Shuttle Extension & Heavy Launcher Bill Proposed

FleaPlus writes "In light of Congressional resistance to the new plans for NASA (criticized as 'radical') proposed by NASA head Charles Bolden, Sen. Hutchinson (R-TX and ranking member of the Senate committee dealing with NASA) has proposed a compromise bill. Hutchinson's bill calls for postponing the Space Shuttle's retirement until 2015, and instead of wholly canceling Constellation/Ares, it would adapt the more effective portions to a 'government-operated space transportation system,' largely inspired by the DIRECT proposal. NASA would also pursue commercial crew and cargo launches to orbit, although the bill leaves out Charles Bolden's proposal for R&D of 'game-changing' technologies for sustainable and cost-effective space exploration."

Comments

No!

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for a lab which is deeply involved in both the Constellation and COTS programs. Yes, Constellation might have been cool, but Obama has the right idea. He understands that building rockets is economically feasible and therefore should be done by commercial entities. NASA is slow and bureaucratic with this because they have done it before. NASA is MOST effective when they are doing something without precedent. Then NASA is developing something new which no one else might have done, and which may not have economically rational given the risk of failure. This is a much better role for NASA than just replicating rocket technology over and over again.

I have watched this first hand.

speaking of NASA

[SethJohnson]

Last night I was visiting with a friend who has worked at NASA for 11 years. He is concerned for his job, etc. Among the things we discussed was astronaut photography. Sometimes an astronaut comes through the program and demands an update to the cameras they're approved to bring into space. The administration is very resistant to these upgrades because of the testing that is involved to approve a new device to bring into space. Something as simple as a dslr camera requires millions of dollars in testing to ensure that the device won't cause problems in vacuum or in zero g, etc. It even goes so far that NASA produces its own battery charger for the camera instead of using the commercial charger that ships with the model.

Seth

Re:speaking of NASA

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Something as simple as a dslr camera requires millions of dollars in testing to ensure that the device won't cause problems in vacuum or in zero g, etc. It even goes so far that NASA produces its own battery charger for the camera instead of using the commercial charger that ships with the model.

NASA would need to be sure that any lubricants used on the camera's moving parts (yes, even DSLR's have them) will not outgas if exposed to vacuum, or freeze/liquefy when exposed to the wide temperature variations experienced in space. The same would go for components like electrolytic capacitors, batteries, etc, which might rupture and release toxic chemicals when exposed to a vacuum.

The battery charger most likely needs to be customized in order to make one that can plug into the 28VDC or 400/800 Hz AC power systems typically used on spacecraft.

Re:speaking of NASA

[cyclone96]

So what DO you do when the battery charger bursts into flames on orbit?

I'll reinforce your point here. Knowing something about the fire response strategy on ISS you do the following:

1) If you actually are lucky enough to witness the charger burst into flames, remove the power from it, hit the fire alarm, put on a mask, and expend a CO2 based fire extinguisher on it. The mask keeps you from asphyxiating yourself with the extinguisher.

2) If you don't physically see what happens (which is most likely, ISS is big and some modules may go unattended for hours) - the combustion products will trip off a cabin smoke detector in the module. That will stop ventilation inside the module and ring the alarm. In most cases, this will put out a fire in zero g - fires tend to smother themselves without gravity to force convection currents.

Meanwhile, not having any knowledge other than a smoke alarm from a module, the crew will converge in a safe haven in the vehicle away from the fire. Two (of the 6) may go forward to investigate with masks, fire extinguishers, and a hand held device to detect combustion products (mainly so they know if they are entering a lethal pocket of CO or other gases). Hopefully the module isn't a total fog of combustion products - if it is, the crew is likely to isolate it and leave it. If you don't know what the fire source is (because you can't see it), it may well end up that the entire module ends up getting powered down to ensure an electrical fire isn't being fed. This of course has some pretty serious ramifications as well - shutting down power to a module is not a simple event to reverse (since all the computers, cooling, lights, etc. go down with it). It's likely that collateral damage to a module's systems would happen if that were done.

Even if you do understand what happened and know it's out, the harmful gases from burning plastic aren't going to just go away on their own, they have to be scrubbed out with deployed fans and special canisters. It would take weeks to clean up.

Fighting a fire in a closed environment is very different than something you would do in your home. In zero gravity, most of the control is by prevention - don't use flammable materials, stop ventilation on a detected fire so it doesn't spread, don't use things that generate poison air when they burn, etc. Even a minor fire that many of us have encountered at one time or another (smoked electronics, plastic bag on fire, etc.) would be an extremely serious event in space. That's why so much time is spent making sure equipment conforms with fire prevention standards.

shuttle may not make 2015

[fermion]

Here is the thing. On one hand I think the shuttles are good enough, and we should use them indefinitely. Of course, indefinitely means until one of the three remaining shuttles fail, most likely taking another crew. I don't think most people want this to happen, which is why they are being retired now that we know and have seen the consequences of some sub optimal design decisions. In effect we have a choice of giving up this year,or simply not setting a date certain. I think the later might be a reasonable decision.

In any case, the decision must be made in terms of safety and effective spending of tax money, not politics. Those people who are going to be fired, are, after all, in conservative terms, are overpaid federal bureaucrats. Now, the people most effected by this are the people of clear lake,TX. These fine people elected Pete Olson, a fine conservative. Pete Olson does not believe in socialism. Pete Olson does not believe in extending unemployment checks, as one conservative said if you feed a stray animal the just multiply. Olson voted against a bill to help keep people in thier homes, a decision which I do not disagree with. Given this, it is clear that the only right and proper thing we must do is look at the technical side, and disregard all this fear mongering about jobs. These are allegedly technical and educated people. They will be able to find or create jobs. Unemployment in Texas is 2 points below the national average, and for professionals much lower.

The thing to do is to look at what is best for the country, and what is best to reduce the tax burden of the American People,and limit the role of government. That is what the last election cycle clearly indicated was the will of the people. If a few people in Clear Lake have to find other jobs to achieve that goal, then maybe that is what needs to happen.

Ah yes, politicians

[A nonymous Coward]

So much for Republican core values of small government, free enterprise, and especially the government getting out of the way of free enterprise to do a job better, cheaper, and without the stifling bureaucracy.

At least that is what Republicans of all stripes say they stand for. In public. Officially.

Pork always wins out, tho.

(Note to Republicans who are incensed by this attack on their imploded view of reality: see the title of this post.)

Re:Retire the Shuttle? How about defund NASA?

[Derosian]

Obviously NASA has not provided us with anything of value!

http://www.howstuffworks.com/ten-nasa-inventions.htm

By the way. I just Googled this. Took me all of 3 seconds to find something of value that NASA has provided.

Amazing

[WindBourne]

The same set of neo-cons that carp about Stimulus bill are busy pushing another jobs bill via this. And where are they from? Texas, Fl, Al, and Ca. Surprised that they would put their election ahead of the nation? Not me. With that said, this bill is a prime example of neo-con spend and borrow. It wants to extend the shuttle for another 2-3 years, but only gives up 3 billion to fund it. Well, if you fly ONE SHUTTLE, then you have to fund the entire crew. That means 3-4 BILLION for that year. So, you are better off flying as many as possible since each flight is only about 200 million in variable costs. The problem that we have with our space system is that we have depended on exactly ONE arch to get us to the moon and then exactly one to get us into LEO. That needs to change if we want to support a moon base, or even a mars base. As such we NEED multiple architectures. in

1. Human lift to LEO,
2. Small and Medium Cargo Lift to LEO
3. SUPER-Heavy cargo lift to leo.
4. Pluggable way to add a tug to a craft.

The above will prevent Congress from doing what it is doing AND will prevent an accident in a rocket from shutting down the entire space program. Nixon killed skylab because he did not fund NASA properly for building the shuttle after shutting down Apollo in 1970. Likewise, W and the 2004 Congress SEVERELY underfunded NASA after pushing a mistake like Constellation. In addition, Challenger and Columbia shut down NASA's Manned missions for several years. For us to move off this planet, we need to prevent such nightmares from happening again. The heavy lifter that NASA is pushing is not on the drawing board yet. They want to do more RD to bring up to speed on engines. THEN they want to have Private Space build 2 or more heavy lift mostly on their dollar, and have NASA focus on doing cutting edge RD as well as focused on how to build out a system that moves us out of LEO. The new plan will build up private space and help get them to the moon along with a national consortium (almost certainly all of the ISS crew and possible adding India and Brazil). The issue will be the idiots in congress that did not fund these vehicles over the last 6 years, but are now wanting to throw good money after bad ideas.

Re:Innovation in America is dead.

[Antique Geekmeister]

Oh, dear. And I suppose the creation of Starbucks led to the housing crisis? Correlation is _not_ causation: while Nixon did a lot of fascinating things, many good, many truly awful, it's difficult to show that the expansion of free trade with China was a bad idea. Given that China was (and is still, to some extent) a paranoid society with limited free speech and nuclear weapons, it seems well worth it to defuse their military concerns about the USA by opening trade.

There are numerous other factors that have impeded genuine development: lobby protection of existing industries is a primary force protecting the car industry. Buildings and infrastructure from the 1920's has, for the most part, fallen apart long ago: it's exceptional structures that remain. And those exceptional structures didn't have the same budgetary limits as an "exceptional structure" now. The 1920's had a lot of spare money for investment, and over-leveraged investment encouraged to the stock market crash of 1929.

And sadly, take a good look at exactly how far stem cell research has gone. There is not a _single major disease_ that is treated with stem cells, anywhere in the world, except as part of experiments that have monstly failed. It just hasn't worked. Not epilepsy, not Parkinson's, not diabetes.

And the youngsters I've seeing, well, they're a mixed lot. Some are very sharp, and very educated: enough to lead quite a lot of scientific and engineering development if they could get a _job_.

that is not a NASA issue

[WindBourne]

The reason is that NASA funds things like that, and then Russia, ESA, JAXA, CSA, and even Chinese use that as the approved list. The fact is, that the testing HAS to happen since it was not designed from the gitgo with space missions in mind. If an America company was smart (kodak comes to mind, but then, they are not very smart), they would follow the Fischer Pen approach and design a camera to survive in space, water, etc. and then advertise it as being rugged for space as well as water, camping, etc. That little bit of marketing helped make Fischer Space pen sell a million more than what it would have otherwise.

Re:Bring home the bacon!

[A nonymous Coward]

Look at any chart of national debt since WW II and you will find it is Republican presidents who have driven it upwards and Democratic presidents who have lowered it.

Every president from WW II until Reagan steadily lowered the national debt; Reagan cut taxes but not spending and tripled the national debt. Bush I continued the trend. Clinton lowered national debt. Bush II tripled or quadrupled national debt. Obama has only been in office a year, and has just started his first budget, so for you Republican whiners who blame all the recent debt on Obama, dream on -- it is Bush II's debt hands down.

Re:Bring home the bacon!

[WindBourne]

To be really fair, it did not. We KNEW in the 70's that the USSR was already bankrupted. There was little that reagan did that affected the USSR outcome with ONE exception. Carter had put a grain embargo on USSR for their invasion of Afghanistan. reagan lifted it shortly after coming into office (as a present for the farmers). Now, the issue is that typically when a large nation or even an empire collapses, they will do one of 3 things:

1. Massively expand outward via wars. Typically they engage in one or more wars to keep the economy going falsely and ppl pre-occupied (sound familiar)?
2. Collapse inward, typically with a revolution (Romania comes to mind).
3. A new change of gov brought in peacefully.

The last is what happened with most nations of the USSR esp. Poland and Russia. It really was amazing to witness. Had we kept the grain embargo on USSR, then the gov COULD have pointed to the west and said that WE were responsible for denying them food. Basically, that embargo could have forced USSR's collapse to go very violent outwards. In this one regard, reagan did the right thing. In nearly all else, the man was a total idiot being ran by the likes of Cheney and Rove. It was reagan's and W's massive debt during good times that has caused America's and possible the west's economic collapse. Of course, the fact that W and so far Obama have not held China to their treaties and WTO obligation has a LOT to do with this.