Launching Frequently Key To NASA Success

teeks99 writes "Even NASA could benefit from the 'Launch Often' idea that is frequently referred to in the software development community. However, in NASA's case, the 'launch' is a bit more literal. Edward Lu, writing in the New York Times, points out that by lowering the consequences of launch failure, and making frequent launches available to engineers, NASA could open up a new wave of innovation in space exploration. If there were weekly launches of a rocket, there would be many opportunities for new ideas to be tried out in communications, remote sensing, orbital debris mitigation, robotic exploration, and even in developing technology for human spaceflight. Another benefit would be that the rockets would be well understood, which would improve reliability."

Comments

A rocket launch is just like a software launch

[cinnamon colbert]

I mean, your'r a silicon valley startup, you launch a POS software that crashes, you redo it, no blood no foul; the only problem is some pissed off customers, but hey - it's software, we expect it to not work on ver1.0 (or ver10,0 if your are MS) Just like putting 100,000 gallons of toxic explosive up into the air - the consequences of failure due to rapid product cycle are just the same.

That was the original idea behind the space shuttl

[Anonymous Coward]

each shuttle was supposed to be able to be readied for launch in 2 weeks, and there were going to be 10+ launches a year

they can't even roll it from the VAB to the pad in 2 weeks it turns out

Re:This is BS

[DerekLyons]

We have a shuttle launch every few months, and every time the general public's reaction is almost total apathy. Satellites are launched into space all the time, and nobody cares.

Cruise ships depart US ports almost daily, airliners depart from where in the US every second, rail cars by the thousands are in motion day in and day out - and nobody cares. It's all routine. If space travel and access is all routine, then that's usually considered a sign of maturity.
 

We don't need more frequent launches, we need a manned space program that actually makes progress if we want people to get excited about space travel.

You state that as if not being able to make progress without getting people excited was a fact, as opposed to the opinion it actually is. Research ships leave US ports routinely, and there are probably a thousand or more science teams in the field in the US at any given time. (Well, maybe not this week with the holidays and all.) All of this happens almost completely without public notice, and the lack of such notice impedes progress not at all. (And that doesn't even touch on the [probably] tens of thousands of lab bench bound research projects or researchers toiling away in libraries and archives.)
 
Which is a long winded way of saying that before you propose expensive stunts to draw public interest, first justify your claim that without interest progress won't occur.

Re:But in the big picture

[osu-neko]

Can we afford such massive expenditures of energy on such a frequent basis?

Can't we? Don't we expend several orders of magnitude more energy every day "launching" millions of cars onto the roads of America? Compared to that, launching one rocket a week is trivial...

Re:This is BS

[Chris Mattern]

Progress requires funding. Funding requires public interest.

You can't get this kind of funding through just "public interest." Funding for space travel requires the prospect of a profitable return. That is how cruise ship travel matured, this is how air travel matured, and it will be how space travel matures if it ever does.