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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."
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!
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Space Shuttle, 89,908,732* miles on the clock. Spares or repairs.
Phone: 202.358.0001
*
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.
Donate it to MIT. They'll find out if it will run Linux.
You know you want to know.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
... 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.
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
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
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
We can't abandon atlantis while the wraith are still a threat!
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.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...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.
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?
NASA To Retire Atlantis by 2008
I think Sci-Fi will keep it at least to 2009 or 2010.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
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.