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Shuttle Retirement In 2010 Under Review
An anonymous reader alerts us to an Orlando Sentinel report based on a leaked NASA email, indicating that NASA is looking at options to extend the Shuttle program. The fighting between Russia and Georgia has put a strain on plans to rely on Russian boosters until the Shuttle's replacement flies in 2015. Yet extending the Shuttle's life is no sure thing. According to a former NASA program manager, "We started shutting down the shuttle four years ago. That horse has left the barn." And NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has told Congress that if the Shuttle fleet were to fly two missions a year until 2015, "the risk would be about one in 12 that we would lose another crew. That's a high risk... [one] I would not choose to accept on behalf of our astronauts." And then there's the matter of finding the $4 billion a year it would take to keep the fleet operational. The Sentinel mentions that John McCain has called for additional Shuttle flights, but doesn't mention that Barack Obama has made the same point, as the BBC reports.
Not that we shouldn't try and make space travel safer, but the idea that loss of life is completely unacceptable I find very strange when we have no problem sending people who may or may not understand the risks into a myriad of dangerous situations where the loss of someones life is all but guaranteed. War, crab fishing, oil drilling, car driving, and on and on.
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I mean, NASA already has the program in place and already has participants. It would take a hell of a lot less than $4B/year to speed up COTS.
More info: http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/esmd/ccc/
I think suspending manned space flight for that long would be a disaster. At some point, if we have no space flights going on, the new shuttle replacement becomes "restarting manned space flight" rather than "continuing our manned presence in space". Congress will be a lot more likely to simply cut the program entirely if it's seen as starting an entirely new program rather than an evolution of our existing, and continuing, efforts.
Slightly better than russian roulette uh?
Seriously, you would think that the US would take a more "global" approach to space and start truly cooperating with other countries, say like uh.. Canada, UK, Japan, China, India, etc...
After all the race for the stars should be for humanity's sake, not just one country.
There would obviously be some economic advantages, that's for sure.
Russia, I believe would join in, if a real "space" coalition would be formed, I'm sure of that, if only not to be left behind in any form of discovery.
If you look at the overall federal budget, NASA gets a drop in the bucket compared to Social Services and Defense. The move to extend the Shuttle for a few more years is not a surprise. I don't know, I just get the feeling that if the manned space program ever ends, that will be it. People will start to ask, "Do we really need it?" If there is not something to replace the shuttle, especially if it is 5+ years from flying, politicians and people will start to ask, "What has NASA done lately? Oh just sink billions into that new rocket that is still in development and has another delay to 2018." So the budget shrinks from 15B a year to 10B or stays the same @ 15B a year, yet 15B today will not buy the same amount of stuff next year, things continue to get delayed and eventually, it's the end of the manned space program.
The shuttle is far from perfect, but it's all we got. And until that something better comes along...
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I think the problem with the space shuttle is that it tried to be one ship to do everything. Ideally, when they send people to space, they should send one with just the people, so it can be small, low powered, and safe, and another that does the heavy lifting, which would be inherently more unsafe just do to the amount of power it has to have.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Kill the shuttle. Every year we extend the shuttle is a year that it's easier to make excuses for not having Orion ready. The shuttle was a disastrous decision from the start - a joke of a space program that made no progress in exploration, and provides nothing in the way of useful scientific research except inasmuch as it was used to work on the Hubble.
The sooner it is put out to pasture the sooner this country can have a real space program again.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
Ignoring things like military budget, why should NASA get a big chunk of the pie. What is the purpose of visiting space anyway? I know the pursuit of knowledge and all that, but think about it for a second. Where are we headed with this exploration of space thing? We study all the planets in the solar system, and we find empty barren pieces of rock. Or maybe a few microbes. And then what? Unless we make huge, and I don't just mean huge, I mean you can't even comprehend how huge, advances in propulsion technology, then we aren't doing anything outside of this solar system. Voyager 1 lauched in 1977 (31 year ago), and is still only 0.0017 light years away from the sun. In 40,000 years, it'll be 1.6 light years from the first other star it's going to encounter. I don't mind science for science's sake, but there are plenty of much more science efforts that could be pursued, and would probably be much more likely to result in something usable.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Because it's there. It's there, and it's big and unknown, and we're humans. And if we don't explore every bit of space that we can get to, we'll sit around itching to go. We go to space for the same reason we went to the south pole, or why we go up mountains that haven't been climbed yet. Because they're there, and we can.
The insidious lie of the modern space program is that there's more to it than that. That space stations and endless low earth orbit missions provide some sort of useful science, and are worth doing. They're not. The point of space is the unknown. So yes. Take out the solar system. Go to every frozen rock we can reach, and start thinking about the frozen rocks we can't. Because they're there. They're places people have never been. And fundamental to the human spirit is the sense that something that seems utterly crazy and impossible is the most important thing there is to do.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
There are worse things for the ISS to do than fall out of the sky. Staying up in it may well be one of them.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
But it would be a tragedy if Orion replaced the Shuttle's current functionality. The whole point of Ares/Orion should be exploration, not the menial (and uninspiring) resupply of low-Earth orbit. That's where I'd like to see broader use of commercial options, like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Orbital Sciences, or an assortment of others.
The shuttle program is primarily a technology-jobs program. The science stuff they do in space (orbiting grade-school teachers, studying John Glenn's bones) is kind of trivial compared to the 10,000 high-tech jobs created in the USA, paid for by the billions of dollars NASA spends on shuttle contracts. How all that money would otherwise get spent, is what I wonder about.
Skylab massed 77,088kg; the ISS at present masses 277,598kg, and if ever completed it will mass 419,600kg.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I've been waiting for this to happen - NASAs exemption to the Iran Non-Proliferation Act expires in 2011, meaning they would no longer be able to purchase manned capacity off the Russians (Soyuz), which in turn means no American crew on the ISS. What with the worsening relationship with Russia this past year, getting the exemption extended would essentially be political suicide at the moment. Extending the Shuttles life is the only alternative.
According to Putin it was done to improve chances of one of the candidates, because when the international situation worsens, moves closer to a war, people tend to vote for a conservative candidate. Not for a change.
If it is true then it should not have been a surprise that there was the tension with Russia.
So the real reason then is not Russian politics, but the US presidential election.
One may write instead that due to the coming election it was decided to prolong the Shuttle program, because the world should have been shown to the voters with more defined scares.
Exactly. Then we'll need a government organization to manage the contracts. Let's call them, I don't know, "NASA".
Oh, wait...
Who precisely do you think actually builds, services and maintains these craft? Thats right, the OEMs and not NASA. The Shuttle was built by Rockwell, now maintained by Boeing. Orion will be built by private sector companies (Lockheed as prime contractor, with a whole bunch of others as subcontractors), Ares will be built by private sector companies (Alliant and Boeing as prime contractors) - so what do you propose to do differently?
There are complicated internal processes in Eurasia, in the FSU, but you keep your delusion that it is you who calls the shots.
Eurasia is more than twice bigger than the North America by territory and more than 8 times by population.
"The West", the Western Europe against the whole Eurasia is like Vermont and Maryland against the whole USA.
Globalization is turning Eurasia in one giant market, 54 million square kilometers, 4,6 billion population.
A lot of work is still to be done: autobahns, tunnels, speed railways, etc. "The West" has a role in it, like Vermont has the role in the USA. But forget 18th century, your colonial glory.
You are on among others, not the "master of the world" anymore. It's over. Get over it.
Who precisely do you think actually builds, services and maintains these craft? Thats right, the OEMs and not NASA. The Shuttle was built by Rockwell, now maintained by Boeing. Orion will be built by private sector companies (Lockheed as prime contractor, with a whole bunch of others as subcontractors), Ares will be built by private sector companies (Alliant and Boeing as prime contractors) - so what do you propose to do differently?
A couple things:
* don't use cost-plus contracts, which reward waste
* Instead of specifying a single design and essentially giving one company a monopoly over manned spaceflight, do things like the rest of the transportation market and commercial satellite launches -- just purchase individual rides or payload deliveries. SpaceX , Orbital, and Lockheed Martin are all currently working on orbital manned spaceflight systems. As it is now, it looks like they're going to have to end up competing against NASA's Ares I. Instead of competing against them, NASA should ditch Ares I and just offer transportation contracts to give these companies the financial incentive to speed development of their vehicles.
NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program is a huge step in the right direction -- it's only getting a fraction of the budget (total is less than a single shuttle flight) that Ares I is getting, but is already showing much more progress and promise.
* Instead of specifying a single design and essentially giving one company a monopoly over manned spaceflight, do things like the rest of the transportation market and commercial satellite launches -- just purchase individual rides or payload deliveries. SpaceX , Orbital, and Lockheed Martin are all currently working on orbital manned spaceflight systems. As it is now, it looks like they're going to have to end up competing against NASA's Ares I. Instead of competing against them, NASA should ditch Ares I and just offer transportation contracts to give these companies the financial incentive to speed development of their vehicles.
If... and that's a big honking huge if, from what I've understood, any of these become actual commercial possibilities then sure. The first one you mention is SpaceX and they haven't made a rocket reach orbit yet, far less deliver cargo to orbit, far less something with a track record and security record to fly people for many years to come. I realize what you want but it sounds a little like the flying car that's always coming soon.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Compared to the cost of the ground support and the space craft. Launch the damn shuttle. If it blows up, it blows up. I bet you could find plenty of Americans willing to take their place, even with a 1 in 10 chance of getting killed, in exchange for a ride into space.
Come on. To many people, spaceflight is worth the risk of death. If astronauts aren't willing to take that chance, fire them, and get someone who will.
This is my sig.
Yeah, but Skylab was made out of the much less dense aluminum, while the ISS is made out of lead to shield against cosmic radiation. So technically, the guy was right, the ISS is smaller than Skylab,
Oh, FFS.
Skylab's living volume: 10,000 sqft
ISS living volume: 15,000 sqft
(From Wikipedia. Admittedly, not as big a difference as I had expected)
I was going to make a joke in reply to GP about "oh, but it weighs virtually the same" but instead I had to reply to this silly comment. I hope you're happy.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
I would like to think I'm not a fatalist but it is my opinion that if the human race died off the Earth and galaxy probably wouldn't care much and may be better off for it. If evolution is to be believed then there will surely come something behind us that is better than we are.
Sure sounds fatalist to me. And the galaxy can't care any more than the sentient beings in it. As far as we know (re likelihood of habitable star systems), we're it--and if we die, there may never be another. And it it wouldn't be better, just empty of any thought, good or bad.
For now, we have to assume that it's up to us and there is no other.
Read Mullane's all too articulate book to get some idea of how screwed up NASA's approach is if you haven't studied already. This isn't about spending more money; it's about culture.
The ISS averages about 230 miles up, which is a reachable orbit for any number of possibilities. Just to quote Wikipedia, they list:
Visiting spacecraft
Russian (Roskosmos) Soyuz spacecraft - crew rotation and emergency evacuation, replaced every 6 months
Russian (Roskosmos) Progress spacecraft - resupply vehicle
European (ESA) Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) - resupply vehicle
Currently docked As of 2008-06-11:
Soyuz TMA-12 is at the Pirs nadir port
Jules Verne (ATV-001) is at the Zvezda aft port[39]
Progress M-64 is at the Zarya nadir port
Planned
Japanese (JAXA) H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) resupply vehicle for Kibo module (scheduled for 2009)
American (NASA) Orion for possible crew rotation and as resupply transporter (officially scheduled for 2014)
Proposed
SpaceX Dragon for NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (Scheduled for 2009)
Russian (Roskosmos) Space Shuttle Kliper for possible crew rotation and as resupply transporter (cancelled)
European-Russian Crew Space Transportation System (Soyuz-derived) crew rotation and resupply spacecraft (scheduled for 2014)
An additional spacecraft, the K-1 Vehicle manufactured by Rocketplane Kistler, was proposed as part of the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, and was scheduled to fly in 2009. On October 18, 2007, NASA discontinued its agreement with Rocketplane Kistler after the company couldn't secure further financing and didn't meet a critical design review for the pressurized cargo module. NASA then announced that the remaining $175 million commitment to the project would be made available to other companies. On 19 February 2008, NASA awarded Orbital Sciences Corporation with the remaining $170 million to develop its Cygnus spacecraft for the COTS program.
If we had our act together, the first thing we would do would be to pump a billion or two into expanding the Rocket Racing people's planned races into more vehicle types, thus effectively funding lots of fast work to develop better technologies without having to manage squat. The next would be to have a thousand people or so taking every possible document about space-related technology, including maintenance protocols that NASA's got and bloody well put them into web-accessable PDFs. Will this mean a few more billion buying rights from aerospace firms? Yes. This is their final payment for many of those technologies; from here on in that tech is being open-sourced. They've been paid enough already and afaic they haven't done any too good a job of it.
We don't need yet another centralized, sixties-style project to develop a vessel. We need just the kind of diverse and open approach that the rest of out here beyond the defense/aerospace sealed up culture use very day.
I don't dispute that getting humans to space and back is serious business, but it's also something we've been doing for decades now.
We have plenty of possibilities. We just need to do a rational job of exploiting them.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Getting ESA to shoulder more of the burden? Greenhouses? I couldn't agree more. In theory. How do you suggest actually getting that done? How does one get the fractious, miserly, feuding Europeans to actually get that sort of things done? Or, for that matter, Japan?
You show me a battle plan and I'll climb aboard. But for now I'll just continue paying my NSS dues, encourage local kids to get into space-related stuff (spent about fifty bucks and about three hours on that in the past month), and stick to what I can see in front of me.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
The problem will be that the $4B or whatever will come out of Ares project. Gov't has been stingy with NASA and regardless of your opinion of NASA (I respect all views, honestly, I do work for NASA but have a lot of friends who have valid criticisms of the beast, it is a gov't entity after all), it is a lot more efficient, per dollar, than most government agencies when you look at buying power.
Sadly though it's underfunded when you compare to other agencies, and again compare accomplishments. That $4B, I guarantee you, will come from Ares project dollars, not new funding, if this becomes reality, which further sets back Ares. So we dig our hole deeper, and deeper, and deeper still.
People mention COTS - COTS is great, or will be great, when the COTS members prove they can do it. SpaceX is 0 for 3. I am confident they will hit space, but until they can prove reliability we can't just rely on them as the primary source. We have to see a few Dragon modules go up and dock with ISS, and come back with minor, if any, hitches.