NASA To Retire Atlantis by 2008

SirBruce writes "As reported by Space.com, Spaceflight Now, and elsewhere, NASA is now planning to retire the Space Shuttle Atlantis by 2008, after just 5 more flghts. By doing so, they would avoid a costly and time consuming scheduled overhaul, and could still fly the remaining 12 missions (17 total) with Discovery and Endeavour, which are just now completing their ODMPs (orbiter maintenance down period). Atlantis would be kept for spare parts to keep Discovery and Endeavour flying until the shuttle program is shut down in 2010."

Comments

Old rule.

[IamGarageGuy 2]

Why fix an old piece of hardware when you can get a new one faster, smarter, more shiny, etc. How about a donation to a university to rip it apart or try to fly it again.

Re:Old rule.

[Ubergrendle]

Sometimes old hardware isn't worth saving because it contains too many complexities, or design mistakes, to keep running.

For every DC-3 or B-52 bomber that's flying 50+ years later, there's a dozen lesser models that never made it that far. One of the success factors for these planes were their elegance -- simple but sufficient components that are easily maintained and replaced.

Unfortunately I don't think the space shuttles fit into this category. We've learned alot from them...but probably more of 'what not to do' than 'lets build 20 more!'.

I think canibalising it for parts is a good short-term move, when the program wraps up though I agree they should find a way to preserve the learnings of the shuttle program. Lets hope its replacement is safer, cheaper, and more effective!

Re:Old rule.

[PFI_Optix]

Donate it to MIT. They'll find out if it will run Linux.

You know you want to know.

Re:Old rule.

[topical_surfactant]

The space shuttle is terribly flawed. I'd much rather have them used up while in service than spend my tax money to send them to a university while in somewhat functional shape. No university could ever make one fly - the requirements are nearly impossible to meet (think rollout facility and launchpad size), the cost is too extreme and the risks are far too great.

Re:Old rule.

[andreyw]

The problem is, when you don't have anything to replace your Shuttle Program with. Sure - it's a great idea. The shuttles are obsolete and need to replaced. Sure. But are there ANY viable replacements? AFAIK not on the American side - this means the future of ISS and *manned* space exploration depends on the Soyuz vehicle, and while this is doing wonders for all the Russian pride welling up in my heart, I can't fathom how Bush thinks the US space program can go anywhere by dismantling existing spacecraft and not coming up with anything new.

Re:Old rule.

[lowrydr310]

The F-117 is set for retirement in 2008. Some people wonder why a great technological marvel would be retired while ancient planes like the B-52 still fly, but based on what I've read, the F-117 is a nightmare to maintain.

If you're planning on buying a car and making it last for 20 years or more, which do you think would be easier (and cheaper) to maintain?

1. A basic Honda with manually operated seats, roll up windows, and manual locks or
2. Mercedes with navigation system, auto climate control, power heated seats, power windows, power locks with RF keyfob, traction control, ABS, power sunroof, heated auto-dimming mirrors, automatic headlights, automatic rain-sensing wipers, etc

Re:Old rule.

[iamlucky13]

I would argue that the F-117 was just as much a technology demonstrator as it was a tactical strike aircraft. It showed stealth technology could be used effectively on the modern battlefield, and lessons and technologies learned are being applied to the development of the F-22 and F-35. But then, how does that compare to the space shuttle? We built 5 of those compared to 60 F-117's. I guess the differences between air combat and space flight make the numbers deceiving, since the shuttles were supposed to be a work-horse, and expectation they never fully lived up to. I guess the space shuttle is more like the XB-70, a Mach 3 heavy bomber prototype built in the 60's: technologically very impressive, but ultimately the wrong approach.

Re:Old rule.

[cashman73]

Imagine what a beowulf custer of shuttles would,. . . oh, never mind!

Re:Old rule.

[PriceIke]

This may have been suggested further down the threads, and if so I apologize .. but .. go ahead and take parts from it if needed, but I say make it an exhibit at the Smithsonian, or better yet at Space Camp in Hunstville AL. How many kids (yeah, just kids) would kill for the chance to get to sit in the real Space Shuttle Atlantis? I can't think of a finer retirement plan for the beautiful old girl.

Re:Old rule.

[afidel]

The XB-70 wasn't just technically impressive, it's visually very impressive. Years later it's the only thing besides the F-117 that I very clearly remember from my trip to Wright Patterson AFB and museum.

Re:Old rule.

[vsprintf]

I guess the differences between air combat and space flight make the numbers deceiving, since the shuttles were supposed to be a work-horse, and expectation they never fully lived up to. I guess the space shuttle is more like the XB-70, a Mach 3 heavy bomber prototype built in the 60's: technologically very impressive, but ultimately the wrong approach.

Whose expectations? The shuttles had an optimistic schedule that was hyped by some political appointees, when in reality they were experimental craft. There was nothing like it that had flown before. We learned a lot from the shuttles about how things really work in space and reusability. Anybody else recall watching the capture of the Hubble? The Shuttle has been a learning vehicle, not just a space vehicle.

When bad things happened in a very dangerous occupation, we got media hysteria and political grandstanding. Look at all the lives and ships lost during normal early American trade. Our ancestors would be unable to understand our timid response to expected losses and even trivial damage in a hostile environment. I wouldn't call the Shuttle the "wrong approach." It was the approach we chose to test first. We could have chosen to try nothing new, and we would have learned nothing new.

Re:Old rule.

[iamlucky13]

Good points. I definitely wasn't trying to knock the shuttle program or devalue what we've learned from it. As far as expectations, one of the touted features was cost-saving potential, which it never achieved. Additionally, the shuttle's themselves were originally intended to fly as many as 100 flights each, whereas they're now a little over 100 total. Also, like you, I find the hysteria over Columbia frustrating, especially the claims that the danger alone are enough to justify abandoning space exploration. And when I say wrong approach, I mean simply there are much better ways to achieve our goals. A lot was learned from the XB-70, too, but we also learned during testing that stealth technology and low-level radar-evasion were more effective than simply trying to outperform all the potential interceptors.

Re:Old rule.

[computechnica]

The current AWACS will be upgraded from 70s mainframe to Modern Multi-Server Multi-Workstation Windows/UNIX platforms. We can't wait to start doing the software for the new platform. The only problem is we are still using the same old tired 707 airframe.

Re:Old rule.

[Anonymous Coward]

The F-117 despite being called a fighter, is used only in the bombing of high value, highly defended targets. It's logical to assume the B-2 will be called upon to perform this role when the F-117 fleet is fully retried. The B-2 can carry both more bombs and bigger bombs. Thus a single B-2 replaces around 4-8 F-117s (depending on ordinance). The B-2 is also stealthier then the F-117s and thus will be able to penetrate even more advanced air defense systems.

The B-52 still flies because of the sheer bomb load it can carry. It cannot and is not expected to attack targets that are protected by modern air defenses. Given the number of precision guided systems in the US arsenal, I suspect the B-52 is used more as a psychologic weapon.

Re:Old rule.

[Retric]

I think the shuttle program would have been much cheaper if we had used them constantly. If they had each flown 100 flights over 15 years most of the components would have been new and we would have far fewer redesigns an wasted man hours built into the flights. When you look at the programs overall costs the cost per flight would have fallen significantly if we had used them more and sooner vs. keeping all that support staff waiting around as you use them a few times a year over 50 years. The manpower costs would have been 1/3 what they where if we had used them while they where new.

When you spread R&D costs over more missions you get cost savings per flight. And you don't include a lot of R&D improvement costs into what should have been a short-lived program.

PS: If you spend 1 million to cut 1$ off the cost of a 5$ mouse trap it can be a great thing or a waste of money depending on if you produce 100 or 100 million of them.

Re:Old rule.

[stecoop]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program :
Each Shuttle was designed for a projected lifespan of 100 launches or 10-years operational life. If you fly the shuttle for 15 years you are not flying the same shuttle as all the parts would have been replaced. 15 years is too long to expect the shuttle to be maintained; it is time to move on.

Redesigns are not in itself bad. You have a bad design and it gets replaced not just the component but the design - a new product eventually you have a new vehicle.

Re:Old rule.

[xSauronx]

doesnt the smithsonian have a shuttle prototype already? something that was used for aerodynamic testing or some such?

Re:Old rule.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, you never learned that "alot" is not a word, or not aword if you prefer. Strangely, we live in an era of instant information access.

Re:Old rule.

[vsprintf]

Yes, I think we're generally on the same page, but there are a couple of memes that come up (and push my hot buttons) every time there is discussion of the Shuttle on Slashdot: "The Shuttle was a failure", or "The Shuttle failed to meet its objectives". Either of these ignores the facts that Congress controls NASA's budget (and operations), not NASA and that the Shuttle was/is an experiment. Considering the Shuttle's 100+ missions and the ISS, one's definition of "failure" would have to be pretty narrow (and, believe me, I've had those arguments with a couple of people here).

When NASA did try to do some advanced work, there were screams from Congress about budget overruns. Consider how difficult it is to manage a project that spans several decades while having your outlay limited to one year at a time and having that budget changed and reallocated every year. Then consider that due to bickering in the federal government, sometimes you don't have funds allocated at all until the fiscal year is half over, which leaves only a few months to let contracts and get the needed work done.

As far as cost-savings go, IIRC, that was a possible benefit, and I'm not sure what one would compare the shuttles to in the 80's - a bunch of Saturn Vs with disposable cargo modules and crew capsules that couldn't return anything? And at least one of the designs for the next generation reuses quite a bit from the current Shuttle program.

Re:Old rule.

[Setsquare]

I really think giving up the optimistic launch schedule was the biggest mistake for the shuttle. If they were throwing them up into space as fast as they could (I believe the desired launch schedule was 50 launches a year) and you knew you were cutting corners to achieve it then no-one would suffer from the delusion that they were ever safe and they might use the safety strategy they used for shuttle flight number 1 : only stick one brave pilot aboard and no passengers.

In five years time you'd either have no shuttles and only 5 deaths and you could start working on a better space craft; or perhaps you get lucky enough to tweak away all the problems and have an ongoing very active space program.

Re:Old rule.

[AndyChrist]

"How about a donation to a university to rip it apart or try to fly it again."

What university could afford to fly a space shuttle?

This isn't Cowboy Bebop.

Re:Old rule.

[drinkypoo]

If you're planning on buying a car and making it last for 20 years or more, which do you think would be easier (and cheaper) to maintain?

If you bought it today, any Honda will be more reliable than any Mercedes, regardless of features. Mercedes QA has gone in the toilet.

If you bought it twenty years ago, any Mercedes has fared better than any Honda, given equal treatment. They used to build Mercedes-Benzes like tanks. DaimlerChrysler Benzes are made like poop.

Please abandon all attempts at automotive analogies. You display no more talent at it than the rest of slashdot.

Re:Old rule.

[lowrydr310]

I was just trying to point out that any vehicle with manually operated features is easier to maintain than a comparable vehicle with complex electrical conveniences (power seats, windows, climate control systems, navigation systems, etc.) or other complex features that don't add to the basic functionality of the car.

I understand what you're saying about Mercedes. I've actually been looking around for a early 80s 300 Diesel. I hear those things are more bulletproof than the Toyota Hilux/Tacoma.

Re:Old rule.

[drinkypoo]

Yes, you want the 81+ (-85?) 300SD. Trust me and stay away from the non-turbo diesels, the turbo (I own one) is only 120hp and 170ft-lb and has enough trouble getting up steep hills at speed. Imagine the pain of a non-turbo model! Nonetheless the W126 body style is [often] regarded as the best Mercedes ever produced, and they used it from approx. 1978 until the early to mid nineties for both diesels (5 and 6 cyl 3 liter) and all the other stuff (straight six gas, v8 gas, blah blah blah.) It's their first 100% high-strength-steel unibody and it's probably the most solid car you will ever touch, let alone own :)

I've done some minor maintenance since paying $2500 for mine about a year ago - I've replaced all the glow plugs, which were sketchy when I got it, and replaced the alternator, which died somewhere along the line. Glow plugs were $55 at kragen, and the alternator which has a lifetime warranty was $130. A 1991 Honda Accord EX alternator (which admittedly has around twice the output) is over $300. I get a measured 25mpg in mixed driving in a hilly town, in a 3500 lb car which comfortably seats 5 adults, and it's an IDI diesel so you can run just about any fuel if you can figure out how to start up on it.

Anyway, the shuttle is complex because its design requires it, not because it has a bunch of extra doodads. Most of that stuff in there is doing something. On the other hand, it doesn't make it the best design. You might do better to compare the Mercedes IDI engine to a Volkswagen TDI engine, but then, the TDI kicks the shit out of the IDI while it's working. It just won't last as long, but then, what will? A 2.2 (I think) liter passat TDI has more HP and more torque than my 3 liter IDI, and it's more efficient in the bargain... Hence my general annoyance with automotive metaphors. There's always some flaw. Even I make 'em occasionally, but more often, I find myself stopping in the middle and saying "damn, that ain't right."

Re:Old rule.

[vsprintf]

I think the point here is that many of the missions were ISS supply/building missions. Even if you (and I) want to ignore the media frenzy over safety, what do you do when Congress won't agree to spend the money to provide the ISS components? Launch an empty shuttle? For what? I think NASA has done fairly well (with the Shuttle program) considering how it has been hamstrung by Congress.

Re:Old rule.

[lowrydr310]

My best friend in high school had a 91 560SEL and after driving that, I realized what people meant when they said German cars were built like tanks.

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that we'll see a compact diesel pickup truck in the US once low sulphur diesel is required. I had the pleasure of driving a diesel Toyota Hilux when I was in the Philippines and I was hooked. I tried to search for more info, but the only thing I could find is that Nissan is thinking about offering a diesel engine in their Titan (full size truck). There's a lot of speculation, but nothing is certain.

I see my problem with auto analogies, and now that I think about it, I usually see flaws with every one I try to make after I post.

Re:Old rule.

[UseTheSource]

and you knew you were cutting corners to achieve it then no-one would suffer from the delusion that they were ever safe and they might use the safety strategy they used for shuttle flight number 1 : only stick one brave pilot aboard and no passengers.

Actually, STS-1 had two aboard.

Re:Old rule.

[UseTheSource]

(depending on ordinance)

The correct word would be "ordnance." ;)

The word ordinance means something completely different. The two are not interchangeable.

Whats next?

[lithium100]

I will be very interested to see what NASA has in store for after the shuttle program. Or will the private sector take up the slack?
FP :)

Re:Whats next?

[Ucklak]

Junk dealers. Remember Salvage 1?
http://www.tv.com/salvage-1/show/3650/summary.html ?q=salvage+1

Re:Whats next?

[Himring]

I believe they plan on replacing the Shuttle with the CEV (Crew Exploration Vehicle). Which they claim will have the best technologies from the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs. There is a moon landing targeted for 2018.

Crew Exploration Vehicle

Um...

[Alex P Keaton in da]

Not to be cynical- but keeping Atlantis for spare parts doesn't put money in anyone's pockets. Buying new parts for soon to be retired shuttles from big time political donors seems to be the government way....

Re:Um...

[jandrese]

They would if they could, but the guys who built the shuttle shut down the plant decades ago. Besides, Endeavour was built from the spare parts they ordered when they got the shuttles in the first place. If worse comes to worse they could probably steal parts from Enterprise (sitting in a museum in Dulles VA) if something unique and expensive breaks.

Re:Um...

[griffjon]

Well, NASA has this problem of not keeping their budget from being cut...

Also, it comes from a deep desire from both the Houston and Cape Canaveral bases to have a rusting shuttle sitting on their front lawn "for spare parts"

Re:Um...

[crawling_chaos]

My understanding is that Enterprise is pretty much stripped at this point. A lot of Endeavor is actually Enterprise, and Enterprise never carried any propulsion parts as all that was needed was boilerplate parts of the same mass for the drop tests. What is sitting at Dulles is an airframe with some sheet metal and spare tiles slapped on it.

Re:Um...

[Joe the Lesser]

Of course it does. You're thinking that money that exists won't be spent, which is certainly not true in the government sector. They'll spend it on something other than parts, that's all. Whether or not that something is as useless as new parts for old shuttles is still up for game.

Re:Um...

[Charcharodon]

You don't know much about flying aircraft then. Even if they wanted to get new parts, the companies that created them most likely no longer exist. Big time political donors usually don't get "big" parts contracts since they are anything but, big. Most components on the shuttles and military aircraft are repairable, so they get recycled rather than pitched.

Re:Um...

[ThankfulJosh]

I work on the shuttle. We already take parts from shuttles that aren't currently flying (like Endeavor) as needed to kee Discovery launching. We part swap all the time. So this is just the same thing, but on a more official scale. Otherwise, we have to go on Ebay to find parts for things like non-flight computers (like in the launch control room). Stuff was made too long ago. Factories have since shut down.

Re:Um...

[Naito]

no.
Enterprise hardly had any parts that were useful to the real shuttles. Endeavour was built from a brand new set of spares that NASA wanted built "just in case". They were entirely new parts, not reused ones from Enterprise.

Re:Um...

[squidguy]

If worse comes to worse they could probably steal parts from Enterprise (sitting in a museum in Dulles VA) if something unique and expensive breaks.
They already have... at least the RCC wing panels were taken for testing after the Columbia failure.

Re:Um...

[squidguy]

Enterprise never carried any propulsion parts as all that was needed was boilerplate parts of the same mass for the drop tests. Mod parent up. This is entirely correct. Enterprise was mostly a shell, other than the cockpit, hydraulic systems, APU, flight controls and airframe. No engines or exo-atmospheric / on-orbit gear to speak of. Also remember that Enterprise whoilly consists of original equipment...it has never been upgraded so at this point in the lifecycle, very little could be used on the other orbiters.

Re:Um...

[Physician]

Enterprise hasn't been built yet and when it is, it will have a really sweet warp drive.

Re:Um...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Behind every successful woman... Is a man checking out her ass Damn straight. Successful women are hot.

Re:Um...

[Arcady13]

You work on the shuttles, and you don't even know how to spell the name of one of them? (It is called the Endeavour.)

No wonder the things keep blowing up.

Re:Um...

[crawling_chaos]

Then where's the Big E's avionics suite? There's nothing but blank panels in the cockpit according to a friend that works at Veazy. It needed those for its tests. NASA stripped every usuable part from that airframe save the frame and the tiles themselves. They even took the leading edge carbon-carbon panels for the Columbia investigation.

Consequences.

[kjones692]

My gut reaction is that this is a tragedy, but that's just because I got to see Atlantis on the launch-pad when I went to Cape Canaveral in seventh grade. On a non-personal level, this is probably a good choice for the reasons discussed in TFA.

However, I know this is a step in the long-term goal of phasing out the shuttle program altogether, but what is it going to do to NASA's ability to launch missions if it only has two shuttles? The pace is ridiculously slow as it is.

Re:Consequences.

[sublies]

The plan is to increase NASA's ability to launch missions by removing the albatross of the shuttle progrm from around its neck. The pace is ridiculously slow with the shuttle program because the shuttles themselves are ridiculously complex, ridiculously expensive and ridiculously dangerous to operate. Their new plan to strap payloads to retrofitted SRBs, while a bit Mad Max, is the best idea they've had in years. Still might be too little too late, though.

Re:Consequences.

[slashdot_commentator]

but what is it going to do to NASA's ability to launch missions if it only has two shuttles?

Nothing. At this point, having three shuttles probably merely just increases the risks of cutting corners in order to meet launch schedules. Face it, the only significant mission of the US space shuttle program is the same as the TV show Quark; haul garbage from the ISS. To paraphrase a the quote made at the K7 bar in "Trouble with Tribbles". "The Space Shuttle should not be hauling garbage, it should be hauled AS garbage". I will take that back if NASA actually implements a mission to refurbish the Hubble Space Telescope. (Me bitter? What makes you think that...?)

Re:Consequences.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let it go.

Just as the Shuttle has its EOL planned and is being phased out and a replacement system is in the works, so does the Hubble.

Its called the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope), and is in the works:

http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/FastFacts/
http://www.jwst.nasa.gov/FAQ.html#FAQ_0004

Its time to acquaint yourself with the future and planned obsolescence (not to mention NASA planning). Considering we are still in the nascent era of human spaceflight and exploration, its about time you supposed scientific rationalists started being more rational (and informed), and less emotional in regards to moving past early stage efforts.

Let it go.

Re:Consequences.

[slashdot_commentator]

1) The JWST is not set to launch until 2013. Without maintenance, the Hubble dies in 2008. A lot of budget cuts can occur between then. Why not keep whats up there still working?

2) The JWST has a different ocular design than the Hubble. Even though arguably that the JWST is more valuable to cutting edge space scientists and cosmologists, there are images the JWST will not be able to get with the quality of the Hubble.

3) The Mars robots were only supposed to last 6 months. Two years later, they are still chugging around, presumably doing useful information collecting for geologists, etc. The point is why junk something that is unique and useful (and would still be in demand if and when the JWST goes online) so that the money can be used to porkbarrel some useless move by a disgraced politician?

4) Upgrading Hubble will not break the USG budget. Just cover the 0.02 cost. Kill the bridge funding to that island in Alaska. Build one less interstate. Hubble represents something that nearly doesn't exist in NASA. A productive scientific venture. Most everything else is a makework program for the shuttle or the ISS. The ISS basically floats in LEO, holds 2 techs who have nearly no time to run scientific experiments of any significance.

Re:Consequences.

[jonwil]

The problems with hubble are mostly political.
Regardless of the actual chance of something going wrong, all that congress cares about is that if they send a shuttle to Hubble and something breaks, there is not a whole lot they can do which means that they could loose both a fully functioning shuttle (Discovery is the only one that can get to Hubble AFAIK) and crew. If you send a shuttle up to ISS and something goes wrong, the crew can stay in ISS and use ISS as a base to make repairs (if necessary I am sure they could send up "spare parts" or alternativly send up a rescue craft or lifeboat or something)

Personally, I think the best answer is to decomission Hubble and build a new telescope using the spare parts planned for the fix (IIRC they have a spare primary mirror for example) and launch that somehow.

Re:Consequences.

[R3d M3rcury]

"Face it, the only significant mission of the US space shuttle program is the same as the TV show Quark; haul garbage from the ISS."

Right.

Oh, and to take up the solar panels and equipment to attach them, U.S. Node 2, various EXPRESS palettes, Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules, and various labs from other countries, as well as crew rotation.

Sounds like some pretty significant chunks of material to me.

Re:Consequences.

[slashdot_commentator]

1) Note every mission is labeled "under review".

2) The ISS is not going to be completed. It costs too much for too little science. The USSR was supposed to defray costs, not abandon their fiscal support. Everyone else sees they would be pumping in a lot of money into the ISS infrastructure that expects the US to help finance. And here we are talking about decommissioning the shuttle program with only two working shuttles to 2010, and no certain replacement. The scientific potential of the ISS is extremely minimal for significant cost, and its not going to be much help for the "return to the moon" or "mission to Mars" programs the US, Russia, and China are suddenly talking about. The writing is on the wall. ISS costs are not sustainable. Its going to be abandoned.

3) Even if they wanted to complete the ISS, the payloads could be delivered with rockets. On the other hand, for some reason, garbage disposal seems to be a big deal, and the only thing the garbage scow Endeavor and Intrepid seem to be important for the ISS. I'm surprised the ISS partners aren't designing payload delivery systems to move the garbage back to Earth. If they were, I'd more readily believe the ISS was a viable program.

Re:Consequences.

[slashdot_commentator]

The problems with hubble are mostly political. Regardless of the actual chance of something going wrong, all that congress cares about is that if they send a shuttle to Hubble and something breaks,

I don't think politics is the biggest deal in this case. There never was a crew survival/recovery plan for the shuttle if there was a mishap on a Hubble mission, and there have been already two missions completed under those conditions. All they need to do is require astronaut participants to volunteer for the mission, and I'm pretty certain they'd easily be able to field a full crew. Then they get the media to hype at how its such an incredibly dangerous mission, they would only launch a crew of volunteers. The odds are overwhelmingly in favor of a sucessful mission, and NASA and the crew look like heroes. Hell, we send hundreds of people into coal mines and ocean platforms every day, and we don't seem to agonize whether they may die in a mishap.

The problem is the Bush administration committed to an Iraq invasion, and botched the occupation. The costs for Iraq are going to skyrocket into the trillions, and the US taxpayer is going to hold the bag. Bushco scrambling for money is partly the reason why the levee renovation wasn't completed in NO. The aerospace industry wants another white elephant project like a mission to Mars or a moonbase. Iraq is sucking the available tax dollars for pork. The problem with Hubble is that its not an incredible tax hole, and only astronomers want to keep the thing operational. Bushco is going to LOOT NASA into nonexistence. Forget the CEV, moon missions, and Mars. Its just a big bullshit line Bush yammered about last year to look like a "visionary" president, and screw around with the NASA budget. Science missions, Hubble, ISS? Strip their budget dollars; it now has to go to McDonnell/Douglass (or whomever) to put into the "Mars mission". When the US economy crashes, they'll just kill those flashy new programs, and Bush will be out of office at that point.

If you send a shuttle up to ISS and something goes wrong, the crew can stay in ISS and use ISS as a base to make repairs

Am I the only one who sees what a retarded rationalization that is? Shuttle missions to the ISS are not significantly safer missions. Just because there are options if there is a problem with the Shuttle, its not like the Shuttle has significantly better likelihood of a sucessful mission. The ISS wouldn't have helped in either of the previous Shuttle disasters.

Re:Consequences.

[jonwil]

Maybe if Bush would do what more and more americans seem to want and just pull out of Iraq (and sooner rather than later) and let the Iraqi people sort things out, money wouldnt have to be taken away from other more important programs.

Question is, do the Iraqi people (and more specifically the new Iraqi president and government) want the US and others to stay in Iraq? If not, we DEFINATLY shouldnt be in there (last I checked, having military forces in a country when the government of that country does not want those forces there is a violation of a whole bunch of international treaties and rules and stuff...)

Re:Consequences.

[R3d M3rcury]

"1) Note every mission is labeled 'under review'.

Well, yah. They're not sure when they'll get the Shuttle back up and running. Thus, the date (y'know, that little header at the top) is under review.

"2) The ISS is not going to be completed. It costs too much for too little science."

Disagree. There's plenty of microgravity experiments which have been waiting for room on the space shuttle.

"ISS costs are not sustainable. Its going to be abandoned."

First, are you talking about building costs or support costs? There are many components of ISS which have already been built and are merely waiting for the Shuttle to return to flight. There's no real gain for abandoning those components already built.

Support costs will probably be considerably less once you're not depending on the Shuttle for supplies. Right now, the Shuttle is mainly being used to transport ISS components and extra people to install them. Don't get me wrong, I agree that the Shuttle is an incredible waste of money to supply ISS. Some Senator remarked that the Shuttle is like an SUV. Yes, it can do anything. But it's pretty wasteful to use it to haul groceries.

"3) Even if they wanted to complete the ISS, the payloads could be delivered with rockets."

Sure they could. But who's gonna attach them?

Keep in mind, when the Shuttle brings some big part up to ISS, who do you think actually installs the thing? Astronauts who have actually trained in simulators to do the job! So you'd also have to send up a few people to do the work. Or do you want to trust your multi-million dollar orbital habitat will be correctly installed by two guys who read the instruction manual?

"On the other hand, for some reason, garbage disposal seems to be a big deal, and the only thing the garbage scow Endeavor and Intrepid seem to be important for the ISS."

NASA likes to see the garbage in order to study it. For example, part of "garbage" of a Shuttle mission are parts that have failed. NASA tries to figure out why this happened so that they can make better parts. I suppose they can also test the garbage for radiation and other environmental factors and compare that with what the instruments told them. Remember that ISS is still new hardware under construction and NASA wants all the data it can get from wherever it can get it.

So, yes, when the Shuttle comes back to Earth, it carries trash for study. By the way, the Shuttle is the only vehicle that can return garbage for study. You can't fit a hell of a lot in a Soyuz.

There've been more than a few times, though, that the astronauts dump the trash into a Progress drone and burn it up in the atmosphere.

"[...] I'm surprised the ISS partners aren't designing payload delivery systems to move the garbage back to Earth."

You seem to be fixated on the garbage. Again, it's only NASA that cares about the garbage. And I'm sure they'll come up with something if they continue to really care about this after the ISS is complete.

Meanwhile, Russia has the Soyuz for manned missions and Progress for supplying the station and dumping trash. Japan's NASDA is developing the HTV for supplying the station and dumping trash. And ESA is developing the ATV for supplying the station and dumping trash. So I think the trash problem is pretty well solved.

And, of course, NASA's CEV will be able to carry astronauts to the station starting in 2014. In fact, supporting ISS is one of the goals for Stage 1 of the CEV. We tend to lose track of that.

So, if anything, Russia gets a four year exclusive for carrying people to ISS. I'm sure they'll be pretty psyched. Maybe they'll have their CEV operating by then.

By the way, to wander back on ta

Re:Consequences.

[slashdot_commentator]

1) Note every mission is labeled 'under review'.

Well, yah. They're not sure when they'll get the Shuttle back up and running. Thus, the date (y'know, that little header at the top) is under review.

Call me a conspiracist, but I suspect there are more problems than just getting a launch date for the Shuttle. When the ISS was originally planned, they were counting on a lot more Shuttle launches per year than what will be available when the Shuttle launches resume. (2 launches a year is reasonable, right?) Somebody deep in the bowels of NASA must have been cranking out the calculator figuring out how much of the ISS labs can be lifted with other rockets, because there will be a limited number of trips that the Shuttle will be able to do it. Yeah, just dedicate the Shuttle to ISS components, but that means other payloads that pay NASA money will be lost. Its going to be messier than it appears.

Sure they could. But who's gonna attach them?

Mission specialists that came up on Soyuz and (potentially) Arianne rockets.

You seem to be fixated on the garbage.

I was under the impression that the garbage problem was why ISS was practically shutdown. The Shuttle was the "only" way to move garbage off the ISS back to Earth. The situation was analogous to a organism not being able to take a dump; it would eventually kill it. You can't toss it out the airlock, because it becomes orbital debris (although who cares about a few hundred plastic MRE trays). The sci-literate understand why you can't shoot it at the sun or the moon.

Otherwise, some ISS component could have been launched off a Russian rocket, and a crew in a separate rocket could have be sent the following launch cycle to attach it. My understanding of why the ISS was limited to two people was the garbage problem, or else we could have had a third ISS crewmember doing the useful microgravity experiments you talk about. (The other two was needed to keep the ISS running.)

Hmmm, the Russians used Progress to dump Mir trash? Dayam, I'm either a chump, or some aspect of the ISS trash needed the Shuttle to handle. Its gonna make me sick to think the only reason a third crewmember wasn't on ISS was that the US/ESA didn't want to pay to put him up there...

In any case, my vision for the ISS would be that it would be complete, heavily funded by entities other than the US, and supplied by rockets which would allow the Shuttle to be decommissioned. Some silly reason (other than module payload) seemed to require a working Shuttle.

Re:Consequences.

[R3d M3rcury]

Just in the order that caught my eye...

"[...] Hmmm, the Russians used Progress to dump Mir trash? Dayam, I'm either a chump, or some aspect of the ISS trash needed the Shuttle to handle."

You're a chump, but we love you anyway... :^)

Here's a NASA article. Scroll down to "Who takes out the trash?" You'll like the line about how, when the Shuttle leaves ISS, it "becomes the world's most expensive trash hauler." But read the next paragraph.

That said, there are different sorts of trash. For example, if you look at this article, you'll note that things like coffee cups end up in the Progress. But things like broken exercise equipment end up waiting for the Shuttle.

"My understanding of why the ISS was limited to two people was the garbage problem, or else we could have had a third ISS crewmember doing the useful microgravity experiments you talk about."

Garbage is probably part of it. But it has more to do with consumables like air and water. Less people means fewer resupply missions necessary. Of course, fewer resupply missions means fewer Progress drones to get rid of garbage in.

So what's next?

[manno]

Are we going to create another suttle-type craft, one that can be flown more ecconomicaly? Or are we just going to make a bunch of disposable rockets?

Re:So what's next?

[Charcharodon]

They are working on a couple of designs. The shuttle was a compromise between flying personel, equipment, and military payloads. It did none of these things well. They are going back to specialized designs. A smaller reuseable orbiter just for crew and a large partially disposable vehicle for heavy lift.

Re:So what's next?

[CrazyTalk]

Mod parent down as troll!

Re:So what's next?

[manno]

Why mod me down as troll? It was an honest question.

Re:So what's next?

[Sigurd_Fafnersbane]

What would be the benefit of making the replacement system re-useable?

The major part of any launcher will be fuel that will be re-cycled in the atmosphere anyway.

The target of a new system must be to be cheap and reliable. If this target is most easily reached by making the system re-useable then do that. If re-qualification and repair is more expensive than building a new launcher from scratch then drop the re-useable part or melt the returned launcher and re-use it as beer-cans.

Re:So what's next?

[be-fan]

There is really not a whole lot of benefit in making the rockets reusable. The current SRBs are solid fuel boosters, which means they are basically just metal shells filled with a propellent/oxidizer mix. The metal shells are reused, but even if they weren't the savings wouldn't be significant.

Re:So what's next?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK - then Mod parent down as uninformed?

So what will they use to launch kids into space?

[rickthewizkid]

Didn't anyone see the movie way back in the 80s, just after the Challenger exploded? Atlantis is the shuttle they "used" in the movie....

Just my T-minus-10-9-8's worth....
-RickTheWizKid

Don't cobble it up for parts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Place the Atlantis, intact, into the Simthsonian.

Just make sure all the toxic monopropellants have been thouroughly cleaned out.

Re:Don't cobble it up for parts.

[iamlucky13]

I would imagine Atlantis would still be worthy of a museum exhibit, even if they have to take quite a bit out of it over the next 3-4 years. It's not like they're going to be looking it over thinking "that wing could be handy, better grab that." It'll be things like spare fuel pump parts, electronics, life support equipment, plasma conduits, teleporters (ok, just kidding on the last two). Anyway, stuff you wouldn't notice at the museum, and even if they set it up where visitors could actually see inside, they could just replace what the take out with the broken parts from Discovery and Endeavor.

Besides, Discovery should go the Smithsonian. Atlantis may be the most reliable, but Discovery gets all the cool jobs (Hubble, Return-to-Flight, etc). It's sort of a Cal Ripken versus Randy Johnson thing...without the mullet.

Re:Don't cobble it up for parts.

[RexRhino]

You could also canabalize the internal parts that won't be visible to the public anyway, and keep the shell.

Re:Don't cobble it up for parts.

[be-fan]

There is already a Space Shuttle in the Smithsonian. There isn't enough space for one at the DC location, so there is one at the Dulles Airport annex.

Re:Don't cobble it up for parts.

[Captain_Chaos]

Place the Atlantis, intact, into the Simthsonian.

Just make sure all the toxic monopropellants have been thouroughly cleaned out.

Not necessary, the Enterprise is already there...

I smell a movie

[Dekortage]

So when Discovery and Endeavor are mysteriously trapped in space and/or unable to respond to a global space-related emergency, an astronaut crew will be pulled from retirement (or useless promotion) to pilot Atlantis to the rescue! (...and possibly destroy it/themselves in the process of saving the world)

Mark my words: it will be on television if not in the movie theatres.

Re:I smell a movie

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you haven't seen Space Cowboys

Re:I smell a movie

[British]

I haven't seen it, but wasn't that the plot for Space Cowboys?

Re:I smell a movie

[ashitaka]

That were the plots from at least six different movies wrapped into one post.

Bonus mod points if you name them all!!

Re:I smell a movie

[ashitaka]

Slashdot Rule #1 Properly preview before posting to ensure you don't appear to be illiterate.

s/That/Those/

Re:I smell a movie

[nigelc]

Someone already mentioned Space Cowboys.
Then I'm guessing:

• Starflight - the plane that could not land
• Deep Impact

So three to go...

I can see the SpaceShuttleTrader ad now:

[IainMH]

Space Shuttle, 89,908,732* miles on the clock. Spares or repairs.

Phone: 202.358.0001

*

Re:I can see the SpaceShuttleTrader ad now:

[roman_mir]

GREAT PACKING - Just as stated - would buy from again AAAA++++

Thank you from CrimsonJihad.com, the one-way-flight division.

Re:I can see the SpaceShuttleTrader ad now:

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to go, posting my phone number on Slashdot. That's 24 calls as of now asking for spare shuttle parts. :(

Not all news from NASA are bad

[Lord Satri]

In fact, NASA also has good news for us.

Two weeks ago, the important Landsat-8 was confirmed while NASA also saves a lot of money by simply adopting interoperable practices.

Now, if only NASA Worldwind (and Punt) could get more popularity over Google Earth...

Re:Not all news from NASA are bad

[masdog]

In fact, NASA also has good news for us.

They saved a bunch of money on their insurance by switching to Geiko??

And then...

[Ariane 6]

...we can finally replace 'Enterprise' with a space-going vehicle in the air and space museum!

Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't want to be the astronaut riding a contraption made out of spare parts.

I imagine it would look like frankenstien with a couple of lug nuts sticking out of the sides....

Re:Heh

[skoaldipper]

Don't forget duct tape! I believe duct tape was even used to hold one of Frankenstein's ears in place. Oh wait. Or was that Evander Holyfield...

comments from Atlantis staff

[sammy baby]

Doctor Weir, Atlantis' director, and Lieutenant Colonel Shepard, ranking military officer assigned to the project, were unreachable for comment. Doctor McKay, on the other hand, griped for several minutes without a pause about the "typically boneheaded" move, stopping only to eat an energy bar and mumbling something about low blood sugar.

Re:comments from Atlantis staff

[Anonymous Coward]

The Man was not available for comment

Retiring hardware with questionable future

[glnorris]

It almost sounds like White Star lines retiring the Titanic.

Space Shuttle: brave idea but mired in beaurocratic machinations. We could have designed better and didn't. We could have built better and didn't. Now NASA's announcing the retirement of a vessel that they can't agree is ready to launch again. Sounds to me like a PR ploy to keep NASA's name in the news with something approaching a positive light.

ODMP

[EVil Lawyer]

Why is the acronym for Orbiter Maintenance Down Period "ODMP" and not "OMDP"? Does it have something to do with there being less gravity in space?

Re:ODMP

[Anonymous Coward]

There are other Orbiter Down causes...they are grouped in OD accronyms..could be represented as OD-MP...since it is akward to pronounce this way - often stated as Orbiter Maintenance Down Period. Others in the series:

ODLOF - Orbiter Down - Lack of Funding
ODTGGER - Orbiter Down - Theoritical Green House Gas Effect Related
ODJDFLF - OD - Just Don't Feel Like Flying
ODTSMSF - OD - Top Secret Military Shuttle Flying
ODAAD - OD - All Astronauts Drunk

and my favorite...

ODTCFETFE - OD - Too Complex For Evolution To Fully Explain

Re:ODMP

[EVil Lawyer]

You got into the amphetamines again, didn't you?

Re:ODMP

[HexRei]

downmodders, go fuck yourselves. Downmodded for pointing out an error in the article? all hail the editor-gods of slashdot who can do no wrong (in the eyes of sycophant /. moderators)

Re:ODMP

[Gryle]

Breathe in, breathe out. Calm air, relaxing air. Find the zen.

NASA is so 1900's...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

NASA is so 1900's - I think the Chinese will leapfrog the shuttle fleet long before we can figure out what to do about any shuttle replacement. There's been talk about replacements since I was in elementary school. Now my own children are about to enter elementary school and very little has changed.

Re:NASA is so 1900's...

[ashitaka]

I don't know why the above has been modded flamebait. A lot of what he states is true. The shuttles were to be a first step in a chain of ever-improving space vehicles making access to space simple, safe and cheap. We have now gone far beyond their original expected lifetime and no replacement is expected for years.

The Chinese may not leapfrog the U.S. unless their current manned launch capability is scaled up by three times in the next 5 years and adds a serious heavy-lift component.

If the Russians get tired of waiting for the Americans maybe they will strike a deal with the Chinese to finish off the ISS and possibly add modules outside the origina design specification that benefit Russia and China better.

Re:NASA is so 1900's...

[iamlucky13]

China is moving along in their space program, there's no doubt about that, but they have a ways to go before they leapfrog us. So far they've launched two manned flights, both based very heavily on Soviet technology. Their own, original development is still limited.

On our side of the fence, things have changed. The discussion back when we were in grade school was always very general, and typically looked more at supplementing the shuttle with concepts like the X-33 rather than flat out replacing it. Sure a few prototypes were built and tested, but always cancelled, and their roles were never real clearly defined. Now, we have a rough date when the shuttle will be retired, and a manifest for all of the remaining flights. There is a definite replacement under development for both the crew delivery and cargo functions that the shuttle performed. There is also one required function (ISS resupply and crew delivery), one planned function (lunar command module), as well as testbed potential. Unlike previous plans, which proposed new approaches (single-stage to orbit, VTOL, lifting bodies, aerospike, etc), the CEV is based entirely on well-tested technology. NASA's new administrator is a dedicated and realistic individual and is not going to let Congress leave NASA without a crew vehicle once the current administration leaves. Whether or not a new moon program truly comes to fruition, I can't say, but the CEV will.

Re:NASA is so 1900's...

[Oldsmobile]

I don't understand why this was modded flamebait. The shuttle fleet is WAY over due for replacement. It was recognised basically as a waste of money in the early 1980's and should have stopped then. They tried to be smart about it then, and designed the Shuttle-C. A good idea that never happened.

The shuttle is incredibly inefficient. There is no reason to spend all that fuel to take such a large load up into orbit, only for it to be brought back down again.

Basically, NASA painted itself into a corner when they started building the ISS with an obsolete and wasteful system. Now they are committed to building it, yet have nothing to do it with.

The only good place for the Shuttle is hanging from the roof of the Smithsonian.

Re:NASA is so 1900's...

[khallow]

The shuttle is incredibly inefficient. There is no reason to spend all that fuel to take such a large load up into orbit, only for it to be brought back down again.

Fuel is not a real consideration here. Fuel is cheap (IIRC a few dollars per kg). The real crippling factor for the Shuttle was the low launch rate. There are huge fixed costs per year (eg, maintaining an army of workers and the launch facilities) that come up whether or not you launch anything. This is going to be the same problem with the new launch vehicles that will replace the Shuttle. For example, the heavy lifter is planned to launch around four times a year, which is a ridiculously low launch rate.

Re:NASA is so 1900's...

[Oldsmobile]

"Fuel is not a real consideration here. Fuel is cheap (IIRC a few dollars per kg)."

Ach, but you misunderstand the science of sending rockets in space. You see, the more fuel you have, the heavier the rocket is, thus you need even more fuel, bigger engines etc etc.

Re:NASA is so 1900's...

[khallow]

Ach, but you misunderstand the science of sending rockets in space. You see, the more fuel you have, the heavier the rocket is, thus you need even more fuel, bigger engines etc etc.

My point is that launch frequency is far more relevant to cost per launch than reduced payload to total mass.

Re:NASA is so 1900's...

[khallow]

I've been thinking about this and will probably run some numbers. My take still is that the slow launch schedule drives costs (per kg of payload) up more than than launching a reusable vehicle. But I recognize that there's a big hit on payload both from launching an RLV and from the unusual configuration with the Shuttle attached to the side of the main tank.

At half a billion a flight

[everphilski]

... no university could/would spend their **entire budget** to get the thing to fly a single mission, not to mention the price to fix it up, apply for the proper licenses from the http://ast.faa.gov/ AST, etc. Better to start from scratch and get a real education in things like high speed aerodynamics and propulsion along the way.

ISS in jeopardy?

[Gary W. Longsine]

This plan leaves no margin for error at the program level. The flight schedule needed to complete the ISS probably cannot be met by a single vehicle. Suppose a year from now they discover a craft-specific problem with one of the remaining shuttles which requires it to be grounded (while the other flies following inspection which determines it to be free of the hypothetical problem)?

The NASA plan already calls for completing the construction of the ISS and then grounding the shuttles, immediately. This of course leaves no way to get to the newly constructed ISS to do research. The plan also doesn't seem to accomodate lifting new modules to the ISS during its fully functioning research lifetime, which was originally part of the ISS vision for a living breathing station.

NASA is in trouble. The Bush Administration has saddled it with goals that are unrealistic given its funding level. A vague return to the Moon, and eventual trip to Mars, as well as completing the construction of the ISS to kinda sorta meet our international obligations on that project are all likely to fail if we cannot choose between them.

Space research needs a reliable transportation system. This might mean more than one new vehicle. Without a significant increase in funding to NASA, the Space Shuttle should be scrapped immediately and the ISS should be mothballed if possible, scrapped if not. NASA should focus on fixing the problem -- reliable access to space is needed before other lofty objectives can be met.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[Anonymous Coward]

The reliable access to space you're after is called Soyuz and NASA plans to use that while the CEV is brought online around 2013.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[tgd]

Yeah, that'd be quite the tragedy if the ISS is never finished.

*rolls eyes*

The ISS will never be anything but a useless pork-barrel corporate-welfare project. Something happening to end it would be the best thing that could happen to NASA. Just imagine the billions of dollars NASA has wasted over the last thirty years on the ISS and Space Shuttle co-dependant welfare programs. Look at the huge success they've had with every other program which have been universally starved for funds because of the Shuttle/ISS debacle.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[Detritus]

It isn't that simple. The United States has obligations to its international partners in the ISS. NASA just can't pull the plug, not without consultations and negotiations with its international partners.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[tgd]

Have you seen our current administrations approach to diplomacy?

Perhaps the Bush Regime can do some real good! Kill the ISS and tell everyone to go screw or we'll bomb the crap out of them, too!

A tiny ray of light out of this dismal, dark eight years.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[andreyw]

That's okay, no one wants you there anyway. The money provided was nice, but don't forget ISS is basically Mir 3.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's people like you that create the worldwide stereotype of vulgar, stupid, uneducated, American war hawk hicks.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[Lumpy]

This of course leaves no way to get to the newly constructed ISS to do research,

so all those Russian missions that dock there with crew and supplies are faked on the moon landing sound stages in Nevada then?

The United states is not the only country with a crew module that can make it to the ISS.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[Tablizer]

Just imagine the billions of dollars NASA has wasted over the last thirty years on the ISS

Nobody could have forseen that gravity-free experiments would be hard to find. It seemed like a good bet at the time. Science is about trying new things; they tried something new, and it didn't work out (so far).

It is like building the first microcomputer, but no apps like VisiCalc or dBASE come along to spark the need.

Maybe it will be the first commercial space hotel, or maybe the headquarters of the constructors of the first hotels.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[khallow]

That's part of the beauty of the scam. By making the ISS "international", NASA secured strong protection for its ISS funding. But as far as I can tell, NASA is already in default on those obligations and has been for some time.

But because a project is "international" doesn't mean that it can't be unwound in an ethical way. I think a reasonable compromise would be for NASA to give the ISS and any US-owned components to the other members, compensate them roughly for how much it'd cost to maintain the ISS and the land-based components for a period of time, maybe 5 years. Then the partners can do whatever they wish with the ISS. If they chose to splash it within the week and junk the components? Fine by me.

In any case, this ignores that NASA and perhaps the other parties (IMHO) entered into these contracts with dishonest intentions. NASA had plenty of time to find a better launch platform or even to encourage private industry to supply competitive solutions. Instead, they went with two stilted codependent programs. Only now have they truly started to look for a replacement for the Shuttle.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[Buran]

Oh, right, let's forget all about the worthy research that it's capable of doing if the government gets off its ass and actually does what it said it would do. Don't blame the programs, blame the fools who destroy them.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[Kadin2048]

Really? I thought it was Skylab 2.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[andreyw]

The Zarya module, anyone? ISS was SOL without Russians. Skylab was just a flying tin can compared to Mir.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[R3d M3rcury]

Yeah! Like the Hubble Space Telescope!

And, better yet, the Shuttle repair mission to make the Hubble Space Telescope work because they spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build a telescope with a screwed up mirror!

Good thing that shuttle was just sitting there.

Re:ISS in jeopardy?

[drinkypoo]

If we paid as much attention to our obligations regarding the ISS as our international "partners" the fucking thing would have fallen in the ocean by now.

Shuttle Shutdown just in time

[Anonymous Coward]

Further evidence that the Mayan calendar ending on 2012 is a signal of immense change. Obviously we aren't going to need the shuttle anymore.

Re:Shuttle Shutdown just in time

[Anonymous Coward]

For Everyone's Information (FEY): http://www.diagnosis2012.co.uk/1.htm#Beyond

Re:Shuttle Shutdown just in time

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. What a load of balderdash. The truth is right here.

Re:Shuttle Shutdown just in time

[HexRei]

wtf? I post a correction to the article summary and get modded down, but this guy gets modded informative?

Re:Shuttle Shutdown just in time

[Anonymous Coward]

Eat an ice cream.

Re:Shuttle Shutdown just in time

[HexRei]

I think I just might.

Compromise

[tepples]

Or are we just going to make a bunch of disposable rockets?

I'm guessing that based on what NASA and its critics have learned from the shuttle, the next orbiter will be a compromise between the shuttle and the disposable designs.

Re:Compromise

[sublies]

NASA is planning on using the SRB as the basis for all their future designs. The new Crew Launch Vehicle is basically an Apollo-era capsule strapped to the top of an SRB. Thank god we invested so much money in this program just to wind up back in the 70s.

Re:Compromise

[rufty_tufty]

I think part of the problem with the shuttle was the 70s - people wanted a buck rogers space craft with wings!

The shuttle was too much too soon. While I'd like to see a DC-X program to get us some re-usable technology we're just not there yet!

IMO if they wanted the next generation to be reusable they should build what they're building so we have a path to space then slowly make it re-usable.
Make the SRBs fly back so that they don't need as much refit.
Make the SRBs into LRBs so they "just " need re-fueling between each launh.

(Ok this ignors the major problem with the shuttle - that of the fact that you had to practically re-build it each time, but you know what I mean!)

Re:So what will they use to launch kids into space

[Pants75]

Space Camp?

Max is my friend!

There already is

[OzPeter]

A shuttle in the smithsonian .. at the Dulles airport location . Not that you can get very close to it though :-(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterpr ise

Re:There already is

[Anonymous Coward]

You were probably there when that whole museum wing was roped off. You can get reasonably close now. Check out this camera

Re:There already is

[OzPeter]

Damn I am pissed .. I had a hell of a time getting my wife to come with me the first time. She'll never come with me a second time. Looks like its going to be a solo trip.

Re:There already is

[yeremein]

A shuttle in the smithsonian .. at the Dulles airport location.

Yeah, but Enterprise is just a glide test article that never flew in space. Atlantis would be much cooler to see in the Smithsonian. Yeah, they've got some scorched capsules and such, but nothing that's been to orbit and back 26 times (31 by the time it's retired).

Re:There already is

[nbvb]

Not that you can get very close? Are you kidding?

It's guarded by a railing, but you're literally within feet of it. In fact, you can stand under the wing.

It's a fantastic sight. Really, truly fantastic.

What I found interesting is the leading carbon-carbon edge is missing on one of the wings (I forget which); that's the one they took to test after the Columbia disaster.

A significant piece of history; for me, it was even more interesting than seeing the Blackbird parked in the hangar; and the Blackbird is pretty damned interesting. :)

Re:There already is

[OzPeter]

As per the other post .. The entire wing was roped off when I saw it. The closest you could get was about 80m. But that was a while ago

Re:There already is

[Buran]

There are panels missing from both wings; I photographed much of Enterprise while in the museum last month. Here's my closeup shot of this:

DSC_1717

DSC_1716

The tires aren't original; one of my photos of the nose gear revealed the stamp "NOT FOR FLIGHT".

DSC_1751

And yes, that is THE Spacelab module back there!

Smithsonian

[Anonymous Coward]

The Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy Center already has the shuttle OV-101, Enterprise.

And being in the Smithsonian is no guarantee that it will remain intact. You will find that at least one of the leading edge panels on the Enterprise is a replacement mock up. Alas, it seems like they needed the real one for some destructive impact testing.

Atlantis funding

[amightywind]

Not to be cynical- but keeping Atlantis for spare parts doesn't put money in anyone's pockets.

It does indirectly. The budgets costs of parts and Atlantis support infrastructure will be applied directly to the CEV, the new moon rocket, and lunar lander. The new budget reality is taking hold. This is good news. For the first time in 30+ years the US is back in the business of space exploration.

Re:Atlantis funding

[lorelorn]

Sorry, but spending billions to repeat an exercise from over 30 years ago does not have anything to do with space exploration.

This flag-waving project has casued the indefinite postponement of the Terrestrial Planet Finder, and the not-quite indefinite postponement of the James Webb Space Telescope (Hubble's replacement), as well as cancellations of any exploratory probes after Pluto Express, so it can be argued that the US is now getting out of the business of space exploration.

Re:Atlantis funding

[locutus_borg]

I could be said that, for instance. When testing new sports cars, you tend to test it on the same track as older cars. (In some cases cars from the early days of racing) To see preformance gain and general abilities. I think its important to know if new technology can preform to the same standards as old... and surpass it hopefully. Same is true for CPU bencmarking... new systems... but when you boil it down... same basic methods of "testing".

Re:So what will they use to launch kids into space

[Kenshin]

My girlfriend claims anti-gravity rooms exist because "They used one to film that movie!"

I keep trying to tell her they don't exist, and she keeps saying I'm wrong. (She also didn't know what Chernobyl was...)

They really seem to be winding down manned mission

[gelfling]

They have more or less concrete plans to decommission the shuttle fleet, and even if they don't have plans they won't be able to keep them flightworthy much longer. While the replacement or next gen seems to be this vaporous imagineering of something or other with perhaps an 8 or 10 year gap between the last shuttle flight and its replacement. Doesn't that seem like they're just quietly putting manned missions down for good?

We'd better be friends with the Russians and the Chinese who will have the only manned launch capability at that point.

But what about the space program's future?

[DamnedNice]

Gene Roddenberry must be turning in his grave. If you ask me, the space program needs more support and more money; but less protesters and hippies. Honestly, I don't care if we ever meet alien life. My biggest concern is that once we use up all the resources on Earth, we'll have to start strip-mining other planets instead. Plus, eventually we'll run out of room for people.

Re:But what about the space program's future?

[belg4mit]

Damn that's short-sighted. Crap all over our nest and the solution is to bring more stuff in to make more crap?
To mix metaphors, the reason to get out of this hole is not to keep all of our eggs in one basket.

Re:But what about the space program's future?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gene Roddenberry must be turning in his grave. If you ask me, the space program needs more support and more money; but less protesters and hippies.

Herbert!

Re:But what about the space program's future?

[VAXcat]

I agree with you 100% - except, that the shuttle and space station programs don't advance these goals, rather they impeded them.

Re:But what about the space program's future?

[demachina]

"Plus, eventually we'll run out of room for people."

A somewhat simpler and better solution to this one is basic birth control. Trying to ship billions of people to other planets to alleviate overpopulation is an extreme solution when a simple one is available.

The problem we have is poverty, poor education and religious fundamentalism works against birth control and are helping create the overpopulation problem that may well ultimately destroy us, or at least lead to such a poor quality of life it may not be worth living.

I am all for putting people on Mars so we have a new and independent biosphere. It would probably lead to a lot of new innovation in both technology and sociology as well as give adventurers a new place to go as every corner of our planet is filled up. We are in an era for the first time where there aren't really any new frontiers to explore.

I just don't think it particularly viable to use other planets as a dumping ground for excess population.

Bad idea!

[MS_Word]

We can't abandon atlantis while the wraith are still a threat!

Re:Bad idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ach-ha, but some of the Wraith have became our allies ! The Genii have a word or two to say, too.

Not staying up on news?

[WindBourne]

For the last year, we have been discussing how the shuttle will be relaced by the CEV. It is a semi-disposable capsule (based on the old apollo system). It will have 2 launchers;

1. A Crew Launch vehicle that will lift the CEV and small loads of about 20-25K lbs.
2. A Heavy lift vehicle that will lift very large loads (~200K lbs). It will send in a single launch as much payload as 6 shuttles currently can.

The rockets are disposable.

I would not be surprised to see a future admin use private rockets to get crew and small loads to the ISS. Why? Just to keep us with the capacity to have multiple crew launch systems.

Re:Not staying up on news?

[manno]

how will these stack up against what other countries have, the Russians, Japanese, and Europeans for instance?

Re:Not staying up on news?

[Mercano]

Actually, its the Russians and the Chinese, not the Japanese or Europenas, who haved orbital manned spaceflight capabilites. Last time I checked, SpaceShipTwo will not be orbital. SpaceShipThree MIGHT have ISS docking capabilites, but its design is all contingint on SS2's success.

Yay wikipedia linkage.

Re:Not staying up on news?

[WindBourne]

1. The russians have the same lift capacity as the small CLV (20K lbs).
2. The russians HAD more capability than the HLV, but it has been many years for them, so it is very doubtful that they could do it.
3. The russians have announced a vehicle that could carry 4-6 ppl to the moon/mars as well.
4. All other nations have far less than that. In addition, only the chinese have a man rated system, which is nothing but a rip off of the russians.

How do we stack up? If we build it, we are way ahead. If we do not, well, we are in serious trouble. We seem to be making half ass commitments to how we do things for the last 35 year. The ISS is not even fully built and we are backing off of it. We backed off X-33 (most likely a bunch of the tech will make it into other systems). As it is, the admin ammounced that we are making a commitment to getting off oil, while at the same time, doing a 30% cut at NREL (which was backed off to 20, then 10%), while at the same time doubling oil research to be done for the large oil companies.

We need this system to get to other planets, but it would be good if private enterprise steps forward and does the ISS support.

Re:So what will they use to launch kids into space

[Anonymous Coward]

Your girlfriend must be good looking if she is that dumb.

Re:They really seem to be winding down manned miss

[Overzeetop]

Actually, that should be just enough time to lose a good portion of our "corporate knowledge" re:manned missions. I'm not sure being an astronaut that is going to be looking at a 10 year (optimistically speaking) hiatus from flight is going to be a real career incentive. These folks tend to be driven and tenacious, but with the schedules the way they tend to slip, I don't think I'd stay in the corps. (I was never a real astronaut-candidate, though I considered it at one point early in my NASA career).

I'm not really sure that getting people into space ius really that big of a deal anyway, unless you plan on doing something other than invesigating the effects on humans in LEO. Most of what is done, that isn't just for show, is controlled remotely. I'm a big "Rah! Rah! Manned Space Flight!" kind of guy, but there really is a limit to the value we're getting for our manned space flight dollars. Right now, I think it's money down the tubes, but if we're really going to be ambitious, we need to be a bit more proactive in getting a replacement vehicle up before we lose the in house expertise in manned spaceflight. I mean, lets face it, the only people with orbital spaceflight experience in this hemisphere are the ones currently doing it at JSC. Lose them, and we'll get to start all over in a couple of decades when the next program is finally ready to get off the ground.

So long Shuttle, bye bye Space

[paulxnuke]

The sad thing about the Shuttles going away is the uncertainty about ever getting into space again. It's an era I hate to see over, if for no other reason than memories of all the good SF I used to read before good SF stopped being written a few decades ago.

I consider the odds of the US ever landing on the moon again to be remote and the likelihood of a manned Mars mission to be just about zero. A project like that requires national resolve (not to mention resources and willingness to take risks) that we no longer have. I now believe western civilization peaked sometime in the '60's, coincidentally around the time of Project Apollo: nowadays we can't even keep our roads and bridges maintained, we're poised for the apocalypse in a few years when cheap energy runs out, and the decline of the social system is accelerating rapidly towards anarchy and warlord culture.

While China might manage a manned moon mission, I doubt they'll survive what's going to happen in the rest of the world before long, at least not in any condition to advance science. They're more likely to be the remnant that survives the next Dark Age (like Ireland was last time) and recivilizes / enslaves the savages living in North America in 500 years or so.

Sad, I wish we could have held out a little longer and walked on Mars just once. Maybe next time.

Re:So long Shuttle, bye bye Space

[16K Ram Pack]

I couldn't care less about Mars. It's a "because it's there" project. A giant-size waste of money. Personally, I can think of hundreds of better things to spend public money on.

The key question is for intellectuals, not engineers. And that is the question of how to travel beyond our current limitations. Once we crack the physics of that, then we can deal with the engineering questions.

Re:So long Shuttle, bye bye Space

[paulxnuke]

I couldn't care less about Mars. It's a "because it's there" project. A giant-size waste of money. Personally, I can think of hundreds of better things to spend public money on.

While that's true, it's still compelling and the most ultimately cool thing we could possibly accomplish (barely) in the near future. I regret that we probably have lost the chance, within the foreseeable future, to realistically even plan a manned trip to Mars, more than the trip itself. The odds of success would have been better in the '70's than they are now, given how little the basic technology has changed.

The key question is for intellectuals, not engineers. And that is the question of how to travel beyond our current limitations. Once we crack the physics of that, then we can deal with the engineering questions.

Probably true also: the fundamental challenge facing humanity is to find a new energy source that will last, not poison us all in the process, and hopefully be relevant to space travel. We could have a breakthrough in the next ten years (fusion might be practical after all, who knows, but technology is not getting anywhere with it) but if we don't, we're swiftly getting to the point where the lack of an answer is going to preclude much more searching for one.

Re:They really seem to be winding down manned miss

[Detritus]

That's a major issue. For all the whining about pork, it would be a major disaster if the manned space flight program was shut down while a new vehicle was designed and constructed. All of your institutional knowledge walks out the door, never to return. Aerospace engineering never really recovered from the shutdown of Apollo. Central Florida used to have the world's most highly educated cab drivers.

Re:So what will they use to launch kids into space

[q-the-impaler]

I had the same argument with some of my high school classmates back in 1994. Then my dumbass teacher agreed with them. BTW I lived in Titusville, so you'd think everyone would know better.

The Sad Thing Is...

[ThankfulJosh]

...that Atlantis is the best-built of the shuttles. I work on all three shuttles, and we all know that Atlantis was the best-built one. The rate of problem reports taken on Atlantis is almost half of Discovery or Endeavor. This is a shame, but these are smart people making tough decisions...you gotta do what you gotta do.

Re:So what will they use to launch kids into space

[megabeck42]

You're just jealous. At least he has a girlfriend.

A chance for a change. . .

[wormnet.org]

Maybe, just maybe, when they decide to build another spacecraft they could possibly get around a few of the issues they've had with the current space shuttles. You know, falling foam, bad o-rings, things that tend to make them explode into giant balls of fire! Pretty much though, as long as we're putting satellites into space, we're going to need a way for people to get up there and work on them. We'll at least need to continue finding new ways of putting them up, if we ever get to the point where we just let them fail and replace them with another one.

Either way, there will still be advances in spacecraft technology even if they don't end up taking us to another planet.

Re:A chance for a change. . .

[Tablizer]

when they decide to build another spacecraft they could possibly get around a few of the issues they've had with the current space shuttles. You know, falling foam, bad o-rings, things that tend to make them explode into giant balls of fire!

The plan is more or less to go back to the Apollo model, with some modifications. The craft will be on top of the stack of rockets instead of on the side so that falling foam is not an issue.

Also, there may be a separate vehicle launched independently for heavy loads so that expensive safety technology does not have to be placed on one large vehicle, just the crew portion. If an unmanned payload vehicle explodes, it will barely make news. This allows them to concentrate safety on a smaller vehicle (with crew).

There may be in intermediate sized section to attach to the back of the crew section for missions. Thus, there are 3 kinds of vehicles (besides launch and booster rockets):

1. Primary command module, similar to an Apollo capsule.

2. Intermediate payload or lab section that may be carry medium-sized loads or serve as a lab.

3. Heavy payload module. This would never be launched with the other two, but perhaps could be attached to the same kind of rocket stack. Thus, the system will be modular in that regard.

Of course, this can all change (and may have already). But the above seems to be the general direction of most plans submitted by the vendors.

Re:A chance for a change. . .

[orac2]

if we ever get to the point where we just let them fail and replace them with another one.

Actually, except for a few satellites recovered/serviced by the shuttle (the total number of which could be counted on the fingers of one hand!), this is in fact the modus operandii for all satellites since sputnik. Generally, if it's an important enough constelation, a few 'spares' will even be kept on orbit so that service can be maintained even in the even of a premature failure, without waiting for a new satellite to be built and launched. Satellites towards the end of their lives are usually junked by either parking them in higher orbits, or deorbited and burn up in the atmosphere (for those too big to burn up completely, there's a big patch of the Pacific that's become a orbital graveyard of sorts)

Re:A chance for a change. . .

[jonwil]

The crew vehicle sounds just like what the Boeing X-20 Dyna Soar would have been had it actually been built.

Atlantis retired?

[corngrower]

I thought that All the shuttles were already retired. I haven't heard of any planned launches lately.

Re:Atlantis retired?

[Tablizer]

I thought that All the shuttles were already retired. I haven't heard of any planned launches lately.

In this case, "retirement" means "stop trying" or "stop maintenance".

Atlantis?

[eargang]

For some reason I watch the show every week, and got it's agonizing. I wish they'd cancel it RIGHT NOW and not wait till 2008.

Re:So what will they use to launch kids into space

[Anonymous Coward]

"You're just jealous. At least he has a girlfriend."

And she must be a blond too!

Already getting rid of Atlantis?

[77Punker]

I really can't believe they're getting rid of Atlantis when there's older ones still going. Just look at SG-1!

Yes, I know. Don't bother telling me.

Re:ISS in jeopardy? QWZX

[Anonymous Coward]

It's people like you that enforce the stereotype that everyone else in the world are mamby-pamby hand-wringers with no sense of humor.

And what about the Chinese?

[kilodelta]

The real question is, will we beat the Chinese to a permanent or semi-permanent manned presence on the moon?

We used to think it would be the Russians. Little did we know how far China would come in 60 years. When you consider it took the United States approximately 7 years to go from the Mercury program to the Apollo program then the launch of Chinese men into orbit is at the Mercury stage.

When looking at that we could estimate that China will reach the moon by 2012. And do not think for one moment that Chinese didn't learn from our Apollo and Shuttle programs. I think they'll be looking to put down a manned presence just to thumb their noses at the rest of the western world.

Re:And what about the Chinese?

[Tablizer]

I think they'll be looking to put down a manned presence just to thumb their noses at the rest of the western world.

Bin Laden found a cheaper way

Re:And what about the Chinese?

[Ancil]

Heaven forbid we miss out on the opportunity to blow $30 or $40 billion a year supporting a manned lunar base, which gives us exactly nothing in return for our investment.

Let the Chinese bankrupt themselves doing it, if they care to. I'll wave up at them on cloudless nights.

I'd rather the US not blow my hard-earned tax dollars on this foolishness.

Re:And what about the Chinese?

[Schwarzchild]

Little did we know how far China would come in 60 years.

I don't know. IIRC, Arthur C. Clarke wrote a short story where the Chinese were the first to make it to one of Saturn's or Jupiter's moons. It seems that at least he thought that they would leap ahead of everybody else.

Re:And what about the Chinese?

[kilodelta]

$30 billion or so would be less than 10% what we spend on military misadventure.

Or consider that the Iraq war has eaten up roughly ten years worth of support for a moon base that will serve as a launch platform to Mars and beyond.

Re:And what about the Chinese?

[DerekLyons]

We used to think it would be the Russians. Little did we know how far China would come in 60 years. When you consider it took the United States approximately 7 years to go from the Mercury program to the Apollo program then the launch of Chinese men into orbit is at the Mercury stage.

Indeed - and they've taken ten years to accomplish what we (the US) accomplished in two during Mercury. But then, the Chinese have made it abundantly clear that they aren't in a race or a rush.

When looking at that we could estimate that China will reach the moon by 2012. And do not think for one moment that Chinese didn't learn from our Apollo and Shuttle programs. I think they'll be looking to put down a manned presence just to thumb their noses at the rest of the western world.

I don't think so. Simple observation, along with the statements of the Chinese show why they have the token program they do: because manned spaceflight (along with ICBM's, CV_'s, and a few other bits and bobs) are What Great Nations Have. They aren't in a race, they aren't looking to set records, they aren't seeking to be top dog - all of those things are ascribed to them, but there is no evidence supporting those assumptions.

History

[Arwing]

I am not sure how many people realize the historical context of these ships. These are the first true space ships, one of the earily milestones for space travel. Imagine, when space travel is as common as air travel today, when a flight to Mars is easy as a flight to China today or when Google actually establishes a moon base. How will we look back to these space shuttle? I dare say these shuttles maybe more important than the Wright brother's KittyHawks. Who knows, these shuttles may even (AND SHOULD) out live United States itself! We need to preserve these machines for the sake of history.

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

They are a good example of American incompetence - throwing money at a problem with no spark of intelligence. They have failed all their design requirements, but are still supported by mindless morons who think that if something is American it must be world-beating. In fact, NASA's monopoly and the useless shuttle fleet have set back exploitation of space by 20 or 30 years.

Come to think of it, a museum next to the Wright Flyer would be a very good place for a shuttle. They are similar in so many ways. The Wright machine was not the first aircraft, but is treated by the American public as if it were. More importantly, the Wright Flyer was an engineering dead end, just like the Shuttle - wing warping technology had huge deficiencies as a control mechanism and canard design was inherently unstable. Santos-Dumont's aircraft were the way ahead. There is not a single influential design feature which was drawn from the Flyer in any later aircraft. The Wrights genius was for publicity. Does this remind you of NASA and the shuttle?

But probably the most telling comparison is the effect the Wrights had on the development of US aerospace technology. Their attempts to enforce a patent monopoly on flight suppressed US aircraft development so much that when WW1 came, the US had to buy their fighters from France. Europe was well ahead of the US at this time. Funny, but the shuttle seems to be doing the same thing to US space development!?!

Ancients outraged.

[EnderWigginsXenocide]

With the announcement of the pending retirement of Atlantis the Ancients have filed a formal complaint. When interviewed the Atlantian spokesperson is quoted as saying "Silly bastards they don't need to retire Atlantis. Get three fully charged ZPMs and Atlantis will be spaceworthy again." When we contacted the facility manager at the Airforce facility at Cheyeane Mountain CO the existance of Atlantis (and stargates, Goual'd, Asgard, whatever they are) was explained as being the result of "people [are] spending too much time watching tv. Particularly that Wormhole Extreme crap."

will run Linux? Who cares

[Tumbleweed]

Let's see if it'll run MAME! That'd make for a whole new way of playing Super Zaxxon.

The real question is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why on earth doesn't someone grow a clue and empty out ISS then shut down all the shuttles and shunt all that wasted money into developing some cheap new ground to orbit options?

The way I see it the whole space effort is being constantly screwed up by politics. The best thing that could ever happen for anyone hoping to see cheap space travel someday is for NASA to go belly up at this point.

Re:So what will they use to launch kids into space

[dr_dank]

Space Camp?

Thats the one. My favorite mixed-up-robot-launching-teenagers-into-space movie ever!

Why so expensive?

[steveo777]

Aren't the shuttles "American Made?" Parts should be pretty cheap. On the other hand, if they'd have gone with a German or Japanese make, they'd be paying out the wazoo for new parts... Good thing they're keeping Atlantis for parting-out.

Re:Why so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you get what you pay for eh! ;)

Re:Why so expensive?

[drinkypoo]

Japanese parts are typically no more expensive than american parts - I've bought lots of both. For example, just the A/C hoses on a 1991 Grand Marquis are over $200 (for two hoses.) German parts are expensive only because we assess more import tariffs on German goods than Japanese. This is why the Mercedes, a vehicle regarded in Germany as we regard Chevrolet, costs more than a Jaguar when you buy it in the U.S. My 1981 300SD was $33k when it was new, which comes out to like $78k in 2003 dollars. This makes no particular sense; in terms of what it costs to make and such, it should cost maybe 25% more than an american luxury car, tops (and the modern Mercedes are crap.)

Re:So what will they use to launch kids into space

[AeroIllini]

My girlfriend claims anti-gravity rooms exist because "They used one to film that movie!"

Anti-gravity rooms DO exist... they're called airplanes in free fall. (Well, not really free fall, they use parabolic flight paths that simulate free fall, but you get the idea.)

And yes, the KC-135 was used to film many of the microgravity scenes in "that movie," Apollo 13... Ron Howard had Command Module and Lunar Module sets built in the planes, and could film 35 seconds of weightlessness at a time. There was a rumor for a while that the Wachowski Brothers wanted to use the KC-135 to film some weightless kung-fu action for The Matrix: Reloaded, but they decided instead to use computer generated effects.

The nickname "Vomit Comet" comes from the fact that participants experience 1.8g while the plane bottoms out at the bottom of each parabola and 0g at the top of each parabola; continual fluctuation between 0g and 1.8g every 65 seconds results in some really funky gastric sensations.

Re:So what will they use to launch kids into space

[PriceIke]

Which shuttle did they land in downtown Los Angeles in the movie The Core? Nobody liked that movie, but the shuttle landing scene in the beginning was awesome. Was it Endeavor?

Chris's manned spaceflight rant (again)

[Zerbey]

I'm sorry, why don't they just scuttle the whole fleet, deorbit that useless space station and do the following:

Give all of the money they would have spent to private enterprise, give them 5 years to land on the moon with a permanent base.

In 5 years, I guarantee we'll have a moon base.

Fund Raiser

[slapout]

This could be a great way for NASA to raise money. They could auction the shuttle off! Just think, if some of these millionaires are willing to pay millions for rides into space, how much would they pay to be able to put up a shuttle in their yard! Of course, you'd strip out all the computers and stuff first (It'd just be a show piece--not a working vechicle.) I'm sure you could find a buyer.

Vital question goes unanswered ...

[Y2]

But where are they going to get cinder blocks that big?

No, I rather doubt it...

[suitepotato]

NASA To Retire Atlantis by 2008

I think Sci-Fi will keep it at least to 2009 or 2010.

Re:So what will they use to launch kids into space

[Kenshin]

Ya, I explained the whole airplane thing to her a while ago.

She still claims ground-based rooms exist.

Re:So what will they use to launch kids into space

[Kenshin]

...then I asked "Why don't they have one of those rooms at Disney World?"

Air and Space

[Kadin2048]

...Enterprise (sitting in a museum in Dulles VA)

FYI, it's sitting in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum annex, which is in Chantilly, VA. They also have the SR-71 and the Enola Gay there.

Dulles is the airport right down the road.

I've never been there (yet) because they nick you $12 bucks for parking (gee thanks, can you just take that out of my tax return instead?), so it's not something you do just to kill a few hours. At least, I don't.

Off-topic: Clueless teachers.

[Myself]

It sucks when a teacher shoots down a student who's right about something cool. I didn't know the words for "elliptical orbit" in the second grade, but I knew that Pluto was closer to the sun than Neptune, at least for the next decade or two, and that something about the way it moved was "lopsided".

Of course, the teacher was quite certain that we'd just been served Nine Pizzas and any deviation from that order was heresy. When a trip to the encyclopedia proved otherwise, it convinced her that I was out to undermine her authority in the classroom. I meant no such malice, and was totally unprepared for the mental onslaught that followed. Unwittingly picking that fight brought more abuse than I, as a second-grader, was prepared to handle. When I think of all the things that went wrong in my educational career, that's the flake that started the avalanche.

To the parent's parent's girlfriend: If they had an anti-gravity room, why would they need a space station to study the effects of microgravity?

Re:Off-topic: Clueless teachers.

[drinkypoo]

To the parent's parent's girlfriend: If they had an anti-gravity room, why would they need a space station to study the effects of microgravity?

Yeah right. Like they put any people in space. There is an anti-gravity room at area 51, where they film "shuttle missions". When we did the "moon landings" they could only fake partial gravity...

What worthy research?

[Anonymous Coward]

...training ants to sort tiny screws in space?

There is no useful research remaining to do in a poky little LEO space station.

Re:What worthy research?

[R3d M3rcury]

"There is no useful research remaining to do in a poky little LEO space station."

Here's a somewhat old article that discusses some of the research done in microgravity.

One of the interesting comments from the article is that the problem with using the Space Shuttle is that it's flight time of about two weeks are not long enough for statistically meaningful research.

Anyway, read the article.

Re:What worthy research?

[drinkypoo]

And one of the problems with the ISS is that it's fucking tiny. It's not large enough to be useful for anything meaningful enough to justify expenditure, since we already know how humans react when you stick them into a bunch of tiny cans and force them to live together for long periods of time, which is to say poorly.

Re:So what will they use to launch kids into space

[jezor]

Don't forget the grandpappy of the genre, Stowaway to the Moon! {Prof. Jonathan}

Good times in planetary science

[amightywind]

Sorry, but spending billions to repeat an exercise from over 30 years ago does not have anything to do with space exploration.

A whole world awaits exploration and you call it a repeat program. The billions are being spent because an awesome capability (Apollo) was allowed to atrophy. 30+ years of stagnation require some repair. The scientific and strategic importance of the moon, asteroids, and Mars are to great to ignore. I wouldn't all it repetition of Apollo. It is the logical extension, and high time too.

This flag-waving project has casued the indefinite postponement of the Terrestrial Planet Finder, and the not-quite indefinite postponement of the James Webb Space Telescope (Hubble's replacement), as well as cancellations of any exploratory probes after Pluto Express, so it can be argued that the US is now getting out of the business of space exploration.

I suppose it can be argued, but not very convincingly. Active/planned US missions:

• Mars Spirit & Opportunity Rovers
• Cassini
• Messenger
• Mars Surveyor
• Mars Odyssey
• New Horizons
• Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
• Mars Exploration Rover
• Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Let us not forget that Hubble will be rescued. This is the most robust planetary program of any nation, by far! All this and the CEV too. It doesn't get any better. JWST and TPF will improve technically while they are being replanned. Remember how the expensive VOIR morphed into Magellan? The same will happen here.

Re:Good times in planetary science

[lorelorn]

Let's see. Almost all of the missions you list are ongoing and doing great science. Sadly their successor missions are gone. "Getting out" of course implies you are currently in, but won't remain so.

The others have little exploratory value. Lunar reconnaissance simply means looking for another landing site.

Meanwhile, real actual exploration is being cancelled. Why? Because we want to go back to the moon.

JIMO was a mission that would have explored probably the single most important place in the solar system - Europa. Mission cancelled. Why? Because we want to go back to the moon.

Earth is currently moving out of a window of opportunity to send a probe off to Neptune via Jupiter (moving out in terms of mission planning time) Those resources won't now be committed, and we will not be revisiting the outermost of the giant planets, to view it and its moons up close. A mission just as important in its way as the current Cassini (which has already discovered so much). Now cancelled. Why? Because we want to go back to the moon.

Earth-based observations are limited in the size of planets they can discover due to their detection methods. A space-based telescope would allow us to detect earth-sized planets. That will not now happen (postponed until the 12th - of never). Why? Because we want to go back to the moon.

I can tell you are really excited about the idea of us building some really big rockets to carry some guys off to the moon for a 30 minute sightsee again. I'm happy for you, really I am. I'm not even concerned about the cost of this mission either - it's the opportunity cost that bothers me.

Still, given that the US is the sole operator of solar system exploration probes right now, maybe it's time for the rest of the world to actually come on board and free the US to do what it wants without having to carry the load of the world's expectations.

Re:So what will they use to launch kids into space

[AeroIllini]

She still claims ground-based rooms exist.

She might be thinking of those huge rooms with the fans in the floor that allow simulation of falling at terminal velocity ... basically skydiving in place.

It would be difficult to film a movie in there, however, since it gets so windy.

Hi NASA, and welcome to the 1970's!

[Anonymous Coward]

Best technologies of the Apollo program? This is precisely what is wrong with NASA - in the past 30-40 years, they've made little progress towards improving human spaceflight. I don't expect NASA to have developed the Enterprise-E, but you would think that in half-century since the Apollo program, they would have made quantum leaps in spaceflight technology. Maybe my expectations for technological progress are too high, but growing up in the 60's, I remember how ambitious our space program used to be. Back then, NASA had vision (and a lot of support from the public and the government didn't hurt either). If you think about how quickly technology in general has improved since the 60's, it's disheartening to see our space program just treading water when it had the potential to be go so much further.

Re:Hi NASA, and welcome to the 1970's!

[Professor_UNIX]

I don't expect NASA to have developed the Enterprise-E, but you would think that in half-century since the Apollo program, they would have made quantum leaps in spaceflight technology.

Like what exactly? Artificial gravity? Warp drives? Transporters? You've got to be realistic here and work within the laws of physics. NASA's research arm has been crippled over the past 30 years and innovation is virtually non-existant due to piss-poor mismanagement, budget cuts, and unreasonable expectations. I think a baby-step back to the moon is just what we need to get back on track and out of being stuck doing science in Earth's orbit.

They have the FIRST shuttle, Enterprise.

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Currently at the NASM annex out near Dulles airport.

It never flew in space, but was used for various atmospheric stability/landing tests.

http://www.nasm.si.edu/imagedetail.cfm?imageID=388

university involvment

[snooo53]

I don't know if it would be economically feasable to fly it again but...I do like the idea of university involvement with that or any of NASA's science programs.

Someone should create a broader national initiative in colleges and universities for students to work on NASA projects remotely. NASA could partion out some of the work, getting a lot of knowlege and ideas back for free. Make it a class project or a senior thesis to redesign a component on a space vehicle or satellite. University students are on the cutting edge of new technologies and engineering methods. Why not put some of that to a good public use? Maybe it would help rediscover some excitement in NASA and the space program.

More of the same on tap

[O2H2]

Despite our desires NASA is well on its way to making EXACTLY the same mistake as it did on Saturn and Shuttle. The CLV is going to take 10 billion to develop- just so it can match existing EELV vehicle performance. All to make a couple of headstrong idiots realize some weird dream they had- namely Horowitz and Griffin. It will take at least eight years to get operational- we could be operational in four years with low cost Atlas derivative EELVS. The CLV operational costs will be sky high and hence launch rate will be less than three a year I bet. The cost and inflexibility of the CLV will make it obsolete well before it flies the first time.

The CaLV is worse than bad - it captures the worst of shuttle technology- the SSME's and SRMs and makes them an eternal boat anchor to progress. It will take probably twice what the CLV took to develop.

The lunar lander concept is amaturish and half-baked and the all-storeable CEV is obsolete NOW. The whole architecture should be killed and the proponents shown the door. When confronted they have been shown to be the most ill-informed technical leaders we have seen to date. The best thing for shuttle is for a smallish meteorite to hit the VAB and SPF- thus reducing the remaining shuttles to their constituent atoms. It would be a mercy. Space science would accelerate once the whole manned burden is removed without having a political scapegoat to blame for the job losses. The sad thing is that when the bad technical decisions come to light the whole exploration vision will be killed- but not after tens of billions will have been wasted. And it will be a long time before we get to try again. Maybe not until the last half of the century. That will be the most lasting damage that this junk-engineering will generate. Think of the Hindenburg and its effect on ALL dirigibles and the irrational fear of hydrogen. These things permeate thought despite having poor foundations.

Re:More of the same on tap

[LWATCDR]

"with low cost Atlas derivative EELVS" Or the Delta 4s but the problem is they are not man rated and Nasa doesn't want to spend the money on making them man rated.
I would like to see them look into bringing back an F1 based booster like this "http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/jarvis.htm"
There was even an improved version called the F1a that was under development.

Re:More of the same on tap

[O2H2]

There is NO SUCH THING as "man rated". No two engineers can ever agree on what it means. Redundancy is present on modern EELV's in everything from avionics to valves to wires. So that is not the answer. Excessive redundancy buys NOTHING but cost and complexity and more failure modes. Man rated is what the NASA administrator wants it to be. The cost to upgrade minor systems to make everyone happy on Atlas or Delta is trivial beside the cost of new design. By a factor of at least 25. The bottom line is that NASA is too afraid to design the real exploration vehicles like an effective lunar lander and instead prefer to perform rote-style design of lifter hardware because they are mesmerized by the flame and smoke. The technology and experience for designing rockets is firmly rooted in the subcontractor community- not NASA- they have a lot of folks who have never released a single drawing to production. They are going to spend our tax money on an educational program to produce mediocre vehicles. At the end of 2014 they will have a lot of unproven hardware and the Atlas will have racked up probably 60-100 flights. Which is better- paper design where you think it is good versus a proven design? Which would YOU risk your life on?

Re:More of the same on tap

[LWATCDR]

Yes there is such a thing as Man rated, people are a little more fragile than hardware so thing like vibration and max g loads have to be addressed. Hey I would love to see NASA use the new Delta and Atlas. I am not a fan of the SRBs and thing that they should have kept developing the F1 and the J2. In fact NASA some how has managed to keep developing J-2 variants without anyone noticing. The X-33s linear Aerospike was based on the j2. Nasa had an improved J2 and F1 ready for the next production run of Saturn Vs that never happened.
I have to wonder what would have happened if we had kept developing the Saturn line. It may have been the B-52 of the space age.

Re:More of the same on tap

[O2H2]

Believe me- things like vibration and accleration are not the crux of man rating. All modern launch vehicles subject every functional part to extensive development and qualification testing which include vibe tests- which generally envelope accleration forces. The "ride" on an Atlas is incredibly benign compared to that for a solid. Combustion roughness on the Shuttle SRB's is huge compared to that for the RD-180. The key to safety is forcing incipient failures to the surface by whatever means before a human is there when they happen. You can do this by test but history has shown that failures these days usually involve system interactions that can only be seen in flight. That means that flying is more important than any test on the ground. Demonstrated reliability by flight experience cannot be replaced by analysis or wishful thinking. This will be the downfall of the CLV and CaLV vehicles which, as single pupose vehicles, will never rack up many flights.

The Saturn was also a point design with no flexibility to do much more than the single task of going to the moon with 3 guys- at least if economics makes any difference. Modern Phase 2 Atlas vehicles can replace the Saturn for a fraction of the price. Sorry to say that the F-1 is a pathetic engine compared to the RD-170 and RD-180. It's mass, Isp and complexity relegate it to the museum- not on a modern vehicle. J2 is only slightly better off. Trust me- when all is said and done there won't be much of the J-2 left in the J2S++ or whatever it ends up being called. They will take technology already demonstrated on the RB60 and just scale up. Working with 40 year old designs does not save you anything- just create more grief.

productive scientific venture

[emilper]

I don't get this ...

Why keep sending toys to LEO, or to Pluto for that matter, when an important part of the cost is the fee for the ride, while the same money could be spent to develop cheaper launch systems and get better toys there later, at a fraction of the cost. Are the fake color images the Hubble sends back so important ? My guess is that cheaper lifts for telecom or weather satellites would be much more useful. I don't see why discovering that Titan is a confusing world and resembles Earth but it's nor really the same is important, while you cannot send there gear that would send back more that foggy pictures and very a approximate atmosphere composition ? Why keep the Mars rowers rolling on Mars, when the same money and the same people could develop and test robotic rovers on the hills nearby or on the Moon? NASA and USA needed to prove that they can do this ? Well, they proved it enough. It's not my tax money, but I would enjoy reading news about more capable robotic rovers, even if they dig holes in Antarctica or even in JPL's backyard and not on Mars. Sending robots that are able to move only a few meters a day wont' help anybody prepare for what is on Mars ... while spending the same money on developing better and cheaper lifters would sure help get a damn nuclear reactor, tunnel digging gear and an oxygen factory on the moon.

Why not instead just open the Moon for commercial exploitation: regulate it (under the authority of the UN or of the Catholic Church, I don't care), and offer incentives to those companies that find something useful there or find a more useful use for it than driving the tides. Why not announce that from 2010 NASA will buy rides from those that were able to launch heavy objects to LEO or GEO a couple of times on their own expenses and stop launching it's own vehicles? Why not organize a contest for the repair of Hubble stating that anyone who is able to get there first and fix it without destroying it will get the money NASA plans to spend on servicing it with it's own means, and a maintenance contract for the remainder of Hubble's life ? Why not allow a private company build a breeder reactor on the Moon and build there the rocket that would get to Pluto in 6 months instead of 10 years?

My guess is that a lot of the money that now end being spent for developing playstations would be moved into developing technologies for providing whatever services the armies or the governments need in LEO, GEO or on the Moon ...

Re:productive scientific venture

[slashdot_commentator]

I don't get this ...

Its because you're scientifically illiterate.

Why keep sending toys to LEO, or to Pluto for that matter, when an important part of the cost is the fee for the ride, while the same money could be spent to develop cheaper launch systems and get better toys there later, at a fraction of the cost. Are the fake color images the Hubble sends back so important ? My guess is that cheaper lifts for telecom or weather satellites would be much more useful. I don't see why discovering that Titan is a confusing world and resembles Earth but it's nor really the same is important, while you cannot send there gear that would send back more that foggy pictures and very a approximate atmosphere composition ? Why keep the Mars rowers rolling on Mars, when the same money and the same people could develop and test robotic rovers on the hills nearby or on the Moon? NASA and USA needed to prove that they can do this ?

Collecting scientific data from other planets is valuable because what is discovered there can be applied to what happens on Earth. Environmental science is really in its nascient stages. Obtaining data from other planets allows us to discover aspects of climatology, atmospheric composition, etc. that we cannot recreate here, and then use that data to more accurately understand how our planetary environmental systems work. The rovers are used to discover new geologic information about Mars, and bump into anything of interest that we weren't currently aware of that we may want to check out in a future Mars mission. It is information that cannot be obtained with a telescope.

As for Hubble, its the only telescope that is working beyond the Earth's atmosphere. It currently is the only source of unique data which then can be extrapolated. That will still be the case even when JWST goes up, because JWST is optimized for different wavelengths. Granted, there are telescopes on Earth that may be collecting imagery just as useful as Hubble. Astronomy will not fall apart with the shutdown of the Hubble. But Hubble is unique, and can only point to one part of the universe (or solar system) at a time. It will be fully booked for use even after the JWST goes online.

Think of space sciences a a giant territory of gold mines of information. You can't get to it without surveying it. Worse, some valuables are only available in a limited time window. If you can't point a Hubble at it, that information is lost indefinitely. The compelling aspect of a Pluto probe is that it is closest to the Sun in its 119(?) year orbit. If we do it now, it will be the shortest wait (10 years?) to get there. There is no way to put fuel on a Pluto probe and blast it to Pluto and expect it to get there at a reasonable interval. Such a probe relies on planets like Jupiter, Saturn, & Uranus to give it an acceleration boost from is gravitation. Its like the probe will have to rely on "trade winds" in order to get to Pluto at a reasonable time. If we wait over 10 years from optimal launch window, it may be another 40 years before the planets will be in the right place to try to use them again.

Why not instead just open the Moon for commercial exploitation

Because a corporation would have to build the equivalent of a space program in order to even check out what is exploitable on the Moon. It is currently way too costly for any company to attempt in one fiscal quarter. That is what governments are for. To suck taxpayer dollars to do research no company would attempt.

Why not announce that from 2010 NASA will buy rides from those that were able to launch heavy objects to LEO or GEO a couple of times on their own expenses and stop launching it's own vehicles.

I am SO in favor of nuking most of NASA to do this. Actually, NASA does this now, paying to hitch rides off of other nations rocke

Re:productive scientific venture

[emilper]

OK ... let's see ...

first I thank you for pointing out my scientific illiteracy ... I need this excuse. If I were scientifically literate I would not be allowed to make gross mistakes.

1. There is an AGREEMENT GOVERNING THE ACTIVITIES OF STATES ON THE MOON AND OTHER CELESTIAL BODIES (1979) which, while not forbidding them explicitly, makes commercial investments in the exploitation of resources on the Moon and other celestial bodies except Earth practically impossible. Check Article 5, par. 1 (then think if you would invest into prospecting), and Article 11 (and tell me if you would invest into developing resources there). So, you are right again ... nothing legal forbids commercial exploitation ... but nothing guarantees that you will be able to keep what you built there ... Incentives to go find something exploitable: yeah ... from everybody according to their ability, to everybody according to their needs ...
2. The rovers are used to discover new geologic information about Mars, and bump into anything of interest that we weren't currently aware of that we may want to check out in a future Mars mission. Building of the rovers,and putting them on Mars were amazing feats ... but the return is infinitely small ... The same is valid for the Huygens mission. Exploring a few hundred meters with very limited tools is what I call a waste of money. Getting a few foggy pictures of clouds and some white and black matter ... that's quite dissapointing, considering the costs. Would be better to use such money as are available to develop cheaper means to get to space ... let the grand projects of discovering E.T. for later, since with the gear that is out there right now you can't do it.
3. It is currently way too costly for any company to attempt in one fiscal quarter. ... so , how much has Sony spent to develop PS3 ? ... over how many years ? ... so the fiscal quarter argument really does not stand up. If only there were the certainty of having control over the resources discovered out there, I guess you could find companies willing to take the risk ... oh, gosh ... there are such companies, aiming at suborbital tourism, satelite launch etc. ... and doing long term investments ...
4. there would be certain missions with requirements beyond what the market could offer. NASA (if it still exists) would end up building customized vehicles for that purpose. ... so you want to tell me that NASA (or ESA, or other state agencies) should continue to do what they do now ? Wasting money on trying to find out if the universe is 13 or 14 billion years old instead of motivating the private rocket builders to use their own brains and risk their own money in order to develop technologies that would bring the good news about the age of the universe sooner that the current practices allow us to hope ?
5. Hubble will be programmed to fall to Earth if its not salvageable. So what if it will be programmed to plunge in the atmosphere and burn ? Most of the costs came not from building the telescope, but from putting it into orbit and keeping it there. Why not let it fall, and spending those money on developing better rockets ? The astronomers will find interesting things to do even without Hubble until the next telescope is in place. As to pointing Hubble towards objects in the solar system ... can it focus so close ? I heard it cannot ...
6. Nuclear decay does not magically provide the energy or propulsion to open warp holes to zip probes all over the universe. it can not ? ... I am so d

Re:productive scientific venture

[slashdot_commentator]

1) UN law is a myth. Law only has weight if it is enforceable. The agreement is only an understanding between nations and political sideshow. The UN cannot enforce anything without the big 5 in the security council willing to flex its muscle. That is why the US, Britain, (and a few token forces) are in Iraq "illegally". That is why Cargill can murder a hundred mineworking strikers with impunity. As soon as there are economically extractable energy sources located at the poles, there is going to be a radically changed revision of the Antartica treaties. The UN is merely a meeting place and public forum for nations. If you want to pretend differently, fine, be a child.

2)

Exploring a few hundred meters with very limited tools is what I call a waste of money.

That is why I consider you to be scientifically illiterate. Granted, I do not know enough about the research to determine if we got a good return on our dollar, but I could write a book on all sorts of informational discoveries which seemed useless at that time, that led to significant scientific and engineering progress. Its more than pushing a couple of rocks. The information is extrapolated and used to develop new questions and theories.

3)

how much has Sony spent to develop PS3 ? ... over how many years ?

Sony is not an American run corporation. They are capable of investing multiple financial quarters in the belief it will pay off. But they are so freaking rich, they could afford to invest years in a game console that probably was a few million USD total. I do not believe a space program needs to show a profit within a quarter; I merely say that to illustrate the cost/benefit mentality of the typical publicly held corporation. They do not embark on decade-long projects to get a payoff. I am sorry if you're too intellectually limited to understand that.

4)

so you want to tell me that NASA (or ESA, or other state agencies) should continue to do what they do now ?

Hell no. I consider most of NASA a jobs program at this point. NASA actively retards the ability of private enterprise in space, much like food donation to Africa. I'm not as critical of the ESA, because I believe it came about because its members are too poor individually to embark on space programs. I am not aware of the ESA hampering commercial space ventures.

Wasting money on trying to find out if the universe is 13 or 14 billion years old instead of motivating the private rocket builders...

Again, this is why I consider you to be too stupid and uninformed to bother participating in these discussions. Its not about figuring the precise age of the universe, its about finding ways to confirm theories of our phyiscal universe, and use those new understandings to apply it to engineering problems and issues such as climatology here. You can't do that if can't confirm theories to the point where you can be confident about investment based on new understandings. Whether its cost effective research, that is a whole different ball of wax.

5) The whole freaking point of deorbiting Hubble was that there was a limited time window to commit to keeping the Hubble operational. Whether going back to Earth telescopes (and their limitations) is a better way to go, is a matter of conjecture.

Most of the costs came not from building the telescope, but from putting it into orbit and keeping it there.

No, most of the costs come from paying the scientist salaries that use it. As for cost of building the telescope, you still have to recreate a whole program to reengineer a new telescope, and pay to launch it into orbit. It still ends up cheaper to send a refurb mission every 5-10 years, rather than recreate a program, and launch a new telescope every 5-10 years.

6) Again, scientifi

Re:productive scientific venture

[emilper]

I understand that I am as you say, but you did not answer my question ...

I said was that we have to choose (and NASA too) : either we do small time science with the limited means we have now, or we choose to invest in developing our means of investigation (with the help of any private investor that can be persuaded he can make some money, now or later, by developing better launch systems) and delay a little the science part (if astrobiology, astrophisics or other astro* are more scientific than material science, for ex.).

Re:productive scientific venture

[drinkypoo]

As for cost of building the telescope, you still have to recreate a whole program to reengineer a new telescope, and pay to launch it into orbit. It still ends up cheaper to send a refurb mission every 5-10 years, rather than recreate a program, and launch a new telescope every 5-10 years.

While that is true, you ignore the potential to improve the design every 5-10 years. Granted, you can do some of that on a repair/refurb mission, but you can only make limited changes that way. You can redesign the whole thing, or as much of it as makes sense, if you launch another one. Plus, you can keep using the old ones until they die, and get more camera time overall.

Humans are only good for doing things that can't be done by robot. My only desire to see a manned outpost on the Moon is to repair robots doing anything economically product there, and as guinea pigs for long-term manned space ventures. Spending money on probes is a pittance, and has a huge payoff, compared to the cost of manned anything in space, which only has value if you plan to have humans in space.

Point the first: I think we do plan to have humans in space. Plus, you need them to make quick decisions that computers can't make. That's the really real world.

Point the second: I refer you to an earlier part of your comment:

Granted, I do not know enough about the research to determine if we got a good return on our dollar, but I could write a book on all sorts of informational discoveries which seemed useless at that time, that led to significant scientific and engineering progress. Its more than pushing a couple of rocks. The information is extrapolated and used to develop new questions and theories.

Make up your mind! Just by having humans there, we will make all kinds of informational discoveries which seem useless at the time, but which will lead to significant progress (of some kind.)

This is, of course, the hardest argument to sell any technology research with, because while it's easy to say it happens, and even to convince someone it happens, it's impossible to quantify and without hard numbers (or even some useful ones) it's hard to have a selling point. Nonetheless, I too am fond of pointing at developments in plastics that resulted from the space race as an example of why it's good for the government to be involved in research.

Re:productive scientific venture

[slashdot_commentator]

Make up your mind! Just by having humans there, we will make all kinds of informational discoveries which seem useless at the time, but which will lead to significant progress (of some kind.)

My mind is made up. My statements were direct responses to arguments. What I believe is significantly more nuanced than what I've said.

Simply put, I am heavily in favor of space science investment. The question is what to do when the American people are not willing to pony up the extra cent to pay for it all, or think it would be better spent on an interstate highway that doesn't connect major population centers resulting in significant economic benefit. In which case, the priority is to keep as much of the space probes and non-manned research that has perceived value.

I am an incredibly harsh critic of the shuttle and ISS, not because I am against manned exploration endeavors. Its because the shuttle and ISS are the biggest con jobs perpetrated on the American taxpayer. They expended 90% of the NASA budget, and they are useless in establishing a sustained human presence in space. There was almost nothing new learned on the ISS that wasn't learned on Skylab or Mir. The Shuttle can't go anywhere except LEO. It is a freaking engineering marvel, but its not the gov't job to produce useless Lambourghinis that do neat things.

To defend the shuttle and the ISS and try to keep in existence programs that do not produce useful science but steal money away from more productive ventures and hamper private enterprise HARMS overall space science, not enhances it!

Normally I would look positively at GWBs announced initiatives, and be more than happy to nuke the shuttle and ISS, but the problem is that it has come from a proven liar, or a man too stupid to distinguish science from theocracy. I think GWBs initiatives are bullshit, because America does not have the money to embark on that kind of endeavor, particularly since it can't afford its occupation expenses in Iraq. Its a BS line meant to look "visionary", while using it as an excuse to gut NASA. In a few years, its going to be screamingly apparent we won't have the money to establish a sustained presence on the moon, and whatever programs toward that end will die. Bush won't care, he'll be out of office at that point. The problem is whether the space sciences part of NASA will be gutted as well. Indications appear that it will.

If I'm gonna put taxdollars into NASA, I want it to do useful things like Hubble and space probes. Not scrap Hubble and the space probes in favor of keeping the ISS running for a few more years. Its called prioritization.

Re:productive scientific venture

[drinkypoo]

If I'm gonna put taxdollars into NASA, I want it to do useful things like Hubble and space probes. Not scrap Hubble and the space probes in favor of keeping the ISS running for a few more years. Its called prioritization.

Shit, no. The first thing to do is drop the ISS. Drop it right on its useless shiny metal ass. Maybe they can deorbit it onto the head of someone they're pissed off at and kill two birds with one stone. The second thing is to kick the shuttle out the airlock and let it float away. The only possible use for the thing is going up to save Spike's ass during a baseball game. It's like trying to keep a '71 Ford pickup on the road. Why fucking bother when you can deal with something worthwhile?

I, too, am heavily in favor of space probes, but I also feel a need for manned spaceflight that goes beyond the neato factor. In particular, we should be looking at actually setting up shop in space. In a station that resembles living space more than it does a six pack.

Re:productive scientific venture

[slashdot_commentator]

Oh, and if I had a few dollars left for human sciences, but not to establish a moonbase or mars mission, I'd spend it on a sealed biodome, whether it be in the artic, sahara, or a mile underground. That would at least advance our understanding of a sustained ecological environment which would be needed for permanent space settlement. More dollars would be spent on robotic exploration of the moon purely for exploitable resources, whether its raw ore or H3. Once you can establish an economic rationale for extraterrestrial ventures, the big private corporations will invest the dollars to make a profit.

But the ISS, an new shuttle, or a new moon landing is merely a wasteful stunt. It does not advance science or space exploration. My suggestions would be more productive.

Re:productive scientific venture

[slashdot_commentator]

Damn, I keep forgetting stuff.

The most useful engineering investment would be for a space elevator. Its within technological reach, similar to the way a manned moon mission was in reach back in the '50's. Who gives a damn if it doesn't pay off after its operational? Neither did the World Trade Center Towers until the '90's.

American engineers are crap ...

[Anonymous Coward]

and you know you are. Get some decent German engineers like you did for Apollo and do it properly.

Leave the state-of-the-art work to the Europeans - they know how to innovate.

Re:American engineers are crap ...

[Himring]

You are correct. The Germans were some darn good engineers. They sorta barfed that whole splitting-of-the-atom thing unfortunately....

Re:American engineers are crap ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm... Not exactly.

The Germans were foremost in many aspects of nuclear physics, and would almost certainly have developed the Bomb (and the delivery systems for it) well before anyone else if Hitler and his policies had not repressed many of the scientists working on it.

I suppose you are not actually talking about atom splitting (Rutherford, New Zealand/UK), but about the full chain reaction. That was Szilard (Hungarian). But the earlier work on which he was relying was that of Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, and it's interpretation by Otto Robert Frisch and Lise Meitner (all German). They invented the concept of releasing energy from the nucleus of an atom, and if Hitler had not suppressed this work as 'Jewish Science', Europe might well be speaking German, and America a still radioactive mass after bombardment from intercontinental or submarine launched ballistic nuclear missiles ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket#Unfulfille d_plans ), or even orbital bombing ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbervogel ).

And this was late 1930s. Read it and weep!

Sighseeing

[amightywind]

JIMO was a mission that would have explored probably the single most important place in the solar system - Europa. Mission cancelled. Why? Because we want to go back to the moon.

JIMO was cancelled because of the enormous cost and high technical risk of its nuclear electric propulsion.

Earth is currently moving out of a window of opportunity to send a probe off to Neptune via Jupiter (moving out in terms of mission planning time)

That is easy to say. Jupiter spends 95%+ of the time outside of the window for *any* flyby trajectory to the outer solar system.

Earth-based observations are limited in the size of planets they can discover due to their detection methods.

So we have heard for the past 30 years. Yet groundbased results continue to pour in. There is no question the US will build a TPF.

I can tell you are really excited about the idea of us building some really big rockets to carry some guys off to the moon for a 30 minute sightsee again. I'm happy for you, really I am. I'm not even concerned about the cost of this mission either - it's the opportunity cost that bothers me.

Sightsee? What else is exploration? Doing science great. But you will never see a planetary mission launched without a camera. For all of the instrument readings and "serious science" being done, it is the pictures, the landscapes that matter to the public! Consider the lousy Mars Spirit landing site choosen by the propeller heads at JPL. The public was pretty bored with exploring a featureless ruble pile. Only after Spirit started climbing some hills and producing some awesome view did the public gain interest. The eye candy matters. Fortunately, the outer solar system is loaded with it.

It seems to me that the opportunity cost of ignoring the moon is higher than that of briefly defering some science missions. With many nations now possessing a space launch capability, a competative strategic environment will inevitably evolve around lunar exploration between the US, Europe, Russia, and China. The US cannot ignore that. Wisely, President Bush is seeing to it that we are out front. Such competition will not develop over a JIMO mission. You can bet if it launches in 2020 it won't pass other spacecraft on the way.

Still, given that the US is the sole operator of solar system exploration probes right now, maybe it's time for the rest of the world to actually come on board and free the US to do what it wants without having to carry the load of the world's expectations.

Space science is dramatically less of a priority in Europe than in the US when you compare budgets and GDP. They are mostly occupied with modest Mars and Venus orbiter missions. Even these are probably too pedestrian for your exotic tastes. And they're interested in the moon too. Russia and China don't even have programs.

Re:Sighseeing

[lorelorn]

JIMO was cancelled because of the enormous cost and high technical risk of its nuclear electric propulsion.

No. JIMO does not even compare with a manned lunar landing in terms of cost. It's far cheaper and would have achieved far more in both science and exploration.

Jupiter spends 95%+ of the time outside of the window for *any* flyby trajectory to the outer solar system.

Which is why it's important to take these opportunties, as they don't come by often at all. This opportunity has been missed in favour of going to the moon.

So we have heard for the past 30 years. Yet groundbased results continue to pour in. There is no question the US will build a TPF.

30 years? The first extrasolar planet was detected in the 90s! Detections will contine - of large bodies around Saturn size and larger. Detection of earth sized planets requires the TPF, which has been indefintely postponed to make way for a moonwalk.

Sightsee? What else is exploration?

You managed to miss the "30-minute" part of that. Let me try to make this clearer for you. Sending two pilots to the moon for 30 minutes walking around, looking for things to pick up will cost more than the combined total of Cassini and Gallileo. Those two were exploration, just as a JIMO mission or TPF would be. Another lunar walk is very marginal both for science and for exploration. It is a poor use of limited resources.

Space science is dramatically less of a priority in Europe than in the US when you compare budgets and GDP.

I know. I wish it were otherwise.

Russia and China don't even have programs.

Russia doesn't have much of anything right now. China on the other hand has a very ambitious manned program, which has already made great strides. I would also argue that China's current lunar strategy has been a driver to the renewed American efforts in this area.

They have benefit of Russian and American experien

[coyote-san]

The US and Russia efforts went so fast and so far because they were a proxy war. We came within a hair's breath of a nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis[*] and would have probably gone over the edge without a safe alternative.

On the other hand China will be building on 40 years of experience in manned spaceflight. It will still be incredibly challenging, but most of the problems and solutions are already known.

[*] The History Channel is good for nightmares. It wasn't a mere footnote, we came within minutes of nuclear war on at least two occasions.

Re:So what will they use to launch kids into space

[drinkypoo]

You are hereby required to hand over your geek/nerd membership card. Putting up with a woman that dumb is proof positive that you are an impostor. I hope you have some real reason to stay together, like kids, because getting laid just ain't that important.

Cold war paranoia

[amightywind]

China on the other hand has a very ambitious manned program, which has already made great strides.

Two flights in two years, the third not until fall 2007. Two craft docking not until 2010. All with essentially off the shelf Russian hardware. A tepid program I'd say.

I would also argue that China's current lunar strategy has been a driver to the renewed American efforts in this area.

Definitely. Nothing like a little cold war paranoia to grab funding and advance the state of the art! This is a good thing. The US might otherwise be spending the loot on middle class entitlements.

XB-70 the wrong approach?

[LWATCDR]

Actually many people think that cancelling the B-70 was a huge mistake. After it was cancelled many of the asumsions that the decision was based on where wrong.
1. The Mig-25 probably couldn't have intercepted it.
2. Air to air missiles and surface to air missiles really where not that good.
3. ECM could do wonders.
4. Long range bombers where only useful for nuclear warfare.

Since the B-52 is still a viable long range bomber odds are pretty go the B-70 would still be in service today. The only real problem would be one of reliability. Would it have stayed in service long enough for all the bugs to be worked out or would it have been mothballed to save money in the early 70s?

Re:XB-70 the wrong approach?

[iamlucky13]

1.) The Mig-25 did turn out to be a lot more lackluster than first thought, but it was worse at low altitude than high, so a low altitude run probably stands a better chance of getting through.
2.) Francis Gary Power's U2 was shot down at 67,000 feet by SA-2 surface to air missiles.
3.) ECM helps more if the plane is hard to see in the first place (stealth or low altitude)
4.) The Valkyrie was limited to a 5000 mile range by it's fuel thirst, and could not carry additional weapons externally. I don't know if it could mid-air refuel.

The B-52 is still in service because the airframe has held up well and it has shown itself to be very versatile. It can carry dumb bombs, ALCM's, SRAM's, Harpoons, JDAM's, or even just ECM gear. There were concerns even from the limited testing about the long-term durability of the XB-70's airframe. FAS has a good write-up about the Valkyrie, along with some sexy pictures. The most incredible part is it was built way back in the 60's, and there's still nothing quite like it (Hey Boeing, where's my SST you promised?).

Re:XB-70 the wrong approach?

[LWATCDR]

2.) Francis Gary Power's U2 was shot down at 67,000 feet by SA-2 surface to air missiles.
A U-2 is a big slow target. Even then it took multiple launches and it was a lucky hit that took down the U-2. The XB-70 top speed was more then 4 times the U-2s also look how few B-52s where lost in Vietnam to SA-2s compared to how many SA-2s where launched. The fact that B-52s could bomb north Vietnam shows that the SA-2 wasn't as effective as we thought.
3.) ECM helps more if the plane is hard to see in the first place (stealth or low altitude)
Stealth and ECM really don't go together. A jammer is like turning on a spot light. The F-22 may carry ECM but it is to be uses only as a last resort.
Low altitude isn't effective anymore. Doppler look down shot down radar is common. The only benefit you get at low altitude is a shorter line of site. The down side of low altitude are many like. Shorter range, lower speed, shorter line of site for your sensors. vulnerability to small SAMS, and vulnerability to ground fire. The military is going back to medium and high altiude tactics now. Look at the losses that the UK took in using the Tornado and the Hunting pod in the first Gulf War.

4.) The Valkyrie was limited to a 5000 mile range by it's fuel thirst, and could not carry additional weapons externally. I don't know if it could mid-air refuel.
Yes it could.

The XB-70 could carry just about any of the weapons that you mentioned. Yes it would have a smaller bomb load than the B-52 but the B-52 rarely carries it's max load. Another good point for the XB-70 is that a SRAM launched at altitude and speed from a 70 would have a thousand mile range.

The B-52 is a great plane. Imagine the defence nightmare you would have with 70s coming in at Mach 3 and 70,000+ combined with 52s at low altitude and ALCMs. The 70s could have been tasked with roll back while the 52s went for other targets.

Compared to the B-1 and the FB-111 the B-70 would have been a bargain.