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Space Science

Space Shuttle Goes Back to Work 221

Posted by Zonk from the yay-space! dept.
dalewj writes "The Discovery rolled over from the Orbiter Processing Facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center this morning. May 15th is the scheduled launch for STS-114. I was at NASA last month and got to see the payload for the space station thru lots of glass and I have to wonder, how far behind is the space station at this point?"
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Space Shuttle Goes Back to Work More

Space Shuttle Goes Back to Work

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  • About time. (Score:5, Funny)

    by heauxmeaux ( 869966 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @07:42PM (#12083343)
    I don't pay the space shuttle to sit around all day waiting for the phone to ring. Goddamn lazy space shuttle.
    • If you're from USA, you **are** paying. Well, perhaps more precisely you aren't paying but just charging it to future generations along with the rest of thefFederal debt.
      • Yes and you are also give those future generations a chance to make it big in space. And get filthy rich while they are at it.

        • Re:About time. Not really a joke (Score:5, Insightful)

          by rapidweather ( 567364 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @09:02PM (#12084215) Homepage
          A prespective from someone born before WWII:

          The idea that we could go to the moon was considered by some as being too much of a technical challenge, that just too many things could go wrong. I then watched on tv as the first moon landing was made. After that, I assumed that the government would always have enough money to explore space, put up a space station. In the 40's and 50's, the space shuttle in it's present form was not expected, or put forth in the ideas of what the future of space travel would be like. Buck Rogers [allposters.com] had a spaceship that looked like a real space ship. I had expected the first powered space ship would go beyond Earth, to at least the Moon. The Apollo craft were shot into space, and guided themselves into place around the moon, using small rockets, with no comparison to the power of the Space Shuttle rocket motors. One would think that the Space Shuttle could go out far beyond the Moon, just for the fun of it, but with nothing there to see or do, then no mission.

          Even so, the Space Shuttle is an amazing vehicle, and has had a long and dangerous history, now to continue for a while longer. Fixing the Hubble telescope [hubblesite.org] was one of the good moments, how cool that was. Concerning the Shuttle accidents, I suppose we did always expect space ships to be destroyed, but by enemy alien spacecraft, death rays, or something. The idea of a space ship that would have design flaws, or push the limits of their design, was not commonly entertained. Most of what we kids knew came from comic books, so the idea of orbiting satellites was not even there, or the lumbering space truck that the Space Shuttle seems to resemble, wasn't in comic books either.

          Too bad that there is so little of the national budget spend on space exploration, we all wanted "men on mars" by now.

          No one needs to take the Shuttle Program [nasa.gov] for granted, it is one of a kind, and one wonders if funding will be available for something to take it's place.

          • As a child of the 80's I feel the same way to some extent. However, space travel is still a very new technology. To compare it to nautical development, the sail was just developed last week, and as yet we haven't even left the harbor..

          • The idea of a space ship that would have design flaws, or push the limits of their design, was not commonly entertained.

            How very true! Indeed, it was because of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon that the gargantuan design flaw [nybooks.com] named "Space Shuttle" came into being.

            If those scifi serials hadn't taught a young Richard Nixon that spaceships were meant to be flown by men, we wouldn't have had this expensive albatross diverting so much money from real advancement.

  • The Space Shuttle is such a waste (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Steven Edwards ( 677151 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @07:45PM (#12083375)
    Compare the cost to launch per pound via a rocket vs the Shuttle. The Shuttle has turned in to one of the most wasteful pork projects the US has undertaken. I am all for porkbarrel spending in space such as a moon base or mars mission but this project has got to be killed.
    • The shuttle served its mission but is ending its useful life now. NASA should have started ten years ago thinking about a new system but they thought they could keep extending the life of the shuttle. Which they can but at what cost. Right now space shuttles would be more cost effective as museum exhibits than anything else.

      There has been some good stuff coming out of the space shuttle and space station but I would rather see a permanent colony on the moon, that is something that could truely benefit man.

      • Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @08:17PM (#12083707) Homepage

        but I would rather see a permanent colony on the moon, that is something that could truely benefit man.

        I'm really quite curious as to how this will benefit man? Unless you're mining for He-3, what would we be doing on a moon base? It's not zero-G (or micro-gravity which is the more accruate/preferred term) so any long-term human microgravity experiments are out. Re-fueling inter-planetary spacecraft? Maybe, though I don't know if it's really worth it or not in terms of launch costs since you could probbably equally launch a seperate fuel payload from earth. (Compare that cost to maintaing an entire moon base). We originally went to the moon as a political show of power over the Soviet Union, and because the space program was a good way to get everyone onboard funding balistic missile technology. Now that the cold war is over, what's the impetus?

        My point is there has to be a tangible goal for having a moon base that isn't more easily achieved by other means. The cool sci-fi factor just isn't enough.
        • Moon dosn't make much sense as a refuling station... at least not in terms of chemical systems. Takes almost the same Delta V to go to the moon as to mars. So to go to the moon and to mars takes almost double the Delta V. In other words why drive somewhere to fill up a tank of gass to go somwhere else if you could have just driven straight there with the first tank of gas? Remember, distances vrs fuel requirements don't work the same in squirt and coast interplanetary travel as they do driving down the high
        • He3 is not a very good idea - you would have to process hundreds of tons of rock to extract just a tiny little bit. And we still don't know how to do it. Solar + fission makes more sense on the Moon. Energy-efficience plus safer fission and Deuterium fusion make more sense here. Perhaps solar transported by hydrogen (solar electrolysis of water and using hydrogen as a storage/transport medium) also makes sense.

          The far side of the moon seems a natural place to put radiotelescopes that would not suffer any i
        • Colony = Humankind and life beyond Earth
    • Yes the space shuttle has to be decomissioned, but for the near future, it's the only way we've got to finish the space station. If we abandon that, then we won't have come close to getting our money's worth out of it. Unfortunately, that project has fallen terribly far behind schedule and over budget, and is becoming a pork barrel of its own.

    • Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Rei ( 128717 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @08:10PM (#12083639) Homepage
      Shuttle payload: 27,500 kg to LEO
      Shuttle launch costs: Varied; generally believed to be 350-450m$
      Price per kg: ~15k$/kg
      Price per kg for Pegasus: ~25k$/kg
      Price per kg for Saturn-V: ~20k$/kg (modern dollars)
      Price per kg for Ariane-V: ~10k$/kg
      Price per kg for Proton: ~7k$/kg (modern dollars)

      Honestly, for when it was designed in the US, it's only so-so in terms of cost effectiveness. It doesn't beat Russian costs by a long shot, and European costs are cheaper too (although they benefit from modern rocket design, unlike the old Protons).

      Now, lets mention the shuttle's orbital maneuvering capabilities and cargo return capability (something that has really been problematic for ISS - Soyuz has been unable to take its trash back as fast as it builds up), and the fact that it's man rated.

      Then, lets mention how shuttle launch costs are calculated. They take the shuttle's annual launch budget and divide by the average number of launches per year. However, there's a problem with that: a sizable chunk of the shuttle's budget goes toward research on improvements (which will have benefits to its successors); in short, part of the shuttle's ongoing costs are really just R&D.

      Most importantly, however, is to look at the history of the shuttle. Its budget was almost halved during development; it's pretty impressive that they came out with anything at all. The reduced capital costs led to most of the problems they've had so far: instead of a titanium frame, they used aluminum, which gives a ~40% worse payload ratio and requires an elaborate, espensive to maintain, and damage-risky TPS. They used SRBs because they pretty much already existed. They used a nonflyback main tank because it was cheaper to develop. Etc.

      A next gen reusable, if given proper capital costs, should be an incredibly impressive vehicle. You get a greater payload, almost no fatigue wear, a very simple (and cheap to maintain) TPS, greater resistance to debris damage, and many other benefits that will hugely reduce cost per kilogram. Combined with a reusable main tank, next-generation engines (there have been a lot of advancements in reduced maintenance and performance since the SSMEs were designed), etc, we're looking at cost per launch being a small fraction of what it is presently.

      The shuttle should be seen as a test bed; they've done a lot of great research in the shuttle program (especially concerning engines - a lot of the modern, low-cost US rockets have really benefitted from SSME research), and now it's time to move on to a next gen reusable craft. Some people argue that disposables are the only answer; however, even if you can justify mass production of a single rocket line, there's only so far you can go with disposables. There are too many parts to be machined, too much labor, too much material, etc. Fuel is incredibly cheap by comparison, and there is no reason why the maintenance costs on reusables can't being lowered greatly.

      • a very simple (and cheap to maintain) TPS

        At long last, pay off for those thankless mounds of TPS reports.
      • Honestly, for when it was designed in the US, it's only so-so in terms of cost effectiveness.

        And the chart only tells half the story. When the STS program came on, development on other launch vehicles slowed drastically or stopped completely.

        It's rather like you're comparing 1960s rockets with a 1990s shuttle, because the shuttle is benefiting from the decades of R&D it received while expendable vehicles stagnated.

        If the ELVs had gotten equal usage and investment as the STS did, then their numbers

  • Feynmann predicted 1/50 rate of failure (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PxM ( 855264 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @07:47PM (#12083388)
    when he was part of the Challenger investigation team. Hopefully, this means that the chance of another accident is improbable given NASA's desire to phase out the Shuttle and replace it with something more 21st century. Hopefully the winds won't change and the Shuttle will be replaced with something better before the next accident. NASA should really start pushing for more private groups to do this rather than just handing out paltry prizes. Or maybe the Chinese will end up giving NASA the drive it needs to get a working space program. China's economy isn't on the rocks like the USSR during the space race so they would actually be able to compete with us.

    --
    Want a free iPod? [freeipods.com]
    Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. [freegamingsystems.com] (you only need 4 referrals)
    Wired article as proof [wired.com]
    • Here's what Feynman had to say back in 1986. In response to a comment I read about 1/50 meaning that we're unlikely to have another shuttle accident before the fleet is retired, remember that there's two SRBs, so 1/50 failure rate translates to 1/25. STS-51L (the doomed 1986 Challenger flight) was the 25th launch. See also the Gambler's Fallacy. [wikipedia.org]

      An estimate of the reliability of solid rockets was made by the range safety officer, by studying the experience of all previous rocket flights. Out of a total o

      • That number is way off today. Since Challenger, the whole Solid Rocket Motor industry has improved their practices to greatly increase safety. For example, since Challenger, there have been about 90 succesful shuttle flights with 2 solids each. The GEM-40s used on Delta IIs have been flown succesful on 99 flights (unsuccesfully on 1). There are typically 9 GEM-40s on a Delta II, and there have been close to 800 flown succesfully and one failure. That's a LOT better than 1/25 or 1/100. There were some proble
    • NASA should really start pushing for more private groups to do this rather than just handing out paltry prizes.

      Unfortunately, merit-based funding of private projects and pork-barrel politics are rather at odds with each other.

    • NBL (Score:2)

      by JJ ( 29711 )
      . . . maybe the Chinese will end up giving NASA the drive it needs to get a working space program. China's economy isn't on the rocks like the USSR during the space race so they would actually be able to compete with us.

      China's space technology is virtually an exact copy of what they got from us due to their friendship with Bill Clinton. They haven't 'advanced' the tech one iota since he left office. They've completed projects they've had planned, but their science isn't on a par with NASA by a long shot.

    • Re:ISS Schedule (Score:3, Interesting)

      by deglr6328 ( 150198 )
      7 years ago when that site went up initially it had the finish date as being this year. Now, everything past the next two flights is "under review". nice. Prediction of time remaining untill cancellation of project completion by congress (a la SSC): 2 years. Prediction of time remaining untill cancellation of all project funding and decision to deorbit: 5-7 years.(though I hope I'm wrong) When the first parts of the ISS started to go up I was in high school and while I can't say that I actually found the m
  • NASA only has one strike left before they're out of the game.

    If they lose one more shuttle, they'll never fly again.

    My prayers will be with the astronauts.

    It's waaaay past time to build those unmanned heavy lifters and redundant crew vehicles.

  • How far behind? (Score:4, Funny)

    by pavon ( 30274 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @07:49PM (#12083415)
    how far behind is the space station at this point?

    Hehe, when I was in elementary school I remember hearing about how great the space station (then S.S. Freedom) was going to be when it was built. Expected completion date - the late 80's.

    • Re:How far behind? (Score:5, Funny)

      by ari_j ( 90255 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @07:57PM (#12083508)
      And when I was in high school we learned about what a lazy bunch of bastards everyone was in the 80s. ;)

    • Hehe, when I was in elementary school I remember hearing about how great the space station (then S.S. Freedom) was going to be when it was built.

      One quick point - the S.S. Freedom never happened. ISS is not the same project.

      Your parents also heard about space stations and space tourism. 2001: A Space Odyssey was the not-so-distant future. Yet here we are in 2005 and no massive orbiting space stations launching deep-space research projects. No flying cars either.

  • May 15... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @07:49PM (#12083417) Homepage Journal
    "The Discovery rolled over from the Orbiter Processing Facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center this morning. May 15th is the scheduled launch for STS-114.

    May 15th!?!?!? It'll be out of date by then and they'll have to upgrade everything!

    I was at NASA last month and got to see the payload for the space station thru lots of glass and I have to wonder, how far behind is the space station at this point?"

    Not to worry, maintenance and such have been outsourced to Venus.

  • Missed watching the launches (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LiNKz ( 257629 ) * on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @07:50PM (#12083432) Homepage Journal
    To be honest, I look forward to this launch. In the past five years we have had terrorist attacks, wasted wars, and sad accidents.. and I really miss watching the launches too. I'm going to enjoy this launch.. and you know, it is good that we're still going up, instead of becoming too scared to tinker and explore.

  • Not far behind (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @07:55PM (#12083486)
    thru lots of glass and I have to wonder, how far behind is the space station at this point?"

    Not very far behind...the Russians, whose Soyuz system is "decades behind ours", and have had almost 2,000 successful launches with it, have been very helpful in keeping the ISS going. I have also heard that they (the Russians) have been giving us some technical ideas on how to deal with the complexities of space travel. Of course NASA administrators will not admit this.

    • I have also heard that they (the Russians) have been giving us some technical ideas on how to deal with the complexities of space travel.

      I've heard the Grey have been providing us with technical ideas on how to deal with the complexities of space travel for years.
      Of course NASA administrators will not admit this.

      Of course not! Then they'd have to use words like "partners" to describe the Russians.

    • Re:Not far behind (Score:5, Informative)

      by tmortn ( 630092 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @09:26PM (#12084455) Homepage
      Not very far behind ? Not quite sure how you arrive at that notion. We were supposed to be about 20-24 some odd launches along by now and I think either just have or just about to deliver the last bit of core complete construction payloads. At a launch rate of 10 a year that is almost 2 and half years behind if we start launching at the same rate we were before columbia which was the heavist launch schedule in the entire history of the Shuttle program.

      Soyuz kept Station manned.... barely. We had to cut to two crew because they could not have supplied 3. Science upmass is all but nothing. 50kg or some such silly pathetic amount. Not knocking it but the program has not advanced in the interim. It has survived on a minimal existence.

      Station is VERY behind. To the point where it is a very real possibility that its usefull completed life will be less than half of its planned life. It quite possibly will never house its inteded full crew complement of 7 for any longer than shuttle docking events. You want to know something crazy about that? If the Russians build and deliver their lab (doubtful at this point) and the COF and JEM get delivered, we will have more Labs (4) on Station than Crew (3).
      • The reason that the ISS will never house more than 3 permanent crewmen is because NASA cancelled the Crew Return Vehicle, which was supposed to act as lifeboat for up to 9 people. Because thats now cancelled, we are relying on the venerable Soyuz docked with the ISS to act as lifeboat, and of course it can only carry 3 people.
    • the Russians, whose Soyuz system is "decades behind ours", and have had almost 2,000 successful launches with it

      The Soyuz booster has had more than 1600 launches. With a 97.5% success rate. Note that not all (or even most) of these launches were manned. There were 89 manned Soyuz launches, of which two failed (well, more than two failed, but only two resulted in loss of crews. 97.7% success rate)

      The SST has done 113 flights, with a 98.2% success rate.

  • Didn't count? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by StratoChief66 ( 841584 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @07:56PM (#12083490) Homepage
    From the NASA site: The last shuttle mission to visit the ISS during 2002 was STS-113, which delivered the Expedition 6 crew and the P1 (P-One) Truss. The STS-113 crew performed three spacewalks to activate and outfit the P1 after it was attached to the port side of the S0 Truss. Expedition Five returned to Earth on Endeavour, wrapping up a six-month stay in space. Following the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle fleet was grounded. Four crew exchanges have occurred since then using Soyuz spacecraft instead of Shuttles. NASA is targeting no earlier than Spring 2005 for Shuttle's Return to Flight with Discovery flying for STS-114. Ok, STS-113 in 2002, crash in 2003, now the next one is STS-114? What is the designation for the one that crashed? Is it only counted if it lands? Not Flamebait, just curious. Did the other crash not count?

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @08:04PM (#12083575)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Is it because Columbia was not going to the station?
      The thing is it would have not even been able to reach station's orbit. Columbia belonged to the museum and not to the launch pad. I wonder what was the point of having a space station AND STILL sending Columbia on a "stand-alone" mission?

      • Re:Didn't count? (Score:5, Informative)

        by nbehary ( 140745 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @08:25PM (#12083788)
        I think it's more because that mission, STS-107, had been delayed several times. If you look back, a lot of the missions were flown out of order. And 107 was always purely scientific, so Columbia was a "good" choice, since the mission didn't need to go to ISS.

        • Re:Didn't count? (Score:4, Informative)

          by tmortn ( 630092 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @10:25PM (#12084899) Homepage
          Also the reason those 'pure science' missions remained for columbia were two fold. ONE, as mentioned it couldn't take much payload to ISS orbit due to its heavier design weight as the first orbiter. TWO, it provided a science environment we were in charge of... unlike station which is an international effort.

          Those science only missions for Shuttle should have been rolled into the ISS program and the shuttle fleet dedicated to its design specific task of supporting a space station. For those with short memories, Shuttle was in fact largely designed to support skylab and other as yet unconstructed space stations. Not to run as a science platform itself. The orbital payload delivery/recovery abilities are that of a support vehicle that was expected to spend minimal time in orbit and have a quick turn around. This was opposed to say the long mission durations desireable by a science facility. The payload bay science lab was a direct result of the shuttle program failing to get off the ground in time to save skylab from burning up in re-entry. When that happend they developed the science lab 'payload' and turned shuttle into an ad hoc orbital science facility that could only operate for a couple weeks at a time.

          As things worked out a new station design didn't get off the drawing boards till the late 90's with the start of building the ISS. This means shuttles interim adhoc science ability has been utilized for far longer than it was even thought a shuttle would last. At least in terms of years. None of the shuttles have even come close to the end of the designed life cycle of 100 or so missions. Hell the whole program itself didn't pass 100 missions till 2001. So now almost everyone thinks it is a bad thing that shuttle only exists to go to station when in fact that was the whole idea to begin with.

    • Re:Didn't count? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Bad Vegan ( 723708 )
      If I recall (brother of a good friend is an astronaut), the flights are numbered when they are scheduled and sometimes the schedule changes, but the numbers don't. Think of it like a project plan, with each task given a separate number. The task may move within the overall schedule, but to make sure you're all referring to the same task you use the "absolute" number assigned, even if it's out of order with numbers of tasks that occur before it in "relative" terms. Man, I just used way too many characters t

    • Re:Didn't count? (Score:5, Informative)

      by B747SP ( 179471 ) <slashdot@selfabusedelephant.com> on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @09:21PM (#12084407)
      The Challenger incident (you Americans like to call it 'disaster' apparently!) was mission STS-51-L. The Columbia incident was mission STS-107.

      AFAICS, NASA assigns a new mission number pretty much every time someone gets it in his head that it would be a good idea to fly a mission to achive "x". In practice, not all missions that are assigned numbers actually fly - some get canned for various reasons. Missions don't necessarily fly in numerical order. Various reasons - delays, political expediency, changing degrees of importance, readiness of payload, crew, shuttle to fly, etc, etc, cause missions to occur out of sequence sometimes.

    • Re:Didn't count? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Jivecat ( 836356 )
      If you think flying missions out of numerical order is confusing, you'll love the numbering system NASA used for the 10th thru 25th launches. Take Challenger as an example, 51-L. The 5 was the intended year of launch, 1985, even though the flight was moved into January 1986. The 1 stands for the launch site, KSC, even though the SLC-6 pad at Vandenberg AFB in California (site 2) was never completed. The L gives the flight order for that year, so it was intended as the 12th launch of 1985, but even if it

  • Far Behind...!?!?!? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by furiousgeorge ( 30912 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @07:59PM (#12083531)
    >>I have to wonder, how far behind is the space station at this point?

    Behind? It doesn't do anything! There hasn't been a single useful scientific thing produced with the billions that have been pumped into that flying white elephant.

    Seriously - you should look into it. It's a flying joke but NASA keeps pouring good money after bad for why knows why...

    And yet Hubble is going to be dropped into the ocean, monitoring of the Voyageur probes is being cancelled, and we're thinking about sending people to the moon?!? Jesus christ. NASA is such a joke.
    • " monitoring of the Voyageur probes is being cancelled"

      Monitoring of this was cancelled years ago, dude. Everyone had long since gotten tired of Janeway's "Stevie Nicks but can't sing" voice and Neelix's makeup that made him look just like Ron Howard.


    • Behind? It doesn't do anything! There hasn't been a single useful scientific thing produced with the billions that have been pumped into that flying white elephant.

      Very true, but to be fair it hasn't done anything because it isn't completed. They don't have enough room for crew to both take care of maintenance, and do any experiments.

      I'm still not certain there will be any science that'll ever come out of it. But I'd love someone to show me otherwise.
      • Very true, but to be fair it hasn't done anything because it isn't completed. They don't have enough room for crew to both take care of maintenance, and do any experiments.

        I'm afraid if they had more room on that thing they would need MORE crewmembers to take care of the extra maintenance!
    • how about leaving the science to the scientists and not some trolls on slashdot?

      mkay, thanks!

    • Still has uses... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by spagetti_code ( 773137 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @09:00PM (#12084200)
      If we cannot build and maintain a space station, we will have no chance at flying to Mars, establishing a base on the Moon, or even just living safely outsite the Van Allen [nasa.gov] belt.

      The Space Station has taught us a lot, including:

      • How to live [nsbri.org] in space
      • How triple component redundancy may not be enough [cnn.com] with current technology.
      • How we don't have a safe and reusable way to fly there yet
      On top of that, the occasional experiment [nasa.gov] is done there too.

      Again - if we can't get this right, whats the chance of living on the moon or mars in our lifetime?

      • Re:Still has uses... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Altima(BoB) ( 602987 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @09:40PM (#12084568)
        On top of all that, it's a superb launching point for the mass exodus of the rich and famous to the Illuminati's colony on Planet X when the engineered Bird Flu virus becomes a pandemic.

        But really, despite stupid jokes made at 2:30am, I think that research on extended stays in zero G are practically essential for the future of the spacefaring human race. In zero G, the structure of bone itself begins to weaken and deteriorate along with muscle atrophy due to the sheer ease of movement in zero G. The reason we've had no problems with that is because no one has really stayed in space for all that long. Any trip to another planet (Probably Mars, certainly anything further) will have definite health risks for all crew involved once they come under the influence of gravity again. On top of that, I think psychological studies on the ISS would be valuable, because of the rather unique environment there. Even though human beings have explored in less-than-comfortable vessels before, the kind of physical and mental isolation in space must be fairly unique, and I'd imagine it would be a huge pressure for anyone up there too long.

        Anyway, whatever research the ISS has or hasn't done in the past, we can't forget its potential, and for me the most fascinating potential is studying Space's relationship with the human body and mind.
      • If we cannot build and maintain a space station,

        True, but it is a fallacy to assume that building and maintaining the ISS does anything to improve our ability to build a functioning station. Instead, I claim that it is diverting funds from R&D investment prerequisite to even making the attempt.

        The Space Station has taught us a lot, including:

        First, there is no such thing as "The Space Station".

        How to live in space

        Space survival isn't especially difficult. We'd already deduced the needs on

  • The Payload's Names (Score:5, Funny)

    by camusflage ( 65105 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @08:13PM (#12083658)
    From TFA: There are three MPLMs (Multi-Purpose Logistics Module), named Raffaello, Leonardo and Donatello.

    What, Michaelangelo didn't deserve top billing? I'll bet it was the orange bandanna.. What about Krang? I'm just glad to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the air again!

  • Core Complete (Score:5, Interesting)

    by J05H ( 5625 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @08:23PM (#12083758)
    This Station has two theoretical "finishes": Core Complete and a more nebulous Assembly Complete. Originally, the station (Reagan's Freedom) was to be finished in 1994, then 1998, then it got redesigned. It has only gotten more complicated since then. It may be like Fusion power and Commodore's release schedules - station will always be finished 10 years from now.

    At this point, it really depends on what you define "Core Complete" as.

    There are some potential roadblocks toward getting the European Columbus, Japanese Kibo and the US Centrifuge flown. NASA is already looking at mothballing the first two (finished) modules and not building the Centrifuge. The Shuttle has been having groundings for various reasons since the late 90s (maintenance, fuel line cracks and Columbia RIP) - there is no guarantee that the fleet can fly through 2010.

    It's time to stop talking about "The Space Station" and start talking about space stations. Bigelow Aerospace is about to one-up the X-Prize with the America's Space Prize and their Nautilus inflatable stations. They want to sell the final modules to any party that can afford one, all backed up by a billionaire with some Vision. The idea of the One True Space Dock is so Cold War. We are quickly approaching a new age of exploration and human frontiers, companies like Scaled, Bigelow, SpaceDev and SpaceX are going to enable this. NASA needs to stop doing operations and get on with exploring, or their going to get swept aside -- lead, follow or get out of the way.

    • Re:Core Complete (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tmortn ( 630092 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @10:35PM (#12084988) Homepage
      Very very good points. Almost wish I hadn't been posting so I could mod you up.

      Also can't say I disagree with the mothballing. Without the already scrapped Crew Hab, if we launch COF and JEM we will have one lab per Crew. And if the Russians actually built their facility we would have more labs than crew. Considering that as is it takes about 2.5 crew to run maintenence we might have more maintence hours than crew time available unless they don't sleep.

      If they want to do this I think NASA should be all over those inflatable habs. Hell it is their idea to begin with and this guy has gone and built them. Try one out. If it works BAM, crew hab or if nothing else it might provide a space for tourists and solve the probelm of NASA getting its panties in a wad whenever the Russians sell a seat on a Soyuz flight.

  • May 15th? (Score:3, Informative)

    by RonBurk ( 543988 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @08:25PM (#12083783) Homepage Journal
    The hot-linked phrase "scheduled launch for STS-114" took me to a page that nowhere claims that May 15th is the scheduled launch date. Now I am left to wonder whether "Zonk" really found a declared launch date, or just confused the first day of the launch window (which does start on May 15th) with an actual statement that NASA is now targeting that specific day.

  • May 15th? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dirtside ( 91468 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @09:02PM (#12084217) Journal
    It's no coincidence that they're taking off four days before Episode III premieres. They don't want to risk being killed in the Nerd Riots of '05 [pvponline.com] should Lucas screw the pooch once again.
    • The key is to have enough Americans in space at the time of the riots that, after everyone down here dies, they can return to Earth and repopulate the planet. Because sex in space is far more interesting than star wars have become.

  • Clicking the "the payload for the space station" [nasa.gov] link in the submission takes you to a page about Liliana Villarreal, with a prominent photo of her smiling in a clean suit.

    All I'd like to know is, what sort of experiments are they planning to do with her, exactly? ;)

  • ... from the Stating The Obvious files, comes an image of the current shuttle crew and their affinity for their current location behind the shuttle.

    http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/images/medium /0 5pd0490-m.jpg

  • The ISS is right on target delivering pork rolls wrapped in shiny foil to the right congressional districts.

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