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NASA to Cancel Missions
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We are not a loved organization, but we are a respected one. -- John Fisher
We are not a loved organization, but we are a respected one. -- John Fisher
Damn (Score:1)
oh no..... (Score:1)
"NASA further stated (Score:2)
reason wins (Score:3)
If they cannot afford as many missions in a safe way asthey have planned, they should put up less missions. Thats all.
Kiwaiti
Re:Damn (Score:1)
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.
Eternal truths (Score:1)
figures... (Score:2)
This is not a bad thing (Score:1)
exploding on launch.
RIP
No Pluto..... (Score:1)
Read the article (Score:2)
<p>No they aren't - if you look at the article it says that they'll be putting some of the missions back, but they haven't cancelled ny planned missions.
Money for Space Missions (Score:1)
Now if only we could get some more money for them (and other worldwide space agencies). How about siphoning off some of that Defense money??
Surely it'd be more advantagous to explorer near space thoroughly and remove the single point of failure problem facing humanity, than work out better ways of killing each other.
I dunno the statistics but I'd reckon you could get at least 10 launches out of one Trident sub.
Prolly wishful thinking
M
--
Sic Itur Ad Astra
www.gatrell.org
Privatization? (Score:2)
HOWEVER, if we look a little farther back, we find the Apollo missions. This is quite possibly the United States' crowning achievement. We reached the moon. No one else has ever done anything like this before or since (from our planet ). What has changed?
What has changed is that the fire has gone away at NASA. People are treating it as their jobs, not as "I'm so lucky to be here. I'm going to do the best I can." Maybe by taking the space program private would help in this regard. But, I'm not entirely sure. If people really, really truly love space, they will work for any amount of money to be close to their dream. One thing privatization achieves is the fact that they could lure "better" people with their better pools of money.
OTOH, if the private companies find people who want to work in space-related fields for about what NASA is paying them, with their high financial resources, they could very well spend more on the actual missions (i.e. state-of-the-art equipment).
IMHO, our government needs to boost funding to NASA so that they can return to their peak. Private industry is shaky in this aspect. A unified space project is the only way to go.
Problems with probability... (Score:4)
This simply reflects the fact that most of the things you do are going to have an average outcome, due to the definition of average. So if you have a string of great victories, your ordinary, expected performance will look like you're going into decline. If you have a string of failures, it will look like you're improving.
The textbook regression foulup is an experiment in which people are punished for failure and rewarded for success. Since failure naturally leads to improvement, it ends up looking like punishment helps and reward hurts.
So... NASA will implement a lot of safety features. And the missions will be more successful even if the features do nothing at all, just because they're going to have to come out of their slump sometime.
Then it will look like space missions have to be expensive to succeed, and we'll be locked into this paradigm...
- MC
too bad (Score:2)
However do we really have that kind of time here? That could take as long as a decade. How long will it be until all interest in space dies out and is no longer a New and Cool Thing, and instead something to be taken for granted like every other technological advance?
I think it may be better in the end, ideally, to let our space program mature before we try any new stunts, but I think we also have a lot of important missions to follow up on before the interest runs out, like the possibility of life on Mars and Europa. I eagerly await their outcomes, but many people may lose interest before long.
Blessed are the meek... (Score:1)
NASA just trying to get more funding (Score:1)
Haiku... (Score:1)
What a god damn shame for us!
Lets rot here on earth.
Privatize (Score:1)
I think this recent space ship with the Pizza Hut logo on it is a step in the right direction. Why should the american people pay for it, when some corporation (the ones that will ultimately benefit from space exploration) could do it just as well?
I can see it now:
VISA, its everywhere you want to be.
Reach out and touch a martian.
You deserve a break this cycle.
Microsoft: Where in the solar system do you want to go today?
-----------------------------
Morons. (Score:1)
Don't post unless you have half a clue.
Hey, that makes sense! (Score:2)
NASA needs to stop asking Congress for money and start asking US for money. A very simple ad:
Scene: A war field, guns going off, bloody soldiers, etc.
Voiceover: The "Defense" Department got $750 billion this year.
Montage: Doctors working in labs, smiling children in hospitals, people working on computers, Mars Rover
Voiceover: Scientific research got $2 billion.
Caption and voiceover: Invest in Knowledge, Not War.
NASA is so focussed on science/engineering that they don't understand How To Make Friends and Influence People.
--
Well what did you expect? (Score:3)
Yes... cheap missions that fail is a bad thing and
expensive missions that succeed is a good thing.
I think we are so excited about how fast technology is going today we are moving blindly. I have had debates with people not so technically incline about how the speed of processors will not be doubling every two years unless some new break through is found. They have this blind notion that "No! technology will never slow down". I agree that technology will always advance, but it will slow down until something new is discovered. You can only improve on a single method so much.
Now back to the space program. I think it's good that things are being taken more seriously, and we should slow down and do things right the first time. Prototypes are ok, but the final product should work.
Unfortunately, this means things like that Pluto mission may be axed. But I'm optimistic that programs canceled today will be the programs of tomorrow.
Steven Rostedt
Good! (Score:1)
Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for space science : "Having very cheap missions that fail is not a good thing. Having little more expensive missions that succeed is a good thing."
Given that NASA have a fixed budget, and given that some of the recent disasters have not painted them in a good light, it seems quite prudent to make sure they don't have too many failures in the near future.
If they gamble now and lose, get a budget cut, and then have no choice but to do less in the future. If they're safe now, keep the budget, and hopefully have more support from both the public and government in the long term.
Just my $0.02,
Mike.
Re:Privatization? (Score:2)
How to make a sig
without having an idea
the dispair banner ad says it all (Score:4)
-Omar
Perhaps they will reconsider... (Score:3)
Yes, there have been a few commercially viable innovations which came out of the space prgram. But at what cost? Are those inventions really worth the billions spent? To whom?
If NASA cannot provide enough value to the world to pay it's
I don't blame them (Score:4)
They're not really in a comfortable place after all. Their funding relies on both their public image and intensive politicking (is that a word? Ah well, you know what I mean) in Congress. Every time something goes wrong with a mission it makes them look bad, no matter whose fault it really was.
This is a shame since NASA is a worthwhile endeavour and deserves a better deal than it gets from the American government. But we can do without a few minor missions in the name of getting the more important ones working - I don't think anyone would deny that money would be better spent on a Mars mission than say a Pluto one.
In the long run though it may well be that NASA fall behind other agencies and corporate interests. The public is simply not up for a huge space program with its attendant costs. NASA are trying to make space flight cheaper, but it costs money to save money in this case, and at they rate things are going, that'll be money they don't get.
Re:Hey, that makes sense! (Score:1)
I disagree. I think they are VERY good at it. This whole piece was an orchestrated piece of NASA PR.
www.nasawatch.com thinks so too:
{
3 August 2000: NASA Mission Costs Soar, AP, Yahoo
"Nothing has been canceled yet, said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for space science. He flatly denied rumors that he had already cut a mission to Pluto, the solar system's smallest planet and the only one never visited by a spacecraft."
Editor's note: Yes Ed, but you have certainly been giving people the clear impression that you are looking for money - and that cancellation of programs - specifically Pluto Kuiper Express - is
a viable option under consideration.
}
Have you seen the Today Show recently...at least once a week, NASA officials come on talking about the latest and greatest mission or technology. They spend a lot of their budget on PR...not that other government agencies don't, but they are much more savvy than you think.
They have been known to divert money to projects that they like. For instance, last year they secretly funded some $40 million dollars into a program (I think it was an inflatable structure) that had no spending authorization...OOOPS.
Re:Good! (Score:1)
Re:Problems with probability... (Score:4)
2) These are not random events. Your spacecraft getting hit by a mico-meteorite en-route is a random event. Your spacecraft digging a hole in the surface of mars because some asshole company decided to do english units is not a random event. NASA knows and is willing to live with the random. What NASA is trying to do is prevent the FUBAR's that throw away very expensive spacecraft.
W
Bad for Pluto-Kuiper express (Score:2)
Right now a mission to Pluto is the most convenient time it's going to get; as I recall Pluto is currently closer to the sun than Neptune, meaning a mission 10 years from now (when it was planned, about) would be much better than a mission 30 or 40 years from now. We also want to rendezvous with Pluto along the plane of the solar system (Pluto's orbit is askew) so the best time to launch a probe would be within the next 10 years or so, so that it can meet up with Pluto close to where it intersects with the Solar system, then travel on to the Kuiper belts. Otherwise it will have to travel up and over (direct diagonal would be disaster; no gravity slingshots). Too bad the article doesn't say which missions will be cancelled. Or did I miss it?
Perhaps NASA is considering new propulsion techniques we've heard so much about on slashdot, lie solar sails. This would be great for several of the missions to the outer planets. Maybe this "delay" is just a way to experiment with using these technologies.
Re:Money for Space Missions (Score:1)
Space buses, not shuttles... (Score:1)
That's it, dead simple, load's of money saved.
Re:oh no..... (Score:2)
This planet may be the slums, but the rest of the local places are just burned out wrecks.
I mean there is nothing decent until you get *past* the asteroid belt. and that used to be a cool party planet until that one weekend blast that got out of hand...
and let's face it, for the most part, we are way out in the middle of nowhere. sort of like the interstellar equivalent of Las Vegas in the desert before there were hotels, etc.... No-one visits except for the equivalent of UFO teenagers out on a road trip stoned out of their gourds, and playing mind games with the local natives.
Talk about annoying....Re:This is not a bad thing (Score:1)
Reasoning Forgotten (Score:1)
They made the decision to go cheap-and-fast so they could do more missions, learn more quickly, risk less on each mission, and use tech advances faster. They've been able to build and launch in as short as two years. The old style was making huge craft that took ten years to build and launch -- and when something went wrong like the Galileo antenna not unfolding, the many onboard experiments are at risk. And having to use 10-year-old tech is an increasing problem.
Which probe was it that sat on the ground so long that a significant fraction of its radioactive power unit was wasted?
Re:This is not a bad thing (Score:1)
Re:NASA just trying to get more funding (Score:1)
Re:Problems with probability... (Score:2)
That's not what his point was. Here's a probability question for you:
You go to a restraunt and the you find that the service and food are excellent. The second time you come back, will you
A)Find the service worse
B)Find the service the same
C)Find the service better
surprisingly, the answer is A. Worse. Why is this? When you have something that's on the high end of the bell curve, you see this phenomenon of 'regression toward the mean'. When you rate something from one event that is above the mean, it's more likely that you were experiencing a high point from a lower quality experience than a low point from a high quality one.
As space operations go, (look at the MIR, for example), NASA has their act together; they're on the high end of the bellcurve. So, it's more likely that they'll suck *more* after a while.
so you're both wrong. NASA's tendancy will be to 'regress toward the mean', not get better or say the same.
--
NASA's so-called "faster, better, cheaper" (Score:1)
During this seminar, he was talking about using his method of robot-building and applying it to satellites. (There's an article here [detnews.com].) Basically what Mark was saying is that there's a fundamental problem with current satellites; they're digital. And digital components don't like the harsh radiation of space. Plus, NASA's so-called "microsatellites" weigh in at over 600 lb. Not very "micro", if you ask me.
What he was proposing is whipping up a crop of "nanosatellites", maybe as big as your head, all out of analogue components (which he usues exclusively, at least last that I saw), which don't need to be radiation-hardened for space. Plus they're dirt cheap, and you can make them by the thousand.
NASA's "faster better cheaper" may be so, but it's all relative. If they really wanted that, they'd send out a fleet of Tilden's nanosatellites. Send 100 to Europa... some with cameras, some with infrared, some with spectrometers, some that talk to the others and beam back data to earth... and I'd bet it would be a lot cheaper than the Mars rover ever was.
If anyone has more Tilden links, please post them. He's done some amazing work, but I can't seem to dig up any large cache of web sites about his work. Pity - it fascinating!
Re:Problems with probability... (Score:2)
But what's the probability of flipping a coin 100 times and only getting heads? I doubt it's 50/50. I'm very bad with probabilities though. Yes I agree with the base statement that previous history has no influence on future events (in truely random events). If I have five heads in a row though, and the probability of me getting another head is still 50%, what was the probability at the begining that I'd get 6 heads in a row? Wouldn't it be like 1/12? I honestly am not real sure on any of this. Anyone know?
-cpd
a solution... (Score:1)
Ah, but highly regarded studies have shown that monochrome shower curtains cause Space Madness and decrease bone mass, and only curtains with the little fish on them will suffice.
Re:reason wins (Score:2)
HA!
Re:NASA's so-called "faster, better, cheaper" (Score:1)
The classification of satellites by micro and nano are not by simple guessing, there are definite bounds...600 lbs is a microsatellites.
Not all digital components have problems with space radiation. Many commercial digital components do quite well. He is either misinformed or you did not understand exactly what he was saying.
The problem with nanosats is coordination and bandwidth. For them to be useful, they need to be well coordinated. This requires accurate navigation at very high speeds. This is easier in the near earth environment cause we have GPS navigational aids.
Because of this navigational problem, we are not likely to see many nanosats in deep space missions for quite some time. Heck, I don't expect to see someone solve the nav problem well enough in the next 10 to 15 years to make a near earth collection of nanosats more useful or cheaper than microsats, but you are quite right that this is the way of the future.
Once again, COTS digital parts are not crap to space radiation. For instance, this Samsung SDRAM [radiation-effects.com] is quite resistant to space radiation.
Re:Problems with probability... (Score:1)
I'm not 100% certain, but I beleive it is one in 1267650600228229401496703205376
That's the same as getting 99 heads, and then a tail... It certainly isn't 50/50 though, think about it. If it was 50%, then half of the times that you tossed the coin a 100 times, it would be HHHH..HHH half of those times!
If you want HHHHHH from the begining, the probability is 1 in 64, if however, you already have HHHHH, then it is 50%.
best wishes,
Mike
ps) You can work this out without knowing probability per-se: for 1 toss, you can get a H or a T. For the second toss, well, you can get a H or T, followed by a "one toss" H or T. For 3 tosses, it's H or T, followed by whatever you could get for 2 tosses, and so on...
(unless I'm wrong
Oh yeah, failsafe those number conversions... (Score:1)
The only thing it can be is terminal stupidity.
One side working in feet and inches, the other working in metric. Oh my god, fire them all, they're incompetent.
Re:reason wins (Score:2)
Well, putting up fewer missions in order to increase the chances of having safe (and successful) missions would be sensible, but sensible behavior and bureaucratic behavior don't always coincide.
NASA has always been in the uncomfortable position of having to put itself and its missions in the spotlight enough to maintain public interest enough to maintain anything approximating a decent budget. Missions that sound important and interesting tend to get people on NASA's side. Publicizing the boring stuff tends not to be good public relations.
These highly-publicized, big, important missions also have to go up often enough to maintain interest. More successful missions leads to more publicity leads to greater approval.
This all tends to backfire when the missions aren't successful, of course. But, you know, people get antsy.
And what twit moderated this insightful? (Score:1)
It's been said so often that it's been burned into my brain.
Truth (Score:3)
In light of some previous comments both here and in the media, please consider the following.
The military gave birth to the space program. For the first 30 years, nearly all of our astronauts were active duty military persons.
The military initially trained most of our astronauts.
The military financed most of the early space program and continues to pay for several missions today.
(see
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/facts
The military needs satellites launched. That requires some NASA folks to get in that shuttle and get some flying time. That is better than playing with models in Florida.
(see
http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/schedule/mix
Therefore, I believe that the military has been useful to our space program and hope thier interest will continue as it benefits the program as a whole.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the host of other social programs do not require a space program. These *combined* programs eat more of the federal budget than the defense budget does.
(see http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2001/guidetoc
Does that mean these programs are not neccessary or not as important? Nonsense. However, truth is the success of these programs is not dependent upon a strong space program and these programs' needs will not diminish, on the contrary, they will grow in the future.
So what is the answer? That is up to the individuals which make up our country. I have posted here before that I will only vote for candidates who represent my ideas, which includes, an agressive, yet affective, space program. To that end, I am researching the candidates in order to choose who will best make a working, successful space program a reality. A working space program, however, has to be tempered with meeting the needs of our growing society including assisting our elderly and less fortunate, education, urban problems, committments and cleaning up the planet we were on first.
Your mileage may vary.
Exclusive land grants and mining rights. (Score:3)
You want to get into space in 5 years?
Hand out exclusive land grants on Mars and the Moon to the 1st private individuals who can get there. Give exclusive mining rights to people who can get to an asteroid and stake a claim.
You're dreaming if you think it'll happen any other way.
Re:This is not a bad thing (Score:1)
I remember watching it live....scary stuff
Re:Space buses, not shuttles... (Score:1)
The space shuttle is one of the worst-engineered pieces of junk flying today, and it was created to do what you propose. It's a money sink.
One rocket, one payload.
Now, everybody--
Re:This is not a bad thing (Score:1)
I love the quote from Stephen Baxter's Voyage. "If we'd been grown up about the risks we could be orbiting Jupiter by now"
Baxter's close to NASA guys and it wouldn't surprise me if that's a sentiment which has been expressed for real.
Re:Truth (Score:2)
This is true up to a point. NASA and the military always had a close relationship, but this was also in many ways superficial. The scientists wanted space programs to do research; the military wanted space programs to focus on defense. Congress, above all, wanted them to cooperate and "cut costs". The early development of the space shuttle was closely tied to Air Force requirements; allegedly the size was doubled in order to accomodate the Keyhole (KH-10, KH-11) series of spy satellites. So, the scientific missions have been compromised by military involvement, but you could equally say that the missions wouldn't have occurred at all without Congress funding it as a quasi-military program.
The military needs satellites launched. That requires some NASA folks to get in that shuttle and get some flying time. That is better than playing with models in Florida. (see http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/schedule/mixfl
Actually, this has not been true since Challenger. The schedule you point to shows no military space shuttle launches, because the Air Force quit its involvement in the shuttle program after 1986; the last DOD "classified" space shuttle mission was STS-53 in 1992. They restarted expendable launch vehicle production lines for rockets like Titan and Pegasus. At this time the military is actually forbidden from depending on a single launch vehicle. Military pilots and others who become astronauts are no longer DOD employees (although they retain rank, seniority, and certain benefits under longstanding policies).
So, no astronauts "fly" to launch military satellites anymore. The only astronaut flights now are NASA science flights and space station construction flights (and soon, crew delivery). The Air Force has even gone so far as to launch its own lunar satellite mission with virtually no NASA involvement.
Therefore, I believe that the military has been useful to our space program and hope thier interest will continue as it benefits the program as a whole.
You're about ten years too late.
----
NASAs Priorities (Score:1)
Mars
Close by so easier to get to (7 month trip). Good PR cos it's the most Earth-like planet, potential for lot's of cool pictures on the news from the planned rover vehicles. Possability of liquid water, perhaps even life. Lots of public interest.
Pluto
A small frozen rock that's far away it'll a spacecraft 10 years to get there. Even then it'll fly straight past with only a brief window of opportunity to study it's target. ie 10 years in the future, you get one mention on CNN.
Regardless of the scientific merits of one verses the other, it's easy to see why NASA is keen to try Mars again and is lukewarm over Pluto.
Re:Perhaps they will reconsider... (Score:2)
Try to cut the military and you'll suddenly find us in a potential war we couldn't possibly be ready for. Try to cut the social programs (which, admittedly, I'm not a fan of.) and you'll be inundated with pictures of all the "normal Americans" starved to death by your faithful elected officials...
The only real option your average spineless politico has to "cut the budget" and save you...the hard-working American man/woman a few bucks is to cut programs that can't defend themselves. I submit (IMHO) that perhaps NASA has done a bit more for the average American than the National Endowment for the Arts has (the NEA having a much more vocal and retaliatory group of supporters than any group of scientists could ever be.)
Yes, the NEA has a MUCH smaller budget so it's definitely not a fair comparison, but it's the best I could do this morning. Sue me. I promise to try to think of a better one after I have my coffee.
Re:Privatize (Score:1)
I mean - a rocket with a painting of a big red flying saucer on it....
Re:reason wins (Score:3)
Although I agree that it is a better idea to be somewhere in the middle, we shall see what the general public thinks. They are in sort of a bind here, if they take too long between missions then the public gets bored and cuts their funding, but if their mission fails then the public get angry and their funding gets cut.
<rant>
Until the public realizes the importance of the space program reason has not won. There is even a split in the slashdot readers over whether it should be publicly or privately funded. I personally believe that the government should fund pure scientific research for the sake of science, and that if we leave it up to private organizations we will lose the research that is conducted for the sake of science and only get science for the sake of profit.
If NASA were to receive more money so that it could hire more scientists and engineers, especially in the QA side, we would be able to pull off faster/better instead of faster/cheaper.
</rant>
Re:Well what did you expect? (Score:2)
...
I think it's good that things are being taken more seriously, and we should slow down and do things right the first time.
Been there, done that. The public is impatient, and if they don't see NASA releasing things at a steady pace they get bored and cut their funding. That is the reason why the moved to the faster/better/cheaper approach. NASA is in a bind, if they take too long to send out a mission the public loses interest and cuts their funding, on the other hand if their mission fails then the public gets mad and cuts their funding. Fun little game isn't it.
Re:Problems with probability... (Score:3)
Um, minor corrections needed here. 1. The problem with the units was not Lockheed Martin Astronautics using english units. The problem was LMCO and JPL not both not noticing that they were using different units during unit testing and integration. The problem was that JPL issued a course correction using x units of thrust, which happened to be the wrong amount.
2. You have the Mars Polar Lander [cnn.com] confused with the Mars Climate Orbiter [cnn.com]. The english/metric units problem was not on the mission that "dug a hole into the surface." That was the landing legs problem. Which, btw, was seen in testing but not corrected (unexcusable). The english/metric units problem was on one of the mapping satellites that burned up into the atmosphere because of the thrust problem.
fwiw, I worked at LMCO during all this but not on those projects (I got to work with the TLA's in DC. That's why I left.)
-----
My karma is still less than my age.
Write your congressperson (Score:2)
Her response back was focused exclusively on the space station. It's like she had little blinders on, thinking that's all NASA did.
I wrote her back and told her that I was NOT talking about the space station, but about other projects such as the Pluto/Kuiper Express.
When you write your congressperson, make it clear that you support projects *besides* the space station. Write them every year. Repeat yourself. That's how we get funding passed for the cool science.
Congress approved funding for the continued war on drugs a few months ago. It was a 12 billion dollar package. 12 billion dollars is roughly the ballpark figure of NASA's annual budget. Imagine what could happen if the war on drugs was limited a bit - NASA could get more cash. There's plenty of money, but the allocation is what sucks. Write the congress and help them to decide how to allocate the money.
RTG use (Score:2)
This sounds to me more like elimination for political and special interest group reasons.
--
Re:Problems with probability... (Score:1)
The difference here is that you are calculating a probability for _2_ different situations, so:
What you're saying here is that the sequence of results you got had a probability before you started of P(H)*P(T)*P(T)*P(H)*P(H) or whatever your sequence was. However, this is the same as every other 5-toss sequence's probability. The thing is, there are more 5-toss sequences with 2 heads and 3 tails than there are sequences with 5 heads or 5 tails. So the sequence more likely to be seen is that with a more equal number of heads and tails.
And all this has nothing to do with the probability of seeing another heads on the next toss.
sorry if this is clumsily put
Dave
Sometimes a risk is a DUMB risk (Score:1)
Launching a space shuttle with a known risk element in a weather situation in which your gut tells you that you are literally playing with fire is something completely different.
There are inherent risks in riding on top of a flying bomb. That doesn't however excuse the particular circumstances that surround the Challenger explosion. The Apollo 13 tank rupture was also due to a similar case of neglect.
Making Space cheap (Score:1)
Ion engines are neat low-thrust idea for space to space travel over long distances.
The real sticky item in space costs however still remains ground to orbit. We might succeed in shaving some of that by using hybrid wing/rocket solutions, but the ultimate cost savings await physics which doesn't exist yet, or possibly never will.
Nah. Sell the rights and watch space explode. (Score:2)
Start selling excusive land rights and mining rights and you'll see a massive takeoff.
Re:Money for Space Missions (Score:1)
It's time that the manned space programme was abandoned, it achieves next to nothing for science and almost all of the jobs could be done by unmanned platforms.
Throwing away the best part of a billion dollars to launch the Shuttle each time is not the best use of NASA's money. If Congress wants to take away NASA's money, let the Shuttle they imposed on NASA be the victim.
Well that's my opinion from the UK. Mind you, our space budget probably couldn't pay to take the Shuttle through a car wash.
Best wishes,
Mike.
NASA Rant (Score:1)
That leads to 2)
Why doesn't NASA ever seem to re-use their hardware designs? They spend huge amounts of money developing different mission profiles/hardware for each mission. We would still have lots to learn if we launched and landed many more mars rovers all over mars.. And the cost per mission would drop significantly and it would reduce the politcal cost of failure. "Gee, one failed, it's a good thing we planned for 10 of these things, statistically, one was going to fail anyway..."
It's just depressing that at this point in the development of human civilization, our progress is more limited by our own psychology more than our technical cabability.
Corporate Sponsorship (Score:1)
Re:Perhaps they will reconsider... (Score:1)
Their most successful recent project was the Pathfinder web page, with image updates. What was that good for? Entertainment. And damned expensive entertainment, at that.
The NEA is the same thing; providing some level of entertainment for a very limited audience, not at "the government's" expense, but at your and my expense. If people aren't willing to freely pay an artist for the privelage for seeing their work, why are they willing to allow the government to demand the money from everyone?
If anything, they should do something like what the Discover channel is doing. Private, independent funding of interesting projects and explorations for the benefits of its viewers. Simple, clean, just.
NASA needs to go away.
Re:Truth (Score:2)
Correction, you are right that the shuttle is not used for military satellite launches. My apologies.
However, there is still a direct relationship between the military and NASA which I believe to be beneficial.
Opensource (Score:1)
Re:And what twit moderated this insightful? (Score:2)
OTOH
So, why doesn't it work for NASA? With the current model, of incredibly expensive one-off missions, it can't. When complex machines are hand-crafted, it really is "pick two of three." The key, IMO, is therefore to start seeing spacecraft as _products_ rather than _items_. We need to pick designs that work well (the Shuttle is actually a good example, despite its well-publicized problems) and build them the way we do computers and telephones, or at least the way we build houses and airliners.
A spacecraft capable of carrying an unmanned payload into orbit, or even out into the solar system at large, need not be nearly as complex as a 747; even spacecraft capable of taking up humans and returning them safely to Earth need be only slightly more complex than that. We _could_ be turning out Shuttles or their descendants in assembly-line fashion, and if we were doing so, costs would drop even as speed and quality rose.
Turn space into a matter of logistics. _Then_ we'll have all three of the "faster, better, cheaper" triad. Not before.
SSTO? (Score:1)
We need a cheap and 100% resuable way to get things into orbit.
Once we have a reusable reliable and affordable SSTO costs to put things into space will drop signifigantly. Using a vehicle thats 100% reusable, and powered on water (hydrogen and oxegen) with only electricity needed to convert one of the most abundant molecules to fuel (easily created with conventional or nuclear electrical plants) it will be a trivial matter to put things into space.
It cost microsoft some-odd-millon to make the first copy of windows 2000, the second copy cost fifty cents. SSTO, once it becomes commonplace the law of numbers will make it cheaper and cheaper to put things into orbit eventually being similar in pricepoint to a trans-oceanic flight.
The ISS and planetary missions are important but our biggest and most costly hurdle is still getting things out of our gravity well. Once we overcome that space will be wide open to us.
-- Greg
Re:Eternal truths (Score:1)
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Re:No Pluto..... (Score:1)
Re: ISS is the problem, not the solution (Score:2)
My proposal: it is time for NASA to return to its roots (a la NACA) as an engine of technological R+D. ISS is developing very little new technology outside of things needed for ISS and little else. The technology that is being developed is self-serving. E.g. analysis methods for controls/structures interactions, great for all sorts of big floppy space structures which are based on many DoF (degrees of freedom) with few inputs and outputs.
In the days of NACA, the role of govt was a technology-agnostic R+D lab, performing in the role of a technology creator, not a consumer.
As a nation, we have let 'The Space Program' become a self-serving extrapolation from the past without examining what we want our space program to achieve. (Actually there have been various commissions whose reports have been ignored).
The fundamental barrier to space is the difficulty in getting there. NASA should be working on the basic technology needed to dramatically lower the barriers to space. This means high-strength structures (buckytubes?), high-temperature materials, manufacturing techniques, propulsion, etc.
For too long, NASA has convinced the US taxpayers that they ought to have a monopoly on space. Time for them to become the enablers instead of the sole operators.
Re:Problems with probability... (Score:1)
(0.5)^100. But that's the same as the probability of getting any single sequence of heads and tails. The probability of having every odd flip come out heads and every even flip come out tails is also (0.5)^100. That's because each measurement is independent of another. No matter how many times you flip a coin or how many heads in a row you got previously, the chance of getting a heads on your next flip will always be 1/2. As a previos poster said, Lady Luck has no memory.
Furthermore, the probability of a successful Mars mission is not nearly as simple to calculate as a coin toss. It could be 1/3 or it could be 1/100000 and we just got lucky with the successes. Plus the measurements themselves are not necessarily independent.
Re:Exclusive land grants and mining rights. (Score:1)
"money makes the world go around"
I bet it applies equally well to other planets and asteroids.
Funding solution for Nasa (Score:1)
Love,
Bongo
Internet coverage on this story (Score:1)
This story was originally written as an Associate Press article, and all the major space news sites have AP feeds. So, you're likely to see exactly the same coverage anywhere you go.
Right now, everything is just rumour and speculation. In fact, NASA has flatly denied that the Pluto mission is cancelled. This reminds me about the recent discovery "lakes on Mars"... er "liquid water on Mars"... er "evidence that liquid water existed on Mars in the recent geologic past"
As always, here's a comprehensive list of all the coverage I could dig up. I warn you, though, it's all very "similar"... er "identical".
And of course, my own coverage on Universe Today
NASA Costs Rise Significantly [universetoday.com] - August 4, 2000
Fraser Cain
Re:This is not a bad thing (Score:1)
The Seven astronauts in Challenger didn't but the people who were responsible for safety did. They knew that eventually something like that would happen.
The main issue is that the Astronauts didn't know the risks. If you tell them that there's a 10% chance of catastrophic failure then even if you're not of the hook totally, it at least gives them a say in whether the risks are worth it.
Cancelled mission, failed mission = same result (Score:2)
Pity.
Re:Bad for Pluto-Kuiper express (Score:1)
This happens every 228 years (Pluto is closer for 20 years)
Check out this [nasm.edu] link.
Re:Privatization? (Score:1)
Smaller, cheaper, faster was partially an attempt to give NASA bureaucracy a good swift kick in the butt and restore some of that "can do" attitude. Management managed to screw that up too.
If there's any lesson to be learned here, it's that you can't do smaller, cheaper, faster if you're managed by PHBs.
Re:figures... (Score:1)
Re:Privatization? (Score:1)
If, on the other hand, you are proposing private industry take over space exploration entirely - it won't happen without government funding because there isn't a profit to be made. Lockheed Martin isn't going to fund a Pluto mission on their own because they won't get any return on their investment. If there was money to be made in, say, building a manned space station, there really isn't anything standing in their way. As its been for some time, basic research in space must initially be funded by the government. Eventually, if a something profitable is found private industry will eventually exploit it. Good examples of this in the space world are telecommunications and imaging satellites. Originally, the technology for these vehicles was pioneered by NASA (in the '60s) and then companies ran with the idea and improved it to the point that now we can watch live television from around the world courtesy of satellites built and operated by the likes of AT&T and General Electric on a for-profit basis.
I'll argue with your view that the folks that work for NASA (and their contractors, which is really the majority of the workforce) are simply clock punchers who view what they do as just a job. I've worked at two NASA centers, and almost to a person the engineers there are extremely bright and motivated - much more so than in most other industries. If you just wanted to collect a paycheck, there are better places to do that than NASA. Because its a government (or government contracting) job, the pay is significantly less than if you would work at, say, 3Com, Lucent, or some Silicon Valley company. You don't get stock options working for NASA. Additionally, the pressure factor can be pretty significant (one screw up and you've not only blown your job, but possibly caused the loss of billions of dollars of hardware and seeing yourself featured on Nightline). People who do this for a living are motivated by the challenge of what they are doing and the excitement of working on the space program, not money.
I will agree, however, that things would improve somewhat with funding increases and possibly pay increases. What NASA really needs is for people to stick around longer. Because of their skill levels and the training they receive, NASA employees are pretty juicy targets for high technology companies to hire away. The government (or a contractor) can't match a headhunter offering a 30% pay raise and after awhile the adventure of working on the space program fades in comparison to paying for you kid's education or getting a larger house. Having a core of experienced people who've been around for 10, 20 years is very much lacking and increased salaries would remedy this situation. The cost of doing this would probably be short term, because as people stuck around longer they would become more efficient with experience and you could get by with fewer. For example - an engineer with 10 years of experience may have the same output of three engineers with 3 years experience each, but he alone will cost less to employ. You just need to initially pay those people to stay and retain their experience instead of watching them go after one or two missions as is common today.
Metrics (Score:1)
How much money do they need to buy every engineer a copy of 'Metrics for Dummies' and give them a day or two to read it? *That* would be a worthwhile effort...
Re:figures... (Score:1)
Just "Faster, Cheaper" Please (Score:1)
The slogan "better, faster, cheaper" was ill-chosen. It would have been better without the "better". If you send up a bunch of cheap, thrown-together, unmanned missions, you're going to have more failures, by percentage and especially by count. However, you're playing the odds that the greater number of missions will more than compensate for the increased failure rate.
The "better" part of the slogan implied that they still expected to have a high success rate. The public expectations were set too high, and NASA's paying for it now. Best of luck to them, because I still think that using lots of small, cheap, unmanned craft is a good strategy.
On a separate note, Slashdot has a lot of space buffs and a lot of open source buffs. How many people would volunteer to review designs and mission plans for NASA as part of an open-mission-to-Mars project?
Re:Perhaps they will reconsider... (Score:1)
Try to remember who funded Columbus's explorations that led to the discover of the America's ... or are you saying that Columbus should never have been allowed to even set sail, because he couldn't (at that time) provide enough value to the world to pay his own bills?
I guess you don't really understand the concept of investment in the future. Such investment almost never reaps immediate rewards, and much of it never reaps any rewards - but the long-term rewards are always worth the expense, and the same applies to space travel. I'm sorry for you if it means that you don't get to see the immediate effects in your lifetime, but future generations will most certainly.
Hmm .. you have a short memory. Remember, the development of the Internet itself was funded by tax dollars - it was unable to "pay its own bills" for probably the first 20 years of its existence. By your arguments, it should never have been allowed to exist at all.
Frankly, I hope mankind never sacrifices it's desire for exploration and discover in the name of capitalist "pay for its own bills" economics - if we ever do, it will mark the beginning of the decline of mankind.
Re:This is not a bad thing (Score:1)
Re:Problems with probability... (Score:1)
Imagine the "success rating" of a mission is randomly determined by flipping a coin 10 times. The more heads, the better the mission went. After a "5" mission, what are the chances that the next mission will be better, as opposed to worse? Even (excluding when it is neither).
Now how about after a "1" mission. The ONLY worse result is 10 tails in a row, which has a probability of roughly
The Skeptical Enquirer did an article on the regression effect for their March/April 99 issue, discussing the observed phenomenon that male hunk stars career's take a dip after appearing on major magazine covers, among others.
The article is well worth reading, and makes it clear that Lady Luck doesn't need a memory for the regression effect to occur.
gnfnrf
I have little patience sometimes (Score:1)
You are being foolish. You are being silly. NASA has had tremendous impact on our lives *already*, and I suspect they will continue to have a tremendous impact on our lives to come.
Three technologies that they were pivotal to: aerodynamics, rocketry, and digital imaging.
NASA with it's wind tunnels, computers, physicists, and scientists working on lifting bodies, wing surfaces, rocket engines, turbinges, etc. Where would our Concordes be, our Boeings, our cars, without this research?
With it's space program we have satellites and such. Where would your SatelliteTV be? Your tornado watches and weather predictions? How about GPS and military intelligence? Or the titanium based products grown from material science advancements due to the SR71, heat shielding for shuttles and landers?
Without the telescopes and astronomy, where would CCD technology be? Our scanners, our cameras, our webcams, etc?
Now are you saying you could live without all of these things?
And how about 30 years from now? When NASA research unlocks the nanotechnology that enables cancer free lives? Or something else equally outrageous?
With a nick like mine, I guess moderators have a hard time judging me fairly.
We HAVE the technology... (Score:1)
There is MUCH room for improvement without any need for woo-woo stuff. Remember, something like 60% of the typical booster's fuel is used to get JUST the first few hundred feet of altitude and first few dozen fps of speed; reduce that weight and the rest gets MUCH easier...
The biggest problem in this respect is that of fostering the innovations rather than having space agencies pick pet favorites for lousy reasons and crowding out the rest of the candidates. Ever wonder why the shuttle can't make it to geosynch? The military-imposed payload requirement to be able to haul spy satellites has something to do with the design choice that precludes that option...
Shit Happens, But We Need To Press On (Score:1)
Re:Perhaps they will reconsider... (Score:1)
Other than the aerodynamics, imaging and other technologies mentioned by another poster, there were also clear advances in microelectronics and medical processes, to name a few. Mapping. Location of oil resources. ...
I believe the standard conversion to civilian economy ratio quoted for NASA is about 20:1, making it one of the most valuable government programs ever.
Re:I have little patience sometimes (Score:1)
The SR-71 is the last new aerodynamic design of an aircraft, and it was designed in the very early years of NASA, and with slide rules, for that matter. Boeings to B-2s are all refinements of prior work, some of which has been heavily influenced by NASA -- but have not heavily profited from advanced technology, like the heat shielding you mention.
For instance, the Concorde was merely a 1950s airliner re-designed to stand hitting Mach 1. Same aerodynamic model, same engines. The SR-71, on the other hand, was fully designed, essentially from scratch -- aerodynamics and engines & etc. -- to ride a sonic shock wave. It derived a good 53% of its fuel efficiency from riding the wave alone, and another large amount from the compression of fuel in the engines.
Now that ceramic tiles and other advances have come along, it seems quite feasable to design a Mach 3 passenger aircraft that uses only slightly more fuel/lb/mile than current craft. Equally, the space shuttle -- which was another #($#( government compromise -- has main engines which are also 1950s technology. (The original plan, of course, was to lift the thing on a re-usable ramjet... which would have been 4-5x more fuel efficient. Damn Congress.) We will see -- probably from private ventures -- spacecraft based on radically different technologies.
In short: there are a lot of NASA-derived technologies sitting on the shelf; our world will be a lot different when they are in use.