Russian Resupply Crash Could Mean Leaving ISS Empty

astroengine writes "In the wake of the Russian Progress vehicle crash shortly after launch on Aug. 24, a chain of events has been set into motion that could result in the decision not to fly astronauts into orbit. If this happens, the ISS will be temporarily mothballed before the end of the year to avoid landing astronauts during the harsh Kazakh winter."

Comments

Oh if only

[discord5]

Oh if only some other nation had something spaceworthy... Like a shuttle or so...

Re:Oh if only

[WindBourne]

At this point, it would take about 2 years to restart the shuttle program. When W killed it, much of the production lines were shut down. So, at this point, it would costs BILLIONS to restart the problem.

However, private space is about to have 2 different cargo systems ready shortly. In addition, it is possible that either ATV or HTV can be speed up. However, my gut feeling says that Russia will launch within a month, successfully. Issues solved for this issue.

What is needed is not the cargo, but human launchers ASAP. Now, a number of neo-cons have been pushing to give 10's of billion MORE Than the 20 billion that it appears that it will take. They claim that it would then be done quicker. HOWEVER, the current timeline for the 70 tonne rocket says that it will be ready in 2022. Adding the 10 billion MAY shave a couple of years off that. Hey, being optimistic, you might get it out the door in 2018. IOW, this is a typical neo-cons scenario of pump/dump money into a project that can not be afforded but they want for a jobs bill for themselves.

OTH, CCDev is expected to have 3-4 crafts by 2015 (starting in late 2013/early 2014). Of course, that assume the 3/4 billion from the next CCDev bid. However the same ppl from above are working hard to block this. HOWEVER, it is possible that jumping the amount from .75 to say 2 billion, MIGHT get the first system ready by early 2013, perhaps late 2012. But getting the neo-cons to allocate, well, that is a different matter.

Re:Oh if only

[slick7]

Oh if only some other nation had something spaceworthy... Like a shuttle or so...

It's bad enough when our own program fails, but to leave it to an outside program to fail really sucks since there is no insurance on the failure, just money gone

Re:Oh if only

[Anonymous Coward]

At this point, it would take about 2 years to restart the shuttle program. When W killed it, much of the production lines were shut down. So, at this point, it would costs BILLIONS to restart the problem.

Are you really so hopelessly brainwashed that someone OTHER than Obama killed it in your deluded little mind?

Re:Oh if only

[Anonymous Coward]

restart the problem.

freudian?

Re:Oh if only

[Anonymous Coward]

However, private space is about to have 2 different cargo systems ready shortly. In addition, it is possible that either ATV or HTV can be speed up.

Can someone explain to me why Lockheed Martin isn't considered "private"?

Re:Oh if only

[Anonymous Coward]

The space shuttle program was canceled back in 2004 by president Bush. See his vision for space exploration. It had a number of goals, including cancelling the space shuttle, and developing a new Crew Exploration Vehicle by 2008. The cancellation of the shuttle occurred on schedule and was already a fait accompli when Obama took office. The other goals of the 'vision' Bush had have not been accomplished (the ISS is finished construction, but that was in the cards without his 'vision'), so his plan basically amounted to cancelling the shuttle without anything domestic to replace it with.

Re:Oh if only

[trout007]

Since I have been working at KSC during this whole mess I'll give my perspectIve. Bush did set the end date for the last shuttle launch. He then outlined the VSE and Griffen came up with the Constellation program. The problem is Bush's lack of leadership in getting the funding to get it done. It would have taken maybe 5 billion more a year which we would rather spend in Mideast wars.

When Obama came in he had a choice. Get more funding to get constellation going, restart the shuttle components production to eliminate a gap, or trash everything and wait for commercial space to come up to speed. He chose the third option.

So while Bush started the cancellation of the shuttle program Obama could have easily reversed it.

Re:Oh if only

[obarthelemy]

As you say, the money was spent in wars. I doubt obama could have stopped those with the flick of a switch once they had been started ?

Re:Oh if only

[strack]

the shuttle was a bad design. it needed to die a merciful death. as did the frankenshuttle derived constellation program.

Re:Oh if only

[0123456]

Since I have been working at KSC during this whole mess I'll give my perspectIve. Bush did set the end date for the last shuttle launch. He then outlined the VSE and Griffen came up with the Constellation program. The problem is Bush's lack of leadership in getting the funding to get it done.

Uh, no.

The problem is that NASA designed a program that would cost far more than the government was willing to give them.

If they'd built a Dragon-style capsule and put it on top of an Atlas or Delta, they'd probably have it in operation by now. Instead they wanted to build a capsule the size of a hotel and two new launchers of their own to launch it. Since the Apollo era NASA has often acted as though they have an infinite budget and then whined when their expensive plans get cancelled because there's no money for them.

Re:Oh if only

[Anonymous Coward]

which goes against Wayne Hale's very definitive statement that the supply chain being shut down was essentially the death nail in the coffin. Yes it would have been possible, but it was NOT practical, and it definitely wasn't easy as a lot of the contract vendors were 'mom & pop' companies that basically closed up after their contracts were ended.

Re:Oh if only

[0123456]

The other goals of the 'vision' Bush had have not been accomplished (the ISS is finished construction, but that was in the cards without his 'vision'), so his plan basically amounted to cancelling the shuttle without anything domestic to replace it with.

Only because NASA couldn't develop a capsule in four years; which SpaceX are doing for far less than the amount of money that NASA were given.

Re:Oh if only

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if you read the article carefully, the problem isn't related to the supply. Remember that Atlantis just brought up a years worth of supplies. The issue is the 'certification' of the Soyuz vehicles attached to the station. Once they
expire, then they are not supposed to be used. Normal procedure is that when a new soyuz is launched, they rotate and come back down on the older vehicle (the astronauts don't return in the same vehicle).

So because Progress is essentially a soyuz, the suspension of that vehicle is also a suspension of the Soyuz vehicle.

Re:Oh if only

[BJ_Covert_Action]

But I think the relevant question is, should Obama have reversed the cancellation of the shuttle program? Considering that program was such an epic money sink for getting nowhere past LEO, and the fact that most of the technology being used had not improved since the late 1970's, I would assert that saving the shuttle program would have actually been a poort choice. That is just my teo cents as an launch vehicle engineer working outside of the shuttle program, though.

Re:Oh if only

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see why we couldn't just send over ships, pick all our stuff up and go home, that would be pretty quick.

Re:Oh if only

[Anonymous Coward]

If only we lived on a planet where winter didn't arrive at the same time everywhere.

Re:Oh if only

[black soap]

That's probably why you aren't running things; war is complicated.

Re:Oh if only

[yog]

During the 2008 presidential election, Obama's campaign website contained a plan to cancel Constellation to pay for a national daycare program.

Someone must have told him not to run on an anti-space platform, because this particular plank was later removed. Furthermore, his national daycare program never got off the ground.

However, other expensive initiatives were indeed passed (healthcare, various bailouts), and Obama did follow through and cancel the current NASA shuttle replacement, until "the technology exists" in 10 or 15 years.

The subsequent uproar from senators and congressmen in affected districts, supporters of the American space program, the press, and the general public then forced the Obama Administration to backtrack a bit, and they restored parts of the program including the actual capsule and a modified launcher.

However it is clear that Obama has never been a big supporter of manned space efforts. Bush's vision was to replace the Shuttle fairly quickly, but unfortunately he shut down the shuttle before actually having a replacement in the wings. This gave Obama an opening to not only shut down the publicly funded manned program and give it over to the private sector, but he could blame Bush for the whole mess.

Re:Oh if only

[jo42]

Oh if only some other nation had something spaceworthy... Like a shuttle or so...

Or pull something out of Area 51...

Re:Oh if only

[Opportunist]

Maybe 'cause half of their staff is on government payroll? I mean, at least officially...

Re:Oh if only

[McFortner]

SpaceX to the rescue! It would be a big boost for them if the Falcon 9 and Dragon could pick up the slack.

Re:Oh if only

[Belial6]

A national daycare program seems kind of redundant given that every single state has a huge state daycare program. Maybe it was to fund the extra day when places like South Dakota reduce the daycare from 5 days a week to 4?

Re:Oh if only

[Belial6]

I didn't know that they did that. That is actually pretty cool. It is one thing to fly into space, and return using the same equipment that you brought with you. It is a different thing to fly into space, and catch a different ride home. The fact that they do this means we have gotten a littler farther than I had thought. Not a lot farther, but a little.

Re:Oh if only

[manoweb]

I still think it's a good thing to have finally ended the Shuttle program. Sometimes you have to break with the past to get to the next level. The Shuttle has a miserable safety record, was too expensive, etc. The original plans even claimed there would be 50 launches a year. Seeing how things had gone, they should have retired the space Shuttle in the mid 90s.

Re:Oh if only

[currently_awake]

Constellation is intrinsically unworkable due to thrust oscillation issues, it would have required a completely new design. The US won't be able to afford medicare in about five years let alone space flight so Obama's killing manned space flight is understandable. (Obama is a dealer not a leader but that's not relevant) The space shuttle is a bad compromise that should have been replaced decades ago, it's crazy to think about retaining it. Given current financial incompetence in the US it's unlikely they will continue working with the ISS let alone having any space flight (manned or unmanned).

Re:Oh if only

[khallow]

He then outlined the VSE and Griffen came up with the Constellation program. The problem is Bush's lack of leadership in getting the funding to get it done. It would have taken maybe 5 billion more a year which we would rather spend in Mideast wars.

Doesn't explain Griffin's handout to ATK in the form of Ares I. Ares I wasn't required for Bush's VSE, it duplicated commercial launch capabilities (namely, the near future versions of the Delta IV Heavy and Atlas V Heavy), it had major engineering challenges that it never overcome (at least during the years it was funded), and the rationalization for it (the ESAS report which studied among many other things a variety of launch vehicles and theoretical configurations for their utility for VSE) in the first place was extremely biased in favor of the ATK vehicle.

I might add that I opposed Ares I from its very beginning precisely on the grounds that it competed with commercial alternatives. There are so many conflicts of interest which manifest when NASA competes directly with a commercial product.

There's a lot of really dirty fighting in the aerospace industry and NASA is far from immune to both doing it and getting screwed by it. NASA has the unusual position of a captive revenue stream (namely, its funding) and deep access to regulators, lawmakers, and law enforcement in aerospace and other sectors (you don't risk IRS audits when you play hardball with Boeing!). It makes no sense to give NASA an interest in defending a particular launch vehicle with all the tools at their disposal when you're simultaneously trying to stoke a competitive launch industry.

Last time NASA had a free hand (in the late 80s and 90s), they created a rigid oligarchy of launch providers. That oligarchy only got broken up because the DoD stepped in and started funding competition (both the EELVs, the Delta IV and Atlas V rockets as well as SpaceX's first launches and a couple of Orbital's rockets (Taurus, Minotaur)).

When Obama came in he had a choice. Get more funding to get constellation going, restart the shuttle components production to eliminate a gap, or trash everything and wait for commercial space to come up to speed. He chose the third option.

So while Bush started the cancellation of the shuttle program Obama could have easily reversed it.

It's worth noting here that the "third option" is really the only viable option listed. Constellation was based on the Ares I which just due to its competition with commercial launch providers was a no-go for me. It's also worth noting that it was a colossal bait-and-switch with the heavy lift vehicle not being delivered for several presidential administrations.

The Shuttle has the problem that its primary component, the orbiter, doesn't have an assembly line for it. So you're banking the entire Shuttle program on three Shuttles. I'm glad that expensive delusion wasn't entertained.

So we're left with the vastly less expensive option of commercial space flight. Needless to say, it's one of the few good things the Obama administration has done.

Re:Oh if only

[thrich81]

A good question which really needs someone who can state the answer precisely to speak up. I would say that the vast majority of LM's projects and corporate culture is geared to the close oversight government contract model where the government very tightly micromanages the work. There are an infinite number of "Preliminary Design Reviews", "Design Reviews", etc. The contractor is paid based on successful "passage" of these reviews. Thus the contractor is almost a part of government and they get paid for following the process whether the result is successful or not. The newer "private" space vehicle companies have more freedom in their design and processes but get paid (and succeed or fail) based on a successful result. The above is an oversimplification, of course, and I don't want to denigrate the talented and hardworking staff at LM and the other established aerospace corps (though many of the established corps have the attitude that they are entitled to their government projects!). Also there is a huge amount of incest between the government and the established aerospace corps in that employees go back and forth between corporate and government employment -- this leads to even more of the attitude that there is a blurred line between the organizations, and the expectation that all government aerospace spending "rightfully" belongs to LM and Boeing. Before anyone at the giants jumps on me -- I've been there on both sides of the industry, and besides, I said this was an oversimplification.

Re:Oh if only

[Anonymous Coward]

too bad they didn't fund the better design from Boeing and Northrop Grumman, the Lockheed Martin design was flawed from the get go !

Re:Oh if only

[WindBourne]

Hmmm. the one with a deluded mind are those that directly ignore facts.

Re:Oh if only

[WindBourne]

which part of L-MART? the part that works on the shuttle and is given marching orders by the gov and is on a cost plus nightmare? In those cases, the tech is owned by the feds. That is basically a facists approach and is similar to what China and USSR use to do (which is what neo-cons support today).
OTH, ULA with Delta and Atlas is pretty much private. So, I am not sure why you would think that L-Mart or Boeing are not private. Just some programs are more private than others.

Re:Oh if only

[WindBourne]

Actually, Orion is only about twice the size of dragon. It really is not that big. And to be honest, many of NASA's programs are not just picked by CONgress, but told exactly what they will do. SLS is the most extreme of those, but similar enough.

Re:Oh if only

[LWATCDR]

Hey it is all good so what if Obama killed the man space program, he closed Guantanamo, repealed the patriot act, and got our troops out of Iraq.

Re:Oh if only

[FleaPlus]

Oh if only some other nation had something spaceworthy... Like a shuttle or so...

Funny joke, but Shuttle wasn't able to serve as an emergency Crew Return Vehicle due to limitations in in-orbit idle time. The Space Shuttle could only stay in orbit for a few weeks at a time, while the CRV requirement was for a half-year or longer.

Since the start of the ISS the only functioning CRV has been Soyuz. NASA had some attempts at building their own CRV, like the X-38 and Orbital Space Plane, but they were canceled back in the early 2000s. Commercial vehicles with CRV capabilities like Boeing's CST-100 and SpaceX's Dragon are under development, but it'll be a few more years before NASA allows their astronauts on them.

There's also NASA's Orion/MPCV, but its launcher, the Space Launch System, isn't due to be ready until 2017 or so.

Re:Oh if only

[Anonymous Coward]

Even in the 60s they used other parts of the gov for its stuff. The entire atlas/delta/saturn set of missles were ICBMS given to them by the air force. Meant to deliver nuclear ordnance from Wyoming to Moscow. Then in the 70s they figured they could build their own. Thats when it got crazy expensive.

Instead of using what they had they wanted to rebuild everything. Instead of taking what they had and building better. They threw it all out and started over from scratch. At least Constellation was some reuse.

They wanted to fly to the moon before they could even get low earth orbit reliably and cheaply.

The shuttle had nearly 30 years to be better than it could. Instead it was pretty much the same program over and over with minor technical improvements. Instead of incremental improvements to make it able to achieve higher orbits, etc...

They could have had a better program 15 years ago. Instead they got stuck with rebuilding the whole shuttle fleet every year just incase something might break. They had to walk on eggshells with the things. As they were too expensive to take any sort of risks with.

Re:Oh if only

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...we're broke dude, sorry. While the debt piles on we have Grover Norquist passing around a "Never in a million years will we tax the 1%ers EVAR!" and the teabaggers are happily lining up to sign. It is all part of Norquist's "Drown the baby in the bathtub" plan which fits nicely into the repubs magical "More monies for teh RICH nom nom nom" plan they've been pushing for damned near 40 years.

It don't help that Obama is the biggest pussy since Jimmy Carter but short of another Teddy Roosevelt to bust the trusts I don't think he really could have done much anyway. The top 1%ers, thanks to Reagan deregs, now own the entire MSM so the "give teh rich MORE MONIES! Nom nom nom" is gonna get front and center and anyone that expresses a different idea is gonna be ignored or labeled a nut. I don't care for Ron Paul's policies but when the guy can raise millions in a single day simply by grass roots popular support? And then he is completely ignored? It don't take Colombo to solve the mystery, it is the simple fact he isn't singing the corporate master's tune.

In the USA we've had trickle down, voodoo economics, the "hey lets make trade deals with countries with NO workers safety or rights!", the "Teh rich only have 85% of teh monies, that ain't right! We'll give 'em big tax breaks while running TWO wars to give our friends a way to make even MORE monies!" which BTW is the first time IN HISTORY that the country has been at war and NOT raised taxes, and finally "Bailout baby bailout!" and now they are completely ignoring and glossing over the record of Perry, his relationship to Ali Khan, or the fact that under his watch every reasonable metric in Texas has gone to dead last, worse than even MS in many.

But expecting the USA to do anything progressive or forward thinking any time soon is like wishing for purple ponies friend, it just ain't gonna happen. We actually have WORSE wealth disparity than during the days of the robber barons, and even that isn't enough. look at how many of the rich howled when buffet pointed out his secretary pays more in taxes than he does? Where once we were asked "what we could do for our country" now it is "More MONIES! nom nom nom!" with any response to pleas for help met by a picture of Goatse by the 1%ers and their slaves on the left and right.

Future space program? Give it up buddy. Hell before long the schools will be teaching that the world is only 6000 years old and everything bad is caused by Satan. We are going backwards folks, the poor had less wealth inequality during the age of the robber barons, which sadly is the goal. We are gonna back to the age of serfs and barons, anything for the good of science and the people be damned.

Re:Oh if only

[Anonymous Coward]

The entire budget of nasa from its inception to the current day is less than 1 trillion dollars, more than 60% of that was spent during the cold war space race.

We spend a trillion or so in 1.5 years witht he wars in iraq and afghanistan, maybe its just me but i feel nasa is a far ebtter use of tapayer dollars than killing brown people in some sandy shithole countries.

Re:Oh if only

[sconeu]

Ares I was a major clusterfuck, and a complete piece of idiocy.

What I didn't like was the cancellation of Ares V. There is *NO* Saturn class launcher available, and Ares V would have fit the bill.

Re:Oh if only

[trout007]

I may be wrong but I think he was talking about could we keep the shuttle program going as is. I intended to say we could have maintained tha capability by flying two missions a year and if we had to use parts off of other orbiters to keep one or two flying we could. The SRBs were going to keep flying anyway and the ET line was being mothballed becausemthere was still speculation some of the equipment could be used on the next shuttle derived vehicle. I would have liked to keep the capability until we had the commercial guys flying.

Re:Oh if only

[khallow]

What I didn't like was the cancellation of Ares V. There is *NO* Saturn class launcher available, and Ares V would have fit the bill.

As I see it, the Ares V was imaginary from the start, a mere rationalization for making the Ares I. I'm far more optimistic that an active commercial market can size up to Apollo sizes than NASA, as it is currently constituted.

Re:Oh if only

[trout007]

I worked on Ares I and I agree with the cancelation. The only thing I said was that with our investment to date on ISS we should have maintained shuttle flying one or two missions a year until we had one of the commercial guys ready.

I was also against constellation from the beginning because the tax Laura already bought two rockets with the Atlas and Delta. For crew transport I would have picked the Atlad V 401 and figured out the biggest crew capsule you could fit on it. Also there were some ideas for using fuel depots that sounded excellent. It would allow companies to get paid for delivering fuel to orbit. What is great about that is usually you need an expensive rocket because you are carrying an expensive payload. Well fuel is cheap. You could have made money with a cheap rocket that only worked half the time. And if you launch enough you get better by practice. With the fuel already in space you only need to launch you spacecraft with enough fuel to get to orbit and dock. Oh well. Another congress and another president.

Re:Oh if only

[Rich0]

Uh, the US is going into debt to the tune of over a trillion dollars per year. We don't have a trillion dollars to spend on fancy spacecraft, or on unnecessary wars overseas. The solution is to get rid of both, not use one area of waste as an excuse to expand another area of waste. I'm fine with having a military that is large enough to keep somebody from launching an invasion of South Carolina, and that doesn't have to cost nearly what we currently spend.

The problem with your argument is that EVERYBODY has some favorite area of government where they think that spending a trillion dollars is a good use of money. The problem is that if everybody gets their way then we go bankrupt. The solution is to restrict government to only those functions for which there isn't a practical alternative. I think that basic research is one of those legitimate areas, but beyond that if something actually has a practical use chances are that somebody will foot the bill to make it happen.

Re:Oh if only

[WindBourne]

sigh,
This vehicle has decades of flight on it. Basically, BOTH progress and Soyuz have a PROVEN design. Soyuz capsule was last updated about a year ago (Soyuz-TMA-M) with some minor changes. The last major change was 2002. Progress was designed and first flew in 1978. The last updated version was 2004. However, the issue was not with progress capsule, but with the Soyuz rocket. The rocket that launched the August failure was the Soyuz-U, which was first launched in 1973. The Soyuz Capsule, however, uses the Soyuz-FG rocket. The issue with that launch is that the 3rd stage engine failed to ignite, so the progress was not able to achieve orbit. So, with 100s of launches of the Soyuz-u, it is is VERY doubtful that this is a design flaw.
This was a manufacturing flaw. Simple as that. That will be determined in a short time. Once that is, then some more tests will be ran, and the next progress will fly.

What is needed is to first stabilize cargo operations. With 3 different crafts about to come to the Western side, and 2 on the Russian, then it is obvious that cargo will no longer be an issue.

Now, as to the human launch, yes, that IS an issue. However, Russia has been doing it for some time. It is far more likely that they can continue just fine for the next 2-3 years. At that time, we will have dragon. And within 1-2 years, we will have another 2-3 crafts ready to go. In addition, we will have 2 fully different launchers, with Atlas likely to have 2 different variations used for that; the smallest one for dreamchaser, and the much bigger one for Boeing's CST-100. What is interesting is that for LEO launches, the dreamchaser can actually hold the same number of ppl, but weighs LESS then the CST-100.

ISS will be just fine. So, will the launch system for the next 2 years. After the first launch system comes on-line, then you will see loads of work going on in space. Maybe before then.

Re:Oh if only

[J05H]

It was to late to restart the contracting process by the time Obama came into office in early '09. To many contractors had already laid critical staff off. Shuttle was a dead letter after the Columbia tragedy; after RTF they were only flying out the remaining manifest. CCDEV, especially SpaceX and Boeing, is the way to go forward. Wings don't matter where there is no atmosphere.

Re:Oh if only

[cavreader]

It sure is complicated but just collecting our shit and coming home is what everyone is clamoring for so why not just do it? The US does not need boots on the ground to support and protect it's national interests. All that can be handled by the aircraft carriers, long range missiles, drones, and stealth assets. Leaving would probably take about 6 months but the logistics are available and all the "complications" can be left behind for others to deal with.

Re:Oh if only

[Walkingshark]

I fail to see why we couldn't just send over ships, pick all our stuff up and go home, that would be pretty quick.

Law of unintended consequences would kick into overdrive.

Re:Oh if only

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you want to keep South Cakalaki?

Re:Oh if only

[Petaris]

SpaceX probably has far less bureaucracy and politics to deal with when designing a spacecraft or rocket. They are also not required to use specific contractors, or even to use contractors in the first place. I am really hoping that SpaceX can provide the human transportation to the ISS in the not too distant future. They already have a contract with NASA for re-supply missions.

Is that bad?

[axlrosen]

The ISS, and manned spaceflight in general, is a pointless waste of money. Not a troll, just a (well-justified) opinion.

Re:Is that bad?

[dwhitaker]

The ISS, and manned spaceflight in general, is a pointless waste of money. Not a troll, just a (well-justified) opinion.

Would you care to share this justification? I am quite curious.

Re:Is that bad?

[navtal]

In the face of money spent on financial disasters and wars your comment seems a bit less then "well-justified".

Re:Is that bad?

[gcnaddict]

So basically, you're saying that spreading away from a ball on which humanity would otherwise forever be trapped is a total waste of money?

Ensuring the continuity of life on Earth is a waste of money?

Re:Is that bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Waste of money? Is living out a meaningless existence without exploring our universe enough for you? What's the point of our civilization then? Are we seriously to sit here on earth and never even try to push the boundaries of what we're capable of?

Re:Is that bad?

[SquirrelDeth]

Spreading to where? Last I checked there were no M-class planets nearby.

Re:Is that bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not your species.

Re:Is that bad?

[Grygus]

"Nearby" is a relative term. Your statement would seem to indicate that developing our space travel capabilities is not just a good idea, but ultimately necessary.

Re:Is that bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spreading to M-class planets that are far away, duh.

Re:Is that bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. Manned spaceflight, true, should be superseded by space colonization. With a booming population, and declining natural resources, mankind has outgrown our native earth. We desperately need to get out there. What we need to stop, though, is considering space only the preserve of scientific experiment. We need to really go there. It's the only growth allowed us from now on (economic or otherwise). It will never be the uncontrolled growth of a human population apparently infinitely smaller than its home world allowed it to think was possible, but the only outlet left. It is psychologically important for a species that grew up in a conceptual and instinctive framework calling for growth.

The space program is one of the most important pieces for a constructive future. Of course, more of it should be targeted towards building permanent settlements and industry in space and extraterrestrial planetary bodies.

Re:Is that bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot justify a bad investment by point to an even worse investment. I cannot comment on the ISS and whether the money is well spent... but your comparison is invalid.

Re:Is that bad?

[grumbel]

If you want to spread humanity to another planet you better invest in automatic probes that can survive a few hundreds of years long trip and that can bread and educate some new humans on arrival. Sending live humans through interstellar space isn't going to work anytime soon and even if it one day would, it would be a waste of money.

Re:Is that bad?

[WindBourne]

And yet, you offer nothing of substance for your opinion, while the facts of manned spaceflight does. You ARE a troll.

Re:Is that bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is whether putting humans in space is the best way to go about this - robotic probes can be much more capable than manned craft for a given price. If we are going to colonize something, we need better propulsion, more knowledge about the destination, etc. There will be no friendly natives to help feed starving colonists this time around, but if we can develop robotic means of producing food and shelter in advance of human arrival, we can create a suitable substitute. I don't know the merits of colonizing the Moon, Mars, or one of the moons in the outer system, but before we send humans there, we need a way to produce the food and energy they will need. Until we create that infrastructure, colonization remains a pipe dream.

Re:Is that bad?

[GospelHead821]

Your comment and others like it remind me of some wisdom gleaned from xkcd:
"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."

Right now, our grasp of space exploration is still quite limited. In my opinion, the state of space exploration today is to its potential as alchemy was to modern chemistry. Nonetheless, alchemy represented the first baby steps toward real chemistry. I think that a lot of people recognize this and look at space exploration with the same disdain that they would an institute of alchemy. They key difference is that we don't do alchemy anymore because we outgrew it as it evolved into modern chemistry. Space exploration hasn't evolved into something useful and profitable yet but if we don't keep at it, it never will. (Note, I'm NOT equating space exploration with the ability to merely put things into orbit.)

Re:Is that bad?

[cynyr]

Humans need life support, robot do not.

I do not agree with the GP, but this is the usual reason.

If we are going to colonize a new planet at some point we will need to know how to get humans to this new planet. Practicing in earth orbit for how to keep humans alive and healthy in low || 0 G environments is useful science. About the only way i can see to test long term effects is to actually do the tests in a real low G environment with real people.

Re:Is that bad?

[slick7]

The ISS, and manned spaceflight in general, is a pointless waste of money. Not a troll, just a (well-justified) opinion.

If it was against terrorism or for the children, you'd be all over it.
As to pointless, what about war?

Re:Is that bad?

[grumbel]

Space exploration hasn't evolved into something useful and profitable yet but if we don't keep at it, it never will. (Note, I'm NOT equating space exploration with the ability to merely put things into orbit.)

There is nothing wrong with space exploration, in fact that is what we should do more of, but space exploration doesn't need humans, humans are nothing more then ballast that increases the cost and troubles. Just look at how far we have come. Human exploration has brought us to the moon, robotics probes on the other side are already flying outside the solar system.

Re:Is that bad?

[Sperbels]

. Practicing in earth orbit for how to keep humans alive and healthy in low || 0 G environments is useful science. About the only way i can see to test long term effects is to actually do the tests in a real low G environment with real people.

0G = bad stuff. If we were really interested in colonization and establishing a presence in space, we would have built a spinning space station with artificial gravity. That's the only way we'll be able to endure long stays in space.

Re:Is that bad?

[Dunbal]

Actually you can. That's how you fix things. You have two bills to pay, a $5000 bill costing you 30% interest per year, or a $2000 bill costing you 2% interest per year. You have limited funds. Which bill do you pay off first...

While the above was an analogy, in the case of government (mis)spending, which program do you cancel/fix first?

Re:Is that bad?

[Dunbal]

Both alchemy and modern chemistry are rigidly bound by the laws of thermodynamics. Not understanding or having a formula for the law does not mean that it isn't there imposing itself on everything you try to do.

Re:Is that bad?

[S.O.B.]

"Class M" is a fictional Star Trek term. I think what you meant to say is that there are no nearby planets in the habitable zone.

Re:Is that bad?

[Dunbal]

What's the point of our civilization then?

Who said there has to be a point? Look at my dog, curled up by my feet. She's happy, and she doesn't worry about her life having some sort of point. She lives for the moment and enjoys every day of her life. And one day she'll drop dead. We all will. And then what was the point, if you spent your whole life worrying about things you can't fix? Take care of the stuff you CAN fix. Just wishing the stars to be closer will not bring them closer. And I'm too old to believe in magic anymore. You would need magic to be able to 1) find and 2) reach a habitable world within the lifetime of the human race. And when you got there you would just fuck it up like we've fucked this one up.

Re:Is that bad?

[Samantha Wright]

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure everyone's still fairly gung ho about terraforming Mars.

Re:Is that bad?

[Sperbels]

"Class M" is a fictional Star Trek term. I think what you meant to say is that there are no nearby planets in the habitable zone

Mars is in the habitable zone. So is Venus. And seriously, is there anyone on this forum who doesn't know what Class M means?

Re:Is that bad?

[ZorinLynx]

>Who said there has to be a point?

This is one of the most insightful things I've read in a long time.

So many people are worried about their existence having a "point". We need to relax and enjoy life a bit more.

Re:Is that bad?

[h5inz]

Dunbal-"Actually you can." (... justify a bad investment by point to an even worse investment.) By bad investment he might have meant an investment with a negative overall outcome, which really shouldn't happen at all. How about something that actually isn't bad investment at all then? Like an investment into the search for alternative energy sources? Through the global economy it would make even the space flight cheaper, not to mention that it would also solve many other problems, like the next big problem - material production crisis (think about bauxite or silicon for example) and give rise to a new economic fluctuation (so that some "economic geniuses" could throw away their "communists were actually right about capitalism" thesis and concentrate on another stupid theory far from reality). Ok , now I went a bit off topic, but I am not going to delete it either. Thank you.

Re:Is that bad?

[standbypowerguy]

"Class M" is a fictional Star Trek term. I think what you meant to say is that there are no nearby planets in the habitable zone.

It's likely that "Class M" is more widely recognized than the scientific term "habitable zone". Even on Slashdot.

Re:Is that bad?

[Joce640k]

Practicing in earth orbit for how to keep humans alive and healthy in 0 G environments is useful science.

The day when we'll need to put humans in 0 G for any length of time is hundreds of years away...doctors in that year will laugh at these primitive experiments.

Right now the ISS is a giant Albatross around the neck of NASA.

Re:Is that bad?

[Joce640k]

There's no reason to think we'll be sending humans other stars anytime in the near future.

Before we can even think about it we need a whole new propulsion system. We could be working on that with the money we save by abandoning the ISS.

Re:Is that bad?

[Joce640k]

... terraforming Mars.

a) With the current state of the world that's hundreds of years away at best. It would cost "billions and billions".
b) Gravity on Mars is nothing like gravity on the ISS.

Re:Is that bad?

[Joce640k]

"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."

There's sooooooooo much work to be done before we can think about going out into space. The ISS is a joke is this is its purpose... ...and it's funny how the stated purpose of the ISS keeps changing, it's almost as if it's got no real reason to exist!

Me? I say the ISS has done everything useful that it's going to do. Time to turn it into a museum for rich kids (who'll advance science much more by trying to get there than the ISS ever will).

Re:Is that bad?

[Joce640k]

Waste of money? Is living out a meaningless existence without exploring our universe enough for you? What's the point of our civilization then? Are we seriously to sit here on earth and never even try to push the boundaries of what we're capable of?

a) How does the ISS help with that problem?
b) What's a realistic time frame for exploring the universe?

Re:Is that bad?

[walshy007]

Without a constant acceleration in spinning, If there is no gravity I kind of fail to see how spinning relative to objects that have little to no effects on the ship would have any useful effect.

Think from the frame of reference of the ship, it is stationary and everything else is spinning around it (without effect on it)... how does that make artificial gravity?

Re:Is that bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

While the above was an analogy, in the case of government (mis)spending, which program do you cancel/fix first?

How about this one?

Re:Is that bad?

[maxwells_deamon]

A spinning space ship to make artificial gravity for humans is a tricky and very expensive task. It would probably need to be much larger than the one in the movie 2001. There are issues of motion sickness etc that would need to be worked out

However, General Relativity states that a spinning system can be the same as gravity. It is the constant change in direction that does the trick. The same as centrifuges here on Earth work.
 

Re:Is that bad?

[Samantha Wright]

I think both of those points are obvious, and we were just being Romanticist, mildly off-topic dreamers.

Re:Is that bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Without a constant acceleration in spinning

Spinning is an acceleration, dumbass.

Re:Is that bad?

[Hognoxious]

You have two bills to pay, a $5000 bill costing you 30% interest per year, or a $2000 bill costing you 2% interest per year. You have limited funds. Which bill do you pay off first...

The one owed to the creditor with the biggest, numerous and most violent goons.

Re:Is that bad?

[Opportunist]

To create a spin-gravity generating station, without people getting sick from the motion, would require this station to be HUGE. Huge. Let's assume a station that rotates once per minute. I wouldn't speed it up much more, also 'cause people tend to be a wee bit uneasy if their own size of maybe 6 feet already means a considerable difference in gravity between their head and their toes. For more fun and to find out how it works, check out the Spin gravity calculator.

In a nutshell, if you can't built a space station half a mile in diameter, don't even bother thinking about it.

Re:Is that bad?

[Opportunist]

I don't want to sound like a politician, but that's something we can definitely put off 'til later.

Re:Is that bad?

[Opportunist]

We could also crew a few long distance probes with lawyers. It's win-win all over.

No, wait, imagine they make contact with some alien life form and they judge us by their behaviour, we'd be doomed.

Re:Is that bad?

[Opportunist]

No can do. How do you screw over the robots after they helped you? It's just not in our nature.

Re:Is that bad?

[Waffle Iron]

In my opinion, the state of space exploration today is to its potential as alchemy was to modern chemistry.

That's a good analogy. Alchemists were obsessed with turning lead into gold. Space nutters are obsessed with having humans colonize space.

As it turns out, both goals are technically possible, but neither is worth the effort with any foreseeable human technology. Chemists figured that out long ago and applied their knowledge to other, more useful, problems. NASA should likewise dump human space flight.

If and when transmutation of elements becomes cheap and easy, we can revisit creating gold for profit. Likewise, AFTER we have developed a feasible interstellar propulsion system, THEN we can start hiring astronauts.

Meanwhile, if you're worried about human extinction due to bad things happening on earth, you could get very effective insurance against that by building and staffing a dozen or so Dr. Strangelove style underground bunkers. This probably could be achieved within a few short years at well under $100 billion cost. However, it's not sexy enough for the space nutters, so they'll keep pushing for a Mars colony that would probably not be truly self sufficient for centuries.

Re:Is that bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously dude? Did you drop out before middle school science?

Re:Is that bad?

[Nethead]

Recruit astronauts from the Alaska Fisheries then. Hell, the TV rights would almost pay for it.

Re:Is that bad?

[hairyfeet]

Because our current engine tech sucks the big wet titty? look at how much we have learned and gained from the bots, we have had or are going to have orbiters around just about every interesting place in the solar system, learning more and more about how everything from gravity to solar winds work, all for about 1/20th the cost of our LEO crapola.

The simple fact is "Meatbags is SPAAAAACE!" simply isn't feasible ATM. We blew the endless cash on Apollo as a dick waving exercise against the Ruskies but frankly we could have gotten a hell of a lot more done with long term probes than by having astronauts hitting golf balls off the moon. We can experiment with new engine designs on the bots, no need for huge inquiries or shutting down the whole program if one blows the fuck up either.

We can simply get more done with less cost by leaving the meatbags on the ground. The bots don't need, food, water, man rating, shitters, air, extra protection for our fragile little bodies, its just stupid to waste limited resources on "Meatbags in SPAAACE!" right now, and this is from someone who loved Star trek and Buck Rogers as a kid. But I'm also a realist and our tech really isn't there yet to make meatbags a practicality.

Personally if it were me I'd stick with probes and look at reviving Gerald Bull's idea of a space cannon to cut down on the costs of moving material into LEO. From there parts could be assembled by robots to build larger and more powerful probes that could give us even more knowledge of the solar system so that when we DO stumble over the engine tech to get us out there everything will be all mapped out and ready for us. but now it is just a waste IMHO.

Re:Is that bad?

[NNKK]

For more fun and to find out how it works, check out the Spin gravity calculator.

In a nutshell, if you can't built a space station half a mile in diameter, don't even bother thinking about it.

Cool page, but it doesn't really agree with you. Note its quote:

In brief, at 1.0 rpm even highly susceptible subjects were symptom-free, or nearly so. At 3.0 rpm subjects experienced symptoms but were not significantly handicapped. At 5.4 rpm, only subjects with low susceptibility performed well and by the second day were almost free from symptoms. At 10 rpm, however, adaptation presented a challenging but interesting problem. Even pilots without a history of air sickness did not fully adapt in a period of twelve days.

This suggests anywhere from 1-2 RPM could probably be workable, suggesting a practical radius of as little as 0.15 miles, or diameter of 0.3 miles (~241/482 meters). Further, this assumes 1g. It's highly unlikely that 1g is necessary.

Mars is one of the most likely targets for extended-duration missions, and has a surface gravity of 0.376g. So let's say 0.4g. This lowers the diameter to as little as 180 meters (~0.11 miles).

If you bring it up to 400 meters in diameter, or less than 1/4th of a mile, you can have 1 1/3rd RPM at better than Mars-equivalent gravity.

Finally, diameter/radius can be a deceptive way of looking at this, since a basic spinning station need not be circular. A first pass need be little more than a room attached to a counterweight with cables.

Re:Is that bad?

[tragedy]

Um, huh? Ever been to a carnival?

Re:Is that bad?

[tragedy]

On the other hand, it may turn out that an hour or two a day of artificial gravity counteracts the deleterious effects of microgravity. If that's the case, then motion sickness isn't really an issue. Astronauts could spend a small amount of their time in a relatively small spinning section and the rest in microgravity.

Re:Is that bad?

[khallow]

Human exploration has brought us to the moon

Apollo also brought us an insight into the early Solar System and Earth that the current robotic effort wouldn't have delivered.

Re:Is that bad?

[427_ci_505]

You have to start somewhere.

Re:Is that bad?

[walshy007]

But the continual acceleration that would be required would seriously eat into the delta-v of the ship, for it to function would require some form of constant twisting acceleration on the ship. Without acceleration you'll simply be moving with the ship in the same way it is spinning with everything else.

Re:Is that bad?

[Opportunist]

Circular would have a lot of static/stability advantages, though.

This aside, it's unfortunate that we can't really test the effects of long exposure to gravity between 0.1 and 1g, but if the experiments with people being kept in beds tell something, it might not be too good for us to remain in lower gravity for too long. It will certainly be better than microgravity and will prolong the time we can stay in space by alleviating the effects of weightlessness, but whether it is really enough to keep people healthy is a different matter.

Also, again, the smaller the diameter, the bigger the difference between gravity at your toes and at your head level, no matter how fast you spin it. Plus, those 180 meters you get down to is still heaps more distance than we achieve today with our current space stations, and even those parts are not made for constant stress of n (with n between 0 and 1) g pulling at their docking rings.

Re:Is that bad?

[tragedy]

That's why you have more than one spinning ring and you have them rotate in opposite directions to counteract each other. Obviously it's not that simple, you need to dynamically balance the forces carefully to avoid the ship tumbling, but you don't need to use any thrust to do it. You would need energy, yes, but you wouldn't need to use any thrust.

Re:Is that bad?

[tragedy]

If it does turn out that operating out of microgravity, but still at less than 1G is bad for you, it still might be the case that you can simply keep things at .5G and strap on 75 kilos of weights.

Re:Is that bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

for it to function would require some form of constant twisting acceleration on the ship

Yep, they call it torque...and electric motors provide it pretty well.

Re:Is that bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

actually its not only possible but probable and practical. they will do it with cables radially supporting a ring of inflatable capsules. 2 rpm is an acceptable rotation that doesn't impose a problem with coreolis effect so no need for centrifuge training, and for 1 g, the diameter of the station would need to be a mere 448 m (224 m radius). Seems big, but remember the ISS is 109 m long and is supported by trusses instead of just cables. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_gravity] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station]

Once mothballed

[Anonymous Coward]

Once a government project is mothballed, it becomes VERY difficult to get it going again.

If it happens don't expect the ISS to remain in orbit very long.

OH MY GOD!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Where will our technology come from now?! We MUST establish a presence in our atmoshpere's low orbit to prove to the aliens we're smart!!!! This is VITAL STUFF!

Well that was neat.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the era of human spacetravel came to an end. Not from discovery or war or any disaster. But simple greed. Greed that says using our resources to take what others have or wasting those resources for entertainment are more important than the spread of the species.

Trapping us all on this tiny blue planet until the inevitable end comes.

So we wait for the next global disaster to wipe us all out in one swipe. Be it a germ, comet, meteor, pole shift, solar flare, gamma burst, supervolcano or the unwise use of technology itself.

Perhaps if another species arises on this planet it will be a little more intelligent and not keep all their stuff in one place.

It's ok tho. It seems to be a common mistake given the emptiness of the universe. So don't sweat it too much. Go have a beer and some fast food, sit down and watch tv. That's whats important after all.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Lord Lode]

Don't worry, once the technological singularity happens we'll spread to space. Well, not we, but 'it' will.

Re:Well that was neat.

[grumbel]

So we wait for the next global disaster to wipe us all out in one swipe.

The problem with that logic is that space isn't salvation, it's the worst kind of global disaster 24/7 all year long with no air to breath and temperatures that will kill you in a matter of minutes.

If you somehow find a way to survive in space, you can just apply those same technologies to earth and will be save for any disaster imaginable.

Re:Well that was neat.

[DerekLyons]

So we wait for the next global disaster to wipe us all out in one swipe. Be it a germ, comet, meteor, pole shift, solar flare, gamma burst, supervolcano or the unwise use of technology itself.

You're deluding yourself if you think a few months or a few years delay in manned spaceflight would make one whit of difference. We're at least a century, if not more, from being able to create a 'colony' off planet that could survive (let alone prosper) prosper absent massive and ongoing support from Earth.

Re:Well that was neat.

[ColdWetDog]

Trapping us all on this tiny blue planet until the inevitable end comes

Sob. This tiny blue planet
Sob. The inevitable.

Yeah, the inevitable is that you seem to have stopped your Prozac again. You know, with a little care and foresight this 4 billion year old rock can take care of us for a couple of billion more years. It's a nice planet. You might want to step outside and enjoy it.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Anonymous Coward]

singularity is bullshit. stop.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with that logic is that space isn't salvation, it's the worst kind of global disaster 24/7 all year long with no air to breath and temperatures that will kill you in a matter of minutes.

It's a challenge with manageable risks. If you can make it self sustainable it's a good alternative.

Earth is powerfull because is big, space is powerfull because you can be mobile.

Which species survived better, the ones with thick armour/defence or the ones who were more agile?

Re:Well that was neat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except there's no human-meaningful temperature in vacuum. Or space for that matter, being close enough approximation of it.

Re:Well that was neat.

[nusuth]

So we wait for the next global disaster to wipe us all out in one swipe.

The problem with that logic is that space isn't salvation, it's the worst kind of global disaster 24/7 all year long with no air to breath and temperatures that will kill you in a matter of minutes.

If you somehow find a way to survive in space, you can just apply those same technologies to earth and will be save for any disaster imaginable.

That is exactly the point. For long term survival we need technologies that allows us to survive i otherwise hostile environments. Human colonization of space is a great way to research and prove such technologies. if the whole human population on Earth is dead when a planet wide disaster strikes, it wouldn't matter much whether or not we have a dozen survivors in space but a space colony almost ensures that that will never happen.

Re:Well that was neat.

[poofmeisterp]

...Which species survived better, the ones with thick armour/defence or the ones who were more agile?

Umm.. Both?

Your point is moot.

Re:Well that was neat.

[poofmeisterp]

Except there's no human-meaningful temperature in vacuum. Or space for that matter, being close enough approximation of it.

...Radiation? Oh, wait.. We tried that already. Money gets in the way :)

Re:Well that was neat.

[Bing Tsher E]

For long term survival we need technologies that allows us to survive i otherwise hostile environments. Human colonization of space is a great way to research and prove such technologies.

Actually, you're wrong there. Blasting stuff off into space tremendously accelerates the degradation of the only environment we can live in. Look at the greenhouse-gas emissions from a shuttle launch sometime, let alone the environmental impact of the space program as a whole.

We'd be far better off working on 'research on survival in hostile environments' in domes at the bottom of the ocean, underground, etc.

It's not dramatic, though, and space cowboys can't fly around in their dreams when their pod is down at the bottom of the ocean in a hole in the ground.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you somehow find a way to survive in space, you can just apply those same technologies to earth and will be save for any disaster imaginable.

Load of bullshit. Seriously, did you even try to think about it or was it too hard!!??

There were events events in Earth's past that resulted in complete remelting of Earth's crust. We are talking 1000+C air temperature. Or how about a much more likely nuclear war? Biological warfare?

Surviving on Mars is not the same as surviving worse possible scenarios for Earth. You know what you are facing in the former. You do not know the worse possible scenario for Earth.

The purpose of life is to spread to minimize chance of extinction. That's it! Failing to spread, at all cost, is akin to extinction. It is even against the Bible's teachings - "Go forth and multiply". Well, the only "forth" left is not on Earth.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah actually the bulk of our financial resources don't go to entertainment. Fighting pointless wars is the single biggest avoidable drain of resources. The other obvious one is money wasted on health care to deal with avoidable health problems. Smoking, bad eating habits, drug abuse, just to name a few. If you look at entertainment dollars verses the GDP they probably make up 1% of the economy. Defense is roughly 25% so cutting defense by 4% to spend on space exploration would be like throwing every cent spent on entertainment at space exploration. If you could stop people from smoking you'd probably save enough to colonize Mars. Declare peace and get rid of the military and you could probably over time colonize the outer planets, I mean the region of space as in moon not the gas giants themselves.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Stormy Dragon]

or wasting those resources for entertainment are more important than the spread of the species

Uggh, I hate the neo-puritan attitude that every second of life needs to be sent doing something "useful" and that anything done purely for happiness is evil.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Stormy Dragon]

Look at the greenhouse-gas emissions from a shuttle launch sometime

... The shuttle's main propulsion is liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Its exhaust product is water vapor.

Re:Well that was neat.

[khallow]

Blasting stuff off into space tremendously accelerates the degradation of the only environment we can live in.

So what? If the degradation "accelerated or not" is insignificant, which is the current case, then we have better things to worry about. Such as elevating everyone from poverty.

Re:Well that was neat.

[0123456]

The shuttle's main propulsion is liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Its exhaust product is water vapor.

Exactly. If I remember correctly, about 80% of the 'greenhouse effect' on Earth comes from water vapor.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Teancum]

Look at the greenhouse-gas emissions from a shuttle launch sometime

... The shuttle's main propulsion is liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Its exhaust product is water vapor.

Which is also a greenhouse gas. Still, by far and away the largest "carbon footprint" of most current rocket launches is the construction of the thing in the first place, from the mines that have to extract the minerals to make the body of the rocket to the petroleum used to create the rocket fuel (or at least power the electrical generating plants used to make the fuel). Not to mention the thousands of workers making these vehicles over the years and their driving to and from their place of employment every day.

Also, the Shuttle used Ammonium perchlorate with the SRBs, which produces a few more by products than just water vapor.

Still, I'd agree that a self-sustaining population of people living off of the Earth would be a good thing so far as an insurance policy, not to mention that people living in another environment often do come up with solutions to problems that are different if for no other reason than they encounter different kinds of problems. The richness of human society would be so much larger with people living on Mars, the Moon, and elsewhere if for no other reason than the ideas coming back to the Earth to solve problems here on the Earth in some very new ways. This can be technology or simply music and literature. All of that can make the lives of everybody better in ways that right now are literally incomprehensible because it currently isn't being done.

Re:Well that was neat.

[cpt kangarooski]

Water vapor is a greenhouse gas, and since the hydrogen used comes from natural gas, IIRC, the Shuttle does add the water to the environment. But the water isn't up in the atmosphere all of the time, and the quantity from a shuttle launch was probably a lot more benign than the amount of CO2 we've dumped up there in the same period of time.

The SRBs have pretty nasty exhausts, but I don't think they're greenhouse gases. It would've been nice, though, if they had gone with the LRB option instead.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, with a little care and foresight this 4 billion year old rock can take care of us for a couple of billion more years. It's a nice planet. You might want to step outside and enjoy it.

It's much more likely that we'll make ourselves extinct before nature ever gets around to it. Agent Smith was right about the virus-like behavior of our species.

So yes, step outside and enjoy it while you can!

Re:Well that was neat.

[khallow]

The problem with that logic is that space isn't salvation, it's the worst kind of global disaster 24/7 all year long with no air to breath and temperatures that will kill you in a matter of minutes.

People routinely live in Earth-side environments that would kill an unprotected person in seconds to minutes. But they don't have a problem with that environment because they live in habitats, not the raw environment.

Qualitatively, these environments are little different from space. You'll write just as many Slashdot posts whether you're dying of vacuum exposure in space as you would drowning at 1000 feet down in the ocean or freezing to death in a blinding Antarctic winter blizzard.

So the simple rebuttal to the claim that space is the worst disaster imaginable is the simple observation that we would live not in space, but in habitats in space. And there's no technical or physical reason we can't make space habitats that are just as comfortable and safe as Earth habitats are.

If you somehow find a way to survive in space, you can just apply those same technologies to earth and will be save for any disaster imaginable.

Keep in mind that the safest solution to a disaster is not to be there. Something that would be possible with a space presence even if there was a global disaster.

Re:Well that was neat.

[fritsd]

For long term survival, school children will need to learn in school that to build a workable mini-ecosystem capable to support a small colony on, say, the moon, is a very difficult and expensive problem.

With as the obvious conclusion following from this, that we as a species better not destroy our "Biosphere 1" which is up till now completely suitable for us to live on because we evolved in it.

At the moment I don't think it's obvious to all people on earth that our beautiful planet has limits. But if school kids see astronauts on the moon eating boiled, strained algae soup in their "Spome" *EVERY DAY*, they might get a bit more appreciation.
Well, maybe...

Re:Well that was neat.

[bhtooefr]

The exception is overpopulation-related disasters.

Those, there are three solutions:

#1, prevent them with controls on reproduction
#2, genocide
#3, getting the hell off this rock

#3 is by far the most morally correct option.

Re:Well that was neat.

[DarwinSurvivor]

No, I'm pretty sure we could do it a lot sooner than that. It would just be so astronomically expensive that nobody is willing to foot the bill.

Re:Well that was neat.

[grumbel]

#3 is by far the most morally correct option.

It's also by far the most unrealistic one. In the last 50 years we managed to put a grand total of around 500 people into space and a whole lot of them have just been low earth orbit. Even if you increase that number by a few orders of magnitude, you are still at essentially nothing in relation to overpopulation. I also doubt that it would make much sense in terms of energy and resources. How many people could you feed for a lifetime with the effort it takes to launch a single one into space?

When you want to send humans into space you have to do it for colonialist, send a few and let them reproduce. Trying to send them to get them off this rock is futile waste of resources.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Belial6]

That is a piece that people miss out on with both culture and genetics. Everyone talks about how great it is when we get a diversity of genetics, and culture, but then never consider that mingling these things leads to a single culture and genetic pool, as the fittest survive, and the least fit disappear. While bringing in diversity IS good, it requires segregation to create that diversity. Given how small the earth now is, getting people far enough away that regular travel is impractical, is an investment in humanities future.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Sulphur]

Look at the greenhouse-gas emissions from a shuttle launch sometime

... The shuttle's main propulsion is liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Its exhaust product is water vapor.

OTOH the solid rocket boosters (SRB) burn ammonium perchloride NH3ClO4 known as AP and Al powder.

Re:Well that was neat.

[KeensMustard]

And the era of human spacetravel came to an end. Not from discovery or war or any disaster. But simple greed.

Technologies that we find romantically appealing (e.g. travel by steam train) often come to an end, because they no longer serve any purpose. Other Technologies simply outpace them. In the case of human spaceflight, we've always known that robotics would advance to the stage where humans are not required in space - this has been known since the sixties, when NASA proposed sending a probe to Mars, but JFK wanted a moon landing - because of it's emotive appeal.

Trapping us all on this tiny blue planet until the inevitable end comes. So we wait for the next global disaster to wipe us all out in one swipe. Be it a germ, comet, meteor, pole shift, solar flare, gamma burst, supervolcano or the unwise use of technology itself.

You are going to die regardless. So am I. We all are. Space is not the mechanic to bring us immortality, either collectively or individually - any more than pyramids.

Re:Well that was neat.

[lennier]

Greed that says using our resources to take what others have or wasting those resources for entertainment are more important than the spread of the species.

Yes, we'll certainly improve our chances of survival by spreading our species into that welcoming, friendly vacuum in which not even bacteria survive. Wait. Scratch that, reverse it.

I'm not the only one to point this out.

Re:Well that was neat.

[lennier]

If you somehow find a way to survive in space, you can just apply those same technologies to earth and will be save for any disaster imaginable.

+++ this, a million. Common sense is your friend.

The nasty little truth? Manned "civilian" spaceflight always was a thin PR skin over the real paying reason for space, which was ICBMs and military spy/comms satellites. It was reported in 2007 that the bulk of NASA's TDRSS network traffic is primarily military.

Space is not what we were told it was.

Re:Well that was neat.

[lennier]

Human colonization of space is a great way to research and prove such technologies.

No, it's an extremely inefficient and expensive way to research and prove such technologies, because you're limited to what you can launch into space first. The only thing that space provides is an extremely hostile environment; there are no actual resources out there other than sunlight and rock, which we also have plenty of on Earth.

A great way to research self contained biospheres would be to set up research stations in Antarctica, the Gobi desert, the Sahara, the middle of Australia, and the bottom of mine shafts in Nevada.

Re:Well that was neat.

[lennier]

While bringing in diversity IS good, it requires segregation to create that diversity. Given how small the earth now is, getting people far enough away that regular travel is impractical, is an investment in humanities future.

An interesting idea. However, that's in direct opposition to the reality of space colonisation: getting to the "self-sufficient colony" stage will require, first, two things: one, developing self-sufficient biospheres here on Earth (you could try to alpha-test them in space, but you'd have to be prepared to let lots of astronauts die messily when their life support malfunctions), and two, developing a regular transport network from Earth to space (because even with the best Earthside testing, your colonies are not actually going to be practically 100% self-sufficient for decades if not centuries).

Once you've got a regular transport grid going, you've got exactly the same diversity problems as you had to start with. Any virus, war, mass hysteria or anything else that could conceivably take out all of Earth will be just as likely to spread through all of the colonised solar system, and you're back to "all eggs in one basket" just with the basket being bigger, and the parts of it out in space being a lot more fragile than the ones on Earth.

Basically, thinking of space colonisation as preparation for Earthside disaster makes about as much sense as practicing tightrope walking in preparation for a boxing match. Yes, it's difficult, yes it requires lots of specialised skill to pull of, yes only the best can do it. But those skills are specialised, they don't actually transfer to what you need to know in order to survive outside of that environment.

If you want to survive Earthside disasters, prepare for them. That means spending on public healthcare, education, green technologies, all the non-sexy boring things which make life survivable and robust.

Re:Well that was neat.

[lennier]

then we have better things to worry about. Such as elevating everyone from poverty.

How does creating a tiny outpost of highly specialised military-scientific personnel -- doing nothing much of consequence for science, either -- translate into elevating anyone else from poverty?

It would be different if manned spaceflight actually directly benefited the general population of Earth. But it doesn't. The purpose of manned spaceflight is to develop the technologies and expertise required to support manned spaceflight. That's all it does. It's a self-justifying expense item which doesn't, in the end, deliver a huge amount of value, other than a vague emotional sense of satisfaction, much like mountain climbing. Are there a few tiny spinoffs? Sure. Would those spinoffs also exist if the money was spent on, say, airships or submarines rather than space? Quite probably. (The oxygen reclamation systems used in Apollo originally came from submarines, for instance. Lots of money was spent on adapating those to space conditions. Does that engineering translate directly to ground conditions? No, not really.)

Manned spaceflight was worth it during the Cold War as a propaganda vehicle. Now that that war's over, is it still worth it?

Re:Well that was neat.

[lennier]

People routinely live in Earth-side environments that would kill an unprotected person in seconds to minutes. But they don't have a problem with that environment because they live in habitats, not the raw environment.

And yet the Gobi Desert is still somehow not filled with modular inflatable shopping malls.

Yes, we can put habitats into inhospitable environments. Given an infinite budget and supply chain, that's relatively easy.

What is hard is making it pay.

Re:Well that was neat.

[lennier]

#3, getting the hell off this rock

By comparison to anywhere else in reachable space, Earth is not only not a rock, it's a six-star Hilton where everyone gets the Rock Star Suite and 72 virgins.

You're welcome to trade anywhere on "this rock" for any of the hells out there. Want to breathe some hot sulphuric acid? I hear Venus is nice this time of year. Lethal doses of radiation? The moons of Jupiter await your landing. Carbon dioxide frost and instant depressurisation? Mars is just the ticket.

Space is not what you saw on Star Trek. There are no actual Vulcans out there.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Kjella]

So we wait for the next global disaster to wipe us all out in one swipe. Be it a germ, comet, meteor, pole shift, solar flare, gamma burst, supervolcano or the unwise use of technology itself.

Most of the things you mention simply can not get so bad as to cause total extinction. The point is not that "we" would survive, like you and I. 90%, 99%, 99.9999% of humanity could die and there'd still be thousands to rebuild the human race, same as we could realistically send out into space. There will be no general evacuation, it'd just be a fail-safe to continue the human race. For space to be the best option, it has to be a disaster so great you can't even survive in deep underground bunkers.

The other thing is that there's millions of years between even minor extinction events. We're now in some absurd hurry to do everything within 100 years when even 1000 years would mean it's 65.001 million years since the dinosaurs died out. Honestly, we could as easily have been another million years on the monkey stage, it's not important if something happens in 10 or 30 or 50 years. Really it isn't.

Oh yeah, just one more point. If we're first doing space, the space base has to survive the same disaster. For example a gamma ray burst would most likely affect the whole solar system. An asteroid impact bad enough to destroy earth could lead to massive amounts of debris in all directions to hit Mars as well. So even in the case of an extinction event it might be better to just dig deeper in at home anyway.

Re:Well that was neat.

[khallow]

And yet the Gobi Desert is still somehow not filled with modular inflatable shopping malls.

The Gobi Desert does have people though. And a lot of the developed world exists through inertia, it's there because that's where the people are.

I'm not advocating forcing people to move to space, that would be profoundly stupid. But if it happened that a large community was suddenly moved to a spacehabitat, I believe we would see profitable opportunities open up.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Rich0]

You'll need to define "profit" in your case. If it were truly profitable to put a bunch of people in space, then all you need to do is convince a bunch of investment bankers to loan you a few hundred billion dollars and go do it.

I suspect that activities in space would only be profitable if you ignore the costs of transportation and infrastructure (that is 99.999999% of the costs of being there in the first place).

Re:Well that was neat.

[khallow]

These are good points. I will point out that there currently exists high value and/or profitable unmanned activity, namely, the launching of a variety of satellites for such things as communication, national defense, imaging, and weather. A person just is a very flexible machine with some overhead from habitation requirements. The ISS among other things helps develop technologies for living and working in space. I think it's vastly overpriced for the value it delivers, but there is some value there.

There's also the crude observation that previous large-scale expansions of the environments into which humans can live or significant, new ways to travel have resulted in economic growth and some degree of scientific progress.

Space activities are also interesting because they potentially can disengage economic activity from Earth-side resources. That would greatly increase the resources available to human civilization as well as employ people and generate wealth.

Even now, we have things that are of some value such as various precious and platinum group metals which could be mined in space or solar power generation. So there is a path to becoming "worth it", namely, driving down the cost of space access to the point where the stuff that we already know has value can be done.

Despite the hideously inefficient nature of the ISS, it does explore some risks of space activities (not just manned) and useful technologies, hence, is helping to reduce the cost of future access to space.

Re:Well that was neat.

[GameboyRMH]

Yep that's why anklyosaurs survive to this day.

Re:Well that was neat.

[khallow]

Once you've got a regular transport grid going, you've got exactly the same diversity problems as you had to start with. Any virus, war, mass hysteria or anything else that could conceivably take out all of Earth will be just as likely to spread through all of the colonised solar system, and you're back to "all eggs in one basket" just with the basket being bigger, and the parts of it out in space being a lot more fragile than the ones on Earth.

Ever hear of a quarantine? It's a lot easier to implement one in space when you have visitors once every few months than it is a porous border with hundreds of thousands of people crossing every day. This isn't the days of the Black Death where no one had a clue what disease was or how it spread. There's no reason for traditional diseases to spread to places that are more than a few traveling days away from Earth.

Second, diversity through space habitation doesn't just protect again end of the Earth scenarios, but also global scale setbacks. For example, I doubt the human race's recovery from the Second World War would have been as smooth (no matter who ended up winning) without the presence of the virtually untouched New World to help economically.

A space-based economy would probably also be affected by big global economic downturns, but it'd have different products and needs, meaning that there would be more real economic activity to fall back on during a downturn.

Re:Well that was neat.

[khallow]

Sure, the opportunity for profit doesn't justify the cost of the move. But my belief is that over a few decades, we'll start seeing small groups of people move to space for a variety of reasons.

Re:Well that was neat.

[GameboyRMH]

You know, with a little care and foresight this 4 billion year old rock can take care of us for a couple of billion more years.

"But fixing the environment! That means more taxes and higher operating costs! And change! How will the 1%ers afford their yachts and cocaine and hookers? Ugh, conservative no likey!!!! >_<" -Repeat forever until planet is uninhabitable.

Re:Well that was neat.

[KahabutDieDrake]

When you were typing this out, it didn't occur to you that you just described the ISS and the transportation system used to staff it? Or is there some reason that a habitat in space, manned 24/7 for years doesn't qualify?

Re:Well that was neat.

[KahabutDieDrake]

It's fairly clear you haven't got the slightest idea what you are talking about.

Your computer, the internet, refrigeration, cell phones, GPS, it's all based on the space program. The first IC was created by Texas Instruments, with NASA's Apollo program as the customer. Refrigeration in self contained systems was the result of ICBM research (you know, those big ass things they launch satellites with?), gotta keep that cryogenic gas cool now. I think I'll just leave off here before I have some kind of stroke. Maybe, though, you could google around a bit and inform yourself about all the wonderful things that NASA has brought to your life.

Furthermore, how is it that supposedly rational, educated peoples such as the populace of /. are unaware of the benefits of ANY kind of cutting edge research? Especially if it actually includes DOING anything, you know, like reaching other solar bodies. Do you live in such a vacuum that you can't fathom the benefit to dozens of fields of research?

Re:Well that was neat.

[CPNABEND]

Hey, on Star Trek they always found places to walk around without space suits...

Re:Well that was neat.

[Doubting Sapien]

The only thing that space provides is an extremely hostile environment;

My first thought was that space provides a sustained micro-gravity environment that is rather hard to achieve on Earth. IIRC, there has been a few experiments with growing crystals on shuttle missions. However, it isn't nearly the amount necessary to establish progress toward potential space industries such as materials manufacturing/fabrication. Yes, you'd have to deal with overhead costs, supply chain, logistics, etc. of any business venture. But all the complexity aside, my personal feeling is that it is to early to throw in the towel on space exploration for lack of vision/imagination. Throughout the course of human history, there has been will always be naysayers opposing the dreamers. Think of how impoverished we'd all be if all those dreamers lacked the ambition/courage/funding to get their ideas off the ground.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Belial6]

An interesting idea. However, that's in direct opposition to the reality of space colonisation: getting to the "self-sufficient colony" stage will require, first, two things: one, developing self-sufficient biospheres here on Earth (you could try to alpha-test them in space, but you'd have to be prepared to let lots of astronauts die messily when their life support malfunctions), and two, developing a regular transport network from Earth to space (because even with the best Earthside testing, your colonies are not actually going to be practically 100% self-sufficient for decades if not centuries).

That makes no sense. Of course you would have to make self sufficient colonies. That in no way contradicts the fact that doing it would be an investment in humanities future. Second, distance has never been protection against disease. It really has always been travel time. A fatal disease with an 8 week incubation period is not nearly as likely to spread to a colony that is 8 months away than it is a country that is 8 hours away. For example, the incubation period for the Bubonic Plague is 2 to 6 days. This means that a similar disease could spread to half of the world before it is even noticed. It would be extremely unlikely to make it through an 8 month trip without anyone noticing the ship is carrying the disease.

If you want to survive Earthside disasters, prepare for them. That means spending on public healthcare, education, green technologies, all the non-sexy boring things which make life survivable and robust.

Now, who is being unrealistic. Unless by "green technologies" you mean bullets, bombs, or mass sterilization systems, you lose all credibility.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Importance is subjective. Your entire nonsensical rant fails to understand this simple fact and in so doing, elevates your own greedy desires in a most hypocritical way.

Re:Well that was neat.

[bronney]

That totally depends on whether your armour is +5 enchanted. :)

I agree with you though. But it's decisions like these that tells us how primitive we really are. Remember these decisions are not from any one person but our collective as a whole. However you view it, we put ourselves in this situation. Perhaps we are not worthy of space after all, at least, not yet.

Re:Well that was neat.

[mikechant]

For long term survival, school children will need to learn in school that to build a workable mini-ecosystem capable to support a small colony on, say, the moon, is a very difficult and expensive problem.

Actually, building a 'space habitat' would be a brilliant school project for nearly all students, so many different skills are involved that lots of children of different abilities and interests could work together and each stretch themselves and enjoy it in different ways.
However, it would be quite expensive to do properly (i.e. in a way where the habitat could actually be used for a reasonable period of time).

Re:Well that was neat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless the global disaster is self-created by humans - massive biological wars, for example. Space IS a viable off-site backup stragegy for the human race, assuming we can figure out how to survive there.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of the ./ crowd these days is either 'cut all funding to everything because blah blah....' tea-partiers or 'tax the rich and spend it on welfare and a broken education system' liberals. I blame the media. And the broken education system.

Re:Well that was neat.

[Bing Tsher E]

You just described the 'peace benefit' of a bunch of Military Spending. What it has to do with space isn't clear.

The primary payload of ICBMs has never been satellites. Intercontinental (the I in ICBM) means it goes up from one continent and delivers a warhead payload to another.

Integrated circuits were developed for--- surprise again, control systems for warhead delivery systems.

The space program was the 'gee whiz' the government pointed at to explain all the development and research money being spent. NASA was a PR stunt.

well the old shuttle was getting old and the newer

[Joe_Dragon]

well the old shuttle was getting old and the newer spaceX stuff is now ready yet also Constellation was not going to be ready by 2011 any ways. If not for the Columbia disaster we may still be useing the shuttles to day.

SpaceX to the rescue?

[MaxBooger]

According to a prior slashdot article, SpaceX is slated for another demonstration launch late November, this time docking with the ISS. Yes, it is a demo flight so, yes, you can't trust it to succeed. Still, is there any reason they cant load up the Dragon capsule with [critically required items]?

Re:SpaceX to the rescue?

[Dr La]

The problem is not supplies: there are enough supplies in the ISS already to last untill after the winter.

The problem is that the only remaining return Soyuz module apparently is not fit to function untill next spring. So it has to return earlier, if no replacement arrives before that point. The hazard of a landing under winter (darkness) condition means that it cannot return later than November. Leaving the ISS with no return vehicle after November.

So not, SpaceX can not come to the rescue....

Re:SpaceX to the rescue?

[Teancum]

So not, SpaceX can not come to the rescue....

The Dragon capsule is being designed with human spaceflight in mind. That said, the crewed version of the Dragon is still under development as the launch escape system is still being worked upon as well as a few additional flights are being requested to test the equipment before crews are using that spacecraft. On top of that, I don't believe that the Dragon has an independent capability of docking to an unmanned space station and requires at least somebody in the station to use the construction arm to position the Dragon for docking.

Orbital is also looking at upgrading their Cygnus spacecraft for making a crewed version as well, and Boeing is building their CST-100, so even here SpaceX isn't the only game in town. The problem with these other spacecraft is that they are even further behind in terms of development for crewed spaceflight than the Dragon is at the moment. A couple billion dollars might speed up their development, but it still will take some time. It won't be the end of the world as American astronauts flying on American hardware will happen again and relatively soon, but it isn't quite ready for prime time yet.

Re:SpaceX to the rescue?

[Anonymous Coward]

SpaceX is slated for another demonstration launch late November, this time docking with the ISS.

And according to this article that is going to be postponed because of the station having been abandoned by that time.

Re:SpaceX to the rescue?

[jonwil]

ok, so whats the problem.
Had the resupply mission succeeded, presumably they were planning to launch another Soyuz to the ISS with some new crew and a new Soyuz so that the current Soyuz capsule could land before it fails.

So do that and use the Dragon test as a way to get anything up there that they need that would have been delivered by the Progress.

Or is the issue that whatever made the Progress fail could also make the next one fail (i.e. a Soyuz with people on board)?

Re:SpaceX to the rescue?

[Dr La]

Or is the issue that whatever made the Progress fail could also make the next one fail (i.e. a Soyuz with people on board)?

That is indeed the rpoblem: the manned Soyuz is launched by the same type of rocket that failed with the last Progress.

So the concern is that no new Soyuz will go up for a while if they do not sort out the cause of the malfunction quickly. In that case, the Soyuz coupled to ISS at the moment will have no replacement. It will have to return before February 2012 as a safe function of it cannot be guaranteed after that date. Because of the wintertime conditions hampering a safe landing, it will actually have to leave ISS in November at the latest. Any astro/kosmonauts onboard ISS will have to take that last Soyuz back otherwise they will be marooned on the space station.

Re:SpaceX to the rescue?

[Dr La]

But of course, the Russians may always decide that the last Soyuz currently attached is "safe" after February 2012 after all.

Russia vs US spaceflight

[kabloom]

Russia has had fewer astronaut fatailities than the United States, and all of the fatalities Russia has had have been less recent than any of the US's fatalities (those occurring in space, not on the ground). Although it would certainly be a tragedy if people died on a Russian spacecraft, please remember that the reason we now rely on Russian spacecraft is because people died on American spacecraft, and NASA responded by retiring all of the spacecraft involved in the human space program (without developing replacements).

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[CrimsonAvenger]

Russia has had fewer astronaut fatailities [wikipedia.org] than the United States

Only because they put fewer people into a spacecraft than we do. They've lost two crews, we've lost two crews.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[DerekLyons]

Russia has had fewer astronaut fatailities than the United States

So what? That's an emotional argument, not an engineering one.
 

all of the fatalities Russia has had have been less recent than any of the US's fatalities (those occurring in space, not on the ground).

Yet, Russia has had an ongoing series of accidents and incidents with it's flights - and that with both the booster *and* the spacecraft. If a US craft behaved in the same way, there would be screams from all quarters to ground it, fire the managers, and consider canceling it. Here, you don't even seem aware that they have even occurred.
 

please remember that the reason we now rely on Russian spacecraft is because people died on American spacecraft, and NASA responded by retiring all of the spacecraft involved in the human space program (without developing replacements).

Um, no. NASA did what it was told by Congress and the Administration. They had no choice in the matter. Blaming NASA is like blaming a car for crashing, rather than the drunk at the wheel.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[Anonymous Coward]

Do we "officially" KNOW that everything Russia did, especially in the Cold War and USSR eras?

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a good thing that the same rules don't apply to commercial aircraft... close down the airlines... there were fatalities.

Astronauts have accepted the danger and know the risk. Should not be such a program altering event for every accident. Yes find the problem and fix it, but being on the edge will result in going off the edge on occasion. Part of the job.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[strack]

uh, what? im pretty sure astronauts not getting killed is a primary engineering objective of manned spaceflight. a better safety record sounds like a pretty good engineering based argument to me. a emotional argument might be something like "oh the shuttle is shaped like a plane, and planes are highly reusable, so the shuttle will be highly reusable and not incredibly expensive at all mr congressman". you know, for example.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[Clsid]

all of the fatalities Russia has had have been less recent than any of the US's fatalities (those occurring in space, not on the ground).

Yet, Russia has had an ongoing series of accidents and incidents with it's flights - and that with both the booster *and* the spacecraft. If a US craft behaved in the same way, there would be screams from all quarters to ground it, fire the managers, and consider canceling it. Here, you don't even seem aware that they have even occurred.

And that's pretty much what the Russians did short of cancelling it. Go read en.rian.ru so you can get informed about the quality control comission they created, how they grounded their space vehicles, how one of the top managers lost his job a couple of months ago and how everybody starting with the prime minister and all levels of government got involved with the accidents.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[Anonymous Coward]

Columbia

Challenger

Apollo 1

I have no idea how many the Soviets/Russians have lost, but I think we've lost 3 crews.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[DerekLyons]

You seem really, really impressed by all the smoke and mirrors the Russians have created - and utterly unaware that accidents and incidents continue to happen apace. They have yet to ground the Soyuz capsule despite those continuing incidents.

Go get informed yourself.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[DerekLyons]

uh, what? im pretty sure astronauts not getting killed is a primary engineering objective of manned spaceflight. a better safety record sounds like a pretty good engineering based argument to me.

It sounds good to you because you lack reading comprehension, basic critical thinking skills, and seemingly completely lack any background knowledge relative to the matter.. The OP didn't base his argument on the number of fatal accidents (which is the engineering measurement that determines the safety record), but on the emotional one that the Russians have killed fewer than the Americans.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[multipartmixed]

The shuttle accidents did not occur in space - the shuttles were still in the air, and thus aircraft. So, no American space craft have had accidents, and I believe the American aircraft safety record is actually quite good compared to the Soviets.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[0123456]

Astronauts have accepted the danger and know the risk.

Try that in any other business and see how long you can survive before the government close you down.

"Sure they have a one in fifty chance of dying every time they go on a business trip, but they've accepted the danger and know the risk."

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[Teancum]

There were also six NASA astronauts who died flying the T-38 aircraft while performing official duties on behalf of NASA, and IMHO should be counted with any list of deceased astronauts in the service of the United States. Furthermore, the three crews mentioned in the above vehicles totaled 17 people, which should matter as larger vehicles ought to be safer vehicles too.

While perhaps a bit morbid, there is a List of all flight and training deaths of astronauts on the wiki if you really want to get the full count of astronauts and cosmonauts who have died in the service of their respective countries.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the most dangerous occupation is fishing crewmember, with a fatality rate of 200 per 100,000 or .2%.

The Shuttle program put 355 people into space over 30 years, of whom 14 died, which comes to just under 4% whether you calculate it overall or by year. If you account for multiple missions by the same astronauts, it's 14 deaths out of 820 crew members or about a 1.7% fatality rate.

So unofficially, the most dangerous occupation up until the end of the Shuttle program would seem to be "astronaut"!

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[Anonymous Coward]

My granddad was working at Baykonur launch site. There were more fatailites than it was said. That's the reason.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[Nethead]

Fatal accidents, I'm guessing you mean. Apollo 13 was quite the accident.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[Anonymous Coward]

the shuttles were still in the air, and thus aircraft.

This is a quite ridiculous claim. The exact circumstances of the accidents were closely related to that being spacecrafts. There is no way the same circumstances could have happened to an aircraft. In the case of Columbia an accident during liftoff caused a fatal failure during reentry. This failure happened at an altitude that was much higher than aircrafts fly and due to a speed that is way above that of an aircraft. The exact circumstances that lead to this was flying into space and returning with a broken wing.

By your logic any aircraft crashing into the ground or the sea would not be an aircraft accident as by the time it crashed it wasn't flying anymore.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: "So what? That's an emotional argument, not an engineering one."... engineering is all about safety; in fact "safe" is often the exact word defining something that has adequate strength. Re: "Yet, Russia has had an ongoing series of accidents and incidents with it's flights - and that with both the booster *and* the spacecraft."... try comparing the difference in the number of Russian launches and US launches. The Russians mass produce their spacecraft on a production line. Reliability will always be higher because systematic and integral improvements are made with each new craft. If the cost of US legislative red tape and insurance doesn't kill SpaceX first, it will fail because it won't be profitable and investor risk is too high (otherwise Lockheed Martin would have beaten them to it). They should also have learnt by now that reusable (read "refurbishable") spacecraft aren't economically viable. The Russians have surely proven that their albeit crude but extremely effective and cost efficient ballistic technique is the way to go before newer technologies like aerospikes and carbon aerogels are adequately tested. NASA will be SpaceX's only customer, which will make them congress's bitch.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[Anonymous Coward]

if american aircraft are at risk of burning up in the atmosphere, i'll take a russian flight any day.

Re:Russia vs US spaceflight

[Clsid]

I'm just replying to your comment that says "Here, you don't even seem aware that they have even occurred." Dissing the Russian space program as smoke and mirrors is like saying the US Space shuttle was an expensive toy.

Both Russian and US programs are by far the most successful in the world and in both programs accidents do happen. Are you trying to tell me that Russia sucks and America is the best or what? Go check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents since going to a Russian website gives you goosebumps.

If you choose to ignore 1700 sucessful launches of Soyuz rockets vs a couple or recent incidents that are being take care of, you are either incredibly smart and found a wonderful space program that no one knows about or incredibly stupid by just repeating the same arguments with zero facts. Smoke and mirrors, lol.

Other options

[John Bresnahan]

SpaceX is currently planning to launch a cargo vehicle to the ISS this November. Perhaps that will alleviate the situation.

Is it a requirement that they land their ships where they do? Couldn't they, at least as a limited emergency measure, land them in a more temperate climate? I'm sure the United States would be happy to provide whatever assistance needed to land them at some appropriate location here (assuming there isn't a more reasonable location in Europe or Asia).

Re:Other options

[Miamicanes]

The problem is that without the Soyuz, there's no official way to get astronauts home during the winter. The Dragon isn't officially man-rated yet. That doesn't mean it probably wouldn't work anyway, but nobody at NASA is going to jeopardize his career by officially relying upon a Dragon to safely get astronauts home until someone higher up has given it the official stamp of approval.

Of course, if the necessary training could be completed in time, Elon could probably solve that problem by announcing that he's personally going to be the Dragon's first passenger, camp out as a guest at the ISS for a couple of months, and ride it home if it ends up being unneeded for a return trip. However, IMHO it would be reckless and irresponsible for Elon to do that. God forbid, if the Dragon burned up on re-entry and killed him, it would basically be the end of American spaceflight for the rest of our lives. SpaceX wouldn't just lose its visionary leader... it would probably lose all of its orders and money, and rapidly go bankrupt. If an unmanned Dragon fails during COTS 2 or COTS 3 it will be bad, but it won't be the end of the program if they can figure out exactly what went wrong and take steps to prevent it from happening again. It would be the difference between a setback of a few years, and the end of it all.

My own prediction: the Dragon will go up well-stocked with Vodka, caviar, and borscht, NASA will bring home the Americans on the Soyuz lifeboat this fall, and the Russians will enjoy a relaxed, Mir-like atmosphere on the ISS all winter and secretly dread the return of NASA and its rules next year & look forward to the day when they can afford to to things their own way again.

Re:Other options

[John Bresnahan]

OK, so they need the Soyuz to return cosmonauts from the ISS. Is there a compelling reason why they have to land them in Kazakhstan?

Since the Soyuz lands on solid ground, I would think there are numerous places with nicer climates where they could land instead. Does it really make more sense to abandon the ISS for the winter instead of temporarily picking a landing spot in a nicer climate?

And, I suspect your prediction will turn out to be correct.

Re:Other options

[Teancum]

Elon could probably solve that problem by announcing that he's personally going to be the Dragon's first passenger, camp out as a guest at the ISS for a couple of months, and ride it home if it ends up being unneeded for a return trip. However, IMHO it would be reckless and irresponsible for Elon to do that.

Elon Musk has gone on record that he will unlikely be flying on the Dragon at any time prior to his retirement. The reasoning for that is he is both financing and managing the company of thousands of people, many of whom he considers friends and certainly associates with families that he has concern about. If he were to die doing something foolish like flying to space, he would feel responsible for what would happen after all that happened.

That said, Musk has suggested he wouldn't mind retiring to Mars someday. If he gets this company going the way I think he certainly could, that may end up being a real possibility unless he faces the issues that Robert Heinlein suggested that D. Delos Harriman faced in the fictional account of Harriman Industries: insurance attorneys and lawsuits by suppliers prevented him from going into space until his health failed so awfully that the FAA simply refused to grant permission for him to go into space at all. Considering that America has become more litigious since Heinlein wrote that story, it wouldn't surprise me this is a real issue for Musk.

Re:Other options

[ZankerH]

The Soyuz requires next to zero ground support for landing. In fact, what they're currently doing is putting it down in the middle of a steppe and recovering it with a truck. There's no reason they couldn't land anywhere else within the orbit's ground track that's dry and relatively flat.

Get the government OUT!

[p51d007]

Remove bloated federal government, which WASTES more money than anything, and watch space flight/travel take off...so to speak. The "government" produces NOTHING.

Re:Get the government OUT!

[ColdWetDog]

Remove bloated federal government, which WASTES more money than anything, and watch space flight/travel take off...so to speak.
The "government" produces NOTHING.

You channeling Ron Paul or Ann Rand?

Just curious.

Re:Get the government OUT!

[mbkennel]

I hear Somalia and Afghanistan will be launching their 100% infidel-free capsule any millennium now.

Re:Get the government OUT!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a true example of small government, rather an emotional argument.

Afghanistan was a pretty nice place before civil war and invasion destroyed it in the 70s or so.

Re:Get the government OUT!

[Nethead]

I'm guessing Joe Miller.

Re:Get the government OUT!

[ColdWetDog]

Oh yes. Forgot him. And I'm even an Alaskan...

Skylab 2 (squandered abundance)

[countertrolling]

Just dunk the damn thing.. Wall Street isn't interested anyway.

Re:Skylab 2 (squandered abundance)

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree - where's the profit in the next quarter coming from for the ISS? From shutting it down that's where!

I'll collect my bonus and be off to look for more short term gain at the expense of everything else. God I love my MBA!

Re:Skylab 2 (squandered abundance)

[Anonymous Coward]

Wall Street already has way too much influence in the real world. Luckily they don't get to decide about these things.

such bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Hitler died in the 1970's on a moon base, and our pathetic monkey public think this is as far as we've gone?

Re:such bullshit

[ColdWetDog]

Hitler died in the 1970's on a moon base, and our pathetic monkey public think this is as far as we've gone?

Oh Yeah? If he's so smart, why did he order a bunch of Boeing 787's?

Re:such bullshit

[vbraga]

This is the best Downfall alternative subtitles video I saw.

Re:such bullshit

[KingAlanI]

with you on this

YAWN...

[Anonymous Coward]

can we have some dramatic music to this article please?

it was only a rocket that failed.. they did not start 2 pointless wars so they had to cancel their whole space program...

the russians are doing a great job and will get your shit up there...

grow up, space cadets

[eyenot]

You're stuck on Earth. You're never, ever, going to live on some other planet. It will never happen. You will probably never even live on the Moon. If somebody ever does live on the moon, it's going to be very exclusive and very tight. The Jetsons won't be over for supper. Your life is never going to resemble Lost In Space. Give it up, already. And as for this space station, how irresponsible can people get? America invested so much in this thing and we've basically tipped our hat and stepped out. Now we're not even capable of keeping the thing in orbit because we've scrapped our shuttle program. What are you going to do, space cadets? You planning anything amazing for us? Maybe pulling all your space cadet sticks out of your asses, duct taping them end to end and propping the ISS up that way? And now look, Russia was so hype to step up to the plate because, as you noticed, the ownership of the ISS defaults to Russia if America isn't capable of upkeep. Yet even they can't manage to resupply. Who's it going to default to, now? Buck Rodgers?

It's a fiasco, and all you butt-hurt sci-fi bookworms are to blame. We don't NEED an ISS, we don't NEED space programs, at all, any of us, anywhere, for anything. You're never going to live on Mars. Your responsibilities and your life's consequences here on Earth are real things, not imaginary. Space is never going to be a place to escape to no matter how much money you throw at it.

Tonight: go outside, close your eyes, count backwards from ten, and when you open them I want you to look up at the dark night sky and believe it's nothing but a giant black hole and it's worthless, it's a waste of time and money and the stars might be pretty and all but they aren't full of friends and adventure.

Now grow up.

Re:grow up, space cadets

[Anonymous Coward]

No one NEEDED to cross those mountains, deserts, or oceans either.

Get over yourself.

Re:grow up, space cadets

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you posted to the wrong site. Check your browser settings.

Re:grow up, space cadets

[cynyr]

right I will never live on another planet, but what about my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren? how will they have anything to build on if we don't start now.

as for things we don't need... Wars, professional sports, insurance claims adjusters, people who can't see past the end of the week.

Re:grow up, space cadets

[Anonymous Coward]

You typed that into a computer connected to a global communications network, a cheap hand-held receiver can pinpoint your position on Earth to a meter or better based on a constellation of artificial satellites, aircraft break the sound barrier as a matter of routine, the binding energy of the atom has been harnessed for god and for ill, pulses of light are sent down fiber optics to relay information, just about anything you could want can be delivered to your door within a day or two, we watch stars explode in other galaxies from the comfort of our own planet, artificial viruses can be used to insert genes into target tissue, organs are swapped from one body to another, etc, etc, etc... ...and you think space flight is a Sci-Fi fantasy?

Re:grow up, space cadets

[Anonymous Coward]

It's people like you that hold that "dream" back. You see space exploration as a "waste". The real waste is the countless resources we've squandered in the name of capitalism. We HAD a suitable replacement in the works, but the good old US Government decided that was a waste of money and they much rather wage wars. Sorry but we KNOW that space isn't a "giant black hole that's worthless", that would be the space in your head where your brain should be.

I bet there was some dipshit like you telling Queen Isabella that funding Columbus's journey was a waste too. I'm surprised to see such a comment from anyone who reads slashdot. I'm going to have to ask you to turn in your geek card.

Re:grow up, space cadets

[Anonymous Coward]

"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space-- each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."
-XKCD

Re:grow up, space cadets

[Bing Tsher E]

how will they have anything to build on if we don't start now.

They will have whatever they can get by starting later. Starting later isn't the same as starting never. And anyway, the whole Space Program was really just a way of quietly funding a lot of Cold War rocket technology research. Didn't anybody else figure this out?

Re:grow up, space cadets

[Belial6]

Every friend you have is amongst the stars. Ever adventure man has had or ever will have has been amongst the starts. Your responsibilities and your life's consequences are amongst the stars. I really am surprised you were not aware that the Sun was one of the stars.

Re:grow up, space cadets

[GameboyRMH]

You must be related to Quantum Apostrophe.

Astronauts?

[jdbannon]

We're all cosmonauts now, comrade.

did not talk about Iraq or bailout

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't state support for Iraq or the financial bailout.

It isn't NASA's call

[mbone]

First, please note that this is not about supplying the ISS, it's about getting the crew there. NASA is worried about the safety of Soyuz.

Also, note that the flight of the Soyuz is not dependent on NASA. NASA doesn't get that call, although they could yank their astronauts from the vehicle, they can't ground it.

So, there is little to no chance that the ISS will be abandoned. I predict the Russians will keep a crew there, regardless of NASA's decision.

To Dream: We're fat lazy bullies.

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy put it very succinctly.

Right now, we Americans are money grubbing war mongering bullying little people who cling to past greatness like a middle aged ex-high school football star who thinks we still "got it".

We hear and approve of people who continue with our illusions of greatness and "American exceptionalism" and think that if we just believe the right way, everything will work out. Unfortunately, belief alone doesn't do anything - you have to do.

We've lost our ability to dream, to do, and to accomplish.

Re:To Dream: We're fat lazy bullies.

[ColdWetDog]

We've lost our ability to dream, to do, and to accomplish.

But we haven't lost our ability to turn everything into a emerald green glass parking lot.

So everyone better humor us for a while longer.

Soviet Russia?

[Anonymous Coward]

25 posts and I still can't get my 'soviet russia' fix. Com'on someone, bring the funny.

Re:Soviet Russia?

[GameboyRMH]

In Soviet Russia, ISS mothballs YOU!

In

[cratermoon]

In Soviet Russia, ISS abandons YOU!!

Note that if the station is left unmanned, it will be the end of an 11-year run of humans continuously in space, starting with the October, 2000 arrival of the Expedition 1 crew at ISS.

By the way, the Chinese are still flying their man-rated Long March.

Re:In

[thoughtsatthemoment]

So why not put the ISS on the market?

Re:In

[damburger]

More like a Long March towards being man-rated. Each of the three flights of the LM-2F have suffered technical issues (vibration being the biggest one). Its a Mao-era ICBM with booster, flying a spacecraft from the age of the iPad. The Chinese are going to replace it as soon as possible, with a dedicated launch vehicle that doesn't use toxic hypergolic propellants - probably the LM-7

Re:In

[cratermoon]

Say what you will about the Long March, it's of the same vintage as Proton, which is one of the most successful heavy boosters ever and is still in use for large payloads including the biggest geostationary communications satellites. The Proton also happens to be dinitrogen tetroxide /UDMH fueled -- and will only be replaced once the Angara is ready, sometime in 2014, for commercial missions.

As for the spacecraft being from the age of the iPad, that's only correct in a chronological sense. The Shenzhou owes more of its ancestry to the Soyuz capsule. It's already been launched successfully three times, including one mission with a spacewalk, making China the fastest from first manned flight to first EVA in history.

The LM-2F will also carry China's Tiangong 1 space station in the next few weeks, and crews flying up to it next year.

In short, right now China is the only country in the world with manned spaceflight capability.

Re:In

[Sinager]

>Note that if the station is left unmanned, it will be the end of an 11-year run of humans continuously in space, starting with the October, 2000 arrival of the Expedition 1 crew at ISS. I wonder what kind of laws would apply in case someone was able to board it and claim property as in the case of an unmanned vessel found at sea.

Re:In

[Anonymous Coward]

Or trips to it? Can you imagine how much people would pay for quick 10-minute drop-ins?

More stuff

[zoomshorts]

"At this point, it would take about 2 years to restart the shuttle program." Precisely. Normal re-supply is difficult enough and perhaps getting the astronauts/cosmonauts need rescued before politics and economics end up stranding these people forever.

No prior planning was done it seems.

Re:More stuff

[WindBourne]

Actually, planning WAS done. NASA tried to get private space going back in the 90's, but neo-cons killed it. Thankfully, Griffin got it going as a backup to constellation. He was right on the money on this one. And again, thankfully, Bolde/Obama have fought against the neo-cons that have been working hard to kill private space. And Bolden pushed hard to get the last extra shuttle to provides supplies. That was fought by the neo-cons. Well, this proves that it was wisely thought out. SpaceX is about to get their launching orders. However, I think that a new progress will launch in about 1 month or so. And then you have ATV and HTV coming.

Re:More stuff

[DrStoooopid]

Gawd forbid if there were an asteroid headed to earth and we had to land a team on the surface to blow it up. We're doomed!!!

some justification:

[Anonymous Coward]

1) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14505278/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/whats-cost-space-station/ puts the total cost of the ISS between 35 and 100 billion.

According to wikipedia, the following costs to build:
LHC: $10 billion
hubble telescope: $6 billion
NIH annual budget: $31 billion
NSF annual budget: $6.7 billion

How many scientific papers has research on the ISS produced?

2)
John Carmack, a space flight enthusiast, stated at Quakecon 2011 that NASA does not deliver much value.

also: Steven Weinberg said:
"Human beings don't serve any useful function in space," "They radiate heat, they're very expensive to keep alive and unlike robotic missions, they have a natural desire to come back, so that anything involving human beings is enormously expensive."

If we leave the station unmanned...

[Anonymous Coward]

What's to stop the Chinese from boarding and effectively taking over an unmanned ISS? What could we do about it?

Re:If we leave the station unmanned...

[mbkennel]

"open the pod-bay doors! open the pod-bay doors! Crap. Stupid ISS doesn't speak Chinese."

Re:If we leave the station unmanned...

[Miamicanes]

> What's to stop the Chinese from boarding and effectively taking over an unmanned ISS? What could we do about it?

Refuse to give them the login password to the life support system?

Re:If we leave the station unmanned...

[poofmeisterp]

That's right. We DO owe them, now don't we?

Penis length measurement ensues; we won't leave it because we know it will be in demand. L:)

Re:If we leave the station unmanned...

[Anonymous Coward]

They planned for that. There's a big red button next to the toilet that says "self destruct" in english, and "flush" in chinese.

Re:If we leave the station unmanned...

[ColdWetDog]

"open the pod-bay doors! open the pod-bay doors! Crap. Stupid ISS doesn't speak Chinese."

The funny thing is, the docking collar that the Chinese use is compatible with the ISS docking collar. They technically could do it. I wonder if the International Maritime Salvage laws would apply in space?

Re:If we leave the station unmanned...

[Nimey]

I know! We'll stop borrowing from them.

A Soyuz crew would have survived

[tp1024]

The third stage shut down cleanly. There would have been no problem separating the spaceship from the rocket, then separating the service module and habitation module from the capsule ... and the rest is standard maneuvers.

The capsule is aerodynamically stable, so they'd only have to wait for it to come back down and open the parachute. It would have been cold in Siberia, true - but they wouldn't be dead. Unlike people in a fragile Space Shuttle with no means to escape or airport to land.

Re:A Soyuz crew would have survived

[Nimey]

With the Shuttle, they'd have aborted to a western European airfield, or if that wasn't feasible then the crew could bail out once the bird was low and slow enough - they carried parachutes.

Re:A Soyuz crew would have survived

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know much about the shuttle do you. Actually there are a number of escape systems and procedures (including a tube that the astronauts could slide down to the bottom of the gantry and drive away in an armoured vehicle) but all of them were pretty much publicity stunts. If anything went seriously wrong on the shuttle, bye bye astronauts. The Chellenger 7 never had any hope of escape, nor did Columbia. Even the Apollo capsule was safer than the shuttle. I have heard that shuttle engineers hold their breaths during each launch because they are literally playing Russian roullette with 7 lives. Think about it; what possible scenario could possibly occur for an abort to Europe? If the SRBs fell off, maybe they could jettison the fuel tank before taking a fatal dive due to the sudden shift in cg and line of thrust. There are so many things that are more likely to go wrong. The escape systems were kind of a joke really. I'd much rather take a ride in a Soyuz than have unnecessarily risked my life on the shuttle anydays. There is risk with Soyuz too, but much lower and more acceptable, statistically speaking.

Re:A Soyuz crew would have survived

[Nimey]

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Challenger was hopeless because they'd stopped using ejection seats and hadn't started using parachutes. More importantly, however, the bird was out of control and the G forces were so high that it was difficult for anyone to move, and forget getting out. Your objection about the SRBs falling off is drivel: you /do/ know that the SRBs are jettisoned a couple minutes into every launch and the Shuttle used its main engines from then until orbital insertion, yes?

Columbia was hopeless because the heat shield was compromised and nobody knew until the wing fell off. If a Soyuz heat shield was compromised the crew'd be fucked too - although I'll grant you it'd be less likely to happen since a Soyuz heat shield is protected on the way up.

I can see why you posted this idiocy as AC.

Re:A Soyuz crew would have survived

[Anonymous Coward]

WRONG WRONG WRONG youself... dick head.

ejection seats in a space shuttle... are you serious? do you have any idea what would happen to someone ejecting from a shuttle going close to vertical at Mach 2+? if they didn't get crushed by the g force they would most likely be pancaked on the fuselage.

Yes I do know the SRBs are jettisoned fairly quickly, but do you know how much can go wrong in that fairly quick time? (re Challenger). Except for reentry, initial part of takeoff is the most dangerous. And jettisoning them too quickly before an expected immense amount of fuel/o2 from the main tank is used will cause instability, because the shuttle wing isn't as stable as a normal aircraft (its not meant to be, especially with a big arse blimp hanging underneath).

Soyuz would be fucked if the heatshield was damaged, but there is less shit to cause damage to it in the first place (its tucked up neatly INSIDE the rocket).

"Challenger [and] Columbia [were] hopeless"... well at least we both agree with that. What you don't seem to understand is how any escape system could have saved the crews of either.

Ask any aerospace engineer (even ones at NASA). I don't work for NASA but I am an aerospace engineer.

Re:A Soyuz crew would have survived

[Nimey]

Can you speak up? I can't hear you through the cocks in your mouth.

You might want to ask NASA about those ejection seats, fanboy. They used 'em on the first few flights.

Re:A Soyuz crew would have survived

[Anonymous Coward]

ejection seats in a space shuttle... are you serious?

Yep.

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

Re:A Soyuz crew would have survived

[Anonymous Coward]

might want to ask them why they were removed... dick head

Re:A Soyuz crew would have survived

[Anonymous Coward]

here... to save you the trouble

From "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes#Ejection_seat"

Ejection seats were not further developed for the shuttle for several reasons:
(2) Limited ejection envelope. Ejection seats only work up to about 3,400 mph (2,692 knots) and 130,000 feet (39,624 m). That constitutes a very limited portion of the shuttle's operating envelope, about the first 100 seconds of the 510 seconds powered ascent.

Get a clue moron. Ejection seats in the shuttle were experimental only. It doesn't matter how good your pressure suit is at those speeds. Your chance of survival is still pretty limited, and that's notwithstanding the risk of death from contact with structure on exit (ejection seat rocket motors aren't THAT powerful) or debris (Challenger) or exhaust gases, etc.

The only viable way to excape in something like a space shuttle is separation/ejection of the entire cockpit (sort of like the F-111). I actually presented this idea at a space conference in Sydney a few years ago. Not new or groundbreaking but there are quite a few challenges still.

Re:A Soyuz crew would have survived

[Nimey]

Look, grishnakh, if you're going to be gay for me at least be man enough to post from your own account.

Fr0st pi5t

[Anonymous Coward]

so that you don't failure, its c08pse are there? Oh,

Why not change people to adapt them to space?

[PeterM from Berkeley]

Let's face it, people aren't very good for survival in space.

We can't take much radiation,
we can't take low G,
we must have air, food, water
we can't take low temperature (or high!)
we don't live long enough to get anywhere in one lifetime at attainable speeds

Space is just irrevocably hostile to human life as we are now.

If we weren't meat-bags anymore, but rather something more durable, say, solid state based on silicon, we'd be way better adapted for space. Yes, we'll be very different, but the galaxy will be ours.

--PM

Re:Why not change people to adapt them to space?

[yog]

Most of these problems could be solved with two things: better shielding and cryo-sleep.

Shielding is not that hard; it's just heavy. A couple meters of lead should do the trick. If we can mine the lead outside the gravity well, say, from an asteroid or small moon such as Phobos, then using solar energy it shoud be quite straightforward and inexpensive to melt it into useful shapes. Alternatively, just commandeer a small asteroid, dig deep into it, set it spinning, and hang it on a solar sail to get it out there.

We already know that people can be cooled to near-death states where metabolic processes almost stop. The trick is to keep everything right on the edge between life and death, don't incur cellular damage, and of course be able to wake up again. Sooner or later we'll figure it out.

Re:Why not change people to adapt them to space?

[PeterM from Berkeley]

I haven't run through the numbers, but I think "couple meters" is probably just fine for in-system. However, I'd think that for interstellar travel, a couple of meters wouldn't do it, you'd be slowly cooked by thousands of years of cosmic rays. You could make that hundreds of meters, but then you have to find energy to move all that.

Thing is, what would be the point of interstellar travel anyway? Any reachable systems would have to be terraformed to be habitable, probably taking thousands of years (or more?), and it'd be really quite challenging to set up a biome that people could live in. However, if we're solid state, all you need is the raw materials + energy + bootstrap mining/manufacturing and you've migrated your society.

--PM

Re:Why not change people to adapt them to space?

[ShooterNeo]

With molecular manufacturing (which DOES work, nature does it 24/7) we could do better than terraforming. Rather than try to convert a whole planet, we would have molecular blueprints for rotating space habitats that we could build in mass. We would need only the raw elements and energy to build these things. A dead astroid or small planet with no atmosphere is perfect starting material.(molecular manufacturing means you have the technology to somehow control the individual placement of atoms when you build things. That means, by definition, that you can duplicate your manufacturing equipment exponentially. This is how all living things work, and living organisms do duplicate exponentially if they have the necessary resources)

And this too shall pass away.

[Anonymous Coward]

(shrug)

We get the future we deserve.

If that means eventually being wiped out due to our own shortsightedness or because we refuse to start things because it would take too long and be too expensive.

Well. Darwin approves.

Re:And this too shall pass away.

[khallow]

If that means eventually being wiped out due to our own shortsightedness or because we refuse to start things because it would take too long and be too expensive.

Perhaps you could dial down the emo and think about it. We're speaking of the ISS which has already accomplished its primary mission, demonstrate orbital construction techniques in space. It's now more notable as a money sink and warning about international entanglements than as the science research platform it is supposed to be.

carl i thought you were dead man

[decora]

good news for you though. marijuana is now legal in some states.
and we have this little robot scuttering all over mars!

lol, worried about safety

[decora]

where have those NASA safety people been for the past 20 years? we lost 14+ astronauts because of those clowns, now they are telling us the Russians are unsafe?

Re:lol, worried about safety

[mbone]

Who knows? I would not assume that this is all it appears to be. We may want the Russians to do something (improve some system on the Soyuz, say) and may be using this for leverage.

The end? Hardly:

[Hartree]

I haven't noticed the Chinese scaling back. Granted, they're not as far along.

I think they still count as part of humanity, so human space travel wouldn't come to an end even if both the US and Russians stopped.

I don't like the possibility of mothballing at all but I think you're being a little breathless.

Re:The end? Hardly:

[DerekLyons]

I haven't noticed the Chinese scaling back.

That's mostly because the difference between the current Chinese pace and the Chinese doing nothing at all is pretty much infinitesimal. There's no room for them to scale back.

To all the "the shuttle program sucked!"

[magamiako1]

Space X has yet to put a man into space. Period.

Keep that in mind before saying how "useless" "overfunded" "wasteful" the NASA Shuttle and Constellation programs were.

Re:To all the "the shuttle program sucked!"

[0123456]

Space X has yet to put a man into space. Period.

And they will in 2-3 years, and the total cost of developing the rockets and capsule will be less than the cost of a single shuttle flight.

Keep that in mind before saying how "useless" "overfunded" "wasteful" the NASA Shuttle and Constellation programs were.

Now imagine if all the money spent on the shuttle and ISS had been given to companies like SpaceX instead...

Re:To all the "the shuttle program sucked!"

[Tomato42]

Now imagine if 1% of the money spent on DoD had been given to companies like SpaceX insted...

We would be already on mars...

Re:well the old shuttle was getting old and the ne

[Teancum]

well the old shuttle was getting old and the newer spaceX stuff is now ready yet also Constellation was not going to be ready by 2011 any ways. If not for the Columbia disaster we may still be useing the shuttles to day.

Correction, the Constellation program wasn't really going to be ready until 2015 at the earliest, and the more realistic projection was that it wouldn't be ready until 2020. There was a wish that perhaps the Ares I might have been ready this year (2011) when it was originally proposed, but there were a number of engineering issues that came up in part because they had an extended number of sections in the solid rocket stack where vibrations from the rocket would make the vehicle unusable for any astronauts riding it. The solution was to increase the weight of the capsule and add some heavy duty shock absorbers to make the ride easier for somebody on the vehicle. This vibration issue also impacted any unmanned applications of the rocket as well.

The fate of the Shuttle was pretty much sealed when production of new orbiters was halted. The Endeavor was really a test article (as was Challenger) which was refurbished to bring it up to flight status. With the loss of the Challenger, the handwriting for the end of the Shuttle program should have been apparent to anybody and many of the envisioned applications of the Shuttle simply never happened. All that the loss of the Columbia did was to speed up the end and drive the point home that the loss of the Challenger wasn't a one time fluke. We got lucky we didn't lose another orbiter before the program was finally terminated.

there is a simple solution here

[khallow]

There is a simple solution to this problem. Launch another Soyuz rocket with another Progress module. Save the soul-searching and blame-finding for later. Sure, find out what went wrong and fix it. But do that after you have satisfied the customer.

Now, apparently Russia and NASA aren't going to do the simple route. But what's more important? Working the bugs out of a launch system or keep the primary customer, a space station with a multi-billion dollar replacement cost from splashing?

Re:there is a simple solution here

[Nimey]

How long does it take to build and ready another Progress and rocket? How long to get the supplies to fill the Progress?

Then there's the need to accelerate the /next/ Progress because they didn't anticipate having supplies get low on account of a failed launch.

Re:there is a simple solution here

[khallow]

How long does it take to build and ready another Progress and rocket?

They should have had it ready to go. To fully implement the "simple solution", you do need a bit of foresight.

Then there's the need to accelerate the /next/ Progress because they didn't anticipate having supplies get low on account of a failed launch.

If they get the replacement promptly launched, then there's no impact on the launch schedule.

Re:there is a simple solution here

[Nimey]

Oh, they /should/. :eyeroll: I should have a pony.

But do they?

Re:there is a simple solution here

[khallow]

But do they?

Don't particularly care to be honest. Losing the ISS would get rid of a modest platform for conducting space science and related things. It'd also get rid of one of the remaining albatrosses from the Shuttle era.

But given the money they sunk into ISS, there's a lot of "shoulds" that should be going on whether you want a pony or not. Having a backup flight ready to go is simply common sense.

They shouldn't be talking about leaving the ISS in November until the problem gets worse (say they lose another launch or something of similar seriousness). The fact that they've quickly sunk to this point indicates to me the lack of planning and options that NASA has for the ISS.

Space

[nurb432]

it was fun while it lasted.

Oh well, i hear a new movie about the moon is coming out.

The elephant in the room

[Todd Palin]

I realize slashdot might not be the best place to post this, but there is an elephant in the room. The space station has cost a huge pile of money and has provided little more than a presence in space. No missions to mars or the moon have been launched from the space station as science fiction writers of the 50s envisioned. It has been an expensive and mostly pointless exercise. We did learn a few things about how hard it is to maintain a space station, and we did improve the technology for supporting a space station, but the external benefits are hard to see. So, maybe ending the ISS is a good thing. We can use the cash (that we don't actually have anyway) here on earth for maintaining some of our crumbling infrastructure. Maybe in a few decades we can think of a new good reason to put up a new space station. OK, let me have it. Really, what is so great about the ISS?

Re:The elephant in the room

[Kittenman]

The space station has cost a huge pile of money and has provided little more than a presence in space.

Isn't that enough?

Re:The elephant in the room

[damburger]

Nobody, not a single person, has lived in space for an amount of time equivalent to a Mars mission. The people who have lived in space have faced constant technical issues (and the occasional fire, decompression accident, and getting dinged by a cargo ship). They've done this with the benefit of regular cargo flights and real time communications with the ground. Living in space is something we as a species need a lot more practice at.

Re:The elephant in the room

[lennier]

The space station has cost a huge pile of money and has provided little more than a presence in space.

Isn't that enough?

Not if you grew up believing all the 1960s-70s "Space Age" propaganda, and thought 2001 and Star Trek were documentaries, no.

The problem is that "a presence in space" isn't really any more useful to humankind than "a presence on Mount Everest". It's a nice thing for an elite class of adventure recreation enthusiasts to compare bragging rights about, sure. To the extent that it's a cool thing just because it's cool, and we're all okay with paying billions of dollars just for a few dozen people to experience moments of coolness, it's okay. Amortised over the whole global population, it's not much to pay for a bit of light entertainment.

But it's not going to lead to a glorious future of excitement and exploration. There's no currently physically foreseeable path from "a dozen astronauts in a sealed can in LEO" to the 50s vision of "thousands of Earthlike planets awaiting colonists with shovels and dreams". If we colonise the solar system - and that's a huge, mind-boggling 'if', making turning the Gobi Desert into a shopping mall look like building a new patio -- it will be the robots who go first.

And once the robots are there, which they are now, there's not much reason for humans to follow. It won't be to get away from repressive regimes - space colonies where a single leak means death for everyone will be far more repressive and conformist than nuclear submarines. It won't be to protect the survival of the species - any disaster you can imagine which would devastate Earth and leave fragile space cans alive, would be more easily dodged by building a few armoured bunkers on Earth. It won't be to solve overpopulation - you can only fit a few dozen people through the launch funnel at once, and ironically there's actually less space, in the sense of farmable land, in space than on Earth.

At least, there's no plausible path from here to the 50s space-future vision given currently extrapolatable human physiology and society. If we radically re-engineer ourselves? Maybe. But then, the Earth would also have changed unimaginably as a consequence, so all our reasons would be different.

The bottom line is that there's just no there there in space. Star Trek isn't real, there is no warp drive, and there are no habitable planets out there. We're stuck with this one for the forseeable future, so unless we want to die by the billions, we should think about making our culture sustainable.

Mod parent Troll +5

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, there is a lot of twisted logic on slashdot, but you win.

Larry Niven said it better

[DragonHawk]

Your comment and others like it remind me of some wisdom gleaned from xkcd:
"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."

Larry Niven made a better point: "The dinosaurs are extinct because they didn't have a space program." That doesn't require as much forward-thinking -- space colonization is a *long* way off, but meteor defense is a bit more immediate.

That said, private companies like SpaceX seem to be doing a better job at creating launchers than NASA was, largely because any NASA effort has to also be a corporate welfare program for established aerospace companies. I think we're better off letting NASA develop exploration vehicles and science payloads, and let private industry handle the trucking.

So why not land in the US in an emergency?

[BlueCoder]

They are sending up our astronauts. We are paying them enough money. Surely if they land in Florida we can ship their landing vehicle back to them. We are not talking regular landings, we are talking about an emergency during harsh weather conditions.

Re:So why not land in the US in an emergency?

[Z00L00K]

Interesting point. And they can as well drop down in other locations too - Australia is an alternative.

But mothballing the ISS can be prolonged a few times and then it will be de-orbited by itself. Depressing...

Re:So why not land in the US in an emergency?

[m4rtink]

Actually, I remember reading an English language "how to handle a Soyuz capsule landing in your backyard" manual, IIRC it was published somewhere on nasaspaceflight . It was written in such a manner that it could be given out to local administration, should the capsule land in an unplanned area by accident.

Nevertheless, it was quite an interesting read - how to help the cosmonauts open the capsule with a special wrench mounted on the outside of the capsule, to watch out for automatically deployed boom antennas, etc.

Looks like the manual is also included in this article: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=815

Deorbit of ISS October 2012

[Anonymous Coward]

The loss of the Space Transportation System has delbt a curle blow to ISS.

The ISS is likely to be abandoned by December 2011.

Due to many difficulites, ISS will be deorbited in October 2012 ... in time for the USA 2012 Presidential Elections.

-- to Obama.

++ any body else.

Victory to anybody else, even sequestering US Federal funds to Puerto Rico and the USA eastern seaborad states will not save Obama.

Mr. Obama's grave is dug by his own hands!

Earth will be greatly benifited by the removal of Mr. Obama from this Earth.

++//--

\

Obama's big problem ...

[Anonymous Coward]

O's big problem was that he was elected as a populist president, and so he had to focus on populist issues. As a space nut I hate to admit it, but space isn't a populist issue. Obama's Republican opponent, the moderate McCain, would have been better for the space program, because he can make a non-populist decision like spending or, rather, pushing Congress to spend a couple of billions more to put the Constellation program on the right track.

story is factually wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two Soyuz craft at the station, and 6 people.
One Soyuz "times out" in November. The other has 6 months more time remaining.

But this is not a hard timeout. It is due to batteries getting old, and corrosion from stored propellants.
One Soyuz will be coming home with its 3 crew in November plus or minus a few weeks.

The second Soyuz and its 3 crew will remain on the station for another 6 months plus.
So there is no chance of the station being empty before then.

Also winter weather is not a consideration. Russians have a history of landing spacecraft in any weather.

Amazing amount of misinformation here

[VoiceOfSanity]

A couple of notes here:

When Atlantis went up to the ISS a few months ago, the decision was made to have a smaller than usual crew. Instead of seven astronauts, only four flew up on Atlantis, while the rest of the mission was a resupply job. Officially, close to a year's worth of supplies were taken up to the ISS, giving it the ability to have just what happened occur, the loss of a supply capsule.

Now, this was one of the first failures of a Progress capsule. Considering that the rocket the Russians use has a 98.5% success rate (12 failures out of 799 launches) this is only a temporary setback. As has been noted elsewhere, the likelihood is that the Russians will get another Progress capsule up into orbit soon (there is a scheduled manned launch on 21 September and 29 November, and a Progress resupply on 26 October and 27 December). In addition, we have SpaceX doing a dock with their Dragon capsule, and I wouldn't be surprised if they launch it with supplies as well.

So no, I doubt that despite the sensationalized headlines that the ISS will be abandoned anytime soon.

[Disclaimer: I work for a prime contractor on the ISS, but the statements made are of my own observations.]

What's the problem with the Kazach winter?

[Anonymous Coward]

By that I mean, why can't they land the astronauts somewhere else with better weather if they need to?

On close-mindedness, and the future of the ISS,

[Anonymous Coward]

a) T.G. for the superbly pragmatic Russian engineers who have, thanks to their skills in automated flight amongst other things, been keeping the ISS supplied (very well, with barely a hitch), for more years that I care to research. For *very little cost.

b) Get a life, or, at bare minimum, an education. The 'Soviet' of 'Russia' died a very public death about (thinks) 22 years ago? Where have you been in the mean-time? The Russian people have been to hell and back, and survived an awful social upheaval which, I hate to say, a certain capitilistic nation that occasionally flew big space darts would probably not have been *able to survive.

c) The superbly reliable Russian space vehicles will continue to be just that - reliable - and I'm sure that it will take them very little time to sort what has brought down this Progress vehicle. (Although, thinking of that issue, it may *not be easy. They have probably let their crash analysis team go, as they haven't had any work to do for so long, that the team were a drain on the (now capitalism-based society)'s budget.

I could go on, but it would just set more flames alight, and I'm for bed, and reflection, and to thanks to the Ruskies for great space vehicles that have kept the dream alive, *and for their fabulous aerobatic vehicles (a.k.a. aircraft.)

(Blast! This old coot can't remember how to log in. *Not anon., just ZoCool when I can recall how to do it! )