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Narrowing the Space Flight Gap
MarkWhittington writes with an article on the AssociatedContent site, discussing the impending US space flight gap. Between 2010 (the end of the shuttle era) and 2015 (expected date for the launch of the Orion project) the United States will have little or no spaceflight capability. This is an obvious concern to some members of Congress and NASA. "Is all, therefore, doom and gloom? Not necessarily. Just over a year ago, NASA chose two companies for its Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS) program ... The goal of COTS was for the two companies to build prototype space craft capable of delivering crews and cargo to the International Space Station. A second phase of the COTS program would consist of a competition for a contract to actually deliver crews and cargo to ISS after 2010 ... Private industry may well come to the rescue and preserve American access to space, at least until Orion becomes operational."
Try 1: In Soviet Russia, the government bails out private industry!
Try 2: I for one welcome our new private sector spacefaring overlords!
Try 3 Yes, it can exit the atmosphere, but can it run Linux?
Try 4: 2010: Google puts up a spacecraft before Microsoft. Chair sales skyrocket (as do some of the chairs).
There, that should cover it.
I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
So if companies are to be contracted to build and operate a transport system to the ISS, would it be too far-fetched to think that these companies might look at other possible revenue streams from their development work? I could see a privately owned/operated spacecraft doing a better job of opening up the space tourism market, even if a ticket is still obscenely expensive.
At the present time, only one company is developing such craft. There is the risk that no other company will step up and we'll have a space Microsoft. Why can we trust private enterprise with this when only one company is interested?
Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!
But seriously, why do US political rhetorics always seem to have that military touch?
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
If we can push out a space delivery system that is "good enough" in such a short time, why bother with Orion?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I work in the space industry, on the Landsat satellite program.
There's a law that we must have an operating Landsat satellite -- it's that important to geology, agriculture, urban planning, etc. Landsats 1-7 were all specified and built by the government or its contractors.
In the early 2000s it came time to build Landsat 8 (known as LDCM, because nobody likes the abbreviation 'L8'). The government directive was to use the COTS program: Buy data from an existing commercial satellite, or get a commercial company to build and operate it for profit, with the government its preferred customer.
But there are no satellites that create the precise kind of data that Landsat needs. And when companies measured the profit potential of building the right kind of satellite, they walked away. If I recall the COTS LDCM request for proposal got zero bidders.
The government has finally given up on its free market fever and allowed LDCM to be a non-COTS system. Meanwhile, because we dicked around trying to shoehorn a government project into a commercial venture, we're going to be 4-8 years late in launching the next Landsat satellite. Assuming budgetary problems don't kill the entire 30+ year program.
COTS, and the recent governmental zeal to make everything part of the free market, is what has crippled and bankrupted the US space program. Some things are just better if done by governments, and at this point in history spaceflight is one of those things.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
I predict a hack in the slashcode to filter &btnl in google.com links very soon.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Thank you for your Libertarian, "drown government in a bath tub" input, Mr. Norquist. Developing the infrastructure and knowledge to explore the universe is such as waste of time. By the way, Grover. I would have loved to have heard your fiscal conservative input while your party was generating $2 trillion dollars in debt for a bogus war and handouts to friendly corporations like Halliburton, even after they'd been busted screwing the government out of "hundreds of millions of dollars." But, I suppose we need to focus on the money wasted by scientists, bridges to nowhere, and all the welfare crack moms that are the real cause of our excessive governmetn spending.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
Cover Our Total Shortsightedness, Silly.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
So 2010 is the end of US manned spaceflight. There won't be a replacement for the Shuttle. NASA tried four times before, and never even got close to flight hardware. Why should this time be any different?
The Shuttle was designed in the 1960s. Back then, NASA could hire top people. A huge number of experienced aircraft designers were available. Today, who goes into aerospace? NASA is sometimes called "the world's largest sheltered workshop". Aerospace is now so slow-paced that it takes decades to build anything.
The GAO Report on the Orion program indicates that there are significant problems. The most serious is the usual one with large spacecraft - weight growth in the upper stages, requiring huge increases in the size of lower stages. NASA's plan involves adding another section to the Shuttle-type solid rocket boosters, and there are real questions as to whether the resulting stack will be strong enough. (Remember, that's how Challenger blew up; failure at the solid rocket booster joints.)
Will lift a thousand tons to orbit in a reusable and totally non-polluting craft. (Yup, the exhaust isn't radioactive at all.) But it's "nucular", and therefore terrible. Even though we could finally launch a bunch of solar powersats and turn the U.S. into a net energy exporter...
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
There's an interesting section on mitigating risk, but it doesn't specifically mention the worst case (and quite possible scenario) that the fission rocket blows up somewhere in the atmosphere. What's the radiation damage then? I'm not a nuclear or rocket scientist but I don't see that discussed.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
What would you have thought in 1969 (had you been alive) when Armstrong landed on the moon, if someone asked you where the US space program would be in 2007?
Colonies on the Moon? Sure.
Humans on Mars? Check.
Remote exploration of the outer planets? Probably.
The US unable to launch a manned mission into orbit? Absolutely not.
But here we are. Armstrong will most likely be dead before we go back to the Moon.
What a terrible shame.
Don't forget the important part, funding. Where are Boeing and Lockheed going the get the hundreds of billions of dollars to develop and build spacecraft? How are they going to pay the sub-contractors? Those are 2 huge companies but they need the backing of a government to pay for things.
What about the other 75%?