Crew For Final Scheduled Space Shuttle Mission Selected

Toren Altair writes "NASA has assigned the crew for the last scheduled space shuttle mission, targeted to launch in September 2010. The flight to the International Space Station will carry a pressurized logistics module to the station. Veteran shuttle commander and retired Air Force Col. Steven W. Lindsey will command the eight-day mission, designated STS-133. Air Force Col. Eric A. Boe will serve as the pilot; it will be his second flight as a shuttle pilot. Mission Specialists are shuttle mission veteran Air Force Col. Benjamin Alvin Drew, Jr., and long-duration spaceflight veterans Michael R. Barratt, Army Col. Timothy L. Kopra and Nicole P. Stott." Reader Al points out other NASA news that the space agency's engineers have been testing a sleek new lunar rover that will be part of their eventual return to the moon. A video of the rover in action has been posted as well.

Comments

Darn.

[epedersen]

I was hoping they would pick me, but the didn't. Darn.

Re:Darn.

[sopssa]

The interesting thing now, as the "space race" seems to be ending with usa, is who will take the lead with space exploration. chinese, russians or private companies?

Re:Darn.

[maxume]

Another option would be no one.

Re:Darn.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the shuttle explodes we can all finally say:

"Darn, this was her last mission before retirement."

Re:Darn.

[kestasjk]

The "space race" ended with the fall of the soviet union. Now scientific equipment built in Europe is sent up in a Japanese rocket, plucked out of space by a Russian robotic arm and docked onto a US docking hold. Far more nations have space programs, all doing different things (even India is making contributions to lunar science these days), all collaborating, and the US too is preparing a new generation of space-ships.

So yes the space race is long dead, but space exploration is booming like never before. There are less big things like landing on the moon, but make no mistake space exploration is so much more important than getting a human onto another lump of rock and getting him quickly back.

Re:Darn.

[sopssa]

However it seems like theres lots of interest and activity in private space flights currently:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_companies

Interesting article about them

Several other small private aerospace companies not competing for Ansari X Prize are also making news. According to Aviation Week, Bigelow Aerospace, who are developing inflatable space modules, plan to announce shortly the creation of yet another prize competition, this one for $50 million, called Americaâ(TM)s Space Prize that will go to whoever develops a spacecraft that will service their inflatable space modules.

And yet another company, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX), plan to launch their first partly reusable rocket Falcon 1 early next year. In developing their space program, SpaceX has created new technology, which they claim allows them to reduce the cost of launch four times lower than their nearest competitor and increase reliability.

This along with Tickets On Sale In Sweden For Space Tourism, Starting In 2012.

Re:Darn.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are, or were, a full-bird colonel, I bet your chances would've been better:

retired Air Force Col. Steven W. Lindsey
Air Force Col. Eric A. Boe
veteran Air Force Col. Benjamin Alvin Drew, Jr.
Army Col. Timothy L. Kopra

4/6 have their chicken wings !

Re:Darn.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

But they don't have the time to train the seven politicians necessary to astronauts.

Re:Darn.

[sadler121]

What are you talking about 7, I'm sure we can cram 536 (Congress 534 + President and Vice President) politicians on the last shuttle flight, and then have it explode.

536, cause I think it is safe to say most /.ers would want to keep Ron Paul around...

Re:Darn.

[dryeo]

Actually that is a Canadian robotic arm.

Re:Darn.

[tverbeek]

Um... if the entire line of presidential succession, plus Congress except Ron Paul is going to be killed in a freak Shuttle accident... I want to be the one to go in his place. I love him for his counterbalancing influence on the government we have; I would not want to live in a country where he was the government.

Re:Darn.

[kestasjk]

Yeah I just made a guess with that part up to be honest, the one part I wasn't sure about. :x Thanks for the correction

Re:Darn.

[sebaseba]

And russian rocket.

Re:Darn.

[Neon Aardvark]

So yes the space race is long dead, but space exploration is booming like never before.

Space exploration isn't pissing around in low Earth orbit. Which is what humanity has done for the past 37 years.

Re:Darn.

[lul_wat]

And my axe!

Re:Darn.

[internettoughguy]

Fuck Ron Paul, we all want Dennis Kucinich.

Re:Darn.

[jamstar7]

Um, no, you don't wanna do that, and here's why...

Presidential succession goes from Prez to VP, to Speaker of the House, to President Pro Tempore of the Senate, to Secretary of State. Now, if we loaded the Prez, VP, & all the Congresscritters up on the Shuttle & blow it up, the 'next one standing' is Hillary Clinton.

So, think very carefully about that idea...

Re:Darn.

[kestasjk]

Nope Japanese, I wasn't guessing there

Re:Darn.

[kestasjk]

It's a relatively poor country dumbass, the fact that you think they're inherently more efficient at certain things makes you the racist, not me.

Re:Darn.

[kestasjk]

If you think we've been "pissing around" you're too ignorant to be worth discussing space exploration with

Re:Darn.

[lab16]

Just make sure not to send any telephone cleaners up there with the politicians. We may need them later.

Re:Darn.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Now that America is officially a dead nation...

The rich that destroyed the US Economy and middle class will use the money to make rockets in china.

Re:Darn.

[palegray.net]

Indians are more efficient at technical jobs like software engineering

Really? I suppose it depends on the target industry sector you're talking about, and how much you care about the quality of the end product. While India enjoys a reputation for low cost development in terms of outsourced hourly rates, that reputation does not extend to the quality and usability of the systems produced in many cases. Thus, the actual delivery time and total project cost winds up being grossly miscalculated at the outset.

Note that this doesn't have anything to do with intelligence, but it does have a lot to do with communication barriers with customers (a problem not reserved for Indian firms; it's common to projects outsourced to other nations as well). Unfortunately, that's a tough problem to solve, as it's not merely technical in nature.

Incidentally, I find your assertion that Indians are inherently "better" at software engineering to be rather racist.

Re:Darn.

[Ihmhi]

Indeed it is. You can tell because it has a hockey stick attachment for knocking away meteoroids and space beavers.

Re:Darn.

[lennier]

"Space exploration isn't pissing around in low Earth orbit. Which is what humanity has done for the past 37 years."

Got a warp drive?

Because without one, there's nowhere much we *can* go that's got a human-friendly biosphere.

In the meantime, we've been sending robots to lots of robot-friendly places and getting lots of nice data back.

from the make-it-memorable dept.

[Angstroem]

Hopefully not memorable like Challenger or Columbia.

Re:from the make-it-memorable dept.

[Jugalator]

Killjoy! Here I was hoping they would end with a bang. :-(

Re:from the make-it-memorable dept.

[kestasjk]

Of over 100 missions 2 disasters isn't too bad, it much better than Apollo and no-one brings up the failures of Apollo whenever it's mentioned like they do with the Shuttle.. It's a shame people will remember the Shuttle for the disasters and not for the triumphs, I don't think the astronauts who died would have wanted it this way (imho).

Re:from the make-it-memorable dept.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Today, with mixed crews, that would be no problem even without an explosion.

Re:from the make-it-memorable dept.

[DerekLyons]

Of over 100 missions 2 disasters isn't too bad, it much better than Apollo and no-one brings up the failures of Apollo whenever it's mentioned like they do with the Shuttle.

For that matter, other than the Apollo 1 fire and the Apollo 13 fire/explosion (and maybe the computer faults on 11) - most people aren't even aware of the multitude and magnitude of the failures experienced during Apollo.
 
For example:

• Apollo 13 - severe POGO vibration came within seconds of reaching a magnitude sufficient to destroy the launch vehicle, averted only because the vibration caused the center J2 engine on the S-II stage to fail and shutdown.
   
  Severe vibration were also encountered on 11 and 12 but never reached dangerous levels. A fix was available in time for 13's flight, but management elected not to delay the flight to retrofit the fix into the booster.
   
• Apollo 14
  • Docking mechanism failure after Trans Lunar Injection. Contrary to mission rules, the flight controllers directed the crew to 'brute force' the docking risking severe damage to the CM and LM.
     
  • Loss of Landing Radar. In violation of mission rules, crew continued with landing.
• Apollo 15 - During landing, one parachute failed to deploy.
   
• Apollo 16 - While in lunar orbit, it was discovered that the primary wiring harness for the SM's main propulsion system was damaged and inoperable. Despite a mission rule requiring an immediate mission abort and return to Earth, management and controllers elected to continue with the mission.
   
• Skylab IV (Carr, Pogue, Gibson) - leaking tanks in the SM nearly caused the mission to be cut short. Management elected instead to make preparation to use the standby rescue vehicle.
   
• Apollo Soyuz Test Project - During landing, crew error resulting in filling the cockpit with toxic fumes from fuel being vented from the reaction control system. The crew managed to vent the spacecraft, postflight investigations show that gas levels just shy of lethal were reached in the cockpit.

Re:from the make-it-memorable dept.

[Kell Bengal]

You make an excellent point.

Arguably, the STS program has contributed more to space science than Apollo did. Not to say that we didn't learn many useful and valuable things from Apollo, but Apollo was about a destination, STS was about doing useful stuff in space. We'll reap the benefits from both for a long time to come.

I personally believe that the loss of astronauts and cosmonauts in the last 50 years has not gone in vain. They gave their lives for their country, their countrymen, their planet and for science. Because of them we have global satellite communications, GPS, advanced materials, highly developed engineering, improved cosmology and a vision of the heavens we only dreamed of.

They knew the risks and they took them gladly - they are heros, every last one of them.

Re:from the make-it-memorable dept.

[frieko]

While I agree that the Shuttle gets a bad rap on safety, the fact that in 32 manned flights, Apollo, Mercury and Gemini lost just one crew and zero vehicles is pretty remarkable.

Don't worry, I'm sure in time the shuttle will be remembered as a white elephant rather than a death trap ;)

Re:from the make-it-memorable dept.

[WindBourne]

What that shows more about the NASA of old, is that they made choices that were gutsy and capable of killing their crew. The new NASA regularly makes similar choices and it has not always panned out (IOW, the new NASA is not that indifferent from the old NASA). But it also shows that we need to take some chances. I forget who said it, but that we NEED to kill some ppl every so often, or it is a sign that we are not pushing ourselves hard enough. More importantly, we need to NOT be afraid of this. Life is great, but SOME things are worth giving it up for. And pushing into space is one of them.

Re:from the make-it-memorable dept.

[WindBourne]

Even more amazing is that the shuttle has a rate of about 1 in 65.

Re:from the make-it-memorable dept.

[sconeu]

Gemini 8 had the crew closer to death than did Apollo 13.

Re:from the make-it-memorable dept.

[sconeu]

Don't forget - Apollo 12, struck by lightning on launch.
Gemini 8, near fatal spin. Armstrong and Scott came damn close to blacking out, which would essentially have been a death sentence.

Re:from the make-it-memorable dept.

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree that the Shuttle gets a bad rap on safety, the fact that in 32 manned flights, Apollo, Mercury and Gemini lost just one crew and zero vehicles is pretty remarkable.

What? If you're counting flights, zero crews were lost and one space vehicle was lost.

The Apollo 1 crew was lost on the launch pad during a test, not in flight.

The second Mercury flight (Liberty Bell 7) sank soon after splashdown.

Re:from the make-it-memorable dept.

[khallow]

Ignoring for a moment, the dubious value of "space science", it's worth noting that the only real space science, the launching of the "Great Observatories" like Hubble Space Telescope, did not require the Shuttle's unique features (other than payload size). My view is that the contribution to astrogeology and knowledge of the early Solar System by Apollo is comparable to the scientific output of the Great Observatories.

Once we get past the Great Observatories, there really isn't much contribution to space science from the Shuttle. I guess it's next greatest value would be as a demonstration of space assembly techniques through the construction of the ISS.

As I hint in the first sentence, I think the value of space science has been greatly exaggerated. It makes little sense to spend two or more orders of magnitude for scientific work that could have been done on Earth (which is the state of a considerable fraction of ISS research in my view). Let us also keep in mind that we could have spent significantly less for an ISS-class space station by removing the dependency on the Shuttle and by removing the Russians from critical path segments of the ISS. To be blunt, most of what the ISS did, could have been done by a MIR-class station with better logistics.

Finally, it's worth noting, again, that we stopped doing anything serious in human space flight once we had the Shuttle. Key issues that we need to know, like what are the effects of low (not zero) gravity on the human body? How to store and transport propellant in space?

Thank you for playing

[tverbeek]

Those would-be astronauts who were not chosen are welcome to join the crews of Apollo 18, 19, and 20 in the lounge, where they will receive some lovely parting gifts.

For the first time in almost 50 years...

[Viol8]

... the USA won't have the ability to put its own astronauts into orbit by choice (as opposed to by circumstance after shuttle accidents).

Way to go NASA.

*sigh*

Re:For the first time in almost 50 years...

[CRCulver]

You mean "Way to go, Congress that has no closed the pursestrings so tight that even developing nations look like they have better prospects for manned spaceflight."

Re:For the first time in almost 50 years...

[Darkness404]

While NASA doesn't have the greatest track record, I'm not sure if we can blame NASA for all these problems. NASA's budget is getting tighter and tighter every year. In general the shuttle program was a failure, it failed to really cut costs or be any more reliable than Russia's space program and even though it did do some neat and useful things such as the space telescope, it really couldn't do more than that. If we want to have people back on the moon again, we need to make some new rockets, something we should have been developing during the lifetime of the shuttle, but we haven't. After Colombia, NASA started developing rockets, but it was too little too late.

Re:For the first time in almost 50 years...

[Idiomatick]

To be fair human kind hasn't left low earth orbit since December 1972.

Way to go lack of public interest and dwindling funding.

*sigh*

Re:For the first time in almost 50 years...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Uhm, wasn't there a six-year window in US manned spaceflights after the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975? And the world did not end.

Re:For the first time in almost 50 years...

[dryeo]

There was a long stretch between the end of Apollo and the first Shuttle where America didn't have the capability of getting an astronaut to orbit.

Re:For the first time in almost 50 years...

[smoker2]

Unless you are significantly over 30 you won't realise what you're saying. 6 years is 6 wasted years. When you reach 40 you see that 1 year is nothing. Time speeds by, and nobody does anything ! Oh to be young and have all the time in the world. I just hope you do have the time you need. Don't expect me to stop pushing though ...

Re:For the first time in almost 50 years...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I don't expect you to stop doing anything. Wasted years? Some of the finest results came from the efforts that NASA made during this period, namely the Viking and Voyager probes. I do realize what I am saying. It is shameful that NASA has had no coherent vision of manned spaceflight technology since 1974 or so (no, I do not consider STS an overall succesful program, not with the eventual costs, as opposed to the original predictions), and it seems to me that market-driven companies like SpaceX, forced to squeeze down costs for launches as low as possible and willing to risk a little bit are the best option this planet has at this very moment. At least, they are a team of bright and highly motivated people. :-)

Too bad "Cash for Clunkers" has ended...

[HouseOfMisterE]

...they could have traded the Shuttle in towards a nice Hybrid.

The crew should be VERY afraid!

[NoYob]

"Last scheduled mission"

That's is always how it starts. The last scheduled missions are always the ones that get lost in black holes, freak accidents where they get frozen or some such then they all appear in the future with every one being apes or something or thrust into another dimension.

I DON'T want to be them! Something's going to happen!

Re:The crew should be VERY afraid!

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? It would be awesome to have something like that happen.

Re:The crew should be VERY afraid!

[Kufat]

I just hope that nobody on the crew is only 3 days away from retirement.

Re:The crew should be VERY afraid!

[dotgain]

In fact, one of them already is a retired colonel, so they should be safe.

Re:The crew should be VERY afraid!

[orangesquid]

As we all learned from the documentary Event Horizon [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119081/], the scientific data recovered has to be destroyed in order to save any remaining personnel, and the emotional and physical effects on crewmembers traveling through "unusual" regions of time or space involves hematemesis, self-disfiguration by manual removal of the eyeballs and subsequent severing of the optic nerve bundles and cauterization and suturing of the eyelids, and mumbling in classical Latin while having a sore throat. Unfortunately, you can find these conditions at hospitals, so there's really no benefit to experiencing the psychoses involved.

Re:The crew should be VERY afraid!

[elrous0]

I heard the black one was showing pictures of his new boat to one of the other guys on the mission and saying "When we come back from this one, me and the wife are retiring to the islands."

Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[Hawthorne01]

Now if we only had a rocket to get it to the moon...

Re:Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[kestasjk]

It's called the Ares V, and it too is still under development

Re:Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[jamstar7]

It's called the Ares V, and it too is still under development

Not if Congress has its way. It'll get the ax in favor of more entitlements for the rich & not famous.

Robert Heinlein once said that humans will colonise space, but not to count on them speaking American English.

Re:Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[kestasjk]

Well I'm not a US citizen so I have no say in that, but I think the Constellation program will pull through

Re:Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[jamstar7]

I am a US citizen, so the cutbacks really piss me off.

Re:Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[FleaPlus]

Now if we only had a rocket to get it to the moon...

Um, there's plenty of US rockets available to get it to the Moon, just none built by NASA. It's also worth noting that all of the non-NASA rockets cost less than a billion dollars to develop, compared to the >$35 billion projected development cost for NASA's competing Ares I, which will have nearly identical capabilities to its competitors:

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/deltaiv.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_IV
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/atlasv.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/falcon9.htm

Re:Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[camperdave]

Ares V? That'll never fly. It's way too expensive.

Ares V is supposed to be shuttle derived, however not a single major part is transferrable between the shuttle and Ares V. It uses a 10 metre diameter external fuel tank instead of the shuttle's 8.4m external tank (ET). The equipment in the factory that makes the ET cannot handle that diameter. So the entire factory needs to be re-tooled. The barge that is used to transfer the tank from the factory to the vehicle assembly building also cannot handle that diameter and will need to be replaced. The RS68B is not man rated. It hasn't even been built yet, let alone test fired. Instead of using the same four segment SRBs as the shuttle, Ares will be using a 5.5 segment solid rocket booster. The extra segment and a half means that the pressure inside the SRB is greater, and that means a redesign of the nozzles. This monster of a rocket barely fits into the Vehicle Assembly Building. As such, it cannot be used for tall payloads. It weighs so much that the crawlers cannot carry it, nor can the roadways that the crawlers use to transport the rocket from the VAB to the launch pad. They will both need upgrading. Similarly the launch pads themselves cannot handle the weight. They too will need upgrading.

On the other hand, Direct's Jupiter launch vehicle uses the same engines as the shuttle. It uses the same four segment SRBs as the shuttle. It uses pretty much the same external tank as the shuttle (the conical nose being replaced by a blunt nose. All of the major components already have years of flight history. All of the components can be made at existing facilities using existing tooling. In fact, the Jupiter rockets can co-exist with the shuttles. By stretching out the shuttle program, the workforce at the existing plants can be maintained. There is no need for a gap in manned spaceflight capability. The J-130 has the capacity to lift three Orions. By adding an upper stage, a pair of Jupiters can lift as much as the Ares I / Ares V combo. Since going to the moon under either plan would require two launches, you get more mass to the moon using Jupiters than the Ares I/V. The only differences being that the Jupiters would cost less, be safer, and be ready sooner.

Re:Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[kestasjk]

Then why are they going with Ares V?

Re:Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[camperdave]

I have no clue. It doesn't make any sense to me. You have a heavy lift system in the STS/shuttle. It can loft the 70 metric ton orbiter plus a 25mt payload into Low Earth Orbit. If you remove the shuttle from the equation, you get a 95mt launcher, however you'd be missing the shuttle's engines. Once you add them back in, in a thrust structure under the external tank, and add a payload fairing at the top, you're down to about 65mt of payload. That's enough for a fully fueled Orion crew module (approx 22mt) and about 40mt of extra payload. The Direct team also have planned a shuttle-like payload cradle, which matches all of the mounting points of the current shuttle payload bay. It could weigh as much as 15mt and would be capable of lofting any payload the current shuttle can, and could even have a Canadarm. It just wouldn't be able to return any payload. (It should be noted that the payload return capabilities of the shuttle have rarely been used.)

It should be noted that Ares could eventually be made to work. It's just that by ignoring the shuttle/STS heritage, they are forced to design too many systems from scratch.

Re:Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[camperdave]

The other thing I don't get is the pro-NASA, anti-Direct attitude on Slashdot. On every other topic the crowd here is anti-Proprietary, Pro-Open-Source, yet when you point out that a bunch of NASA engineers and industry personnel band together in their spare time and essentially put together an "open source" launch vehicle which has been independently verified in terms of capabilities, engineering, budget, etc. you get downmodded. It's The Cathedral and the Bazaar NASA style, and Slashdot is a community of the faithful.

Re:Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[kestasjk]

As I understand it the "Direct" thing has gone through several revisions now as problems were pointed out by NASA engineers.
Also many people say "no not Direct, go for Jupiter or any number of competing designs. Among the unfaithful there are so many bazaars all selling such different things that any individual competitor's impact is diminished.

When the people who built the Shuttle tell me they think the Ares V is the way to go that carries a lot of credibility.
If Carmack says he has a great rocket, no matter how open its designs are, he'll have to work a lot harder to win me over.

And I imagine I'd be much more willing to take a risk than a congressman.

Re:Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if we only had a rocket to get it to the moon...

Um, there's plenty of US rockets available to get it to the Moon, just none built by NASA. It's also worth noting that all of the non-NASA rockets cost less than a billion dollars to develop, compared to the >$35 billion projected development cost for NASA's competing Ares I, which will have nearly identical capabilities to its competitors:

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/deltaiv.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_IV
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/atlasv.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/falcon9.htm

You mean the Ares I that is being built by ATK and Boeing? Oh, wait, those are private companies too. In fact, Boeing is also responsible for two of the "private" rockets on your list. Of course, the Atlas rocket is a descendant of something developed for the military, so the private company didn't have to do the basic groundwork there, and the Delta was itself modified from the original Thor ballistic missile, another government project. Both have obviously changed since then, a great deal, actually. That's normal and good, but it's always the initial design work that's hard and hideously expensive.

Typical privatization freaks: the business plan always includes getting someone else to pay for the R&D, the infrastructure, the airport, the stadium, whatever. In this case, let the government pay for and perhaps do the original research, then profit off that work for years to come. In a way, that's all right--I don't want the government in the private satellite launch business any more than anybody else, and somebody's got to do it. I'm relatively pleased that despite some spectacular failures of their own, that they're using proven designs that were at least initially supervised by somebody with an eye twoards something other than the bottom line. It's just that when people talk about how superior private companies are in every single way all the time to any public venture, it might help to know what the hell you're talking about.

Oh, and while we're at it: how about giving NASA a budget that actually corresponds with what we want them to do? If you told me to go to the moon and gave me chump change to do it with, I'd do exactly what they're doing--go back and try to re-invent what worked once before. Innovation costs money--it did then, and it will now.

Re:Great! We got a slick lunar rover!

[FleaPlus]

You mean the Ares I that is being built by ATK and Boeing? Oh, wait, those are private companies too. In fact, Boeing is also responsible for two of the "private" rockets on your list.

You really need to read up on the contracting process behind the Ares I and how it's fundamentally different from things like the EELVs.

Col. Lindsey has been getting picked last since...

[Anonymous Coward]

5th grade dodgeball.

This crew

[jamstar7]

... seems to be a bunch of hangers on at Kennedy getting their last ride up. Per the article, they're mostly NASA management types with a semirookie pilot. I wouldn't expect any science from these guys, I'm thinking they're up there for the photo opportunities.

And yeah I'm bitter that they didn't pick me.

Re:This crew

[nolesrule]

Not really. Many astronauts get assigned that sort of managerial duty between flight assignments. You gotta keep them busy when they aren't training for a flight. Three of them are recent/current residents of the ISS.

As for science, it's not a science flight. In fact, the last science flight was STS-107. It's a final delivery flight to the station. So the crew composition makes sense for the tasks.

Re:This crew

[jamstar7]

Not really. Many astronauts get assigned that sort of managerial duty between flight assignments.

Middle management, yeah. But not department heads. Col Lindsey is chief of the Astronaut's Office. Col Drew is currently Director of Operations at Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center at Astrograd.

Back to the dark ages...

[WoollyMittens]

America's fall from grace, causes humanity's fall from space. Will all progress be backwards from now on?

Re:Back to the dark ages...

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on if we keep putting Democrats in office...

Re:Back to the dark ages...

[MrMista_B]

Nope.

China and India will own the stars.

Re:Back to the dark ages...

[Anonymous Coward]

Will all progress be backwards from now on?

Well, America leaving space, I would actually dare to call that a progress...

Progess

[Wowsers]

Retiring the Shuttle programe is called technological progress!?! Look at us mere mortals still flying supersonically in Concorde. Oh wait, now we all have to use slow subsonic 747's and Airbus'. THAT'S progress for you.

Re:Progess

[zach_the_lizard]

Look at us mere mortals still flying supersonically in Concorde. Oh wait, now we all have to use slow subsonic 747's and Airbus'. THAT'S progress for you.

Just because we are capable of supersonic flight doesn't necessarily mean it is viable economically. Let's use cars for example.

Many cars nowadays can reach speeds in the 100+ mph range. Few of us ever reach those speeds in a car, and even fewer of us manage to make long trips at that speed. Sure, it'd be nice, but the fuel/tire/maintenance costs at that speed might not make it worthwhile for most people.

I think the Concorde would have done much better if random people here in the States hadn't complained about noise and such. This is akin, for cars, to roads having speed limits and having to incur the (hefty) fines that would be incurred driving at high speeds. I don't think the noise would've been a problem. But then again, I also have lived on an Air Force base for most of my life, and am quite accustomed to aircraft noises. After a while, you just tune them out (save for the loud Navy jets).

Re:Progess

[couchslug]

Technological progress doesn't always equal "going faster".

We don't _need_ supersonic aircraft for passenger use, the public didn't want to pay for it, so Concorde is history. We need to haul people in bulk at low cost per seat, low fuel expense, and with as little pollution as practical.

We don't _need_ to hurry putting _people_ in space, because the rest of our supporting technology can be developed less expensively (and without the loss-multiplier effect when expensive manned systems crash). We do _need_ robots and to develop remotely-manned systems for use on and off-world. Never send a human to do a machines job. Just as we use ROVs under the ocean because the environment is hostile and they are cheaper than manned systems, so we should deal with space exploration. The purpose of space exploration is to learn about the universe. The purpose of human sustainment experiments is only to learn how to sustain humans. These things are not the same.

The commercial world will eventually develop ways to send rich tourists to space, which is perfectly appropriate.
NASA should be doing pure research, not romantic tourism. So what if other countries put up more people sooner? We do the very same thing they did with our previous research and exploit it later.

Re:Progess

[TheTurtlesMoves]

In a way it is. We, joe public, want cheap airfares and only cheap airfares. So expensive planes like the Concorde were no long a good long term investment (supersonic flight is always going to cost more fuel than subsonic). The development is that almost anyone, and almost everyone in the western world now travels all over the world. Its no long just the rich jet setters... *Thats progress*!

The shuttle costs ~500M per flight... Thats one expensive first class ticket.... Getting back to normal people is what we want... I think.. And that mean no room for a flying elephant.

Re:Progess

[jabithew]

We don't _need_ supersonic aircraft for passenger use, the public didn't want to pay for it, so Concorde is history.

That, and the fact that it was banned from flying supersonically over the US (ostensibly for environmental reasons), reducing the number of routes it could take dramatically, and the fact that it had that crash in Paris. Plus it was an Anglo-French project and the British and French flag-carriers were the only ones who could ever be persuaded to fly the damn things.

Re:Progess

[smoker2]

Not "that and" anything. Concorde had one crash, ever, a good 20 odd years after the stupid woman in NY complained about the noise. You wouldn't hear it over the cars these days. Concorde was making a profit. Politics took that bird down, the same as every other British technological advance since the US became the saviour of the human race. Our rocketry was part of the space race, our technology and innovation helped create satellites, manned rockets, computers and the atom bomb, and yet here we are buying shit from the US of A. So much for trans-atlantic cooperation. We cooperate, you sell us the results. cheers. 10 to 1 the next supersonic airplane looks just like concorde. I wonder if we'll get royalties ?

Re:Progess

[smoker2]

I hate to break it to you but people were taking package holidays on jets way before Concorde first flew. Cheap air fares are not a result of the failure of concorde. Concorde was profitable, and it was only the decision of the airframe maintainers that lead to its withdrawal from service. Not because it was unsafe, but because it was old and politically unsound. It may have cost 5000 to fly on concorde, but that was because there were only a few of them. If there had been hundreds, then the per flight cost would have been much lower. It was not 5000 in fuel per person. It was 5000 because there were only 100 seats per flight. You pay for the privilege. I thought that was why we wanted ubiquitous space flight, to bring the price down. At this rate you'll treat it the same as Concorde and give up because it costs too much with only 2 shuttles. Oh wait ...

Re:Progess

[jabithew]

I'm British too, before you start blaming me for the ills of our relationship with America!

Concorde had one crash, but flew so few flights with so few people that statistically it was more dangerous than the 747. In addition, the safety record was blemished by other major incidents that were hushed up by the airlines and airports. I know this sounds like a conspiracy, but my source on this was Private Eye at the time, who pointed out that Concorde had previously suffered the same problem as caused the Paris crash.

BA was the only liner to operate it at a profit, and even that is not certain as they didn't publish separate accounts for the service. The stats I've seen say £0.05b on £1b costs, which meant that the aircraft performed slightly worse than the average UK cash-only savings account at the time, with much higher risks. They only really made money in the boom years; not surprising as they're currently struggling to make sub-sonic business class work. As couchslug points out, people didn't want to pay for the service; it wasn't high enough value to justify the costs to them.

One other factor brought Concorde down; Airbus were going to stop maintaining it after 2003.

I think the prestige of Concorde was the only thing keeping it in the air; the economics and usefulness of it were pretty marginal. The cool-factor was eroded at the Paris crash, and it started to look more like a dangerous piece of out-dated machinery than the ultra-modern jet it started off as, which meant that airlines were no longer willing to tolerate the poor returns on it as a sort of loss-leader.

Re:Progess

[TheTurtlesMoves]

They never got close to recouping R&D cost on the Concorde. Not even slightly. The French and British governments footed that bill.

Flying was becoming "common" in the 60s, but it wasn't till the late 60s that the "common" man was flying anywhere over a decent stretch of water. It was still expensive. In the 80s my Father flew often to LA from NZ. It cost about 2000NZD. Today you can get the same flight for about the same price. Considering inflation, its *much* cheaper to fly these days. And thats the market. I haven't seen a 1st class section in a long haul flight for a while now. I have even been on 1 or 2 flights that didn't have a business section.

Re:Progess

[khallow]

We don't _need_ supersonic aircraft for passenger use, the public didn't want to pay for it, so Concorde is history. We need to haul people in bulk at low cost per seat, low fuel expense, and with as little pollution as practical.

That's not the correct lesson. The public was willing to pay for faster service, it wasn't willing to pay enough to generate sufficient profit (I gather not enough to cover costs even) for Concorde. That's not the same as "didn't want to pay for it". Suppose hypothetically that a next generation supersonic transport has exactly the same costs per seat as a 747 and similar quality of service. Are people going to pay a little extra to cost significant time off of their long flights? Yes. The problem was simply that the vehicle had too much extra cost per seat for the perceived benefit.

And I doubt pollution or fuel expense plays even a remote part in purchasing decisions of the flying public. They're far more interested in price per seat, service, and duration of the trip.

We don't _need_ to hurry putting _people_ in space, because the rest of our supporting technology can be developed less expensively (and without the loss-multiplier effect when expensive manned systems crash). We do _need_ robots and to develop remotely-manned systems for use on and off-world. Never send a human to do a machines job. Just as we use ROVs under the ocean because the environment is hostile and they are cheaper than manned systems, so we should deal with space exploration. The purpose of space exploration is to learn about the universe. The purpose of human sustainment experiments is only to learn how to sustain humans. These things are not the same.

The purpose of space exploration is learn about the Solar System in order to prepare for eventual permanent human habitation of these new environments. Human sustainment experiments are a necessary precondition as well. My view is that there is no fundamental technology barrier (though conversely technology might provide the solutions to problems I complain about later on) at this time to human habitation of space. It is purely economic with the key problem being lack of economic opportunities in space for a manned presence.

The commercial world will eventually develop ways to send rich tourists to space, which is perfectly appropriate. NASA should be doing pure research, not romantic tourism. So what if other countries put up more people sooner? We do the very same thing they did with our previous research and exploit it later.

I see no real problem with this except that I think generic space research is overrated. We have a crippling need for something to do in space. Perhaps that can satisfied through technological advances or through finding out what is really out there. But it might just be a matter of launching enough rich guys into orbit.

Cue voice over

[rossdee]

"Space, the Final frontier...

Its last mission, to Boldly go where no man will go again.

YARRRRR

[Iamthecheese]

Avast ye scurvy unbelever, NASA has plans for some of the finest ships to sail the voids! Ye may think that the budget flounders but by God she'll settle straight yet! When America's budgetary concerns pick up this not having money blarney will sink and her captain keelhauled, and cash will flow from the grand admiral's treasury! ye haven't seen anything like the ships that will sail when the economic blow heads south and the seas are smooth again. Avast I say!

I have the feeling....

[vought]

This is not how the Face of Boe got his name.

Or maybe so.

The rover is cool and real

[Vadim Makarov]

Viewing the rover video has convinced me the US will go throuh with this space program. Real work, real schedules, real tests, capable technology. I wish NASA and the US all the best with the upcoming establishment of the lunar base.

Re:The rover is cool and real

[jamstar7]

Viewing the rover video has convinced me the US will go through with this space program. Real work, real schedules, real tests, capable technology. I wish NASA and the US all the best with the upcoming establishment of the lunar base.

Viewing the Congresscritters in office at the moment, I tend to believe that it won't go through. The 'Spacer' faction is just too small to defend the budgets.

What Shuttle could have given us was a delivery of a couple 'transfer stations', modular components for a small station to build 'lunar ferries' to build a fucking colony via the earth orbital rendevous flight profile. The crew would dock and transfer to a ferry in Earth orbit, fly it to the Moon and land in it, do the mission, then return to Earth orbit, dock with the landing capsual, transfer back, and leave the lunar ferry in orbit for the next lunar mission.

Now, park the lunar ferries (say, 3 or 4 of them) at a transfer station itself, built from components, and big enough to 'wetdock' a ferry to do any needed repairs or upgrades for the next set of flights as well as science on any samples, etc. I'm thinking we coulda done this for a few measly billion...

'analog' environment?

[Traf-O-Data-Hater]

Didn't he really mean analogous environment, as in 'our desert terrain and texture is analogous to the surface of the moon'. Or did he mean the moon isn't really digital after all?

Retirement?

[srothroc]

So what happens to those astronauts after this? They've got training and a skillset that has essentially been forced into obsolescence. Will NASA sell the shuttles to other countries and then perhaps those countries will bring in astronauts as consultants? Will the astronauts continue to go up, affiliated with NASA, but guests in other countries' programs as we have had guests in ours? Or will they sign on with private programs to help/lend their experience (Are they even allowed, or is there a non-compete agreement with NASA or something of the like?)? Or will they simply retire and fade away?

Re:Retirement?

[beckett]

There are always openings at the Astronaut Ice Cream plant. i think nowadays you can just show your flight patch and they'll give you at least an interview.

Hi Mr Armstrong this is OnStar

[beckett]

it's interesting how both the Moon and the Earth will be getting electric vehicles at about the same time. That first lunar dealership will have a tough time with initial sales, but it should pick up when moon people realise it's one of the few places to get oxygen too.

Re:Hi Mr Armstrong this is OnStar

[camperdave]

Will be getting? Learn some history. The Moon had electric vehicles back in the 1970s with the lunar rovers. Of course, Earth had electric vehicles back in the 1830s.

Call me sexist but...

[FlyingGuy]

Nicole P. Stott - Uhm, oh yes indeed.

FULLY qualified, smart, intelligent and yet still Saaaamokin!

Re:Call me sexist but...

[sconeu]

Arr! And she be just my age, too!

Space exploration has been happening...

[Antarctic Pirates]

What's with the "space race is over, now it's time for the space exploration race"? We've been exploration space for decades, people. 'Exploration' does not SPECIFICALLY mean going out into space and physically exploring it with our bodies. Exploration is gaining a better understanding of something through scientific means (such as space probes, cameras, satellites, and robots), which is something that is not at all new. The race that will be starting would be more of a "who can land a dude on another planet first" kind of race. Granted, it's still exploration - just not the only kind.

odds

[distilate]

The entire crew will face odds of about 1 in 200 of returning on a soyuz or being killed due to a catastrophic failure.

The shuttle is great and all but really has a few serious weaknesses so its time to move on.

Lunar-Electric Rover

[RealGrouchy]

TFA says the rover is Lunar-Electric. I assume this means it's a hybrid that runs partly on electricity and partly on lunacy.

- RG>

I dare them...

[RogueWarrior65]

I dare the pilot to do a barrel roll on reentry.