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Space United States Science

House Asks NASA to Postpone Space Plane 362

Posted by michael from the whoa dept.
PipianJ writes "The House Science Committee has requested NASA to postpone the orbital space plane program (official letter (pdf)), thanks to lingering concern about the safety of the existing space program. On the other hand, isn't one of the ideas behind the orbital space plane program the fact that our current space program is getting more unsafe through the use of 20-year-old equipment?" The Senate is also getting into the act.
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House Asks NASA to Postpone Space Plane More

House Asks NASA to Postpone Space Plane

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  • Of course (Score:3, Informative)

    by Pingular ( 670773 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:05PM (#7333475)
    saftey should be paramount, and if that isn't the case I would urge congress to put a stop all manned flights until that is the case.

    • Re:Of course (Score:5, Funny)

      by Stween ( 322349 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:07PM (#7333493)
      Of course safety should be paramount.

      But at what point do you call sending people up into the cold, dark vacuum of space by strapping them to a large rocket safe?

      • Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)

        by eliza_effect ( 715148 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:13PM (#7333560)
        Right, it should be as safe as possible. But there is a limit. What, exactly, would be the point of making manned space flights as safe as, for example, commercial air-travel? The space program is about risk and reward, and I'm sure that the astronauts are well aware that they may be killed.

        If I was wearing a flame-retardant suit, being tested for G-tolerance, I would assume there is some risk involved. If you negate the risk, you will negate the reward as well.

        • The real source of the problem... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by sterno ( 16320 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:42PM (#7333836) Homepage
          The problem is that NASA doesn't have the same backing as it did back in the 60's. We went to the moon because it was a priority, and a lot of money and effort was thrown at it. Now NASA is constantly struggling to make as much as they can out of a diminishing budget. I believe that this, more than anything else caused the accident.

          If you are an administrator at NASA and you are told that their might be a problem with the age of the fleet and you know the odds of getting funding for a new project are near zero, do you keep that fleet flying? Of course. That's hardly the safest thing to do, but it's either that or close up shop and go work the chinese space program.

          NASA puts safety as first as it can afford to. You can argue that NASA is an inefficent bureaucracy, but we seem to have no trouble financing the inefficent military bureaucracy. It's the nature of government, cope.

      • Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Xeger ( 20906 ) <slashdot AT tracker DOT xeger DOT net> on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:22PM (#7333648) Homepage
        You've made a very good point, disguised as a silly joke.

        The name of the game isn't safety. As you point out, space travel is inherently unsafe. The focus of the space program, then, should be on the efficient mitigation of risk.

        For every action a planning team can take to mitigate risk, there is an associated cost. If I include three redundant valves in my liquid propellant delivery system, let's say that reduces the chance of a catastrophic failure by 25% ... unfortunately it also triples the mass of the system and the number of interconnects between components, which correspondingly increases the cost and the chance of failure in some component of the system.

        NASA's mandate should be to find the optimal balance between high cost and low risk. Of course, we also need to distinguish between risk of mission failure and risk of people losing their lives...but that's a stickier issue.

        • Re:Of course (Score:3, Informative)

          by deblau ( 68023 )
          The focus of the space program, then, should be on the efficient mitigation of risk.

          Engineers build complex things and watch them fail. Then they learn from their mistakes, and build something better. That's the nature of engineering: to build things no one has ever seen before, to do things no one has ever done before. You WILL break things exploring.

          Safety CANNOT be the purpose of NASA. The purpose of the space program MUST be to explore space, whatever it takes, no more and no less. It's time for a re

      • Re:Of course (Score:3, Informative)

        by lawpoop ( 604919 )
        Russian Cosmonauts in Soyuze capsules have had no fatalities in 20 years.
    • nah, lets just stop development on a safe space vehicle, thus increasing the amount of time we are dependant on our aging ones.
    • "saftey should be paramount, and if that isn't the case I would urge congress to put a stop all manned flights until that is the case."

      saftey should be paramount, and if that isn't the case I would urge congress to put a stop all manned automobile travel until that is the case.

    • Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)

      by vsprintf ( 579676 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @08:17PM (#7334117)

      saftey should be paramount, and if that isn't the case I would urge congress to put a stop all manned flights until that is the case.

      Safety should be an important consideration but not paramount. The people involved know the risks, or they shouldn't be there. How many test pilots have died? How many mountain climbers? Oceanic explorers? Pushing back frontiers is a dangerous business with its own rewards. Given the number of miles travelled, I'd bet the odds of being killed are higher for commuters than for astronauts.

    • I submit that by "manned flights", you really should include regular passenger airline travel - after all, those aren't safe, the terrorists could hijack them! Or the tail could fall off (crash in NY about 3 years ago), or a fuel tank could explode (crash in Florida ~5 years ago), or...

      Yes, I'm being facetious. The point here is that the space program has extremely well educated people taking risks they know extremely well. Immediately after Colombia broke up, the media interviewed countless astronauts

  • To man or not to man (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Davak ( 526912 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:07PM (#7333492) Homepage
    The board that investigated the Columbia space shuttle disaster recommended that the future goals of human spaceflight be subject to a national debate before any replacement for the shuttle be considered.

    Do we need manned spacecraft to do our research? This is the important question that is being floated under the surface.

    Davak
    • We sent a lot of probes to the moon. What do you think of when you think about exploring the moon? The astronauts, of course.

      We found so much more just by putting folks there and letting them explore and catalog and bring stuff back.

      Plus, you can't forget the good feelings and propiganda boosts. Men on the moon are part of our cultural mythos in ways that probes aren't.

    • Re:To man or not to man (Score:3, Insightful)

      by t0qer ( 230538 )
      I think we need humans up there.

      We have yet to build robots that can do everything a human can. Take hand tools for example. Using one isn't an exact science, you have to apply a certain amount of torque to unbolt something, while it can be measured and fedback to the CPU of some robot, the robot doesn't know the context of the task it's doing. What if it's doing something wrong?

      Not to mention our arms have an amazing degree of flexability, we can look at where we need to use a tool, and determine the b
    • > Do we need manned spacecraft to do our research?
      > This is the important question that is being
      > floated under the surface.

      Not really. A better question would be: "do we need the government to be the sole gatekeeper of manned spaceflight?"

      What I see this as (if it continues forth as this release suggests) is the changing of the guard. With privatized spaceflight becoming a very real possibility within the next year, and NASA coming under increased scrutiny, it's a bit inevitable.

      NASA had it's t
      • The problem with this pipe dream is that the cost of entering the space flight market is beyond enormous. It requires the kinds of R&D investment that's beyond the capabilities of many nations, let alone individual companies. Moreover, while there's profit to be had (launching satellites, subcontracting for the government, etc), it strikes me as doubtful that any company in this day and age would feel that future potential justifies the startup costs. After all, we live in a world of quarterly earnin
    • Space colonization is the only reason for humans to go into space. It's a species instinct thing. Gotta expand to keep replicating, gotta reduce the danger of "all eggs in one basket". Congress will not prevent it. Econuts will not prevemnt it. It shall happen.

      You can "do research" with robots - if it hasn't already been so mined out for utility that you're flying schoolkids' projects as "space science". But only real live people can colonize.
    • The answer to the question is not as straight forward as you might think.

      I remember reading that the astronauts of Apollo 15 were able to gather an equal the amount of gross geological survey information of all the unmanned spacecraft (the rangers and surveyors totalling about 45 hours) in the first 15 seconds of being on the moon. The astronauts, trained in the expected geology of the moon were able to observe and develop plans for closer study much faster than what was possible with the probes and human

  • money (Score:2, Insightful)

    by SexyLinuxMan ( 541640 )
    could it be they are just doing this to put the space program in limbo to save on money? They have some pretty expensive stuff to pay for these days. Iraq, war on terroism, weapon programs, etc ... just a thought

  • Time for comercial companies anyway. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ron_ivi ( 607351 ) <sdotno@cheapcomp ... m ['ces' in gap]> on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:10PM (#7333515)
    I'd rather see NASA buy next-generation orbital vehiciles from one of the xprize [xprize.org] contenders [xprize.org] anyway.

    With X Prize successes possibly being one year away [slashdot.org], it sounds like a good opportunity to help this new industry.

    • Except that you'd have to redefine huge chunks of the NASA/DARPA/Congress bureacracy in order to do it right.

      Well, that, and it would take another incremental huge expense for any of them to go orbital, so it's not one year away, either way.
    • Except that the xprize contenders are suborbital. They cant reach ISS, and I doubt any of them could be upgraded to do so, within the safety metrics of NASA, for much less than the cost of OSP.
  • Why should we bust our asses to develop space? Let the Chinese do it...

    Yeah, I see no problem there.

  • The problem is NASA (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Reality Master 101 ( 179095 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <101retsaMytilaeR>> on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:11PM (#7333533) Homepage Journal

    On the other hand, isn't one of the ideas behind the orbital space plane program the fact that our current space program is getting more unsafe through the use of 20-year-old equipment?

    On the third hand, our current space program is getting more unsafe because of the incompetence of NASA. Why give them more money to pour down the rathole? Apparently a lot of people think NASA hasn't tried to design anything since the Shuttle. They have. They failed. Multiple times. The OSP is just another link in a rotten chain.

    • third hand? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Tumbleweed ( 3706 )
      > On the third hand, our current space program is getting more unsafe because of the incompetence of NASA

      Well, there's part of the problem right there - noone can count anymore! Either that, or there's WAYY too much genetic mutation going on lately. *eek* Still, if it's placed strategically, a third hand *could* come in...ahem...handy. I'll scratch my back, you scratch yours! Handy for those CIA missions in Mexico, too, ala "Once Upon a Time in Mexico." Or a dedicated hand for the joystick. Or the "jo
    • Well, I know that this is the third next generation space vehicle program that has had its financial legs cut out from it before a workable prototype could be designed. Is that what you mean by "failure?"

  • Sure, we all know that... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rusty0101 ( 565565 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:12PM (#7333541) Homepage Journal
    ... these rocket things just tend to all blow up on the launch pad after all. We really need to realize that Space is a really dangerous place. I mean we have to take up all of our own atmosphere, and if even one thing leaks, we start loosing people.

    And with the level of technology we have today, I mean really. Just this last summer, my inflatable raft was punctured by my cat walking on it. This is a really serious demostration of how poor our level of technology is.

    If my cat can puncture an inflatable raft, there is no way I can believe that there is anything like safe space travle. And if we can't make travel in space safe, then we really shouldn't go.

    Of course I have gotten to the point where the potential risk in my life is such that I don't even bother to get out of bed in the morning. You probably shouldn't either.

    -Rusty
    • Don't blame the technology -- you could have bought a Kevlar raft (probably expensive), or had your cat surgically modified (declawed), or kept the raft in a cat-proof container, you just didn't.

      It's an issue of budget and management on your part, not an issue of insufficiant available technology.

  • Uh oh... looks like the House reads /. too! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Not_Wiggins ( 686627 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:12PM (#7333543) Journal
    Hope they weren't desuaded by the results of the "space debris" experiment from the Enterprise Model Test [slashdot.org]

  • Harrison Schmidt quote (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tinrobot ( 314936 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:12PM (#7333549)
    I really thought this quote from the last man to set foot on the moon was particularly insightful :

    "NASA is too old, too bureaucratic, and too risk adverse. Either a new agency would need to be created to implement such a program or NASA would need to be restructured largely along the lines of the NASA of the late 1960s," Schmitt said.

    Schmitt said of particular importance is for NASA to consist of engineers and technicians in their 20s and managers to be in their 30s, and the re-institution of design engineering activities in parallel with those of contractors.

    Sadly, it's very hard to get rid of an agency the size of NASA and replace it with a bunch of young turks. I agree that NASA does need new blood, a new direction and a kick in the pants, but how that will happen is beyond me.
    • Schmitt said of particular importance is for NASA to consist of engineers and technicians in their 20s and managers to be in their 30s

      New blood is one thing, but at what point are you lobotomizing the agency of its collected experience? Who would you rather have manning the control room, someone who's helped land a dozen shuttles, or Joe Ph.D. fresh out of Cornell? I hope they will figure out how to reduce the top-heavy beaurocracy without throwing out the skilled workers that made NASA's successes poss
  • First, congress cut defense spending and tied the hands of the CIA, and then they asked: "How could the CIA allow 9/11 to happen?"

    Then, they put too much pressure on NASA to avoid to many delays because of safety, and cut their budget, and then say "Why did you allow our astronauts to die? "

    They always pass the buck.
    • NASA started out as a little research agency. It became a big agency with a mission (going to the moon by 1970).

      The moment it became big, it attracted the attention of Congress, which sees everything the Government does in terms of "how can this be used as a vehicle to steer federal dollars to my state/district?" Ever wonder why the rockets are launched from Florida, but manned mission control is in Houston? LBJ ran the Senate at the time, and a major federal program in his state was the price he charge

  • Chasing A Technological Chimera (Score:4, Informative)

    by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:13PM (#7333561)
    >> ...isn't one of the ideas behind the orbital space plane program the fact that our current space program is getting more unsafe through the use of 20-year-old equipment.

    No. The idea behind the prbital space plane is find a way for NASA to shovel money to a few big quasi-monopolies.

    NASA's been trying to put wings on spacecraft for decades. They've spent bilions and they still don't know how to do it. There's no guarantee that a space plane will be any safer than the Shuttle. Remember, old technology didn't crash the Colombia.

    There are other, cheaper, ways to get people to and from orbit. We've been able to do that, safely, for more than 40 years. Since we know how to do that, we ought to concentrate on going someplace in space (where wings are pointless, obviously) rather than some useless technical chimera like the orbital space plane.

    • Actually, OSP (done right, of course) would do better for not shoveling money at quasi-monopolies than the shuttle is currently, simply because it's potentially adaptable to a wide variety of carrier craft. Sure it'll probably start out strapped on top of a Delta or Atlas, but there's no reason why a more reusable booster couldn't be used down the road.

      Well, that, and taking a page from the old MOL project and using the OSP as the emergency-escape/landing/etc. for larger spacecraft is my lofty blue-sky da
      • Yeah, but why even trying to build anything with wings? Or a reusable launcher for it? That's a waste of money.

        We can get as many people as we want to into and out of orbit using capsules. We know how to give them some cross-range capability (Apollo had it). It just amkes no sense to me that NASA is still trying to turn airplanes into spacecraft. Their incompetence and shortsightedness is threatening the continuing existence of human space travel. (Not that NASA has actually travelled anywhere in space i
        • It's a trade off. Wings get you precise landing locations, better reusability, and less G-loading in ways that a capsule doesn't. Capsules are lighter and simpler.

          Part of the 4-different-shape OSP graphic's appeal is that it lets NASA float the idea of a capsule around and see if people are against it. When your funding depends on congressional and public popularity and part of your goal is national prestige, you tend to go towards ferrari styling instead of volvo styling.

          Either way the OSP *has* to of
          • We don't now, and likely will never, have any reason to have so many landing locations that a winged craft would be needed to take advantage. We launch from one place, and we come back to one or two places. I don't see that changing, or having a reason to change.

            One goal of LEO travel should be to reduce the cost. I'm not convinced that going reusuable will do that. It hasn't in the case of the Shuttle. Why not focus on finding ways to reduce the cost of expendable launchers?

            Space travel is about jus

  • What has manned space exploration given us? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by avoisin ( 105703 ) * <swh8@cornell.edu> on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:14PM (#7333565)
    I've been often asked by friends and others just why it is we send people to space anyway. I fully understand all the inventions that we've gotten during the process, such as better rocket power, Tang, etc. But I have a hard time coming up with things that we've discovered because a person actually went along to accompany an experiment.

    The best I know of is that humans are able to adapt to failures in space, so that if an experiment starts to go awry, an astronaut can fix things on the fly. But I have a hard time even coming up with human-controlled experiments that have had society-changing effects.

    Can anyone here name some?
    • But I have a hard time coming up with things that we've discovered because a person actually went along to accompany an experiment.

      I suppose it's simplistic, but what about experiments that look for answers about humans? For example, research into the effects of zero gravity on the body and ways to combat it.

      Of course, research into keeping humans healthy in space is only beneficial if you believe that we should explore space at all. But if someone doesn't believe we should explore space at all, I see

  • Friggin PANSIES! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GeneralEmergency ( 240687 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:14PM (#7333570) Journal


    Since when was the job of those "Fearless and Brave" astronauts supposed to be "safe"?

    Rockets, are by definition, controlled explosions! By parking your ass on top of one, you are exhibiting the ultimate example of informed consent!

    .

  • China (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Davak ( 526912 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:14PM (#7333572) Homepage
    We need manned spacecraft.

    China gives us our answer!

    By flying someone safely into space and returning him home, China bolted itself to a new level. The entire world had to admit that China was a new technological power. It's a trophy. It's a mark by which countries are judged.

    The side effects of this? The people of China immediately (at least those who understood what happened) were filled with joy and respect for their government.

    The space race is costly... but we use the technolgical research from it on a daily basis. Even more so, we must stay ahead in the space race for the respect of our citizens and the rest of the world.

    In times like today... we need dreams. We need to know that we are exploring, researching, and reaching to new places. It's a part of the human desire to discover.

    The old semi-dead people in the senate may not realize this. However, the majority of us thought about being an astronaut as a child. Even more of us would risk our life to see the earth from "out there."

    We need to push into space... regardless of the cost.

    Davak
  • "The Bush Administration, according to Washington, D.C. buzz, is thinking about anointing NASA with a new, beyond Earth orbit vision statement"

    What the hell? This sounds like my boss issuing a new "build me a brand new OS that is more secure than OpenBSD, runs all MS software, and will allow us to recycle Commodore 64s!" vision statement.

    I mean seriously, what good will a vision statement do NASA? Space programs need money, not flowery vision statements. When Kennedy comitted the States would go to the

    • I completely, 100% disagree with you. NASA's problems are not of the sort which can be solved by spending money. Rather, they are a loss of vision and sense of purpose.

      Since the Apollo program, NASA's "vision" has been one of sustaining itself. That's led to programs like the Space Shuttle and International Space Station, huge money pits which don't do what they're supposed to do very well. And what's next? Er, how about another space plane to do the same things we've been doing for the last 30 years?

      Th

    • The thing with the vision statement is that it assumes that long term money is also on the way, because that's the new mission.

      The reason why we got to the moon was not because Kennedy or his spending, it was because he made a mission that everybody could latch onto and fund. Well, that, and being assassinated before he could screw up always helps.

      The big problem is that NASA's main mission is to keep everything it has and appease politicians. If they were told to get together hardware to go to (insert
  • The ridiculous amounts and money and engineering talent wasted on a Buck Rogers toy like the space shuttle, the international space station, and now the proposed space plane, have drained funds that could have been used for unmanned exploration of Mars, the moons of Jupiter, Titan, etc. We landed on the moon over 30 years ago, and haven't done anything interesting since. Sending astronauts into orbit around the earth is 1960s technology. It's pathetic that we are just building space toys instead of doing re

  • PHB's (Score:2, Insightful)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 )
    I dont know about the space shuttle, but planes are designed to last a long time and 20 years is reasonable. There havnt been any accidents because of old equipment - the accidents happen because of management PHB's who are the turds of any system and need to be flushed.

    • Re:PHB's (Score:2, Informative)

      by sexylicious ( 679192 )
      Check out the FAA or NTSB websites to determine the cause of airplane accidents. Some of them actually were because of worn out parts!

      Probably one of the more famous ones was an Alaska Airlines flight that crashed in the pacific off the coast of oregon. A worn out worm gear in the rudder actuator was the cause. The gear wore out in part due to poor maintenance.

  • Well on our way (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stoolpigeon ( 454276 ) <bittercode@gmail> on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:18PM (#7333606) Homepage Journal
    .. to the Russian/Chinese dominated future described in so much of the Science Fiction that I loved as a kid.

    I think people like Heinlein saw things in our culture that would keep us from keeping our edge and staying out front. They might not have had every detail covered- they weren't clairvoyant - but they had an intuitive 'feel' for the reality of the situation.

    • Well, one of the things that would have us losing our edge to communist states is the fact that while we have a Christian-right controlled government that denies science, the communists have science AS a "religion" (or as close as makes no difference).

      In the United States, under capitalism (and "democracy") The People feel that they should determine where their tax dollars go, and many feel they would be better spent in places other than the space program (and therefor lack the pride they might have otherw

  • We need more money for wars! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jared_hanson ( 514797 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:18PM (#7333612) Homepage Journal
    <rant>

    Yep, we can't fund the space program because we are running up a bill for the wars we are waging. Pretty soon other government programs will see the axe.

    After all, terrorists hate us. Why do they hate us? Because we like to attack their country and tell them how they should run their government. Sure, some of the citizens, mabey even most, don't like their current government. But, you will always have those that hate us for it. As you build up more and more hate, you get more and more terrorists, and more and more wars to wage to fight them.

    The biggest problem is that most of the governments we install become dismal failures. Why?, you ask. We had to work for our democracy. We saw that the situation was bad, we wanted a change, and we faught to get it. The problem with Iraq, Afgahnistan, etc, is that the people, by and large, did not have to fight to get their democracy. It was handed to them by us. When we turn over control, they don't know what it takes to really make it work, so some dictator will exploit this vulnerability and turn the country into a shit hole again. This breeds more hate towards us by the people we were trying to help because they think we packed up bags and left them stranded. It is a vicious cycle.

    We could grow up, however, and realize that people in different places of the world share different opinions than ours. We could accept this and let them go about their business. If they decide they want a change, let them work for it so they respect it and know how to handle it. If we did this, we could save our money to fix the problems within our country. We would probably have less of a terrorist problem to (or at least they wouldn't hate us for being arrogant pricks.)

    </rant>
    • The US - IMHO, had something else going for it as well. Truly, staggeringly visionary leadership in the form of most of the "founding fathers". It was this leadership and the soundness of the constitution they drafted that saw the US through its fledgling years of democracy. If just one of those men had been greedier, or more power hungry, the world would be a very different place.

      The problem with most of the "liberated" countries is the previous leader (dictator) has generally done a pretty good job of
      • I'd counter that and say that the vision they had was a direct byproduct of the environment they wanted to change. In the past 50 years in this county, arguably the most visionary leader would be Martin Luther King, Jr. He gains this title because of the strife and turmoil of the circumstances he was involved in. It would be much harder for you or I to be regarded as visionary, because our country is pretty decent. Sure, there are always injustices, but they are minor in comparison.

        Did some people do t

  • So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ikewillis ( 586793 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:18PM (#7333616) Homepage
    We suspend development of a technology that eliminates the need for SRBs because one of our shuttles was destroyed after attempting reentry because it was damaged by an SRB?

    According to this story [usatoday.com], in the history of the shuttle program 15 flights have had tile damage due to debris falling off the external fuel tank and SRBs.

    NASA's solution? Create a space plane that is entirely reusable, and doesn't require rebuilding/recycling SRBs with each mission and constructing a new external fuel tank.

    So when a shuttle is destroyed by a technology known to be problematic, the House Science committee recommends... suspending effort on a project to remedy those problems?

    <sarcasm>That makes a lot of sense... really</sarcasm>

    • The loss of Columbia is a red herring, and I think the policy wonks are starting to realise just that. The real issue is why should NASA be fixated on building vehicles that do nothing but take us to take us back and forth to low earth orbit? The russians can get us there and back all we need, inexpensively, reliably, with 20 year old technology.
    • Columbia was not damaged by debris from the SRBs, it was damaged by the main external tank, which contains LH2/LO2. The SRBs contain solid rocket fuel at room temperature, and thus do not have any insulation required for cryogenic chemical storage. If stuff were falling off the SRBs, you'd have bigger problems than debris impact.

  • After huge tax cuts, and a costly war... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Homology ( 639438 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:19PM (#7333619)
    it's not surprise that cuts has to be done in order to preserve the tax cuts for the ultra rich. The illegal war in Iraq has been very costly in terms of lives lost and in massive damages to Iraqi infrastructure, and ordinary Americans has to pay for this with money and blood.

    Cuttings in space programs would probably seem less risky (in terms of reelection) than messing with cuts in social services, health benefits and pensions in the present economic climate.

  • The government should just say it out-right... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by KD5YPT ( 714783 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:20PM (#7333633) Journal
    That the government doesn't have money! Instead of using lame excuses as safety issues for people who knows its unsafe, they should just say it straight out that they don't have money left over from the wars to fund space program. And the only reason why we are not getting anywhere is because the government don't want to pay for it. We already have the technology to go to Mars or the ability to adapt existing technology to do it.
  • Okay, let's look at some objective realities:

    1) No civilization has succeeded or advanced by curtailing their use of resources. Ours is no different, we are increasing, practically daily, our consumption of every non-renawable resource on the planet. It's pretty much a binary solution set, we either use those resources while they are still available to access other sources of those resources, or we fade away. Most of them are right in our own solar system, we just got to go get them.

    2) The planet's

    • 1) We do not have the technology, and will not for decades, to go out at get anything. Sure, we could get material from the moon, but there isn't a whole lot there that we need that we couldn't get cheaper and safer right here at home.

      2) The real problem with the population rise is not material, but space to live. Nothing short of terraforming or a sever reduction in population will do anything about that. And the population isn't rising across the world either. It's in active decline in the USA and Eu

  • Government is full of dipwads... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by herrvinny ( 698679 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:29PM (#7333716)
    Okay, for the 1000th time, let's get this straight people:

    WE NEED space exploration. Just because some people died, doesn't mean we should completely stop space exploration. People who think like this should be shot. Following that logic, Spain, France, etc shouldn't have tried to sail "around the world" and find a new way to get to India. A lot of explorers died then, should we say that the discovery of America should never have happened because explorers died? Boo hoo. Cry me a river. Damn it, the human race will ALWAYS look for more adventures. WE will always try to search for new lands. WE will always keep researching new and better technologies. It's built into the human psyche; to always want for something new.

    For you people who don't want to explore space, fine. Stay home and cower. Build a tinfoil hat manufacturing facility. The rest of us, the ones whose blood runs hot, will go out a blaze new trails for the rest of you to follow.

    I don't know about you, but I would be happy to go up into space. Damn straight I would be more than happy to put my life in NASA's hands, because those people are doing the best they can. If they make mistakes, so what? Lots of astronauts died during the space race, but we NEVER gave in. If I died going up into space, I wouldn't blame NASA, and if anyone of my family did, I'd haunt them.

  • Capsules anyone? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MeanMF ( 631837 ) * on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:29PM (#7333728) Homepage
    Here's a nice opinion piece [tnr.com] suggesting that we go back to using capsules, like the Russians and now the Chinese are using. It doesn't sound like a bad idea to me - if a "reusable" craft like the shuttle costs orders of magnitude more than one-time-use capsules, why not just make a bunch of capsules instead? You wouldn't have to worry about retrofits, upgrades, wear and tear, etc.
    • Um, massive waste? Like, the reason that we started reusing the shuttles in the first place?

    • Re:Capsules anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pavon ( 30274 )
      Agree'd. The only thing that the shuttle can do that a traditional rocket can't is fly around in orbit and repair things. The main expense of the shuttle is that it gets beat to hell everytime we go in and out of the earths atmosphere. So we back to rockets to get things in and out of orbit and build a seperate vehicle that stays in orbit, docked to the space station to repair things. We could probably get more done with one of these than with a whole fleet of shuttles, since it's always available for imme
  • If someone collects the Xprize before it expires next year, it may be the way to go. The total amount of money spent by all the competitors exceeds the value of the Xprize but the competitors are trying anyway.

    Tech prizes go way back. Parliment issued a prize to John Harrison for developing an accurate chronometer. The guy had zero credentials to do it - he was a cabinet maker - but he beat out everyone else and solved a long standing puzzle because of the prize. Paul MacReady won two sequential prizes for

    • Parliment issued a prize to John Harrison for developing an accurate chronometer. The guy had zero credentials to do it - he was a cabinet maker - but he beat out everyone else and solved a long standing puzzle because of the prize.

      John Harrison wasn't a cabinet maker. He was a clock maker and an unschooled mechanical genius. He was also, apparently, almost impossible to understand. You failed to mention an important constraint: The chronometer had to keep time while at sea, which is what made the task s

  • Good! Send NASA to Mars.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by adeyadey ( 678765 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:39PM (#7333813) Journal
    Apparently Robert Zubrin, manned Mars mission advocate, is going to testify as part of this review. At the moment the US is spending $3 billion/year on the shuttle, and an unknown amount on the new OSP (Orbital Space Plane), all without any clear objective in mind. It is very hard not to feel, at least as far as manned exporation goes, NASA is floundering at the moment.

    It is me worth re-posting this related extract from a piece posted on www.space.com, by Robert Zubrin - an advocate of reform in the US space program - interesting reading...

    In the recent Columbia hearings, numerous members of congress continually decried the fact that the US space program is "stuck in Low Earth Orbit." This is certainly a serious problem. If it is to be addressed adequately, however, America's political leadership needs to reexamine NASA's fundamental mode of operation.

    Over the course of its history, NASA has employed two distinct modes of operation. The first, prevailed during the period from 1961-1973, and may therefore be called the Apollo Mode. The second, prevailing since 1974, may usefully be called the Shuttle Era Mode, or Shuttle Mode, for short.

    In the Apollo Mode, business is conducted as follows. First, a destination for human spaceflight is chosen. Then a plan is developed to achieve this objective. Following this, technologies and designs are developed to implement that plan. These designs are then built, after which the mission is flown.

    The Shuttle Mode operates entirely differently. In this mode, technologies and hardware elements are developed in accord with the wishes of various technical communities. These projects are then justified by arguments that they might prove useful at some time in the future when grand flight projects are initiated.

    Contrasting these two approaches, we see that the Apollo Mode is destination driven, while the Shuttle Mode pretends to be technology driven, but is actually constituency driven. In the Apollo Mode, technology development is done for mission directed reasons. In the Shuttle Mode, projects are undertaken on behalf of various internal and external technical community pressure groups and then defended using rationales. In the Apollo Mode, the space agency's efforts are focused and directed. In the Shuttle Mode, NASA's efforts are random and entropic.

    Imagine two couples, each planning to build their own house. The first couple decides what kind of house they want, hires an architect to design it in detail, then acquires the appropriative materials to build it. That is the Apollo Mode. The second couple polls their neighbors each month for different spare house-parts they would like to sell, and buys them all, hoping to eventually accumulate enough stuff to build a house. When their relatives inquire as to why they are accumulating so much junk, they hire an architect to compose a house design that employs all the knick-knacks they have purchased. The house is never built, but an adequate excuse is generated to justify each purchase, thereby avoiding embarrassment. That is the Shuttle Mode.

    In today's dollars, NASA average budget from 1961-1973 was about $17 billion per year. This is only 10% more than NASA's current budget. To assess the comparative productivity of the Apollo Mode with the Shuttle Mode, it is therefore useful to compare NASA's accomplishments between 1961-1973 and 1990-2003, as the space agency's total expenditures over these two periods were equal.

    Between 1961 and 1973, NASA flew the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Ranger, Surveyor, and Mariner missions, and did all the development for the Pioneer, Viking, and Voyager missions as well. In addition, the space agency developed hydrogen oxygen rocket engines, multi-staged heavy-lift launch vehicles, nuclear rocket engines, space nuclear reactors, radioisotope power generators, spacesuits, in-space life support systems, orbital rendezvous techniques, soft landing rocket technologies, interplanetary navigation technology, deep space data tr

  • Space is dangerous. Duh. (Score:3)

    by Pedrito ( 94783 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:45PM (#7333852)
    This is something I don't get. Astronauts have been telling congressmen since the beginning of the space program three things:

    1: Going into space is necessary

    2: Going into space is dangerous

    3: They understand it's dangerous and they're willing to take the risks

    What part does the government not understand. Space is never going to be safe. Just as going underwater in a submarine is never going to be safe. Comparatively speaking, of course. In both places you're in a very hostile environment to life (or at least our kind of life).

    Every astronaut knows the dangers better than any congressman (except maybe John Glenn), and they're willing to do the job anyway. Why? Because it's necessary if we want to advance ourselves as a species. It's part of what humans do.

    And really, if you look at it, going to space is probably safer than it was to pack all your stuff in a wagon and head west of the Mississippi back in the 1800s, but people did it, because that's what people do.

    Going into space certainly won't get safer if we don't keep going. Man, this stuff just really irks me.

  • nuclear space (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Aeonsfx ( 675982 )
    Interesting ideas about nuclear space technology can be found at nuclearspace [nuclearspace.com]

    My view on it is this: Safety is important, but with all great things in life, there is risk involved. Space travel is by no means an exception to this rule.

    If NASA isn't willing to take risks, then who is?

    If someone doesn't do something *no progress* is going to be made. Well, at least China and Japan are putting some effort in to their space programs...

    --Tim

  • I think most of us saw this coming. It's gotten to the point that when my boyfriend wants to talk about NASA's latest shortcoming, I just don't have the heart. Does it hurt anyone else that the United States is turning its back on space? I cannot understand those people who could watch the footage of the Apollo landings or see the photographs from the Viking missions, who were alive and could experience the breathless awe of the American space program at its peak, yet decide that the risks are too great
  • Safety is one thing. But that's not a big concern to a politician unless he/she/it can rant about it and get recognition in the news. Ignore the fact that these same politicians have been happily voting to CUT spending to NASA. Can't be bringing things like that up. Unpatriotic.

    What really matters to the politicians is making sure the people in their state/county get a cut of the pie. It doesn't really matter whether these people are QUALIFIED to build part of the project, it just matters that they ge

  • Congress needs to STFU (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Neuracnu Coyote ( 11764 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @07:57PM (#7333958) Homepage Journal
    Seriously. Who do you think is more concered with the safety and welfare of our astronauts - the guys who work with them everyday and build the fireworks that they ride in or politicians?

    If our boys in labcoats are ready to build another rocket, then they should be able to have at it.

  • It is a damn good thing they are killing it... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by codepunk ( 167897 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @08:17PM (#7334118)
    The idea of a winged space craft is stupidity. What purpose do those wings have in orbit? The only thing they do is reduce payload capability and greatly increase complexity. NASA is not gaining anything in reusability. Put a capsule on a simple liquid fuel mostly expendable rocket, strap on the current shuttle SRB's for a little extra boot and you have a sensible space platform.
  • Ok, postpone the "space plane" idea.

    Give NASA some money for the 5 dozen other projects that it's working on. Not all of them have to do with space, that's for sure.

    NASA does a LOT of stuff that directly affects us here on Earth.

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