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.

Re:A rocket launch is just like a software launch

[negRo_slim]

NASA has phenomenal quality control, your comparison is apples to oranges.

The fact of the matter is they need more launches to maintain interest in the public sector so we might get a budget that actually allows things to get done. Of course they need a more efficient launch system, something that diverting 20-30% of the defense budget unto NASA could accomplish.

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

This is BS

[eln]

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.

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. Sending tiny robots into space is not interesting to most people, and sending people to the same rock over and over again is also not exciting to most people (witness the rapid dropoff in interest during the Apollo era).

The way to get national interest in space travel up again is twofold:
1. Get NASA going full-bore on manned exploration of space. Put the Mars mission on an Apollo-like timetable. Of course, no one wants to spend the money for this because nobody cares about space, so we have to use the next point to get them there:
2. Aggressively support commercial manned space travel. Give more people a chance to go into space, even just LEO, and you'll have a lot more willingness to fund aggressive exploration missions. This means the price for a trip has to go way down, and the safety has to go way up. If we can get to a point where a trip to space costs the same as, say, an all-inclusive vacation to the Caribbean, everyone will want to go.

The current strategy of announcing big initiatives and then starving them of funds, and letting commercial space ventures limp along with inadequate funding and no direction, is not getting anybody anywhere. As long as NASA is saying 20 years just to get back to the Moon (assuming the funding isn't cut, which it always is), and it still costs $20 million to get a private citizen into LEO, interest in space travel will remain low. Launching more rockets filled with tiny robots is not going to fix that.

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: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.

Re:But in the big picture

[MichaelSmith]

How about the megatons of fuel used per launch? Where does that come from, btw? & is it limitless?

Pretty much. Its just hydrogen and oxygen. Viewed differently its just water and electricity. With the right plant you can make megatons of the stuff quite cheaply.

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...

SSTO

[tsotha]

The best papers I've ever read on this subject were Jerry Pournelle's Getting To Space and The SSX Concept. Basically he makes a simlar argument in the context of SSTO. The problem with the way we do space right now is it's just too expensive to do anything useful. Things we could do like space-based solar power and asteroid mining are now totally impractical because it costs, what, $20k to put a kilogram in orbit? As long as that's the case we're pretty much stuck with LEO vanity projects. We can't even afford to go back to the moon.

Getting the $/kg to LEO down should be the single-minded thrust of the US space program in the coming years.

Re:But in the big picture. Have you seen it?

[upuv]

Clearly you have not even looked at the big picture.

First off the fuel is Hydrogen and Oxygen. Which by product is water.

The space program has given us. world wide telecommunications, GPS, weather satellite. How many lives and how much energy have those things saved? GPS alone applied to the transport industry has been a huge fuel saver.

"If" we develop fusion we will need fuel. Where is the highest concentration of fusion fuel? The moon.

Would it not be more ecological to mine asteroids than the amazon?

What about the development of clean 24/7 solar power? That can only be achieved in space.

The Moon program of the 60's gave us the transistor and ultimately the processor in your computer you used to view this. How many lives have been saved by the chip. Hybrid cars would be impossible with them.

The space program is possible the last area where mega projects can have significant positive impact on the planet, man and our future.

And lastly the resources in space are LIMITLESS. Once we learn how to tap them properly.

Re:But in the big picture

[Ihmhi]

I recall reading that an Abrams Tank gets 1 mile/gallon and has a 60 gallon tank.

But then reading a bit into it, I'm wrong. (I'm probably thinking of a different tank.) The M1 Abrams gets 0.6 miles/gallon and has a fuel capacity of either 498 gallons or 505 gallons.