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Commission Says NASA Failed on Shuttle Safety
Tsalg writes "The final report from the Stafford-Covey Commission concludes that out of the 15 recommendations they made, the 3 toughest technically are not met. The news was not official on the return-to-flight website but has been widely commented elsewhere. Says one of the task members: "It is NASA's job -- not the task force's -- to determine whether the risks are acceptable and whether it's safe for Discovery to fly." The commission said risk remained that pieces of foam and ice could break off and hit the shuttle at lift-off.
It also said the orbiter had not been sufficiently hardened and it lacked an in-flight repair system.Nasa has been aiming to launch shuttle Discovery as early as 13 July."
and honestly, does NASA have the billions it'll take to fix the shuttles up again? Will the public even care to pay for a program that would be down another two to three years? Five years between shuttle launches?
Why bother, I say.
illusive first post ???
Need Another Seven Astronaughts
What these ninnies need is an aerodynamic inflatable pillow that they can launch. The astronauts can all sit around and sing Kum ba yah while hugging each other and reassuring that they are safe. Plus, some added crayons, construction paper, and safety scissors could be kept around in case the pillow needs some repair or decoration during the flight.
No sense in taking any risks, I suppose. We could have them sit on the launch pad and make VVRRRROOOOOMMMMM sounds until they get tuckered out and have to take a nap. No one will ever get hurt doing that. Maybe we should give them helmets in case they fall over while pretending to take off
Let us kill the astronauts because money is short.
If we wait until there are no risks the shuttle will never fly again. If we wait until everyone agrees with the risks, the shuttle will never fly again. We gave NASA the task to explore outter space, lets give them the ability. They understand the job at lot better than most people. The people who want to fly understand the risks. Lets let them take the risks if they think its worth it.
-Daniel
KD5UZZ
www.w5yj.org
Is it me, or is all of this making a great case for developing transporter technology...?
Heisenburg won't mind...
For gay men and straight women.
:)
Document history:
Mar. 10, 2005 More cleanup of the section on technique
Mar. 6, 2005 Updated intro and section on technique
Apr. 23, 2004 Added information about the hormonal content of semen
Nov. 30, 2003 First version
Aug. 6, 2003 Initial rough draft
I love blow jobs. Not just receiving them but giving them. I am not typical since I am a gay man. Straight men and women generally have an aversion from dick sucking. Guys are generally afraid of their own equipment (which explains why they particularly like watching lesbian pornos among other things) and don't know how to give blowjobs since they've never given any. Females generally don't know how to suck dick and give up after one or two tries. They don't own the equipment, they don't understand the male drive, they don't know how a blow job feels, they're afraid of semen, and they don't know how penises work. In fact, while many women have experimented with dick sucking, 90% of them don't like or don't want to try sucking dick. That's unfortunate because they are missing out on a rewarding experience. Likewise, their men are missing out on a very exciting experience. Let's face it, if you want to receive not just a blowjob, but a blowjob, you probably want a guy for a partner. Unless, of course, this guide helps transfer the carnal knowledge of pleasuring a man from a gay man to the straight women out there. If not, I hope to at least transfer this knowledge to another gay man out there.
The penis is one of the most wonderful parts of the body to suck. Nothing can compare to its size, shape, texture, warmth, taste, and its response to touch. Female breasts are rather inanimate in comparison. Their only redeeming qualities are the nipples that respond to touch, but guys have nipples too, so it's not an exclusively feminine part of the body.
It is important to give yourself a weekend of privacy the first time you try to suck off a guy. You may not be able to the first time and will need extra time the next day or two to try again. If you don't give yourself a weekend, you can end up failing and then next time you will make the same mistakes again because you will not remember what you did wrong the previous time.
You probably have noticed it's much harder to masturbate while standing up. It is much more difficult to get a guy off if he's standing up, especially if you've never sucked off a guy before. Although blowjobs are stereotypically associated with a kneeling giver, in practice, that is an uncomfortable position for the receiver as he must either sit or stand. Instead, have your partner lie down on his back on a bed (or somewhere soft and flat). Get on your hands and knees in a position that allows you to get his dick in your mouth. You can have him spread his legs a little and straddle one of his legs or you can kneel between both of his legs. You could also kneel beside him. Whatever way works the best for the both of you.
Notice how the dick is not completely cylindrical, but is slightly flattened? That shape is designed to fit perfectly in the mouth. There's no way evolution could have better designed a part for sucking. Note that the most sensitive portion of the penis is the length underneath the shaft. This should clue you in on how to position yourself to suck him.
The underneath of his shaft should rest on your tongue and his penis should lie flat in your mouth. Once you take him into your mouth, try turning your head 90 degrees around his cock and you will notice that you will have to open wider to accomodate him. The wider you have open your mouth, the quicker you will tire, so make sure you align yourself for the most comfort. Likewise, your partner will enjoy it more if your tongue is in the right place.
Lick along the length of the shaft and give the tip a few licks around the ridge of the tip. Have fun. Take his tip in your mouth and suck. You may want to hold his shaft do
The last sentance in Dr. Feynman's Appendix F on the Challenger Shuttle Accident Report: For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
BEWARE OF SPACE!
Conversation with my neighbor last year in a commute:
Myself: ah, this can of Pepsi (tm) is finally empty.
Neighbor: Nothing is ever empty.
Myself: uh, this empty can of pepsi is empty
Neighbor: it's full of air
Myself: well, space is empty.
Neighbor: Space is full of planets.
what do they expect to find out anyway?
1000 ways to not make a shuttle come back safely?
slashdot is really the example of pseudo-journalism. Post a link with some smart ass comment and claim that you "cover" the story.
Now, lets look at the news items: star wars (who cares?) sci-fi (who cares?) google (who cares?) whatever. This site sucks.
Lets give a trillion dollars to nasa and go to pluto. Yeah, baby.
Next story on Slashdot would be
France to Be Site of World's First Nuclear Fusion
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
The press reporting this and taking the "glass half-empty" is similar to a conversation I had during a Disaster Recovery audit and almost every planning meeting about it.
Auditor: So what do you do with your computer data?
Me: We back up everything to tape.
Auditor: But what happens if the tape is bad?
Me: No problem, we have a sophisticated backup system where we use multiple tapes.
Auditor: But what if there was a fire?
Me: We have a halon suppression system in the server room, plus the tapes are stored off-site.
Auditor: What if a tornado takes out the off-site storage facility?
Me: Uh... we've got a backup hot co-lo with SBC a few miles away.
Auditor: Yeah, but what if a EMP takes out the city?
Me: The hell? But the chances of that happening are...
Auditor: But it could happen right?
Me: Well, sure it's possible but...
Auditor: (Checks FAIL on his report)
For space travel you can't make everything 100% certain. There's managed risk, which is really what's going down here. NASA is going to launch, but that isn't going to stop the media from focusing on those three areas that didn't have PASS checked off on the sheet. Expect every talking head to hone in on this during launch day.
NASA really needs to move on with the space shuttle. The only reason they been kept around so long is because NASA promised too much with the 1970s technology while shutting down competing technologies (e.g., space capsule and Saturn rockets) and that the shuttle contractors needed corporate welfare payments. They put all their eggs in one basket and the eggs are cracking. The NASA space monopoly should be broken before they lose the rest of their flying bricks.
Give up
Now I am supportive of NASA's desire to make a safer shuttle, but sometimes it seems to me that they get too paraniod sometimes (in some ways though you can't be too careful when dealing with human lives...) How come these safety issues were overlooked during previous launches, yet almost all were successful. Only when a mission goes bad is when problems get 'discovered'. And the most confusing part is when safety problems arise, people begin to think that anything and everything that can go wrong will. Now I see that there is a difference between being paranoid and being careful, and it appears to me that NASA is the former.
---- my $.02
The shuttle is not "safe", but it's safer than it's ever been before. Everybody knows it's not as safe as a 747, and it's never going to be. But surely, given that the astronauts flying on it are all highly intelligent volunteers who understand the risks, it's safe enough to get the ISS Contractual Obligation Tour (and a manned Hubble service mission, with any luck) out of the way before they get sent off to the Smithsonian and a new, safer CEV is built.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
there goes the launching plan...goes up in smoke and bang just like the object that it suppose to protect.
Honestly, the commission is "picking bones out of an egg sheel"-
Even a car, with its four wheels firmly on the ground, would have its share of safety problem when it is 25 years old. Let alone a plane size transporter that goes into Mach15, +3000 degrees, vaccum, rain/storm/win/cyclone for every year or two.
sooner or later something is bound to break.
The current shuttles are doom- only a newly made shuttle(with the original design) can withstand the impossiblely high safety standard.
is that they actually might grow a pair of testicles and start justifying their annual budget.
I think NASA takes way too much crap.
Think about how horrible underfunded everything is, and that they are still sending people up into space in a vehicle built in the 80s. They were underfunded at the time, and made do with what they had, and that's what they have to do now.
Because its so technically difficult, it takes money to solve, and money is pouring elsewhere instead of into making it safer (Iraq, SS, etc...). Space exploration has taken sort of a backseat here.
Nasa still has an exemplary record. Only 2 crashes in 20 years. I have no idea how many missions that is, but it's not a few. If you want the people we send up to be safe, give NASA some money, and stop whining about how unsafe it is.
My $.02
I have this really funny quote that I like to put here. Unfortunately, there's this really annoying thing called a char
So, who or what could serve as competitors to American companies bidding on NASA-funded projects? The answer is Japanese companies that build Japan's rockets and satellites. In the future, NASA should open up future missions to competitive bidding among both Japanese companies and American companies. NASA maintains a hands-off approach. Future missions will be mostly private ventures run by private companies but subsidized by government funding.
The mostly-private approach also involves one additional element: lawsuits. If future space mishaps occur, the company running the space mission or building hardware for the mission will be subject to lawsuits by the families of the victims.
Private companies will bear the responsibility for the success of the mission. NASA acts only as the funder. Competition and lawsuits can do wonders in producing a reliable product. Just look at American automobiles with their high quality and vast arsenal of safety features: air bags, crumple zones, etc.
Well, the first thing that strikes me is that the panel head (RIchard Covey) himself (were he younger and still in the flight program) wouldn't hesitate to fly on the revamped shuttle. So NASA fails the appointed checklist of improvements, but doesn't fail a former astronaut's 'gut instinct' test.
(While we're on the subject, let me recommend to anyone who is, has been, or ever will be interested in the subject of NASA's decision-making--under crisis conditions, or in conditions leading to crises--the work of Edward Tufte. http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/ His analyses of the data graphics used in the launch decision of the Challenger, the investigation of the Challenger disaster (Feynman's experiment), and the Columbia in-flight decisions are a must-read take-no-prisoners statistical firefight. Also, well-written and heartbreaking.)
Now I'm asking, given NASA's bright-dark history in these matters, Covey's professed take, and the lacunae in the checklist...Would you be willing to fill a seat on the next Shuttle mission?
(Or would I, supposing the sudden need arose for a hack novelist/graphic designer/wicked dancer in space, of course...)
On the contrary side, would you be willing to send up a $$$$$ shuttle, $500 million in launch costs, and 7 astronauts (each representing maybe $3 million in sunk training costs, and more importantly, people, skilled, experts in their fields, brave, etc--not to mention the international incident factors if one of the crew is non-US)--with a higher-than-requested, but amorphously lower-than-previous risk of ever returning?
(Here I reveal my ace-in-the-hole for getting onto a mission someday, despite being the hack novelist, graphic designer, etc--no sunk training costs; I'm worthless, so if I don't come back, the taxpayer is getting an awesome deal.)
The news is now official: Executive summary of task group findings
Prior to the Columbia Disaster, NASA's fleet made numerous flights while being pelted with enormous chunks of foam as the shuttles were in their previously thought safe and stable condition. I'm still not convinced that the incident wasn't just a fluke.
Now, in order to ensure/improve the safety of a few dozen future rocket riders, should the government allocate millions of tax payer dollars?
I think that astronauts getting blown to smithereens shouldn't be unexpected, nor should it enrage anyone, no matter what the NASA chooses to launch astronauts into space in. It goes with the territory; risk goes hand in hand with riding rockets.
Falun Dafa is good!
"The commission said said risk remained that pieces of foam and ice could break off and hit the shuttle at lift-off."
...." :-)
I would hate to play the slashdot eduhtors at scrabble: "QQUARTZZY iz thu korrect speiling
Marley: Say, say, I remember when we used to sit...
Marley: You will be visited tonight by 3 ghosts. Sorry, 3 duplicate stories, I meant.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
It has been 29 months since Columbia was lost over East Texas in February 2003. Seven months after the accident, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) released the first volume of its final report, citing a variety of technical, managerial, and cultural issues within NASA and the Space Shuttle Program. To their credit, NASA offered few excuses, embraced the report, and set about correcting the deficiencies noted by the accident board. Of the 29 recommendations issued by the CAIB, 15 were deemed critical enough that the accident board believed they should be implemented prior to returning the Space Shuttle fleet to flight. Some of these recommendations were relatively easy, most were straightforward, a few bordered on the impossible, and others have been largely overcome by events, especially with the decision by the President to retire the Space Shuttle by 2010.
The Return to Flight Task Group (RTF TG) was chartered by the NASA Administrator in July 2003 to provide an independent assessment of the implementation of the 15 CAIB return-toflight recommendations. An important observation must be stated up-front: neither the CAIB nor the RTF TG believes that all risk can be eliminated from Space Shuttle operations; nor do we believe that the Space Shuttle is inherently unsafe. What the CAIB and RTF TG do believe, however, is that NASA and the American public need to understand the risks associated with space travel, and make every reasonable effort to minimize such risk.
Since the release of the CAIB report, NASA and the Space Shuttle Program have expended enormous effort and resources toward correcting the causes of the accident and preparing to fly again. Relative to the 15 specific recommendations that the CAIB indicated should be implemented prior to returning to flight, NASA has met or exceeded most of them - the Task Group believes that NASA has fully met the intent of the CAIB for 12 of these recommendations. The remaining three recommendations were so challenging that NASA could not completely comply with the intent of the CAIB, but conducted extensive study, analyses, hardware modifications, design certifications and made substantive progress. However, the inability to fully comply with all of the CAIB recommendations should not imply that the Space Shuttle is unsafe.
I know this will probably be modded to oblivion, but is it so wrong for a country to sacrifice its people for progress?
I mean, the US is accomplishing something with these missions, right? And the death of the space program is the death of something dear to me... Let's band together and admit that it might take loss of life to allow something as great as this to happen.
hey, at the end of the day, when america is destroying themselves, they can sit back like china and say, there's always anouther hundred people willing to take their place if they die. so ofcourse nasa isn't going to check every thing. gawd, what you think this is? america?
I suppose all the engineers walk around the building wearing helmets and kneepads.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
Top NASA officials reacted to the report by saying: "picky, picky, picky. We have neither the schedule nor the budget to respond to these absurd allegations. We intend to return to our core competence. Blowing up astronauts in batches of 7."
[signed]
Richard "Rolling Over in My Grave" Feynman,
Nobel Laureate, author of the Minority Report on the Challenger Disaster.
Does any of this make financial sense? The shuttle was sold on the premise that it would be... a shuttle, ie, something that makes routine flights and therefore makes it cheap to get big things up into orbit. The goal was to have each shuttle able to fly every couple of weeks. The reality has been far from that, and it can only get things into low orbits, and it's insanely expensive and dangerous. Rather than fixing these safety problems, wouldn't it have made more sense to just put these things in a museum and get some big off-the-shelf Russian rocket certified for lifting humans?
I guess my question is, why are they dragging out the misery and financial waste that is the shuttle program?
--------------
WAP server software
That champion shall have the honor-- no, no-- the privilege... to go forth and rescue the lovely Princess Fiona... from the fiery keep of the dragon. If for any reason the winner is unsuccessful, the first runner-up will take his place and so on and so forth. Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make. Let the tournament begin!
-- Lord Farquaad.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Think - when are the two times the Shuttle has been dsestroyed? Challenger, when NASA bosses decided that freezing temps were fine, because they had a propoganda coup going with the school teacher, even though engineers were screming at them, left, right and center, to postpone the launch and check for damage.
Columbia was lost - when? During NASA's other attempt at a propoganda coup, with getting an Israeli into space. Engineers wanted images of the wing, to check for damage. The intelligence agencies even offered to produce the pictures for free. But the NASA bosses - again - put the risk of bad publicity as being more important than the risk of a disaster.
Take risks - take as many risks as you want or need, to get the space program into a functional state - but please don't take risks with other people's lives because you want your photo on the front page of a newspaper. If it works, it achieves nothing and is lousy management. If it fails, it sets everything back and is catastrophic management.
I don't agree with the NASA bosses deciding that they should overrule the safety monitors, because the safety monitors' chief objection is that NASA bosses keep overruling things they shouldn't. It somewhat defeats the purpose of the exercise, if NASA repeats the very worst "crime" of all, in an effort to move forward.
I do agree, though, that the shuttle won't ever be 100% safe. It is a 1960s concept, built around 1970s technology (and having spoken to people who have built components for it, not very good technology at that), and it urgently does need retiring with something better. It's a pity Congress has cancelled all the replacement Shuttle programs, through budget cuts, or we'd have one by now.
Hey, Congress isn't the only bad boy. If Britain hadn't scrapped HOTOL, we would have had a replacement shuttle program years before the Columbia disaster, the ISS would likely have already been completed, and space technology would be easily a decade ahead of where it actually is. (We would also have commercial space travel by now, as HOTOL would have been damn good at that, as it was a design consideration.)
I also agree that NASA has made all the changes that are going to make a substantial difference, so that any further delay would be pointless.
There ARE a few things NASA could do to improve things, though - ice buildup is only a problem if there's enough humidity in the air for the water to form ice. It shouldn't be too hard to build what would be basically oversized hair-dryers to blast warm dry air over the top of the tank. At worst, there would be less ice, at best there would be none at all.
How long would it take to plug a hair-dryer in at the top of the launch tower? My guess is not very, even if it is very large. Switch it off before launch, so there's no weird air currents, and you should be fine.
This simple addition would not only cut back on ice, but should also cut back on foam risks, because the foam wouldn't be rigid and unusually heavy by being blocked up by ice.
I'm sure NASA engineers have proposed - if not this scheme, then countless others that are similar in nature. They're not dim, even if it seems that way at times, and know perfectly well that ice is water, and therefore if there's no water, there's no ice. They also know that warm air will expand into cold air far more readily than the other way round. (Pressure * Volume / Temperature = Constant, so if you double the temperature, you double the pressure. Air flows from high pressure to low pressure, on average. The rest, as they say, is obvious.
Leave space exploration to NASA and agencies and private organizations like it. Yes. Definitely. But PLEASE, will NASA and the others PLEASE leave the technical decisions to the technical experts and NOT to the P.R. crew? Doctors of spin are not necessarily doctors of physics or aeronautics.
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)
Engineers on any space related projected are complaining about the following: the impending feeling of doom, cold sweats and loss of sleep. Also, your spouse, kids and pets have left while your at work 18 hrs a day.
And they made the GP hulls.
The safest way is to make a pocket sun and move the whole mini solar system to where you want to go. A 'fleet o' worlds' as it were.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I know it sounds cool and all... but can someone explain what an in-flight repair system means, how would something like that work?
Superb Hosting
The shuttle is a low earth orbit vehicle. It's a billion-dollar-a-trip Ford van, and not a very big one at that. What, exactly, are they "exploring" up there?
If we're going to put things in orbit, put things in orbit. If we're going to explore outer space, explore outer space. The shuttle does the first badly, and the second not at all. Let it go.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Congress has never funded NASA in order to do stuff in space. It's funded it to:
A) Beat the damn Ruskis.
B) Keep the pork barrel topped up.
You'll see Osama bin Laden in the White House before you see a substantial part of NASAs budget spent outside of the USA.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Go Virgin Galactic!
A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
Maybe if the URSS didn't "lost" the "Space Race" (maybe the Apollo doesnt land on moon, i dont know), today we know more planets, travel "regulary", etc.
But US with the "test period" make me laugh.(or cry)
There are a LOT of "risky" jobs, i think that "be an astronaut" can be one of the BEST "risky" jobs...
Sometimes the workers didnt knows the risk of work 25hs a day for nike making shoes in Indonesia...
Comeon anyone who study and train, for years to be an astronaut, know the risks.
Rock and Roll
For those that feels the shuttles must go ... get a grip, and wake up to reality.
First of all, use a hour or two to estimate the ammount of $ spend in the army versus $ spend in Nasa. Then you'll properly wakeup. Nasa budget is peanuts. So if money is your concern, vote for cuting the army budget instead. And btw look at this estimate for 1999, then stop complaining : http://www.richardb.us/nasa.html.
If you main concern is the risk, take a break and walk around in your neighborhood, but be carefull that you don't get run over by a car, get smashed by a crashing dc-3 plane, or shoot in a drug related shootout. Remeber that it's not you who has to take the risk of flying the shuttle. If up to the astronauts is they are prepared to fly that old rusty thing or not. Nasa knowns there's a risk, everyone knowns there is risk.
But there so must more to learn about space fight. Just take a look at all the different solution for problem that Nasa have had to face these days because of the last shuttle disaster. In terms of solving problems on the run, while in space, Nasa still a rookie. Building another and newer shuttle won't solve that problem. You need to crawl before you can walk. Stopping now and building a new fleet would properly would give rise (sooner or later) to the problems Nasa is facing now.
Then there is the issue about the $'s. If Nasa retires the fleet, then those who like'd to get Nasa budget down, has a good position. This would also mean that the Russians and Europeans would have to complete the ISS alone, which won't happen. An incomplete ISS is by all means a huge failure. No body like bigs failure, then dream of the current president is goto back to the moon. The shuttle fleet is Nasa only fleet. No shuttles no fleet. No bananas no food. If Nasa was to cut expenses, then I'd like the US to cooperate more with the European and get them to pay more. I would'nt mind pay abit more even though I'm paying more that an US citizen.
Making an new dream apon a disaster, when the old one still aint completed is a cruel way keep pressing Nasa to the extreme. That's the problem, not the risk nor the money.
I wonder if the reporting here has been a bit skewed by concerntrating on specific technical safety recommendations. Surely those are just symptoms that may or may not be addressed (and may or may not cause problems even if they aren't), the real compelling question is do NASA have an appropriate degree of safety culture? I know this is probably a less interesting issue for the Slashdot crowd to discuss than technical details but as anyone working in a safety-critical engineering area will appreciate, its really whats at stake here. And IMHE, whilst I appreciate to some it may sound like management wankery, safety culture is both absolutely vital and also damn hard to inculcate in an organisation. Whilst I understand the President was making rash claims about missions to mars, he was really needed here to make some very clear statements and devise policies to encourage NASA to change. It would seem to me if NASA are failing to meet clearly defined 'action points' they certainly haven't a safety culture which bodes ill for the future frankly. Seems in 2003 quite a few people called it correctly ("Experts say NASA's safety culture may be too broken to fix")
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
If they loose another ship, it will shut down NASA manned flight for 20 years. NASA has always been a difficult sell in Congress, and world is still too immature for international cooperation in projects of this magnitude. If you don't believe that, spend a day at the UN.
RIGHT STUFF!
Do you have any references for this? The space shuttle has been a vertical take of vehicle since 1970: http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/shuttle.htm9 .htm
I guess that you talk about the early configuration shown in the first picture on
http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/SpaceLVs/Slides/sld02
But that configuration was also meant for a vertical takeoff, as can be seen in the third picture. The wings on the booster part is only for the return flight.
shut up - we're now to the point that it takes us less than 30 months to go from explosion to our next launch - THAT is very impressive.
So can the negativity, people.
Myself: And your trousers are gonna be full of my boot if you don't STFU.
I sure hope they officially say whether or not the shuttle will fly, and when. Because my family and i are going to Florida to see it and i don't want to be a day late. (or a dollar short)
Its a pity the US doesn't ask the russians to give them the plans, if they are so advanced and only money was the limiting factor then it would seem the perfect conbination if the US supplied the money and the russians did the work.
:-)
The US probably already had the plans to the Buran
They couldn't document even the placement of wires in the wings. I got the impression most of the IT projects I've worked on have better documenation, and that's scary. This guy compared NASA's documenation to the US Navy's documentation of reactors on submarines. Where the Navy has a record of every piece of plumbing that's ever been changed on any of their reactors, NASA didn't have hardly anything.
My first reaction at the end of the briefing was to think "that thing shouldn't fly again".
And I'm a raving space exploration nut and think the US should withdraw from the Space Treaty and claim half of the Moon and offer homestead rights to private citizens and companies.
And I fully accept there is always risk in space travel, but not THAT much risk.
And as others have pointed out, the risk is higher then ever now. One more accident and...
And Buran worked fine, and was in many ways superior to the Shuttle - it, for example, contained jet engines that allowed for a powered landing - Shuttle can't pull up for another landing attempt, Buran could.
The shuttle has at least proved that an unpowered landing is perfectly safe. It would be absurd to add the weight cost of engines and fuel just for a go around capability. A robust flight control system is far more efficient. Buran also had no viable electrical power generation. The vehicle was stuffed with batteries on its only flight! That is why it only ever flew a single orbit. So much for the "better" shuttle. It was a child's replica initiated by a paranoid Leonid Brezhnev. The Russians still do not use fuel cells 40 years after they were introduced on American Gemini spacecraft.
It also had no main engines - they were in the huge booster that mimic the shuttle main fuel tank.
..Making Buran one of the costliest and wasteful launch systems ever conceived. Each Energia flight threw away the 4 main H2O2 engines and 4 Kerosene/O2 boosters none of which was reused. Compare this to the shuttle where the SRB motor casings and the SSME's can be used many times.
Buran also had no firecrackers (solid rocket boosters), and instead used only liquid fuels - making challenger-style boom impossible.
Since Challenger, the SRBs have flown 176 times with a perfect safety record. I have always questioned why solid fueled boosters are looked down apon for human space flight. The new NASA administrator is almost certain to favor a derivative of the SRB for a CEV launch capability. You often hear that liquid fueled rockets are safer because they can be shut down. As a passenger in hypersonic I would not be happy to be flying hypersonically next to a highly pressurized fuel tank and have a malfunctioning engine shut down. That was ok on the Saturn because of the series staging and spare thrust capacity. But on the shuttle with parallel staging such a booster shutdown would be deadly. Such "firecrackers" will very likely be the basis of a launch abort system as well. That alone says something about the safety and reliability of solid fuel.
It only flew once, unmanned. A feat Shuttle can't do, by the way, as it can't land unmanned.
Another foolish and oft repeated misconception. The only reason the shuttle doesn't fly unmanned is the polical clout of the astronaut corps. Do you think a shuttle commander has a hand on the stick at anytime from launch to landing? NASA basically gives the stick over to the pilot when the shuttle is lined up with the runway and has enough energy to reach its end. If humans were not aboard the shuttle would be happy and capable of landing and rollout as well.
an ill wind that blows no good
So the shuttle is obviously not cost effective now. The shuttle is to be retired in 2010. What is NASA sending to space in 2011? nothing... It took how many years to develop the shuttle? It will take how many years to develop what comes after the shuttle? And this project started when? Oh... hasn't started yet. That's a shame.
Since the technical skills of the american workforce... Nah.. Lemme start over...
Since the American Technical Workforce doesn't exist, we couldn't even develop the machining to build something like that.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
For the most part, US tax money can't be given to foreign governments... NASA can only barter for things. ESA gives us an instrumnet for this spacecraft, we give them an instrument for another. Combined with ITAR this makes international cooperation very hard.
On top of this with Russia you have the Iran Non-proliferation Act (INA) which bars NASA from doing business with Russia or Russian companies because of Russia's support for Iran's nuclear weap^H^H^H^H energy program. (However, the white house recently asked congress to give NASA an exemption from this law... we'll see where it goes).
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Regardless of what everyone on slashdot seems to think, rocket engineers know more about rocket engineering than you.
>It only flew once, unmanned. A feat Shuttle can't do, by the way, as it can't land unmanned.
You're confusing unmanned with automated flight. The shuttle certainly contains autoland capabilty, what sense would there in automating everyting *but* the landing, and does the Buran have similar automation (links please)?
As for the USSR's "smart financial call", During the early 1990's, a man rated Buran spacecraft was being prepared for flight, but in 1993 the program was officially terminated. Since your post is wildly inaccurate on all other accounts, I remind you the USSR fell in December 26, 1991.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
It's about time to retire this aging shuttle and go back to the way they use to fly into space. Bring back the Saturn 5 launch vehicle! It just worked! Use the Saturn or similar to launch the heavy stuff into orbit, and then use something like the Burt Rutan plan or something similar to get the people up and back. The shuttle in it's current design is just to old to fly. They never had as much problems with the foam UNTIL the EPA made them switch to a more "enviromental friendly" foam.
And your point is?
It's OK to outsource everything else, but not this?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Since NASA is having so much trouble with rocket science, here's some free advice on something tough: math.
3 is 20% of 15. That's a lot.
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make install -not war
they found the same thing after challenger. I mean nasa really doesn't seem to care about safety.. basically, any screw up they have had they were told way before they even launched that there would be a problem, but apparently they never care about safety, all they want to do is make their launch date.
Auditor: So you plan on putting your spacecraft inside a General Products #3 Hull?
Me: Yes, it's the most indestructible thing we know.
Auditor: But what happens if you run into a moon?
Me: No problem, we have a sophisticated stasis field to kick in in case of impact. The ship and crew would be unharmed.
Auditor: But what if you are shot with a laser? The General Products hull is transparent to visible light.
Me: We have a coating which instantaneously becomes mirrored if the light intensity exceeds a certain value, plus the internal bulkheads provide protection.
Auditor: What if you crash into a ringworld?
Me: Uh... we've got a backup set of flycycles to fly the crew out in case of a serious crash.
Auditor: Yeah, but what if you run into a rogue anti-matter moon?
Me: The hell? But the chances of that happening are...
Auditor: But it could happen right? Ever heard of Beowulf Shaeffer?
Me: Well, sure it's possible but...
Auditor: (Checks FAIL on his report)
It is a bad idea to use technology you do not understand. You never know what they did to it. When you create something yourself you can be sure you won't end up with the worlds largest non-nuclear explosion and fire.
Manned Space Flight More Dangerous Than Watching Boston Law!
No, space intelligence funding is not being affected in the slightest bit by the NASA funding crunch. Yes, NASA is seriously hampered by the fact that it is a US government agency, and has to adhere to all gov standards. This makes it impossible for the scientists and engineers who know whats going on to make policy decisions. Yes, there is work on a new CEV.
"Reality continues to ruin my life" - Calvin and Hobbes
From TFA: However, he said that if he were younger he would have no concern about flying on the shuttle.
So is it that younger people are more able to survive re-entry without a capable craft? Or does he just recognize younger people as less valuable to protect?
Maybe it's because he assumes younger people to be stupid enough to fly in a craft that's safe according to the older person making the above assumptions!
I wouldn't even bother retiring the shuttle. Just scrap it today. Walk away from it. It was a tired dog of an idea when the idea was first poached ... uh... broached, and after one disaster on the way up and one disaster on the way down, it's still a crock. I say, give NASA's budget as a grant to Burt Rutan, and let him outsource the whole shebang to Red China. The Apollo missions gave us Teflon, while toasting a mere three astronauts. Totting up the benefits of all those shuttle missions, with appropriate minuses for the carbonized school teacher and mutilated multinational civilians, would take several minutes of painful headscratching to come up with, "Umm... none?"
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
I have not RTFAed. I totally agree with the Dr. Feynman quote, completely. So much so that I just got to wondering... imagine if you could fool nature. :-) Man, that'd be a trip:
Hey, nature, look at the monkey! look at the monkey! what's that? No! No, I'm not defying gravity, keep looking at the damn monkey! What? No--no there's no cold fusion going on over there. Hey, check this out, nature: a whole buuunch of monkeys annd some circus midgets! etc
Someone with a better funny bone could probably exp{ou,a}nd upon this, and turn it into a great legendary Inernet meme. Or maybe I need some sleep.
Yes that seems more likely. (See also "recreational impossibilities" and "SEP fields".)
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Hey wait how many other things have only two major acidents in 70 years of service?