Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
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.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
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...?)
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
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.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
...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.
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.