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Shuttle Launch Success
mkosmo writes to tell us NASA is reporting that shuttle launch today was successful. This launch occurred despite the safety warnings from many top NASA officials.
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It is so inspiring to see that shuttle blast into orbit. Such a technological achievement, such an affirmation of the power and beauty science has brought to us.
And yet, here alongside these feelings of grandeur in my heart are these off-putting notions of what the shuttle actually means. How, even though it's one of the most amazing creations in the history of mankind, it represents so many of our failings.
The cost of a shuttle launch, while great, is dwarfed by the day-to-day costs of modern wars.
The shuttle, while technologically impressive, is still very much a cut-back version of what it was intended to be.
If you have the time I recommend watching and listening to Rutan's adress to the National Space Society.
Rutan makes many points to ponder - which highlight questions I myself have wondered. For instance, why can't I fly to space yet? Why is it so hard?
Burt Rutan makes the observation that when he saw the Redstone rocket at the national air museum he wondered, "why don't we fly this anymore?".
Indeed why! It's cheap, it's simple - simpler can and often does mean safer. The Redstone can get a person or two into orbit. And why not launch a couple a week? Burt Rutan goes on to point out that after each new space vehicle is created the old designs are never used again.
He states that if we followed this philosophy with aircraft we would have only one airplane flying right now, the B2 bomber!
I don't mean to be a naysayer on this great launch day. I don't mean to steal thunder from such a remarkable achievement (and few are greater fans of the space shuttle than myself). But I think there is a problem with NASA's philosophy of what space exploration is - what it means to the average person.
For me, space exploration means the exploration of space. And I want to be the explorer.
As far as I know, NASA doesn't have me slated for any launches in the foreseeable future.
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Godspeed, Discovery, and come home safe!
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
Still trying to drum up some backing.... Since when is complexity a good thing? The space shuttle is really far more complex than it needs to be and is far less reliable than it needs to be to do a proper job. While this complex machine falls part, Russian "pickup truck"-style space vehicles just get on with the job with little fanfare.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Granted, a launch is the controlled ignition of the largest bottle rocket ever made, and that's dangerous. But isn't the primary concern these days the foam breaking off of the fuel tank and damaging heat tiles, which don't matter until re-entry? Post again when it's touched down on earth safely, please.
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Yeah, but do Russian spaceships have heated seats, air conditioning, all-leather interior, a 16-speaker sound system and all-nozzle drive?
SRSLY.
Lets hope the LANDING goes just as well.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's successful when it lands and the astronauts step back onto terra firma. Especially, as other comenters have already mentioned, given how swimmingly the last Columbia mission was going until the last few minutes.
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watched it live from my front yard in Titusville - the wind was perfect and it was the loudest launch I have heard in a long time - my garage door was rattling for a good 5 or 6 minutes - perfect launch for the 4th of July !!
Yeah, it was a safe take-off. Apart from the 5 objects that fell off during the launch.
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Until today, I thought trolling/crapflooding was the most pathetic form of internet nerdery. Today I have learned that failing at it is the true low point. I hope that the mysterious inner circle of reject friends gives you a lifetime ban from their secret club for being such a failure.
I hope to Christ they get through these last few shuttle missions without a problem and manage to stick the remaining three in museums where they belong.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I wish space exploration was advancing faster. It seems sad that in this, the 21st century, the world's superpowers are still spending vast sums of money on killing other humans, instead of seeing what's beyond our own back yard. It's a really geeky thing to say I know, but I often wish I'd been born a few centuries later, and had the chance to live the Star Trek life. A lifetime of exploring space sounds great to me.
On a more serious note, I've often thought of manned deep space exploration as a bit of a Catch 22. I think it's the sort of thing that could really bring humanity together and encourage us to look past our differences and work together towards a common goal - but then I also think that we couldn't achieve a united deep space exploration programme until humanity learned to work together ans set aside our petty squabbles.
I'm holding out for a discovery of some kind that will shunt the human race into a new era of enlightenment, but I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime.
I can only imagine the bad-taste jokes that would have happened if there has been an accident.
"Why doesn't NASA have 4th of July BBQs anymore?"
"They can't convince any of the astronauts to show up."
"New from TNT Fireworks: The Discovery! The biggest bang for your bucks! Fits any space-exploration budget!"
Every time I go to the grocery store in my piece of **** car, to buy some beer and smokes, I too leave with a thunderous blast and cloud of smoke, rattling my own garage door for 5 minutes... and I'm guaranteed on every trip that at least 5 objects fall off my car as well.
In fact, everyone knows in my neighborhood I'm about to do a launnch, because I have to run an air compressor to pump up the bald back tires... they gather in lawn chairs to watch and kids on bicycles patrol the streets like F15's to make sure my air space is clear.
If I tune the radio just right I can pick up Rush Limbaugh, which is as close as I get to mission control.
Once it caught on fire, and darn near well exploded. I had to pop the hood right quick and jump on there and take a good p*** on the fuel rail which was on fire... took everything I got to put that one out. That was Grocery Trip number 13. I guess it was jinxed by the number. I hear Ron Howards planning on making a movie short about that trip. I had to patch up the fuel rail with some duck tape and used condoms I found behind the back seat.
You know, buck for buck, I believe the American public gets more drama and excitement out of my car then they do some old space shuttle. With the front end alignment being as shot out as it is, I know it gives me plenty of excitement on the turnpike, jumping all over as it does
Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth shattering kaboom!
Since the shuttle is going to dock with the ISS, make sure you check on Heavens-Above for ISS and STS-121 sightings from your city in the next few days. The best time is just before they dock (or right after they separate) because then you see two small dots in the sky racing in close formation.
Why do you suppose that is? Is that 'being first' was enough of a motivator to get to the point where the x-prize was claimed, but once you get into the nuts and bolts of going to the next step there just isn't the demand, or if there is the demand the economics just don't work out?
How much would you pay to go into space? Would you be able to afford it?
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I'm not sure they're trying to say that it's a good thing in and of itself that the shuttle is complex, but rather to point out (rightly) that it's impressive that it works right on a fairly consistant basis.
I would be the last person to argue that the shuttle isn't overly complex. Because of the dueling priorities between NASA and the Pentagon during its design phases combined with the basic nature of design-by-committee, it ended up trying to do too many things. The shuttle is one of my favorite cautionary examples to bring up during requirements meetings because of this.
That aside, it's a serious mistake to take KISS too far -- this is something I see over and over again. Once you start diking complexity out of anything, it's always tempting to keep going even to the point where it starts impacting your actual goals (a fact which, in my experience, you won't realize until you go into testing, at which point you get to try and tack it back in at the expense of timelines, vast amounts of money and the jobs of easily-blamed underlings).
But I guess that's the value of experience.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Unnecessary complexity is your enemy in any mission critical system. I don't know if it's necessary, but the Shuttle is capable of doing a lot more than the Russian launch vehicles. Hubble and the International Space Station were possible only because of the Shuttle's capability to allow extended spacewalks, as well as the use of the Canadarm.
Just the same, the next generation of American spacecraft should be based on the SRB/ET system but with a robust reentry/crew vehicle, and not one covered in glass. At some point complexity isn't your enemy as much as common sense should be your friend.
The Russians have done a great job, but the technology to take the leap to Mars or back to the moon is not going to come from the Russians, if only due to the lack of funding. I hope the US gets back on track.
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There are seven people on board that rocket today, they are smarter than you or I, and harder working, and they have seen 14 others go to their deaths on the same craft.
So: let's all do something to make ourselves worth defending, okay?
Listen: SPACEFLIGHT IS DANGEROUS!!!! If you wait until everything is 100 percent safe, you will never leave the ground. I am glad someone at NASA had the balls to risk it. We have impotant work to do in space that will need humans. If we are ever to have colonies on the Mars or the Moon we have to risk it. It's just the same as Lewis and Clark, Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. If noone in Europe ever came here, none of us would be here to celebrate Independence Day. I am proud to be a American even if the American's on Slashdot aren't.
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Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Why does NASA insist that the shuttle is the most complex machine humans have built?
The shuttles are decades old...surely someone somewhere has built some much more complex machines....
So, what's more complex than the shuttle?
I've seen a lot of of comments about the dangers of going into space, and I wonder when crossed the line from being safety conscious to being just paranoid. This is an inherently dangerous job, performed by people who are more than aware of the risks involved. There comes a point where you just have to depend that everyone has done their job, and pray for the best. This decision isn't made by the engineers on the ground, or the public, but by those in the shuttle agreeing to go up. 5 things fell off the shuttle? So what. What about things falling off the shuttle BEFORE a piece destroyed one? My bets say that it happened, and nothing happened. There's a line, and we've crossed it.
I was at Epcot when the shuttle launched. I had just gotten out of Mission Space and noticed that everyone was looking to the sky. Then I remembered that the shuttle was about to launch.
And sure enough, about 30 seconds later, it came into view. You could see the shuttle, the fire from the rockets and the thick column of smoke, right over the Mission Space building. The entire theme park was at a stand still looking at the spectacle. Some people cried, most clapped. It was a great moment.
was actually two large coolers full of ice-cold PBR left over from the festivities.
[http://it-tastes-so-good.blogspot.com] Are you hungry?
It took Columbia's dissentigration to convince me, but Alex Roland is right. The Shuttle is a jobs program with a little bit of scientific research thrown in for fun. It's far more expensive than it was designed to be, and it's proven itself not viable time and again. The only people who aren't taking note are those who write the checks.
Fred DeJarnette, who worked on the original tile engineering is ready for a replacement. Let's do some real engineering and come up with a better spacecraft! (The Onion has an interesting take on the Shuttle program.)
What should we be doing in space? We should be using robots to explore (like the Mars rovers) and perform experiments in orbit. We should send people when we get the fuel to vehicle mass ratio better than 97%, and when it can warrant the expense of taking life support systems on a mission.
The Moon/Mars trips are another bigger jobs program, but they don't even have to get anywhere because the guy who called for them (and his successor, for that matter) will be safely out of office before the promised arrival date of 2018, so when it falls short, he won't have a
price to pay.
If Mars is the goal, the Mars Direct plan is much more economical. If the Moon is the target, go straight there, but don't use the Moon as a lillypad to get to Mars because landing and launching from there takes a certain amount of energy that needs not be expended on the way to Mars.
I want to see us (humans) explore space. I want to learn about the cosmos and I'd love to leave the planet (and probably return). I've followed the U.S. space program since I was old enough to know what a rocket was, and I've learned about the Soviet program since Glasnost. Now I'd like to see us do something meaningful - not just run a space truck to orbit and back, and not just design a fantastical Moon/Mars mission for the sake of it, but really learn about better forms of transportation and about the universe.
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It was routine until Challenger went down. Then it was routine until we lost Columbia.
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
the ship has to be designed and developed to last for a number of launches. In contrast, I would guess that SS1 was designed for less than 6 launches. And even with that, it took something like 5 years. While Paul (allen) is still funding it, he is going to want to get bang for the buck (so to speak). That means that the white knight replacement will probably be designed to carry not only V2(low space, of 100 miles with regular passengers, or very small cargos launches), but also V3 (LEO space or better with regular passengers).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Remote landing capability
Should Discovery's STS-121 spacewalkers be forced to make a serious heat shield repair, the chances of which NASA officials believe to be extremely remote, flight controllers could opt to try to save the orbiter without endangering its astronaut crew.
Herring said that a 28-foot (8.5-meter) cable packed in the orbiter's middeck has been certified to fly in just such a situation, which would keep an astronaut crew aboard the ISS while the orbiter returns home on remote control.
"It's kind of like a jumper cable that would only be used in an event where you had done a repair, but couldn't be 100 percent certain [it] would be something that would be flight worthy with a crew," Herring said.
The cable would connect an avionics bay in Discovery's middeck with the controls one level up on its flight deck, effectively allowing flight controllers in Houston to perform landing activities currently done by shuttle astronauts.
Those manual activities include starting the shuttle's auxiliary power units, deploying an air data probe, unstowing the orbiter's landing gear and releasing its drag chute after landing, Herring said.
"The things that would be manually controlled, this jumper cable allows them to be controlled from mission control," Herring said.
In such a contingency, Discovery or any future shuttle would land at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, NASA said.
"We would not target a landing site at KSC or Edwards Air Force Base [in California]," Herring said. "The prime landing site would be at White Sands because of the wide expanse of the range."
Damn! I hope it never has to be used (of course); but that would be one hell of a thing to watch. The article also talks about a tile patching/repair system.
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
Money is a form of control developed by the powerful. The barter system would transfer power semi-randomly, and those who hunger for power cannot allow that.
... later. That frees you from the tyranny of proximity, and frees you from worrying about who controls your timing, when it comes to certain trades/barters. And with currency, you can pool your resources to do long-term things like build pharamceutical labs and factories so that you can actually have the antibiotics you need for a sick child... when you need them, not just when you happen to have eggs at the same time that someone with antibiotics happens to want an omlet.
Look, someday when you've turned 13 or 14, you'll realize how ridiculous you sound. "Money," meaning, a token that represents the value of something else (like a sack of flour, or an hour of your labor), isn't a form of control - it's a form of liberty. If you had to rely on the physical movement of bartered goods from one barterer to another, or could only barter your services with people that happened to have in hand just thing you neeeded that day (broccoli? some new refridgerant?), you'd get very, very little done and have very few choices.
But wait: I can hear it now... you say: but what about some global version of Craig's List, or some other online way to arrange bartering, so that no one needs evil money? Um... OK, so how do you advetise what you're willing to barter? Say you've got a dozen eggs, and you need everything from some antibiotics for a sick child, new toothpaste, some lumber for your collapsing roof, and a thousand other things. What do you do... list all of the things (and quantities of those things) you're willing to exchange for eggs? Ah... you're setting a price. Now, you've got a thousand other people all doing the same thing... a gigantic, inefficient bartering matrix that requires constant fiddling to see if you can get what you want, and whether it's available for a barter you can make. And, while you're spending all that time trying to get the best barter for your eggs, you could have been better doing what you're good at, and improving your egg production in the first place.
And then, what if you know you'll find such a barter a week from now, but your eggs are only valuable while they're fresh? What do you do, barter them for something else that looks valuable, just to hold the value in your hand while you look around for a good trade on the other things you need? If so, the interim thing you're holding is just a token representing the value of the eggs. What is it, a car battery? Some firewood? A basket of turnips? Here's an idea: how about we get together as a society, and provide everyone a vastly better standard of living by removing the third-world marketplace components of all of that, and use currency instead. Oh, right - we already do that.
And it allows you to do work when and as you can, and then get the goods and services when and as you need them
A group of these smart people developed money.
No, a group of these smart people realized they were wasting their lives carrying their value around on their backs and haggling in vegetable markets all day, just so they could swap out what they produce when they're not busy looking for someone to barter with. Money is super-flexible, time-shifted bartering at distance, and if you can't see that, no wonder you're unhappy.
It's so scary cuz it's no longer the group of smart men, it's became an idea.
You want scary? Go back to standing around with a basket of eggs and wondering how you'll get what you need if no one in the vicinity happens to need your eggs that day. Or having some other need on a week when you don't happen to have any eggs to trade. Currency and a banking system take the capriciousness out of it, and reduce fear. You've got it backwards.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I had a conversation with Pete Worden about exactly this issue, back when he was head of the USAF Space Command. He pointed out that the big issue is "surprise package delivery". If anyone with $50M can own his very own reusable manned vehicle, then anyone with $50M can put pretty much whatever he wants wherever he wants with just 45 minutes' notice.
On reflection, that's pretty scary: a nav system capable of a rendezvous on-orbit is also capable of rendezvous with other similarly sized objects such as the White House.
It must be a slow slashdot news day. NASA Shuttle has launched hundreds of times before safely.
It's still more of a news story than Dork-vorak's latest opinion on any random subject or an article about "Is [insert the name of a lame duck technology] dead/obsolete?". How many "news stories" did we have to endure about Bluetooth being a dead technology only to mill through waste-deep comments from pizza delivery boys who talked up how bitchin' their bluetooth mouse is. Not to say that the opinion of a pizza delivery boy isn't just as legitimate as Dvorak's...
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
For those who haven't read it, Richard Feynman's Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle is a fascinating look at some of NASA's inner workings, and the problems that led to the challenger disaster. What is suprising (or perhaps totally expected) is that once again we hear managers and engineers differ on what is acceptable levels of risk.
For those who don't know Richard Feynman, he won the Nobel prize, helped develop the atom bomb, and suggested ways for geeks to pick up women.
It's really the boy who cried wolf all over again.
NASA engineers demand precision to the point of insanity. The managment knows this is not possible, and that if the engineers were in charge, the thing would never even get off the ground.
The problem we have is that the engineers tend to over-dramatize the risks, causing the managment to often disregard them completely.
It's a problem, and honestly, I'm not sure that there's any easy solution other than redesigning the craft to be significantly simpler (less engineers complaining = more time for the managment to listen to the ones who legitimately have something to say).
I think NASA's reached the point where the engineers AND managment both agree that the shuttle is a flawed design, and needs to be retired ASAP (which, if all goes well, it will). However, in spite of the clamoring of the engineers, there are many practical and political concerns which dictate that the shuttle must fly. Saving the Hubble is probably the most significant of these (and right now, it looks like we actually WILL go up there in 2008 to fix the thing).
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I would have to strongly disagree almost completely here. The engineers are the people who are designing this stuff, and they put themselves in the pilot's chair when it comes to safety. When an entire engineering team (this is not just a rogue parnoid person saying this) is complaining about safty and their chief of that team is voicing grave concern over safty, it is time to stand up and take notice of what is going on.
The Shuttle was a good experimental design, and it did push some technologies further that otherwise wouldn't have been developed. It has also given a good baseline dataset for what it would mean for reusable spacecraft that otherwise wouldn't be known. The problem here is that additional launchs only give additional datapoints to this knowledge base, and the fact that two Shuttles have completely failed with full loss of the crew gives additional room to pause and wonder if it really is worth the added risk.
Much safer and even cheaper launch systems have been demonstrated. For crying out loud, NASA has even developed some better launch systems than the Shuttle but ended up killing those programs due to changes in political leadership and changing requirements for those projects that made them incredibly expensive.
Saving the Hubble and completing the treaty obligations for the ISS are noble things, and that is what the Shuttle is being kept around to do right now. I still question if there might not be a reasonable alternative, and strongly question the idea that during the years since the loss of the Columbia that the money spent toward trying to put band-aids on the Shuttle couldn't have been wiser spent on a whole new launch system. $15 billion and 4 years could certainly have built one hell of a good launch system, I think. Certainly this is not justification to send 14 people into LEO just to retrieve trash and rotate out the ISS crew. Think about it. Over $1 billion per astronaut. That is not wise spending of money by any criteria, nor are the astronauts billionaires either, which might have been wiser spending of the money and had more people servicing the ISS for the same money.
With the announcement today (July 5th) that NASA is still having foam issues on the external fuel tank, I think it is going to be yet another year before the next Shuttle mission goes up. There are some serious safty issues that are being overlooked, and I would tend to believe the engineers in this case. It is time to kill the Shuttle fleet and move on. Unfortunately, NASA has nothing to move on to.
No, fiat money is a form of control developed by the powerful. Real money was a great invention that controlled no one -- and that is why it had to be replaced.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.