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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
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.
rutan hasn't reached orbit he has just barely scraped the edge of space on an up and down
for orbit you need LATERAL velocity as well as vertical velocity (with just vertical you will either escape completely or go up and back down you will not orbit).
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
Also remember that Burt Rutan (a personal hero of mine) is able to do this BECAUSE of the shuttle and other accomplishments of NASA. As he himself has pointed out. All the variables have been found out. You can't make cheap things without somebody making an expensive version of them first. Do you think Ford would have been able to make cheap cars without other people having made cars before him.
Also remember that the Burt Rutan space ship is a LOT more dangerous than the Shuttle. The Shuttle's track record is better than anything humans have ever designed before. And that is one of the reasons why it is expensive. In government spending a fatality is unacceptable. In private industry well... Shit happens.
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.
Granted, the Shuttles goes into a much higher orbit,
If by that you mean AN orbit. Spaceship one is a dinky little 3 man craft that didn't achieve orbit in the slightest. The space shuttle on the other hand is a giant bus that can haul tons of payload into orbit. It's like the difference between a bicycle and a Mack Truck.
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.
Nasa has quite a small budget, and more than just a mission of space flight. The main mission Nasa is pursuing is one of science. The secondary (and FAR more costly one) is manned flight. Nasa simply doesn't have the budget to develop next-gen spaceflight (Rutan is pursuing yesterdays spaceflight at cheap prices, a VERY different goal). No politician in there right mind wants to give Nasa the huge amounts of money it'd take to develop these new technologies.
The shuttle monopoly has strangled the development of alternative launch vehicles,
The shuttle has done about nothing either way to the development of alternative launch vehicles. Satelite launch technology has been steadily developed. If you're talking about manned missions, lack of public interest in the whole endeavor is what killed that. Public interest == money. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
A lot of people had predicted we'd not only have launched a manned mission to Mars by now, but set up a colony.
A lot of people are idiots and don't realize how much more difficult Mars is compared to the moon.
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.
No, until the majority of the public gets motivated to dedicate massive funding to Nasa the manned US space program will creep along. During the 50s and 60s the US was motivated by the Cold War. We reached the moon, and defeated the "bad guys". After that everything was just anti-climactic. Now that we've been to the moon and the Cold War is over, what's motivating the public?
AccountKiller
"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.
In what way is the Shuttle's track record better than anything humans have ever designed before? Two lethal failures per - oh, let's be generous - thousand uses is *better* than, I dunno, anything up to actual kamikaze missions?
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.
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
He also hasn't lost lives, that I know of.
He hasn't lost lives, he's only temporarily misplaced them. But it's okay, they'll be in the last place he looks.
NASA may have a small budget now but it is exponentially larger today than it was when they went to the moon, even when adjusted for inflation. All that money is being flushed down the toilet in redundant waste, corrupt sub contractor bidding processes and involvement by congress to satisfy special interests. There are alot of idiots who think the road to Mars is just a little bit farther than the Moon, George W. Bush being chief among them. Maned space flight is essentially redundant at this point, there is very little being done in space right now that can't be done by a remotely operated robot.
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
Burt Rutan built something that basically amounts to a toy if you compare it to a shuttle (or anything else that can go into orbit). Going up a hundred miles and going into orbit are two fundamentally different tasks. It's sort of like comparing a bicycle to a Ferrari.
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
"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.
Apollo in its entirety cost 24billion USD in 1960s dollars (this is the first article blurb on google, I'm doing a quick response off the top of my head + google). NASA's budget is about 14 billion 2005 USD. Using an inflation calculator, the approximate value of 24 billion 1965 dollars in 2005 dollars is 142 billion USD. I do not know about the timescales involved in quoted figures, but if we assume it was for the approximately 6 years that apollo was called apollo, then apollo cost 23 billion 2005 USD a year. It should be noted that approximately 1/4 of NASA's budget is used on manned spaceflight - the rest goes to unmmaned spaceflight and aeronautical research.
Assuming all the above is currect, which would be quite a resounding approval for google and "I'm feeling lucky" and quickly throwing together a post before bed using memory, then the Apollo had approximately 5 times the budget that the current manned spaceflight program does... We're not getting to mars for 1/5th the cost of the moon. Hell, we apparently can barely stay in orbit for that!
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.
More like 50 times as much.
Appollo didn't happen in one year so I don't know what you are trying to get at, Nasa's per year budget back then during it's hayday was in the neighborhood of 4-6 billion per year, extravigant over budget allowances by Kennedy in order to beat the russians not withstanding. The point being, if the organization hadn't been infected by bloatware some time between then and 1980, NASA would have that moon base, there would be a fleet of completely reusable launch vehicles and Mars really would be the next step, and all for the same money or less than what was actually spent during that time. It all seems infinitly pointless to me, with all that is going on in the world what benifit does the average American get out of spending all this money on the space program?
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.
Since the modules of the ISS was put together using the Canadarm, you might say the entire station is Canadian made.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Sorry folks, that should be "were put together".
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
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.
It tells me that you don't know an apple from an orange.
The most directly comparable government project to the SpaceShip One was the X-15. It flew just as high as SS1 (and it could fly ~4X faster to boot). The only thing SS1 has over the X-15 is two extra passenger seats. In both cases the vehicles only achieve 3% of the kinetic+potential energy required to get "into orbit".
A quick review of the mission history shows that they did a 1-day turnaround for two launches in December, 1964. One could also ask why it took 40 years before Rutan achieved a similar feat.
No, you're wrong._ Shuttle.html
Length = 23.79m- vs-boeing-747/
Here is a school bus http://www.solectria.com/products/buses.html Length = 12.19m.
Here is the shuttle http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/S/Space
Also, for a better intutitve understanding, here is the shuttle piggybacking on a 747 http://www.pd.com/rww/graphics/3d/shuttle_747.jpg and the 747 has a length of 70.7m http://larsholst.info/blog/2005/01/20/airbus-a380
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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)
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
The above poster pointed out that you're wrong with some facts and figures, but how about some pictures for comparison's sake?
Here's the shuttle durring recovery operations. Note the relative size of the stairs, and how it dwarfs the RV, the van, and the truck near it's rear.
And here is the closest thing that I could find to an old favorite photo of mine from a wonderful book, The Illustrated History of NASA. Showing nicely how the shuttle dwarfs a Mack Truck.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
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] ;-)
No, until the majority of the public gets motivated to dedicate massive funding to Nasa the manned US space program will creep along. During the 50s and 60s the US was motivated by the Cold War. We reached the moon, and defeated the "bad guys". After that everything was just anti-climactic. Now that we've been to the moon and the Cold War is over, what's motivating the public?
Now we have to get there before the terrorists does!!
Too bad. I'd much rather have the government burn my tax dollars putting engineers to work building the next space system than simply handing out unemployment and welfare checks.
At least then we'd have something for our money...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
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
Two fatal accidents in ~100 missions? Better track record than anything humans have ever designed before?
I think the designers of the Boeing 747 would disagree there. Or indeed the designers of pretty much any aircraft since the 1920s.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
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.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
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?
No US program will ever die so long as there's money to waste on it and appropriately timed Tom Hanks movies to generate misguided interest.
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.
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;
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
Hey gangofwolves, you and lostwanderer147 really should get on the phone to NASA and sort them out. They are obviously missing a couple of shit-hot rocket scientists like you two.
No but, yeah but, no but...
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*
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
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.
In fact, Apollo was a few percent of the entire gross national product. That is HUGE for a single government program. Normally the only programs that get that kind of funding in most nations are nationalized health care, welfare, and the military. The military doesn't generally spend that kind of money on a single project, either. Probably the only one that had that kind of spending was the Manhatten project, and that was in the middle of WWII...
...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!
Wrong orbit inclination. The ISS is in a high inclination orbit for servicing from Russia (I can see it rom my house in Virginia when it launches to the ISS if it's at night and clear.)
The Columbia mission was a science mission, in a lower inclination orbit to get more payload into orbit. They didn't have enough delta v to get to the ISS.
Having said that, if the Columbia problem had been propagated throughout NASA, there WOULD have been a rescue mission. And every single astronaut in service would have volunteered to be on it. You can bet serious money on both of those if there happens to be a repeat.
"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."
:)
Oh, it's not limited to NASA. Applies to the military too. Probably everywhere in the government. And probably a large of decent sized companies.
"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."
True. But it makes budgeting hard. Much easier to take money you didn't "need" and give it to someone else who "did".
"Whatever happened to NASA getting whatever money, man and brain power it needed."
In exactly what alternate universe did this ever happen?
I know full well I'm a pompous ass thank you! My wife tells me 10 or 12 times a day!
chown -R us
If the Shuttle breaks just let it drop into the ocean and FORGET ABOUT IT. It's outdated now anyway: http://tinyurl.com/4sgnk .