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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."
Well, I have ancient servers running on ancient Linux variants as well, just for showing off to Windows users. But it doesn't mean they are suitable for mission critical data.
But your "ancient servers" probably don't date from the 1970's. Even your oldest server is probably more recent than the newest shuttle.
The Russian rockets only have similar demonstrated reliability to the shuttle.
But have a lot better safety record. Only 4 vs 14 crew fatalities, with Soyuz having been flying longer.
The smart thing to do would be to launch capsules on the EELVs (Atlas 5 or Delta 4), but that has severe political problems (basically, a lot of people would be out of work).
There's also the problem of the US having abandoned manned capsules over 30 years ago.
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.
Soyuz has also had two fatal accidents in roughly the same number of flights; there have also been several incidents in the past few years of the reentry guidance failing and the capsule going "ballistic".
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
"I find it unlikely Soyuz had the same number of flights as the shuttles."
That's because they don't. The U.S. Space Shuttle has flown more!
At present time, the 98th Soyuz flight is docked to the International Space Station. Atlantis is sitting on the launch pad waiting to fly the 121st Shuttle mission (STS-122). Despite the fact that the first Soyuz flew 13 years before the first Shuttle, NASA has historically been the more active space agency.
"I think it's safe to assume Soyouz-class vehicles are a very mature design and, quite probably, safer that shuttles."
They are statistically the same. Both have lost two crews, and when you consider the number of people flown safely to the number of people lost, they both have around 98% success rate.
The Soyuz TMA (the most recent Soyuz variant) has had some frightening close calls lately. It's interesting to note that when Endeavor had a dinged heat-shield tile, the media was circling NASA like hawks. But when the *second* Soyuz in 4 years lost guidance/navigation on re-entry and subjected the crew to a bone-crushing, high-G, hundreds of miles off-course re-entry, it got just a blurb in trade magazines.
This misses the point. The problem is that NASA told congress that they could indeed keep flying the shuttle while developing Orion, for an extra $1B per year. Congress said, "great. keep flying the shuttle, develop Orion, and do it without the $1B." NASA is not getting enough money to do both. The point of retiring the shuttle is to free up that ~$6B/year and spend it on the next-generation launch system, Orion, instead. We can't do both without a significant increase in budget, which is just not going to happen.
As for not having American access to the Station in the interim, we'll just have to deal with paying the Russians. Unless the NASA COTS system works out. Elon Musk over at SpaceX may very well have his Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 launch vehicle ready about that time to take over from the Shuttle.