every time someone gets it in his head that it would be a good idea to fly a mission to achive "x". In practice, not all missions that are assigned numbers actually fly - some get canned for various reasons. Missions don't necessarily fly in numerical order. Various reasons - delays, political expediency, changing degrees of importance, readiness of payload, crew, shuttle to fly, etc, etc, cause missions to occur out of sequence sometimes.

Re:Didn't count?

[tmortn]

Also the reason those 'pure science' missions remained for columbia were two fold. ONE, as mentioned it couldn't take much payload to ISS orbit due to its heavier design weight as the first orbiter. TWO, it provided a science environment we were in charge of... unlike station which is an international effort.

Those science only missions for Shuttle should have been rolled into the ISS program and the shuttle fleet dedicated to its design specific task of supporting a space station. For those with short memories, Shuttle was in fact largely designed to support skylab and other as yet unconstructed space stations. Not to run as a science platform itself. The orbital payload delivery/recovery abilities are that of a support vehicle that was expected to spend minimal time in orbit and have a quick turn around. This was opposed to say the long mission durations desireable by a science facility. The payload bay science lab was a direct result of the shuttle program failing to get off the ground in time to save skylab from burning up in re-entry. When that happend they developed the science lab 'payload' and turned shuttle into an ad hoc orbital science facility that could only operate for a couple weeks at a time.

As things worked out a new station design didn't get off the drawing boards till the late 90's with the start of building the ISS. This means shuttles interim adhoc science ability has been utilized for far longer than it was even thought a shuttle would last. At least in terms of years. None of the shuttles have even come close to the end of the designed life cycle of 100 or so missions. Hell the whole program itself didn't pass 100 missions till 2001. So now almost everyone thinks it is a bad thing that shuttle only exists to go to station when in fact that was the whole idea to begin with.

Re:Didn't count?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a disaster, pal.

Incident is a euphamism.

Both of these 'incidents' were not freak accidents or examples of chaos.

They were totally preventable, generally the result of bureaucratic problems.

Unfortunately, so much about this crap is political. I wonder if we'll see a more modern space vehicle. If not after the Columbia disaster, then when? What the hell?

Re:Didn't count?

[nbehary]

True. It's really a question of what is now (or was in 2003) and what was intended. The reality was that all that you mentioned fell apart, and the shuttle was used for science. I wasn't really questioning your assertion that it shouldn't have been so, only pointing out that it was so. Now, as it stands, with 2 destroyed shuttles, and not a single left in the fleet that can't dock with the ISS, I agree that's all we should be doing, and getting away from using them at all as soon as possible.

Re:Didn't count?

[tmortn]

Eh I can't say I think they shouldn't have been used for science missions at the time. Just pointing out that using them as such was far from what they were designed for... and most of their limitations as a science platform were founded in the fact the thing just wasn't designed to be used that way. That it was used that way for so long does not mean it is now a good science platform or that it was a good use of shuttle. It just means it was a shelter in a storm. It is what was available at the time. All things considered they got alot out of them, but it was a jury rig system none the less.

I just think that once we got back to the idea of building a permanent platform for science that we should have dedicated the fleet to do that and trimmed any excess. That didn't happen for largely political reasons and the nail in the coffin of the idea was that columbia couldn't get to ISS orbit with much of a payload (it did dock at station one time and was scheduled to do so again after a diet program refit). So at that point the question was whether to mothball, strip it of excess weight, or continue to fly what we had planned YEARS before even though it made little sense with a partially online ISS facility that was STARVED for science work. In the end it was supposed to fly that last fatefull science lab mission, then be stripped of any excess weight that could be stripped then used for a couple of oddball missions to speed up core complete and finally, mothballed.

Of course hindsight is 20/20 and it seemed harmless enough to just let the inertia of the planned missions peter out. Only reason I say anything about it at all is I said many times before STS-107 that the science missions that were still happening after the activation of ISS in 2001 were a waste and a distraction to what NASA said was its primary goal for manned missions. The one exception in my book was Columbia's earlier mission to service Hubble. That was a real mission and real reason not to use shuttle in support of furthering ISS at the time.

But I am not saying that would have prevented columbia or anything... well other than mothballing it (but that would mean that ET would have been used on another orbiter and we might be three orbiters down now). It probably just would have fireballed on an ISS mission, or perhaps the now defunct hubble mission. Either of which would have had more meaning in my eyes than running one last make work shuttle science mission.

Re:Didn't count?

[Jivecat]

If you think flying missions out of numerical order is confusing, you'll love the numbering system NASA used for the 10th thru 25th launches. Take Challenger as an example, 51-L. The 5 was the intended year of launch, 1985, even though the flight was moved into January 1986. The 1 stands for the launch site, KSC, even though the SLC-6 pad at Vandenberg AFB in California (site 2) was never completed. The L gives the flight order for that year, so it was intended as the 12th launch of 1985, but even if it had launched that year it would have only been the 10th flight. Fortunately this system is one of the things they reconsidered during the '86-'88 hiatus. Then as now, they attach a mission number to a particular flight in the early planning stages and never change it. Imagine the gigantic piles of documentation that would need to be rewritten if they did.

Re:How far behind?

[ari_j]

And when I was in high school we learned about what a lazy bunch of bastards everyone was in the 80s. ;)

Hopy they have..

[Zeussy]

Hope they have good insurance. Not just 3rd Party, Fire and Theft.

Re:Hopy they have..

[StratoChief66]

Lol, theft insurance? Well, maybe the Russians or Chinese...

Far Behind...!?!?!?

[furiousgeorge]

>>I have to wonder, how far behind is the space station at this point?

Behind? It doesn't do anything! There hasn't been a single useful scientific thing produced with the billions that have been pumped into that flying white elephant.

Seriously - you should look into it. It's a flying joke but NASA keeps pouring good money after bad for why knows why...

And yet Hubble is going to be dropped into the ocean, monitoring of the Voyageur probes is being cancelled, and we're thinking about sending people to the moon?!? Jesus christ. NASA is such a joke.

Re:Far Behind...!?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when you put bureaucrats in charge of "science" (note the quotie marks).

Re:Far Behind...!?!?!?

[Vellmont]

Behind? It doesn't do anything! There hasn't been a single useful scientific thing produced with the billions that have been pumped into that flying white elephant.


Very true, but to be fair it hasn't done anything because it isn't completed. They don't have enough room for crew to both take care of maintenance, and do any experiments.

I'm still not certain there will be any science that'll ever come out of it. But I'd love someone to show me otherwise.

Re:Far Behind...!?!?!?

[TheKidWho]

how about leaving the science to the scientists and not some trolls on slashdot?

mkay, thanks!

Re:Far Behind...!?!?!?

[WillAffleckUW]

Behind? It doesn't do anything! There hasn't been a single useful scientific thing produced with the billions that have been pumped into that flying white elephant.

I got modded down for pointing out most taxpayers and scientists care far more about the Hubble telescope than they do about the Big Govt Boondoggle which is the space station.

Face it, real scientists care about useful things, not PR ops that do nothing.

Re:Far Behind...!?!?!?

[Bit_Squeezer]

What stinks in a few days? What breaks? What doesnt? Is Micro G any excuse for not having a floor? What is forgotten planning even a 6 month trip? Better to learn in orbit than out Phobo's way. I would love to be able to point to the moon or Mars and tell my Grandaughter there are people there. I dont give a damn if they spend their time counting rocks.

Re:Far Behind...!?!?!?

[antispam_ben]

Very true, but to be fair it hasn't done anything because it isn't completed. They don't have enough room for crew to both take care of maintenance, and do any experiments.

I'm afraid if they had more room on that thing they would need MORE crewmembers to take care of the extra maintenance!

Re:Far Behind...!?!?!?

[timeOday]

how about leaving the science to the scientists and not some trolls on slashdot?

Sure, so long as they don't ask for any tax money.

Re:Far Behind...!?!?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't recall the trolls on slashdot managing to detonate two shuttles. I think they look like good candidates when the contract's back up for re-compete. Oh, wait, this is a bueracratic monopoly...

With good reason

[AtariAmarok]

" monitoring of the Voyageur probes is being cancelled"

Monitoring of this was cancelled years ago, dude. Everyone had long since gotten tired of Janeway's "Stevie Nicks but can't sing" voice and Neelix's makeup that made him look just like Ron Howard.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:About time. Not really a joke

[EmbeddedJanitor]

If you're from USA, you **are** paying. Well, perhaps more precisely you aren't paying but just charging it to future generations along with the rest of thefFederal debt.

The Payload's Names

[camusflage]

From TFA: There are three MPLMs (Multi-Purpose Logistics Module), named Raffaello, Leonardo and Donatello.

What, Michaelangelo didn't deserve top billing? I'll bet it was the orange bandanna.. What about Krang? I'm just glad to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the air again!

Re:About time. Not really a joke

[TheKidWho]

Yes and you are also give those future generations a chance to make it big in space. And get filthy rich while they are at it.

Core Complete

[J05H]

This Station has two theoretical "finishes": Core Complete and a more nebulous Assembly Complete. Originally, the station (Reagan's Freedom) was to be finished in 1994, then 1998, then it got redesigned. It has only gotten more complicated since then. It may be like Fusion power and Commodore's release schedules - station will always be finished 10 years from now.

At this point, it really depends on what you define "Core Complete" as.

There are some potential roadblocks toward getting the European Columbus, Japanese Kibo and the US Centrifuge flown. NASA is already looking at mothballing the first two (finished) modules and not building the Centrifuge. The Shuttle has been having groundings for various reasons since the late 90s (maintenance, fuel line cracks and Columbia RIP) - there is no guarantee that the fleet can fly through 2010.

It's time to stop talking about "The Space Station" and start talking about space stations. Bigelow Aerospace is about to one-up the X-Prize with the America's Space Prize and their Nautilus inflatable stations. They want to sell the final modules to any party that can afford one, all backed up by a billionaire with some Vision. The idea of the One True Space Dock is so Cold War. We are quickly approaching a new age of exploration and human frontiers, companies like Scaled, Bigelow, SpaceDev and SpaceX are going to enable this. NASA needs to stop doing operations and get on with exploring, or their going to get swept aside -- lead, follow or get out of the way.

Re:Core Complete

[tmortn]

Very very good points. Almost wish I hadn't been posting so I could mod you up.

Also can't say I disagree with the mothballing. Without the already scrapped Crew Hab, if we launch COF and JEM we will have one lab per Crew. And if the Russians actually built their facility we would have more labs than crew. Considering that as is it takes about 2.5 crew to run maintenence we might have more maintence hours than crew time available unless they don't sleep.

If they want to do this I think NASA should be all over those inflatable habs. Hell it is their idea to begin with and this guy has gone and built them. Try one out. If it works BAM, crew hab or if nothing else it might provide a space for tourists and solve the probelm of NASA getting its panties in a wad whenever the Russians sell a seat on a Soyuz flight.

May 15th?

[RonBurk]

The hot-linked phrase "scheduled launch for STS-114" took me to a page that nowhere claims that May 15th is the scheduled launch date. Now I am left to wonder whether "Zonk" really found a declared launch date, or just confused the first day of the launch window (which does start on May 15th) with an actual statement that NASA is now targeting that specific day.

Re:May 15th?

[ari_j]

The key is to have enough Americans in space at the time of the riots that, after everyone down here dies, they can return to Earth and repopulate the planet. Because sex in space is far more interesting than star wars have become.

Yay!

[SweenyTod]

Damn good to hear it's back flying.

I remember waking up one morning back in 1983 and hearing the DJ going "and more about the shuttle disaster in the 7:30 news". After a few minutes it clicked "What shuttle disaster?" and then the day got real bad. Flying is where the shuttle belongs, not in some hanger or museum. Go NASA!

Re:Yay!

[sconeu]

Dude, you need more coffee...

Shuttle disasters were in 1986 and 2003. There was no space disaster in 1983.

Re:Yay!

[sconeu]

OK, you might consider the Ewoks a space disaster (since Star Wars is space opera), but it still wasn't a *SHUTTLE* disaster.

Re:Yay!

[StratoChief66]

Would have been funny if he really heard a guy on the radio say that in 1983 though. It'd be great if later he said, "Just kidding guys, a real Shuttle crash would be horrifying and I'm sure it will never happen."

Re:Yay!

[SweenyTod]

Hmm, quite right.

After 15 years it all kind of blurs. :)

Re:Yay!

[chronos82]

Not that they made public anyway... *tinfoil hat mode on*

Re:Anonymous Coward

[StratoChief66]

have you looked at your backyard in black and white with strange men bouncing around in it dressed in crazy suits planting a flag with a green screen behind them? If so, no wonder you post as an AC.

Still has uses...

[spagetti_code]

If we cannot build and maintain a space station, we will have no chance at flying to Mars, establishing a base on the Moon, or even just living safely outsite the Van Allen belt.

The Space Station has taught us a lot, including:

• How to live in space
• How triple component redundancy may not be enough with current technology.
• How we don't have a safe and reusable way to fly there yet

On top of that, the occasional experiment is done there too.

Again - if we can't get this right, whats the chance of living on the moon or mars in our lifetime?

Re:Still has uses...

[Altima(BoB)]

On top of all that, it's a superb launching point for the mass exodus of the rich and famous to the Illuminati's colony on Planet X when the engineered Bird Flu virus becomes a pandemic.

But really, despite stupid jokes made at 2:30am, I think that research on extended stays in zero G are practically essential for the future of the spacefaring human race. In zero G, the structure of bone itself begins to weaken and deteriorate along with muscle atrophy due to the sheer ease of movement in zero G. The reason we've had no problems with that is because no one has really stayed in space for all that long. Any trip to another planet (Probably Mars, certainly anything further) will have definite health risks for all crew involved once they come under the influence of gravity again. On top of that, I think psychological studies on the ISS would be valuable, because of the rather unique environment there. Even though human beings have explored in less-than-comfortable vessels before, the kind of physical and mental isolation in space must be fairly unique, and I'd imagine it would be a huge pressure for anyone up there too long.

Anyway, whatever research the ISS has or hasn't done in the past, we can't forget its potential, and for me the most fascinating potential is studying Space's relationship with the human body and mind.

Re:Still has uses...

[Minna Kirai]

If we cannot build and maintain a space station,

True, but it is a fallacy to assume that building and maintaining the ISS does anything to improve our ability to build a functioning station. Instead, I claim that it is diverting funds from R&D investment prerequisite to even making the attempt.

The Space Station has taught us a lot, including:

First, there is no such thing as "The Space Station".

How to live in space

Space survival isn't especially difficult. We'd already deduced the needs on earth, and we'd already seen them tested on Mir. New data from the ISS: zero.

How we don't have a safe and reusable way to fly there yet

Even a back-of-envelope analsys of the Space Shuttle in 1971 could've proved that to the satisfaction of any rational observer.

If I drive my car off a bridge, that'll teach me that it won't fly. Even though that's something I should've been able to imagine on my own, at $50,000, it will have been a more cost-effective than the ISS.

Re:Still has uses...

[Minna Kirai]

Even though human beings have explored in less-than-comfortable vessels before, the kind of physical and mental isolation in space must be fairly unique, and I'd imagine it would be a huge pressure for anyone up there too long.

I can rent a few shipping containers for $800 and produce an equivalently isolated environment for your human subjects- all at a sliver of the cost, and with 98.5% less volunteer mortality!

Re:Still has uses...

[meringuoid]

How to live in space

Because we've never had three people inhabiting a space station for long periods before...

The Russians found out how to live in space long ago. They also found out that it's a good idea to be really careful when docking cargo ships, but that's another story...

Re:About time. Not really a joke

[rapidweather]

A prespective from someone born before WWII:

The idea that we could go to the moon was considered by some as being too much of a technical challenge, that just too many things could go wrong. I then watched on tv as the first moon landing was made. After that, I assumed that the government would always have enough money to explore space, put up a space station. In the 40's and 50's, the space shuttle in it's present form was not expected, or put forth in the ideas of what the future of space travel would be like. Buck Rogers had a spaceship that looked like a real space ship. I had expected the first powered space ship would go beyond Earth, to at least the Moon. The Apollo craft were shot into space, and guided themselves into place around the moon, using small rockets, with no comparison to the power of the Space Shuttle rocket motors. One would think that the Space Shuttle could go out far beyond the Moon, just for the fun of it, but with nothing there to see or do, then no mission.

Even so, the Space Shuttle is an amazing vehicle, and has had a long and dangerous history, now to continue for a while longer. Fixing the Hubble telescope was one of the good moments, how cool that was. Concerning the Shuttle accidents, I suppose we did always expect space ships to be destroyed, but by enemy alien spacecraft, death rays, or something. The idea of a space ship that would have design flaws, or push the limits of their design, was not commonly entertained. Most of what we kids knew came from comic books, so the idea of orbiting satellites was not even there, or the lumbering space truck that the Space Shuttle seems to resemble, wasn't in comic books either.

Too bad that there is so little of the national budget spend on space exploration, we all wanted "men on mars" by now.

No one needs to take the Shuttle Program for granted, it is one of a kind, and one wonders if funding will be available for something to take it's place.

May 15th?

[Dirtside]

It's no coincidence that they're taking off four days before Episode III premieres. They don't want to risk being killed in the Nerd Riots of '05 should Lucas screw the pooch once again.

Space station not about PR

[bluGill]

It is important to remember when talking about the space station that science and PR are not important. Most important is keeping smart ex-soviet rocket scientists from heading to some evil country (North Korea for example) where they would develop ICBMs in exchange for food. A secondary goal is to bring home the port for the more powerful politicians.

Science is just a handy cover. Every once in a while some is done too, but it isn't the goal and should not be expected, though of course those who care will take what we can get.

Re:Space station not about PR

[WillAffleckUW]

It is important to remember when talking about the space station that science and PR are not important. Most important is keeping smart ex-soviet rocket scientists from heading to some evil country (North Korea for example) where they would develop ICBMs in exchange for food. A secondary goal is to bring home the port for the more powerful politicians.

Sad, but true. But most are already working in other such countries anyway, so it's still a boondoggle. You could employ ten times as many if you just funded some research programs that did more useful things.

Science is just a handy cover. Every once in a while some is done too, but it isn't the goal and should not be expected, though of course those who care will take what we can get.

Ah, but since it's my taxes, it's my goal.

Re:Space station not about PR

[Minna Kirai]

Most important is keeping smart ex-soviet rocket scientists from heading to some evil country

If that's the goal, it's far from reaching it.

But anyway, that's not really important at all. Rockets are a poor method of striking the USA. Almost any payload can be delivered more cheaply, reliably, and secretly by a commando team than by an ICBM- especially for a cash-poor nation like NK.

Behind schedule

[Yeechang Lee]

Let's see.

Von Braun station, 1952

ISS, 2005

Yes, we are behind schedule

Re:Behind schedule

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that today, thanks to the endless proliferation of the university-as-entry-level scam, people need a bachelor's and two master's to work on a freaking suitcase. By the time you're done with all that bullshit, you're OLD and have plebian concerns in life, rather than YOUTH and TIME TO DREAM.

Re:Through

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

Can Slasdot posters no longer type out whole words?

LOL, OMFG. For all you irony police out there, does slasdot in the above sentence qualify?

Shuttle Launch a Harbinger

[iamghetto]

There is an infamous remote viewer by the name of Major Ed Dames who predicted that the relauch of the shuttle may soon be a harbinger of some serious danger on earth.

For those that don't know, remote viewing was something that was started by the U.S. government under the name "Project Stargate" where they essentially trained people to be "psychic". Basically, they could remotely view any location/time from with in their minds eye, if you will.

Anyways, Major Ed Dames was an early member of Project Stargate, and has made a number of predictions of varying accuracy. But just yesterday, a prediction he made came true. He predicted that another large earthquake (around 8 richter) would hit indonesia before the end of March. Sure enough, it just happened. It could've been a well-informed or lucky guess. I tend to think he genuinely remote viewed the event however.

That said Remote Viewing is far from 100% accurate. Those in it claim about 80%-90% accuracy, I'd say its closer to 40%.

Regardless, a while back he predicted that the shuttle would be re-commisioned, and on one of its launches it would be grounded due to meteor activitiy. The events he claims that will shortly follow that event, are nothing short of cataclysmic. In short, the earths magnetic field weakens leaving earth susceptible to violent solar flare strikes.

To say the least, I take any and all things "remote viewed" with a grain of salt. But the fact is, he was right about the Indonesian earthquake, and one of his next predictions was about the shuttle being grounded. If the shuttle gets grounded, I'm going to be a little bit nervous.

I'm not a big Ed Dames fan myself, and before last night I just basically viewed him as a source of entertainment. Lets hope for all of us it stays that way. :)

Re:Shuttle Launch a Harbinger

[Anonymous Coward]

For the record though, I would like to make it clear that in Ed Dames' video "The Killshot" states that this event can take place during ANY shuttle mission and not necessarily the "next" one.

Since the shuttle is scheduled to be decommissioned within the next 5 years, it is logical that this event must take place within that time period.

If you are about the Killshot, get more information at www.TheKillshot.com

Just a fan of Major Dames
Mr. Miller

Re:Shuttle Launch a Harbinger

[meringuoid]

He predicted that another large earthquake (around 8 richter) would hit indonesia before the end of March. Sure enough, it just happened. It could've been a well-informed or lucky guess. I tend to think he genuinely remote viewed the event however.

I tend to think he got it the same way as John McCloskey of the University of Ulster.

Reported on in the New Scientist a few weeks ago, and based on similarities with the plate tectonics of other major earthquakes, he warned that a quake of ~8.5 might hit Indonesia within a few months of Boxing Day.

Of course, your man might have been remote viewing. But, like most psychics, if that's so then he did it the hard way...

Re:Shuttle Launch a Harbinger

[iamghetto]

This guy made his prediction in the first half of January. I really don't put too much stock in remote viewing (it's not really the same as being psychic), for the most part its hit and miss. But some people of them have more hits than misses, and he appeared to right on this one. I'm just hoping a shuttle launch never gets grounded because the heavens are over active. :)

Re:About time. Not really a joke

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

As a child of the 80's I feel the same way to some extent. However, space travel is still a very new technology. To compare it to nautical development, the sail was just developed last week, and as yet we haven't even left the harbor..

Relevant Feynman Quote(1/50failure*2boosters=1/25)

[LouisvilleDebugger]

Here's what Feynman had to say back in 1986. In response to a comment I read about 1/50 meaning that we're unlikely to have another shuttle accident before the fleet is retired, remember that there's two SRBs, so 1/50 failure rate translates to 1/25. STS-51L (the doomed 1986 Challenger flight) was the 25th launch. See also the Gambler's Fallacy.

An estimate of the reliability of solid rockets was made by the range safety officer, by studying the experience of all previous rocket flights. Out of a total of nearly 2,900 flights, 121 failed (1 in 25). This includes, however, what may be called, early errors, rockets flown for the first few times in which design errors are discovered and fixed. A more reasonable figure for the mature rockets might be 1 in 50. With special care in the selection of parts and in inspection, a figure of below 1 in 100 might be achieved but 1 in 1,000 is probably not attainable with today's technology. (Since there are two rockets on the Shuttle, these rocket failure rates must be doubled to get Shuttle failure rates from Solid Rocket Booster failure.)

Feynman's Appendix to the Rogers Commission Report on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident

Re:How far behind?

[_Sprocket_]

Hehe, when I was in elementary school I remember hearing about how great the space station (then S.S. Freedom) was going to be when it was built.

One quick point - the S.S. Freedom never happened. ISS is not the same project.

Your parents also heard about space stations and space tourism. 2001: A Space Odyssey was the not-so-distant future. Yet here we are in 2005 and no massive orbiting space stations launching deep-space research projects. No flying cars either.

I saw "May 15" on CNN.COM, it MUST be true!

[antispam_ben]

A CNN.COM article, presumably based on a NASA press release, circa Feb. 15 (because I remember thinking it's gonna be [at least is planned for] three months from now), said the scheduled launch date was May 15.

A quick search on cnn.com shows this:
"NASA hoping for May 15 shuttle launch
But managers keeping door open for a slide in that date"
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/03/22/space.shu ttle/index.html

And the article I recall, actually dated Feb. 18:
"NASA plans Discovery launch May 15
(CNN) -- More than two years after losing the space shuttle Columbia and its seven crew, NASA said Friday it has set May 15 as its target date for once again launching shuttles into space."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/02/18/space.shu ttle/index.html

NBL

[JJ]

. . . maybe the Chinese will end up giving NASA the drive it needs to get a working space program. China's economy isn't on the rocks like the USSR during the space race so they would actually be able to compete with us.

China's space technology is virtually an exact copy of what they got from us due to their friendship with Bill Clinton. They haven't 'advanced' the tech one iota since he left office. They've completed projects they've had planned, but their science isn't on a par with NASA by a long shot.

Interesting "payload"...

[SeaDour]

Clicking the "the payload for the space station" link in the submission takes you to a page about Liliana Villarreal, with a prominent photo of her smiling in a clean suit.

All I'd like to know is, what sort of experiments are they planning to do with her, exactly? ;)

It did

[teval]

They all counted, it's per-mission.

The Columbia's crash was STS-107, because that particular mission was supposed to happen in 2001, but kept getting delayed.

Which should tell you how well construction of the ISS is going. They have new modules ready, but no means of launching them.

A shuttle crew picture that says it all

[cr@ckwhore]

... from the Stating The Obvious files, comes an image of the current shuttle crew and their affinity for their current location behind the shuttle.

http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/images/medium /0 5pd0490-m.jpg

URL Fixed

[cr@ckwhore]

image link because slashdot's filter wants to mangle this url, so click here to see the image

Re:About time. Not really a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

The space shuttle SRBs and main engine have a combined thrust of 26,000,000N + 5,300,000 N = 31,300,000N, while the Saturn V has a combined thrust of the first, second and third stages of 33.4 MN + 5 MN + 1 MN = 39.4 MN, so the space shuttle is a little over 3/4 the total thrust of the Saturn V.

From:
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/Stave rieBoundo uris.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V

How a colony would benefit man

[colonist]

Colony = Humankind and life beyond Earth

Re:How a colony would benefit man

[Mant]

Unless the colony is self-sufficient that doesn't really help much, if anything happens to Earth the coloney is screwed as well.

Re:How a colony would benefit man

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Colony = Humankind and life beyond Earth

And this is a good thing?

Perhaps we should try fixing what we have rather than fucking up elsewhere.

Re:Relevant Feynman Quote(1/50failure*2boosters=1/

[fname]

That number is way off today. Since Challenger, the whole Solid Rocket Motor industry has improved their practices to greatly increase safety. For example, since Challenger, there have been about 90 succesful shuttle flights with 2 solids each. The GEM-40s used on Delta IIs have been flown succesful on 99 flights (unsuccesfully on 1). There are typically 9 GEM-40s on a Delta II, and there have been close to 800 flown succesfully and one failure. That's a LOT better than 1/25 or 1/100. There were some problems with other programs, but the point is that a well-designed solid rocket motor can achieve a success of nearly 99.9%.

Behind? No, no...

[MattHaffner]

The ISS is right on target delivering pork rolls wrapped in shiny foil to the right congressional districts.

So, When's the Tether-boost Upgrade Planned?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, with the Space Tether and a few thousand watts of solar-panel provided juice backed by a pair or two of flywheels, , the station could possibly be self-lofting. Maybe tack on a few more solar arrays, make the damn thing useful as a solar power satellite testbed.

Re:About time. Not really a joke

[Minna Kirai]

The idea of a space ship that would have design flaws, or push the limits of their design, was not commonly entertained.

How very true! Indeed, it was because of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon that the gargantuan design flaw named "Space Shuttle" came into being.

If those scifi serials hadn't taught a young Richard Nixon that spaceships were meant to be flown by men, we wouldn't have had this expensive albatross diverting so much money from real advancement.

odd..

[schotter]

I'd love to someday be able to point to the Earth and tell my granddaughter there are people there.

Some ticked-off Astronauts

[Johnny Fusion]

If I were an Astronaut my first thought would be, "Finally we are getting back into space!" Quickly followed by, "Oh crap I am gonna miss the midnight showing of STAR WARS!"

Re:Some ticked-off Astronauts

[Anonymous Coward]

hence why you're not an astronaut... dumbass

MPLM names

[Vexar]

I like how they named all the modules after the different Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Too bad they left out Michaelangelo! Cowabunga, NASA.

They're making a BIG mistake!!

[IdJit]

They need to think about pushing the launch date back to April 28th, the main reason being the scheduled demolition of Earth on the 29th.

Idjit @ NASA Langley Research Center

Pussies.

[Thud457]

Hey, a 17-year MTB(C)F should be good enough for anybody!

(Yes, I understand these failures were made catastrophic failures by NASA management.)

everybody wins a medal!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a goddamned special olympics in space!

Re:About time. Not really a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

If those scifi serials hadn't taught a young Richard Nixon that spaceships were meant to be flown by men , we wouldn't have had this expensive albatross diverting so much money from real advancement.

So you are saying the shuttles would be more cost effective if they were flown by women?*;) Seriously though, I've never bought into whole human space exploration vs. robotic exploration idelogical wars. They both have an important place in an effective space program.

--------
*Yes I know there has been at least one (and I think couple more) female shuttle pilot, that's what makes the sentence humorous to me.

Re:Near miss

[Jivecat]

Maybe they were talking about the fire during the attempted launch of Soyuz T-10 that destroyed the rocket, the cosmonauts only escaping because the Soyuz has a launch escape system, a rocket that pulled the spacecraft clear of the inferno.

Ah, no... American press couldn't care less about Russian space accomplishments.

jackass woo woos

[Thud457]

Isn't "Major Ed Dames" one of the woo woos that "scientifically remote viewed" a reptillian battlefleet hiding behind the Hale-Bopp comet that some people took a little to seriously?(http://web.archive.org/web/200402171055 19/http://www.heavensgate.com/index.html) (Or was that "Dr. Courtney Brown"?)

NB - slashdot's idiotic anti-troll measures fuck up display of links into the internet archive. The link itself works correctly. Silly asses.

Re:Near miss

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they were talking about the fire during the attempted launch of Soyuz T-10 that destroyed the rocket, the cosmonauts only escaping because the Soyuz has a launch escape system, a rocket that pulled the spacecraft clear of the inferno.

Ah, no... American press couldn't care less about Russian space accomplishments.

Granted, but NASA used similar systems on most if not all of their capsules (Mercury through Apollo). You don't hear about them because they were never needed in an actual mission. A non-event is usually non-news in any contry.

Moderation

[nbehary]

I can't believe I'm saying this, but to whoever moderated this up to +5 Informative, did you read the ensuing comments? tmortn's responses are much more informative than everthing I wrote. Yeah, I may have deserved a point or 2, but his still are at +4 and +3, and they are way better. (I really can't believe I'm complaining about my first +5......)

Re:About time. Not really a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

Old people are dumb; Isn't there some highway you could be blocking by driving 45mph Grampa? Who let this guy out of the home? Buck Rogers? Jesus, did you forget to take your alzheimer's meds?

Re:Shuttle Launch a Harbinger - Ed Dames ...

[Anonymous Coward]

There aren't any remote viewers who claim better
than 66%, and usually entire teams of viewers are
used, each isolated from the others ( double blind ) ...
Ed Dames trained me and 1000s of others after STAR GATE, and it is a good tool, but not the
ONLY tool out there ;-)

http://astoriamovies.com - some missing stories
http://psychicspy.org - a dairy of Yahoo readings
http://psychicspy.com - the origional resource site

RADIOMAN