NASA Hopes Discovery's Move Is Not The Last

An anonymous reader wrote to mention the movement of the space shuttle Discovery. The upcoming mission, if it launches, is crucial to the future of American manned space flight. From the Washington Post article: "A successful flight will allow NASA to resume construction of the half-built International Space Station and possibly extend the life of the beloved Hubble Space Telescope, which has allowed humans to peer into far galaxies. But with the shuttle fleet due to retire in 2010, any serious problems during July's mission likely would bring a premature end to the shuttle program and disrupt NASA's plans to keep its skilled work force intact while a replacement spacecraft is being developed."

The Fingers-crossed-crew

[Wolf von Niflheim]

Imagine being part of the crew of that new flight when the article says: "HOPING to leave behind problems exposed by the 2003 Columbia disaster". I would certainly have my fingers crossed...

I didn't RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about money and _not_ fighting terrorism?

Ah... I'm bored. Hate you, americans. This site sucks ass.

I have to agree

[briancnorton]

The ISS serves no purpose other than international good-will. It is scientifically irrelevant, ridiculously expensive, and not safe for the inhabitants if we can't rely on the space shuttle to get up there. Fuel it up, pull the people and keep it in orbit as long as possible or until we need it for something.

Re:I have to agree

[rackrent]

My understanding is that both the concept and design of the ISS were contingent on the Space Shuttle offering convenient flights to help build the thing. It wasn't uncommon to have one Shuttle flight each month back in the so-called heyday.

What's failed is that the international, co-operative vision of the ISS kept on going even while the Shuttle fleet was realized to be an aging dinosaur, at best. Had the Shuttle been more reliable over the past decade, the ISS would be vastly different than it is now.

Re:Jerry Pournelle has the answer YET AGAIN!

[BiggerIsBetter]

Interesting idea, but as you say, the US Govt doesn't want to do it.

So how about the UN, EU, China, and Middle East step up and do something like that? Middle East money is plentiful, Chinese production is cheap, Japanese technology is excellent, European engineering is suberb.

We'd get it done in no time... if it wasn't for effing politicians.

Humble?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly humble, that's an arrogant American centric suggestion. It's the INTERNATIONAL space station. Not America's space station. Not NASAs. Other nations have a say in this you know.

Re:A humble suggestion to NASA

[vtcodger]

***Abandon the ISS now and channel all its investiment to the next generation space shuttle.***

Regretably, that's more easily said than done. The I in ISS stands for International. It's International because when Reagan's misbegotten "Space Station Freedom" predictably ran out of schedule and funding simultaneously along about 1993 we sold a bunch or suckers on making this useless and rather silly project an International effort. So, the US doesn't own the thing any more.

As far as I can see, it really doesn't matter very much. The Bush league fantasies about going to Mars via the space station and the moon are probably going to flounder sometime just before or after we get back to the moon for a day or two. Reason -- cost overruns and the fallout from Bush's nutty fiscal policies.

In the meantime, these man in space projects are going to continue to drain resources from real science.

The only bright spot is that George W seems possibly to have somehow put someone competent in charge of NASA -- quite possibly for the first time ever. Griffin is an advocate of men in space and human settlement of space. But he also appears possibly to have some sort of tenous grip on reality. If the politicians will just leave him alone, maybe he can come up with a realistic plan to back up to 1970, forget the last 35 years of floundering, and set up a space program that has some remote chance of eventual success. But don't expect the path from where we are today into space to be quick, easy, or cheap. (And don't expect the free market to somehow fix everything).

Re:Dubious Assumptions

[Anonymous Coward]

The shuttle isn't all that dangerous. What is dangerous is when the management folks won't listen to concerns the engineers have and allow potentialy fatal problums to remain unchecked. You can trace the root cause of BOTH shuttle accidents back to that.

Is the shuttle perfectly safe? No... But neither is getting up out of bed everyday and walking out your front door. It's a risk but an acceptable one if the management will do their jobs and put reasonable safety first, innovation second and go from there.

Re:A humble suggestion to NASA

[Keebler71]

Wrong... the ATV (and HTV) are cargo vessels only - akin to Russia's Progress vessels. By cargo we are talking food, water and underwear - and in the case of the HTV a small quantity of external payload. Neither can come remotely close to carrying an ISS module. The Space Shuttle is the only spacecraft currently capable of this.

Re:The Fingers-crossed-crew

[Bing Tsher E]

To insure the continuation of the race, and by that I mean the whole human race we need to get off this fragging planet.

Right. And the goldfish in that bowl on the table needs to leap up out of the water, too.

Get real. The human race is based in and of this 'fragging' planet, and inseperably part of the earth's biosphere. We cannot 'run away' from the problems here. The planet Earth would need to be replicated to a higher degree than we are even yet capable of understanding before we can 'run away.'

A human being is not a discrete individual being, there are countless symboitic organisms that must travel with us.

The dogma that drives your hysterical need to 'get off this planet' is just a further extension of the old 'Manifest Destiny' thing. Modern, intelligent people know that we have to solve our problems here and make this planet a better place to live, we can't just bumble off to find new living spaces to foul. Hell, this is the best suited biosphere we will ever find to live on. We just need to stop fucking it up, to be blunt. And the vapour trail of tons and tons of rocket blasts people like you insist on blowing off ain't gonna do it.