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Astronaut Careers May Stall Without the Shuttle
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that former shuttle commander Chris Ferguson now moonlights as a drummer for MAX Q, a classic rock band comprised solely of astronauts. 'Perhaps we'll have some more time to practice here once the shuttle program comes to a slow end,' says Ferguson, raising the question — what does the future hold for NASA's elite astronaut corps after the agency mothballs its aging space shuttles in the coming months? NASA currently has about 80 active astronauts, as well as nine new astronaut candidates hired last year. But there will be fewer missions after the shuttle program ends, and those will be long-duration stays at the space station. When the Apollo program ended, astronauts had to wait years before the space shuttles were ready to fly, but the situation was different back then. Space historian Roger Launius says, 'Even before the end of the Apollo program, NASA had an approved, follow-on program — the space shuttle — and a firm schedule for getting it completed.' These days, no one knows what NASA will be doing next. Meanwhile, private companies are moving forward with their efforts, raising the possibility of astronauts for hire. NASA administrator and former astronaut Charlie Bolden talked about that prospect earlier this year, saying it would be a different approach for NASA to rent not just the space vehicle, but also a private crew of astronauts to go with it. 'When we talk about going to distant places like Mars, the moon, [or] an asteroid, we will not be able to take someone off the street, train them for a few weeks and expect them to go off and do the types of missions we will demand of them,' said Bolden."
I thought most/all US astronauts were experienced Air Force/Navy pilots? Don't they already have jobs?
bomb the us up set someone
and hopefully it won't just be government astronauts who get to go. Back when the shuttle was seen as a way to reduce the cost of getting into space, and NASA launched commercial satellites, a few ordinary engineers got to go to space. Of course, Challenger changed all that. And the Launch Services Purchase Act proved that the best way to reduce the cost of launch is to cut NASA out of the picture all together. So hopefully, when the job of taking humans to space has suitably placed NASA in an oversight only role, we'll see ordinary people flying to space again to do economically valuable work. Then the market takes over and everything changes.
That said, NASA will still be flying their own astronauts. If there's any sense left in them, they'll be flying to beyond low earth orbit.
How we know is more important than what we know.
It's like being an ex-fighter pilot. If you've worked in aerospace, you've probably met plenty of former fighter pilots. They're a fun crowd, and they do OK after giving up the cockpit.
Being an astronaut hasn't been glamorous for a long time. Those guys spend far more time doing "Lunch with an Astronaut" than they do flying.
One should judge the success or failure of a program by how well it has achieved the goals it was built to achieve. By that most sensible metric, the Shuttle is a colossal failure. Not only has the Shuttle failed to reduce the cost of launch, it has also failed in its military and flight rate goals. Only someone who is too young to remember the promise of the Shuttle would ever suggest that it has been a "success", let alone wildly so.
Worse yet, Shuttle has set back the goal of a reusable launch vehicle for decades. Whenever anyone suggests that an RLV may be the best way of reducing the costs to space (an obviously true argument, imagine throwing away a 747 after every flight), skeptics need only point to the Space Shuttle.
How we know is more important than what we know.
About the time that Apollo was canceled I was just beginning to try to figure out what I wanted to do when I "grew up". Until that point, I was thinking that being an astronaut. Yes, the shuttle was being developed, but that wasn't getting any press at the time. So, after graduation I was still on my original choices:
Carter and Ford had basically raped the CIA so secret agent was out. I didn't think there was any money in being a cowboy, but a friend in England suggested I could be a jockey. Fireman was out after my first ride along and I had to look into the brain pan of a kid who wasn't wearing his helmet when he decided to take his motorcycle Christmas present for a spin.
I tried being a cop for awhile.
So, after being a drill instructor, aircraft mechanic, and working in the IC industry for awhile, John Glenn goes back into space and I start thinking, "Hell, the way things are going, my fifth career could be as an astronaut!" But, nooooo, they go and cancel the shuttle and damn near kill the follow on.
So, as of about a month ago, I've bought a ranch in Idaho...
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.