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US Urged To Keep Space Shuttles Flying Past 2010
DarkNemesis618 writes "A US Representative has proposed that NASA keep the shuttle fleet flying past its planned 2010 retirement date. The move would help NASA avoid reliance on Russian rockets during the gap between the Space Shuttle retirement and the start of the Orion program. One proposal would keep the shuttle fleet flying from 2010 to 2013 while another would keep the fleet alive until the Orion program is ready in about 2015. 2011 marks the end of the exemption that has allowed NASA to use Soyuz rockets for trips to the Space Station, and they would need an extension to keep using Russian launch vehicles. NASA's other option lies in the private sector; but thus far, the progress from that quarter does not look sufficient to meet the 2011 deadline."
It's been 60 years since Sputnik took off. You'd think the "who's got the biggest cock" race would be over by now. The current shuttles are getting a bit old now and the most recent problems/accidents/tragedies indicated the very same thing. Maybe Russian rockets is the safest route for now?
Full Tilt
Can anybody explain the commercial benefit to space travel?
Given the significant resources spend for NASA, is this monies better off spent elsewhere or is this spent responsibly?
TFA seems to suggest extending the STS life while also cutting costs. This sounds like a recipe for disaster.
I know that strapping yourself to a rocket and heading for space is never safe but it would be better not to make it more dangerous. At the same time, I can see that extending the life by 6 months or so would help alleviate the current pressures on the STS for the station-construction mission (but that's not what the article discusses)
I presume the reasoning for not wanting to rely on the Russian crew launch system is that any souring of the American-Russian relationship could make the deal problematic. How about if it were via ESA and the forthcoming Soyuz operation at French-Guiana? Would this side-step some of the possible relationship issues?
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Now they can launch that telescope thingie that was going to be left to wither because all the remaining flights have been scheduled for finishing the ISS -- and with delays, they still won't be done by 2013 anyhow.
;-)
Hey NASA can go waste all the billions they want, it's still a drop in the bucket compared to wars which suck up a lot more money and produce even less useful results than NASA.
It's too bad the privatized companies (Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, SpaceX, Armadillo) can't ramp up development to meet the need. Oddly enough, *their* space race will produce the only results that will actually lower the cost per pound to orbit.
It's too bad we're all so scared of failure these days. Consider that during the development of aircraft, a lot of people died. A lot of people died just trying to cross the Atlantic. We didn't halt aircraft development every time some lunatic in a biplane was lost in a storm. But for some reason, we're afraid to blow up the occasional person to get into space. We need to get over that. A lot of people are going to die before we're able to easily leave the planet as easily as we currently visit another continent. That's just a reality and no amount of double checking is going to change that.
Well, for test flights anyhow, we could always use that Humanoid Robot (REEM-B) some guy spent three *whole* years developing!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Is it that hard to imagine why senators want US dollars to be spent in their home states instead of going to Russia?
My guess is that this is a national economy thing and has nothing to do with flight-worthiness or risk analysis.
Break the sound barrier - bring the noise.
The problem is they need to start converting the Shuttle launch pads for the upcoming Ares system well before they can even start testing, so simultaneous Shuttle operations are impossible.
At least they're tying their spam links into the context of the article now, too bad the [myminicity.com] gives it away noob.
As long as they didn't use them (or have to use them) for everything, they could maintain them at a slower pace and lower cost, and keep them flying for a long time.
Consider the B-52. It's been flying for over 50 years. It's not expected to perform all air tasks -- there are other planes for specialized work. Thus, the Buff doesn't get worn out because it's able to be kept up. There are more advanced planes flying. But the Buff is still flying too.
The shuttle could be kept flying for 50 years as long as there were suitable alternatives for certain missions.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
The obvious solution to this problem would be to construct pad LC-39C as an Ares platform.
LC-39C was originally projected as a third Saturn V pad in a line north of LC-39B but was never constructed although a stub of it's intended crawler-way points towards the north from the dog-leg in the LC-39B crawler-way. There were actually a total of three unbuilt platforms to the north as part of an 'Advanced Saturn' program but the other two look like they'd need significant land reclamation.
The existing crawler-transporters should be sufficient to handle both the STS and Ares I as NASA is building brand-new MLPs for the Ares system.
Compared to the total cost of the Ares/Orion system, a new LC-39 pad would like like a bargain.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Politics too often trumps science and common sense. Here's a congressman who wants a lucrative deal in his district, that's the story.
I like how the congressman describes it as an "arbitrary" date for decomissioning and that the risks won't increase overnight. I say send a congressman up on every mission after the shuttle's sell by date.
They probably can be used effectively for many years, but that doesn't mean that they should. Every bit of extra maintenance and upkeep performed on an old system, every bit of extra testing to make sure parts still function and every investigation into a failure will slow the space program and new developments. This is pork politics no matter how it's dressed up.
Well, thanks to the Internet, I'm now bored with sex.
I'd forgotten that the assembly platforms within the VAB are tailored to the STS.
It'd be interesting to know how NASA intends to work this as the crew-launching Ares I is a long, thin stick whereas the Ares V is an ostensibly shuttle-shaped two boosters and a central LH2/LOX tank.
The only thing I can think of is that they might crane platform-inserts into position when servicing an Ares I and then use the existing Shuttle platforms when servicing an Ares V.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
So nursing the SS program along to do MAYBE 1 or 2 launches a year is a waste of effort. All it does is stall the inevitable. Whether it's 2011, 2013 or 2015 manned spaceflight in the USA will be over. The Vulcans aren't coming to Montana, sorry.
Whatever happened to the Phoenix? VTOL, SSTO, and a dollar-per-kilo payload to orbit cost a mere fraction of either the shuttle, the Soyuz, or the Orion.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
4 years to deliver a space shuttle replacement, yeah lets bet on that option. If NASA and our government were serious they would have offered some sort of financial assistance, say dollar for dollar matching on R&D or startup capital. I mean, just sitting around 'hoping' for the private sector to bail out your space agency does not seem like a very good plan. All of this worrying, aka planning, should have been done a long time ago.
This is just pure politics and has nothing with space travel to do at all. The most sane thing would be to work with the russians that already have a very good launch vehicle that doesnt go kaboom! every other flight. Atleast until a viable alternative can be made avaliable. Lets face it, the space shuttle won because it looked like a spaceship, not because of its superior advantages to rockets. Heck, most fuel goes up in lifting the dead duck up that could have been better spent on payload.
HTTP/1.1 400
If he was serious, then he would say that the shuttle should continue flying until a replacement is working and in place. That could be oriion, but it is far more likely to be COTs. The reason why he said until Orion is that it is expected to need close to the same amount of ppl as the shuttle (4K+ at Kennedy). OTH, Falcon will have no more than 100 ppl at kennedy, and 50 is likely closer around 2010. In addition, virgin is expected to come on-line around 2011 with their LEO space system, with less than 50. And finally, we have the 2'nd COTs entry. It will most likely be one that is close. I am guessing that it will spacedev (using ULA's launcher, they have an engine for the back, just need the craft, which they are looking to use the H-20 design). Spacedev would possibly be ready by 2010.
But it would make sense to continue flying the shuttle until one of the alternative systems is in place. As soon, as it is in place, the NASA shuttle ppl should be wound down. Quickly. But this pub is simply up to the same tricks as those from 200X; run up a moster deficit.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yikes, considering how often my old classic LandRover breaks down, I would not want to fly an old classic Space Shuttle.
Yeah, I know. I cannot compare a rusty old relic with a well maintained shining example of top NASA technology, but even so, hats off to the people brave enough to fly into space in something designed in the early 70s. In real terms is probably not that different to people who fly Sopwith Camels for the hell of it - just more spectacular and better publicized when it goes wrong.
Too much money involved to not get the attention of some politicians. In terms of "do-ability", the real question is how the shuttle managers will get around the lack of spares/supplies that have been minimized and/or completely shut down in preperation for the retirement date.
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
During the initial developments of Orion, there was a lot of talk of using the current crop of heavy lift launch vehicles. There was one primary reason to use the shuttle SRBs as a basis: man-rating. It's not cheap to go back and man-rate a launcher.
Soyuz it great, yes it is old, but it works. It works pretty damn well too. Also, at $12 million a seat, it's pretty cheap!
I was born a week after that launch, and I just turned 50, which is traumatic enough, you insensitive clod!
Rediculous: A word indicating the writer is ridiculously ignorant.
The thing that most people don't know about the shuttle is the number of pressure modules on it. These are mostly high-pressure titanium-alloy composite-wrapped spheres, with service pressures ranging to 4500 psi or so. Outside the space program, the absolute life limit of a fiber-wrapped composite pressure vessel is 15 years. After 15 years, it must be condemned and removed from service.
They are *well* past the original design lifetime of the pressure vessels on the shuttle. Additionally, there is no manufacturer who *can* make replacements at this point. It would require them to retool a line and start from scratch, and no business is going to do that for less than a king's ransom, and even if they did, it would require time to build the line and test the vessels.
In order to keep flying with pressure vessels *well* past their "expiration date", NASA has run some tests and decided the vessels were capable of (safe enough) continued service. Still, they were concerned enough to rewrite the procedures. Now, they ramp up the pressure to less than the rated service pressure, and they wait until basically the latest possible time to "top off" to the required values. This leaves the pressure vessels under full stress for less total time, but there's still the risk that they'll "go boom" (and if you've never seen what even a 3000-psi 80 cubic foot scuba cylinder can do when it ruptures... well, as Keanu Reeves would say, "Whoa...").
Anyway, they've "extended" the service life of the pressure vessels on the shuttle, but they do not have arbitrarily infinite lives. It's certainly not a single thing that is forcing NASA's hand into retiring the shuttle fleet, but you can be damn well sure that the condition of the high pressure vessels is right at the front of many an engineer's darkest fears.
> I can see all sorts of problems extending the life of these modules, and it will almost certainly
> result in a catastrophe like what happened in 1977 which most people seem to have forgotten.
Okay, I will bit. What catastrophe did happen in 1977, aside from the Death Star blowing up?
You say that like you believe that "We, as a race" somehow deserve to leave this rock. "We, as a race" do not deserve the stars. "We, as a race" have not even yet learned to stop killing each other over religious differences or natural resources. "We, as a race" deserve nothing but to die here by the most expedient means possible, so as to clear the way for another less misguided race that would give far more benefit to the cosmos than we can hope for. "We, as a race" should remain chained to this rock just as a prisoner is chained to his cell, until such time as "We, as a race" have rehabilitated ourselves and have earned our freedom.
In light of recent world events and individuals in political office, it is my firm belief that this rehabilitation is no longer possible.
Why I do get the feeling that its "one step forwards and two steps back" with the Orion program, when compared with the shuttle? This thing only looks good for docking with the space station and any notion of servicing satellites is thrown out of the window.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
It has been well known for some time that the shuttle was aging poorly. Why have we waited so long to start work on designing a replacement that we will be without a manned launch platform for 5 years (assuming there are no delays, good luck with that)?
Its dangerous to make such comments lest you be labelled anti-semite. You can make the same points by talking about US military aid to Egypt or Pakistan without inviting the wrath of the Anti-defamation league
**Life is too short to be serious**
Take the proposed budget for Orion and the current operating cost of the shuttle and use that cash to bid for commercial manned spaceflight. Change the missions to better utilize the ISS if necessary.
Seastead this.
So extending the shuttle lifetime will be one of the first decisions of the new [Madame] President. The main important parts are the troublesome rocket engines, but tiles etc. too.
"Significant"? NASA's funding is a tiny, tiny part of the budget.
From the following: Putting NASA's budget in perspective, July 2007.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Liv Tyler?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
until a replacement is working and in place. That could be oriion, but it is far more likely to be COTs.
By COTS I assume you mean "common off-the-shelf". Like one can just go down to Rocket-Mart and select the on-sale capsule. (The closest thing is Russia's stuff.)
Table-ized A.I.
NASA's other option lies in the private sector; but thus far, the progress from that quarter does not look sufficient to meet the 2011 deadline.
Although it says this in the summary, the linked article doesn't seem to actually have anything to support this claim. In fact, it's looking like according to their current schedule the private SpaceX Dragon crew/cargo capsule will be flying demonstration flights 2008-2010. With an additional purchase commitment from NASA, they could probably finish and be able to transport cargo and crew to the ISS even sooner.
http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php
Just give a few sample Apollo capsules to the Chinese, and they'll clone them in no-time, like they do everything else.
Table-ized A.I.
I find it unlikely Soyuz had the same number of flights as the shuttles...I am quite sure that, being in service for about a decade longer than the shuttle makes it quite sure it had flown more missions
I can't find an exact list, but Soyuz and Space Shuttle flights do appear to be close in the number of missions. Wiki: List of human spaceflight programs
---------------
Soyuz: (approx.)
40 - Soyuz 1-40 (orbits, plus flying to space stations Salyut 1 - 6)
15 - Soyuz T1 to T-15 (flying to Salyut 7 and Mir)
30 - Soyuz TM-1 to TM-30 (Mir)
15 - Soyuz TM31-34, TMA 1-11 (ISS)
---
100. Wikipedia says there were 98 manned Soyuz flights - close.
To my quick count, there were 2 malfunctions that resulted in death (4 people), several more that were close (Soyuz escape system fired on the pad before the launch vehicle exploded; re-entry landing in icy lake that almost cost lives)
---------------
Space Shuttle: (approx.)
120 manned spaceflight missions
HOWEVER, "currently, the Soyuz spacecraft family is still in service and has launched more manned space missions than any other platform."
I'll give you that the Soyuz malfunctions were early in their program, both before 1972. And that the Space Shuttle malfunctions were later in the life of the Shuttle program. So that tilts in favor of the Soyuz.
But, all-in-all, there have been about as many manned Space Shuttle Missions as there have been manned Soyuz missions. Even including non-manned Soyuz missions, it is going to be very similar. Both have 2 fatal malfunctions, so any statistical "safer" calculations are going to be the same - about a 2% chance for death.
No surprise here. Now the Goo tube generation can say they thought they were going to get a shuttle replacement and were proven wrong. Every generation guesses wrong the first time.
You are pushing Russian stuff, yet have no idea of what COTs is WRT NASA? Exactly WHAT are you basing your statement that Russia is the closest to this on? The problem is that after America and in particular, NASA funded the Russian space agency for a decade, Russia has pulled lots of little stunts. It is possible that they did this in retaliation for a decade of being pushed around, or it was a mandate from up high, but the simple fact is, that America can not afford to pay the prices that Russia wants. Instead, the idea is to have a number of companies that can compete to provide space access. Then, and only then, will we see prices drop and have good service.
As I mentioned, there are several companies who are quite close to having this done. ALL of them will be much cheaper than Russia.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I didn't see this coming! The shuttles are nominally old, but they have many new and rebuilt parts. Only the airframe and motors are original.
We aren't going to die here for several at least millions of years (the sun has a couple of billion years left in it). As for natural resources, currently the space program costs far more in resources than it has any chance of providing for the foreseeable future. If you take people (who are simply not needed) out of these orbiters you can drop the cost (in money and natural resources) by 10X.
Course that doesn't stop Nasa from using the name, but I thought Orion was the scifi proposal to use nuke bombs to blast into orbit?
Endeavour was delivered to NASA in 1991, and first flew in 1992. It just came back into service after a major overhaul, and did not fly between 2002 and 2007 (Overhaul+Columbia aftermath). Keep flying Endeavour after 2010 if you need it to service the ISS.
The congresscritter's proposal calls for an additional $2 billion to be added to the NASA budget to keep the shuttle flying until its replacement is ready. Trouble is, the shuttle costs $4.3 billion per year to fly. After 2010, NASA is planning to use that money and the production, testing, and operations facilities currently used by the Shuttle for developing the shuttle's replacement. Any extension of the shuttle program simply means a month-for-month, year-for-year slip in the development schedule for the Ares I. Adding a full $4 billion to $5 billion per year to NASA's budget for the next 5-6 years would cover the costs needed to get the job done by 2015 or 2016, but some of the resources simply can't be dedicated to Ares I and Orion until the Shuttle program winds down (SSME engine test stands at Stennis that are needed to develop the new J2-X engine, manufacturing facilities in Utah (SRBs) and New Orleans (Shuttle External Tank/Ares I Upper Stage), processing and launch facilities in Florida (Vehicle Assembly Building, Mobile Launcher Platforms, Launch Pads, Crawlers).
Adding one or two more launches to the shuttle manifest in early FY 2011 might be feasible for a few billion. That would delay the layoff notices for a few thousand people in Brevard County from late 2010 to mid 2011, and launch a couple more of the grounded ISS modules that are currently completed and in storage. But any further extension is going to cost us some serious bucks for the recertification program needed to keep the Shuttles flying, and seriously delay the shuttle's replacement.
There's also that little matter of continuing to take our chances with the demonstrated 1-in-60 Loss of Crew record of STS. We've been very lucky that the first two tragedies only killed the crew of the vehicles. If the next accident happens over a more populated area, we may not be as lucky.
There is a better way to reduce the manned spaceflight gap; reduce the magnitude and length of layoffs and job losses in key districts in Florida, California, Louisiana, Texas, and Utah; build a much safer launch system; launch the remaining ISS modules; build the heavy-launch capabilities needed to explore beyond earth-orbit; and manage to do all this within NASA's existing budget. Doing so requires a more directly shuttle-derived launch vehicle like the ones proposed by NASA studies since the late 80's. Past proposals for this system have gone by the names NLS, or Magnum, or Longfellow, or LV24/25. The current proposal for such a system, developed by a group of NASA and Aerospace industry engineers without the blessing of NASA management, is called DIRECT. No other system, public or private, can meet all the key cost, safety, performance, schedule, and workforce requirements that DIRECT can.
For details on the safer, simpler, sooner idea, see the directlauncher site.
(No, this AC is not associated with this project, but check out the proposal for yourself and see why it is such a compelling idea).
"It's too bad the privatized companies (Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, SpaceX, Armadillo) can't ramp up development to meet the need. Oddly enough, *their* space race will produce the only results that will actually lower the cost per pound to orbit."
But will it, actually? Is there any reason to believe so? The space privatization movement keeps asserting this - that private launch costs will 'of course' be cheaper than a fully funded and nationally coordinated public effort - and seems to take it as an article of deep faith. But I've yet to hear a coherent argument as to *why*, let alone factual proof.
So far, the experience of Scaled Composites and Armadillo Aerospace is underwhelming to me, to say the least. 50 years of engineering hindsight later and with the advantage of state-of-the-art materials and computers, private groups have managed to reproduce not-quite-Mercury-level suborbital flight. That's the future?
Assuming some of these groups manage to get to the full orbital phase without killing lots of people, find a serious paying reason for manned spaceflight that NASA hasn't discovered yet, and attract far-sighted venture capital (possibly an oxymoron in itself) - what then? Has it crossed any of the space activist crowd's minds that perhaps the *reason* why the US Government hasn't been keen on massively decentralised space development is military? In that, the USAF wants to keep its current full-spectrum dominance of the high frontier, and they'd much rather work with a single compliant agency like NASA than zillions of private space cowboys toting rockets with the ability to deliver unpleasant payloads anywhere on Earth and the potential to sell that capability to interested transnational parties?
If a fully privatized manned space market actually eventuates, expect a corresponding explosion of US military space involvement to counteract all those 'potential terrorist threats'. And expect the price tag for that to not be cheap, and to come from your taxes, and your personal liberty. Combine that with space launch capacity split between a bunch of warring corporations making less profit than they initially expected, and each hiding their own innovations behind a wall of commercial secrecy, rather than releasing their science to the government, and the end result might be that the cost of space access *increases* overall.
So: got numbers to prove that won't be the case?
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
The company has been in existence only 5 years. They are starting from scratch. Yet, they have had 2 launches, of which one was a total failure (spectacular, in fact). In addition, the 2'nd launch made it into space, but not the orbit desired. Now, what is the record of all the other systems out there. The chinese blew a number of their first ones. In fact, they had several failures just with the current system. Russia has lost a number of them. Brazil blew up one and lost 20 lives and a launch pad. NASA has lost 2.5 of these (apollo 1 is like a half loss). Russia has taken over a decade to get a new system built and it will likely take another 5 years. In addition, NASA is build Ares I from already designed systems and that will not launch orion until 2013-2015 (most likely 2015). IOW, that is about 9 years of work which is from already working systems.
And Spacex will most likely have a system into orbit within 6 years of start. In fact, they are likely to have a cargo system within 6, and a human rated within 7. And yet, you grip about them and call it vaporware.
Yes, you are trolling. Nothing less.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.