and to think I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up...

[erikhaugsby]

NASA seems to have itself a handful with their space shuttles. As most (all?) of them are easily older than me the fact that their construction is starting to deteriorated doesn't exactly surprise me, but it does worry me when they pass off a gap in the heat shield of a ship currently flying in space as "no big deal."

I don't want to seem as if I'm berating NASA, but does anybody else here feel that a new form of transportation to space is badly needed if safety can be assured to the crews? I've seen multiple articles in PopSci and Popular Mechanics that have given theoretical designs of ships that NASA could use, but I haven't seen any really concrete ideas. SpaceShipOne here we go!

 

[Al Patterson]

Personally, there is no way I would fly in a craft where 2 of the 5 working models suffered some form of catastrophic accident.

We need something like Spaceship One, that's for sure. Either that or we should build a few Saturn Vs for heavy lifting.

 

[bsdunek]

Owwww, Spaceship One!!! Burt Rutan is the most creative aircraft designer of our time. So far as I know, all of his realeased designs have been good.
On the other hand, I fly a 57 year old Cessna - they didn't do to bad either. 😎

 

[amateriat]

On a slightly more mundane level, there's the B-52: the average example of which is considerably older than the crews that fly it, and several of whch have survived some serious action in their past. (Ike was right: we didn't need to throw money any newer toys to replace this.)

The Shuttle, we must remember, is NASA's first attempt at a "non-single-use" spacecraft. The problem is that the remaining Shuttles have pretty much outstripped their estimated airframe (spaceframe?) life, as a replacement vehilcle should have been off the drawing board before now; there was a lot of talk about this, post-Challenger, but the noise went nowhere and died down until Columbia's sickening disintegration. I won't even touch upon the assorted political tugs-o'-war NASA finds itself enmeshed in at the moment (yes, I know NASA's very creation was itself pollitically motivated, but at least people were more or less on the same page about what the plan was). It's questionable whether NASA will feel compelled to have a replacement Shuttle, since the big push for (wo)manned space flight is back to the moon, then Mars...or is it the other way around? (I said I didn't want to get started on this.)

I bite my nails just a little bit with every launch. I suppose I'd barely survive NASA's "Vomit Comet", never mind being strapped to the top of a high-tech Roman candle. 😉


- Barrett

 

[foto_fool]

I believe Lockheed Martin has the Government contract for the shuttle replacement:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/main/index.html

The flying wedge of the shuttle - with the gappy heat shield - is being abandonned in favor of a traditional capsule design - Orion - like a high-capacity Apollo capsule. The Orion will ride on an Ares I booster, the first stage a solid booster derivative of the current shuttle's SRB's. The second stage is a derivative of the Apollo J-2. Heavy lifting - up to 286,000 pounds - will be done with the unmanned Ares V.

RE: shuttle failures - I once had a long conversation with a rocket engineer close to the program. He described a system so complex that its aggregate risk of failure cannot be modeled. I pressed him on this and he explained that when the failure rate of all the system components are aggregated (standard process failure analysis) there appears to be less than a 1 in 100,000 chance that a shuttle WON'T fail in some mode. And yet the observed catastrophic failure rate is 2/117. Seems to me that a new method of failure rate prediction needs to be developed.

But everyone involved in the program KNOWS that - statistically, anyway - the thing IS GOING TO BLOW UP. And yet the astronauts get in there and fly the thing anyway. I don't know if that is "the right stuff" but I do know that I don't have that kind of stuff.

- John

 

[RML]

I don't want to seem as if I'm berating NASA, but does anybody else here feel that a new form of transportation to space is badly needed if safety can be assured to the crews?

I don't see the need, really. We still can't feed large portions of the world's population properly, we can't clean up the mess we're making and we can't reduce our footprint when it comes to (ab)using natural resources. Why then should we need to spend billions upon billions to get a few people into space?

Yes, yes, supposedly lots of good has come from space exploration and the race for the Moon. I just don't see it, really. Are these really as good as people claim or are they just more inventions that usurp resources, spoil the environment and waste more money?

If you ask me, let them use up those space shuttles and be done with it. Let's get us off of fossil fuel first without having to resort to equally polluting forms of energy. If space flight e.a. can help with that, I'm all for it. But it doesn't, not because it can't but because it's not "cool" science.

 

[Ossifan]

Space exploration on the cheap, diplomacy on the cheap, better to wage a billion dollar war than fund education and health care... science is bad, evangelicalism is good. Draw your own conclusions for the future.

 

[Al Patterson]

Yes, yes, supposedly lots of good has come from space exploration and the race for the Moon. I just don't see it, really. Are these really as good as people claim or are they just more inventions that usurp resources, spoil the environment and waste more money?

You do know that the microprocessors we use in the computers we are using came out of work done for the Apollo program? Sure, they may have come later anyway, but a lot of the technologies we take for granted now were originally funded by the military. There was also this project that was funded by the US department of defense which was a linked group of computers designed to survive a nuclear war. Today they call that the Internet...

 

[darkkavenger]

On this topic, I recommend the not-so sci-fi book "Russian Spring" and "Russian Spring 2" by american novelist Norman Spinrad.

 

[Ossifan]

You do know that the microprocessors we use in the computers we are using came out of work done for the Apollo program? Sure, they may have come later anyway, but a lot of the technologies we take for granted now were originally funded by the military. There was also this project that was funded by the US department of defense which was a linked group of computers designed to survive a nuclear war. Today they call that the Internet...

Sadly those programs don't have any substance anymore (R&D) - we're fundig a war now and we're ideologically opposed to better healthcare and education for our children. Sorry to deliver this message but it's basically true (unless you're wealthy, in which case you've got no worries because your taxes have been reduced).

 

[Al Patterson]

Sadly those programs don't have any substance anymore (R&D) - we're fundig a war now and we're ideologically opposed to better healthcare and education for our children. Sorry to deliver this message but it's basically true (unless you're wealthy, in which case you've got no worries because your taxes have been reduced).

I must be wealthy then, as my taxes went down about 10% during the last round of tax cuts.

 

[Ossifan]

I must be wealthy then, as my taxes went down about 10% during the last round of tax cuts.

More money for you to spend - good for you!

 

[jlw]

Ugh, now I know why I usually avoid the "Off Topic" thread.

 

[FrankS]

IMO, this whole "man to mars" program is stupid. Sorry to be so blunt, but this idea calls for it.

 

[sooner]

Although in principle I'm in favor of big dreams like the Apollo program, the manned mars thing is ridiculous at this time, because we're nowhere close to getting someone there and back. It's a little like Bush's big plan for hydrogen when really that was about giving the auto industry everything it wanted, meaning no tougher standards. The space program doesn't cost that much compared to our trillion dollar budget, but 6 billion here and there starts to add up, especially when so many of us working middle class citizens don't even have health care.

 

[Ossifan]

Although in principle I'm in favor of big dreams like the Apollo program, the manned mars thing is ridiculous at this time, because we're nowhere close to getting someone there and back. It's a little like Bush's big plan for hydrogen when really that was about giving the auto industry everything it wanted, meaning no tougher standards. The space program doesn't cost that much compared to our trillion dollar budget, but 6 billion here and there starts to add up, especially when so many of us working middle class citizens don't even have health care.

Oh, so true... would it be so difficult to do what's right and find a better system for delivering health care to those who need it as well as education. Once upon a time Americans thought about a society that helped everyone get ahead - now all we care about is going driving our 8 mile/gallon SUVs to WalMart to save 20 cents on toilet paper. Some society.

 

[foto_fool]

The basic fallacy dominating what passes for political discourse in the US is that there is some either/or dichotomy in government policy priority, i.e. it is space exploration OR health care. There are a number of basic truths that nobody wants to acknowledge:
1) Cutting funding for space ex - or for everything for that matter - will not bring universal healthcare. There will never be universal healthcare in the US.
2) Cutting funding for space ex - or for everything for that matter - will not change environmental policy. Environmental policy is at its root economic policy.
3) Cutting funding for space ex - or for everything for that matter - will not magically make government smaller. It doesn't matter which party is running things - it gets bigger.

I for one would vote to swell the budget for space ex dramatically. Space focuses the collective attention on positive uplifting targets. The dollars flowing into the military-industrial complex keep them from agitating for wars. The lure of space for the exploiters is that they will have access to resources off-planet - they will find it makes business sense to clean up things here on earth, otherwise there will be no opportunity to access these riches.

- John

 

[Al Patterson]

Oh, so true... would it be so difficult to do what's right and find a better system for delivering health care to those who need it as well as education. Once upon a time Americans thought about a society that helped everyone get ahead - now all we care about is going driving our 8 mile/gallon SUVs to WalMart to save 20 cents on toilet paper. Some society.

I resent that. My car gets 30MPG and I don't shop at Walmart. Please tone it down before you offend somebody...

 

[Ossifan]

I resent that. My car gets 30MPG and I don't shop at Walmart. Please tone it down before you offend somebody...

You're hardly in the majority and even though my "location" says Jerusalem, I'm only here short term. Sorry if you resent it, but the reality is most Amrericans don't follow your excellent example and could use a little rousing from their insular mentality. Why don't you visit me and get a first hand experience of how we're (yes, I include myself in this) viewed.

 

[Ossifan]

The basic fallacy dominating what passes for political discourse in the US is that there is some either/or dichotomy in government policy priority, i.e. it is space exploration OR health care. There are a number of basic truths that nobody wants to acknowledge:
1) Cutting funding for space ex - or for everything for that matter - will not bring universal healthcare. There will never be universal healthcare in the US.
2) Cutting funding for space ex - or for everything for that matter - will not change environmental policy. Environmental policy is at its root economic policy.
3) Cutting funding for space ex - or for everything for that matter - will not magically make government smaller. It doesn't matter which party is running things - it gets bigger.

I for one would vote to swell the budget for space ex dramatically. Space focuses the collective attention on positive uplifting targets. The dollars flowing into the military-industrial complex keep them from agitating for wars. The lure of space for the exploiters is that they will have access to resources off-planet - they will find it makes business sense to clean up things here on earth, otherwise there will be no opportunity to access these riches.

- John

Oh, I like your attitude!