Slashdot Mirror
More New Details on NASA's CEV Launcher Studies
TheEqualizer writes "Continuing on the NYT story on NASA's current CEV launcher plans, spaceref has an even
more extensive look with detailed assessments of the available options. By all accounts, it looks like NASA is picking up where it left off with Apollo but also combining it with established Shuttle technology -- the capsule concept of the 1960s atop the shuttle boosters of the 1970s being the winning combination under the current budgetary limitations. However, is this coupling of
old technology and designs really the best we can do?"
It works.
It stays within budget.
What's the problem?
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
I've been here for a long time and never managed to snap up the claim to first post.
:-)
I guess there's a First Post for everything
-- sigs cause cancer.
Will it have any foam insulation?
Free Firefox news reader.
A: Russian rocket burn in the atmosphere, Shuttle is reusable.
Q: What is the difference between a cosmonaut and an astronaut?
A: Astronauts burn in the atmosphere, cosmonauts are reusable.
kinda OT, but you can view the live coverage of the current mission via nasatv here:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
Any one else noticed that very few posts are getting mod points? I have a few possible ideas why:
-Suddenly most slashdotters get a life
-Something's broke that divvies out mod points
-A long overdue re-vamping of how many mod points are given out
Anyone have official dirt?
Hopefully, the fact that we just discovered an ice lake in Mars should provide NASA its much needed funding. On a slightly different note, why can't NASA work with private contractors to outsource their delivery vehicle research? I can understand their concerns of technology getting leaked, but don't the defense departments do it all the time? This can only benefit space research, right?
Apparently if you put Jet Engine Research on your resume when you apply at NASA, you're not even granted an interview.
They have no interest whatsoever in using jets to bring rockets up to high-altitude flight. Why? Because it's cheap. The truth is, NASA can not come up with enough missions to justify the low cost of jets and they're afraid that if they lowered their costs in such a way that they would end up with massive budget cuts.
Amazing.
Unfortunately, it probably is the best they can feasably come up with given the budget pinch they're under. There is already a huge infrastructure in place for testing and launch of L/SRB vehicles. To totally re-design everything from scratch would cost just way too much. Unfortunately.
On top of that if we are planning on re-visiting the moon before the Chinese get there, and going to Mars, then continuing the rocket program seems logical.
Let the privateers handle the space freight trucking industry IMO.
Blech. Signatures.
How about using a Project Orion type launcher- that way NASA can throw spacecraft the size of aircraft carriers into space. As for the enviromentalists, they can be used as neutron absorbers.
The first order of space flight ought to be the safety of the crew, not how many pounds of payload can be shoved into orbit by bigger and bigger rocket engines. NASA, in a completely predictable move, sent the shuttle up unprepared and now we are watching in horror as the astronauts forego any attempt at the scientific experiments they went up for, instead fighting for their lives with a stick of velcro and some prayers from the world.
Maybe it's time to take NASA out of the equation. Fund some of these little guys like Rutan and Carmack and get some real money behind people with actual egos that stand to get destroyed if something tragic happens. NASA is led by bureaucrats who wouldn't know which end of the main booster rocket is up if it had a big sign saying "this end up". Better to scrap the entire division, separate off those aspects that are useful to the military and give the rest to the public.
NASA has shown that they have neither the brains nor the patience to do things correctly. It is time that they step out of the way and let people with dreams lead the way into space.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
We (meaning the US government/Russia/ESA), still want to use humans in LEO, and we want to keep the ISS in operation for the foreseeable future. The Space Shuttle has been a reasonably effective way to do that, but has shown it's age and the limitations of the "reusable space plane" approach. If it costs the same or more money to launch the Shuttle than it does to send "traditional" rockets into LEO, why not use traditional rockets instead?
Not only that, but this plan seems to recycle the best parts of the Shuttle design, increase human safety, and probably lower operational costs as well. Plus the cargo configuration can hoist more than the Shuttle - a lot more.
Politically, the US government (operator of the Shuttle), is not really willing to accept that flying the Shuttle is inherently dangerous, so NASA operates under very rigid safety guidelines. Then again, we've seen on TV what happens when those guidelines get bent too far (twice so far), and when you see astronauts die on TV it tends to dull the political appetite for risk.
So I think this plan that's coming out is a good one, given that we as a society do not seem to be willing to accept that going to space is risky, rockets can and will fail, and people can and will likely be killed on occasion in the process. They seem to be focusing on simply using the safest technologies from today's designs and re-engineering them to reduce the risk of failure and the likelihood of a catastrophic incident in the event of a failure. With a cost lower than today's system. A good engineering and political solution to what is basically a political problem.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
And don't forget the number of employees currently producing shuttle parts. That the new approach keeps everyone in their current jobs makes a number of politicians very happy.
I agree that redesigning everything from scratch is painful and expensive. I also suspect that the decision wasn't completely technical.
The solid rocket boosters used for the shuttle today is reliable, reasonable safe (as safe as anything can be in space I guess) and not at least very cheap for the power they deliver. A capsule, in the mould of Apollo or Soyuz, is cheap(ish), can be made reusable (I would assume - allthought it might be cheaper to make them recyclable) and has a proven track record. A rescue rocket mounted on top of a capsule is simple and has a proven trackrecord (IFAIK, one russian capsule was saved by it). I think it's a brilliant idea; it's not old - it's refined. Take the best we got today and make it better, as opposed to inventing the Wheel Mk. II.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
When you have a starting score of -1, you don't need to be modded down for nobody to read your post.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
nyud.net cache link.
Complain complain, moan moan, there should be cache links in article summaries. I mean, how hard is it with nyud.net?
Rutan et al. are finding creative new ways to loft humans on parabolic trajectories that touch space but they are FAR from LOE. I do not discount their ingenuity or innovation, but they do not have the recourses to launch the kinds of payloads that are going to get us back to the Moon or Mars.
The "little guys" should be welcomed into the process as contractors and researchers. Their fresh ideas can add new vitality to the space program but they are not a replacement.
IMHO the new NASA designs are a breath of fresh air. Simple and effective.
useless sig advice - Read Nabokov.
... space planes? Take off and land just like an airplane. Whatever happened to that idea?
Shadus
To do that, we need to go nuclear. No, not Orion - there are several designs that don't vent radioactive exhaust and you can even use them to get rid of nuclear waste.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
The story demonstrates a lot of ignorance about technology. By looking at a few images, the writer leaps to the bogus conclusion that NASA is planning a remix of 1960's and 1970's engineering. All this only because the CEV will have a conical shape and sit at the top of the launch vehicle.
This is more than a bit like criticizing F-117 Stealth aircraft as a mix of 1920's and 1940's tech: Look at any picture of planes in the '20's and you'll see wings and the jet engine was flying in the '40's. So, since the Stealth has wings and a jet engine, it must be engineering that picked up the decades ago. Right?
Look: Rockets will propel our launch vehicles for the forseeable future. You have only 2 places to attach a payload to a rocket: the top and the side. As Shuttles compromised design shows, putting the payload on the side puts it at risk from anything that falls off (and something always will); it also introduces uniue engineering problems; putting the payload at the top of the vehicle eliminates the threat from debris and, also, allows the use of crew escape devices, something essentially impossible in the current Shuttle.
The fact that the CEV shares a concical shape with Apollo is irrelevant. That's the logical shape for a vehicle reentering the atmosphere at 25,000 mph or more. Wings are totally useless (Shuttle's wings don't -- can't -- work until after reentry.) The reason you put wings on something is when you want to fly somewhere in an atmosphere. The CEV is a space vehicle- it won't be doing any flying.
The crew compartment of the CEV -- the conical piece with the heat shield -- is a crew ferry intended to take people to and from LEO. it's time to start thinking of it as just that.
The reporting on these "leaked" CEV and VSE architecture plans has been dismal, wallowing in mistakes and lack of expertise. Slashdot, not surprisingly, is shouting "Me, too!"
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
You don't have to vent radioactive exhaust to get the benefits of nuclear energy for thrust. See here.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
"However, is this coupling of old technology and designs really the best we can do?"
/.'ers don't really get what's going on with regards to CEV, I think.
This is some really ill-informed commentary. There is a _lot_ of new research and engineering work being done for the CEV, as anyone from Boeing, Lockheed, or any of the associated subs bidding on the work. The idea that, somehow, we're just strapping a shuttle on top of a 1950's booster rocket is laughable.
Is the CEV going to be as sexy as the shuttle? No. But there's a lot of support at NASA proper for scrapping the thing come 2010. Most
-Erwos
Just look at Kliper which is basically a Soyuz capsule. ESA and Roskosmus have plans to build it till 2011.
A lot of one way tickets being sold to space these days...
NASA will be using an old technique (capsul and booster) with modern technology (electronics, robotics, etc). Cars still use the basic technique (combustion engine to power a drivetrain), but use modern day technology (variable valve timing, fuel injection, etc).
They've just pulled the first gap filler out without a problem and are lining up on the second one.
I've been watching it for an hour or so and it's amazing watching them go calmly about their work with the earth in the background.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
This design is more efficient, cheaper to build, a lot safer and can carry more cargo into orbit. Ballistic recovery may not be glamorous but it is time tested and reliable.
Wings on a space ship are what you get when pilots are in charge of the space program instead of engineers.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Notice that the story is about a guy with a partisan interest in the outcome- he's a Thiokol engineer and they make the solid-fuel boosters for the current shuttle. These boosters are the heart of the proposal, and my only question is, do we want solid fuel rockets as the primary lifter for human crews? Don't they present special challenges and risks because they can't be shut down in case of problems? Just asking, IANA astronautical engineer.
Apart from that, this seems like a good blending of proven tech from the shuttle project with a more clear-eyed view of overall project goals, with favorable economics.
The original poster asks, "can't we do better"? As long as we are relying on combustion of chemical fuels, I don't think there's any need to do "better." A quantum leap forward in lift technology will have to await a new type of propulsion, which is at least decades away. In the meantime, let's get busy!
Stephen Baxter the British Sci-Fi author came up with the concept of re-using shuttle technology to get into space in his manifold series of books (and in Titan...). Seems like a good idea, but I would hope they could create some parrallel streams of development - side launch for ISS completion with minimum build requirements, full-stack to come on stream a few years later, and then a 3rd project to build a new launch system that can utlise something like the Rutan idea with enough power to get to ISS. ISS could then become a staging post that is resupplied by unmanned boosters.
-- For evil to triumph it is enough that good men do nothing.
if by 'we' you mean humankind. By entrusting the furthering of space travel to government agencies, you are pretty much guaranteeing the launching of rhino's into space. You want a new, reusable and sensible launch vehicle? Take 500 million or a billion out of NASA's budget and offer it to the first team that put a crew of 4 (8?) up to the space station and back, and then again within 1 month of touchdown with no serious injuries and watch what happens.
When the state launches pioneers out into the unknown and they get killed, it's a state tragedy. When a pioneer launches out on his (or their) own and gets killed, he's a pioneer who died in pursuit of his dream.
Rutan et al. are needed because the world (including the USA) doesn't know why they need a space program. During apollo there was a race with the USSR, who have since ceased to exist.
NASA existed because of the space race. Consequently the prime reason for the ISS is to do microgravity research, with no reasons being offered for requiring microgravity research.
Whe whole basis of the manned space program needs to be rethought, which is why the 100k prize was such a good thing to have.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Apparently, s/he misunderstands how aerospace technology works: you stay with things that work and improve upon those things that have been problems in the past.
For example: When Wehrner Von Braun and his team set out to design the Saturn V, Boeig was tasked with building the most difficult part, the first stage, or S1-C.
Did they use new technology? In some cases, yes. For the rocket engines, no. The F-1 engines were actually initially designed by the Air Force in the mid 1950's. Boeing instead took the basic design of the F-1, improved it with better construction techniques, better materials and of course, new tubo-pumps, but nonetheless, the basic design of the F-1 stayed what it was.
Later, the S1-C flew flawlessly on every launch but one: on Apollo 6, there was a problem with "pogo-ing," which is a severe reverberation along the axis of the rocket. At that point, they re-studied the issue and re-engineered the ignitors of the engines, and the S1-C was the most impressive weight-lifter in human history from there on.
That's a for example. In the Shuttle design, there is a lot of work on rocket design and implementation that would be crazy to throw away, not to mention extremely expensive to engineer. These are man-rated vehicles, and there, NASA is exceptionally conservative -- they will stay with they know works and create replacements for that they know does not.
This in not building a new computer CPU, or engineering a new product that a failure is tolerable. I would be very surprised and actually disappointed in NASA and their contractors if they were to toss out the baby with the bathwater, and am personally relieved that they are not.
These boosters are the heart of the proposal, and my only question is, do we want solid fuel rockets as the primary lifter for human crews? Don't they present special challenges and risks because they can't be shut down in case of problems?
Yeah but strapped to the sides of the stack, they can just be jettisoned if they start to misbehave. It's not like the crew & payload would survive a major liquid-fueled engine malfunction on launch anyway.
So just lose them and abort. Your ensuing news photo looks like Challenger... but with a capsule parachuting down .
Freedom: "I won't!"
Funny that, in hindsight, esa's 20-year old concept seems the wiser strategy . . . !
"However, is this coupling of old technology and designs really the best we can do?"
I don't know if it's the best we can do, but there is something to be said for using older technology that works well and then adding new technology to it. I have had some good success using this weird operating system built on very old Unix technology and coupled with the newest version of Firefox and KDE.
Sometimes old things work very well and it pays to go back to them. As an example, back in the eighties stereo manufacturers went to push-button everything. Turns out that a volume knob is the best way to do things. Just because it comes from the old tube radio days doesn't mean that a volume knob shouldn't be used in the most advanced piece of stereo equipment.
And I wouldn't mind someone grafting bionic parts onto my body. That Steve Austin guy seemed to do okay with it.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
Sucessful designs tend to hang around a while because they are sucessful. Autos still have four wheels mounted near the corners, just like the past 100 years. But the technology isn't old, just the proven design.
A fundamental design problem with the shuttle is the lightest part (the H2/LOx tank) carries the entire load of the system. It boils down to this:
1. The tank provides fuel to the shuttle
2. The shuttle main engines (SME) lift the shuttle only
3. The solid rocket boosters (SRB) lift the tank only
4. Any mismatch in "only" in 2 and 3 above is absorbed by the tank, and adjusted by the shuttle computers by gimbaling the SMEs
5. On the pad, the entire dead weight of the shuttle is hung on the tank, connected to the SRBs, thus torquing the whole setup. This torque is unloaded at launch, and the SMEs get to balance the SRB thrust and and stresses through the tank.
A do-able problem, but an engineering nightmare.
The Stack type rocket is, by comparison, much easier to build and operate. The load is on the top end, the fuel tanks carry a vertical load, and any crap that falls off (ice ice baby...) is in the throwaway zone immediately. Side boosters are easily added (Titan, Ariane, etc) and do not torque the vertical load.
The classic design of the Titan rocket family is a good example of the flexibility of this system, in terms of the types and weights of payloads launchable.
Throwaway? Yes. The complexity incurred by insisting on completely or largely reusable space flight systems is the rub. An objective solution falls back to basic cost/benefit analysis. To put 100 tons in space, do you go with the $1Bn shuttle x 5 launchs, + refit/refurbish ($$$), or 5 Titan IVb launchs for rather less? What is the time value of your launch windows -- Refit/refurbish delay vs launch next the Titan off the assembly line?
And so on. You pays your money, and you makes your choice.
Pacifist paratroopers yell, "Ghandi!" when they jump.
Puting the vehicle on top of the launch stack makes a great deal of sense. As does carrying the vehicle aboard a parent ship and then launching (SpaceShipOne, the X-15, etc).
antipaucity
But it may be the best we SHOULD do under the circumstances. Sounds like a good idea to me to recombine known quantities, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. Revolutions are good, when they work, but a gradual evolutionary path generally ensures that you have something working all the time. Small changes to an existing design are MUCH easier to test.
I agree that a space plane faces a problem of operating in two very different environments, but there are ways...
A two-part launch system is a good candidate for a practical, reusable "space plane" system. Scaled Composites' White Knight/SpaceShip One concept is a good example of this; use a plane for the first 30,000 feet and 300 MPH, and a rocket for the out-of-atmosphere leg, leaving the plane in the air where it belongs.
(Recall that the Shuttle uses most of its fuel load, representing a significant fraction of total vehicle mass, to get a few hundred feet of altitude and a few dozen MPH velocity. Eliminate that fraction of the fuel load, and the vehicle becomes MUCH lighter and smaller.)
Another example of this approach is Orbital Systems' small-satellite launcher, Pegasus; this system is a small rocket launched from under the wing of a B-52 at altitude. They've had several launch failures (space flight is HARD, I know, I'm a rocket scientist), but the concept is very, very sound.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
To alleviate the problem, the Orion team proposed a hybrid solution - use Saturn-class chemical rockets to launch an Orion booster. They figured they could build an Orion-class ship that weighed around 150 tons, well within Saturn's ability to loft 400 tons.
NASA's current proposal takes us back to being able to re-consider Orion. What killed the idea was NASA's aversion to risk. There wasn't any appetite for developing a rocket engine that could only be fully tested in space.
The idea of using nukes for Earth launch never completed died. Ted Taylor, one of the Orion team members, figured he could design a nuclear bomb that didn't emit any radiation at all. Ironically, the neutron bomb was an outgrowth of his work.
I'll buy the analysis which holds the solid-fuel rocket is far more reliable, and of course in a space program where manned launches are "routine," the payoff is huge.
But now you have to engineer a crew-escape mechanism in case of a serious problem during the boost phase. Can we improve on the Mercury-era "escape tower," basically a rocket-powered ejection seat? We need to enable a safe, reliable crew recovery at any point from liftoff till the solid booster burns out, which occurs at a significant altitude and distance downrange.
No, they are going to go back to the schematics and make some changes and re-tool it. The certification scheme wouldn't allow for just taking a J2 off the shelf. And there aren't enough just lying around anyways to support the space program.
-everphilski-
Mercury escape tower does just that. Coupled with a few heavy lift helicopters for CEV recovery and you are good to go. Escape tower has always been part of the plans for a top-mounted CEV.
Individual ejection seats are a Bad Idea when you are going supersonic.
-everphilski-
...radically more efficient methods of propulsion if "we're" ever to get past 'crawling' around in our astronomical backyard: earth orbit, the moon, and maybe, maybe Mars. Chemical propulsion is like a kid's tricycle: yep, it moves. But you won't get far on it.
I am not a rocket scientist... but I imagine that, yes, perhaps it is the best we can do.
That is to say, given some caveats. Reading about the aborted space plane, it seems that we're having trouble developing materials that can really take the heat of re-entry. Ablating blast shields, while not re-usable, work really, *really* well.
Furthermore, the shuttle was just too complex. The ability to make machinery that complex that performs reliably is perhaps many years ahead of us, and we're ( I think rightfully ) impatient to do this work now, not in 100 years. Also consider the DC X ( or whatever it was called, Delta Clipper? ) which had such problems with cracks in the carbon fuel tanks and such. This stuff is *complicated*. We should continue researching it, but we need something that works *now*, not in x * 10 years. The Apollo tech worked, reliably. We can use our experience with the Shuttle to improve it. I say run with it.
I think the return to simplicity will do a lot for our space program. Plus, the experience we gain will aid in addressing the couple points I made above. Basically, I think we need more real experience in space before we design pie in the sky spacecraft. I personally think it's kind of like the "walk before you run" adage. The space shuttle represents us trying to run, before we really mastered crawling...
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
I guess I have "government waste" and big NASA dollars on the mind--When I first read the summary blurb, I thought the link said, "an even more EXPENSIVE look..."
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Is that rocket designs that are not reusable are very costly. Something like the delta clipper would reduce costs to an incredible level. Like someone else said, using jets as a launching platform like butan would also reduce costs and get people into space.
People will be bitching they are still using wheels on the shuttle, and fire for the thrust...
These ancient technologies are outdated, and should be replaced as soon as possible with something else.
To confirm you're not a script,
please type the word in this image: construe
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
The current shuttle-derived CEV/SDHLV design is the most pragmatic design possible, for now. The only way to get Shuttle retired is by throwing a bone to the contractors (USA, Lockmart and Boeing) and to NASA's workers - the choice is either use Shuttle-derived hardware or never have another "Big Aero" manned launch system. The political pressure to maintain all those jobs in Houston, KSC, Utah and southern Cali would mean a clean-sheet CEV is dead-on-arrival. The Single-Stick plus capsule is a good answer, we'll see what comes of the heavy lifter. Spacecraft don't need wings or soft foam tiles, they need simple and robust systems that compliment reentry physics instead of Buck Rogers sensibilities. Payloads on top of the rocket make the most sense, I'm hoping the Dr. Griffin mandates the "inline" heavy lift vehicle instead of side-mounted. The Shuttle-derived hardware are the most politically survivable designs.
Along with the new craft, I firmly believe NASA needs to offer a set price for both astronauts and cargo. This would create a guaranteed market that entreprenurial launch providers can use to garner investment. NASA should never have killed Alternative Access to Station (AAS), and a set-price would be a good start back toward AAS. Supporting t/space, Blue Origin, SpaceX, etc is much more important than supporting NASA - they will enable the common "us" into space. We need to make innovative businesses that can thrive on space assets - beamed solar power, water mining, space tourism and whatever else can make $$$.
Since we're talking about studies, I highly recommend the VSE architecture studies that came out this spring, especially the Draper Labs and SpaceHab papers. SpaceHab's design uses a series of common modules stacked and dropped as used. The architecture leaked last week by the Orlando Sentinel is just Apollo-redone, the trade studies from this spring were truly innovative and the lessons-learned should be incorporated into the flight architecture.
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Yeah, noticed it to. I am seeing "Offtopic" mods only though.
I don't know whether I took a time machine back to 1970 or ended up in an Ayn Rand alternate reality, where technology is failing and we are moving back to older more useless techs beause all the great minds have left us. Surely there is a better way than the old nasty fuel wasting, vehicle destroying days of 1960's NASA? Just a thought... Chi
The main focus of the article is getting the crew up and back, and some of the similarities with the general strategies used in Apollo and earlier missions. There is not much discussion of the cargo lifter, but the earlier NY Times article had a much larger cargo container (100 tons vs current 20 tons) atop an existing shuttle booster.
What happens to the cargo container when it's done? Throw it away, to burn up on re-entry? Or is it possible to make it in such a way that it could be module added to a growing space station? If nothing else, a component for a module which could be filled in orbit?
The new crew transport system will have a crew compartment for ascent and re-entry, but presumably also extra space for the crew to work and live in and to keep things needed during a mission. Again, is this abandoned? If it were also a module which could be added to a growing station then it would not just be thrown out as trash.
Alternatively, a small ascent/descent capsule could rendevous with a parked larger orbital vehicle which they use for their mission and then leave in a parked orbit for the next mission, with refueling and restock of supplies done separately or as part of the ascent stage.
It's clear that a lot of stuff is one-time use only, but if we're putting all this stuff up there can it be made useful for future construction?
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats
The article is madly extensive. I'm sure most rocket scientists or MEs/EEs will enjoy it. As a computer scientist, I'm just chugging through it.
I remember learning in Software Engineering II that NASA recomends less than 10% code resuse. The reason goes back to a rocket launched by Europe. The ESU designed navigation code written in Ada. They wanted to avoid writing an exception class, so they mathmatically proved the exception could never occur.
Years later they reused the navigation code on a new rocket, but the specifications for the rocket changed. The navigation system failed because it couldn't convert an int (I believe it was a 16-bit to a 64-bit int or something like that).
So now we're trying to reuse a lot of the old components. NASA is insane about testing and redundancy so I'm sure they'll retro-test every new component they make with all the old parts, but in the long run I really wish congress would just give them the funding they need to make a good spacecraft that will last several decades like the current shuttle has.
Sumdog
The Big Dumb Booster design just works. Why do we need anything more?
NASA said that they need to put the crew and cargo on top of the rocket, but we also know that reusable "plane" type vehicles are where we'd like to go in the future. Why not combine them? Put a shuttle type vehicle on top of the rocket. Rocket pushes plane into space, plane flys down. None of this "strap a big ship to the side of a rocket and vector the propulsion so it doesn't do loops, and then hope nothing falls off and hits it".
According to an MSNBC article, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is now exploring the possibility of developing a manned spacecraft. The article has an artist's rendering. The picture is slick and looks like something out of "Star Trek: Enterprise".
NASA should open up the competitive bidding process to Japanese companies. If American companies cannot design a safe reusable spacecraft, then perhaps Japanese companies can.
Topics of the Times
("New York Times," 13 January, 1920, p. 12, col. 5)
A Severe Strain on Credulity
As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even highest, part of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's multiple-charge rocket is a practicable, and therefore promising device. Such a rocket, too, might carry self-recording instruments, to be released at the limit of its flight, and conceivable parachutes would bring them safely to the ground. It is not obvious, however, that the instruments would return to the point of departure; indeed, it is obvious that they would not, for parachutes drift exactly as balloons do. And the rocket, or what was left of it after the last explosion, would have to be aimed with amazing skill, and in dead calm, to fall on the spot where it started.
But that is a slight inconvenience, at least from the scientific standpoint, though it might be serious enough from that of the always innocent bystander a few hundred or thousand yards away from the firing line. It is when one considers the multiple- charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt and looks again, to see if the dispatch announcing the professor's purposes and hopes says that he is working under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution. It does say so, and therefore the impulse to do more than doubt the practicability of such a device for such a device must be--well, controlled. Still, to be filled with uneasy wonder and express it will be safe enough, for after the rocket quits our air and and really starts on its longer journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. To claim that it would be is to deny a fundamental law of dynamics, and only Dr. Einstein and his chosen dozen, so few and fit, are licensed to do that.
His Plan Is Not Original
That Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to reaction, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react--to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
but there are such things as intentional mistakes or oversights, and, as it happens, Jules Verne, who also knew a thing or two in assorted sciences--and had, besides, a surprising amount of prophetic power--deliberately seems to make the same mistake that Professor Goddard seems to make. For the Frenchman, having got his travelers to or toward the moon into the desperate fix riding a tiny satellite of the satellite, saved them from circling it forever by means of an explosion, rocket fashion, where an explosion would not have had in the slightest degree the effect of releasing them from their dreadful slavery. That was one of Verne's few scientific slips, or else it was a deliberate step aside from scientific accuracy, pardonable enough of him in a romancer, but its like is not so easily explained when made by a savant who isn't writing a novel of adventure.
All the same, if Professor Goddard's rocket attains a sufficient speed before it passes out of our atmosphere--which is a thinkable possibility--and if its aiming takes into account all of the many deflective forces that will affect its flight, it may reach the moon. That the rocket could carry enough explosive to make on impact a flash large and bright enough to be seen from earth by the biggest of our telescope--that will be believed when it is done.
[/QUOTE]
While it would keep costs down, I don't think that hanging the payload or crew alongside the external fuel tank is the safest design. Keep the crew as far away from the fuel as possible. Also, an error with the crew recovery rocket attached to the capsule could send them into the fireball, which isn't good.
I like the idea of using capsules instead of a shuttle. Having a station in orbit means we don't have to have huge living quarters for the crew. However, the use of capsules would necessitate the development of a "space tug" to carry the crew to places they can't reach with the station or via EVAs.
Creating a couple different booster designs to carry crew and cargo and having modular payload fairings and capsules is an excellent idea. It means we don't ever have to launch more than absolutely necessary, which lowers the costs considerably.
It's ironic that designs that are basically the same as what we used forty years ago are still the best for getting people back from orbit.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
What? Budgetary limitations? Congress (or at least the House) just granted NASA a larger budget than they had asked for. And why is this? Because some members of Congress didn't want NASA to cut other projects at the expense of the "Exploration Initiative." And now Griffen et al. want to get the extra money and spend it on the Exploration Initiative anyways. As a result, I may not have a job in a couple months. Yesterday, our project manager told us not to buy any more materials because NASA had effectively cancelled a contract.
The only budgetary limitations present in NASA are misappropriation limitations. Period.
-A very disgruntled rocket scientist.
With good old fashioned flight, there is a hell of a lot less stress on components, and the option to fly back home is a lot less dangerous. The flying option also means we get away from the world of one-use rocket components, and into the far safer world of aviation.
We need to dump the solid rocket booster strap-on. It's expensive, dangerous, and toxic as hell. It smells too much like pork barrel as well.
Last but not least, put an experienced engineer in charge.
--Mike--
One of the biggest problems with using the tanks once they arrived was that they were, in fact, covered with insulating foam, and removing the foam was nontrivial, especially given that you couldn't add weight to the tank for removal systems and that labor in orbit was unbelievably expensive. There were a couple of proposals to get around that, however.
In any case, it seems to me that the new cargo lifter (the only one to use the external tank) wouldn't be able to do this trick, because the tank would be damaged during staging...plus, staging would occur too early for the tank to achieve orbit.
My question, though- was there ever any chance that the tanks could have been used in this fashion? Do any of the rocket scientists know that report, or what happened? Were those numbers wrong? Were the problems of utilizing the tanks judged too large to make the attempt worth it?
A hero is someone who knows when to run away. I am a hero. -Trent the Uncatchable
Given the constraints under which the program has to operate. Propulsion is about liberating energy from an energy store. We hit upon the storage limits of chemical bonds in the last century, there simply is no way to (safely) cram any more energy into fuels that also can be stored safely, are not incredibly toxic to the environment and can be produced anywhere within budgetary reason.
The sad truth is we are the very limits of chemical rocketry. Fast forward 1000 years from now, and if you ask those folks to build you a chemical rocket, chances are it will be a multi-stage vehicle like the Saturn V and what we're seeing now.
The next stop is a higher density energy store, like nuclear materials, but we are prevented from proceeding to that for reasons more political than anything else. Nuclear rockets could be made far safer than current rockets, but the consequences of a failure are far greater. But even those consequences could be greatly ameliorated with choice of launch and landing sites.
Having said all of this, I'm sure that the new designs will be light years ahead of the Apollo era designs in safety and science capability because of advances in materials and computer sciences since then.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
they would declassify their UFO-captured technology, we could be zipping around the solar system by now for pretty cheap!
Even though liquid rocketry is extremely complicated plumbing, keeping it simple as possible is the best way ensure safety. It amazes me the current shuttle system has been used for long as it has. Using one launch system for two very different tasks only creates problems and makes you take unneeded risks.
Splitting the launching of humans and cargo is paramount, which this design does. By using existing technology, even though it may not be the best, it is tested, we can continue missions much more quickly than developing a whole new system.
Ideally any system will have built in safetys which neither computers or humans must activate (they would be mechanically or chemically automatic).
There's nothing "old" about "nasty fuel wasting" as you put it. The shuttle burns an incredible amount of fuel to get into orbit, as do all other rocket designs. That is just simple physics.
Think about how much more difficult it is to walk up a long hill as compared to flat ground. Now try to get to the top of a hill by throwing gas downwards as hard as you can. Not very efficient.
As for vehicle wasting, what wastes more money and therefore resources: A big dumb lifter like a Saturn V that is designed to launch just once, or a supposedly "environmentally freindly" Shuttle that uses two big dumb throw away rockets, and a big dumb throw away fuel tank, and a "reusable" vehicle that takes several months to rebuild?
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
Just bacause they are using old designs does not mean they will be bad. The Saturn V was a far better rocket than the shuttle ever can be in its current form. It was cheaper and had the thrust and delta-v to reach high orbit and the moon. Throw on another stage (maybe nuclear) and your going to Mars. Besides, it won't really make sense to design much new. The shuttle's engines are already close to the theoretical maximum effiecency of hydrogen-oxygen rockets. Until we start to build a space elevator or laser launchers, chemical rockets will have to do.
There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I'm right on it.
Yet another story about NASA "next generation" designs that are just reengineering old technology. NASA should bite the bullet and develop nuclear rockets. Experimentation in the 60s produced a crude solid-core reactor engine called NERVA, but it was heavy and underpowered, and would have released a lot of radioactive pollution. There are much more promising, non-polluting nuclear engine designs now that would outperform anything NASA has on the drawing board. One is called a Gaseous Core Nuclear Reactor, also known as a "nuclear lightbulb."
Basically it's a big quartz bulb containing a cloud of gaseous uranium such as UF6, confined to the center of the bulb by a buffer gas swirling around the inside. The UF6 heats up to 25000 C, about 7 times the melting temp of any solid core reactor. It emits intense ultraviolet, which passes through the quartz and is absorbed by slightly doped hydrogen flowing over the outside. The hydrogen heats and expands, exiting the nozzle to provide thrust. There is no actual combustion and no need to carry liquid oxygen. The nuclides confined within the bulb do not enter the exhaust stream, and the hydrogen exhaust itself is not radioactive.
Here is an article on NuclearSpace.com that describes a detailed design for a fully reusable GCNR rocket based on the Saturn V form factor, which would not only lift 1000 tons of payload into orbit but also return intact to a powered landing in the manner of the now defunct Delta Clipper.
GCNR rockets would not only be able to launch entire space hotels in one shot, their enormous lifting capacity would also make Mars missions practical. Proposed 2-year Mars missions using traditional planetary gravity assist trajectories would give the crew fatal radiation doses. A GCNR rocket could carry a fantastically equipped Mars mission with a foot-thick layer of water/ice shielding, on a point-and-shoot trajectory that takes three months each way. But that's another topic all its own.
Anything nuclear is going to create a big PR problem, but NASA is supposed to be all about public education as well as putting things into space. I had hoped for more guts from their new leadership. We've been mucking around in earth orbit for decades. It's time we built real spaceships that can handle really significant cargo.
Orion was a make work project to keep people employed. Technically, it doesn't work. It doesn't provide a practical amount of thrust. It was a joke. The best way to describe it is "a flash in the pan"...
Oh well, what the hell...
Since they're talking capsules again, I'd like to understand more of what they're really proposing, and what these new capsules are capable of.
In the old days, I remember TV coverage from the Navy task force, complete with aircraft carrier, helicopters, and frogmen for each splashdown. I also know that the Soviets (and now Russians) brought their capsules down on land, and at least that happened too hard. In neither case did they seem to have any sort of precise targeting.
So once the new and improved capsule re-enters the atmosphere, what happens next? Are capsules coming back because the US Navy felt left out in the cold by the Shuttle?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Why are we wasting so much time with old designs when we all know where we're heading in 150 years ? Just build the Enterprise NX-01 and STFU already.
The Russians can already get 3 people into space reliably; if I have read this correctly, then what they lack is the heavy lifter.
Should NASA concentrate its efforts on this heavy lifter and leave crew transport to the Russians for the moment?
Reducing costs through coordination seems reasonable to me.
The 11 presentations are at the following location: http://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/vision_co ncepts.html
You know, Nasa's subsidiary, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory?
Ok, apparently the JPL doesn't do Jet Propulsion research anymore, but I still think the grandparent's post sounds like an urban legend.
FYI. http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=deta il&aid=1251140&group_id=4421&atid=104421 just in case.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
is that the shuttle is a built-to-fail enterprise from start to finish. Since they let the military muck with the operational requirements from the start, they ended up with an overly complex machine that cannot do any of it's supposed jobs very well. Everything the shuttle does can be done more cheaply and safely by other means.
Want some examples:
1) Lofting satellites - use unmanned payload rockets; Ariane or Atlas
2) Space experiments - a space station with regular supply runs can do this better
3) Satellite repair missions - this is a toss-up due to complexity, but I would give slight edge to robotic repair missions just because of the lesser cost (launch-wise) and the safety issue (no humans risked for little gain)
The supposed reusability of the shuttles is also a sham. Significant amounts of component replacements are performed after every mission. This also kills the turnaround time, removing another supposed design advantage.
It shouldn't take an economist to figure out that sending cargo and personnel up on separate vehicles of much simpler design (compared to the shuttle; it is still rocket science after all) that have minimal reuse capabilities but are 10-20 times safer and cheaper per launch is a much better solution to maintaining regular space access.
I would argue that the money and lives already wasted on the shuttle program has seriously damaged U.S. space aspirations. Billions have been spent with very few tangible benefits. In my opinion, we would have a serious space station and a viable moon base right now if NASA had pursued these proposed shuttle replacement concepts from the start instead of all the effort put into the shuttles.
--- Void where prohibited. Your mileage may vary. ---
for billions of $ ?
:p
yeah, there is one thing that is worth that...
Uranus....
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
"The shuttle should have been a step towards true spaceplanes."
Why?
What's the big deal about spaceplanes, anyway? Why are we so in love with them? Is it just because the idea of a VTOL rocket seems dated, like some bad 1950s sci-fi flick?
An airplane is practical because as long as you're moving forward (going someplace) anyway, you might as well generate lift with all that air you're flying through. It's the simplest, easiest, cheapest way to the solve the problem.
On the STS, I believe the wings don't do anything during launch (except act as targets for debris, apparently). Even if you take off like an airplane, wings loose effectiveness way before you get to space. Once you're in space, they obviously don't do anything. Coming back down is the only time they come into play, and they're not terribly impressive then. STS airflight isn't so much "gliding" as it is "falling out of the sky, gently".
What's the practical benefit of wings on a spacecraft?
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
>Wings on a space ship are what you get when pilots are in charge of the space program instead of engineers.
Actually the Defense Department pushed that requirement onto NASA. NASA, to get budget approval, had to prove that they could line up enough users to launch the shuttle fifty times a year, otherwise it could never justify the development costs. NASA needed to line up military missions to meet that level of utilization. The military said in effect "we'll swing our business but it has to be able to land x,000 miles crossrange". Wings were the only way to do that.
What ever hapened to the ideas of using a magnetic rail to "fling" the ship into orbit. Is this still just not practical. It seems with that system you would have all of your launch energy requirments on the ground instead of needing to carry fuel with you.
The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum. - O'Toole's Corollary
I thought Boeing was talking about man-rating the Delta-IV-Heavy for use with the CRV. The Delta-IV is a new design that's built at a single plant in Alabama to keep costs low. Does it not provide enough delta-v?
"Is it worth it?"
I'm understanding that there is a lot of research done on these space flights, and in the space station's labs. But for the astronomical costs, what exactly is being acomplished? Are we spending the millions upon millions of dollars to give these astronaunts a nice ride? (no disrespect intended, oversimplifying because of my point.) I just can't help but think that "Zero Gravit y" can't improve the results of most any lab here on Earth.
Could these funds be used better? /shrug I dunno.
-Quixxilver- "Where am I going?
Other problems involved in the Orion design was the fact that the nuclear devices which were designed to power the craft had to be as small as possible, so they could fit the many needed to propel it. They developed a "launch" mechanism for these devices that shot them out the back of the craft, this launch mechanism was supposedly fed by something similar to what was found in cola vending machines (of the time?). Anyhow, due to the small size of these nuclear devices, they became instantly "classified" - because DARPA (probably ARPA at the time?) realized they were tiny tactical nukes (IIRC, some of these devices were to be around the size of a basketball - they were low in yield, but very compact) - and the research that went into the development of these devices also became classified...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Your mistake is thinking that the shuttle was an advance towards spaceplanes. Not so. The shuttle was and is a Big Dumb Booster chopped and reattached side-by-side, with wings.
The shuttle shares no characteristics with a spaceplane, apart from visual appearance. It is not flyable on ascent and barely glidable on reentry. It does not utilize atmospheric oxygen to save fuel. It is rebuildable rather than reusable. It costs more than boosters.
Rather than a paddle boat, a better metaphor for the shuttle would be the bamboo planes and runways constructed by pacific islander cargo cults, in the belief that appearance could be used to decoy substance.
Right now one spaceplane exists, and Burt Rutan owns it.
the white house, the coward in there as well, and the patriot act I and II, I would say that we are just about in the same boat.
One point the author makes is that it's almost worth launching a inert payload just to keep the pipeline and infrastrucucture running than it is to stop and restart the process. Imagine the kind of payloads that could be waiting on standby for a free launch -- oh wait, you CAN'T because this is by definition an enabling technology.
Get the damn bueracrats out of the picture.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
NASA/Congress is poor at cooperating with private industry. NASA suffers from "not invented here" syndrome. NASA does wonderful research, but is a very expensive and poor launch-operations organization. NASA in tandem with Congress has prefered to select designs that look like "high tech" to the man on the street. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is what the airlines rely on when buying airplanes, which is why Concorde is a thing of the past, and a 737 takes off every 30 seconds, 24/7, 365.
The shuttle basic design revolves around 60's technologies, with a 80's digital flight management system and communications links. We have two policy choices, and they are not derivative vs "all new".
The choice is this: Continue with NASA centric launch operations and vehicle development (business as usual) OR contract for performance: buy pounds to orbit and passenger seats to orbit from the lowest bidder. Since some bidders such as the Arianne or Soyuz folks are subsidized, match those to Boeing, Lockheed, or any new American startup bidders.
The sooner we get NASA focused on technology research, the faster TCO will come down.
Is not even close to 2%, it's under 1%.
One: The bigger they are, the easier they fall. No, seriously. Having more surface area during reentry, especially surface area that can provide lift, means that you get to do your deceleration (and more importantly reentry heating) more gradually in thinner atmosphere. This is particularly important for current staged rockets that have to throw away most of their surface area in the form of burnt out stages and empty drop tanks.
Two: Landing by gliding on heavy wings is a well-understood technology. Landing by balancing on rockets with heavy fuel isn't. Until the DC-X flights some people were skeptical that it could be done at all, and some are still skeptical that it can be done as efficiently and safely.
Three: When talking about "spaceplanes" as opposed to just VTHL rockets, you're usually talking about something that uses scramjets or liquid air cycle rockets to pull their oxygen (which makes up most of the gross liftoff weight of conventional rockets) from the atmosphere rather than the fuel tanks for as long as possible. If you're going to be hanging out in the atmosphere for a while anyway, the efficient way to keep yourself aloft is with aerodynamic lift rather than rockets.
Now, I'm not saying that putting wings on a launch vehicle are an obvious design decision - my personal napkin-sketches of the ideal next US launch vehicle wouldn't have wings, in fact. But I hope it's understandable now why wings on a spacecraft aren't as ridiculous as they sound.
actually there are a number of new techologies being pursued just not by nasa. The skylon spaceplane appears to be a possible SSTO solution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon
Reading through the article it appears to be a scramjet at first but this isn't actually the case. It just has air breathing engines that can operate at extremely high speeds and altitudes by cooling the air as it enters the engine, a similar concept to water-methanol injection in an internal combustion engine. It has a set of rocket motors that feed off the same hydrogen fuel as the jet engine once it reaches an appropriate altitude. Because of the hydrogen the craft is quite large but has an extremely good power to weight ratio.
Another interesting solution is the phoenix, which uses a magnetic track to reach escape velocity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EADS_Phoenix
This sentence:
We got more done in the 60's with this kind of tech than we do now with our aging shuttle fleet. Also, since the boosters and fuel tanks are based on teh shuttles, we can utilize our current network of contractors to supply parts.
Contradicts this sentence:
I'm tired of spending billions just to get into space.
Those billions of dollars aren't being stuffed in the SRBs and set on fire, they're being spent on the parts and people that make the shuttle run. The equipment costs are likely to increase with less reusable designs, and so the only way to decrease the total costs are to pay fewer people. Unless Shuttle politics now is much better than Shuttle politics decades ago, it will be impossible to pay fewer people - standing between us and every job cut will be a Congressman from that district screaming bloody murder. The only way of shrinking a government program as big as Shuttle is to scrap it entirely and try to start a smaller replacement from scratch.
Spaceflight isn't going to get any cheaper this way. Our best hope now is that the next generation of Shuttle-derived vehicles can be launched more frequently than the dying Shuttles, so that at least we can get more done in space for the same price. That's a much more likely goal, given the increased cargo capacity of the heavy lifter proposals and the increased simplicity of all the proposed replacements.
Thought the best option would be a reusable lifting body mounted on top of a Delta IV heavy. It would be a space shuttle with the main engines and the cargo bay removed.
Capsules like the ones they want are really cramped and are already available through Russia.
Errrrr..... you seem to be thinking they will be 'landing' in the sense of sitting down on gear gracefully. They go back to capsules then they are going to go back to parrachutes and splashdowns... or possibly go with a solid earth landing like the russians whcih is essentially just a crash with shock absorbing seats for the occupants. They may dig up the old Idea of doing a parasail instead of a simple drouge parachute and actually doing a kind of glide landing like a skydiver might... but the control system for managing the airfoil was always a bitch in that scenario.
I can't help but think there has to be an air breathing way to do the SRB's... though if you can't shave any weight in the process of providing the same power it is essentially just a lot of work for no gain... unless the safety margian is greater.... a fly back and fast turnaround would make it worth it though.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
I think the biggest advantage Rutan has over NASA is that he doesn't have 535 Congress folks telling him how to allocate his budget.
NASA has very little flexibility in its budget. Too much of it is earmarked for specific spending thanks to somebody in Congress whose district somehow benefits from it.
If NASA was given larger control over its budget I think we see better things. Until we somehow get those 535 micromanagers off of NASA's back I don't see that happening any time soon.
The other items in your list aren't special to Rutan. NASA would still suffer some inefficiencies any large organization has but it's biggest problem is how Congress controls so mucy of what it does.
Which is to say that there is essentially no data on how hazardous Apollo missions were, while the data on the safety of shuttle missions is merely sparse.
I think you should also count training/preparation deaths for each, since you can't fly the missions without the prep.
Do a little statistics and you'll see that the shuttle failure rate is (assuming random single point catastrophic failure) is somwhere between 0% and 10% with the measured rate being about 2%.
Do the same for Apollo and you'll get a catastrophic failure rate of between 0% and 22% with the measured rate being 11% (Apollo 1 and Apollo 13). By this measure, there's a good probability that the shuttle is the winner.
Lets try other measures (skiping the statistical treatment).
There's no real evidence that Apollo was any safer than the Shuttle is. There's also no real reason to believe that the next vehicle will be any safer.
Support SETI@home
How about this one. The shuttle has an average death rate of 1 person for every 2-ish years of flight, while all of Gemin-Apollo (I'm only counting manned missions here) had (counting the fire on the pad) somewhere around 1 person for 3-4-ish years.
;)
see? I can make meaningless figues too!
I agree that there's not enough data to make anything meaningful
I do however think that overall the shuttle is probably safer. I don't think that doesn't mean things shouldn't change though. If there's a known flaw, that can be fixed *relati vely* cheaply why not fix it?
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
I liked your summary comment. Risk is inherent in the endeavour.
Basically all these whiners who don't want to cheer on people willing to take risks makes me sick.
Everyone wants the whole world "safe" nowadays.
Why are the millions crowding the stands at NASCAR events (just one example, not picking on NASCAR at all - I enjoy auto racing) to watch their favorite driver with the idea in the back of their minds that they might see a crash at any time, the same ones bitching that the Shuttle's "not safe".
Get over it. Let NASA continue to do what they do best... doing things NO ONE ELSE has done. And learn to be proud of them again. They do stuff the rest of the world can only dream of. Let 'em do it. They know the risks.
Most people are being manipulated by the media into a "safety first" frenzy when it comes to NASA, which is ultimately -- retarded.
I'm not sure where to place the blame for this, but it likely stems from the inability of parents to teach (and those same parents backing the schools up) their children that life isn't always fair and risks are part of the process of living.
The fact that NASA does things no one else can do is motivating and inspiring to some of us, but I'm worried that the general public isn't motivated or inspired by much other than "reality TV" these days.
The Shuttle program is one of the most amazing engineering feats of all-time. Yes, they'll have setbacks INCLUDING losing people. And yes, they should be applauded that they pick up and continue. I bet EVERY astronaut on the mission flying today knew one of the Columbia crew members personally as friends. THEY KNOW WHAT THE RISKS ARE - They don't need the media, the "general public", or the Congress questioning their methods. Unless they have no human feelings at all, the day their friends died they knew they had to do better.
+++OK ATH