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Shuttle to Launch Despite Objections
sam0ht writes "NASA has just named July 1st as the launch date for the space shuttle Discovery, a year after the last shuttle mission. Last July's mission was the first since the break-up of Columbia in 2003, but after foam again broke away from the main tank, the shuttle fleet was grounded. More foam has been removed from the main tank, but NASA staff are divided over whether this is enough to ensure the flight's safety, with some reporting that both the lead engineer and top safety official are against launching again so soon. Managers want to make only one major change at a time, and plan that if damage does occur, the crew would be able to stay in the International Space Station, to which they are delivering supplies, rather than trying to land a damaged shuttle."
If this group was in charge of the appolo missions we'd still be doing near earth orbital testing.
Space is dangerous, expensive, and offers very few good opportunities. If you want to get anywhere you have to take risks. I'm not saying that people should just throw their lives away for nothing, but every trip they make into space breaks new ground and teaches them new lessons. If you want the rewards you have to be prepared to walk away with a bloddy nose now and again, especially in a game like this.
It may be harsh, but I would say that if they are trying to make space travel 100% safe, it's just plain never going to happen. Right now I think we should be happy with 90%. From a purely practical perspective, if a dozen people lose their lives to accellerate the space program 10 years, I would call that a good trade. And I'd be happy to be one of those 12.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Ignoring engineers hasn't got the Shuttle very far in the past. From the Challenger Wikipedia article:
Glad to know there's someone with a set of balls at NASA.
If we wait for everything to be 100% iron-clad safe, we'll never leave this rock.
There's always going to be a nay-sayer somewhere up the chain. Beurocrats get so uptight about their jobs that that they'd never greenlight anything, for fear of being accountable for something (feds are 100% allergic to accountability, anyone who's ever worked a government contract will know this).
Godspeed and have some fun up there.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Everybody except the top ppl. For some odd reason, the day of the the buck stops here is now that shit flows downhill.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Spending money on the ISS is a good thing. If it has to get the funding and upgrades it needs as 'plan B' so be it, it's still funding.
Time and time again NASA illustrates the things that can go perfectly right and horribly wrong when engineers and pioneers are held accountable to politicians via managers/beauracrats.
Sometimes it works. Kennedy told them to put a man on the moon, and they did it. They were tasked in the 70's with making a reusable spacecraft, they did pretty good for a first project, especially getting it to last damn near 30 years. Then in the 80's they were tasked with long term space visits, had some help with that, but got it done still.
Now the managers are no longer managing but worrying about political decisions. Without good management the actual work stalls as the geeks don't know what to work and jump ship.
I'm torn as to how to resolve this. I don't want public money going to private companies, nor do I want to see it squandered in a dinosaur of an organization.
At the very least acknowledge that NASA has some issues and see what we can do to ease any restrictions against private companies moving into orbit and sharing with them research that was done with public money at NASA.
Completely depends on your metric. Fatality per mile, the shuttle is no doubt kicking cars' ass.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
I'm sure I'll get slammed for this but, well who cares. I remember watching the first shuttles go up. It seemed like we flew a lot of shuttle missions without any problems (sans Challenger, I know BIG PROBLEM). The point is that it seems like problems are far more common now with all of the new tech and more importantly lessons learned than in the old days.
What's happened? Did we redesign something? Are they so old that the parts are wearing out and we can't replace them as well as we built them to begin with? Are we just publicizing problems more now than we used to? I haven't seen anything to tell me why it seems we can't launch a shuttle without something faling off when the old ones flew without a publicized hitch.
Anyone?
The moonshot was a "fuck money, whatever it takes to get there" project. They got the best people, the best equipment, priority funding and restrictions simply didn't exist. Success was paramount. Failure was no option, whatever the cost, no failure may happen, for this is a fight of ideology.
Now, this changed big time. NASA gets the people it can afford, it gets the equipment the contractors that bid lowest and offer the best counter-contracts offer, they receive funding whenever something's left from the bomb budget and they have to deal with environmental restrictions and people complaining about the noise of their testing facilities.
Space flight has turned from a prestige object into a business. It has to try to be profitable. Now, it is VERY hard to actually be directly profitable in manned space flight. The moonshot did boost economy and quickened development in many, military as well as civilian, areas, especially we, in the IT biz, would be far from where we're today without the space program.
But today, everything, even science, has to be profitable. That's the big problem with the NASA today. They aren't "worse" than they were in the 60s, they don't slack or work more sluggish. It's just not space race time anymore.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...a good possible use for the remaining shuttles is to launch them unmanned and somehow attach them to the ISS or park them near by for other uses. On the ground sitting still they are OK. Up in space floating around they are OK. The transition in and out of the atmosphere is where they *blow goats*, so do that one more time with no humans in them. As already-up-in-space vehicles and as work/living space they are fine,and they are already built and functional. I say move them to orbit one last time and never return them back down, haul some cargo up with the last launches of them but stop risking humans in them with launches and reentry nonsense. Comes a time to cut your potential losses. Just the savings over the next few years would do wonders for NASA's budgets and to help re-fund a lot of the unmanned satellite jazz they are dropping-because the shuttle sucks down most of their cash. Spend the time designing the next replacement vehicle, and let the Rooskies haul the folks back and forth, they got the rig that works for that.
Hang on, let me get this right.... You **don't** want people to risk their lives for science and exploration?
WTH? That's EXACTLY what I want people to do. People are CHEAP - we have lots and lots of 'em. More than enough to spare sending a few out into space, without having to worry about them.
Personally, I'm in the camp which says "Send men to Mars, but don't give them a way to return." Just keep sending more men, and more equipment, with absolutely no thought to how to get them back. Who cares how to get 'em back? Earth has enough humans! This would make space travel to Mars quite affordable, and possible within just a few years.
Hell, you'd have so many people apply it'd be scary.
In this stupidly politically correct USA-centric world, we have forgotten that exploration IS risky, that science needs volunteers sometimes, and that sometimes those volunteers get hurt, or die. BIG DEAL. Just accept the fact that space is a big bad place, that people will die, and that expensive hardware can go East. This is the way exploration has ALWAYS been. It seems now, however, that people are more concerned about appearances than substance.
It seems like no politician has the guts to stand up and say "Yeah - we're goign to send men to Mars - and we'll worry about how to get them back in 10 years or so. If they're still alive when we are able to retrieve them, that will be a huge scientific triumph for us."
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"