NASA Delays Discovery's Final Launch To February 62
Velcroman1 writes "NASA has postponed the launch of space shuttle Discovery's final mission to no earlier than early February — the latest in a long string of delays that have kept the spacecraft grounded for more than a month. Discovery is now slated to launch no earlier than Feb. 3, with the delay allowing NASA engineers more time to analyze why small cracks developed in the shuttle's huge external fuel tank. The cracks have since been repaired, but NASA wants to make sure similar issues don't pose a future concern."
Future Concern? What Future? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Except February is the coldest month of the year here in Fl.... which has been known to cause an issue or two with critical parts on the shuttle...
Re:Future Concern? What Future? (Score:4, Insightful)
Right, that way they can add an additional delay. The goal is to string along the salaries of the 800 people who lose their jobs as soon as the shuttle hits orbit as long as possible. And as somebody who works near Cape Canaveral, I fully support not having 800 more unemployed people here.
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As someone who pays taxes, I fully support putting those 800 on unemployment. Far cheaper to just give them tax money then to give them tax money and pay their employer his cut.
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That's NASA's problem: no sense of drama.
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Bwa ha a! That's rigt, you will never defeet me1
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If it's fixed, launch it. Why worry about future concerns? There won't be anymore Space Shuttle.
This is the last flight for the Discovery shuttle but there's still two other launches. One for each of the other shuttles. But I believe they use a new tank for each launch so I'm not sure where the future concerns are coming from.
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A problem isn't fixed if you don't know what caused it. Until then it's just working around the symptoms.
I should work for Nasa (Score:2)
allowing NASA engineers more time to analyze why small cracks developed in the shuttle's huge external fuel tank
Might it have something to do with every component being built by the lowest bidder because funding keeps getting cut anytime someone at NASA blinks?
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Would it though?
Anyone who understand budgets enough would understand that buying good stuff first, inspecting it, and getting your launch on time ends up with cost savings much higher than if you buy bad stuff, inspect it, repair it, inspect it again, and postpone the launch.
Not only do you lose the cost savings on the component by having to implement repairs, but thats all extra time you need to have your various contractors on site.
Stop for a moment and imagine what it would be like if the National Defen
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And don't military programs experience all those negative effects you mentioned?
Nice idea, though - I once posited that if you switched Military and Education budgets for a year the effects could be pretty astounding....
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Hmmm. Aren't military contracts also "lowest bidder" ?
No silly, all the good ones are awarded with no bidding to the most politically connected company! Do your research.
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Many government contracts, including most major NASA and military contracts involving development of new technology, are not lowest bidder, they are best-value using a per-project scoring in which cost is one, but not the only, factor.
I don't think straight lowest-bid is used for much of anything other than purchases of directly-substitutable, off-the-shelf commodities.
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For the 2010 fiscal year, the president's base budget of the Department of Defense rose to $533.8 billion. Adding spending on "overseas contingency operations" brings the sum to $663.8 billion [wikipedia.org]
I daresay that if NASA could have a budget like that, we'd have a Moon base, a Mars base, and manned operations in deep space, all in short order. But it's not going to happen
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Re:I should work for Nasa (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the correct methodology is to make the contractor pay for the inspections and any repairs, plus a fee for any delays to launches.
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And that would simply triple the cost of the tank. Anytime you put the risk on a contractor the contractor will charge you the value of that risk (and more) even if it does not happen.
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Or the fact that major components have to be built in every state with a powerful Senator?
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Source Selection Criteria (SSC)
SSCs can be simple or complex depending on the subject of the acquisition. If FAR Part 15 is used, then a concept called best value can be used; best value simply is an idea that the lowest bidder is not necessarily the winner of a competition - rather, an evaluation of the overall offer based on specified SSCs is accomplished and a source selection decision is accomplished (see below) based on those specified SSCs using a fact based business judgement of the acquiring activity.
[...]
Contractors must also be aware of whether or not price is more important than non-price factors. Where price is more important than non-price factors, then the lowest bidder who is technically acceptable in view of the source selection factors and work statement requirements will be selected. Where the solicitation indicates that the requirement is a best value acquisition, then a contractor must draft their proposal to emphasize how their proposed technical solution will meet each and every requirement and source selection factor.
Government procurement in the United States [wikipedia.org]
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Actually, NASA didn't give specifications, at least not as you are implying. All of the submitted proposals included all liquid propellant vehicles. It was just the one that happened to be cheapest that had the solid boosters and NASA went with it to save money. So, evidently, given all of the problems they've had with the launch system, yes, in this case, the lowest bidder made the worst product.
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This is often true. If you send out a proposal for quotes and you receive a bunch back, they will mostly be all around the same value. If you get one oddball that is really low, then very likely they either do not understand all the requirements, or are bidding low to get the job and will screw you over later for more money. Speaking from experience.
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Might it have something to do with every component being built by the lowest bidder because funding keeps getting cut anytime someone at NASA blinks?
This statement doesn't match up with the actual numbers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget#Annual_budget.2C_1958-2010 [wikipedia.org]
Also, the idea that NASA components are built by the lowest bidder is laughable. Saying that they're built by the most politically-connected bidders (e.g. ATK and the solid rocket boosters) is closer to the target.
When are they going... (Score:2)
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So launch a bunch of them.
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(Disclaimer: While I was in school I broke 100k on my parents' '96 Corolla, and then moved onto an '86 Volvo with close to 200k on it. Then I got a job and bought a new Corolla.)
Actually, there were multiple levels to my car analogy--one being that it's a Pinto so it might burst into flames at any moment (yes, stereotype, but true of the shuttle), another being that after 32 years it's not even up to 300,000, and the third being that the new safer car is already paid for. But I should have picked somethi
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And your 2010 Accord is analogous to.... what, exactly, in the manned space program? Certainly not the Soyuz spacecraft (don't get me wrong, the Soyuz is a proven and reliable design). And the private spacecraft being tested aren't even capable of doing the errands in your car analogy, let alone make it on this cross-country trip.
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Ok, so maybe I'm being optimistic, but if going to the ISS is a cross-country trip, then the Falcon 9 launch of a test capsule into a perfect orbit (except reentry) should count as an errand. In less than a week, we'll see the first reentry attempt by a commercial spacecraft, another fine errand.
I refuse to be skeptical about SpaceX's rockets until we see an actual failure. I have much more faith in their engineering-driven design--so far proved flawless--than any politicized, bloated creation of NASA.
B
Patience and Safety (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is a cool infographic I found on the Space Shuttle [space.com]
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I hope their final voyage is a safe one, and one day we will have a manned mission back to the Moon...
Been there, done that.
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It's now two generations (40 years) since people were on the moon. And NASA now spends more on senate-mandated bureaucracy every year than the entire moon program costs. In order to control the horrible government spending, the clueless politicians guaranteed that there would be a horrible spending -- on nothing productive.
No, we won't go back to moon any time soon.
Now sing with me, kids:
ISS is falling down, falling down, falling down.
Bad and Good (Score:1)
I see what they're doing. (Score:3)
Shuttle vs. Everyone (Score:4, Interesting)
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If you think the Shuttle is the only booster ever built or even flying that had political and business decisions embedded in it's design - I have some nice waterfront property and a nice bridge to sell you. Doubly so since or the 'launchers' you link to - one (the X37B) is a payload, and another (the Minotaur) is a Peacekeeper missile... (and neither are commercially available.)
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I think this is a function of manned vs unmanned more than anything else. The acceptable margin of error is orders of magnitude less when there are people on board, so any little concern becomes the object of great scrutiny.
I heard the real reason was.... (Score:5, Funny)
I heard the real reason was that the crew refused to let the TSA agents do the new pat down procedure.
Dec 17 launch was stupid anyways (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know who or why they would push the launch to Dec 17. First of all, the Shuttle is not tested across a year boundary, and the last flight is not the time to be testing to see if this works. (Dates are complex enough, and handling all possible date transitions is even harder. Thus it's easier to not fly the Shuttle across a New Year transition rather than have to test everything to ensure it can handle it).
I believe it was supposed to be a 10 day mission, so if it launches Dec 17, it means it returns Dec 27. Which gives you 4 days before you're in test-pilot mode (the missions may get extended unexpectedly due to launch delays or weather on return). While I doubt the shuttle would just explode when the clock ticks over, 4 days doesn't seem like a lot of leeway.
All they had to do was push it another couple of weeks and they'd have a whole year to schedule and launch. At least it seems saner heads have prevailed.
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I hate to admit it... but I'm not really sure if that post is a joke or not.
Re:Dec 17 launch was stupid anyways (Score:4, Informative)
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Well thank you for that interesting fact, I had never heard such a thing before. I'm very glad that I posed the sincere question now instead of jumping the gun.
At first I thought they might have been condescending, and then I thought they were naive and paranoid... but then I thought maybe they knew something I didn't know.
Apparently I was the naive one. Is there a +/-1 Humbled mod? ;-)