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."

Comments

Re:Race goes on

[mpe]

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.

LC-39C

[reality-bytes]

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.