Atlantis Lands, Ending the Shuttle Era

Early this morning Atlantis landed at KSC in Florida. I've been following the trip intently ever since my trip to Florida to see the launch of the very last Shuttle. This really is the end of an era. Thanks go out to the thousands of NASA employees who made this happen, many of whom have been laid off. A number of them emailed me directly showing me pictures and sharing stories. I wish you all the best. As for America, here's hoping that we return to space soon.

Comments

Atlantis... the end is here...

[UnresolvedExternal]

And now you face... the final cuurrrtaaaiiinnn...

Mixed feelings

[cmdr_klarg]

I must admit to having mixed feelings about the end of the Shuttle era. While the Shuttle did not quite live up to the promise of making spaceflight "routine", this means an end to American spaceflight capability, at least for the short term.

I will echo what CmdrTaco said: I hope we return to space soon. I would also like to thank the 14 astronauts who gave their lives in the pursuit of space on the Shuttles.

Re:Mixed feelings

[AlecC]

While having immense respect for those who worked on the Shuttle program, and certainly honouring those who lost their lives in its operations, I feel that this is the end of a huge diversion. It turned out that the Shuttle was never as good an idea as it was originally made out to be. It certainly never lived up to its name. I feel, but I don't know, that this could have been recognised earlier and the U-turn being made now could have been made twenty years ago. Unfortunately, the "Concorde effect" cut in - nobody would take responsibility for axing a program on which tens of billions had been spend - so hundreds of billions more had to be spend on a flawed, albeit marvellous - project.

And look ahead: not may years ahead, America may have multiple launchers, some man-rated, some not, to give a broad spectrum capability at much lower cost. Sometimes, backtracking is the wisest thing to do.

Re:Mixed feelings

[whargoul]

And look ahead: not may years ahead, America may have multiple launchers, some man-rated, some not, to give a broad spectrum capability at much lower cost. Sometimes, backtracking is the wisest thing to do.

As long as our Congress and the worthless fucking presidents we've elected over the past 20+ years are in control of NASA's budget we're not going to see anything worth-while out of them.

Re:Mixed feelings

[SenseiLeNoir]

Althoguh I am british, I grew up in the 80's, and the spaceshuttle is one of those defining items of that era. I was saddended when chanllenger exploded, and even more upset when Colmbia exploded. I deep down expected it to finish its working life and end up in a Museum. Also to see some "anti-west" groups in the middle east "celebrate" the explosion really upset me.

Jeremy Clarkson wrote a book once, called "You've got soul". IT describes "machines" that are more than just a hunk of metal/plastic/etc, but have an affect on human psyche that incites adoration, and the impression of "soul". He described Concorde as one such machine. I would say the Shuttle is also one of such machine.

Congratulations to all involved, and remmber those who lost their lives.

Re:Mixed feelings

[Leebert]

A good quote from Bolden sent to NASA employees:

As we move forward, we stand on the shoulders of these astronauts and the thousands of people who supported them on the ground - as well as those who cheered their triumphs and mourned their tragedies.

This final shuttle flight marks the end of an era, but today, we recommit ourselves to continuing human spaceflight and taking the necessary-and difficult-steps to ensure America's leadership in human spaceflight for years to come.

(snip)

Children who dream of being astronauts today may not fly on the space shuttle . . . but, one day, they may walk on Mars. The future belongs to us. And just like those who came before us, we have an obligation to set an ambitious course and take an inspired nation along for the journey.

Yes, they're just words. But to quote Jim Kirk's son in ST II:

"But good words. That’s where ideas begin."

All I can say is that I hope he's right.

Re:Mixed feelings

[Teancum]

While there are a couple of factual errors with this interview (I'll forgive somebody in their 70's who otherwise was actively involved in the development efforts of a great many spacecraft programs) this interview by Jerry Pournelle covers many of the problems that happened with the Shuttle development:

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=86&load=5745

It could have worked, but too many compromises were made on the Shuttle where those compromises compounded on each other to create many of the problems involved, including what ended up killing 14 astronauts.

I personally think there should have been a Shuttle II program that would have taken the lessons learned and built a new version of the basic design. Sadly, that never happened. What I hope does not get learned from the Shuttle is that reusable lifting bodies should never be used for spaceflight. The real problem with the Shuttle was trading development costs for operational costs, and expecting a government bureaucracy devoted to keeping jobs is going to help lower costs.

Re:Mixed feelings

[Rotten168]

We need more money for climate change research

Climate change is far more important than space exploration.

Re:Mixed feelings

[BJ_Covert_Action]

There is at least one company that shares your Shuttle II program vision.

Atlantis Lands

[Barryke]

Near SF bridge, no?

So long...

[AngryDeuce]

...and thanks for all the fish.

Did it land...

[Arancaytar]

Just outside San Francisco Bay, after destroying the hive ship?

Re:Did it land...

[laejoh]

Ender, is that you?

Not an end, but a beginning

[BZWingZero]

While the Shuttle program has ended (and its been a spectacular run), I guess the only things to look forward to are the MPCV, CTS-100, Dragon, DreamChaser, and the New Sheppard.

I think the future is looking pretty bright.

Re:Not an end, but a beginning

[Anonymous Coward]

That assumes the windbags in congress don't keep cutting back on the space program because there are more important things to spend our tax dollars on. That $14B per year could be better spent on blowing more stuff up on foreign lands.

Re:Not an end, but a beginning

[BZWingZero]

Then its a good thing that 4 of those craft I named are planning on being flown with or without NASA's help. (NASA funding would just accelerate the process.)

Re:Not an end, but a beginning

[RoverDaddy]

That's where it helps (but doesn't entirely solve the problem), that we're talking about private companies doing most of these projects. Of course, they still need lots of contracts from the government or they will have trouble with funding, but at least their direction and priorities aren't being yanked around every two years.

Take a project that is going well so far (as Dragon apparently is). If the US gov't doesn't throw enough money their way, perhaps another government or consortium of governments might?

Re:Not an end, but a beginning

[WindBourne]

Actually, only 2 of those are certain. DreamChaser, MPCV and CTS-100 all depend on gov. money. Right now, only Blue Origin and SpaceX are planning on continue putting in money to fly humans regardless of what CONgress does. Though to be fair, I suspect that Boeing would continue since Bigelow is pushing them hard.

Re:Not an end, but a beginning

[Teancum]

This assumes nothing. All of the vehicles mentioned are being built with private funds, not government appropriations. The only assumption here is that somehow congress isn't going to pass a law taxing these companies and otherwise making it illegal to actually get these private vehicles sent into space. Almost as bad as making it illegal would be to put up so much red tape and regulatory bureaucracy for private efforts that they can't afford to get anything up simply because of government compliance costs.

While I think they could calm down on the regulations a little bit, the FAA-AST certainly is at least trying to encourage private efforts. It would be nice if NASA, the Air Force, and other government agencies which purchase spacecraft and launches could buy from these private efforts rather than try to build their own vehicles (like the [*cough*] SLS program), but "the windbags in congress" don't have to waste their time in trying to help pay for this stuff.

That $14B might be better spent on air conditioning for the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Re:Not an end, but a beginning

[Anonymous Coward]

> blowing more stuff up on foreign lands
or having fun trips abroad.

Re:Not an end, but a beginning

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, I wanted that moon colony dang it. Can't imagine they can shoot for that original 2020 deadline without shuttles...

And no, I probably wouldn't go to one that a private company had built, at least not immediately. I'm all for capitalism and the open market but there are just times when you have to say "I trust NASA to do the right thing more than any corporation."

Re:Not an end, but a beginning

[timeOday]

Are there any regulations in particular you find odious and unnecessary? Keep in mind, a high-profile disaster or 3 could easily set back the privatization of space, too. Look at nuclear power; regulation has added to the cost, but what's really held it back was not the cost, but the political fallout from nuclear disasters. (Which is not entirely fair, since nuclear power in the US seems reasonably well regulated and has a good safety record, but suffers from the legacy of, for example, Chernobyl, which was built and operated very differently).

It will be interesting to see how people react when the first astronauts from private industry are killed. Personally, I predict the political fallout will be LESS than the shuttle disasters, since all of us, by paying taxes, have a stake in those. On the other hand, space exploration doesn't have the legacy of, say, mining, an industry in which we just expect people to get buried alive once in a while, because it has always been that way.

Re:Not an end, but a beginning

[Teancum]

Keep in mind, a high-profile disaster or 3 could easily set back the privatization of space, too.

Perhaps it was because it was in a different era, but the sinking of the Titanic didn't stop steamship travel across the Atlantic. It did introduce new concepts of passenger ship safety that still exist today, and it also introduced the concept of an engineering review committee for engineering disasters of various kinds, but it didn't kill the industry.

I don't think a high-profile disaster for private or even public spaceflight will be all that devastating. What is needed is more variety and more options so if something like the Challenger or Columbia disasters happened that we can continue to send astronauts into space on other spacecraft designs. Spaceflight continued after Columbia, even if the procedures changed a little bit after that. Space exploration, sadly, does include a whole bunch of deaths of various kinds, even if it doesn't happen so often.

The regulations that I am most concerned about right now are the "crewed orbital spaceflight" regulations, as "man-rating" a spacecraft is currently a very arbitrary regulatory regime which pretty much boils down to whomever has paid the most for congressional lobbyists gets to fly and everybody else can go jump in a lake. While NASA may have the most experience in the area, having them write the regulations when they are currently in competition with private industry seems like a huge conflict in interest.

We also need to be a little more tolerant of both failure and deaths. I'm not saying that we should deliberately go out of our way to avoid safety, but no for-profit business is going to be in the market to kill its customers as a business plan. I also think the comparisons to the nuclear power industry are unfair because there are some real concerns with nuclear power, particular in regards to the disposal of the nuclear waste, which simply don't exist with spaceflight. Chernobyl is held up as a poster child of engineering gone wrong, but I don't think it would even remotely be an issue if it had been a time-limited disaster where people would have moved on with their lives in the region of the plant. It is the ongoing health and environmental consequences of that disaster which make people question if we should be doing that elsewhere, and those are very legitimate concerns.

Had the Space Shuttle crashed and burned taking out the Empire State Building with it, there would have been some people justifiably annoyed and a huge number of deaths, but life would have gone on. The potential for disaster isn't nearly as great and the long term consequences are not the same as it is with nuclear power. I also think the long term benefits will be more apparent for spaceflight as well.

Ultimately, the issue is if money can be made. Steamships didn't stop crossing the Atlantic because people and industries could continue to make a profit in spite of having to comply with a few new rules. Ultimately it falls into this philosophy, that new rules are created for the following reasons:

• Somebody screwed up and made a big mistake. The rule was created to make sure nobody repeats that same mistake
• Somebody wants to exert political control over the lives of somebody else, merely because they can

I don't mind rules created for the first purpose, and there are many such rules/regulations that I can think of. On the other hand, far too much of a regulatory organization is coming up with rules just for the hell of it. It is those kind of rules that I find annoying and feel they should be removed if found. Far too often rules may even be created because mistakes happened, but additional requirements are added as busy work which really aren't needed and are in place to justify the bureaucracy. This isn't confined to just spaceflight, but all endeavors of modern society.

Irony Not Lost

[knirps]

The US manned spaceflight program comes to an ignominious end at the same time the Texas school board votes on whether to teach evolution in science class. And people wonder why we've lost our leadership in science and manufacturing.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[Sponge Bath]

Do not taunt Texas' faith based education! We will return the USA to space using "God Pods" developed with our Evangelical sciences.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Nah, they'll just keep banging into the great crystal dome and falling back on Earth, not like these heathen's "shuttles" and "rockets" launched into the godless atheistic void. So there will be no point in creating those "God Pods" at all.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[DrgnDancer]

That's different though, see. It's perfectly reasonable and rational to think that science is amazing and capable when it comes to developing technology to take us into orbit or interconnect the globe in a web of communication; but completely wrong about all that biology and biochem stuff. I mean clearly the fact that we can measure time and distance with sufficient accuracy to hit a missile in low earth orbit moving at many times the speed of sound with another missile is completely coherent with the idea that we can't accurately measure the rate of decay for carbon. The fact that we can sequence and even modify genes in experimental medical procedures is obviously irrelevant to the fact that those gene sequences show us clear evidence of evolution.

You see I like technology but science challenges my beliefs, so I experience no cognitive dissonance in using one while dissing the other. They're unrelated disciplines really.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[DrgnDancer]

There's no repression of religious expression at schools. Indeed the very ACLU you pan has on numerous occasions defended the rights of students to express their religious beliefs in school: Here's one, here's another. A simple Google search reveals dozens of similar stories. What the ACLU objects to, along with most religious freedom advocates, is the coercive expression of religion in schools. A teacher has no right to lead students in a prayer that some present may not believe in. He or she is representative of the authority of the school and in turn the government, they should not give the impression of coercing students into prayer. Similarly, events like graduations and pep rallies are for everyone, turning them into religious events is neither fair nor constitutional. As a side note, that same teacher would be fine leading a prayer in an FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) meeting, as participation in such a thing implies a certain level of acceptance.

Long story short, religious expression in schools is fine. Students can wear all the religious jewelry they want, wear the goofy t-shirts they want, talk about God in the hallways and the lunchroom, even have clubs that focus on one religion or another. The caveat to that is that it has to be fair: If Bob can wear a cross, I can wear a pentacle; if Sue can can start a Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter, Sarah can start a Torah study group. It also should not be a part of official school events like classes, assembles, or graduations. At that point it is infringing on the rights of others.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Hooray for Hubology!

Re:Irony Not Lost

[sconeu]

As long as pop quizzes exist, there will be prayer in schools.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[WindBourne]

You did miss the irony. The US manned spaceflight program continues. We are simply hitching rides with Russia the same way that we did after Columbia. While are no longer SOLELY in first in science and manufacturing, we still remain amongst the top. Our problem is that ppl skew the results, just like you did.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[WindBourne]

We see evolution in bacteria and plants and animals all the time, and yet, idiots like you claim that this is theory. The original poster declared that US manned spaceflight was over, though only the shuttle is over. No wonder we have issues in the USA. Idiots deny what is plain as the nose on their face.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[tverbeek]

Need I point out that correlation does not equal causation?

Also: the "systematic repression of any and all religious expression in schools" is not happening. That's another item from "Lies My Preacher Told Me".

Re:Irony Not Lost

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that when the people who put men on the moon were growing up, evolution was not really being taught in schools, teachers did lead prayer in assemblies, graduations did reference religion and attendance at the baccalaureate was required.

All the bogeymen that the OP inferred were present. Yet, despite all that, these guys managed to do what they did. Clearly, religion in school, regardless of its merits, had no impact on the scientific capabilities of these scientists and engineers.

As far as your assertion that there is no repression, Google “school bans Christian” and “student can’t wear cross”. Just coming up with that took less than 30 seconds.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[operagost]

I think "Tru TV" contributes far more to the dumbing-down of America than a superficial decision by a school board.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should point that out to the OP, and the legions of Slashdotters, who do assert that somehow the ID vs. eveolution debate is responsible for the decline of the overall U.S. education system.

As for repression, a simple Google search for terms like "school bans christian" or "student can't wear cross" will put the lie to your assertion.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[DrgnDancer]

When I said there was no repression of religious expression in schools, I suppose I should have said that the ACLU and similar religious freedom organization don't advocate such repression. It does exist, largely becasue school systems overreact to legitimate attempts to minimize religious coercion in schools. The ACLU fights such repression as much as it fights the coercion. The OPs implication was that the ACLU is attempting to repress religious expression in schools. It's not true.

As to the "bogeymen" being present in the schools that these scientists grew up in, that's not an excuse to keep doing it. Jim Crow laws existed in the towns many of those men grew up in, should we continue those? Wernher Von Braun came of age under the Nazis, does that mean that we should have left them alone, becasue they produce awesome rocket scientists? Also worth pointing out is that those men were given the best science education that was available at the time. The fact is that evolution was much less important to a sound biological education at the time. Genetics and biochemistry were the realms of the most cutting edge researchers, but a foundation in biology did not require an understanding much beyond Mendel's peas. A "foundation" in modern biology requires more up to date information on genetics and evolution, because an understanding of those topic is required to understand most current biological theories.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[Anonymous Coward]

we still remain amongst the top
Putting landers on Mars is definitely awesome, but when was the last time the USA even remotely tried to improve on putting people in space?

The USA is more of a leech than anything else right now. Just kinda suction onto anyone else doing good in science, and go along for the ride.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[operagost]

The ACLU actually sued a school for allowing a student to offer a prayer before a football game. They also opposed a student who gave an "altar call" at a graduation. While I feel that the latter was a poor choice for the student, they were not acting as agents of the government (the school) and thus the ACLU was on exactly the WRONG side and OPPOSED religious expression.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[Anonymous Coward]

$16,000 to John McCain did quite a bit in the move to allow religious broadcasters "educational" class broadcast licenses from the F.C.C. It was one of the things that was revealed in a Penn State study on Lobbying.

http://lobby.la.psu.edu/065_Religious_Licenses/frameset_religious.html

Some may view it as another form of the great behind the scenes bandwidth grab.
There was a time when a pirate radio station in Berkeley started a "free speech" examination of the feasibility of a new class of low power broadcast stations.
Guess where most of the licenses went...

Re:Irony Not Lost

[Anonymous Coward]

1. The OPs implication was that the ACLU is attempting to repress religious expression in schools.

I am the OP and I made no such assertion:

"Even a casual observer can see the correlation between the systematic repression of any and all religious expression in schools and the decline of academic achievement."

  - no mention of the ACLU at all. The ONLY mention of the ACLU in the entire post was to illustrate the difference between schools now and 60 years ago.

2. The reference to Jim Crow and Nazi (Goodwin validated again) is a straw man and unrelated to what I posted.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[Anonymous Coward]

No we see natural selection, idiot. Anyone who would deny that natural selection happens would be an idiot for sure, just like you, troll.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[Grishnakh]

We see evolution in bacteria and plants and animals all the time, and yet, idiots like you claim that this is theory.

It IS a theory. Similarly, there are theories for gravitation, Newton's theory and General Relativity. They are both just theories.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[geoffrobinson]

Do you really think that neo-Darwinian thought not being taught will have any impact on hard sciences and manufacturing?

And are you aware that manufacturing is going fine in America? Manufacturing jobs... not so much. Lots of automation. But not the same as "we've lost our leadership in manufacuring."

Re:Irony Not Lost

[DrgnDancer]

1) There is no systematic repression of religious expression. Examples of it exist, but it's not systematic.

2) The references to Jim Crow and the Nazis was a response to the poster who responded to me, not a response to you. He said "Yet, despite all that, these guys managed to do what they did.", I said, "yes, and despite many other things besides, many of which were also bad and should have been done away with." It's not Godwin by the way, I didn't say anyone was a Nazi, I brought up the historical fact that one of the most famous men (and several of his lieutenants) we're talking about here (someone I admire by the way, I posted his praises in another recent NASA article) came of age under a manifestly bad system. Given that this is within the historical context of the discussion it's a perfectly valid argument.

You had two essential points:

1) that there is systematic repression of religious expression in schools, emblemized by organizations like the ACLU. This is not true. There is at worst spotty repression of religious expression in schools, and it is, if anything, fought by the ACLU and similar organization. There is a requirement to avoid religious coercion in schools, for which we can thank the ACLU among others.

2) That said systematic repression is the cause for the failure of American science education. This is probably also untrue, but really far to difficult to test. There have been numerous and varied changes to society and education the 70-80 years since the Apollo scientist were generally in school. Trying to isolate any one of them and say "this is at fault" is like trying to isolate the butterfly whose wings cause hurricane Katrina.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[DrgnDancer]

Yes, that is becasue, although the students are not employees of the government, when the school puts them on the intercom at a school sponsored event, they are representatives of the school. If the student offered a prayer among the people s/he was sitting with at the game, that would be fine. If a dozen strategically placed students did so all over the stands, that would be bloody uncomfortable in my eyes, but fine. Once they're doing it over the PA with school approval, it's a school sponsored prayer. Same with the altar call at graduation.

Like most rights enumerated in the Constitution the freedom of religious practice right is easy to say, but difficult to completely define. The courts use a test that roughly breaks down to two points: You can express your religion any way you like, but while you represent the state you must do so inclusively or not at all. Representing the state does not necessarily mean you're an employee. Another option that exists in these cases is inclusion. Schools don't tend to like that one much becasue it might mean that they have to give a floor to Pagans, Pastafarians, or Satanists.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[Murdoc]

Pat: Well, what we need, Susan, is we need money to build an interstellar cruiser. Now, this space ship will be able to travel through a wormhole and deliver the message and glory of Jesus Christ to those godless aliens. Send your money now. Amen.

South Park 3:11

Re:Irony Not Lost

[Anonymous Coward]

The ISS is more than 60% American (and more than 3/4 paid for by Americans).
Delta IV was done in 2003.
Falcon 1 was the first true private rocket.
The Falcon 9 which will launch humans was done just a few years ago and is the cheapest going, possible the safest as well.
America is the only nation putting landers on Mars successfully (USSR only put on a couple).
America was the first nation on an Asteroid.
American was the first to return anything from beyond lunar orbit.
America now accounts for about 2/3 of all launchers that the world has (and not just converted missiles).
America was the first to have hypersonic flight in 2004 (and not just demonstrate that they had an engine that was capable of hypersonic).
America remains the leader in R&D in Solar, Wind, LED, etc. Our problem is that we allow China to flaunt around the WTO/IMF rules as well as the many treaties that they have signed with USA.

It goes on and on. American science has not stopped. Yet, idiots like you speak otherwise. The only leech are assholes like yourself. Dude, you have zero clue of what you speak of.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[WindBourne]

uh, no. As mentioned to the loser above, evolution is NOT theory. It is fact. We see bacteria evolve by picking up genes from other different bacteria. In particular, we see with anti-biotic resistance. That is the very definition of evolution. Not, if you say that evolution as applied to man is a theory, then yes, that is factual. But since we see it in bacteria (due to their short generational span), it is a fact, overall.

Re:Irony Not Lost

[WindBourne]

Only fools do not know the difference between Natural Selection and evolution. Natural selection is a process where by losers are dropped from the eco system (and why are you still here? We have to re-instate natural selection for ppl like you). OTH, evolution is the process by which a living entity slowly changes to deal with its environment and pressure points. Well, when one type of bacteria acquires a gene from another bacteria that confers anti-biotic resistance, THAT is evolution. The fact that bacteria ARE changing is evolution. And we see the same in birds, reptiles, and even mammals, though much slower.
Troll indeed. Hey, I have heard that if you lick the yellow line in the middle of the road esp. on the highways that it is lime-flavored coke meant for ppl like you. Why not try it?

Re:Irony Not Lost

[Grishnakh]

No, that's still theory. Just as I said before, gravity in NOT a fact, but in fact a theory. You don't know that those bacteria are picking up genes from other bacteria. Can you see it with your naked eye? Of course not. So you don't really know what's happening there. All you have is theories (like the theories of optics which govern the microscopes you use, or the theories of chemistry to explain how the chemical tests you use in examining these bacteria work) to explain things you observe.

Go ask any real scientist if evolution is fact or theory. They'll tell you it's a theory. Then ask them the same thing about gravity, or Ohm's law (which dictates how the electronics in your computer work), or just about anything else in science. Is it a fact that the genes in those bacteria are made of nucleic acids? Nope, it's a theory.

The whole problem is that the anti-evolution folks don't understand the meaning of the word "theory".

Re:Irony Not Lost

[WindBourne]

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

Re:Irony Not Lost

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because every "news" article you read on the internet is scrupulously fact-checked.

DId you know that the word "gullible" is no longer included in many online dictionaries?

"End of an era," indeed

[schmidt349]

The fact that the Shuttle was still flying in 2011 isn't just a testament to its longevity. It's a sad reminder that, at least for now, human spaceflight is at the mercy of the schizophrenia that is the American political process.

NASA has consistently brought together some of the finest minds in the world to do what the preceding finest minds thought was impossible. Then, because this is America, we take a bunch of mouth-breathers who probably got Cs and Ds in basic high school science courses and make them the bosses and the gatekeepers, the people who decide that it's more important to systematize the abuse of human rights at airports and buy the jokers at the Pentagon their newest murder toy than it is to push the frontiers of knowledge and ingenuity.

I'm putting my hope for the future of space exploration in private hands. Not because I fetishize the free market, or because I think government is evil, but because human spaceflight is way too important to be put in the hands of the American electorate, which is probably the stupidest and most poorly-informed decision-making body since the Athenian ekklesia.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that after 30 years we are not just rolling right into a replacement more than proves your point. Mod up.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Richard_at_work]

The fact that the Shuttle was still flying in 2011 isn't just a testament to its longevity. It's a sad reminder that, at least for now, human spaceflight is at the mercy of the schizophrenia that is the American political process.

American human space flight...

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

While I largely agree with what you're saying, we need to keep in mind that human spaceflight in many ways still falls into the category of "basic science/research", as opposed to "applied science/research". Unfortunately, the private market has never been particularly enthused about "basic research", where the returns on investment, which potentially could be astronomical, are less-clearly defined and much further out time-wise than they would like.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[jeffmeden]

The fact that the Shuttle was still flying in 2011 isn't just a testament to its longevity. It's a sad reminder that, at least for now, human spaceflight is at the mercy of the schizophrenia that is the American political process.

American human space flight...

The International Space Station would *not* exist in any similar way if it were left to the Russians, the ESA, JAXA, etc. Humans are up there right now thanks to American demand. Sure, humans from other countries' space programs have gone there, but how many cosmonauts do you think there would be if it weren't for the desire to compete with the USA? Human spaceflight would be massively different (and almost nonexistent) if it weren't for American involvement. So yes, human spaceflight is by and large at the whim of the US budgeting and appropriations process.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

because russia and china are choke full of spaceships?

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[elrous0]

Your epitaph is about 40 years too late, my friend. The space shuttle was never about "the future of space exploration," any more than the Gemini/Apollo era was ever about anything other than the Cold War. The shuttle was about politically-connected contractors, jobs, and PR.

Far from promoting science and engineering, NASA has spent most of is existence focusing on political propaganda of one variety or another--to the point where even the basic science of the shuttle and its other programs have been laughably distorted in the popular mind. Most people think the shuttle can do everything from stopping meteors to flying to the moon, largely because NASA has spent so much effort obfuscating the fact that it can't even leave low earth orbit (and has so exaggerated its potential over the years). The "science" that the shuttle has conducted has been more of a reflection of NASA's desperate efforts to keep it relevant (and, hence, keep what little of their budget was left after the Apollo era). It's a similar story with the ISS--a floating lab which does very little real science but which very much gives NASA the ability to justify its yearly appropriations.

As for *actual* exploration, well it's largely a money pit. There are no other inhabitable bodies out there and no way to ever make them sustainable. That's a cold, hard fact. Humans are forever tethered to earth, for good or ill. Escapist fantasies of hopping in space ships to colonize other planets make for great science fiction. But in the real world, in the long term, we need to seriously focus on keeping the earth sustainable and survivable. Because it's all we have, now and forever.

And as for Mars, well, man may very well one day set foot on Mars. But I'd be willing to bet a large sum of money that when he does, he won't have a NASA patch on his environmental suit.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[taiwanjohn]

The SLS is a perfect example of that. It's sometimes called the "Senate Launch System" because of all the design constraints written into the funding legislation. For instance, they require that it use a certain kind of fuel so that a company in somebody's district will be sure to get some pork out of the deal, that sort of thing.

The first manned flights of SpaceX's Falcon/Dragon craft can't come soon enough for me.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[elrous0]

The International Space Station would *not* exist in any similar way if it were left to the Russians

That's because the Russians know it's a dead end and a money pit. They already learned that with Mir long ago.

how many cosmonauts do you think there would be if it weren't for the desire to compete with the USA

Conversely, how many astronauts do you think there would be if it weren't for the desire to compete with the Soviets? Remember that NASA *began* as the U.S.'s response to Sputnik.

Human spaceflight would be massively different (and almost nonexistent) if it weren't for American involvement.

Human spaceflight would be massively different (and DEFINITELY nonexistent) if it weren't for Soviet involvement.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever heard of the Salyuts and Mir? The Soviets pretty much had space stations nailed-down long before Alpha Station / ISS was even a daydream.

No, Skylab doesn't count as a success.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Richard_at_work]

No, the ISS wouldn't be the same, but you do realise that many of the core Russian ISS modules are pretty much unchanged from when they were designed for Mir 2?

I think you dramatically over hyped just how reliant the world is on the Americans for space flight - and thats a sign of arrogance.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, talk about being pessimistic. Do you really believe that in the billions of stars out there that none of them have a planet that has a oxygenated atmosphere and standing water? How special do you think we really are? If life was a one in a billion chance then there's going to be quite a few planets out there which have life as we know it.

As for exploration being a money pit, I say pffft. One small asteroid (metallic or otherwise) would be worth a massive fortune and would probably be worth enough to fund quite a few more trips to collect more. Orbital foundries could be used to refine and even forge the ores before shipment back to earth. Once we actually get over the crest of space travel to where we can zip about in our solar system (even if it takes months or years to get anywhere), we are going to have a crap-tonne of raw materials for our use.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Bucc5062]

But in the real world, in the long term, we need to seriously focus on keeping the earth sustainable and survivable. Because it's all we have, now and forever.

When I read comments like that I am reminded of many similar quotes by limited thinkers. Staying with the tech theme I'll go with "640K ought to be enough for anybody"...Right!

By now, as a species, I feel we need to realize that never and forever are not terms that apply to limitations of the human mind. What we can think, what we can imagine can become real. Thought, word, and deed lead to creation. The drag on human progress is not our lack of capability, but of commitment. In some cases it takes seeing beyond our lifetime to acheive the goal; that is lacking in today's leaders and populus and a drag on progress.

Unless we wipe ourselves out (war, natural disaster, pestulence) I know that humans will expand beyond this planet one day. Colony ships? Sustaining enclaves on other planets within our system? However the manner, we will do so because at the core of our being is the need to go past the next hill, the next mountain, beyond the horizon, outside our atmosphere, and more. Someone will choose to take that next step forward. This planet is now too small for our minds, but it is small minds that will chain us here for a long time.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to tell you guy, but there hasn't been a viable candidate in the past 35 years or better with NASA and the space program's best interests in mind. The big party machine just isn't that interested and, until we break it or it breaks itself, it will be business as usual.
 
So yes, the guy on the street is a stooge when it comes to science and technology. So is the guy in the Whitehouse who keeps pulling NASA's strings so that he can look like some kind of pioneer and visionary. So is the guys who create and vote on the budget. So are most Slashdotters, to be honest. But even with all of this the problems at NASA are far reaching into the organization itself. There's a million things that could go wrong and most of them have. The entire system isn't geared towards real space exploration in a progressive fashion. Even those who should have space exploration as their singular goal are fumbling the ball.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

...the American electorate, which is probably the stupidest and most poorly-informed decision-making body since the Athenian ekklesia.

"It's the worst system ever devised, except for all the others."

--Churchill (?)

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Osgeld]

I have a 1976 ford gran torino, I can drive it on the interstate for long distances, its not safe at current interstate speeds, its shit on gas but fuck has it got a large trunk ... problem is we never put that much into it

just cause I can does not make it the only way

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Shadowmist]

I'm putting my hope for the future of space exploration in private hands. Not because I fetishize the free market, or because I think government is evil, but because human spaceflight is way too important to be put in the hands of the American electorate, which is probably the stupidest and most poorly-informed decision-making body since the Athenian ekklesia.

Private spaceflight if it gets beyond the rich kid stunt level into the practical orbital level will owe much to programs like NASA that never would have found it's genesis in the private sector. But to be fair, I wouldn't put all of the blame on the American electorate. I'd say a significant amount rests with NASA's continued inability to sell itself to anyone but the Trekkies. They had piles of good material to energise the public, but they never made any use of it.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Osgeld]

its time to set the sifi novel down

we cant even get past our own moon let alone another star, yes maybe one day star trek will happen but we have another 300 years so dont go holding your breath

and how is a small asteroid mining operation going to work, again we find it impressive to attach a storage shed to a LEO shed for 20 something billion dollars, not that impressive is it? so you stick all this shit on what amounts to mostly frozen water and gas and somehow get profit? nevermind the fact that we have a crap ton of raw materials still here on earth, stuff isnt the problem, its energy to turn it into something useful!

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[smchris]

True. True. True. But as someone who vaguely remembers the concern over Sputnik, I can't stop thinking that this is the first time America can't put a person into space since I was barely 10 and John F. Kennedy was starting his fourth full month in office. I too hope private industry doesn't kill off too many astronauts coming in under a profitable budget but I also wonder whether it's just another symptom of the advancing neo-Dark Ages where some guy in the 25th century will write poetry about the "giants" who jumped to the moon.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

The NASA of today just isn't the same as the NASA of the moon landings. Back then, there was a sense of national pride in space exploration (and a bit of competitiveness with the Russians). Maybe I'm looking at things through rose-colored glasses, but everyone seemed excited to go to the moon. Everyone was intensely focused on the task at hand.

Nowadays, NASA barely gets even a footnote on newssites. Another bureaucracy buried in a sea of other government bureaucracies. No focus, no direction, no drive. The president did NASA a favor by slashing the Constellation program. The current agency is too bloated and directionless to do anything as ambitions as attempting a Mars shot.

NASA needs to reinvent itself, become leaner and efficient, and above all else, restoke the public's imagination or be consigned to future irrelevancy.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[elrous0]

Do you really believe that in the billions of stars out there that none of them have a planet that has a oxygenated atmosphere and standing water?

Sure, they're out there. We just can't and won't be able to get to them.

One small asteroid (metallic or otherwise) would be worth a massive fortune

No ore would make the expense even close to worth it, even if you could find a meteor that was solid ore. Even a solid gold meteor would be worthless (even if you found a way to get the thing to earth without it costing more than the gold was worth, it would just collapse the gold market).

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Very well said.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[elrous0]

There are realistic limitations. You can't just dismiss anyone who is skeptical of any dream as a limited thinker. Yes, people say things like "They will never be a computer in every home" and are wrong. You can call someone like that a limited thinker. But there is also the guy who says in 1955 "We'll never have flying cars in every garage. Flying vehicles are impractical and inefficient. The technology isn't there to make them practical or usable for average people, and likely never will be. It's a waste of time trying to build them." Sitting in 1955, you might call him a limited thinker too. But you would be wrong. He was merely acknowledging that there are practical limitations and that not every dream can or should be pursued.

Space colonization is so far beyond impractical and to almost warrant a new term. Human space travel over any significant distance is insanely inefficient. The distances between solar systems is almost unimaginably vast. That's the reality.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently saw a great presentation by an ex-NASA scientist/engineer (now working for the private sector) in that he stated that original goals were $100-$200/pound to orbit (in today's money). In his opinion that would have opened up the Solar system to affordable exploration by manned or unmanned means. The fact that the shuttle cost ~$20000/pound to orbit really really limits your options to LEO. So those mouth breathers may be poor scientists but they are clearly good at using calculators.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[blueturffan]

I can't stop thinking that this is the first time America can't put a person into space since I was barely 10 and John F. Kennedy was starting his fourth full month in office.

Apparently you're forgetting the period between Feb 4, 1974 (Skylab 4, the last Skylab mission) and April 12, 1981 (STS-1, the first Shuttle launch).

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Grishnakh]

Don't forget energy. Instead of burning fossil fuels and polluting our atmosphere for energy, there's a basically unlimited amount of it coming from the sun. It'll be a lot easier to harness it (and a lot less environmentally destructive) in large quantities from space than underneath our atmosphere.

Finally, having capabilities in space could prove invaluable for protecting ourselves from threats, such as killer asteroids or climate change (regardless of the cause). For instance, there's ideas for a "net" in orbit that could regulate the amount of sunlight striking the earth's surface, so we could better regulate our climate and stop climate change that isn't in our favor. Or what if Apophis turns out to be on a collision course, and needs to be redirected? You can't do any of this stuff if you have no significant capabilities in space.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Grishnakh]

Democratic governments only work well when the populace is educated and informed. That's why there's plenty of small European countries, like Switzerland, that are doing just fine, while other democratic countries like the USA and Mexico are doing terribly and are full of corruption.

There also seems to be a correlation between population size and internal problems in democracies. When you're a small country (1-10 million), there just isn't as much to fight about as when you have over 300 million people.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Bucc5062]

Would the term lacking imagination be kinder then limited thinker? Your example serves to reenforce my position. A man says "we'll never have flying cars in every garage" and because he uses the word never, he limits his own thinking. If he was in a position of power he may then limit others and that is why I say this attitude is a drag on progress,

Were he to say "we'll never have flying cars in every garage within five years (1960) then I would agree with the view of dealing with practical limitations. We need to acknowledge the existing limitations so we can overcome them. Planes were inefficient and impractical when first developed. The car had no place in society when horses were the engines of commerce. Steamships were laughed at when they first plyed the waters. Every new step is inefficient because it is new. We learn by doing, failing, doing it again till we get it right. Even science is founded on this principle.

Right now space colonies seem impractical, though I would say only from a money stand point. Right now, today we could build a sustainable colony on the moon but for two fundemental reasons, no one reason and two excuses. The reason, lack of commitment. The excuses, money and time. Regarding money, there has been more commercial success from our going into space then anything that has come from our current military actions. When our imagination is used to create we produce more wealth, more progress then occurs when we destroy. As to time, that man in 1955 would be surprised that today we have at least three working models of flying cars. The technology is still trying to catch up with desire, but one day it will. In 1991 the first cell phone I used was a 2 lb box that looked like a old army radio. By 1993 I was using something that looked like a Star Trek communicator.

You say it can't happen? I say, get out of the way of people who think it can. The only limitation we truly have is ourselves.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent down.

Don't tell me what to mod.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[ShavedOrangutan]

Conversely, how many astronauts do you think there would be if it weren't for the desire to compete with the Soviets? Remember that NASA *began* as the U.S.'s response to Sputnik.

If it wasn't for the fact the Sputnik could have just as easily been an atomic bomb, there never would have been a space race at all. The science was all fine and dandy, but it got funded due to the need to drop a nuke on Moscow.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA has consistently brought together some of the finest minds in the world to do what the preceding finest minds thought was impossible. Then, because this is America, we take a bunch of mouth-breathers who probably got Cs and Ds in basic high school science courses and make them the bosses and the gatekeepers, the people who decide that it's more important to systematize the abuse of human rights at airports and buy the jokers at the Pentagon their newest murder toy than it is to push the frontiers of knowledge and ingenuity.

You are walking proof that there is more to life than science. The space shuttle was conceived as a military tool from day one. The only thing it can do that nothing else can do cheaper is retrieve objects from space intact. The only thing worth retrieving from space is foreign satellites, since there is no point in bringing our own back. Scrapping and replacing is much more cost effective. The Shuttle is an espionage aircraft...the extension of the U2 and SR71 programs into space. It gave us the ability to prove any Soviet violations of the Outer Space Treaty, the ultimate trump card if they had weaponized satellites in space. Why do you think the Soviets were hell-bent on building the Buran? They just weren't dumb enough to pretend it was a cost-effective launch vehicle.

Somewhere along the line, one of those "mouth-breathing bosses" realized he could get the taxpayers to swallow history's most expensive spy toy simply by pointing at it and screaming "Science!"...and you bought it.

It's idiots like you, fooled by Space Shuttle coloring books and schoolteachers, fawning over a Cold War relic, and failing to invest one iota of critical thinking...idiots like you kept the program alive 20 years after it had lost all purpose whatsoever. The mouth-breathers you mention knew the whole picture. They knew the CIA and Pentagon were shoving an American flag-wrapped dick in your ass and charging you for the pleasure, and they couldn't do a thing about it. It's people like you that made it political suicide to speak out against the Shuttle program.

The lesson you missed was: "People lie." You can't find this lesson in your science textbooks. That's what history and literature and all those other "soft" classes you slept through were for.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[CommieLib]

I think that private industry will kill a number of astronauts. But those astronauts will die taking chances to advance the state of the art, and die knowing the risks and having decided that they were worth the risk, just like so many aviation pioneers did in the twentieth century.

We've simply stopped taking chances with space, as a government enterprise. As much as I loved the American space program, it's time to move on to the next phase.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[lennier]

a bunch of mouth-breathers who probably got Cs and Ds in basic high school science courses

I'm sure you're right, because I certainly didn't learn in my high school biology that there was any correlation between a person's preferred breathing method and their intelligence. I mean, I thought I'd learned that that was an old, discredited Victorian-era prejudice along the lines of phrenology - but your advanced psychological insight obviously far outstrips my own.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[lennier]

Right now, today we could build a sustainable colony on the moon but for two fundemental reasons, no one reason and two excuses.

Citation required. Depending on your definition of "sustainable", we haven't yet built a sustainable colony in low orbit; Skylab, Salyut, Mir and ISS all needed regular shipments of water, oxygen and food. We certainly haven't yet built a fully closed biological life support system on Earth - Biosphere 2 was an abject failure and demonstrated that the challenges to doing so, even in a relatively friendly Earthbound environment in Arizona with lots of failsafes, cheats and easy access to medical evacuation, are immense and not fully understood.

So no, we can't build a sustainable colony on the moon with today's technology. We could build a non-sustainable, highly fragile and dependent one, which might or might not ever be able to scale up. Could we someday close the loop? Maybe. Perhaps we should try building one on Earth first, so at least when it fails it doesn't kill people highly visibly and publically?

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[lennier]

I think that private industry will kill a number of astronauts. But those astronauts will die taking chances to increase shareholder value, so it's all fine.

Fixed!

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually there was the Apollo-Soyuz mission in July 1975. But it remains true that no American flew into space while Jimmy Carter was president. However the Voyager probes were sent and did flybys of Jupiter (and Saturn for Voyager 1) while he was in the White House.

Re:"End of an era," indeed

[IHateEverybody]

I think that private industry will kill a number of astronauts. But those astronauts will die taking chances to advance the state of the art, and die knowing the risks and having decided that they were worth the risk, just like so many aviation pioneers did in the twentieth century.

The space shuttle killed 14 astronauts, including at least one civilian school teacher. They died going into Low Earth Orbit, a place where hundreds of their fellow astronauts went during the shuttle's 30 year history. Ultimately, if space travel is to progress it has to have its own Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart followed by its own DC3. In other words space travel has to be commercialized in order to become commonplace.

Let NASA do what it does best - build robots and design missions that push the envelope of human knowledge and explore the frontier of space. If money can be made in Low Earth Orbit, someone will build the space ships to go there. And then they'll follow NASA's lead if the price is right. But ultimately, if NASA's role must be to push the envelope and not to stay put in Low Earth Orbit.

Re:The manned space program ended with Apollo

[91degrees]

But if you're sending unmanned probes and rovers, it leads me to ask why do we even do that? We can probably get a lot more bang for buck focussing on science on the planet.

NASA's Exorbitant Cost!

[jabberwock]

... At roughly $60 per capita annually, I think the cost of the space program is justified by its entertainment value alone.

they moved it to the moon and that why we can't

[Joe_Dragon]

they moved it to the moon and that why we can't go back to the moon.

Return to Space?

[Anonymous Coward]

Geez kids, get a grip! We haven't 'left space'. We have active missions out there right now (Vesta? ring a bell?), and we'll continue to send people to the ISS on Russian ships. Within 10 years we'll likely have manned capability again, but humans in space return far less than the robotic missions.
 
We need better robotics to take the next step, which is picking a resource (like a large mostly-metal asteroid), bringing it into orbit and exploiting the shit out of it.
 
Equating the U.S. space program solely to dicks and tits in space is stupid, childish, and shortsighted. But then no one thinks of Americans as especially visionary these days.

Re:Return to Space?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Geez kids, get a grip! We haven't 'left space'.

Thank you.

Lots of people here spent the last 5 years bitching about how the shuttle was old and needed to be retired, now it's happened and everybody's making gloomy predictions about how we'll never leave the atmosphere again.

Re:Return to Space?

[MMatessa]

How many active space exploration missions are there? One or two? Over a dozen. Studying Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Vesta, and on the way to Pluto.
Here's a map of them all.

Re:Return to Space?

[Teancum]

Lots of people here spent the last 5 years bitching about how the shuttle was old and needed to be retired, now it's happened and everybody's making gloomy predictions about how we'll never leave the atmosphere again.

Those weren't the same groups of people. The Shuttle did need to be retired, and thank goodness it was. Constellation needed to be killed too, and it was. Having manned spaceflight being built by a central design bureau that doesn't care about costs is where the problem is right now.

The really sad thing is that the people who wanted to see the Shuttle program continue should have fought for that a couple of years ago, at least spoken up when the Michoud facility which built the booster tanks was being shut down, together with many other facilities that provided logistical support for the Shuttle program. With those facilities now in mothballs (IMHO they should simply be retooled for other purposes or demolished) and the labor force which built those parts now dispersed to the unemployed, other jobs, and retired, the ability to get all of that going again is nearly impossible and certainly wouldn't be supported by a Congress hell bent on cutting budget items. The Shuttle program likely could have gone on for another 5-10 years, but the decision to stop flying Shuttles was made quite some time ago.

Re:Return to Space?

[Grishnakh]

Lots of people here spent the last 5 years bitching about how the shuttle was old and needed to be retired

The Shuttle was old and needed to be retired, but not before putting a replacement into place.

If your car is 25 years old and you're worried the wheels are going to fall off, would you just hand it over to the scrapyard without buying a new car (or newer car) first? Of course not. A crappy old car is better than no car at all. But if you have half a brain, you're going to save up your money and get a good replacement before you trash the old one. You're not going to blow all your money on hookers and blow (or in our case, stupid wars) and then complain you don't have any money for a new car.

Re:Return to Space?

[Anonymous Coward]

Robotics! What are you, a member of the cadre(sp?)

Re:Return to Space?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

If your car is 25 years old and you're worried the wheels are going to fall off, would you just hand it over to the scrapyard without buying a new car (or newer car) first?

No, but I also don't commission Ford to spend years to build build me a fleet of cars that cost hundreds of grands each to last me for thirty years while I'm already managing oodles of under-funded car trips.

I can't believe this is the second time I've heard this stupid car analogy in this context.

We haven't left

[Anonymous Coward]

here's hoping that we return to space soon.

Where exactly do you suppose that Ron Garan and Mike Fossum are right now? The space shuttle is not the entire manned space program. There have been Americans in space continuously for more than a decade, and there will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

First launch, last landing

[BahamaDave]

I was a student at FIT when the first shuttle launched and had the honor of watching the live launch from a small boat about a mile and a half from the launch pad. It was a memorable experience of raw power.

This morning I was woken by the sonic boom as the last shuttle was still supersonic on approach. Somehow fitting personal bookends to a wonderful program.

All That Knowledge...

[sycodon]

...walking (booted) out the door. In 5 years NASA couldn't launch a shuttle even if they took Atlantis, mothballed it and all the facilities because no one will know how to do it anymore.

When they started working on Ares they had to send engineers out to look at the Saturn 5 rocket in Houston to try to rediscover its technology because all of the institutional knowledge was gone. And even after that, they killed it.

Imagine what it must be like to be an engineer at NASA...”work on this, no, work on that. Wait, forget that and do this. Never mind, do this instead”. You've all been there in IT probably.

If there ever was a time to establish clear, long term goals and technology focus, now is it. But they will drift aimlessly, buffeted by the whims of the Administration and Congress.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Burdell]

The knowledge isn't all gone just yet. My father worked on the guidance and control systems and simulations for all the Saturns except the first test vehicle, the Apollo-Saturn Telescope Mount, the Space Shuttle Main Engines, and Spacelab (as well as helping others in his group with things like Hubble and Gravity Probe B).

However, your point about the schizophrenic management is correct; since then he's worked on X-33, X-34, Ares I, and Ares V guidance/control systems/simulations, with effectively nothing to show for it. Now he's waiting to see if the White House will ever move on the next heavy-lift vehicle (that Congress already appropriated money for). He's coming up on 50 years working for NASA (45 years in civil service and almost 5 as a part-time contractor).

NASA's biggest challenge has always been funding and the year-to-year budget process. There really should be some way to budget more than one year at a time; that just doesn't work very well for long-term projects.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[ukpyr]

Hey, tell your dad thanks for putting up with all the garbage and trying to make a difference.

- A. Taxpayer

Re:All That Knowledge...

[GooberToo]

However, your point about the schizophrenic management is correct; since then he's worked on X-33, X-34, Ares I, and Ares V guidance/control systems/simulations, with effectively nothing to show for it.

If anything, that only validates how extremely poorly run NASA is. The fact they want to create a guidance system for any specific craft is stupid, expensive, and extremely wasteful, especially knowing full well how schizophrenic major projects like that are.

Had they actually wanted to do what's right rather than just burn USD, they would have many projects completely distinct from projects like the X-33, X-34, Ares I, and Ares V, and so on. Its not like guidance is actually distinct. They all require guidance. A single, re-usable guidance system should be developed. This would actually save massive tax dollars and only require minor adaptation for specific application, be it X-33, X-34, Ares I, and Ares V, or whatever.

NASA needs to die because they purposely do everything they can to poorly manage their available resources just so they can justify an ever growing budget.

Keep in mind, I'm a massive supporter of NASA, but I extremely tired of all the purposeful waste for the sole purpose and waste.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Teancum]

While NASA might not be able to launch a shuttle, there certainly are several people who can, and are American as well. Just because NASA development efforts are falling apart and it seems like the bureaucracy at NASA is too big for its own good, that doesn't mean the knowledge is being lost either.

Instead, the real development efforts are now happening with private efforts. Anybody with half a brain and wants to design rockets that really fly, which will carry real cargo and real passengers into orbit are now no longer working for NASA or even many of the major contractors for NASA. Instead, they are working at places like SpaceX, Orbital, Blue Origin, Xcor, or Bigelow Aerospace. They are making things that either have or will shortly go into space.

The real proof that something has changed is how Boeing is treating spacecraft development. They have essentially ignored any direction from NASA in terms of designs and even they went and built their own spacecraft (the CST-100) that will fit on top of one of their own launchers (Delta IV). The technology to go into space is alive and well, with a whole group of people who know how to do it and are doing it routinely. It just isn't going through NASA centers for direction, planning, or funding any more.

I think that is a good thing, although the question begs to be asked, why keep NASA around anymore? If the vehicles being designed by NASA engineers or through NASA directorates keep getting canceled and there is no clear focus in terms of what to do next, I certainly wouldn't want to stick around if I was an employee there. The exciting stuff isn't happening at NASA any more, and they aren't even getting into space and doing stuff. Even the science directorates are being cut back.... for what? A big rocket that will never be used for a mission that is irrelevant because the destination that is its only purpose will no longer exist by the time it is built? Yeah, that is real inspiration to me.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[ArsenneLupin]

A single, re-usable guidance system should be developed

... or they should just have subcontracted all of it to Croatia. The mess would have been the same, but at least the cost would have been much less!

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Burdell]

They've been using the same guidance/control system simulation framework since X-33. However, you can't just have a re-usable guidance system for vastly different vehicles. X-33 was a lifting-body (which is an inherently unstable platform), X-34 was a delta-wing (similar to the Shuttle), and Ares I/V were stacked/staged rockets (similar to Saturn, Delta, etc.). They also had vastly different propulsion systems; while the Ares engines were based on existing traditional rocket motors, the X-33 was a linear aerospike, which required completely different control systems.

It isn't like they started from scratch each time (they didn't); it is just that a lot of customization had to be done for each vehicle and propulsion system. If they get the go-ahead to work on the heavy-lift vehicle, they'll start with work done for Ares and evolve it for the new project.

You wouldn't expect the same system to work on a Cesna and a B-2; why would you expect the same system to work on vehicles that have even less in common?

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Grishnakh]

Imagine what it must be like to be an engineer at NASA...âwork on this, no, work on that. Wait, forget that and do this. Never mind, do this insteadâ. You've all been there in IT probably.

Yep, that sounds exactly like my employment as a software engineer at two large semiconductor companies. The difference, however, is that I either didn't work on anything terribly important, or that didn't have viable competitors (the one thing that was a useful-to-society item, fiber-to-the-home aka GPON, had several up-and-coming competitors when my employer decided to throw in the towel even though it was #1 in the market for this product).

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Suzuran]

Does your father have any Saturn guidance software source code AT ALL, or any knowledge of where it might be?
We have been desperately searching for the Saturn LVDC guidance software for years now, even to the extreme of obtaining core planes from a LVDC and trying to read them out.
If your father has any prints at all, or any knowledge of where the software might be, we DESPERATELY need to hear from him!

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Grishnakh]

Maybe ESA or JAXA would be interested in employing him. Then he could put his knowledge and skills to better use, on projects much more likely to actually go into space.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Grishnakh]

Exactly. Plus, the parts these systems are built from change over time. Just look at how fast semiconductors are obsoleted, or new and better ones come onto the market. You wouldn't want to use a 30-year-old guidance/control system on a brand-new spacecraft. Some or even much of the overall design and software may be the same or similar, but it'll probably be running on updated hardware and take advantage of other newer techniques.

It's like the Linux kernel. It's 20 years old now, but that doesn't mean a modern Linux system is running 20-year-old software. The people involved have changed and improved so many things in it that it's scarcely the same, however many of the fundamentals are still the same and some of the code hasn't changed because it hasn't needed to. They didn't just quit when they hit 2.0 or whatever; they kept making it better and better.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Grishnakh]

People keep complaining about the bureaucracy at NASA, but I don't think that's the main problem over there. NASA has been very successful at launching many unmanned missions in the last 10-20 years. Look at the Mars rovers; those have been a resounding success (except for that one that crashed due to US/metric confusion).

The problem with NASA is that it's tied too tightly to the government, and the government is elected and changes every 2-4 years. Worse, the government (and American business and even society) have become extremely short-sighted in the past few decades, unlike 40-60 years ago. So NASA isn't really able to do anything that takes longer than 4 years to get finished. Unmanned missions are doable because they're fairly cheap, and they can get them finished and launched quickly, within that timeframe. Manned missions take longer (when you consider all the infrastructure needed; obviously each individual mission is much shorter, but the length of time needed to develop a launch system is > 4 years).

With the way our government is right now, it's really rather pointless to even try to have NASA bother with manned missions. It'd make a lot more sense to just give a bunch of money, under contract, to some outside company or agency (perhaps the ESA?) and let them build something great. Once the money's spent, a future Congress or Administration won't be able to change their mind and get it back.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Grishnakh]

although the question begs to be asked, why keep NASA around anymore? If the vehicles being designed by NASA engineers or through NASA directorates keep getting canceled and there is no clear focus in terms of what to do next, I certainly wouldn't want to stick around if I was an employee there.

That's simple: science. Commercial interests may be fine for building rockets and launching them, but who's going to pay for a mission to explore Mercury? A private company isn't going to do that, because there's no short-term profit in it, so we need a government agency. Maybe NASA needs to be refocused on simply doing scientific missions, and using launch hardware from the private aerospace companies you named to get them out there. NASA's had very good success with various unmanned missions: the Mars rovers, MESSENGER, the probe looking at Vesta right now, etc. These missions are cheap (compared to Apollo), and can be designed and built and launched in less than 4 years, within one Presidential term.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Teancum]

How many manned spaceflight rocket designs have been proposed since the Saturn V was slated for retirement? Starting with the "Big G" Gemini II capsule all of the way to the Orion/Constellation program and nearly 20 vehicles in between, I'd say that is a consistent pattern of failure after failure. It certainly hasn't been a lack of trying, but a consistent lack of follow-through to get something built has been a huge problem. Only the Space Shuttle seemed to be the only program to be spared the wrath of budget cuts, even even the Shuttle program didn't get by unscathed. Many of the reasons why the Shuttle program had to end now is explicitly because of design compromises made in the 1970's when it was first being developed. A little more money then could have saved billions over the past 30 years.

Yes, the unmanned programs launching on stuff like the Delta II, Delta IV, and Atlas V have been going rather well, and the spacecraft themselves seem to work out fairly well. Then again you have stuff like the James Webb Space Telescope that is also spiraling out of control and devouring what is even coming out of the science directorates. This isn't even isolated to just the manned spaceflight efforts, as the bureaucracy is starting to eat away at even the unmanned stuff now. What is worse, the easy low-hanging fruit that could be grabbed by even unmanned missions has already been taken, and now we need to start spending more money for stuff that is more elaborate and thus more expensive.

If you want to make this a fight between manned vs. unmanned missions, both concepts lose. That is the wrong fight to make. For those who currently are real scientists leading real teams studying other planets, they acknowledge that they would love to get a couple of people to help with the follow-up research that comes from their efforts. There is a role to be played for both manned and unmanned missions, and they need each other both from a conceptual viewpoint as well as from a funding viewpoint.

I do agree with the issue that programs which go past the current administration and need to be dealt with by multiple presidencies and sessions of congress are unlikely to be continued without some incredibly strong leadership. The real trick, however, is trying to lower launch costs, and that is something which has not even been a goal at NASA. It certainly wasn't a real goal for the Shuttle program.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Shatrat]

Is that you, Kim Jong Il?

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Anonymous Coward]

When they started working on Ares they had to send engineers out to look at the Saturn 5 rocket in Houston to try to rediscover its technology because all of the institutional knowledge was gone.

We tried for a while to put the knowledge into Wikipedia, but it was deleted due to "original research".

No, I am absolutely not kidding.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Teancum]

I would love a restructuring of NASA to be more like the original NACA that it developed from. There was some amazing research that happened there, and I also think many of the exploration missions (like MESSENGER, New Horizon, and Dawn) certainly provide a national benefit.

While you and I might disagree on the viability of a for-profit commercial venture sponsoring an exploratory mission to Mercury, I will agree that public exploration is useful and even needed. I like the example of the Lewis & Clark expedition as a government sponsored scientific endeavor of which produced a huge beneficial payback to the American people for the expenses which happened at the time. The journals of the expedition are even now invaluable in terms of the knowledge of biology, the indigenous tribes of the areas they passed through, and other information they recorded on that journey at the beginning of the 19th century. These modern explorations of the Solar System are clearly being done with the same general pattern and is something I'd love to see continued into the future.

The issue I have is how a technological problem like trying to figure out how to get into low-Earth orbit is still a massive unsolved engineering task requiring a cost-plus procurement contract? On this I think I can agree with you that a big refocusing of NASA is needed to be done, even if it causes several within NASA to lose their jobs. That may even require closing some NASA mission directorates, which is certain to get some congressmen upset. Then again there have been several military base closings even recently, so I know it can be done if there is a will to get it to happen. NASA needs to be in the business of exploring and stretching the limits of technology. It certainly should never have been turned into a military logistical command.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Suzuran]

No, he gets all his stuff from the Iranians.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Teancum]

NASA's biggest challenge has always been funding and the year-to-year budget process. There really should be some way to budget more than one year at a time; that just doesn't work very well for long-term projects.

I don't know if this makes much of a difference, but NASA (at least von Braun's group which built the rockets in the 50's and 60's) came from the U.S. Army's artillery ordinance command (and not the Army Air Force which became the USAF). Some of this year-to-year budget approval came from the funding mentality that constitutionally is required for Army projects. Naval contracts, however, typically were expected to span multiple years of development.

For instance, when aircraft carriers are put into the development pipeline, they typically get funded to completion. Yes, occasionally there are even ships where the keel is laid down and construction starts where the plans for the ship are then subsequently scrapped, but it is a comparatively rare thing and the whole contract can be funded for many years in one single appropriation only subject to legislative review in terms of status reports and the ability of the management of that project to continue to completion.

Missiles were treated as essentially overgrown artillery shells that just got better and better range to eventually be able to hit targets further than the circumference of the Earth. The early rockets were usually simple enough and cheap enough that they could be purchased where the development together with the flight missions could be completed within a year. Once the precedent is set, it is incredibly hard to change. I'd agree that this is a problem and should be addressed, but it is also giving up political power on the part of Congress as well. They don't like that.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[hairyfeet]

If it is missing why not simply print out a nice form letter asking about it and send it to the retired NASA guys? I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to get a list of their locations since after all you have to send their pension checks somewhere.

While I don't know about the LVDC I know that my retired NASA engineer neighbor has some of the late Apollo stuff like one of the books for programming the capsule computer (Sorry I can't think of the technical term for it ATM, I have a major cold) as well as some of the early to mid shuttle stuff. Actually getting to hold some of the original plans for the shuttle's bay and hatches? Very cool.

According to him most of the guys would take the stuff NASA was throwing in the trash as souvenirs so I honestly wouldn't be surprised if what you seek is in one of their closets somewhere, because according to him NASA threw away a LOT of cool historic stuff and the engineers would take it rather than see it in the dump. Sad to hear NASA was so short sighted, but what do you expect of a government org eh?

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Suzuran]

We aren't the US government, and even if we were, we'd have to be in the right department to have access to pension check data. We're an open-source project working on systems level simulation of the Apollo spacecraft. Our goal is to simulate every aspect of the missions with the original checklists and software.

The technical term you want is "Apollo Guidance Computer". There were two AGCs, one in the Command Module, and one in the Lunar Module. These were the CMC and LGC respectively. We already have the software for both of these. The LM also had a backup computer of completely different design, called the Abort Guidance System. We have the software for that. We're missing the LVDC software and the software used by mission control. The LVDC flew the Saturn, and the ground control guys used lots of software for lots of things.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Burdell]

AFAIK he does not (but I will double-check). That is what he worked on (he points the LVDC out whenever we're at the museum :) ), but I don't think he has anything from it. I believe his memorabilia is all personal stuff (he still has his NASA-issued slide rule from 1962!).

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Burdell]

Yep. Part of the Ares I work was pulling out the J-2X records from the 1970s (worked on as an upgrade to the J-2 used on the 2nd and 3rd stages of the Saturn V) and bringing them up to date. Materials and processes have changed, and that gives lots of room for improvement (just look at the changes in the SSME over 30 years).

The myth that "NASA can't build a Saturn V because they lost the blueprints" is false, but it would be true that they couldn't just go build a Saturn V today. It would be stupid to try to recreate computers from the 1960s, so they'd use modern computers. That would require rewriting the software though, which would require testing and certifying it from scratch.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Suzuran]

We would be eternally grateful. Even something like the names of other people we could ask would be immensely useful.
We have lots of hardware documentation so far, but nothing in the way of software or documentation for it.
Pretty much anything is potentially useful, as leads for other things if nothing else.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Burdell]

I will (and thanks).

We all got up early this morning to go watch the landing at the NASA auditorium, and it was standing room only (and I think some people were out in the hall). As much bureaucratic crap as the engineers and scientists have to deal with (some of from being a government agency but lots of it just from being a large organization), you can tell they really do love doing what they get to do.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Colourspace]

Yep. What you said.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[hairyfeet]

Oh in that case what you need to do is put out an APB as an "Ask Slashdot" article as I bet there are plenty of geeks here from NASA, as well as geeks like me that know NASA guys.

I'll email my friend and ask if he has anything on the LVDC but I kinda doubt it as that wasn't really his dept. He was one of the guys that built the mock ups used for training. He has an awesome video of him pushing around this 30+ ton shuttle mock up by himself one handed! They had it so perfectly balanced he said a 14 year old girl could move the thing.

So like I said, do an ask /. and I'll tell my bud to look and see what he has. But I bet you money one of the engineers has it in a closet somewhere as I can tell you my NASA buddy has tons of the stuff. Real packrats those guys are.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Suzuran]

Yeah, this kind of stuff is what we're banking on. NARA has the code somewhere, but they're so understaffed it'll take them decades before they can consider beginning to consider finding it.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Burdell]

I asked him, and he said he didn't know where it might be found. He remembers the foot-high printout and the big paper tape, but that's it (he said IBM did most of the writing and NASA patched it, so IBM might have something).

He did tell my sister and me that we used "space-age technology" when we scraped the ice/frost off of the windshield of the old car we each drove in high school. There were some plug-in cards in the LVDC that had some discrete components (a few transistors, resistors, etc.), and they'd periodically get some that failed in the lab. He grabbed several to keep, and put one in the car as an ice scraper because it had a taper on one edge that made it work well.

Re:All That Knowledge...

[Suzuran]

We didn't know NASA was patching the code; We thought they were just generating the trajectory constants.
We asked IBM first; IBM Federal Systems transferred all their NASA stuff when they were divested, and they lost track of it.

Anyway, thanks for asking , and send my thanks to your father for the work he did.
If you google for "Orbiter NASSP" you can find our project and its forums. You're more than welcome to check it out if you want.

So Long Shuttle

[jaksongitr]

CmdrTaco, thank you for the coverage of the launch. I was there and following your, NASA and weather tweets all morning up until the launch. 'Tis quite a memorable experience indeed, I'm just glad they made it back safe and sound and off into history they go. Just wish America could get its act together so something this awesome doesn't have to end due to financial concerns.

... this means Russia ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... is the leader in space again!

Re:... this means Russia ...

[WindBourne]

Just for a short time. America will have 2-4 launchers for Human in just 3 short years, or less.

Thanks

[cbcanb]

Atlantis flew a magnificent mission, capping a great career. She, and her sisters, have been great ships and deserve to retire with honour.

Yeah, they were expensive. Yeah, people think robots are cooler. Yeah, they couldn't go to the moon or Mars. And yeah, in hindsight hanging a somewhat fragile spaceship on the side of a booster probably wasn't the best idea.

But Atlantis and her sisters' record of achievement is magnificent, and will probably never be matched. They launched space probes, they conducted research into materials, life sciences, earth sciences, astronomy, and countless other fields. They serviced satellites and space stations, and brought tonnes of equipment back to earth for study and reflight. They provided a convenient platform for experiments and payloads that would otherwise have had to construct their own complete satellites. They did all this 133 times successfully, with only two losses, and in the space business you'd take that success rate any day of the week.

Re:Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

But Atlantis and her sisters' record of achievement is magnificent, and will probably never be matched.

While agree with the description of magnificent, I find it highly unlikely the shuttle program's achievements will never be matched, unless it turns out to be true that we will self-destruct Atlantis (the civilization) style. Otherwise, sooner or later, humanity always achieves greater technological heights.

Re:Thanks

[Teancum]

While I'm not much of a fan for seeing the Shuttle continue, it is a magnificent spacecraft and I do look forward to seeing Altantis and her sisters in museums in the near future. They did a whole bunch of amazing things, and prove some spaceflight ideas that will be invaluable for future spacecraft design.

I just hope that the record of achievement will be matched in the future and surpassed in terms of tonnage delivered to orbit, items brought back to the Earth, and satellites repaired while in orbit. At the moment, I don't know of any spacecraft which can do much of that, but I hope that eventually something does get built to fill some of the niches that the Shuttle program did provide. As much as I like the Dragon, CST-100, and other capsules, they really don't do what the Shuttle did.

Re:Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

But Atlantis and her sisters' record of achievement is magnificent, and will probably never be matched. They launched space probes, they ... [long list of different kinds of tasks]...

That was actually the most fundamental problem: we tried to have a single piece of equipment do too many different things.

In software, this is called "incoherence". Basically, if you have one object that you rely on to do too many different things, then you're asking for bugs. Such a module needs to be broken up into multiple ones, each one with a clear purpose.

The shuttle was intended to be:

    - A launcher/lander for human passengers
    - A cargo launcher/lander
    - A space station (it could support 7+ astronauts in orbit for multiple weeks)
    - A service vehicle
    - An experiment bay

And on top of that, it was intended to be reusable, despite the fact that this most-complex machine had to be put through extreme vibration and other duress every time it was used.

A proper space program would break everything into more manageable pieces:
    - Human launcher/lander for max 4 persons, which has a single in-orbit task: docking with a space station
    - Separate cargo launcher/lander (can be much cheaper, and doesn't need as high a reliability factor)
    - A minimal human-habitation module for orbit: supports 1 astronaut for some week or months, or 1 year or more with a supply module attached. A space station would include 2 of these modules for every crew member
    - Interconnect module
    - Science-bay module(s)
    - rec room or other "common room" modules for space station crews to gather
    - in-orbit propulsion modules -- probalbly ion engines -- to maintain or adjust a station's orbit

Each module would have its own 2- or 3-year design cycle, with new & improved designs going into production on each cycle. One or more space stations would be assembled from various assortments of the standard modules. A station's old and/or obsolete versions of modules would be periodically jettisoned, and replaced with modules of the newest designs. The engine module would be steadily improved in power, to the point where a "station" could become an earth-moon shuttle, or eventually earth-NEO or earth-mars transporters.

Re:Thanks

[dcmeserve]

But Atlantis and her sisters' record of achievement is magnificent, and will probably never be matched. They launched space probes, they ... [long list of different kinds of tasks]...</blockquote>

That was actually the most fundamental problem: we tried to have a single piece of equipment do too many different things.

In software, this is called "incoherence". Basically, if you have one object that you rely on to do too many different things, then you're asking for bugs. Such a module needs to be broken up into multiple ones, each one with a clear purpose.

The shuttle was intended to be:

        - A launcher/lander for human passengers
        - A cargo launcher/lander
        - A space station (it could support 7+ astronauts in orbit for multiple weeks)
        - A service vehicle
        - An experiment bay

And on top of that, it was intended to be reusable, despite the fact that this most-complex machine had to be put through extreme vibration and other duress every time it was used.

A proper space program would break everything into more manageable pieces:
        - Human launcher/lander for max 4 persons, which has a single in-orbit task: docking with a space station
        - Separate cargo launcher/lander (can be much cheaper, and doesn't need as high a reliability factor)
        - A minimal human-habitation module for orbit: supports 1 astronaut for some week or months, or 1 year or more with a supply module attached. A space station would include 2 of these modules for every crew member
        - Interconnect module
        - Science-bay module(s)
        - rec room or other "common room" modules for space station crews to gather
        - in-orbit propulsion modules -- probalbly ion engines -- to maintain or adjust a station's orbit

Each module would have its own 2- or 3-year design cycle, with new & improved designs going into production on each cycle. One or more space stations would be assembled from various assortments of the standard modules. A station's old and/or obsolete versions of modules would be periodically jettisoned, and replaced with modules of the newest designs. The engine module would be steadily improved in power, to the point where a "station" could become an earth-moon shuttle, or eventually earth-NEO or earth-mars transporters.

lament from a British lefty

[tverbeek]

Although written years earlier, Billy Bragg's "The Space Race is Over" seems appropriate.

Space is too expensive to be a national endeavour

[Anonymous Coward]

So stop exploiting science for nationalistic ends.
Does America need a launch capability, if there exists one elsewhere on the world?
Though I guess working united toward a goal is communism. And that just wouldn't be right.

Great

[StripedCow]

Those engineers can now work at Google to make office software. Sigh.

Re:Great

[TheDarkMaster]

GoogleRover(r) on Moon next year

Good

[blahbooboo]

Look, it WAS a great achievement. But like most things in the USA, for the last 30-40 years we never move on to something better. I believe with the space shuttle still flying we would never get a new program moving. The shuttle a great technical achievement, but an inherently flawed design for efficiency and frankly BORING at low earth orbit capability. Furthermore, at 0.5 BILLION per launch, it was just a waste of money repeating the same thing (essentially) again and again and again. We could launch two vehicles -- one for humans and one for the cargo for far less than this single shuttle bus.

Now lets see if we can get more practical MODERN vehicles moving forward now that this 1960/1970 vehicle is finally put out to pasture where it belonged 15 years ago.

Re:Good

[daid303]

I hope so. I hear very little to nothing about any replacement.

I'm European, and the USA spaceflight is one of those things that I used to look up to in my young years. I used to build little paper space-shuttles. And without a replacement there this dream is dead.

Re:Good

[Teancum]

I hope so. I hear very little to nothing about any replacement.

There are plenty of "replacement" vehicles to the Shuttle. Nearly a dozen have been designed by NASA, some very similar to the Shuttle and some more like the Apollo capsule. There are also more than a dozen American spacecraft designs currently under development in various stages, including a capsule called the "Dragon" which has just been announced that it will travel to the ISS in November of this year. There are even some European spacecraft designs that I'm particularly impressed with, some which are "sub-orbital", but there are some orbital spacecraft too.

I'm especially interested in the European (non-Russian) designs because they seem to be showing a whole lot more imagination in terms of completely rethinking just how a spacecraft even should work in the first place. I'm sure the ideas will make it "across the pond" if they prove successful.

If you haven't heard about these vehicles, I'd suggest using a search engine to search for them. I'll admit that it would be nice if there was a Shuttle v 2.0 that would do most of the same things that the Shuttle does, but that is admittedly not being done right now. I am at a loss as to why that isn't happening either, but the engineers involved with this stuff certainly aren't sitting on their hands.

Re:Good

[Loopy]

Now if only we'd apply that to congressmen and business entities deemed "too big to fail."

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear very little to nothing about any replacement.

That's because there is no one replacement. There are many:

Crew vehicles and habitats currently in work:
MPCV
CST-100
SpaceX Dragon
Dream Chaser
Bigelow Commercial Space Station

Launchers used by above:
Atlas V
Space Launch System
SpaceX Falcon 9

Sub-orbital spacecraft currently in work:
SpaceShipTwo
New Shepard

And that's just the work going on the U.S. Russia, Europe, China, India, Japan and probably others have or are planning manned launch capability.

I think the retirement of the shuttle is the best thing to happen to manned spaceflight in a long time. We are now transitioning away from Big Government Chest-Pounding to every-day commercial transportation -- competitive services that simply transport people where ever they want to go in space.

Re:Good

[caseih]

There's lots of talk about replacements for the Shuttle's ISS roles. Several companies in the US are aiming to build rockets capable of sending men and supplies to the station. In fact later this year SpaceX will send its dragon capsule up to do a flyby of the ISS. Next year they will send actual cargo. And it looks like the year after that they will have their manned capsule ready. So it's an exciting time for US space flight. SpaceX is particularly exciting because they've managed to keep things simple, modular, and reliable, with launch prices for cargo and men that are a fraction of what the shuttle cost. So visit SpaceX.com and keep your dream alive!

Outside the US, Japan and the ESA both now have cargo vehicles to help keep the station supplied as well. There's talk of trying to develop man-rated versions of these capsules.

The last few years of the Shuttle have been pretty boring really. Just ferry trips to the ISS. Only the hubble repair mission was really that exciting. In years past the spacelab missions were very cool. Of course the shuttle really was intended all along to build the ISS, so I guess it fulfilled that part of its mission.

Now that the shuttle is finished, with private companies taking over the role of servicing the ISS, NASA should be free to concentrate on other things like deep space missions, going to Mars, etc. Perhaps design a heavy lift booster to lift things needed for a Mars mission into orbit.

I have a friend who works with planetary probes studying places like Titan. She and her collaborators have exciting ideas for future missions, but getting funding is so hard with the shuttle and the ISS eating up most of the money. To put it in perspective, though. One mission to Titan with a lander costs less than one week of military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the meantime NASA is going to be hobbled by rapidly changing directives and priorities, brought on by the politicians who are constantly pulling them in different directions, and binding them to use products that aren't always ideal for the situation (like the solid rocket boosters made in Sen Hatch's home state). So ironic when the President called for private companies to provide rides to the ISS and haul cargo, and then to hear the Republicans act all silly about it, satirically congratulating SpaceX for doing something NASA did 40 years ago, but which thing it could not do today, thanks to politicians in general.

sad news... US manned space, dead at 50

[Thud457]

I just heard the sad news on the radio, the United States manned space program was found dead on it's runway in Cape Canaveral this morning. Foul play is suspected.
I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss it -- even if they didn't enjoy it's work, there's no denying it's contributions to the advancement the distribution of federal pork. Truly an American icon.

NASA employees?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Thanks go out to the thousands of NASA employees who made this happen

Very few NASA employees were involved with "making" Shuttle flights happen. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Thiokol engineers were.

Re:The Russians won in the end

[Anonymous Coward]

But didn't they get there (space) first? Don't the Russians hold all all of the early space "firsts"?

Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead!

[GargamelSpaceman]

And since nobody died, we can celebrate!

Re:The Russians won in the end

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI: Russians actually did get there first, just google "first man in space"

get Congress out of the way

[Thud457]

Some things have longer horizons than our 2/4/6-year election cycles. Like our financial institutions, our leaders and focused way too much on the short term.

The Pres & the Congress should set goals, NASA should submit an honest budget per project, and Congress should approve them or not as a whole. No more of this micromanagement crap -- "We'll give you 7 billion this year, but you've got to use solid rocket boosters made in the congressional district from Utah. Next term, we're going to cut your budget to make cheap points with the teabaggers."

Re:Space is too expensive to be a national endeavo

[elrous0]

But Mr. President, we must not allow a space gap!

Re:The manned space program ended with Apollo

[Anonymous Coward]

We do it because we're curious and because we can.

We've yet to create a tool as versatile as having boots on the ground. Sure, we have enhanced capabilities, but there's only so much one can do remotely.

I, for one, would LOVE to get a full-time geologist on mars for a study.

Emperor!

[M0j0_j0j0]

Emperor, our golden age as ended. (Click to end turn)

Re:Emperor!

[ginbot462]

Yea, Space Victory is very lame anyways... domination is the only way to go.

End of U.S manned space flight capability(?)

[MrKaos]

This is a sad day because I see no realistic plans to replace the shuttle's capability of putting a human in space, even if it's only LEO. It looks like pretty much everything to replace it has been canceled.

N.A.S.A, another victim of the Iraq war. Such a pity to witness it's demise.

Re:End of U.S manned space flight capability(?)

[Rotten168]

Obama Gives Nasa $2.4 Billion to Study Climate Change Oh really? Seems that 2.4 billion couldn't launched about... 5 shuttles.

Re:End of U.S manned space flight capability(?)

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Well I don't know what reality you are living in, but here in the real world we have this little bird that was just tested on orbit last Spring. It's scheduled for another couple of test flights later this year. I hear that the development of its emergency abort system (something the shuttle didn't have) is being developed expediantly. Once that item is checked off, we should be able to put people back into orbit in no time.

But don't let my factually backed optimism rain on your pity party.

Re:End of U.S manned space flight capability(?)

[Anonymous Coward]

N.A.S.A, another victim of OBAMACARE. Such a pity to witness it's demise

Re:End of U.S manned space flight capability(?)

[Anonymous Coward]

It MUST be Bush's fault. Don't let pesky facts get in the way.

Re:End of U.S manned space flight capability(?)

[serviscope_minor]

That little bird has nothing like the capability of the shuttle. Can you (for instance) go and service the Hubble telescope from it?

Re:End of U.S manned space flight capability(?)

[BJ_Covert_Action]

OP said:

I see no realistic plans to replace the shuttle's capability of putting a human in space

Which is precisely what the Dragon was designed to do: take over the task of putting a human in space in a manner far more efficient than the shuttle. The OP was not bemoaning all the lost "features" of the shuttle, and I hope that was for good reason. Using the shuttle to service the Hubble was a tremendous waste of money and was about the least efficient means of solving the, "OMG the Hubble is dying!" problem. It would have been cheaper and safer for NASA to build a second Hubble and launch it unmanned. Servicing the Hubble from the shuttle was nothing but a PR stunt (an impressive one, to be sure, but still stupid from a technical point of view).

The little bird I linked to is how human spaceflight should be done. Launch meatbags on a small, light, simple craft that maximizes safety and minimizes complexity while heavy cargo and robotic overlord space missions are launched on separate, unmanned platforms. Separating those two problems allows two much more efficient solutions to be developed rather than inventing some bastardized flying brick to try to do both.

The shuttle, however, is an example of what happens when you don't separate those two problems. You get a big, complex, dangerous, heavy, assymetrical, contol systems nightmare that puts squishy meatbags right next door to complex, fragile robotic systems in some attempt at replicating the Millenium Falcon...or something.

So, can the Dragon service the Hubble? No. Should it be able to? No. Should the Shuttle have serviced the Hubble? No.

Is the Dragon following a much more intelligent and elegant design path to solving the problem of developing a permanent human presence in space? Yes. A thousand times more than the Shuttle ever would have.

Re:End of U.S manned space flight capability(?)

[MrKaos]

Well I don't know what reality you are living in, but here in the real world we have this little bird that was just tested on orbit last Spring. It's scheduled for another couple of test flights later this year. I hear that the development of its emergency abort system (something the shuttle didn't have) is being developed expediantly. Once that item is checked off, we should be able to put people back into orbit in no time. But don't let my factually backed optimism rain on your pity party.

So are these NASA plans or SpaceX plans? Oh hang on look at what it says in the article you provided:

Initiated internally by SpaceX in 2005, the Dragon spacecraft

So it's not actually a NASA program which is good because it can't be canceled by the government, oh wait the program is only funded to 2015. Your comment has no bearing on the fact that NASA programs such as Orion, constellation, the still born DIRECT etc, plans to return to the moon and so on are all canceled.

But don't let my pragmatic assessment of the facts and reality interrupt you from your wanking.

Re:End of U.S manned space flight capability(?)

[Anonymous Coward]

The Hubble should never have been in that orbit to begin with, but it was forced to because the only way to justify the albatross that was the shuttle program, was to mandate that everything had to be launched on it. It was recognized almost from its first flight that it was way too expensive and you got very little value in return. It is really sad that, looking back on it, all you can say is "look at all the great things they did on the shuttle" when it turns out that was the only option to do those things simply to justify having the shuttle around. The shuttle program set back the space program decades.

Re:End of U.S manned space flight capability(?)

[BJ_Covert_Action]

You never said that there are no NASA plans to replace the shuttle human flight capability, just no plans in general. My assertion is that there are plans to replace the shuttle's human spaceflight capability, whether or not they are intiiated or funded by NASA is completely irrelevant. And if we are being quite frank with each other, replacing the NASA operated shuttle program with privately funded LEO taxis that compete for NASA contracts is probably a lot better for the space industry in general. Keeping human spaceflight capability in the hands of NASA creates a government run monopoly that is kept in the stranglehold of whimsical politicians. Getting human spaceflight capabilites out of the pockets of Congress is, in my opinion, the only way human spaceflight is going to be allowed to be sustained long enough to do anything interesting. But that is really a matter of opinion.

If your lamentations were over the lack of a NASA program, rather than the lack of a replacement program in general, you should have been more specific. Don't get pissy at me due to your own ambiguity. If your lamentations are over the lack of a viable shuttle alternatives in general, then I stand by my assertion that you are deeply mistaken.

And for the record, the shuttle never could have gotten us to the Moon, Mars, or asteroids. It couldn't go beyond LEO. The current plan to replace the defunt Orion program is titled the MPCV (Multi-Purpose Crewed Vehicle), and it is being actively developed. Both Constellation and DIRECT did little more than add one more rocket booster architecture to an already healthy line of United States developed and operated booster families (EELV, Orbital, SpaceX, the list goes on). So what, exactly, are you lamenting and why? We will get to the Moon. We will get to Mars. We just aren't going to take some pork-ridden politician's wet dream to get there.

Re:End of U.S manned space flight capability(?)

[MrKaos]

You never said that there are no NASA plans to replace the shuttle human flight capability, just no plans in general. My assertion is that there are plans to replace the shuttle's human spaceflight capability, whether or not they are intiiated or funded by NASA is completely irrelevant. And if we are being quite frank with each other, replacing the NASA operated shuttle program with privately funded LEO taxis that compete for NASA contracts is probably a lot better for the space industry in general. Keeping human spaceflight capability in the hands of NASA creates a government run monopoly that is kept in the stranglehold of whimsical politicians. Getting human spaceflight capabilites out of the pockets of Congress is, in my opinion, the only way human spaceflight is going to be allowed to be sustained long enough to do anything interesting. But that is really a matter of opinion.

I don't disagree with you here, but it's irrelevant.

If your lamentations were over the lack of a NASA program, rather than the lack of a replacement program in general, you should have been more specific. Don't get pissy at me due to your own ambiguity. If your lamentations are over the lack of a viable shuttle alternatives in general, then I stand by my assertion that you are deeply mistaken.

N.A.S.A, another victim of the Iraq war. Such a pity to witness it's demise.

I don't think that lacks ambiguity.

And for the record, the shuttle never could have gotten us to the Moon, Mars, or asteroids. It couldn't go beyond LEO. The current plan to replace the defunt Orion program is titled the MPCV (Multi-Purpose Crewed Vehicle), and it is being actively developed. Both Constellation and DIRECT did little more than add one more rocket booster architecture to an already healthy line of United States developed and operated booster families (EELV, Orbital, SpaceX, the list goes on). So what, exactly, are you lamenting and why? We will get to the Moon. We will get to Mars. We just aren't going to take some pork-ridden politician's wet dream to get there.

I'm aware of the shuttles limitations. Constellation and DIRECT had trade-offs but in general, something is better than nothing considering the industrial size of the programs lost and yes you may as well have painted a party political flag on each program. What I am lamenting is this is the end of NASA as we know it. It may change into something else but that remains to be seen.

I am lamenting the loss of a massive engineering program that was pretty much the last opportunity of getting the the experiences of engineers who actually worked in the space race to pass their experience on to a new generation, but the funding for it was spent in Iraq. Sure some will go into private industry, most will retire but they won't get to work together in the same way so the systemic expertise is lost. The shuttle was NASA's swan song, for all it's flaws.

Over the NASA generation that oversaw the 'management' of the STS service, corporate culture crept in and NASA's focus shifted from an engineering first mindset. Progressively they converted a knowledge of failure to a memory of success. This is the assessment of the CAIB report, which I read, that illustrates that the culture that NASA got to the moon with was on life support. If any of that culture survives it might be in the form that monitors and regulates Human launches of private vehicles with a minimum level of safety. The end of the shuttle program means NASA budget can be shrunk even more aggressively.

The reason why I think this is because the U.S is in so much financial difficulty right now it hard to see how NASA will be funded to the levels where it will be able to produce it's own launch capacity, I hope I'm wrong, but the scenarios surrounding NASA suggest NASA will become a much smaller organisation.

I think from reading your post we pretty much share the same

Re:The Russians won in the end

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI: Russians did get there first. Just google "first man in space".
P.S. Who the heck deleted my comment, I wonder?

About time!

[Wildmuffin]

Considering the US is up to (and above) their neck in debt, shutting down their space program is the only sensible thing to do. Time to face the music. You are broke and living on borrowed money. Sincerly, A concerned european

Re:About time!

[HellYeahAutomaton]

NASA has been budgeted from 1958 to 2008 amounts to $471.23 billion dollars—an average of $9.06 billion per year. "Medicare & Medicaid ($793B or 23%), Social Security ($701B or 20%), Defense Department ($689B or 20%), non-defense discretionary ($660B or 19%), other ($416B or 12%) and interest ($197B or 6%)."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget")

The $18.69B spent by NASA in 2010 is a far cry from the $1.5 trillion in social programs we are wasting money on.
Please keep your misguided mathematics to yourself. NASA isn't what is making America broke.

The impact NASA has is like a stick of gum in a grocery bag full of caviar, lobster tails and prime rib.

Re:About time!

[Bucc5062]

Actually shutting down three "wars", altering the national defense strategy for the modern world, and expanding the space/science strategy is the sensible thing to do. We spent/spend more money on three wars in two months then the entire NASA budget for a year. The RIO for our war effort, dead soldiers, pissed off people, and continued unbalance in countries we are "helping". However, since it is political hacks and soulless CEOs that are making decisions these days, sensible only applies to their ego, not society.

Yes, I'm a little jaded.

Re:About time!

[Wildmuffin]

True, NASA is not what is making America broke. BUT.. ..its reasoning like that makes the debts rise.. You dont go out buying champaigne and caviar if you are unemployed. That is just being unresponsible.

Re:The Russians won in the end

[thrich81]

I have seen this comment so many times lately ... Anyone who was there in 1975 when the last Apollo-Saturn launched could have said the same thing. From 1975 to 1981, between Apollo and the Shuttle, we went into a period where the US had no operational manned space capability and I don't recall near the wailing then about how the US had given up on manned space flight. Now we are probably looking at a similar time period until the US again regains the ability to provide its own manned launch capability. In many ways the 1975-81 period was grimmer than it is now. We still have Americans in space on the ISS, we still have a robust (American and international) unmanned program, we have promising private ventures to provide space launch services -- none of which we had in the late 70's, and we had similar talk then about how in general "America was in decline". The emblematic event of the late 70's in space exploration was Skylab falling uncontrolled out of orbit because was the Shuttle was so late becoming operational. We came through that time OK, though it took a while. The Shuttle != US space exploration, not even close; it's time to move on.

Shuttle was a job program -- Burt Rutan

[Spy Handler]

and he was right. Just one shuttle launch needed how many thousands of people and billions of dollars? And for the price of 1 shuttle mission, how many Falcon launchers can you buy?

But then that was irrelevant, since the primary purpose of the program was to generate jobs and keep the esteemed senator from Utah happy.

Re:Shuttle was a job program -- Burt Rutan

[WindBourne]

Actually, the shuttle was not originally a jobs program. But it became one. OTH, the SLS REALLY IS ONE. Thankfully, it will die within 2 years.

21 July 1969 - Man Walks on Moon

[joelsherrill]

21 July 2011 - NASA ends manned space flight program. And that's your talking point... There are so many sarcastic things to say about this and so little time.

Re:21 July 1969 - Man Walks on Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

Like how the year difference is 42? It's all starting to make sense now!

Re:21 July 1969 - Man Walks on Moon

[ginbot462]

Damn that number! It always makes an appearance.

Re:Space is too expensive to be a national endeavo

[Anonymous Coward]

So stop exploiting science for nationalistic ends.

No

Does America need a launch capability, if there exists one elsewhere on the world?

Yes.

Though I guess working united toward a goal is communism. And that just wouldn't be right.

You must be a left-winger. That simplistic view of communism is so wrong on so many levels I don't even know where to start, but if that's really what communism was then it would have worked out way better than it has so far.

Re:The Russians won in the end

[Anonymous Coward]

Just testing Anonymous Coward commenting. Sorry for spamming. Feel free to mod down.

howzabout looking at this rationally for once?!!!

[Thud457]

wrong!

We need to fix our budget starting by reducing spending on the biggest parts of the budget first:
1. medicaid & medicare, 23%- get rid of the inefficiencies of a for-profit insurance and medical system. (I admit, this requires further study on my part),
2. social security, 20% - adjust the eligibility age to properly reflect changing demographics. Make it so it automatically adjusts in the future. It's supposed to be a safety net to avoid poverty in old age, quit selling it as part of your retirement planning.
3. military spending, 20% - try being a good neighbor instead of a raging drunken dickhead. Maybe promote Democracy, transparency and accountability instead of propping up the tin-horn dictator de jure just because he hates the guys we hate and can keep the oil flowing. Like NASA, spend the money on what we actually need, don't use this budget as a means to dispense pork.
4. discretionary spending, 19% - once we get those first three bigger portions straightened out, then we can start looking at the piddling little stuff. With NASA getting like 0.6% of the budget, there's a lot of other things that should be looked at first.

Anybody that doesn't tackle those items first is just pandering and re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.
Fix it before it corrects itself.

no, I am not available to run for office. I will however consider calls for me to be made dictator.

Re:The manned space program ended with Apollo

[camperdave]

You seem to think that all the shuttle did was go back and forth to LEO. The shuttle was the scene for a great deal of study in microgravity; from biological reactions to materials science. None of which could have been done with unmanned probes and rovers.

Next NASA Mission!

[dainbug]

Televised Robot Rover Battles on Mars. Their scientific missions complete, their batteries running low....Fight Fight Fight!

No! Wait! NASA Mars Rover NASCAR! I'd only watch it to see the crashes! On MARS!

Now that is what the US tax payers want! Top notch science entertainment.

America's next top model-In-low-earth-orbit. Americas got talent-in-the-vomit-comet. This stuff writes itself.

NASA history backwards

[Kohath]

Someone else said it originally, but if you play NASA's history backwards, they start out with no manned space flight capability, develop shuttles, and eventually land on the moon.

Re:NASA history backwards

[PPH]

And in the end, Russia is the only nation to have manned space flight capability.

It reads the same forward and backward.

Re:NASA history backwards

[dcmeserve]

And in the end, Russia is the only nation to have manned space flight capability.

And China.

Re:howzabout looking at this rationally for once?!

[dainbug]

>2. social security, 20% WRONG. Social Security is Debt neutral. Or should be. The "Fiscal Conservatives" keep robbing it to hide their irresponsible spending habits. It certainly does need a tweak or two, but it is not part of the federal debt. (its just owed a lot of money by Reagan, Bush (41), Clinton, Bush(43), and Obama.
Oh where is Al Gore and his lockbox when we need him?

Climate change funding

[Rotten168]

We had to stop the program so NASA could increase our climate change research. I'm so glad we have our priorities in order!

WRONG

[WindBourne]

What you just describe is exactly the situation that we have had.
With NASA pushing private space to take this on, we will move the knowledge into MULTIPLE companies that will keep moving forward. In fact, what is now going to happen is that SpaceX has massively one-uped ALL OF THE COMPANIES AND NATIONS in the world. What is going to happen is that UAL will be forced to create a new rocket, or lose possible launches. Even now, they have started work on a rocket idea for taking on the Ares V, now SLS as well as Falcon X. The SLS will be dead on the vine within 2 years when SpaceX announces that they are building Falcon X.

Mod parent up!

[TrisexualPuppy]

Mod parent and grandparent up. Disagreeing with this guy is not a reason to mod him down. And this is coming from a "heathen brethren."

--TSP

Re:Mod parent up!

[WindBourne]

But he offers nothing intelligent or even accurate, so a mod down was the correct thing to do. In fact, the original poster and the 2 coward postings were all inaccurate.

Re:Mod parent up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod grant parent up and great-grandparent up, but mod the parent down.

Don't tell me what to mod.

Next Mission

[dainbug]

Given the realities of our insane political systems. (Lets all change our reality instead of living in this crappy one please)

But.. given: The only mission that seems viable is sending probes, rovers, satellites to every heavenly body we can see. All the planets, all the moons, all the stars that we can reach.
Space telescopes

I need new computer wallpaper from my big new monitor.

Re:The Russians won in the end

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? The russians were the first to put an artificial satellite in orbit (Sputnik), and were the first to put a man in space (Yuri Gagarin). So, by all acounts, they "got there first".

Get your facts straight.

Re:howzabout looking at this rationally for once?!

[Rotten168]

How about NASA use their climate change funding (which Obama prioritized in 2010) towards, you know, space exploration?

Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

Small side note about the Canadian robotic arm: it was developed just so we could give the finger, from space, to any other country.

Re:howzabout looking at this rationally for once?!

[Thud457]

Good points, thanks.

Part of being debt neutral is not paying out more than you have coming in. Hence, adjusting the eligibility age to properly reflect demographic changes.
And yes, SS, originally, in theory, was supposed to be a separate item from the budget as a whole. But as you've pointed out, in reality, everybody's had their hand in that cookie jar to temporarily cover up their budget problems in other areas.

2010: Obama Gives Nasa $2.4Bn to Study AGW

[Rotten168]

Just in case anyone is wondering where the money went.

Re: 2010: Obama Gives Nasa $2.4Bn to Study AGW

[Anonymous Coward]

Chump change.

Re: 2010: Obama Gives Nasa $2.4Bn to Study AGW

[Rotten168]

Eh? We could have done 5 shuttle launches with that money.

2010: Obama Gives Nasa $2.4Bn to Study AGW

[Rotten168]

http://inhabitat.com/obama-gives-nasa-2-4-billion-to-study-climate-change/

America will be launching humans in 3 short years

[WindBourne]

Only now, we will have not only the CHEAPEST launchers, but 3-4 human rated. In addition,we will not have to worry about CONgress messing things up once Bigelow has its first space station in orbit.

With our first black (ok, mulatto) president

[Anonymous Coward]

We should take up the fine art of space garbage collection

Clean up in orbit three...

Re:The Russians won in the end

[Teancum]

Only because the American government didn't want to set the precedence. The first satellites, the first people in space, and other "firsts" could all have been American, but the Eisenhower administration deliberately killed American efforts at going into space before Russia/the Soviet Union because doing so would have potentially changed the recognition of various international law philosophies of flying over the territory of another country.

By having the Soviet spacecraft fly first over America in space, it was easy for Americans to justify doing the same thing over the Soviet Union. In the end it likely helped out America better by being 2nd in all of those areas. For stuff that really counts, America was first. It was American astronauts who performed the first EVA (aka "spacewalk"), performed the first in-orbit rendezvous (something the Chinese have yet to do), and the first in-space repair of a spacecraft.

BTW, while NASA "can't" go into space with their own astronauts on their own vehicles right now, it isn't correct to say "America can't go into space". SpaceX just announced that they are going to dock to the ISS with a Dragon capsule in November of this year. This same vehicle will soon be carrying astronauts and already has completed a flight to and from space even if it was unmanned for that flight. The "gap" is going to be rather small. SpaceX is just one of many companies going into space, so even if they fail there will be others.

Sadly, Congress wants to cut funding for commercial efforts like the Dragon and other similar spacecraft in favor of a big rocket that won't even be able to fly astronauts until 2020. Yeah, that is real progress there and a concern about keeping Americans in space. Still, these private companies will be going into space in spite of congressional efforts to kill funding for activities in space.

NASA Boosts Climate Change Budget 62%

[Rotten168]

Climate change is far more important that space travel, I'm glad we have our priorities in order. http://sweetness-light.com/archive/nasa-boosts-climate-change-budget-62

Re:NASA Boosts Climate Change Budget 62%

[WindBourne]

You post is also worthless. NASA has been pushing for multiple private human rated launchers, but CONgress is trying to block things. ANd carping about Climate boosted by that little amount is just plain petty.

Re:NASA Boosts Climate Change Budget 62%

[Toonol]

Climate change is far more important that space travel, I'm glad we have our priorities in order.

I can't tell if you're joking or serious. I hope you're joking, but suspect you're serious.

Re:NASA Boosts Climate Change Budget 62%

[Rotten168]

I'm very happy that this money is going towards climate change research and not with any sort of Space Shuttle replacement. Climate change is a far greater threat than any lack of space travel.

Re:NASA Boosts Climate Change Budget 62%

[Rotten168]

I can't tell if you're joking or serious. I hope you're joking, but suspect you're serious.

What's more important, saving the planet or space exploration? NASA's ENTIRE budget should be put towards climate change research.

Re:NASA Boosts Climate Change Budget 62%

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget the research. We already know what we have to do. The trick is, it's a whole heck lot easier to get people to Mars than it is to convince people to give up their gas-guzzling Chevys and petrochemical power plants.

Research won't do jack unless there's the wherewithal to do something about it. Besides, if NASA's budget gets cut, the money saved won't go to climate study anyway. It'll go straight to Department of Defense. Our culture is more intent on destroying stuff rather than saving it.

Re:NASA Boosts Climate Change Budget 62%

[WindBourne]

And yet, CONgress, esp. communist-loving republican, are working hard to destroy private space. Instead, they want to push a new version of Ares V, which will be stopped in 2 years.
In addition, at the height of the civil war, Abe lincoln was pushing railroads in the west. Ppl were upset, and asked him why. He told them that a great nation must accomplish multiple things, not just one thing. I believe that the same applies here. The money that we spend on doing Climate R&D is nominal. And to be honest, NASAs work on OCO is probably the single more important work that is happening on this.

We need the money for climate change research

[Rotten168]

ASA Boosts Climate Change Budget 62% This is probably for the best, climate change is a far larger problem than space exploration.

Re:We need the money for climate change research

[Grishnakh]

Understanding the workings and origins of our Solar System can help us to understand what's going on Earth better, so that we can deal with climate change.

Re:America will be launching humans in 3 short yea

[Anonymous Coward]

OH GOD NO.....I can see it now:

Deuce Bigelow, Space Gigolo

Re:The Russians won in the end

[Anonymous Coward]

> Only because the American government didn't want to set the precedence.
Watching and reading accounts of insiders from those years proves you wrong. American leadership was shocked to the bone that they got overtaken. Just give up the fantasies and suck it up.
> For stuff that really counts, America was first.
I can already hear you when someone else than the USA sets foot first on Mars: "Moon was more important!!!".
Lighten up, bitter old man!

Re:The Russians won in the end

[mrpolyrhythm]

The biggest difference between that period of time in the 70s and this, is that they already had plans on the table for the Shuttle and were moving towards implementing. There originally wasn't going to be a gap between Saturn launches and the Shuttle, but the Apollo program got shelved early, thus creating the gap and resulting in no ability to boost Skylab. In fact the Shuttle was being proposed back in the late 60's and one of the initial designs included the Nerva engine as its main engine, instead of what it ended up being, the Hydroxide/Oxygen Engine we ended up with. Now NASA has no plans moving forward other than private industry and they have no budgets for anything other than robotics. It's kind of sad to go to the Kennedy Space Center, look at the launch complex, and hear what the tour guides have to say as you drive by the Constellation Launch pad. It's ready to be used and yet, due to change of direction and political will, won't be. I think we'll see the Dragon capsule replace a large part of NASA's functionality though. As much as I have lived my life loving what NASA has done, I think they're future may be very grim.

The last albatross has landed.

[Anonymous Coward]

The shuttle program was an expensive romantic holdover from the days when we thought that everything interesting had to be done by Real Men. Almost all the big space successes of the period the shuttle has been flying have been unmanned missions; they have taken us further and done more than any manned mission could for the foreseeable future. Manned spaceflight is a huge resource-sink. We are better off without it.

Re:The Russians won in the end

[Teancum]

I'd like to know what accounts you were reading. Seriously. I've read many of those same "insider accounts" as well as what the staff and policy makers in the Eisenhower administration were saying at the time.

Wernher von Braun had a rocket that had been completely built and ready to do flight testing before Sputnik was launched. Instead, the government essentially cancelled his project in favor of another that was being built by the U.S. Navy (von Braun was working for the army ordinance directorate). Since he had done numerous sub-orbital flights previously, I don't doubt that he could have beaten the Russians to orbit.

Yes, there were problems, but the American leadership wasn't nearly as shocked as you indicate, at least at the top. Members of congress were mostly clueless about the issue, and just like they are shocked that the Shuttle program is over now like they were surprised back in the 1950's over Sputnik.

President Eisenhower certainly didn't show any surprise that the Russians made it into space, but then again he was arguing for an extensive involvement in space well before Sputnik too. What he was most interested in was reconnaissance satellites to replace or substantially supplement the high altitude aerial flights then being done. There were other policy documents to indicate that spaceflight certainly was under active consideration.

This isn't a fantasy. Please read up on this stuff before you start to knock yourself out.

The ride...

[Samlind1]

Hellova ride NASA. I watched Young and Crippen climb into the first one on TV, not know if they'd live to tell about it. There was no unmanned test flight, they were it. Huge conjones those two. The landing looking like a DC-9 coming in from Cleveland. A proud moment for everyone. I was a young machinist in LA, just about to transition into the Quality job, and the last thing I did was these weird chunks of stainless steel. I didn't know what they were for, but I found out they were supposed to fly. On the first satellite rescue mission, the first time something from orbit was salvaged and brought back to earth, there were my chunks, the attach points for the cradle for the satellite. I was never prouder. I watched Challenger's fireball driving down Semoran Blvd. in Orlando. I went home to 4 little girls who asked why the teacher died. Daddy didn't have any answers that day. I spent 6 months afterwords working on Strut Parts as an inspector. I was assigned a part that had it flown, they would have lost another shuttle. They guy from the Cape had to be helped back to his car after we showed him. They got a lot more serious about safety after that. I was gaming on line with a bunch of guys in Teamspeak when the guy from Dallas shouted 'WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!!'. He described a sonic boom. We put 2+2 together and figured out another shuttle was in trouble, it should have been 40 miles up over Dallas that day, it was less than 10. 10 minutes later, NBC announced. Still a magnificent achievement NASA.

Re:howzabout looking at this rationally for once?!

[sheddd]

BS. It's not popular to talk about it, but due to age demographics social security is fucked.

What's the name of this agency again?

[Quila]

Oh yeah, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Don't see anything about climate in that.

I have an idea, let's assign responsibility for the next space mission to the EPA. Then maybe DOT can take over nuclear research for the DOE.

Re:What's the name of this agency again?

[Kalriath]

And then just hand Defense over to the labour Unions.

Actually, that's not a bad idea. Just tell them "they're coming to take away your 15 minute paid breaks!" and watch any hostile invaders get ruthlessly repelled (for free!)

If it weren't for religion

[ThatsNotPudding]

we'd be traveling amongst the stars by now.

Damn, I'm pissed off.

Re:howzabout looking at this rationally for once?!

[taiwanjohn]

According to the CBO, the ACA (Obamacare) goes most of the way toward solving the medicare problem. If you revise Part-D to allow negotiating lower prices for prescription drugs, that would put Medicare in the black for... well basically forever. It you remove the "Social Security Cap" that would do the same for SS. (Currently, you only pay FICA deductions -- "payroll" taxes -- on your first $100k or so of income. So the hedge-fund manager who makes $20m pays the same FICA as a guy who makes $100k.) Eliminate or raise that cap, and SS is rock solid as far as the eye can see.

Heck, just rolling back the "Bush Tax Cuts" on people making more than $500k/yr would wipe out nearly 2/3rds of the deficit. Pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan would come close to matching that.

Lands where?

[OFnow]

Whew. For just a second I read it as 'lands at KFC'.

strangely enough

[decora]

some of the first astronomers were priests, in ancient India. the purpose of their work, like Aryabhata's sine table, was partly to ensure the religious ceremonies happened at the correct times.

Re:howzabout looking at this rationally for once?!

[Kohath]

Anyone who says "we have to address X bad spending FIRST before we address Y bad spending" is wrong. The only time to address (cut, eliminate, end) X, Y or Z bad spending is now. Waiting serves no purpose.

Re: Interesting notion...

[taiwanjohn]

And if the shuttle program had worked out as planned, it might actually have turned out that way (absent Kennedy's race-to-the-moon challenge of course). But the shuttle ended up being many times as expensive at promised, and due to "Congressional lock-in" we were stuck with it for 30 years.

Yeah, it's a bummer that we don't have any man-rated launchers for a couple of years, but it's high time we took space flight out of the hands of politicians.

Re:The Russians won in the end

[PPH]

First man in space. First space station, the Salyut 1. Although, if my memory serves me correctly, the USSR did launch a 'manned spy satellite' that predates even this.

Re:The manned space program ended with Apollo

[Chris Burke]

But if you're sending unmanned probes and rovers, it leads me to ask why do we even do that? We can probably get a lot more bang for buck focussing on science on the planet.

"Science" is not a fungible entity, where you can just try to optimize the units of science you produce for a given cost and use those science-units to get the next tech upgrade.

There are things about the universe, and even our own planet, that we cannot learn without studying other bodies in space. And our view from earth -- even in earth orbit -- is limited. We need to send probes to study them more closely, and rovers to the surface to conduct experiments.

I suspect the space race will return...

[MAXOMENOS]

...once China and India start competing in earnest with the United States for dominance of space. The only question is whether the United States will be a competitor .. or the pace car.

America....

[Hasai]

....the Portugal of the 21st Century. Thank you so very much, BO.

I look forward to the day when the Red Chinese visit the Apollo XI landing site, roll up the American flag, and mail it to the White House. Postage Due, of course.

Re:America....

[sycorob]

Ha! That would be hilarious.

Or just put a much bigger Chinese flag ... right next to the little US flag. Start up WW3!

Re:America....

[laejoh]

Mr. President, we must not allow a bigger flag gap!

the earth is just another planet

[decora]

studying the earth is studying space science, isnt it?

isn't the best example of a climate-out-of-control the planet venus?

Re:howzabout looking at this rationally for once?!

[cavePrisoner]

But all of those baby boomers paid into the system their whole lives up until now. That is why Social Security used to have money worth taking for other projects, and why Al Gore wanted a "lock box." Everyone saw this coming, but only a handful of politicians actually cared about it enough to try to prevent it.

and the Soviets created Sputnik....

[decora]

because they believed there was no way they could compete using conventional military forces, and the rocket program was much cheaper than continuing down the mass-army road

Re:howzabout looking at this rationally for once?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be talking treason, you commie pinko hate America firster. You're probably a Muslim.

What use is Space-flight to a banker ?

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA is not victim of the Iraq war, but of the bankers : what good is a (more or less civilian) flight program for the worldwide banking cartels that own USA ?

Politically speaking, it was useful, for it allowed people to dream that there is a higher purpose to their lives (other than the simplistic christian/jewish/mormon religion). Now that there are no more politicians, and only economical agents remain, what use is a dream ?

Wake up, USA, for you've got thousands of billions of paper (money?) to shell out; you've shown bankers how to use that weapon, and now it's your turn to take that blow.

Btw, please forget that you already have plenty of military programs doing more or less the same thing that NASA did (and don't ask why anyone would want to put weapons up in the sky ... weather baloons, or fast-turning comets, the speakable names for Ufos ...).

No, US spaceflight, not human spaceflight...

[fantomas]

"It's a sad reminder that, at least for now, human spaceflight is at the mercy of the schizophrenia that is the American political process"

I think human spaceflight will continue whatever happens in America, I don't think human spaceflight is directly at the mercy of the American political process. The Russians and Chinese have human rated space vehicles, other countries are likely to strive towards them. they will carry on regardless of what happens in America. They might be affected to a degree, but not completely influenced.

I think you just confused 'humanity' with 'America'?

The Abandonment of Manned Space Flight

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad part about the whole Space Shuttle program was that the first three shuttles were only supposed to be used for about 10 years before they were to be replaced by a design known as "Shuttle 2".

          There were several different designs proposed but all of the boiled down to being essentially a single stage to orbit, fly back craft with at least double or more the payload of the now retired birds. The saddest part is that pretty much every Aerospace company in the US during the 70's and 80's were pretty sure that it could be done. But when it came time to start bending metal, our Congress never provided the funds.

JasonAW3

"What's the opposite of Progress?... Congress..."

Lost our lead because why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh... it's called ADD? Brought on by copious amounts of MTV, Justin Beiber, Twilight, and Angry Birds.
Go on, tell me I'm wrong.

Re:howzabout looking at this rationally for once?!

[Kalriath]

According to the CBO, the ACA (Obamacare) goes most of the way toward solving the medicare problem. If you revise Part-D to allow negotiating lower prices for prescription drugs, that would put Medicare in the black for... well basically forever.

And instead, Congress is trying to get inserted into the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement that (other) countries are outright forbidden from doing this.

one down, one to go

[kaplong!]

So now that we finally got rid of the shuttle, how about giving that other big orbiting bottomless sink of of money a good dunking in the Pacific, and then get on with actual science?