NASA Postpones Shuttle Launch

Mictian writes "NASA has decided to postpone Discovery's upcoming Return to Flight (STS-114) by a week to May 22. This is done in order to give the agency more time to finish paperwork, analyses and reviews of safety changes made. The delay came as no surprise, since the original May 15 date was always considered preliminary. The current launch window extends from May 15 to June 3."

Comments

Props to GNAA

[Slutware]

lol @ #buttes and ANUS.

Squeeze in the code releases before the launch

[Nadsat]

Concerns about shuttle safety have been largely responsible for 22 major changes in the orbiter's design and as many as 40 more minor changes. "All of the redesign is complete," with a few exceptions, said Wayne Hale, deputy manager of the space shuttle program.

Last minute code release! Always a smart move....

Re:Squeeze in the code releases before the launch

[lbmouse]

Users always make the best testers... although, the stakes here are a little higher than a wrong account ballance or missing ATM transaction.

Re:Squeeze in the code releases before the launch

[khujifig]

Yes, but do we want them working on the patch after it's gone gold?

Re:Squeeze in the code releases before the launch

[Rich0]

At a staff meeting a group was discussing a MAJOR system that they were just finally getting ready to deploy in a week or two. They mentioned that they had one last meeting in a week to figure out what bugs wouldn't get fixed in the final release.

This was a multi-million-dollar project. Why on earth they were still debating build features a week before deployment I have no idea. Not surprisingly an annoucement was sent out to end-users a month later telling them to expect unusual delays from groups utilizing the new software...

Re:Squeeze in the code releases before the launch

[bombadier_beetle]

There is rarely such a thing as a bug-free release, and you don't necessarily want to fix every single bug before release. Here's a
good explanation on why not.

Re:Squeeze in the code releases before the launch

[Anonymous Coward]

"[...] All of the redesign is complete, with a few exceptions [...]"

This reminds me of a guy I used to work with. I would ask him if something was done and he'd reply that "Yup, it's done, except for..." and then explain what he hadn't finish.

My reply: "Oh. Then it's not done."

"Well, it's done, except for..."

"Then it's not done"

"Well...no."

Re:Squeeze in the code releases before the launch

[Rich0]

Couldn't agree more - you get more ROI if you have more time to use the system.

My issue wasn't with the fact that the system still had bugs. The issue was that they should have figured out what bugs they were going to fix months before, so that they could focus on taking care of the show-stoppers and getting things wrapped up for distribution (trianing, packaging, etc.) You shouldn't be debating another build only a few days before going live - unless you plan on postponing. Otherwise there will be almost no QA on the final build.

20:1 say

[Anonymous Coward]

that it launches on June 2nd/3rd

Re:20:1 say

[poserFish]

1000:1 it will NEVER fly again.

All for the best, I suppose.

[Flamora]

I mean, true, we really do need to get back to our normal routines of spaceflight, but we also need to make sure it's safe and that we're not going to lose any more shuttles due to microfractures or falling ice or whatnot.

Of course, this is also why I think that more effort needs to be put into commercial space vehicles, so as to make spaceflight more commonplace.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[stlhawkeye]

Of course, this is also why I think that more effort needs to be put into commercial space vehicles, so as to make spaceflight more commonplace.

The time to privatize space travel is long overdue. There's an immense revenue stream available for private/commercial spaceflight. Bush ought to be directing NASA's efforts AWAY from being an agency of construction/launch management/exploration, and towards being an agency of mostly science/research. Another, much smaller agency, is needed to oversee the commercialization of space flight. Some government funds are necessary to manage the transition, but it's overdue now by about 15 years.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[Anonymous Coward]

The shuttle is an experimental vehicle. There will always be inherent risk in flying in. We haven't flown 100 flights with it yet. We have lost 2. Everyone should expect this to happen again. What we should not expect is for there to be problems because of political, managerial or PR reasons. In both of the previous accidents, if engineers had been listened to when they said they could not prove a flight was safe, we would have 2 more shuttles...

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[Waffle Iron]

There's an immense revenue stream available for private/commercial spaceflight.

Such as?

The only obvious profitable space-based activities are communications satellites and imaging satellites. Both of these have already been privatized.

To address the usual suspects:

1. The novelty of sending rich people into space for jollies is going to wear off real quick. That's not a basis to support an entire space industry.

2. Mining activities don't make sense. The universe is comprised of chemical elements. There are few if any elements available in space that arent' available on earth or can't be substituted by other materials. The only obvious exception, helium isotopes for fusion fuel, would be great except that we most likely won't be using fusion fuel for decades.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[joeljkp]

Just for the record, the shuttles have collectively flown 113 missions so far.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[Anonymous Coward]

The pragmatic approach is not as limited as your shallow analysis tends to suggest. Yes, most of the same compounds are also available on earth-however, the shallow deposits have been substantially reduced necessarily as they have already been mined. Costs for mining increase immensely outside of strip mining the deeper the mine must descend to gain the material. Even strip mining is expensive as it imposes immense externalities that are properly paid by the responsible mine owner from regulations and recovery operations afterwards. The promise of mining outside of the earth is that in some cases even with launch, craft, crew, and associated costs that it might still be cheaper to acquire for example uranium or platinum or any other base element from deposits on other planets or asteroids than to mine 100 000 K or so down to possibly reveal a deposit at that level. H3 from the solar wind is almost alone promising enough to warrant industry expanding into space-stored energy from the sun that can be rather easily accessed and shipped once mechanisms are in place.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[stlhawkeye]

Such as?

Our government said it'd cost $1 trillion to land a dude on Mars and bring him home. That was in the late 1980's, and many of the projects and much of the research that was figured into that $1 trillion figure has already been done. More realistic modern figures place the price tag at $300-$500 billion. Let's be generous and say that it'd cost $450-$750 billion.

Now, that's for the government to do it. Let's not aim so far as Mars, and start with the moon. Cut that figure in half. We're at $225-$375 billion for a manned moon landing. But we want a base on the moon, because that's where our revenue is going to come from. Let's push that back up and just call it $500 billion.

Now! That's the government. Financial analyses of NASA have shown that under 10% of its budget is typically put towards expenses directly related to spaceflight, and the rest is research, bidding, bureaucracy, and government waste. That suggests that the cost for private industry to pull this off is $50 billion. On a side note, the Artemis project has a figure less than a third of this value for a private industry moon base.

The global value of the video game market is well over $20 billion. Business investments of multibillion dollars are not unheard of.

So what are your revenue streams?

Mostly the entertainment industry. Imagine a reality TV show based on people living on the moon. Game shows. Movies. Rights to on-site filming. There's a revenue opportunity for advertising, tourism, the sale of moon rocks, scientific research, all kinds of stuff. The key is having a permanent settlement there.

The key is to get the project out of government's hands, because government is inefficient and has no profit motive to cut costs. In fact, you are on a quest to spend as much money as possible in government so that your budget can be justifiably increased. Let's say a mission to land a guy on the moon would cost half that.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[Olix]

There is no reason to go into space at all. But we still do, because it is human nature to expand, to grow, to learn and to seek out new places to live and exist in. The human race could happily stay on earth for the rest of its existance. We could prop up all the third or second world countries into the state of europe and America, and then stay at that level of development, for we would be content. But we won't - there will always be pioneers going to live on space stations, or the moon, mars or perhaps the moons of jupiter and Saturn one day, just because they can. We can't justify it, but we will do it anyway.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[Waffle Iron]

You want to run a moon base on entertainment value.

Let's compare with one of the largest entertainment driven enterprises in the world: the Olympics. To support itself every 2 years with TV and licensing revenue it generates more hype than most anyone can stand. Their total revenues average out to a couple of $Billion per year. That kind of money isn't going to put a dent in what's required to design, build and run a moon base, whether it's government or private.

The Olympics has the advantage of covering an activity that billions of people have a deep interest in: sports. Only a tiny minority of geeks care about the moon at all. Look at what happened after about Apollo 12: people lost almost all interest.

There is no way that you're going to generate enough hype to support an enterprise many times more expensive than the Olympics that revolves around having a couple of guys kicking around aimlessly in a bubble on the moon. That's just boring, and it's not going to work.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only obvious profitable space-based activities are communications satellites and imaging satellites. Both of these have already been privatized.

Except the ESA is getting the bulk of that money, because a simple rocket going up from a remote island near the equator is even cheaper (and easier for private enterprise to schedule) than a shuttle mission from Florida.

We need to allow US corporations to set up satelite launching facilities, and get in on the gravy train.

The novelty of sending rich people into space for jollies is going to wear off real quick. That's not a basis to support an entire space industry.

No, but it is a basis for supporting a tourist industry, and will drive some of the costs of manned space flight down.

Mining activities don't make sense. The universe is comprised of chemical elements. There are few if any elements available in space that arent' available on earth or can't be substituted by other materials. The only obvious exception, helium isotopes for fusion fuel, would be great except that we most likely won't be using fusion fuel for decades.

Forget mining. Consider energy. Space-based panels on geosynch'd satelites can use microwave transmission to send vast amounts of collected solar power to Earth, meaning we can meet our energy needs while using less oil.

Also consider manufacturing. Some things are far easier to create in a zero-gravity vacuum... so much so that it's almost worth going up there to do it with our current technology. A few decades down the road, and it will be the ultimate "offshoring" option (not for cheap labor, but for the specific operating environment.)

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[Anonymous Coward]

The more space flights... the more space accidents... but in the end... it will all be worth it.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[stlhawkeye]

Your comparison to the Olympics is a bit flawed.

First of all, NBC paid almost a billion for two weeks of Olympics coverage 5 years ago. That's just television coverage for two-weeks of an event that happens every four years. What do you think these networks might pay for an event that's never happened before?

ESPN is paying a billion per year for Monday Night Football.

How much do networks pay for the Super Bowl, a one-day event that lasts 3-4 hours? Usually Bowl bids are packaged up with regular reason games, but a few seasons of football plus a Super Bowl of two goes for 5-8 billion dollars. That's for broadcasting a total of a few hundred hours of television.

Second, you vastly overestimate how much this enterprise would cost. If a private enterprise could generate $5-$10 billion in investments, they'd have enough to get there and establish their revenue streams, which would be worth at least $3-$5 billion.

It can be financed, it can be done, the key is to disallow the government from doing it and allow private enterprise to take it on.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[Politburo]

Financial analyses of NASA have shown that under 10% of its budget is typically put towards expenses directly related to spaceflight, and the rest is research, bidding, bureaucracy, and government waste. That suggests that the cost for private industry to pull this off is $50 billion.

You've exhibited what I call the Fallacy of Privatization.

Private entities are no where near immune from research, bidding, bureaucracy, and waste.

Research: Can a moon base be constructed completely with off-the-shelf parts? How? If not, what parts will you use? Will you test any of this equipment before sending it to the Moon?

Bidding: Do you think a private entity will manufacture every single piece of the spacecraft and moon base? Unless they do that, there will be bidding or some other form of procurement involved.

Bureaucracy: Do you think that private entities don't have accountants, IT, secretaries, or janitors? Any entity undertaking such a project would have to be quite large, and would be burdened with some amount of bureaucracy.

Waste: There are numerous examples of private waste. Of course, this occurs on a case-by-case basis and there is no way to say how much waste will be introduced by a private entity. However, it is stupid to believe that there will be 'no waste'. All it takes is one birthday/holiday/etc. party in the office and you've introduced waste.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[Waffle Iron]

When you can fill thousands of taverns around this country every week guys whose eyes are rivited to big-screen TVs watching live coverage from the moon, then you can talk about competing with the NFL. But you won't. You're not going to generate even a tiny fraction of $10B from interest in a moon base. The number of hours of TV is irrelevant; unlike sporting events, nobody is going to want to watch that more than one or two times.

Moreover, $10 billion to set up a moon base is a joke. You're taking unfiltered, unrealistic best-case estimates from wide-eyed "futurists" and swallowing them hook line and sinker. Even if you started with more realistic estimates, the project would almost certainly end up with schdule slips and cost overruns. This happens routinely in private industry too.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[Anonymous Coward]

A separate user but with comment. Perhaps the only way will be for an authoritarian industrial power to rise and decide to build it over all costs for the benefit of its citizens. Print money and raise interest rates to offset its expenditure beyond the project. To form a command economy for a temporary purpose and simply mandate the construction but without artificial limitations on time for the projects. If economics will not adjust for the expansion then the expansion will be forced by some nation in order to gain advantage over other nations and national economics then manipulated until readjusted to the former levels plus the gain from the expanded space industry that it would have. The majority need not ever be convinced of the benefits or advantages such would confer, only the leadership that then can force it to be done. The after effects will justify the imposition, the gains in the longer term have no limit.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[Snar Bloot]

Now! That's the government. Financial analyses of NASA have shown that under 10% of its budget is typically put towards expenses directly related to spaceflight, and the rest is research, bidding, bureaucracy, and government waste. That suggests that the cost for private industry to pull this off is $50 billion. On a side note, the Artemis project has a figure less than a third of this value for a private industry moon base.

So...you're saying that in private industry there's no expenses related to research, bidding, bureaucracy or industrial/commercial waste?

I think that's an unfair assessment.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[rjelks]

Space travel pushes our need to innovate and leads to many inventions that we enjoy in our normal lives. The need to understand where we are, how we got here and how the universe works doesn't seem like a trivial goal. There are always things we could give up to help the needy. I could be donating my time, instead of posting on /., but oh well. Now if you're talking the tradeoff between the ISS vs. the Super Collider, I could agree.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[MC42]

I think that the moon will be settled the same way Australia was - after all, what was the cost (in current currency) of deporting all those "undesirables" away from "civilization" (hopefully, quoting both terms the ire from the respective groups will cancel :) in the currency of the time.

Look at what it costs to build a prison now - and where prisons are going because no one wants one in their neighborhood.

With any luck the outcome will be as good as the last instantiation of this idea.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[gfreeman]

Are you sure? Just because this mission is STS-114 doesn't mean that there were 113 before it. Look at the Consolidated Launch Manifest site at NASA. The next planned launch, after STS-114, is STS-121 which will be Atlantis.

Admittedly I haven't counted the previous missions, so you may well be correct. Feel free to add them up.

Re:All for the best, I suppose.

[joeljkp]

I got my number from Wikipedia. I'll admit I didn't dig any deeper, but their chart looks convincing.

30:1 says

[Anonymous Coward]

that the next shuttle to launch will be Atlantis

The real reason.

[KipCas]

They have to wait because the Google website logo with the little space shuttle in it wasnt ready yet.

Here come the

[TheKidWho]

NASA is super bloated and the shuttle is the biggest waste of tax payer money!!! Ohh with all that money spent on the shuttle, we could have had 20 cures for AIDS and 42 for Cancer!

Booo NASA, Booo Bush, Go get some good old Russian Hardware because the Russiasn kicks your @ss...

Now that that's out of the way, this is good but seriously are they goign to be doing this on every mission. I was reading before that this is most definetly going to be one of the safest shuttle launchs ever, but will they be using the same stringent safety measures on the 15th flight or the 25flight of the shuttle?

Re:Here come the

[tiredwired]

The technology created by NASA over the years has saved many lives. Going into space and leaving this planet is the only way mankind will survive the next billion years.

Re:Here come the

[mrRay720]

"NASA is super bloated and the shuttle is the biggest waste of tax payer money!!! Ohh with all that money spent on the shuttle, we could have had 20 cures for AIDS and 42 for Cancer!"

That's an even worse waste! What were those other 60 teams thinking?
PHB: "Hey, let's cure AIDS/Cancer"
Bod: "Sir, that's already been done!"
PHB: "STFU, we've got Space Shuttle money to spend!"

Re:Here come the

[dAzED1]

next billion?

2 questions: why does mankind have to surive the next billion years, or rather, why is it the job of an agency of the US governement to assure such a thing?

2) since multi-cellular organisms didn't really take off until almost half that amount of time ago (600million years ago), primates didn't walk on 2 feet until 4 million years ago (1/250th of that billion years), what in the world^H^H^H^H^H universe makes you think humankind will be around a billion years from now? Whatever is around then will be well beyond our capability to understand or predict. I mean, our species is only 50k years old (1/20,000th of that billion) and already in that span of time has evolved *considerably*. We don't even look like we did 200 years ago, much less 2,000. Do you really think we'll be anything like this 50,000 years from now, and that we'll be even remotely the same *species* as this a million years from now (1/1000th of that billion years). If not, who are you to dictate what their survival will require? Maybe within the next few thousand years we'll finally start doing population control, for instance. There's an idea. All other species seem to do just fine...we should be able to figure it out too, being "smarter" than them.

Re:Here come the

[Alioth]

I hope we can evolve into something else within the next thousand that allows us to not need fragile, biological bodies. Imagine the possibilities - instead of being in a spaceship you could BE the spaceship. Transfer the mind to a new machine, and then you can be the rover.

It's probably the only way we'll actually have a life off this planet.

Re:Here come the

[dAzED1]

we can't do such a thing, since we are our biological bodies.

We can though perhaps create highly-developed AI's, program/train them in our mores, and then set them loose - thereby creating a wholy seperate type of existence. But evolution is a biological mechanism, and (at least, in just the next thousand years) won't allow us to stop being biological.

What you're talking about could happen easily enough in a VR system, though...imagine humans in little pods, fed efficiently, with equiptment connected directly to their brains so that they can think they're experiencing certain things... ;) yet, instead of it being for nefarious purposes, the humans could in theory still be in control of it and aware, and instead simply send out probes to other planets that they can interact through as if they were actually there.

Or, maybe we should get metaphysical about it, and just become balls of energy ;)

Re:Here come the

[TheKidWho]

Its called EVE-Online :-)

Or Isaac Asimov's stories of the far far far future =)

Re:Here come the

[dAzED1]

the scary part is that it wouldn't be that hard to keep a body perfectly healthy for a very very long time, if in a perfectly controlled environment. We are already somewhat close to being able to fix a lot of things through GE methods; imagine if you ate the most perfect, healthy food at the precisely perfect times, had your health monitored 24/7, were given only the cleanest air at precisely the ideal mixture of oxygen and other gases, and never had to worry about car wrecks or other such things? The human body is actually designed to age on purpose, for various reasons...and the mechanisms for that are becoming known (and might be stopped, unfortunately)

Re:Here come the

[grumbel]

The good old sun will continue to burn for quite a while and good old earth would also be able to support us for quite a bit longer. There is really no reason to start to evacuate to other planets any time soon. The problem is that menkind still hasn't even learned to live happily on this one planet, we extingt species, polute the air, wreak havok the eco system, start major wars every few years. If we continue that way menkind will have itself extingt much before sun even starts to cause throuble.

Space travel is still important and should be continued, but the SpaceShuttle as is is really for most part just waste of tax payers money.

Re:Here come the

[grumbel]

### But evolution is a biological mechanism, and (at least, in just the next thousand years) won't allow us to stop being biological.

Evolution has for most part already slowed down a lot or stoped for humans, so I wouldn't expect any major change any time soon anyway. What however will happen sooner or later is that we ourself construct our future development. We are already growing organs (just little pieces of skin, but its a start), transplanting organs and constructing mechanical prosthesis, its just a matter of time until those things will not only be used as inferior replacments for lost or damages organs or body parts, but will be used to enhance humans with specific abilities. Its also quite possible that computer based AI will take over, not necessary here on earth, but sending out some clever AI todo space exploration isn't that unlickly. All this will not happen in the next few years, but in the next 100 or 1000 years some major advancements isn't that unlikly.

Re:Here come the

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that somewhere there is an asteroid with your name on it. Get "happy" and evolve all you want. Cure all the diseases. It can all be wiped out fast. The shuttle is expensive but I would not call it a waste. The US is the only country willing to put money into human space travel. Why haven't the other countries done more?

Re:Here come the

[iminplaya]

Maybe within the next few thousand years we'll finally start doing population control, for instance.

Simple population control is not a good idea. I just saw a news story about the declining population in Europe. In the future, that will include the total population, including the immigrants. If we are to survive as a species, we must infest the entire galaxy. We need as many people as possible. The planet can easily sustain 20 billion people. With proper use of technology, there will be no shortages. This will provide us the needed brain power for getting off the planet with little hassle. Remember, we are parasites. We are a virus. We need a host to survive. If we kill the host, we kill ourselves.

Re:Here come the

[dAzED1]

slowed down? It's gone *insanely* fast. Keep timeline in context; life started 3.5 billion years ago. Humanity's first written language was only 6k years ago - .5Millionth of life's entire time.

There's considerable difference between how we were 50k years ago, and how we are now. That we're the same species means ONLY one thing - that we could reproduce with them, and that our offspring could in turn reproduce with either of us. Horses and donkeys (and Zebras) are not the same species because while they can preproduce and make mules and hinnys (and zedonk/zebrass when a donkey and zebra combine), mules and hinnys can't reproduce in turn. However, a miniture toy chihuahua and a newfoundland can can produce fertile offspring (assuming the mother is the newfoundland, and is artificially inseminated...a chihuahua as the mother would just die before birth or something).

Look at those two dogs...same species, their gametes line up at least...why are they so different though?

They were genetically modified. Someone wanted a small dog, so they selectively bred them until they had the insult to nature that is the chihuahua. Sure, it was old-school genetics...but it was genetic modification none the less (aka "selective breeding").

We can do the same to ourselves, but worse - we're already genetically engineering all sorts of organisms, and GE humans have occured in rogue labs. In far less than 100 years, they'll be commonplace...so if you want a 7' tall blonde haired, blue-eyed son with fair skin, that has an extra stomach and a 6-chambered heart...that's not terribly far off, when we're talking about the spans of years in this discussion. I've already been part to making regular bacteria into super-bacteria through splicing and modification, and I'm just a normal guy. Really smart people, in 100 years, will be doing much more.

It's still evolution, though - darwin would still accept it, I'd wager. Dogs evolved, after all - even if we forced them to.

Re:Here come the

[dAzED1]

while Europe might be declining in pop (I disagree that it is, but it's not important) two countries will have growth in the next 20 years that will make up for it by themselves.

Scratch that...the growth they'll have will be more than the entire population of Europe at it's most populous point.

We're just shifting, we're not declining as a species.

Re:Here come the

[MBGMorden]

He was saying that our own scientific meddling will take the place of natural evolution, and to a large part he's right.

The basic reason for evolution: a lack of resources such that members of a species with a distinctive genetic advantage will have a greater chance of surviving long enough to generate offspring.

By that logic mankind no longer does this. We break down work into categories. If you aren't good at growing or gathering food you can do OTHER things that allow you to survive. Even for the people who can't provide for themselves we have created social welfare programs that will help them even though naturally they would starve out. In essence, once a species reaches a level of civilization evolution more or less grinds to a halt, because the forces that drive it are no longer valid.

If we were to place random plants and (nonhuman) animals on a planet and wait a couple million years, we might see something interesting. You put modern humans on that same planet and wait the same amount of time though and all you'll find are modern humans who have better technology (assuming they didn't kill each other).

Re:Here come the

[grumbel]

### slowed down? It's gone *insanely* fast. Keep timeline in context; life started 3.5 billion years ago. Humanity's first written language was only 6k years ago - .5Millionth of life's entire time.

Cultural evolution of course has gone insanely fast, biological evolution on the other side doesn't seem to have made much changes for quite a while and I don't see how it ever should in an industrial nation, after all your survival and your reproduction has little or nothing todo with your genes. Humans might of course one day adjust their genes to fit the job, but thats not something I would call evolution.

Re:Here come the

[dAzED1]

it has a lot to do with genes; while not all of intelligence is genetic, a good portion of it is. There are all sorts of traits that make it more likely that someone will have both the financial resources, and the inclination, to create GM kids. Those kids will be the next step in our evolution.

That, and it's silly to say we're not evolving anymore, because we're industrialized or something. What part of "we're only 50k years old..." is hard to grasp? It took 600 million years for the multi-celled orgs to get to what you are today. Give evolution a little bit more of a chance than just what you've seen in your lifetime.

That, and look at the skeleton of someone from 10,000 years ago - we're different. We're much bigger, and our brain cavities are larger. We're definately still evolving.

Re:Here come the

[dAzED1]

wrong. Social welfare is a recent invention, and it's already losing ground.

And...we're still evolving. Just don't expect to see changes in 20 years - evolution of complex species takes a little longer than that. Check back in 10k years and see where we're at.

Re:Here come the

[lgw]

Social evoltuion is different than biological evolution. There's no real evidence that we're biologically different than our pre-tech ancestors of 10000 years ago. Nutrition and culture account for some amazing changes.

Re:Here come the

[dAzED1]

There's no real evidence that we're biologically different than our pre-tech ancestors of 10000 years ago. Nutrition and culture account for some amazing changes.

Hmm...if there's no evidence, then why did you write that last sentence?

As I've already stated, we're quite different than we were 10k years ago. Bone structure, brain size...even silly things like skin color. All sorts of things have changed.

Re:Here come the

[grumbel]

### while not all of intelligence is genetic, a good portion of it is.

The problem (feature?!) with evolution is that doesn't care if you are intelligent, it cares if your genes spread and intelligence doesn't seem to help all that much with that any longer. Current brith rate in germany for example is ~1.6 per female, meaning we will be extinct sooner or later if it continues that way. It doesn't mean we are not intelligent or that we all die a early, it simply means that our culture evoled into a state where having children isn't considered necessary and carrer is often considered more important. In other much less developed countries in the world the birth rate on the other side is much higher, there genes spread, ours don't.

So yes, evolution still takes place, but it doesn't really go into the direction of some very intelligent advanced human.

Re:Here come the

[lgw]

There's no evidence of biological change. The evidence is that the change is not biological. The evidence is that the changes, instead of being biological, is due to changes in nutrition and culture.

There's no difference in bone structure, brain size in the last 130,000 years. There's very little difference in brain size between modern humans and Homo Erectus (some Homo Erectus skulls are a normal size for a man), which goes back over 1 million years.

We are indeed quite different that we were 10000 years ago, but biological evolution is much slower than that, amd the difference are caused by other factors.

Quick summary.

More accuracy and detail.

Re:Here come the

[MBGMorden]

It IS recent. But recent makes no difference. We're not arguing about things that happened in the past. We're talking about things that will happen in the future. If something started YESTERDAY it could be the determining factor.

Look at the troubles we face today. Point out ANYTHING that would cause natural selection to take place. It doesn't exist for a modern society. In essence, by the time a species is smart enough to realize the concept of evolution, they'll have stopped evolving.

And trust me, in 10k years we'll be virtually exactly the same as we are now, just as we were almost exactly the same 10k years ago. To start seeing major differences in human physical structure you've got to go back nearly 100k years.

Re:Here come the

[sznupi]

I doubt that availablr brain power has anything to do (well, maybe slightly) with number of people available....unfortunately :/

Re:Here come the

[sznupi]

One more thing to point out is that perhaps technological advances can be seen as evolution of humans, which has shifted from us to the "extensions" of our bodies

Re:Here come the

[sznupi]

You know, assuming that inteligence = you've got higher social position means that the people that are less inteligent leave more offspring. And the differences in our ancestors from 10k years ago can be caused by availability of food, that we don't have to work that early (for example: my generation is MUCH higher overall than the previous ones, which grew up during harsh years after WW2), etc.

Re:Here come the

[sznupi]

I wouldn't call it on purpose; more like: it's the unintentioned effect of evolution (most of our ancestors didn't live long enough to really begin to age, so the good condition of body past, say 40 years, wasn't preffered in evolutionary race)

Re:Here come the

[grumbel]

### Point out ANYTHING that would cause natural selection to take place.

Birth rate in germany is currently ~1.6 per female if I remember correctly, if we continue that way we are extingt in around ~500 years if my math is right. One might call that evolution, but it goes in quite another direction than expected, since wealth has little todo with how far once genes spread these days.

Re:Here come the

[dAzED1]

"There are all sorts of traits that make it more likely that someone will have both the financial resources, and the inclination, to create GM kids. Those kids will be the next step in our evolution."

GM kids.

Re:Here come the

[dAzED1]

you shouldn't assume that intelligence="higher social standing"

almost all of the greatest minds throughout history have either been complete recluses, or at the very least not at all socially or financially ambitious.

"higher social standing" simply means one is ambitious.

Re:Here come the

[Alioth]

I'm not talking about the we as in those of us alive now: but say, some time in the future, a 'cyborg' is created by instead of using AI for the machine, they grow human brain tissue connected to the right interfaces that can be connected to various useful machine body parts. Eventually, that cyborg may down the line create new versions of itself that are entirely machines once technology has advanced in such a way you can make the brain of the machine out of something other than meat.

These machine intelligences, since they don't need all that messy life support, can be sent on space missions. If they also have the equipment to build new versions of themselves - well, essentially they are life, but not as we know it. But they are related to humans - maybe not by DNA - but by the new genetics of digital information.

Bam, asteroid wipes out old fashioned meat humans, but mankind's machine offspring can continue. Essentially, they have out-evolved the meat humans.

There's nothing really sinister about it either, and it's almost inevitable so long as we don't wipe ourselves out through war or ecological collapse first.

Re:Here come the

[Alioth]

Look at the troubles we face today. Point out ANYTHING that would cause natural selection to take place. It doesn't exist for a modern society. In essence, by the time a species is smart enough to realize the concept of evolution, they'll have stopped evolving.

No - we just changed the rules. Assuming that society doesn't collapse, I'm sure we'll be able to comprehensively control our genetic makeup. That will have a huge impact on what the human race looks like.

Re:Here come the

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one way of looking at it but a lot of thing that could keep us alive longer where removed because having 1/10th of a % chance to hit 200 is less usefull than increasing your chance of hiting 40 by 1/10 of 1%. Geting older has a lot to do with managing how much to repare the body vs let dammage acumulate. Think of it this way if you start having kids at age 3 then fighting canser as hard as we do is a waste but if you start having kids at age 300 then you need to fight canser a lot harder.

I think the simplest way to increase lifespan would be to prevent anyone from having kids before 30 thus increasing the value of living longer. You then keep moving that age up till you can't start having kids till your well over 200. Now this might take well over 10,000,000+ years but it can still work. On a side note having a population that's stable can work just as well if 1/2 the population dies before having kids and the other haulf has twice as many kids to make up for that fact thus creating a balanced society and promoting evolution vs having everyone bread as soon as they feel like it.

PS: I don't realy think this is a good idea just taking an idea a little to far.

Re:Here come the

[sznupi]

You shouldn't assume that great mind = high intelligence :P More seriously (jus a little...), ambition isn't everything. And don't forget that I was simplyfying things in the first place - but overall, it's safe to assume that "dumb" (please notice the " before commenting...) people leave much more offspring.

Re:Here come the

[sznupi]

Nah, I don't look at it this way - we mostly weren't dying for "natural" reasons after all. As for increasing lifespan...hmm, idea worth thinking about...after all parents who would be "better" in giving offspring in the late age, would have more of it (since children of mothers with complications would have to be stronger to survive pregnancy) - evolution would start again for us ;) (One might also wonder if it would translate to higher max age...)

Gas Prices

[mathmatt]

NASA is just waiting for their paycheck to clear so they can afford to fill up that gas hog. That Shuttle makes a Hummer look like a Prius when it comes to MPG!

Re:Gas Prices

[StratoChief66]

Yeah, but it makes a rocket car look like an albatros when you compare top speeds.

Re:Gas Prices

[Anonymous Coward]

Shuttle makes a Hummer look like a Prius

In that it uses a completely different fuel source? Yes, yes it does.

Re:Gas Prices

[f0rtytw0]

I don't know about that. The Shuttle can circle the earth a couple times on a single tank.

Re:Gas Prices

[tocs]

I don't know how much fuel the shuttles use on a typical mission but the Atlantis has averaged around 407934 miles a day during its lifetime. On the 11 days of the STS-121 mission the MPG is bound to come out at least as good as my car. Does any one know how much fuel it will use and how it compares with gasoline?

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_ shuttle#Flight_ statistics_.28as_of_February_3.2C_2003.29
http:// spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/archives/sts-1 21/index.html

Re:Gas Prices

[CausticPuppy]

NASA is just waiting for their paycheck to clear so they can afford to fill up that gas hog. That Shuttle makes a Hummer look like a Prius when it comes to MPG!

Well the best way to increase the shuttle's average MPG for the entire trip is to just leave it in orbit longer...

Re:Gas Prices

[InstBrad]

According to http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight/system/system_E T.html, the ET holds 143,060 gallons of LOX and 282,066 gallons of liquid H2 for a total of 526,126 gallons.

If the Earth's circumference is 25,000 miles, then a typical 7 day mission should travel about 2,800,000 miles on a single tank. This gives us about 5.3 MPG.

But wait... it gets worse! If you add in the SRBs, the total fuel consumption is even larger. The SRBs contain > 1,000,000 pounds of solid fuel. I've no idea how many gallons this is but its a bit more than your average Hummer burns up going to the Safeway.

The Shuttle's fuel economy isn't that great but its 0-17000 times are outstanding. :)

Re:Gas Prices

[grozzie2]

Actually, it takes a full tank, and 2 external rockets (which carry far more energy than the main fuel tank). on a single tank, the shuttle wouldn't even get off the pad.

creators' ppr/big flash, still on schedule

[already_gone]

as we all ?know?, change is inevitable, & denying/ignoring gravity, logic, morality, etc..., is only possible, on a temporary basis.

concern about the course of events that will occur should the corepirate nazi life0cidal execrable fail to be intervened upon, is in order.

'do not be dismayed' (from the manual). however, it's ok/recommended, to not attempt to live under/accept, fauxking nazi felon greed/fear/ego based pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking hypenosys.

for each of the creators' innocents harmed, there is a debt that must/will be repaid by you/us, as the perpetrators/minions of unprecedented evile, will not be available.

consult with/trust in yOUR creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives), whilst badtolling unprecedented evile, using an unlimited supply of newclear power, since/until forever. see you there?

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

Re:creators' ppr/big flash, still on schedule

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you even read what you type?

Re:creators' ppr/big flash, still on schedule

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, we need a mod option for "-1, Indecipherable Nonsense"

Delays, delays...

[Anonymous Coward]

Always delays... what are Nasa doing? I mean come on, it's not rocket science...

WTF

[Turn-X Alphonse]

This is done in order to give the agency more time to finish paperwork

WTF is it with paper these days? I mean really! We spend more time doing paperwork then we do anything else. Is it REALLY that important to document every little tiny fact of a pointless job? All I hear from the police is "We need more people or we need less paper work" and it seems it applies to everyone.

Would you rather NASA spent hours and hours filling out paper saying how many pins they heard drop this week and how many screws they may have put in the test models or would you rather they spent that time improve technology so we can all bugger off this planet?

Re:WTF

[TheKidWho]

Would you rather someone be accountable for an accident or people to just go around and say "uhhh I don't know whose fault it was or what caused the problem because we didn't do any paperwork on it"

Re:WTF

[The New Andy]

"finish paperwork" is a euphemism for "posting at slashdot"

Re:WTF

[Craig_P92669]

I don't think anybody at NASA is in a big hurry to be the scapegoat if something goes wrong, so I'm sure they are going over everything to make sure nothing got overlooked. But you really couldn't pay me a billion dollars to go up in that thing unless they put SpaceShipOne in the cargo bay in case of emergency. Even then, it would take a 10 pound Xanax to calm my nerves.

Re:WTF

[rhadamanthus]

As someone who works at NASA on the SSP, let me tell you a well known axiom:

"Every shuttle launch entails putting roughly 4.5 million tons of weight into orbit - and closing out about twice as much weight in paper."

Jokes aside, most of the paperwork is there for a good reason. Every single component on the shuttle is certified for the entire flight envelope. It's quite a challenge.

Re:WTF

[mobilemic]

Why waste the Xanax? You'll burn up on re-entry anyways. Don't forget that SpaceShipOne didn't have to deal with any *real* re-entry issues.

Re:WTF

[blueturffan]

Would you rather NASA spent hours and hours filling out paper saying how many pins they heard drop this week and how many screws they may have put in the test models or would you rather they spent that time improve technology so we can all bugger off this planet?

I suppose it's a matter of perspective. If I'm strapped to the top of a rocket, I want to be sure that every seemingly trivial detail has been documented and double-checked.

By the way, one of the reasons that NASA was able to return to flight so quickly after the Apollo 13 incident was that they were able to go back and determine exactly what had caused the oxygen tank in the SM to explode. In looking back through the "paperwork", they were able to determine that there were two separate events (tank dropped two inches, and relays not updated to new pad voltage reqirements) that contributed to the explosion. By the way, the tank dropping incident happened two years before the crew was named!

In the Apollo days, they used to joke that they weren't ready to launch until the pile of paperwork matched the height of the rocket. (363 feet)

Re:WTF

[FatAlb3rt]

Except your number is off by a factor of 2000 (lbs not tons) and only about 250k lbs actually makes it to orbit (as someone who formerly worked SSP and now ISS). :) Not to discount your point though - isn't bureacracy great?

Re:WTF

[david.given]

Would you rather someone be accountable for an accident or people to just go around and say "uhhh I don't know whose fault it was or what caused the problem because we didn't do any paperwork on it"

Frankly, I would rather people spent less effort on trying to find a scapegoat when something goes wrong, and instead spend more effort on stopping things going wrong in the first place.

If the shuttle blows up on the launch pad, finding someone who you can point at and say 'It's all his fault!' won't suddenly make things better again.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Von Braun himself thought Apollo was plagued by paper. He said something to the effect that soon we'll be able to stack the paper up and walk to the moon. Another manager on the project said that when the weight of the paper equals the weight of the booster, you'll know we're ready to launch.

Re:WTF

[rhadamanthus]

True, I worded that badly. I must need another cup of coffee.

Re:WTF

[gilliboo]

This might have nothing to do with the delay but there has been some pressure on NASA from the Canadian government to change the launch direction (I know... not easy) due to concerns of debris hitting the Hibernia oil platform. They predicted debris landing around 25 miles from the platform. Since this is a non-movable platform it caused some understandable nervousness.

While I trust NASA's numbers, I can still understand the concern.

Re:WTF

[0123456]

"Would you rather someone be accountable for an accident or people to just go around and say "uhhh I don't know whose fault it was or what caused the problem because we didn't do any paperwork on it""

But NASA paperwork has been proven to be worthless in the past. In one famous case a few years back there were tools left in the back of the shuttle which could have gone rattling around and caused a fatal accident if they'd hit something vital during the launch.

The worker signed to say they'd taken the tools out of the shuttle. Their supervisor signed to say the tools had been taken out of the shuttle. Their supervisor signed to say the tools had been taken out of the shuttle.

Three people, lots of paperwork... but the tools were still left in the shuttle in spite of it. What's the point of paperwork if three people can sign to attest to something which is blatantly untrue?

Re:WTF

[twiddlingbits]

Last time I worked at NASA, Shuttle was called STS and Station was ISS. When did the insiders start using SSP? Other than that I agree, more paperwork goes on than real work. In fact if you do some real work your paperwork goes up! :(

Re:WTF

[crawling_chaos]

These days? The joke in the days of Apollo was that a Saturn V wasn't cleared to launch until the pile of completed paperwork was taller than the launch stack. This isn't new, and may actually be a good sign that NASA is going back toward getting all of the details right prior to launch.

Re:WTF

[grumbel]

### Would you rather someone be accountable for an accident

If you are going to blame 'someone' you are already doing the wrong thing. Humans make errors, so replacing the human that did the error with another one that will do a similar random error will do nothing to improve the overall situation. To really fix a problem you need to find out how to avoid it in the future, not who is to blame for it. If Jim forgot some screws, the solution is not to replace Jim with Bob, but to let Bob cross check that all screws that Jim placed. It of course can still go wrong, but it requires that both Jim and Bob make an error, which is quite less likly then only one doing an error.

So yes, paperwork is important to track who did what, when and why. The solution to fixing problems lays however in the procedure and much less in the people performing the procedure.

Re:WTF

[joeljkp]

Sounds like a personnel/cultural problem. Because a set of people abuse the paperwork doesn't mean the paperwork should be done away with altogether.

In a large enterprise like NASA, there needs to be documentation that certain actions are performed. If that documentation is false, well, you've got another problem on your hands.

Re:WTF

[outlineblue]

The shuttle launch has nothing to do with the debris hitting the Hibernia oil platform. Those debris concerns are for a USAF satellite launch and sparked a mass evacuation of 3 oil platforms in that area when it was announced. Now they don't know when they'll be launching it due to a "technical" problem

Re:WTF

[pilgrim23]

As it clearly states in form A22-31025b-001a sub paragraph 15 the responsibility for this massive screw up occured in a whole different department. Our exhaustive overhaul of the paperwork used in the Shuttle Program (see descriptive Powerpoint presentation scheduled at 12:00), resulted in 14 worker's comp claims for paper cuts. So, as you see, we are right on top of the safety issue..

Re:WTF

[uberdave]

The paperwork *is* there to prevent things from going wrong. Specifications make sure that the parts can cope with the stresses of flight. Checklists make sure that the parts that are supposed to be there are there. Imagine how silly NASA would look if the shuttle launced without any food aboard. A spaceflight is basically months upon months of planning followed by a few days in orbit. Without paperwork, how would management know if it was safe to launch?

Further, in the event of an accident, the paperwork is not there to provide a scapegoat, but to aid in finding out what went wrong. Maybe the pre-launch sequence of events needs to be adjusted . Maybe some additional tests and checks need to be made. Unless you have paperwork, you'll never be able to tell what went wrong.

Re:WTF

[CaryTheSane]

When I co-oped @ the Brown's Ferry Nuclear Plant (you know the one that had the worst accident in the US until 3-Mile came along), the belief was that the NRC required a weight of original reports equal to the weight of the reactor vessel before we could re-start the reactor. There's just something about a bureaucracy that LOVES paper . . . But it IS comforting to know when you live near the reactor that they are crossing all the t's and dotting all the i's. I'm sure the same is true for the guys that are gonna strap themselves into that thing and go for a ride.

Re:WTF

[Frostalicious]

Three people, lots of paperwork... but the tools were still left in the shuttle in spite of it. What's the point of paperwork if three people can sign to attest to something which is blatantly untrue?

If you notice that paperwork failed once, and conclude that it will always fail, that's a logical fallacy.

another slow day?

[NickHewitt]

Google day yesterday.. Nasa Day today... Sco tomorrow?

Re:another slow day?

[PierceLabs]

You have uttered the name of evil and summoned the beast McBride! Why, why have you done this!!

good

[zippo01]

Good i still have time to write my letter to God.

They are smarter than you!

[wildgoatboy5]

Have you ever heard the expression "I'm no rocket scientist..."? Well, I'm not, and more importantly either are you. Seriously people, try to remain within the realm of your expertise. Trust that the people at NASA are more intelligent than you, and taking necessary precautions and following necessary protocols.

Re:They are smarter than you!

[PriceIke]

The shuttle Commander is a babe, too.

Re:They are smarter than you!

[Anonymous Coward]

But what's with that Princess Leia look?

Re:They are smarter than you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction: used to be (see flight suit). I'm not sure I'm down with that Barbara Bush blue dress and 'do, though. If she still is a babe, they coulda picked a better "today" picture.

About time...

[kniLnamiJ-neB]

I'm glad to see we're heading back to space. I hope they can start working on more exploration now... like maybe we can send some people to the moon for the first time in my lifetime. The space program needs to really take off (no pun).

Re:About time...

[Anonymous Coward]

And you think NASA is going to do that? Take a look at what NASA does- scientific research, not space tourism. If you want to see people on the moon (let alone if you want to one day go to space yourself), hope the private enterprise gets it done. As far as maned spaceflight goes... In a decade or two, NASA will likely be purchasing a privately built craft developed for the commercial space tourism industry to replace the aging shuttles.

Photos

[Anonymous Coward]

Photos of the shuttle from boingboing.net's article on it.

Re:Photos

[antdude]

It needs a shuttle wash or a new paint job after viewing those awesome photographs. [grin]

Re:Photos

[Anonymous Coward]

My thoughts exactly

It just looks soooo grubby.

I know why!...I know why!...

[IdJit]

They were all hung over from the Apollo 13 ground crew party!!

Re:I know why!...I know why!...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice sig link you tit. The same user id is signed up under every conga. Start a conga site, set yourself up as the first user id and get a ton of free stuff.

Re:I know why!...I know why!...

[Anonymous Coward]

Idjit is old enough a UID to be operated by someone with plenty of /. nicks. It doesn't take much to mod yourself up to (5) funny every time. I41 don't think most of his(her) posts are all that great. Besides, where's the typical /. rage against the lame 'free stuff' links in sigs? I will continue to mod those posts offtopic, metamoderating 'unfair' be damned.

Its not rocket surgery....

[alexhohio]

Its not rocket surgery....

YES

[bluGill]

As annoying as it is, that paperwork is important. We cannot make another saturn V because some of the paperwork has been lost. Of course if you wanted to create a new Saturn V you would start from scratch because you want modern technology, but still it would be helpful to know how any why the Saturn V was done the way it was, and what problems they had to work around.

Even when the paperwork is obsolete it is useful to get a picture of where you were.

Paperwork is your checklist. Many times in my life I thought everything was done until I went through the checklist. If you don't do the paperwork you don't know if you checked everything. It would be really a bummer to find that the main fuel tank was never filled, only "topped off" to replace evaporation/leakage while waiting on the pad. (that is just enough fuel to get off the pad, but not enough to get into space) Only by running through a checklist can you be sure that step was done.

Remember the saturn Moon probe of a few months back where they forgot to put turn the radio on in the checklist? The radio wasn't turned on. There are plenty of major mistakes that only doing the paperwork (annoying as it is) can prevent. Of course doing the paperwork won't find problems that aren't in the checklists. The sheare volume of things that need to be done mean that for minor things you sometimes hope someone did it, but live with it when someone forgets.

Re:YES

[willith]

We cannot make another saturn V because some of the paperwork has been lost.

This is incorrect. The Saturn V blueprints are safe and completely intact on microfilm at MSFC, where they have been since the 1960s. Nothing at all has been lost. From the link:

"The Federal Archives in East Point, Georgia, also has 2,900 cubic feet of Saturn documents," he said. "Rocketdyne has in its archives dozens of volumes from its Knowledge Retention Program. This effort was initiated in the late '60s to document every facet of F 1 and J 2 engine production to assist in any future restart."

Re:YES

[grumbel]

### We cannot make another saturn V because some of the paperwork has been lost.

This is incorrect, the reason why we can't build another Saturn V is not because lost papers, all those are still available, but because there are no longer vendors for mid-1960's hardware. See:

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/space/controversy/

This is also the reason why we can't just build another shuttle, while the papes are there, the tools and factories to manufactor them are not. Thus the cost would be higher then a build from scratch.

Re:YES

[fermion]

And this is the easiest way to tell people who have worked on critical systems, and those who have not. The later just think they can fix things in production, or if a fuse is wrong it can be replaced. The former live in fear of missing some small detail, or more often a few seemingly trivial details, that will cost the entire project.

Re:YES

[starseeker]

Do you know if they offer print copies for sale? Those would be really neat to flip through, although I suppose it would be a lot of volumes.

Some phb needs more time for new ways to screw up

[pg110404]

As far as I'm concerned, nasa does not really have a good track record for safety, despite all their efforts.

Before challenger blew up, the engineers tried to scrub the launch citing a possibility of the o-rings leaking. Pressure at the highest levels made sure it went as scheduled because before then, they had a flawless record and it was just a possibility and they had their image to maintain.

Of course, there was the investigation and they ultimately had to go lick their wounds. Years later and especially 9/11 later with budget cuts and the space program being scoffed at due to being essentially a money pit when it could be 'better spent', it's not surprising that a few years ago columbia vaporized on re-entry.

It may very well be damaged heat tiles by sheets of ice falling off the main fuel tank during launch which is the official story, but (...dons tin foil hat...) what might not be official is that due to such cuts and possibly a bit of politicking, pressure was put on all sectors of the space program including the 'garage' that inspects and repairs the heat tiles. If it's possible that the garage was under enormous pressure to get the aging columbia ready on time, they might have let a few suspect tiles go which they might not normally have let got and had they been replaced properly, they might have withstood the impact of the ice falling.

The russian space program seems to take the licking, learn from it and move on. Nasa to me seems to shuffle their feet for a while saying to themselves, 'how can we stop *THIS* from happening again?', but should instead ask the question, 'How can we stop accidents from happening again?'.

Hole in leading edge, not "heat tiles"...

[Anonymous Coward]

... is what doomed the Columbia. The carbon-carbon composite leading edge structure of the wings is not really "tiles", and it has been determined for virtually positive certain that a hole knocked into the carbon-carbon structure on the leading edge of the wing is what caused the disaster since the aluminum and stainless steel framework inside the wing melted and burned from within. The only thing that would do that is the superheated plasma gasses being let inside the wing, and the burn patterns of the inner wing components recovered from the wreckage have now revealed that the plasma gasses came straight at the interior structural parts from an angle that could only have come from a hole knocked directly into the leading edge. The unusual nose-left yaw exhibited by the craft right before the total loss of directional control which cause the craft to tumble out of control and break up, also is indicative of a hole in the left wing leading edge.

Re:Hole in leading edge, not "heat tiles"...

[pg110404]

Ahh. The last I had heard on this subject (or cared to hear on this subject) was a heat tile around the location of the landing gear. That's where their attention was focused at the time, but the leading edge of the wing explanation makes more sense.

Thanks for the info. Now my argument doesn't quite hold as much weight.

Re:Some phb needs more time for new ways to screw

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get me started on Federal money pits. How many strictly local projects in their home districts do the Congress Critters add to the budget each year?

shuttle vs. soyuz

[cybpunks3]

I find it amusing that at the same time everyone is hand-wringing over the safety factors of the pending shuttle launch, Soyuz is flying to ISS again without fanfare.

I think that says everything there is to say about the US space program.

We're putting a lot of effort to put a lame duck platform back in orbit that is going to be decommissioned in 5 years or so anyway with no clear successor and we just kind of ignore the fact that Russia has a time-tested (but not glamorous) platform with a far better safety record.

Re:shuttle vs. soyuz

[Anonymous Coward]

Soyuz is flying to ISS again without fanfare.

Goes to show that the US program is more about fanfare than it is about space. Hey, what can you say? Hollywood rules. All glitz and no go.

Re:shuttle vs. soyuz

[hpulley]

Safety-wise, the capsule has many advantages to an orbiter. The shuttle is not at the top so parts of the craft may hit it. Getting the Soyuz capsule away from its booster is fairly simple. It can land ballistically which means aborts don't need to worry about landing strips. The new Crew Vehicle being worked on is another capsule on top of the rocket, like they should have continued using after Apollo, instead of the shuttle programme which has been flawed from the start.

Re:shuttle vs. soyuz

[joeljkp]

Except Soyuz doesn't have the same capabilities as the Shuttle. It's not like you can just replace the Shuttle with Soyuz and do the same things.

Re:shuttle vs. soyuz

[RichMeatyTaste]

Yes but what is the payload capacity of Soyuz?
I'm not saying the Shuttle is perfect, but it serves a unique purpose at this moment.

Re:shuttle vs. soyuz

[Anonymous Coward]

It was adequate to assemble and maintain Mir for more than 15 years. The shuttle maintained Hubble, that is being replaced. Satellites are launched from the ground more cheaply than repaired by the shuttle. The shuttle is PR material, as the Hubble has become. Yes, Mir was deorbited in the end due to cost and degradation but more than 11 years after the CCCP that put it into place had ceased to exist. Can anything accomplished by the shuttle compare in the slightest? The ISS? It is not complete.

Re:shuttle vs. soyuz

[DerekLyons]

I find it amusing that at the same time everyone is hand-wringing over the safety factors of the pending shuttle launch, Soyuz is flying to ISS again without fanfare.

In two out of five Soyuz flights since the loss of Columbia there have been significant accidents. The world at large is ignorant of them because the made niether the front page of CNN nor even Slashdot.

We're putting a lot of effort to put a lame duck platform back in orbit that is going to be decommissioned in 5 years or so anyway with no clear successor and we just kind of ignore the fact that Russia has a time-tested (but not glamorous) platform with a far better safety record.

ROTFLMAO. By no reasonable metric does the Soyuz have a better safety or reliability record than the Shuttle.

Re:shuttle vs. soyuz

[sznupi]

But Soyuz + Proton/Delta/(or the like); (of course apart from bringing down satellites...but how usefull is that anyway/how many times it was performed?)

Re:shuttle vs. soyuz

[sznupi]

"By no reasonable metric does the Soyuz have a better safety or reliability record than the Shuttle." care to elaborate? (oh, and sure, the were recently "accidents" of Soyuz, mainly because some overhaul - but none of them fatal)

Re:shuttle vs. soyuz

[grozzie2]

I'm not saying the Shuttle is perfect, but it serves a unique purpose at this moment.

yup, sitting in florida, buring up money like its going out of style, and not flying, is very unique....

Re:shuttle vs. soyuz

[DerekLyons]

"By no reasonable metric does the Soyuz have a better safety or reliability record than the Shuttle." care to elaborate?

Certainly.

Shuttle 2 - fatal launch accidents. (Columbia is a launch accident even though the effects were not felt until re-entry.) Soyuz 2 - non fatal loss of vehicle and mission accidents.

Shuttle 1 - (minor) nonfatal landing accident. Soyuz 2- fatal re-entry accidents. 3 - non fatal but serious re-entry accidents or incidents. (I.E. they were non fatal mostly by luck.) 6 - non fatal landing accidents. (At least 6 *that we know of*.) Two were nonfatal only by the slimmest of margins.

Shuttle 3 - underperformance incidents (where mission objectives were not achieved or only partially achieved because of vehicle problems), all 3 reflown on later missions. Soyuz - 8 (at least) underperformance incidents all involving complete loss-of-mission, none reflown.

Not to mention the fact that Soyuz has racked all that up in just 89 flights - as opposed to the 113 flights of the Shuttle.

Soyuz's reputation was made in the day when Russia didn't discuss failures, and has been cemented by fanboys and NASA critics who have swallowed the propaganda whole. (Not helped by the fact that NASA co-operated with Russia to downplay the problems, lest they threaten Congressional support for ISS.)

See this report for some real eye-openers on Soyuz safety, of this one on MIR.

(oh, and sure, the were recently "accidents" of Soyuz, mainly because some overhaul - but none of them fatal)

There was no 'overhaul' involved with either of the accidents. In fact, we don't know what was involved as the Russians have never admitted to the causes.

It's a grave fallacy to assume that because there were no fatalities an accident is insignificant. NASA made that assumption multiple times - and two Shuttles are dead because of it. Anyone who fails to hold the Russians to the same standard is delusional or dishonest.

Re:shuttle vs. soyuz

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that on a technical level the Soyuz may be better or may be equal to the space shuttle in terms of damage (one person was killed in the most recent problem, the Soyuz U unmanned rocket exploded during launch) however the advocates for the Soyuz design often simply use it as an example that does have that character of being either better or ambiguous in comparison to the much more expensive but not doing better or possibly even worse in regard to lifting capacity and variety of cargo that it carries. The design of the shuttle is a dead end. It was an experiment, its successor may be similar but likely will be much stronger and use the titanium frame and not rely on large quantities of fragile ceramic heat shields. Still, that even now the Russian program that is at best minimally funded and may launch only with purchase of services in advance due to the economy of Russia is able to have that comparable record with the shuttle program of the US, even with its recent recession, is a tribute to the more sturdy design of the Soyuz. Also, do not forget that the Shenzhou of China is of roughly the same design. Add its statistics and compare then.

Re:shuttle vs. soyuz

[sznupi]

However Soyuz flew many more than 89 flights, and I'd also argue that the fatal accidents are the ones that count really (certainly there would also be people who'd say that because of Soyuzs more durable design the 'almost fatal' accidents weren'r fatal - I'm not one one of them, it's certainly more complicated issue; however 'almost fatal' doesn't really count into statistics that really matter, so...). After all you can't possibly make anything to be absolutely prone to errors/failures, accidents will always occur, but it's good when the design is such that people don't die because of them (for example (yeah, bad example, bud still): Buran was totally immune for the things that ended in disaster for Space Shuttle; not saying that it would be totally immune for everything of course (diffent design: problems of Shuttle can't occur, but others...), it could have its share of problems if it'd flew more). About Mir - I fully agree, however it should be noted that bulk of problmes were because of lack of funds/ much longer life than planned (as for other - well, it's good they were made on Mir, not ISS...). PS. And there was slight overhaul recently (of course one could argure that something like that should be done in a matter that wouldn't increase the risk; and unfortunatelly in case of Russians any changes usually do it...)

Re:Some phb needs more time for new ways to screw

[cowscows]

About a hundred shuttle launches, and only two failed. That's not a bad record if you ask me. The space shuttle is one of the most complicated things people have ever done, both technologically, and politically. The fact that it ever flew at all, much less 100 times, is pretty amazing to me.

Not to say that there hasn't been some silly mistakes (you can make a pretty good argument that the basic design of the shuttle wasn't very practical), but I think NASA's safety record is something for them to be proud of.

The political nonsense and bureaucratic mess has certainly made NASA far less useful than that large a group of intelligent engineers should be. There's plenty to criticize them on, but their safety record is pretty darn good.

Your last paragraph doesn't make any sense. They can stop accidents from happening again by shutting down. Other than that, you're going to have to accept that when you're firing rockets up into space, it's dangerous. There's a lot of trial and error on the forefront of technology. How many planes crashed before the Stealth Bomber was developed? A whole lot more than wrecked space ships.

Re:Some phb needs more time for new ways to screw

[iminplaya]

Complexity is no excuse. The Concorde is the most complex airliner ever flown, to this day. That aircraft flew for over 30 years(!) without a single crash. NO other vehicle of any type has ever accomplished that. The engineers expected Challenger to be destroyed on launch. They were off by a little over a minute. Management overruled them. In addition to that, Reagan wanted to have a civilian in space to talk about during the State of the Union Address. The delays were becoming intolerable. Politics destroyed Challenger directly. It stank from the beginning. It did so a little lees directly with Columbia with the very nature of its design. Better designs were rejected due to budget constraints.

Re:Some phb needs more time for new ways to screw

[_Sprocket_]

How many strictly local projects in their home districts do the Congress Critters add to the budget each year?

From the CAIB Report, Volume I, Chapter 5, page 104:

EARMARKS
Pressure on NASAs budget has come not only from the White House, but also from the Congress. In recent years there has been an increasing tendency for the Congress to add "earmarks" - congressional additions to the NASA budget request that reflect targeted Members interests. These earmarks come out of already-appropriated funds, reducing the amounts available for the original tasks. For example, as Congress considered NASAs Fiscal Year 2002 appropriation, the NASA Administrator told the House Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the NASA budget that the agency was "extremely concerned regarding the magnitude and number of congressional earmarks" in the House and Senate versions of the NASA appropriations bill. He noted "the total number of House and Senate earmarks ... is approximately 140 separate items, an increase of nearly 50 percent over FY 2001." These earmarks reflected "an increasing fraction of items that circumvent the peer review process, or involve construction or other objectives that have no relation to NASA mission objectives." The potential Fiscal Year 2002 earmarks represented "a net total of $540 million in reductions to ongoing NASA programs to fund this extremely large number of earmarks."

Re:Some phb needs more time for new ways to screw

[Anonymous Coward]

That aircraft flew for over 30 years(!) without a single crash. NO other vehicle of any type has ever accomplished that.

Actually, be for they retired the Concorde there were crashes, at least three if I remember correctly.

Re:Some phb needs more time for new ways to screw

[cowscows]

I think complexity is a pretty darn good excuse. The concorde is another impressive engineering feat, no doubt, but I think there's at least one order of magnitude of difference between it and that space shuttle.

I'm not arguing that NASA hasn't made any mistakes. Not even that they haven't made really foolish mistakes. But I think, that overall, the fact that more people haven't died in the space program is rather amazing.

Re:Some phb needs more time for new ways to screw

[pg110404]

The political nonsense and bureaucratic mess has certainly made NASA far less useful than that large a group of intelligent engineers should be.

I'd hoped people would see that being my point to begin with. I wasn't trying to say that space launches were inherently safe or unsafe or anything like that.

As for the first disaster, my memory of challenger was that when the dust settled, it was the top dog who said "launch" when the engineers said "don't launch". I wasn't entirely sure about the second, but last I heard of it, it was the heat tiles and if it was I suggested the possibility that it might have been yet some other bureaucratic mess.

There was an airplane whose cockpit window blew out and the pilot got sucked out. The cockpit crew managed to hold on to him long enough to get on the ground, which he miraculously survived. What ultimately caused that was the mechanic who had to work on that windshield, was under enormous pressure to get that plane out that night. In his haste he used bolts that looked the same but were not rated with the same strength. When the first one failed, they all popped like dominoes until cabin pressure blew out the windshield.

Accidents do happen, and it is unrealistic to overreact preventing it from happening in the first place (Although I could have an accident today, I should not drive to work. But then I could be on the bus and the bus could crash into a pole, so I should just stay home).

What I find inexcusable is the political nonsense that goes on in any industry. Crysler for example continued to sell their minivans knowing there was a flaw in the rear hatch latch and months later a kid was killed because that and another flaw caused the back seat he was in to be launched out the back. I can cite example after example of how some PHB sits in his nice ivory tower and works out how much a life is worth in lawsuits and will only fix foreseen problems when that outweights what it would cost to fix the original problem.

If I make a widget that breaks down and I knew it would break down ahead of time, as long as that flaw did not or could not cause loss of life, big friggin whoop, the only thing at stake is my reputation. When people are strapped onto a rocket like wile-e-coyote, the people who make or assume responsibility for said rocket, in my opinion, need to accept political fallout for playing it safe if there is sufficient cause for alarm for safetly.

After all, how much is a life worth anyway? Aparently, a fixed amount or something tangible in most industries.

Um... a Concorde crashed

[hpulley]

BBC coverage of the year 2000 Concorde crash most likely caused by rubber tire fragments (from tire blown by part which fell off another aircraft) rupturing the fuel tank.

Re:Um... a Concorde crashed

[iminplaya]

Let me re-word that. The Concorde flew for over 30 years before it crashed.

Re:Some phb needs more time for new ways to screw

[iminplaya]

I'm comparing the Concorde to other much less complex aircraft, which crash quite regularly. Usually due to human error. But even with a mechanical problem, that would be due to human(the mechanic or designer) error also. You can bet that part of the Concorde's safety record was due to political pride also. They were super careful with it. Same goes for NASA. The whole world watches ever little move it makes. Nobody wants their name on the next accident.

Don't believe the Hype

[Johnny Fusion]

This is an obvious cover story. The real reason for the delay is that they want to close NASA on May 19.

I hear the astronauts were refusing to fly until they find out how Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader.

This would not be a problem except members of the crew have already taked the "spoiler free" pledge.

Despite Initial protests from Mission Control, they decided that they rather watch fake spaceships blow each other up instead of blowing up another real one.

Re:Don't believe the Hype

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, have to love someone callously joking about the death of 7 people.

Re:Don't believe the Hype

[Johnny Fusion]

The seven crewmembers of STS-114 ain't dead, and hopefully the extra time taken before launching them will keep them that way for the duration of the mission.

Yet you have to admit that NASA's recent record is not encouraging in their ability to keep spacecraft intact.

The Genesis probe quickly comes to mind, and Landing on other planets is hard too.

Now if you are referring to Astronauts who have lost their lives in NASA craft, the number would be 17.

The most stunning astronaut

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Julie Payette.

Speaks six languages. Played with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra (one of the foremost in the world). Commercial pilots license. More scholarships and honourary degrees than you can shake a stick at. Diver's license, and deep-sea diving operator. CAPCOM op. Fighter pilot.

And she's damned cute on top of it all.

Re:The most stunning astronaut

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what's her rookie card worth at the moment?

Re:The most stunning astronaut

[PriceIke]

Wow, Julie sounds like an amazing human being, and an astronaut too! How do you top that?

I still think Eileen Collins is cuter.

This is a good thing, actually.

[Shag]

With the original launch date, I wasn't sure whether I should watch the launch, or go see Revenge of the Sith.

Re:This is a good thing, actually.

[ElyseMyers]

I was literally just thinking the same thing. Its quite a dilemma amongst science geeks watch darth vader in ROTS ooorrr watch a shuttle launch hoping that darth vader is on-board?? Tough call. I would have gone for ROTS.

Re:Some phb needs more time for new ways to screw

[DerekLyons]

Before challenger blew up, the engineers tried to scrub the launch citing a possibility of the o-rings leaking. Pressure at the highest levels made sure it went as scheduled because before then, they had a flawless record and it was just a possibility and they had their image to maintain.

Ok, that's the standard tinfoil hat vesion. Here's the reality: The engineers went to management and asked them to scrub the launch. When asked why, the engineers replied that they had a vague bad feeling that something might go wrong, maybe. When asked to support their theories, the engineers waffled. When asked to provide any data to support their case, the engineers handwaved.

Yes, there were some significant management problems, but it's delusional to belive that the engineers are without a share of the blame. (Especially since two years before management had paid the engineers to study the issue of o-ring erosion, and the engineers had concluded that since the backup o-ring had not failed - even though the primary did quite often there wasn't a problem.)

Of course, there was the investigation and they ultimately had to go lick their wounds. Years later and especially 9/11 later with budget cuts and the space program being scoffed at due to being essentially a money pit when it could be 'better spent', it's not surprising that a few years ago columbia vaporized on re-entry.

More tinfoil hat nonsense. Even a cursory study of the NASA budget, and the Shuttle budget in particular, show that it went *up* in fiscal 2002, and again in fiscal 2003.

If it's possible that the garage was under enormous pressure to get the aging columbia ready on time, they might have let a few suspect tiles go which they might not normally have let got and had they been replaced properly, they might have withstood the impact of the ice falling.

Umm... No. This is yet more tin-foil hat nonsense. They tested both flown RCC tiles and new RCC tiles, and both sets failed the impact test.

The russian space program seems to take the licking, learn from it and move on.

Important considering that using any reasonable metric; the Russian program has had far more accidents and incidents than NASA.

Nasa to me seems to shuffle their feet for a while saying to themselves, 'how can we stop *THIS* from happening again?', but should instead ask the question, 'How can we stop accidents from happening again?'.

Maybe because NASA lives in the real world and knows full well accidents are not 100% preventable.

Meh I can wait a week...

[whitetiger0990]

I was happy when they said that they were going to restart the shuttle program... But I think it's more efficient to spend the tax money on a nonobsolete way into space. You know, spend money on cheaper way into space and if we use that way long enough then it pays back.

Hey Mod!

[Snar Bloot]

It's on topic. It's ABOUT the topic, dumbass.