Can the US Still Lead In Space Despite Shuttle's End? 365
Hugh Pickens writes "NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden says that the future is bright and promises that one day humans will land on Mars. 'American leadership in space will continue for at least the next half-century because we've laid the foundation for success,' the nation's space chief said in a speech at the National Press Club. 'When I hear people say that the final shuttle flight marks the end of U.S. human space flight, you all must be living on another planet. We are not ending human space flight. We are recommitting ourselves to it.' Bolden says within a year private companies can take over the process of sending cargo shipments into orbit and by 2015 industry can take over astronaut transport, freeing NASA to focus on the long-term goals of reaching beyond Earth's shadow. 'Do we want to keep repeating ourselves or do we want to look at the big horizon?' says Bolden. 'My generation touched the moon today, NASA, and the nation, wants to touch an asteroid, and eventually send a human to Mars.' A group of former astronauts and other critics have blasted the agency and the Obama administration for ending the 30-year-old shuttle program, once the cornerstone of NASA. 'NASA's human spaceflight program is in substantial disarray with no clear-cut mission in the offing. We will have no rockets to carry humans to low-Earth orbit and beyond for an indeterminate number of years,' write Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Gene Cernan. 'After a half-century of remarkable progress, a coherent plan for maintaining America's leadership in space exploration is no longer apparent.'"
One Era Ends To Make Way For Another (Score:5, Interesting)
SpaceX's Dragon Capsule is going to be on display until July 10th at the Kennedy Space Center Air Force air/space museum, right down the street from the last shuttle launch (disclaimer: I'm going to see the last shuttle launch, and to see the Dragon capsule that has been to space and back). This is no accident.
The shuttle has been NASA's workhorse for the last 30 years, but its time for it to make way for the next generation of orbital launch vehicles. Goodbye Shuttle, and thanks for all the hard work.
Stop or Go? (Score:2, Interesting)
We're in a budget crisis right now though, with fundamental moral, legal and philosophical disputes over the proper role of the US government. We already have a majority of the states openly challenging federal authority, and the federal government openly scoffing at the idea that there are limits to its lawful power. (Pelosi: "Are you serious?!") It's hard to justify any new government programs while that dispute is unresolved, even as relatively small as the funding would be. Figure out first whether it's okay to have a self-proclaimed "radical communist" serving as a White House adviser, for instance, before deciding relatively minor things like whether to increase one agency's funding. Otherwise we'll just be arguing past each other from completely different premises.
I'm definitely not taking the common position, "Let's solve our problems on Earth before we go to space." This is more like, "Let's figure out what we're trying to accomplish before we set out."
Re:One Era Ends To Make Way For Another (Score:5, Interesting)
They are asking the wrong question. The question is "Can the US lead in space thanks to shuttle's end?" The Shuttle program was too expensive for what it actually brought on the table, and it was already too old. Replacing it with something like the Dragon capsule (and the other lifting capabilities in development by private companies) would only be an improvement. It's going to be more efficient, it will allow for more space project to be done with the money that would be saved, it will fund the private industry to develop space-faring technologies. The end of the shuttle will be good for the US space program and the human space program in general. Will the US lead? I doubt it, my bet is on China, but the shuttle going away is the biggest improvement.
Re:One Era Ends To Make Way For Another (Score:5, Interesting)
The shuttle was not a shining example of the US doing well.
It was a shining example of how much pork you can pack into one project and have it stumble along and achieve a bare fraction of the aims at huge cost.
For example.
Do you know why the shuttle has large wings?
It's largely so that it can take off, launch a military satellite into a polar orbit, and land back in the continental united states, without overflying russian territory.
Needless to say, it's never actually needed to do this.
But the requirement to do so meant the need for SRBs, and the complex thermal protection system. This was so that the DOD would kick in some funding into the project early on.
A shuttle launch costs a really, really large slice of a billion dollars.
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy is currently selling twice the amount of payload to low earth orbit, for well under a quarter of the price.
Yes, it's not quite as nice, as you need a few percent of that to be able to push it around a bit to match orbits you can reach with the shuttle.
And you need a bit more payload sacrificed if you actually want anything of significant weight recovered.
But the shuttle has only done that task perhaps half a dozen times, for payloads where in many cases it was debatable as to the value of doing so.
The shuttle has basically been the shining light akin to the caver that finds his way by periodically lighting his hair on fire.
Not having a Nasa rocket != not having a US rocket (Score:5, Interesting)
How is the coming hiatus any different that that between the end of Saturn V & the first Shuttle or for that matter the multi-year launch stoppage after Columbia? Why MUST it be a NASA developped rocket? Is it because parts NASA have turned into the aerospace work assurance administration?
I'm a manned space exploration fan but I have come to the conclusion that it would be better off for Manned space explorattion were Nasa to get out of the development of it's own launchers & buy from SpaceX or whoever else develops a reliable launcher without falling into the trap of growing a self justifying administration.
Joyriding astronauts != space exploration (Score:4, Interesting)
The shuttle? Absolute garbage engineering. Sold as the cheapest way to get to space, it wound up the most expensive of all time. It was supposed to be as safe and easy to operate as an airliner, but it proved extremely dangerous. It proved the capability of the USA only in the sense that no other entity could possibly have thrown enough resources at it to make it work at all. NASA has finally come to its collective senses and decided to quit "throwing good money after bad", a decision that's about 35 years too late.
Human beings will have a future in space when the resources and infrastructure to support them can be gathered, constructed, and maintained by robots. But we have proven beyond any reasonable argument that using human beings as "space laborers" is hyper-expensive and counterproductive.
Ending the Shuttle program is a good thing (Score:4, Interesting)
The Shuttle and ISS are black holes in NASA's budget sucking all the money away from almost every other project. Everything at NASA has been secondary to maintaining the Shuttle and ISS.
The best thing that could happen is that shutting down the Shuttle program will free up budget money to develop better, cheaper, faster manned and unmanned space programs.
The worst thing that could happen is that NASA decides to create another white elephant space program simply to keep the massive army of NASA employees and contractors who worked on the Shuttle program employed.
We have no money for space flight. (Score:2, Interesting)
We're too busy bombing democracy into people in foreign lands and spending billions of dollars per month to do so.
You got an 8 year old girl that wants to go into space?
Have her study her math, physics, *RUSSIAN* and *MANDARIN CHINESE*
Because the only way she's going to get there is with the countries that have the launch facilities and vehicles. We have *nothing* man-rated after STS-135. We don't even have spam-in-a-can on top of a fucking Titan, or Atlas like Gemini to get to the ISS.
But we sure have fucking cash to bomb the Afghanis, Pakistanis, Iraqis, Libyans, and Yemenis. Did I miss anyone there? I'm not entirely sure. Have we been bombing Somalia? What about Syria? Are we going to go there too? We certainly had plans as far back as 1991.
We certainly don't have money to subcontract it out to fucking Space-X. The bombs are worth more.
Fuckit. US space exploration is done. Throw dirt over the casket.
--
BMO - whose internal 7 year old is going to go cry in a corner because he'll never see anything inspiring like Apollo again.
Leadership in space (Score:2, Interesting)
Uh, America hasn't led in space since around the time I was in third grade, in the 80s. Sorry to burst your bubble NASA, but you've been irrelevant and anachronistic since the end of the Apollo program. America hasn't led in space since that time because nobody has led in space since that time.
If America wants to lead in space, it should remember: HUMANS ON OTHER WORLDS, OR NOTHING. Low-earth orbit doesn't count. Telescopes don't count. Robots on Mars, though cool, don't count.
I'd say manned space program is what is wrng w USA (Score:2, Interesting)
There is a nice PBS program called "The Astrospies". It reveals that a major purpose of the manned space program was to operate space stations to take pictures of enemy nations, much like the U-2 spy plane. By the late sixties, unmanned spy satellites were comparable to manned spy satellites. The manned space program then received major cuts. The use of manned spy satellites was classified in the US of course for a long time, and I bet major parts are still classified.
In the early 90s, Congress was ready to kill the fledgling space station, but thanks to lobbying and spreading out of pork, it lived. The Clinton administration tried to use it as an international relations ploy. $100 billion later, not much science has been done. What science will ever be done on the ISS?
The American public still doesn't know the original purpose of putting people into outer space, but the ISS and Shuttle consume more than half of NASA's budget. Would the average American notice if they disappeared? Does the average American even care about space science? The 40 meter European optical telescope is expected to cost $1.5 billion. How big of a telescope could $100 billion buy?
If the purpose of the manned space program is colonization, why didn't NASA build something like Biosphere 2 for experimentation? Why isn't NASA using Biosphere 2 more aggressively? How much will it cost to build buildings for growing food in outer space? People on Earth have a hard time affording housing. What makes you think they will be able to afford the much more expensive Mars and Lunar counterpart?
Re:One Era Ends To Make Way For Another (Score:1, Interesting)
FIFTY-THREE DEGREES (Farenheit).
Example 1: Challenger, 18 degrees Farenheit all night along and management is getting a lot of political heat to launch in the morning (which would barely be above 32 degrees F).
Solid rocket engineers: "Do not launch below 53 degrees!" You're asking a vehicle system with THIRTEEN TIMES the power output of Hoover Damn to function in an area it was not designed to! Yes the booster seals were later redesigned and augmented for safer operation, but failure became an option for Challenger because the managers jumped down a well with their fingers in their ears, "If I can't hear you, it must be safe!"
There are things the shuttle can do that the 'future' crafts (those currently in the works) will not have the ability to do. The shuttle orbiter can bring things back from space like the failed ammonia refrigerant pump on from the ISS (STS-135). The orbiter can repair things in space via use of the airlock and robotic arm (e.g. as done multiple times for Hubble -- one of the most useful scientific instruments of our time).
The US giving up the shuttle is like a construction contractor junking a working pickup truck because he might be buying a sports car and a shipping container.
++ Oh and the sports car may or may not work until we work out all the details
++ The shipping container can't bring anything back...one way only.
++ But that's okay because his buddy has a bicycle and has sorta agreed to letting him hop on every once in a while.
And while riding on the bike is only slightly cheaper (per man) than the truck, should the buddy decide not to let the construction contractor ride, there's no other way for him to perform his job.
Now, should we not also develop more modern vehicles at the same time? Of course we should! We should take the hundred billion from our useless foreign wars and put that into a new launch system, new shielding, new crew vehicles. But retiring the Shuttle ahead of having even a definitive timeline plus man-rated and proven equipment to replace it, means we are going backwards in our ability to work in and colonize space, not to mention the ability to research and improve our equipment that we've used in space by returning it and examining it back here on the ground.
No. (Score:4, Interesting)
For the simple reason, human presence defines empires and civilization and freedom and tyranny.
You can't flee disaster whether it be man made or nature made with robots.
The single driving goal should be manned colonization of space, and building the science and technology to make it happen.
If you really are a proponent of man made global warming, you wouldn't be wasting time like Al Gore and his billionaire pals proclaiming we have to pay taxes to him and his pals or Man Made global warming will doom the planet.
You also wouldn't be meeting in secret places like Bill Gates does to discuss how we can kill off 2/3rd's of the "useless eaters" because it is just too hard to put 6 billion people under your thumb to rule them.
If anyone is serious about what are future is, what we are and actually believe in the future of humanity in a compassionate way, we would have given 27 trillion dollars to start a new era or Golden Age of space exploration to tap the limitless materials and energy which space holds.
Instead, we decided to give it to a bunch of bankers.
Humanity is running out of chances and missed opportunities. Time and time again throughout history, we have had civilizations rise to our level and beyond and we have squandered the chance to remove the tyranny and injustice which plague our world. Instead, a handful of people end up torching the entire surface of the globe into lifeless soot, or just end up burning libraries because the fire looks "glorious" as entire human lifetimes are wasted in pursuit of knowledge.
Only to end up getting burned and having to be "rediscovered" all over again.....well....in between centuries or eons dark ages at least.
I doubt the Universe or God or whatever you believe in is going to let this nonsense go on indefinitely. The next Dark Age may find us in a bit of a disadvantage when we sit around the fire in the grass hut village and the elders talk about a time when men flew in the skies and walked like Gods on the moon.
Or when Men hurled "thunderbolts charged with the energy of the universe" and obliterated whole countries in a single hour.
And what will children say when they look at the sky at night and point out to the elders the new star?
Will they know that the new star up in the sky that night they notice spells DOOM for the human species as a rock 23km in diameter heads for Asia and wipes out anything larger than a mouse on the surface.
Too bad too. Because we have had many attempts to get off and stay off this planet and they have all been squandered by a few very foolish people who always tend to get in the way.
-Hackus
I completely agree with current direction (Score:2, Interesting)
Disclaimer, I am a progressive libertarian..
I don't see the bang for the buck when it comes to the shuttle system. It should have been replaced with a new model in 1995
anyway but politics and lucrative Nasa contracts got in the way. Nasa is an inefficient government agency. It can't afford mistakes so it throws money at problems. When it came to getting to the moon that is what was needed.
We are far better off gutting the Nasa budget and stop building ships and reinvest in R&D for ten years. The aerospace industry is more than capable of designing more efficient and safer vehicles. It is far more beneficial to just give grants away and fund development races like the xprize for actual achievements. And it doesn't matter if we no longer have a functioning space shuttle, the nuclear arsenal is slowly reducing all the time; we have more space capable rockets than we know what to do with at the moment. Nasa served it's purpose and proved what can be done. Quite frankly it's time an international coalition took over exploration with Nasa managing the purse strings. It will be 75% American anyway.
The goal for solar system development means private corporations. Manufacturing and power systems. We need to get them up there.
I had lunch with an astronaut last week... (Score:4, Interesting)