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The Shuttle Mission No One Wants
Fourmica writes "USA Today (by way of TechNewsWorld) has a surprisingly insightful look at the planned 'rescue option' for Discovery's upcoming launch. The plan, which has been mentioned here before, is to have the crew hole up on the ISS until Atlantis can launch to bring them home. My question is, why shove everyone into the ISS? Why not just dock with it, and share the life support supplies between the two systems, instead of cramming everyone into the station?" See this earlier story on the same topic.
Because the shuttle is only a supported flight platform for a very narrow range of parameters on a given mission. Yes, even with all the contingencies. We *know* the ISS is a predictable, stable environment, as opposed to a failed shuttle (whatever the failure is) requiring extended docking with the ISS.
Therefore, living in cramped quarters for a while and losing/abandoning a shuttle is far desirable to potentially losing a shuttle due to yet-unknown circumstances, *and* the ISS, and all of the occupants of both.
Better cramped and (relatively) safe than comfortable and (perhaps) sorry, no matter how remote the chances of a catastrophic event caused by unknown/unmanageable failures, even on orbit.
Finally - jokes aside - wouldn't you think NASA knows at least marginally what it's doing here?
Or maybe they can use...
...the *military shuttle*!! (Hello, WW fans.)
Easy, it's the lack of Fuel.
The combined mass will use more fuel to maintain orbit.
I thought they were retiring the shuttle program? Personally I am to the point where these shuttle flights are a big waste of money "if" they are not doing anything innovative to help the next breed of space capable crafts.
They may hate the shuttle but due to the short sightedness of the last few administrations they have no other viable space lift vehicle available. And they have contractual obligations on the International Space Station. The poor Russians (bankrupt as they are) are pulling more than their share and might get fed up soon if NASA doesnt start pulling its weight. After all the Russian part of the ISS is built independently. They can just close the doors and jettison all the US modules.
Sounds good to me. It ain't like this shit is rocket science
What does it tell you about the state of NASA when it takes Burt Rutan 4 days to get his ship back into orbit, while it takes NASA two years? Granted, the Shuttles goes into a much higher orbit, and carries a lot more payload, but the difference is still ridiculous.
Despite the fact that there are many extremely smart and talented people at NASA, it, like every bureaucracy, has become an entrenched special interest, more concerned with preserving its budget than in actually moving the cause of space flight forward. The Space Shuttle, no matter how many times it has been retrofitted, is still 1970s technology. It's hideously expensive to launch and requires a vast support army to operate. But that vast support army is precisely why it exists. The space shuttle exists to serve the International Space Station. The International Space Station exists to be serviced by the space shuttle. Both provide lots of aerospace industry jobs and this is, in fact, their primary function. Turf and caution have become the watchwords at the highest echelons of NASA, who are more concerned with protecting their bureaucratic empire than moving the exploration and colonization of space forward. The shuttle monopoly has strangled the development of alternative launch vehicles, something the X Prize has only partially offset. A lot of people had predicted we'd not only have launched a manned mission to Mars by now, but set up a colony. See any sign of that?
Until there's a serious shakeup among the upper echelons of NASA bureaucrats, expect for the U.S. manned space program to creep along rather than soaring.
The shuttles are masterpeices of engineering.... circa 1980. Unfortunatly they invested $$$ in a short production run vehicle that seems to still serve the original purpose. If you were to start building one new replacement it would take a long time and cost big bucks.
If they were to start off with a new design they could apply modern techniques/materials to create a lighter, stronger, more reliable system (i.e. a carbon monocot frame, carbon heat shield skin, computers that have more than 640k of ram, etc)
After working out the kinks on paper they could build a few dozen (price per unit should go down with increased volume) and launch more regularly. But then again, I'm just smoking crack here, NASA will never see that kind of budget again. Unless we can convience the public that Bin Laden is camped out in his secret moonbase.
NASA has a good record of recovering after a tragedy.
If you take the Apollo program as an example, the very first Apollo mission was a disaster with three astronauts killed. And yet after that, the Apollo missions were great successes (although Apollo 13 was a close call, of course).
The Hubble Space Telescope was launched with a faulty mirror, but this was fixed and Hubble's become a great success, too.
This program will probably go the same way.
There's an easy solution to the funding problem. It normally would hurt to throw away a $3 billion shuttle, but not if you take the right precautions in advance.
Pass a law giving NASA the sole movie rights to the rescue mission.
That by itself won't even be enough to cover the cost. But wait... there are 293,027,571 Americans according to Google. At $10 a ticket, that pretty much covers it. But how do you get everyone to watch it?
Pass a law that revokes the citizenship of anyone who can't present the ticket stub for the movie on request.
I really need to get into policy work.
How many shuttles can dock with the ISS? If its one , do they draw straws to see who moves Discovery so Atlantis can dock?
The Russians seem to have started building their Kliper lifting body space craft.
Because the ISS is Russian-made and thus works, and the space shuttle is American-made, and thus is a POS.
(I am a proud yet frustrated US citizen.)
There is one simple reason for this decision. There is only one dock for the shuttle on the ISS. Therefore, they must remove the first shuttle before the second shuttle can launch. Until they have confirmation that Discovery is in the ocean, Atlantis will not launch.
My guess on the docking question would be that the Shuttle has a relatively short period where it's life support is designed to operate. While the shuttle is operating sufficently, that's fine, but once it's systems start failing (like, running short on power, oxygen, etc), then it's an additional load on the ISS.
Also, this sounds like a last resort choice, so they'd only be docking up once they're relatively close to running out of supplies.
Also, if I remember correctly, the shuttle's solar panels are deployed from the cargo bay, which would be impossible to deploy while docked with the ISS. At very least, it would make it impractical to move the shuttle into a more favorable attitude for good exposure to the sun.
Myself, if I knew I was floating around in a big tube in space, which was the only thing keeping me alive, leaving a big crippled airplane tied to the site through a narrow tube, I'd rather not keep the door open very long. If something happened, I'd rather it peacefully float away, rather than risking that narrow tube become a relatively big hole in the side of my big tube I called home.
When floating inside a helium balloon, avoid pins.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
If the shuttle's crew compartments are sufficient for long-term habitation, even if it requires borrowing power and such from the ISS, then wouldn't it make sense for the end of life plan be to leave them up there? Sure, they would need extra docking ports for the next generation system, but it might be a good way of providing more habitable space up there.
This is a kluge, made by the lowest bidder that would build facilities in favored politicians districts, hamstrung by bureaucrats and inane regulation at every turn. The design was loaded with "everything for everyone" until it was a miracle that if flew at all.
I admire the individual scientists and engineers that could make progress in this environment. No wonder they burn out at such a rate.
Scrap the entire system, sell off NASA to the highest bidders, and have done with it. Putting more lives at risk on those craft is pointless. Any private effort wouldn't be able to afford the liability insurance for craft like those, aren't you glad it's your tax money being spent to kill people instead?
If there is overwhelming support for such efforts, there is no need for taxes to taken at gun point to fund them. If the programs do not have such public support, there is no mandate for government to be doing it in the first place.
The ISS can only dock one shuttle at a time. Discovery would stay there, and be remotely undocked prior to Atlantis getting there.
Seems someone else has thought of this:
"If Discovery were damaged during launch or in orbit, Mission Control would determine whether the shuttle is capable of safely bringing the crew home. If not, the astronauts would be forced to take refuge aboard the space station and wait five weeks for Atlantis and its crew of four to come get them.
The damaged shuttle would have to be jettisoned before a rescue vehicle could arrive, because the station cannot accommodate two shuttles. Mission Control would command Discovery to unlock from the station and fire its steering jets, which would send the vehicle plunging down into the atmosphere. If all went as planned, the remnants would splash into the Pacific Ocean far from any land."
Perhaps because the shuttle may be too damaged to safely sustain life. For instance, what if there is a slow oxygen leak, or a damaged fuel valve/line venting vapors into the shuttle? I'm sure they planned for many contingencies- after all, they are NASA scientists, and we're not...
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
If I remember correctly, the Buran had the ability to land under remote control. Does the Shuttle have that ability? If the crew must ditch, it'd be neat to try to bring the Shuttle in with no one in it to see if it would make it or not.
Burt Rutan never got his ship into orbit. Not even close.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
rutan didn't go into orbit, that takes way more energy...
ISS is capable of receiving routine and emergency visits from automated Soyuz and Progress vehicles. They can stay up there indefinitely, get parts to fix the shuttle, etc. A shuttle can only really "doc" with the Science Lab.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Despite the fact that there are many extremely smart and talented people at NASA, it, like every bureaucracy, has become an entrenched special interest, more concerned with preserving its budget than in actually moving the cause of space flight forward. The Space Shuttle, no matter how many times it has been retrofitted, is still 1970s technology. It's hideously expensive to launch and requires a vast support army to operate. But that vast support army is precisely why it exists. The space shuttle exists to serve the International Space Station. The International Space Station exists to be serviced by the space shuttle. Both provide lots of aerospace industry jobs and this is, in fact, their primary function. Turf and caution have become the watchwords at the highest echelons of NASA, who are more concerned with protecting their bureaucratic empire than moving the exploration and colonization of space forward. The shuttle monopoly has strangled the development of alternative launch vehicles, something the X Prize has only partially offset. A lot of people had predicted we'd not only have launched a manned mission to Mars by now, but set up a colony. See any sign of that?
... (Analogy breaks down, stumble along for a few meaningless phrases, and amazingly recover) ... Both provide lots of IT jobs and this is, in fact, their primary function. Turf and caution have become the watchwords at the highest echelons of Microsoft, who are more concerned with protecting their marketshare than moving innovation forward. The Microsoft monopoly has strangled the development of alternative operating systems, something Linux/OSX has only partially offset. A lot of people had predicted we'd not only have complete server dominance, but also have cornered the desktop market. See any sign of that?
Doesn't that sound familiar? Despite the fact that there are many extremely smart and talented people at Microsoft, it, like every software behemoth, has become an entrenched special interest, more concerned with preserving its marketshare than in actually moving the cause of software forward. Windows, no matter how many times it has been renamed (DOS/95/98/NT/2k/ME/XP), is still 1980s technology. It's hideously expensive to run (vis-avis hardware) and requires a vast tech support staff to operate. But that vast support army is precisely why it exists. Windows exists to serve Microsoft.
Mind you, that last wouldn't be pretty, but this is already an emergency scenario. In such cases, people think way outside the box, equipment gets used for alternate purposes, and plans get modified. Sometimes literally.
Disclaimer: I am not an astronaut, I just work with one.//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
The shuttle is 1960's and 1970's technology. That's 40 years older than any present day efforts.
And the reason we're still using 1970's technology is that the cost of developing and deploying new technology has always been prohibatively more than the cost of making the 1970's technology continue to work.
It is only now that the cost of keeping the shuttle program going (or, more likely, not being able to keep it going with another loss of a shuttle) is beginning to appear prohibatively expensive in comparison to the cost of developing and deploying a new alternative.
The question is whether we can develop and deploy a new alternative before we're no longer able to maintain the current program.
It's looking pretty bleak.
paintball
This is /., so a sports analogy is probably wasted here, but it is a bit like the aging football player taking shots and hobbling through a season to prove he's not dead yet.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
FTA: By working around the clock seven days a week, technicians could have Atlantis -- which is scheduled to fly in July -- ready about a month after Discovery's liftoff. In such an emergency, NASA would consider setting aside some of the safety rules instituted after the Columbia accident. A requirement for good lighting conditions during launch, to ensure clear photos of liftoff, could be waived.
So, who would rescue the rescuers if something happens to Atlantis? Endeavour? And after that? I seriously hope it never comes to that, though. The whole world will be watching this, let's hope everything runs smoothly.
"wouldn't you think NASA knows at least marginally what it's doing here?"
No, NASA is terrified of losing life.
Along with too many Americans.
Here's the thing...when the 6 astonauts died in the last shuttle accident it was too bad. Terrible.
But...it was no more terrible than 6 anonymous people dieing in an accident on the interstate. Its the same thing morally.
In people's minds though, its worse...and it is, but mainly because of the loss of equipment. People are cheap and plentiful, shuttles are not.
And shame on NASA and the bureaucracy for not having the b*lls to find a nice way to say the truth.
So to answer your question, no, I don't think they use their best *scientific* judgement; they're concerned about image.
So, instead of spending the 80s and 90s designing better and more suited craft, they kept up the sham that the shuttle is the best way of getting stuff into space. If someone had had the balls to admit a mistake back then, things could have moved along a lot faster.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Why shove everyone into the ISS and why only a backuup shuttle for the next two launches? Because there is a life boat, it's docked with the ISS, or at least it will be, hopfully by the time flight three comes around. First it will free fall captules, later to be replaced by sort of a "mini shuttle" if it is ever finished.
Flamebait Turd.
Please...the unmanned missions are the only thing NASA does right. I wish they would break JPL off from NASA and force the manned program to do better.
I use to be a big supporter of NASA, back in the days of the 60's and 70's, but since the Challenger, I would rather they scrap the shuttle. It is just too much for the bloated idiots at NASA to keep running. The glory days of NASA are over. With tightning budgets, they just can't keep up. There is too much waste, as with most government run operations. There really isn't any accountability for them to do a good job. The guys on the line, for the most part, do a good job, but their management stinks. Go back to expendible launch vehicles
itself gets damaged during lift-off? Wouldn't it be safer/cheaper to use the Soyuz docked with the space station and send up a replacement?
Here come da fudge!
Which means that I'm obviously missing something. It probably has to do with the degree of 'wreckedness' of the shuttle.
Seriously though, if there's a good reason to not try to land it, I'm all ears.
-Holmes.
I thought this was supposed to replace the Shuttle.
No problems, only solutions
The original shuttle specs had a two week turnaround, with a launch every week or so. (Modulo my faulty memory since I remember looking at the specs before the first flight.)
It was also scheduled to be retired years ago. Heck, probably a decade ago by now.
Those original specs were never realistic, but a lot of the difficulties are because of the compromises required to serve many masters. E.g., the size of the cargo bay was mandated by the military (to hold their satellites), as was a large "cross-range" langing zone. The original design had a smaller cargo bay and much narrower wings.
As for bureaucratic side of your argument, check out the competition a few years ago. Several companies, including a guerilla team at McDonald Douglas (iirc), were invited to develop prototypes of the next generation shuttle. A lot of people were very enthusiastic about the guerilla effort - it was a basic system built atop proven technology, and it had already had several successful flights with fast turnaround.
NASA went with the sexiest, most unproven design that would require breakthroughs in something like three different technologies. I haven't heard anything about it since the competition.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Because this is exactly what they might need to do; remember, this is a contingency plan.
Much like there's a 'lifeboat' for the ISS, the ISS sort of becomes the lifeboat for the shuttle since it doesn't have its own. If a meteorite breaks one of the windows (happened before) and compromises the shuttle's cabin pressure (but not that), the shuttle will be useless.
But you're right in that it should be able to take advantage of the shuttle's system when docked, and I'm sure that's part of 'the plan' as well, and I'm sure it's been done in previous dockings with the station.
AC comments get piped to
that NASA is all pent up about sending the shuttle back into space with a feable backup plan when they sent a total of 33 men on 11 do-or-die Apollo missions. There was no recovery for a failed Apollo mission, it was fly or die. Funny how the Cold War seemed to convince many to accept much slimmer margins of error then are currently accepted.
Maybe the cold war was the best thing that ever happened to the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
Sometimes the old solutions are best. Instead of terrorists, though, who you definitely can not trust, how about criminals who have a reason to try to make reparations. Offer them a chance to work off their debt to society, the main cost being that (if current trends continue) approximately 1 in 50 will die. I'm talking about shooting them into space to handle all these NASA projects, of course. Society won't necessarily miss them if something goes wrong, but they've got a reason not to deliberately screw it up.
The only problem I see is that ordinary people like me might suddenly decide to rob a bank for the opportunity to go into space.
Looks like the lessons of history are forgotten. In large measures poor decisions led to previous disasters and this plan sets up a terrible situation for decision making.
In this new plan we end up with a terrible choice. Having discovered an anomaly, NASA will have to look at a that nick in a tile or little dent in a wing (things which they have just started inspecting in space) and decide:
1) proceed knowing that the shuttle might have a problem but will probably return OK though if it doesn't my ass is history or
2) bring a possibly unnecessary end to the entire shuttle program and likely my job with it.
This does not sound like a good scenario for decision making.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Granted, it wasn't the main fuel tank that sent foam shrapnel into the heat shield; but on Apollo 13 it wasn't a wire that had frayed that touched off a fire in a pure O2 environment.
The problem is that the shuttle program is the longest running manned space flight mission NASA's had. They used to call Columbia the 'grey haired lady' of the fleet, but really it was the 'well preserved mummy' of the fleet and the rest are hardly in better shape. Then they go and cancel shuttle replacement programs every time some congressmen passes wind.
It's time for a new platform.
"Ice-cream scoop?!?!"
"Dammit Smithers, this is brain surgery, not rocket science!"
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Some people think all you need for a good porn movie is a girl, a bed, and a room. And they're right. But for a great porn movie, you need a microgravity environment. NASA could simply fly a married couple into space, sell the resulting video, and have enough money left over for nine shuttle missions. Who wouldn't want to see that? At least once. My own mother would watch it.
The public sector has such prudish production values. I have a feeling that for quite some time we are going to have to settle for what private industry can offer- suborbital sex movies. Doesn't do it for me.
The shuttle can be auto guided to land by itself, so park , leave, go to ISS, then tell it to land, if it lands safely, then WOOHOOO, no probs. Then you can say, damn we overestimated the problem. Then shuttle#2 has to be 100% spot on.
;)
If they militarized it, we would have 15 grey shuttles
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Thunderbird 5!
Thunderbirds are GO!
What you need is a good ol' American space race, the ISS 500! The top 20 Shuttles painted in the colors of Pepsi, Home Depot, and Coors (don't drink and blast-off) orbiting around Earth for the top prize...
OK that'll be just fun. For real advances, you want to setup a Formula Space for the Europeans, where they don't just orbit but visit the moon and several asteroids. Those Europeans will upgrade the shuttle to 21st century tech in no time.
My question is, why shove everyone into the ISS? Why not just dock with it, and share the life support supplies between the two systems, instead of cramming everyone into the station?
I'm sure there's some NASA engineer reading this right now slapping his forehead and thinking, "Geez, why didn't we think of that."
And if you think that's really happening, give me some of what you're smoking. It's NASA. They've come up with about 2 billion scenarios and talked it back and forth. I'm guessing this one came up at some point and was dismissed. Hey, maybe not, but if not, NASA has truely fallen from its glory days in more ways than one.
Haha! Now that is funny enough I have to respond to it. When I think about it, it actually makes sense for you to call the development of technology designed to reduce collateral deaths "war mongering," because you're also in favor of the deaths of few dedicated, hard-working men and women with families. I'm all for keeping the Tomahawks inside their launch tubes, but if we need them, guiding them precisely with GPS sure beats carpet bombing Baghdad.
Next time, be a man and log in when you troll. The karma threat might make you think a little before you post.
I am sure the Russians would not refuse saving the American astronauts if it came to it. They could do it for the publicity only.
Isn't it cheaper and faster to launch a classical rocket like Soyuz than the Shuttle, esp. for cases like this ? Perhaps that should the developed as a backup plan.
It is amazing how far we are from Sci Fi movies, even ones that are supposed to represent very near future if not present. I'll just throw all my childhood dreams in the garbage :-)
As part of the CAIB recommendations / requirements, NASA and Lockheed have spent considerable time and money studying foam and ice impacts like they've never been studied before.
With the greatly improved cameras monitering this launch, all anomolous impacts from foam peeling off of the external tank and striking the orbiter will be evaluated by ground teams kept on standby throughout the mission. Using state-of-the art impact analysis codes, a decision will be made on whether the RCC panels and/or ceramic heat shields were hit hard enough to have sustained damage.
And to answer Timothy's question, the shuttle is not a comfortable place to live for more than 20 days. The longest shuttle mission ever was only 17 days. Living in the crew cabin on the shuttle is roughly equivilant to living inside of a chevy suburban with six of your closest friends. The batteries and CO2 scrubbers in shuttle would fail soon after 24 days. In short, the shuttle is a poor substitute for quarters on the ISS.
Life is pain. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.
Heat shield fails and shuttle rises above safe parameters.
Metals begin to fuse.
Electronics overload.
Remote flight control lost.
Shuttle crashed into California at thousands of miles per hour because the shuttle did not make any attempt to slow its decent.
Shuttle crashes in California, public outrage is loud and swift because some guy managed to get killed by it somewhere, somehow.
But what do I know about this, I'm not a rocket scientist.
Would it need to dock? Just open the pod bay doors, Hal - oh, open the shuttle bay doors and have them space-walk. The exercise'd do them good, after being crammed into the ISS.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
...and get a stupid answer. Take a look at the success/failure rate of your long-range missiles. There's only one reason to keep using them, so that you can keep your own pussies in the military from getting near harm's way.
Next time, be a man and log in when you troll.
Funny. Chickenhawk questioning someone else's manhood.
We have to keep those damned prying russian eyes off our technology. That's why as soon as everyone's off the ship, we set push the self destruct button and kick it out to sea.
Whether Congress will provide funding based on the obvious is another matter entirely.
paintball
I think this was a really great analogy. Personally I'd rather have a hunting knife while skinning that a swiss-Army... and I'd rather have a massive optimized old-but-tested hardware system pushing me into orbit than a shuttle with a USB connection to my PDA :-)
'Of the original five craft, two have already experienced "loss of crew and vehicle".'
And how many missions have those five craft flown on before this loss happened? Care to name a vehicle that has launched as many times as one of the shuttles with absolutely no incidents? (Not a type of vehicle, an individual vehicle. Apples to apples, and all that..)
Overall, the shuttles have quite a good record considering the use they're put to and the fact that we still have a lot to figure out about spaceflight. Their record has been good enough that a good portion of the glamour and risk of spaceflight has vanished.
If we can come up with a better, safer design (and convince Congress to stop cutting NASA's budget and actually fund them enough to build that design) then sure, that'd be better. But going completely back to the drawing board at this point and forgetting space flight until that design is built would likely kill the space program at this point.
avition i can qualify myself on far better then spacefaring, having accually done it... aircraft opperate on t=d and l=g... not sure how best to express it on slashdot, but when t=thurst is removed, g=gravity becomes the primary locomotor... if you held altitude until a stall set in, lift is removed, and only drag and gravity is left.. a properly rigged craft would resume generating lift as soon as the speed built up. I assume that's what you meant to say ;)
kinetic energy is correct, but not the most accurate term to use for forward flight.. a plane can be moving at a high rate of speed, yet is not generating lift, or very little... spins, and perticularly sprials demonstrate this, as would a 9.8 m/s/s descent. best term i know of to use is simply airflow over the lifting surfaces.
spy
...but why, oh why, an old, simple combination of Salyut/Mir and Soyuz/Progress ships constantly visiting it, was a much more reliable, convenient, useful and cheaper than all this pretending-to-do-2001-the-space-odyssey-remake stuff?
No one to rescue -- Soyuz docks with Salyut/Mir, all work is done in a relatively large station + modules, and if anything wrong happens, there is another Soyuz attached.
No giant airplane-thing to land -- a small landing capsule is the last thing you would expect to fail (not that there weren't early failures, but that was long ago).
Soyuz can sit attached to the station being actually useful, with its living space, fuel and engines, as opposed to the shuttle that mostly produces corrosive gas and stress on the flimsy station.
If anything is REALLY wrong, another Soyuz can be launched in a reasonable time, and without some insane risk, as long as the Khrunichev factory will continue making what by then can be considered mass-produced parts, as opposed to unique shuttles.
That was the state of the art two decades ago. Six Salyuts plus Mir operated like this. And there was more scientific work done than bickering and genitalia-waving between participants in those projects (bickering and waving between the countries was another story though). Can we now make something that isn't significantly worse than things that flied 20 years ago?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
You are quite correct in your description of atmospheric flight (I should have turned off my physicist mode and went back into engineer... just goes to show you that when you're studying for a phys midterm, everything goes in physics terms. Double-slit experiments with bagels and the like...), and I can more than understand the pains of 3 hour chem classes, as I too just got out of a far-too-long chem lab. (I'm a satisfied customer of Harvey Mudd College)
For the flight regime of orbital flight (and yes, it's still a flight regime, as counter-intuitive as that might seem) you're going so far into the hypersonic region that the shape of your spacecraft doesn't much matter, and the system can accurately be modeled as a collection of particles hitting your spacecraft head-on every once in a while. The shape doesn't much matter (for LEO, objects are given a Cd of 2 [that figure always stikes me as absolutely fascinating]) so you can't really get any lift out of the system. All that happens is that orbital energy goes away, and you sink until you're so low that you hit entry interface, and barring a whole hella lot of thrust, you're coming down. (doesn't much matter to the sat guys at that point, you just stop modeling things)
-twb
I tried to find the atmospheric data on when exactly it stops being an issue... but it seems to vary due to space weather, and i couldn't find a decent answer... at some point above LEO and below geosync, i would imagine... somewhere in the 800-1000 Km attitude, if i took a wild guess. Any more precice numbers?
argh, mixing attitude and altitude again... [sign that sleep is becoming a requirment] ;-)
Why would the damaged shuttle need to be
dumped? It may well be that the damage
is regarded as risky for human use, but not
fatal (such as happened last time). What stops
the shuttle autolanding empty? As far as I know,
the only manual part of landing is putting the
wheels down, and there's a ground override for
that anyway. The myth of NASA folk as uber-pilots
has to be maintained, of course, but the shuttle
lands totally automatically once the deorbit
burn has completed.
ian
I think we are better off investing in larger TV sets, larger armchairs, and lager beer. They are proven techology.
And, of course, in dirtier P0rn, faster FPS, soapier shows, funnier politicians, richer megasatans. They are also proven techology.
Ah, the only way they are getting my bucks is to lanch some nice piece of @ss, why not start the whole zero-G-spot industry?
Everything else is nonessential and TOO RISKY and UNINTERESTING.
Okay, maybe a bomb or two to kick some ass (**not mine ahem**).
Looks like the door just opened again on the hubble servicing mission: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0504/12griffin //
from the article:
"Actually, until I was nominated by the president to be his choice for administrator, I was the independent chair of the robotic servicing mission design review committee," he said. "As you know, and as was in the news very recently, that committee, now without me as its head, that committee has concluded that the robotic servicing mission is not feasible for a reasonable amount of money and within the time we have available before the Hubble wears out. So I would like to take the robotic mission off the plate. "And so I believe that this comes down to reinstating a shuttle servicing mission or possibly a very simple robotic deorbiting mission. The decision not to execute the planned shuttle servicing mission was made in the immediate aftermath of the loss of Columbia. When we return to flight, it will be with essentially a new vehicle, which will have a new risk analysis associated with it and so on and so forth. "At that time, I think we should reassess the earlier decision in light of what we learn after we return to flight"
NASA could out-source its astronauts - maybe to boy bands, telemarketers, lawyers or politicians? give them some training, do just about everything else by remote control, and if something goes wrong there's no need for a rescue mission? just saying, put it there on the table as an option.
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That was their excuse with Columbia. They said even if they had known about the damage it couldn't dock with IIS. I'd rather eat a whole bowl of steaming mecrom than be be a NASA astronaut right now.
Wishing I was a millionaire since 1969.
The Russians seem to have started building their Kliper [mosnews.com] lifting body [wikipedia.org] space craft.
No, they have floated a design idea in hopes that the EU or US (unlikely) will fund it. It is a direct response to the US call for a Crew Exploration Vehicle. It seems to the that it would be smart for the EU to fund this using the Ariane V as a launcher.
an ill wind that blows no good
Do you know what a cruise missile is?
If you did, you'd see how absurd your statement is.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I'm wondering why the preferred rescue scenario is to send up another shuttle? I thought that the station kept a Soyuz module connected at all times as an emergency escape vehicle. So there's three folks who can return. Send up another one shortly thereafter, and there's another three folks. Then you are back to the ISS normal compliment.
Right?
What happens if the shuttle is in a different orbit than the ISS? You can't just change directions and go there. What is their plan then?
potentially useful as a component used for working/living space at the space-station?
If it's already up there, use it for something! Putting stuff, heavy stuff, in orbit is what costs a bundle, heck you could try to install recycling equipment, grow vegtables, a million things.
Fuel that baby up and fly it to Mars! I don't know the available potential force for a fully fueled space shuttle main engine, but I bet it would be enough to reach martian orbit. Too lazy to look up the numbers, but you orbital mechanics guys, take a look...
Think of the Irony!
I wonder how hurricane season will factor into NASA's mission planning (or if it will at all). Imagine if Discovery flew on Sept 1, suffered some sort of failure, which activated the rescue contingency. If all went according to plan they'd fly the rescue mission no sooner than 33 days after Sept 1.
Imagine if during the month of September the eastern side of Florida is on the ass end of an ass-whipping from a hurricane (or multiple hurricanes as was the case last year). Can engineers safely make the long drive out to the cape to work in the vehicle assembly building?
How would the high wind and rain effect the crawler that moves the shuttle from the vehicle assembly building to pad 39?
Before Columbia NASA would've hunkered down and given folks a few days off a storm blew through. But with possibly 7 crewmen stranded in space NASA no longer has that flexibility.
The bottom line is that violent weather is a very real problem in Florida from late August to early November. I'm sure the mission planners are brighter than this SlashDot poster, but I hope that they've factored in meteorological effects into their rescue contingency.
-c
Do it for da shorties
I'm getting really tired of hearing all these "the shuttle is 60s/70s technology" arguments. The only parts of the Shuttle that are left from that time are the airframe and some of the tiles. The SSME, solids, APUs, avionics, etc. etc. have all been continuously upgraded over time. The Shuttles flying today are not the same as they were in 1980 any more than a 747-400 resembles the original 747 that flew decades ago.
Look at aircraft design, the most popular commercial jetliner in this country is the 737. That airframe design originated decades ago. Are the current 737's the same as the original? No. There have been engine changes, avionics changes, tweaks to aerodynamics, and on and on.
Frank W. Miller
The priciple is to use the foam bag as both an aerobrake and an ablative shield. The loading is light - one person plus suit and parachute. On the face of it, it looks feasible - the Chinese brought back satellites with oak heat shields, after all!
Obviously, it's a risky option ... but if it worked, the extreme sport to end all! And, a bailout option (literally) from orbit that doesn't need the ISS.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0259705/
Fear is the path to the dark side.
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate.
Hate, leads to suffering.
BOTH shuttles being damaged on lift off. Has anyone thought of this yet? If Discovery gets damaged/has issues and cant land, then wouldn't the risk for Atlantis be much higher as well. Its not like they are two different crafts. It sucks to lose a shuttle crew, but to put another shuttle/crew at risk seems ludicrous. Unless of course, they feel like "Launch 'em if you got 'em, cause the program is going to be cancelled anyway"
Just a thought...
#include bier;
Are you aware that cruise missiles are being equipped with GPS systems?
I suppose not. If you did, you'd see how ignorant your response was.
@ starter
Just because it sounds reasonable to you, doesn't mean it's a logical of even plausible solution. If ditching the shuttle is hat they plan to do, it's probably for the best.
that was very funny ... and, oh so ironic
Recent generations of cruise missiles have been equipped with GPS... but for nearly thirty years they were successfully equippped with intertial guidance systems.
LORAN was used to guide warplanes.... does that make the creation of that navigation technology warmongering?
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Groovy!
If an emergency shuttle trip was delayed, couldn't the crew of the failed shuttle use that? Then the ISS crew would be SOL if something happened until another module was docked, but I'm saying there are some options here, that Real Engineers (like Real Programmers) -- and there still are some at NASA -- would find and be able to choose from.
Actually, the escape module may not be designed to accomodate a re-entry with 7 people. The potential crew of the ISS was supposed to be on the order of 7 or even more (back when we were going to actually do enough science on it to get some sort of return-on-investment from it!) Maybe we should get cracking on getting a real escape module on the ISS that could accomodate the specced crew of the ISS! That would solve 2 problems at once.
KLAATU, BORADA, NIh*ahem*
Why not use the Station Robotic Arm to hold the shuttle close to the station, and then tie it to the station with "ropes" like you would do with a boat?
Once there it shouldn't bang about because it's outer space.
Another option is to just hold it out there with the arm, but I don't think it was designed to handle that large of a load. That's why I said bring it in close.
The "broken" shuttle could be remotely commanded to station keep nearby while the other shuttle docks etc..
Then the new crew could either dock with the "broken" shuttle and go fix it with the new parts they brought, or they could EVA over to it to fix it.
Someone should look into that possibility.
And why do I have to post this to slashdot? Why doesn't NASA run a baord like this so the public can comment like this?
Oh! That's right, it rocket science to run phpBB!
It's Congress as well. No one wants to spend money on space, well no politicians. Not when that money can be better used to buy votes (Pork!) Until private industry gets involved NASA will just continue to get worse.
Buy few Soyuz return capsules from Russians, attach some simple deorbit device to them (no need to use whole original manuevering module I think), modify the interior so it will hold whole crew of the Shuttle (it will be a tough ride...but at least they'll return) and carry it in every mission.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Oh boy, this just kills me - all of the /. ignoramuses are crawling out of the woodwork today!
I'll bet that there isn't another place on earth where there are so many people who just know that they have the answer, but are actually completely clueless.
Topics like this one need to be saved for posterity as examples of the hazards of being so damn full of yourself that you don't even realize that you're really being nothing but a pompous ass - although I have to say that it's pretty funny to watch!
Don't land in Texas. Find an island in the middle of the Ocean, and land on a runway that allows an orientation such that they don't cross land before they land. If it makes it great, we have a shuttle to use. If not, the pieces land in the ocean.
...No not dumb, just cowardly and demonstrative of a lack of aspiration.
Unfortunately, there are so many that think it is proper to impose their own cowardice upon the rest of us.
They: "Oh, those poor astronauts, they DIED!. They burned up right in front of me. I HAD TO WATCH THEM DIE! I'd never have the guts to do something like that. Let's cancel the space program so I won't have to witness this again. sob, sob".
Me: "What a glorious way to go, that is truly a once in a lifetime experience. How mundane to die in a car wreck. I'd much rather burn up in the skies over Texas after spending a week in orbit. When does the SSTO program or the space elevator get off the ground?"
Wait and see. When someone dies as a result of a PRIVATE space program there will be congressional inquiries and op-eds all over screaming for more regulation or whatever just to stop people from dying while fulfilling their dreams.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Don't worry, I got it covered.
My dick is so big...
it's the backup plan to bring the shuttle back to Earth!
Just from a budget stand point it's a no brainer,w w.harcourtschool.com/activity/space_station/april2 8_2001.html+soyuz+mission+costs&hl=en
w w.starsem.com/soyuz/introduction.htm+soyuz+product ion&hl=en
10 Million per Soyuz http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:xdGkxgzMW9cJ:w
400 Million per STS flight
We'd need ~3 Soyuz for the 7 person crew, The question then becomes one of how fast can the soyuz be sent up from thier existing launch facility, Is ten days not long enough, stage them elsewhere then. At 10 million to build fuel and launch so what if transport costs another 10 million Thats still ~20 soyuz for the cost of one STS flight.
Hell the russian space agency budget is only 145 million, Why not contract them for 4-8 soyuz ready to launch with 1-2 weeks at 225 Million it'd be a sweet bargain. We get an nice rescue option they get to double thier budget or free up the money (hopefully for humanitairian efforts).
How big is the ESA space port, contract a new soyuz facility there the fuel savings alone of reaching normal orbits could make that a very economical solution. (And now i doubt my knowledge of whos cloestest to the equator)
A quick precoursery study of turn around time vs production increase costs.
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:h-EdN4DSr_8J:w
They currently produce 10-15 per year, and as many as 60 per year in the 80's.
In practice they can produce as many as 5 per month, by design they can assemble 4 at a time on thier current facilities in about a month. For the cost of two STS launches It's not un reasoable to picture 20-40 Soyuz sitting in ICBM launch bunkers ready for use in under two years.
I say NASA really dropped the ball on this one, this whole if we don't spend our whole budget we'll never get anymore crap should have been stomped when it started. What you got or needed last year has nobearing on what you need or get this year nor what you will need or get next year. Whatever happened to NASA getting whatever money, man and brain power it needed. Some might say, "Well the wall came down.", to which I repeat the question and point out the real divergance started after the moon landings. Ask any avid space gamer and they could tell you the steps to space exploration and colonisation. If you really think the actual rocket scientists don't know these steps, your lieing to yourself, but if you ask them why they aren't progressing thru these stages they'll all dance around "bad-mouthing" the higher ups, be it NASA admins or congress. Bushs mandate for a man on mars (or whatever) should never of been needed, they already know the stages.
The whole space travel should be a comercial project I believe to be the stumbling point, The government has a stupid non-competative rule with capitalist entities. When it becomes reasonable to expect compatition they have to bow out, This is the basis of the muni-telco-isp crap we've been seeing lately. I mean would we contract out the Secret Services dutys to your local mall rent-a-cop, or maybe the ATF to Brinks, following that same thought should we shut down nasa and contract Branson Spaceways(or whomever), of course not they're not the best equiped to handle the job, and honestly it's not like the big three wanted to go that route they're quite happy on the backend suppling designs and parts even though they have the money and facilities.
Mmmmm... first you baselessly call a statement silly, then you combine the fallacies of strawman and false analogy...
Sorry, you fail.
If the Shuttle breaks just let it drop into the ocean and FORGET ABOUT IT. It's outdated now anyway: http://tinyurl.com/4sgnk .
iirc the problem with soyuz is that it can only bring down three people AND special seatliners need to be made for anyone who will ride in it.
i think they can send a soyuz up with one person and bring it back with three but it would still take a LOT of launches to bring down a shuttleload of people.
To everyone that decries NASA as too expensive:
NASA is the only government agency ever to pay for itself. Add to that the things in everyday life that are the direct or indirect result of NASA's research (everything from Velcro to MRI machines) and you have an organization that should be maintained.
NASA is a joke, either fund it properly or just shut it down completely. Stop fooling people into beleiving anything useful is going on any more.