Space Shuttles almost Ready to Re-Launch 279
stagmeister writes "CNN and Space.com are reporting that the Return to Flight Task Group, the overseeing committee that determines when the Space Shuttles can go back into space, has reported that the only items blocking the Shuttles are issues 'related to tank debris, orbiter hardening and tile repair.' They plan to re-meet in later this month to finalize their decision. However, 'NASA has made clear it intends to resume shuttle flights with the repair capabilities it has in hand without knowing for sure whether they would work in an emergency.' Would you want your children flying a space shuttle that hasn't been properly beta-tested?"
Definition of a non-story: (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFS:
Um....aren't those problems the reason the Shuttles were grounded in the first place???
Also from TFS:
Well...does this 'Return to Flight Task Group' have the authority to ground the flights?
From TFA:
Apparently, they don't.
Remind me exactly why we had a 'Return to Flight Task Group' again...
Re:Definition of a non-story: (Score:5, Informative)
Task Group CYA (Score:3, Funny)
" This spacecraft was designed using science. Science is an unproven theory, nor is it mentioned in the Bible, so weigh these facts carefully and with skepticism as you decide if you are in with Jesus enough to ride the Shuttle without blowing up. "
Re:Definition of a non-story: (Score:5, Informative)
One of the biggest problems is testing. It's not like we have an extra shuttle to launch, punch a couple holes in, and have reenter. They do the best that they can on Earth, and will be doing more in-space tests on the first launch.
As for "what authority" the task force has, NASA safety boards generally have a lot more independence and authority than the equivalents in Russia, even before the accident. Without the board signing off, Congress won't be happy at all. There have been a lot of problems on ISS involving the Russians doing things like bring unapproved batteries onboard, or firing Progress rocket engines for an attitude-changing maneuver before the gyroscopes had been confirmed to be off, etc, that have led to a lot of major safety concerns.
Honestly, I feel sorry for the people who signed off on the safety of the Columbia launch: every other safety board in the shuttle's history, including those during the ones early in the Shuttle program. Furthermore, most, if not all, other hydrogen-fuelled rockets (for example, Arianne) have used similar insulation systems, and while most haven't had side-mounted payloads, they have had components that foam could have damaged. It's a good thing that this research is being done.
They've had a lot of blame heaped on them, when the shuttle has overall had a pretty darn impressive safety record - about equivalent to Soyuz (same % of craft losses, greater total casualties but far greater human launches). Its cost record, of course, is something different all together, and that is what justifies replacing this first-generation reusable with a second-generation craft that can take advantage of everything learned.
Re:Definition of a non-story: (Score:2)
Re:Definition of a non-story: (Score:5, Interesting)
It did not. It was an insulator, not a dissipator (and there are much better insulators out there). There is a huge difference. On the skin of your craft, you must radiate the heat away; there is no concievable way that you could simply insulate from the orbital energy that you build up.
Shuttle tiles are still the best thermal radiators in existence. The reason is that they use a ceramic which is a good radiator on its own, and have it be made of fine threads in a very porous style so that it has a huge surface area.
this sentence is missing something
Yeah, I noticed that after I posted. It should have continued "signed off as well".
still only on the first gen of a partially re-usable orbital launcher
Well, it has changed a lot since its original form, but yes. However, look at the development cost of the shuttle in modern dollars. Few military projects have that sort of budget (although a few do...). Then look at how much money the US military gets in comparison to NASA (a very sad fact, in my opinion). It's no real surprise
Re:Definition of a non-story: (Score:4, Informative)
That's not how they work.
You can't lose significant heat by radiation during reentry- you're surrounded by plasma at ridiculous temperatures, to lose heat you would have to be as hot or hotter than that. Bad, bad idea, you're trying not to get hot!
No. Here's tiles 1.0.1. The ceramic shuttle tiles have high temperature resistance, but very low heat capacity. When they are at red heat because of the low heat capacity you can pick them with your bare fingers (provided you hold it by the corners!) because there's little energy there and so your fingers can conduct the heat away without burning; your fingers cool the ceramic down rather than it heating your fingers up. They also have reasonably low thermal conductivity which helps. The idea is that the tiles get hot, but not as hot as the plasma, and the vehicle conducts the small amount of heat away. So they don't radiate, they just don't absorb much.
All very clever, but it's been a disaster, the tiles are too flipping fragile (they would be destroyed flying through rain), they get damaged on every flight, and they are outrageously expensive to replace. Some tiles can take a week to replace because you have to work from the back of the wing forwards, removing all the tiles, fix the tile and then put them all back again.
The Only Things? (Score:3, Insightful)
NASA needs to recognize that, despite its technical sophistication, the shuttle is too dangerous to operate. It would be better to ship smaller components into space and assemble the equipment in low earth orbit with robots rather than continue to force this orbiter to operate in a manner that risks humans.
The idea that if NASA abandons the shuttle that human spaceflight will stop is crap, despite what the television special claims. I'm sure that the NASA shuttle managers would like everyone to believe this propaganda, but the Europeans, Japanese, Chinese, and others are unlikely to give up on space flight just because NASA dumps the shuttle.
Re:The Only Things? (Score:5, Interesting)
"the shuttle is too dangerous to operate"
Considering that we've only lost about 1 in 50 shuttles, I'd say its an extremely safe machine for what it does. The losses of ships in the early settling of the new world were far greater than 1 in 50. If our ancestors had felt 1 in 50 was too dangerous, the new world would never have been found.
If the shuttle were designed to provide a one way trip to orbit, I'd bet you could find plenty of takers.
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2, Insightful)
Which is what? Put payloads into low Earth orbit?
Can you tell me that the shuttle is safer than other payload delivery systems?
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
Yeah the Zenit-3SL sea launch currently uses is pretty cool, but umm its only been flying since 1999, the shuttle has been flying since the 80s.
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
The Saturn V flew in the 1960s and didn't lose a single passenger during flight.
You asked whether there were safer delivery vehicles and I gave you one.
You don't like the one I gave you, then tell me why it isn't acceptable (other than the fact that it hasn't flown as long).
The fact that it doesn't require a human passenger makes it inherently safe.
Re:The Only Things? (Score:5, Informative)
How so? Vehicles that carry humans aboard have to be human rated. Ie they have to be designed with much stricter tolerances, much more paperwork, higher quality, and so on. Not to mention the Russian Kliper is most likely going to be launched on top of a Zenit rocket anyways. The fact that it doesn't require a human passenger just means that no one is going to die unless the rocket explodes on the pad or crashes into someone's house.
You don't like the one I gave you, then tell me why it isn't acceptable (other than the fact that it hasn't flown as long).
I didn't say it wasn't acceptable, but like I did say, the Zenit 3S-L has only flown about 12 times, the Zenit-2 less then two dozens flights where it HAS blown up at least once. Not to mention, the Zenit only carries about 10tons into orbit, while the Space Shuttle Stack carries well over 130tons into orbit!(30 or so tons of payload)
You should also not forget that Columbia didn't blow up during launch, it failed during re-entry. Only Challenger was lost during launch and that could have easily been avioded if they decided to wait until it had gotten warmer(Although they did make the shuttle stack more reliable after that event)
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
It can't kill anyone if it doesn't carry anyone.
The fact that it doesn't require a human passenger just means that no one is going to die unless the rocket explodes on the pad or crashes into someone's house.
Then there isn't *any* launch vehicle that is safe under that criteria.
Re:The Only Things? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Saturn V did well. How many times did it fly? A dozen? Maybe a few more? Fire off a hundred of them, we'll see if the record stays consistent.
It's sort of silly to make comparisons of that sort to the shuttle, because there's not really anything else like it. I think the parent comment's main point was that, while not 100%, the shuttle is pretty damn good in the safety department, and seems to be within the realm of acceptable risk. And if you're not down with acceptable risk, then space flight is not the business for you to be in.
There are plenty of reasons to replace the space shuttle, but safety is not at the top of the list.
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
'the Shuttle has a very good safety record for what it does' This means getting crew, orbiter and payload into orbit and getting the crew and itself safely back. That's the only thing it can mean and that is what it does mean. The shuttle cannot be controlled remotely (unlike it's never-flown russian counterpart!). So any comparison to a non-crewed launcher is flawed.
"It is not essential for humans to be in the spacecraft to deliver payloads."
True....b
Re:The Only Things? (Score:3, Interesting)
On August 10, 1519, the fleet of five ships under Magellan's command left Seville and traveled south from the Guadalquivir River to San Lucar de Barrameda at the mouth of the rivers, where they remained more than five weeks. Spanish authorities were wary of the Portuguese admiral and almost prevented Magellan from sailing, but on September 20, Magellan set sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with 270 men.
18 men returned to Seville with the Victor
Re:The Only Things? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
I'm glad that those 18 men aren't here to witness our present stance towards exploration - IF THERE'S MUCH OF A CHANCE PEOPLE WILL DIE DON'T DO IT, INSTEAD WATCH THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL!
You know that they'd be jeering 'hey ya pussies, why aren't you on Mars yet?'.
Get your facts right. Re:The Only Things? (Score:4, Informative)
You've messed up the difference between safety and reliability. The shuttle reliability is 2%- 1 in 50, but the safety is actually only 95.5% (4.5% deathrate) because they put different numbers of astronauts on some of the shuttles (the first launch only had 2 crew for example, and some of the defense-related launches had reduced crew also), but both times they blew up, they had a full crew onboard. If you do the maths, it's about a 4.5% fatality rate.
Shuttle is actually more than twice as dangerous than Soyuz (overall), furthermore Soyuz hasn't had any deaths at all in about 30 years, and none with the current version that seats 3. The reason Soyuz is safer is because they had all the really deadly problems early on when they only risked small crews, whereas the Shuttle is more brittle, and kills at random (hence more likely to kill a large crew).
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
Sure, it has made one-way trips twice before.
Re:The Only Things? (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, it's the "technical sophistication" that's the problem here. We make this stuff too hard to fly. If you look at this history of the program, the shuttle got it's initial funding because it was thought that it could fly every conceivable mission. That's like saying that you need a car that can carry people, haul dirt, and move cargo. Sorry, but we build different land-based vehicles for
Re:The Only Things? (Score:3, Funny)
Really, if you want a kickass spacecraft, make something that only has to function in space. Then wrap it up inside a big rocket, and have that put your ship up into space.
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
Yeah, those stupid Mars rovers.
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
Yeah, those stupid Mars rovers.
Yeah, I agree that the rovers are GREAT robots. But, currently, they're the best tool for the job. If it were more feasible to put men on Mars, then I guarantee you that they would produce more good science than the rovers. While robots are great for certain things, they are no substitue for human instinct, intuition, and intellect. Simply put, robots aren't always the right tool for every job.
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
Which job? Launching payloads into space?
I don't see how you support that statement with facts.
If it were more feasible to put men on Mars, then I guarantee you that they would produce more good science than the rovers.
A little proof would be helpful.
Tell me which of the various Mars programs past an present would have been better with a human involved. The only thing that *I* could come up with is petrographic sampling.
While robots are great for c
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
Yes, because the Mars rovers launch payloads into space. Can you atleast try to keep up with your troll?
Re:The Only Things? (Score:3, Interesting)
Quite true. On the other hand, when even the budget of one craft design was cut dramatically partway through, how could they have afforded multiple craft designs?
The big problem is that reusable was seen as a big win. Sure, you'd have higher initial costs, but the incremental costs would be small - or so they thought. It was pictured that we could reduce maintenance costs down to very low levels that never materialized. With these "ult
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
The rest (crew/experiment return) could be handled with what the Hermes was supposed to do. Burt Rutan has shown that the concept works.
When you think about it, there's only two (maybe three) vehicles needed, and they could concievably be unified in one design: crew transport, cargo transport and satelite transport.
I say just design a re-usa
Re:The Only Things? (Score:2)
Ask any NASA scientist and he'll tell you that all our question about mars could be answered within an hour by having a human on the ground there. We do it by robot because thats currently the only option. But that's expensive. And a robot won't tell you 'hey, this ground is moist!', or 'this looks odd, I know I can climb those rocks, I'
There Anything Left? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:There Anything Left? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There Anything Left? (Score:2)
Mostly because we've recently discovered that the sand traps will make golfing pure hell on Mars so we need investigate elsewhere.
Re:I did, and it's still a waste. (Score:5, Interesting)
Unlike our moon, the big red dead rock could potentially be a new colony for us. You may not care about that, but I personally enjoy the idea that man kind would no longer risk being completely obliterated by one nuclear war.
Taking me with them (Score:2)
One thing that would get the public interested would be to make spaceflight available to somebody other than a few dozen astronauts. The public has gotten pretty tired of living vicariously, which is why they don't watch shuttle launches any more (well, didn't even when there were some.) But they'd fund a few tens of billions if they thought it would eventually result in them personally going. Sadly, it'll cost way mo
Spirit of exploration wins out over safety a lot. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's face it, if the human race was as careful about other dangerous endeavors as it has been about space flight, we'd still be debating about whether it's a good idea to put those dang horseless carriages on the road, seeing as they don't think for themselves and all..
Re:Spirit of exploration wins out over safety a lo (Score:2, Funny)
It's probably more like a 5% chance that they WILL be coming back. Who cares? I'll go.
"Gentlemen, we need to know where we stand from a position of status. What do we got left on the ship that is good?" Gene Krantz
Re:Spirit of exploration wins out over safety a lo (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Spirit of exploration wins out over safety a lo (Score:5, Insightful)
You're strapping yourself to a gigantic tank of highly combustible fuel in containers made minimally thin (often so weak and with a taper that if you turn them upside down when full, they'd burst), pumped at ridiculous speeds into combustion chambers running hotter than the boiling point of iron, with the entire combustion chamber being gimballed at high speed to keep the craft stable, and hope that the vibration doesn't damage anything important.
In space, you're exposed to extreme temperature variations (and thus thermal expansion/contraction, brittleness, freezing fuel/hydraulic lines, etc), high radiation levels, parts and liquids shifting in zero-G, etc. On reentry, most of that energy that you burned off getting into space must be burned off by your craft, creating temperatures of thousands of degrees that would easily melt most materials, and give even many superalloys the texture of rubber.
Hundreds of thousands to millions of parts, each one with failure potential. Escape velocity requiring enough energy that even the highest ISP exhausts only leave the craft at a fraction of the velocity you need to end up going. A dense lower atmosphere. It's amazing that we can get people off this rock at all, as opposed to simple suborbital hops.
Re:Spirit of exploration wins out over safety a lo (Score:5, Informative)
Even if you're counting unmanned launches, though, your numbers still don't make sense. Please elaborate. There have been far more than 4.5 astronauts killed per launch (and what's up with the "%"?), because 2% of shuttle launches have ended in casualties, and each carried 7 astronauts. There have been ~1600 Soyuz launches, but little over a hundred manned launches, of which two involved fatalities, one with one death and one with three deaths. Your numbers, quite simply, make no sense. By the way - if you want to count total casualties of the Soyuz program, you need to add in the 50 technicians killed by an explosion of a Soyuz booster on the pad on March 18th, 1980. It's kind of ironic to think of it, but when you factor in ground crew deaths, even a mostly unmanned (and when manned, minimally manned) rocket like Soyuz could even have a higher death toll than the Shuttle on a per-flight basis, even with 1600 flights (it's hard to say for sure, with Soviet secrecy)
And if you want to talk about Soyuz's abort modes, you better talk about miracles. Remember Soyuz 18a? The crew went through a bloody 21.3g, and stopped just short of falling off a cliff. One person's internal injuries were so bad he never flew again. And even its normal operation can be disastrous - the much maligned "land via wings" approach of the shuttle prevented things happening to it like Soyuz 23, which broke through the surface of a frozen lake and nearly drowned its cosmonauts.
Re:Spirit of exploration wins out over safety a lo (Score:2)
Shuttle should fly again when the known & knowable risks have been adequately addressed. A standard of "would you let your child fly on it" is silly & overly conservative. There are many risks not appropriate for children which are undertaken by adults every day.
Re:Spirit of exploration wins out over safety a lo (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway, I'd rather die attempting to explore the universe outside of our little planet than die from cigerettes, cocaine or bigmacs.
Cue Helen Lovejoy! (Score:5, Funny)
Won't someone PLEASE think of the childen!
Hello, welcome to reality (Score:4, Insightful)
NASA, by its very essence, isn't able to test things in completely realistic environments. They spend huge amounts of time and energy doing what testing they can, but how in the world (or outside the world) can you test fixing a wing on a space shuttle? There are so many variables that it's insane to attempt
Sure, this makes NASA dangerous, but that's been known for decades. Space travel isn't as easy as driving to the supermarket just yet. Get over it.
Re:Hello, welcome to reality (Score:2)
Get rid of the wings. There are many designs that don't rely on wings that have nearly the same maneuverability as does the shuttle with much greater overall reliability. Is it any wonder that the Russians are the only nation with a regular spaceflight capability when what they're flying is essentially a sphere?
Re:Hello, welcome to reality (Score:2)
Re:Cue Helen Lovejoy! (Score:2)
I still want to see a shuttle take off. I've heard its impressive but somehow I don't think it will compare to Apollo 17
Re:Stowaway to the moon (Score:2)
Reads like The Early Times of Wesley Crusher...
^_^
Heck Yeah (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you see Contact? Remember the scene where Jody Foster sees something outside for the first time and they morph the childs face & voice onto her's as she describes what she is seeing?
I'd risk my life to see that, because I know we won't be living on the moon like I thought we would be in the 80s when I was in Jr. High.
Re:Heck Yeah (Score:2, Funny)
Uh... I think that's illegal.
Re:Heck Yeah (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Heck Yeah (Score:3, Interesting)
OK, like it or not, you've triggered a story:
When my sister was in Jr. High (which would've been 1979-1982 if I've done the math right), she had this woefully out of date science textbook. It had all kinds of crazy and laughable things in it, but the pinnacle was a little sidebar on space travel, which talked about the challenges man faced and what we had accom
Beta-testing (Score:4, Informative)
Screw that. If the chance of coming back alive is at least as good as it was on the 100+ other shuttle launches, I'd give almost anything to go myself. I guess some additional beta-testing might be nice, but how much will it cost?
There will always be risks (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, there are terrible airplane crashes every year, but do we shut down all commercial airflight until we can make it certain that flying has no risk?
On the flip side, we should do more to acknowledge the risks those space shuttle crews take every time they go up for even a "routine" mission.
TWR
Re:There will always be risks (Score:2)
The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo projects carried out all of their accomplishments without losing a single crew member during flight operations. Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were killed during testing on the ground. Apollo 13 nearly lost a crew, but the efforts of the mission control staff pulled their bacon o
Re:There will always be risks (Score:2)
EVERY single telecom company will dissagree with you. As will every national intelligence agency. As will quite a few material scientists I know of.
Dude, you are full of shit. Not only that, but you are risk averse (which might not be a bad thing, nesseccarily). If it where up to people like you, there'd be no cars, no trains, and no european discovery of the americas. It's people like you who take all the fun out of life. You
Re:There will always be risks (Score:2)
If Soyuz's mission could have been accomplished with less risky means, then yes. I don't think long-term human habitation experiments could have been accomplished without Soyuz.
Can you truthfully say that the shuttle is the only vehicle capable of launching LEO payloads?
Re:There will always be risks (Score:2)
Go ahead, do it.
Go get a goddamned clue.
I take it you aren't interested in anything other than your own opinion, so why ask me for mine?
Re:There will always be risks (Score:2)
Great logic. There will "always be a risk" and the only alternative is to "make certain that flying has no risk."
Surely a more efficient googler can come up with a better number, but the annual number of flights flying in or out of the Baltimore/Washington International airport alone is 26
Re:There will always be risks (Score:2)
2) Multiply the allowable risk factor on shuttle mission by 10. I mean, this is bleeding edge frontier stuff - a certain amount of additional risk has to be accepted.
Re:There will always be risks (Score:2)
Obligatory Steve Buscemi Quote ... (Score:5, Funny)
It seemed fitting ...
Re:Obligatory Steve Buscemi Quote ... (Score:2)
Re:Obligatory Steve Buscemi Quote ... (Score:2)
Mind reminding me?
Bonus points if you can deliver the acurate quote from him....
want your children flying a space shuttle that ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Quite Honestly, I would go up in a heart beat. Those shuttles have been tested through and through. Now what is happening is the nit picking over every little detail. I would guess that my 3 year old nissan quest is no where near as safe as that ship is.
Your Nissan won't blow up on reentry to garage (Score:2)
How do you know? (Score:2)
Re:want your children flying a space shuttle that (Score:2)
True, but you have to admit if you strapped your Nissan to a booster it would be a pretty fun ride until your inevitably painful terrible death.
You win, but not by much. (Score:3, Informative)
Foale returned to Earth after spending 145 days in space, 134 of them aboard Mir. His estimated mileage logged was 58 million miles (93 million kilometers), [nasa.gov] can be used for an estimate of miles / days, which is in one day the shuttle does 400K miles (or
forget manned missions (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:forget manned missions (Score:2)
You need enough taxpayers to care enough about the program to be willing to fund it. Which is already hard enough to do with actual people going up and doing things, and would probably be impossible if you were talking about a robot or some guy in houston with a joystick.
This line of argument also discounts that there are still biological (human) tests going on in space, and the fact that we have a big ol' space station being worked on and lived in, which is a pretty important
Re:forget manned missions (Score:2, Insightful)
The real reason the space program is doomed (Score:3, Interesting)
Manned space missions make plenty of sense from a scientific perspective, if your eventual goal is to put a significant number of people into space (and onto other bodies). But more on that later.
The reason that our space program is doomed is the second half of that statement. Manned space missions never made sense from an ecomonic perspective. That wasn't the point then, and it still isn't now. We're just not in a pissi
each flight costs $500 million! (Score:5, Insightful)
The Crew Exploration Vehicle appears to be on the right track, just as the shuttle concept was, lets just hope they dont make the same mistakes again! oh well, if they mess this one up too we can always look forward to the future European EADS Phoenix reusable launch vehicle!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_shuttle [wikipedia.org] How a good concept turns into bad reality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EADS_Phoenix [wikipedia.org] What the shuttle should have been. Leave it up to the Europeans to get it right!
Re:each flight costs $500 million! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:each flight costs $500 million! (Score:4, Insightful)
Exacly. And it will be improved by removing the heavy, useless wings; by eliminating the unneeded large payload capacity; by greatly reducing the heat shield size and complexity; by adding a viable escape system; by getting rid of uncontrollable solid boosters; and by dropping the high-strung engines that need a total rebuild after every flight that costs more than new engines.
In other words, it will be replaced by a much more reasonable capsule-like spacecraft on a simple single-use booster.
Oh, is that all? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, so all that remain are the exact same issues that grounded the program in the first place.
So what have the actually done in the past couple years again?
-> Fritz
Come on... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh fuck off. The astronauts know damned well what they are getting into... certainly better than you with your irrelevant software analogy.
Beta testing (Score:2)
We did beta testing already...many, many years ago. What we're dealing with now are design flaws for a very specific set of events, wear/tear, etc.
Besides, the only way to "beta test" the shuttle is to launch it. Simulators don't account for the real world problems that caused it to be grounded.
Re: (Score:2)
Why not name them all "Challenger"? (Score:2)
Worst Spaceship Evar (Score:2, Insightful)
Most orginizations at some point realize when they've built a white elephant and move forward. NASA just can't grasp that SS was a crap idea as concieved.
I think it has undue mindshare because it looks kind of like what a spaceship should look like. Not like those ghay capsules, that, oh, managed to get us to the moon and never killed anyone in flight.
We should throw th
Re:Worst Spaceship Evar (Score:3, Insightful)
Ignoring all the technical and engineering compromises that went on in the design, just getting approval to design and build the thing sounds like it was quite the hassle to me. Everyone wanted to build a part of it in their state, because there's lots of money and nice jobs involved. There were engine
Re: (Score:2)
Bahh, put it up and stop being pussies (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sick of this nancy boy, nurse ratchet mentality where there can be no risks in anything and when an accident does happen we have to spread the blame as much as possible. And I'm talking about society in general, not space flight.
Misleading article (Score:3, Funny)
Beta test (Score:4, Insightful)
As to the overall stupidity of that comment, believe it or not, someone has to do the beta testing here. Yeah, it's a tragedy when lives are lost, but that's the nature of the space program: risks have to be taken, because some things just can't be done without real-world testing. Even when the space program is no longer experimental, lives will still be lost, because space, in and of itself, is a high-risk venture.
Will they ever learn (Score:2)
How about going back to the OLD FOAM? (Score:4, Insightful)
NASA became a worthless joke when they started practicing junk science and let the middle managers rule the roost. Time to shut it down and just fire everyone.
Human Spaceflight, History and Future (Score:3, Informative)
I have always been interested in spacefligh and at one point considered Aeronautics to be my eventual feild of work. I do know what im talking about. IANAPRS (i Am not a PROFESSIONAL Rocket Scientist) So i wont claim i know Everything i should or need But im no average bystander with a casual interest in it.
The shuttle is Dying. Clear case point. IT WAS BUILT DEAD. The shuttle was a masterpeice of design and some of the inital work for it was pehonomenal. BUT as all publicly accountable institutions with large goverment funding in any country, they had to deal with political decisions that impacted on the end result of the Space Shuttle.
Personal I want to see the shuttle Fly Purely because its better than the alternative. No i dont mean the russian soyuz modules or even Buran (the soviet space shuttle, which is arguably better given it flew a full orbit test and reentry under auto pilot, Which are by themselves very excelent machines. Abeit more "ruggedized" than the NASA engineers would want. Soyuz is still derived from the Balistic Missile school of rocket science. And there is proof that in fact the Russians are better able to deal with an emergency than the US are presently. A soyuz can be "locked and loaded" ready on the launch pad to take off in 6 hours. This comes from the entire launch fabrication and facilities still being heavily derived from balistic missile technology, which was built to be used quite quickly in the event of a nuclear war.
The american space program tried to leave this behind to "look towards the future" Wernher Von Braun, the German behind the V2 rocket and a significant member of his staff surrendered to the US at the end of WW2 and were essentialy the brains behind the US space program and most of the Balistic missile technology developed leading up to it. He, before even the launch of the saturn V had begun to think about the desin of a "reusable" space vehicle. Taking off like a rocket landing like a plane.
All of this is looking towards the kind of mass market future for spaceflight most here would hope to see someday. But the risks remain great. and currently It appears that the US have taken a step back. Deciding to shift to disposable launches with single use crew modules. While safer due to the elimination of long term mechanical wear and tear it is still going to be throwing precious resources away every time. and adding to the amount of junk in space.
Where it should have gone and NEEDS to go is where some of the prototypes that have come from aerospace research reside and go. There is no reason besides lack of interest stoping us from building a Single Stage to Orbit Space Plane that could take off AND land like a plane at an airport. Dont cite technicalities. Theyre fudged by people that either havent looked at the full picture of available technology, or have a vested interest in not looking at it. Current Aerospace technology if rounded up and applied directly to the problem with the kind of $$$ the us goverment gave back when the Appolo program began or even with the amound of money put into the space shuttles development. Perhaps even with the meager budget given to the creation of the "new" Spacecraft for nasa, th
What about fiberglass shell? (Score:3, Interesting)
Logically, I'd think Ceramic tiles are required considering that "rocks" / meteors are all that are found intact on Earth (from Space). However, the Earthling in me doesn't see a "rock space shuttle" as a practical alternative.
Re:What about fiberglass shell? (Score:5, Informative)
SpaceShip One (orwhatever it was called) was going MUCH slower. It never reached orbital velocity, ~22,500 knots iirc. The heat experienced during reentry is from the atmosphere slowing the craft down. You wouldn't have to shield a craft at all if you were only traveling a few hundred mph. You'd have other problems, of course, but reentry heat wouldn't be one of them.
Beta Tested (Score:2, Insightful)
author is a dumbass (Score:3, Insightful)
Idiotic question (Score:3, Insightful)
No, I wouldn't. That's why we don't send children into space, only consenting adults.
Re:Idiotic question (Score:3, Insightful)
Would you want your children flying a space shuttle that hasn't been properly beta-tested?
Honestly, I agree. In any other post on this site that article should be moderated as flaimbait.
It's a nice case of emotional misdirection which gets you emotionally against children flying spaceships into space, when that isn't the issue at all.
Besides; don't we expect any beta test of space flight to involve flight? So why claim that it isn't beta-tested so we can't/shouldn't fly. As another poster mentioned -
Let's examine the oh so terrible atrocity... (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's review:
1. Out of over 107 missions, into a region of existance we know little about, with a machine more complex than most other aircraft, with a crew riding thousands of tons of explosives, we've lost "only" 14 people, in 2 disasters. (That's a less than 2-percent failure ratio.)
2. There have been over 14-thousand fatalities in the airline industry since its start. (Over a thousand deaths in the past 3 years alone.)
3. In comparison to the two known non-US space-flight programs in operation on this planet, the Russian space-flight program with its current Soyuz ship (older than the space shuttle) has been plagued with more problems than death, and the Chinese, although modestly successful, are still back in the days of the Mercury and Gemini missions, flinging people into orbit in capsules with nothing else to do.
4. Despite widespread lack of knowledge on the public's part, the US space program has had wide-spanning benifits to the human race.
5. The number of countries capable of supporting a continual human space-flight program, are few. The number that can do so, and then afford to advance further to make it a process that is safe and as common as airline flights, comes to single digits.
6. The space shuttle remains the only solution available for providing support and maintenance to satellites. It is also the only platform able to move between orbits and locations, and actively interact with other space-based systems.
7. The money spent advancing space technologies, not only benifits us, but goes into our economy.
8. The government spends far more than the entire NASA budget that, without sounding like a hippie, have done little to advance our standing in the world and which have a deadly outcome. If NASA wants to spend millions and billions developing technology that makes our lives better and expands our knowledge, what's the problem? Money burned is bad, but money burned towards a good intention is better than money burned for naught.
9. Do I need to continue?