NASA Hopes Discovery's Move Is Not The Last

An anonymous reader wrote to mention the movement of the space shuttle Discovery. The upcoming mission, if it launches, is crucial to the future of American manned space flight. From the Washington Post article: "A successful flight will allow NASA to resume construction of the half-built International Space Station and possibly extend the life of the beloved Hubble Space Telescope, which has allowed humans to peer into far galaxies. But with the shuttle fleet due to retire in 2010, any serious problems during July's mission likely would bring a premature end to the shuttle program and disrupt NASA's plans to keep its skilled work force intact while a replacement spacecraft is being developed."

Comments

A humble suggestion to NASA

[helioquake]

Abandon the ISS now and channel all its investiment to the next generation space shuttle.

If you don't want to kill the ISS completely, then focus on maintaining the ISS in orbit while developing the new generation vehicle (you could do this with a conventional booster). The use of the current shuttle should be restricted to non-ISS issue only.

Building something that cannot be used until the next generation space shuttle becomes available (for supply and emergency evacuation, etc) isn't exactly a smart thing to do.

Have courage and let go the ISS for now.

Re:A humble suggestion to NASA

[helioquake]

The NASA's guideline for the use of the ISS facility is this: the ISS can be staffed to the maximum number of astronauts that can be evacuated off the station in case of emergency.

With a Soyuz pod, the maximum number of staff is limited to three. And currently there are only two ports available on the ISS (so theoretically they could go up as high as six today).

In a fully configured mode, the ISS should hold at least three international teams (US, Europe and Japan, say). Each team has about 5 -- 6 staff scientists on board to conduct a variety of experiments. So it needs to staff about 15 or more people. There is no conceivable way to achieve that right now, because of the next generation shuttle problem (or a lack of thereof).

That is what I meant by my original post. I think others got it, though.

2010

[DJTodd242]

Well of course Discovery is going to retire in 2010. It'll be destroyed when Jupiter is imploded by the Monolith.

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE. USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE.

Re:I have to agree

[rackrent]

My understanding is that both the concept and design of the ISS were contingent on the Space Shuttle offering convenient flights to help build the thing. It wasn't uncommon to have one Shuttle flight each month back in the so-called heyday.

What's failed is that the international, co-operative vision of the ISS kept on going even while the Shuttle fleet was realized to be an aging dinosaur, at best. Had the Shuttle been more reliable over the past decade, the ISS would be vastly different than it is now.

Jerry Pournelle has the answer YET AGAIN!

[mikelieman]

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http://www.jerrypournelle.com/topics/gettospace.ht ml#prizes

Jerry Pournelle Wrote:

"I can solve the space access problem with a few sentences.

Be it enacted by the Congress of the United States:

The Treasurer of the United States is directed to pay to the first American owned company (if corporate at least 60% of the shares must be held by American citizens) the following sums for the following accomplishments. No monies shall be paid until the goals specified are accomplished and certified by suitable experts from the National Science Foundation or the National Academy of Science:

1. The sum of $2 billion to be paid for construction of 3 operational spacecraft which have achieved low earth orbit, returned to earth, and flown to orbit again three times in a period of three weeks.

2. The sum of $5 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a space station which has been continuously in orbit with at least 5 Americans aboard for a period of not less than three years and one day. The crew need not be the same persons for the entire time, but at no time shall the station be unoccupied.

3. The sum of $12 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a Lunar base in which no fewer than 31 Americans have continuously resided for a period of not less than four years and one day.

4. The sum of $10 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a solar power satellite system which delivers at least 800 megaWatts of electric power to a receiving station or stations in the United States for a period of at least two years and one day.

5. The payments made shall be exempt from all US taxes.

That would do it. Not one cent to be paid until the goals are accomplished. Not a bit of risk, and if it can't be done for those sums, well, no harm done to the treasury."

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The problem is our GOVERNMENT DOESN'T WANT TO DO IT

Dubious Assumptions

[Bombula]

A successful flight will allow

That's a pretty big leap, in my opinion. I honestly don't mean to be a troll, but the shuttle has more or less proven to be a dangerously unreliable machine. So saying that a single successful flight will, ergo, guarantee subsequent successful flights is a bit like playing Russian roulette and figuring everything will be fine in the future as long as there's no bullet in the chamber this time. It just isn't very sensible.

Maybe it's just the wording, but it seems to me that it would be better to say something like, "despite the very high risk of catastrophic failure involved, NASA will attempt to continue to fly the space shuttle in order to maintain the ISS," since that would at least be honest and accurate.