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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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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.

ISS Schedule

[caryw]

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/assembly/
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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.

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.

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.

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

[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.

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?

[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?

[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. ;)

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.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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: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.

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!

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: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.

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: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: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?

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..

How a colony would benefit man

[colonist]

Colony = Humankind and life beyond Earth

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: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."