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Originally posted by TSN:
How is this Flameboard material?

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I came up with a reason, but I'm also refraining from mentioning it. I'd rather just sit here and go to hell quietly.

Discovery was the first shuttle back in space following the loss of Challenger, so there's something fitting in having her also return us to space now. However, I thought the plan was to send Atlantis back into space first?
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Atlantis is going back up in July.


I was going to put this in the Officer's Lounge but I figured there would be some debate as to the sensibilities of still using the shuttle design after it's advanced age and the past twodisasters (as well as the aparant lack of sweeping procedural changes reccomended to NASA last year.

So, obvious burning-up-on-re-entry jokes aside, I was expecting heated, possibly flameworthy, debate.

Personally, I see little value in the ISS or wasting shuttle launches (besides this equipment-testing one) on it.
 

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Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
 
"I figured there would be some debate as to the sensibilities of still using the shuttle design after it's advanced age and the past twodisasters..."

And maybe there would be, if said disasters had actually been related to the shuttle's age or its design (the O-ring flaw that did Challenger in notwithstanding), but, since they weren't, I'd say you figured wrong.
 

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Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
 
And to add on to what Cartman said, both disasters were more due to management issues than with design. In Challenger's case, management ignored the people who raised concerns about how the booster O-rings reacted to freezing weather. In Columbia's case, management didn't analyze the foam strike carefully enough.

I'd be more worried about Discovery going up with the current NASA management structure than with the design of the space shuttles.
 

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Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
 
Well, in all fairness, they had something like a minute to make a call regarding the foam strike. Or such is my understanding.
 

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Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
 
True, but I was referring more to management's action in evaluating the foam strike during Columbia's mission. Although, to be fair, I still hear differing and conflicting things about that, so it's also probably an unfair point to bring up.
 

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Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
 
Well, my point is that it wouldn't have made a difference. Even if they'd decided Columbia was too damaged to land, there was no other way to bring the astronauts home. Columbia couldn't dock with ISS, and nothing else could be launched in time.
 

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Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
 
I should qualify the below by telling you that I'm a big proponent of the space program. (No, but, like, big. I weigh in at 290.)

So NASA has a bunch of really talented engineers and specialists all working to make this really incredible thing happen. But the fact of the matter is manned spaceflight is A) profoundly complicated, B) very expensive and C) REALLY dangerous. It's incredible when it works even once. These engineers and specialists work very hard to ensure the safety of the astronauts and the vehicles, but you can't escape the fact that you are strapping these brave folks to gigantic canisters of explosives, hurling them through the sky into an incredibly toxic, hostile environment where they do their astronaut thing and then bringing them burning back down through miles of atmosphere to land on the ground again. There are going to be complications.

I'm not trying to make light of the tradgedy of the loses of Challenger and Columbia. But this is a comparatively new science and we're going to make some mistakes. It is unrealistic to expect this to be 100% safe yet. Two accidents in 107 flights is a pretty good record considering. We're going to learn from those accidents. We're going to adapt and get better. At some point that's going to mean a new shuttle design.

But not yet. It's true our shuttle fleet is much less efficient than we originally thought. As it is, a large portion of this re-usable vehicle is replaced and extensively inspected for each launch. All part of making future flights more safe. I don't think it's time to pitch it in the dumpster just yet. We've got a lot invested and we still have a lot more to learn.

I'm glad we're going back up.
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
Well, since this is the Flameboard: What do we get out of the shuttle today that is worth the cost, both financially and otherwise?
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
I agree with the concerns about managment as NASA.
NASA has made no public mention of new policies regarding safety (that I've seen anyway) and has highlighted some technical tweaking as safety improvments.

Even worse: after each disaster, it's thes ame story of workers bringing up concerns and being ignored (or being too afraid for their jobs to voice concerns at all) and then many disenchanted specialists leave (imagine the guilt of if you could've done more to prevent a tragedy) causing a vaccum in speciaists.


As to "what's come out of the space program lately:
Neither the shuttle or ISS is geared to serious manufacturing experiments (which would yield the most practical advances I'd think).

What is ISS good for exactly?

Anyone know if all the new shuttles are capable of ISS docking?
 

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Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
 
Yes, Columbia was the only shuttle that couldn't dock with ISS because it was too heavy - it couldn't reach ISS's orbit. The newer ones were built with the lessons learned from building Columbia, and thus were able to be built lighter.

B.J.
 

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Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
 
New shuttles? They're all well past expected operational lifetime at this point. The remaining three can all dock at ISS, though. In fact, one of the new safety policies is that a shuttle must be externally visually inspected before landing. Since doing that without the ISS is apparently difficult, they have to go there for every mission. And since they can't get to Hubble AND ISS in the same launch, Hubble is screwed.

The reason the shuttle is more expensive than originally planned is that they spend so much time checking every little thing. Wikipedia lists something like $100mil for actual launch preparations, and $400mil for inspections, per launch. Basically, at this point ISS makes the shuttle possible, and is the Shuttle's only reason for continued existence. FWIW, once the shuttle is back in operation, it should be able to take the completed European lab module to the space station.

I've been wondering: if they want the space station to have a craft capable of returning six people to earth safely... why not just leave a shuttle docked there once we have a replacement? It's pretty well the only thing ever built that has that capacity, and it's not like we'll be using them any more.
 

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Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
 
Blah. Stupid post timing.
 

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 
Use the Enterprise to glide back to Earth?
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
I'm pretty sure the construction phase is over for good. NASA's website suggests differently, but I don't believe there are any concrete plans in place. Consider this Congressional committee report, which implies that as of September of last year no timeline had yet been drawn up about when and how exactly it would start up again. I mean, I don't know. I'll believe it when I see it, I guess.

Anyway, the shuttle could never be used as a lifeboat in the manner you suggest, for, I think, at least two reasons. One is that it simply isn't designed for it. Well, actually, that encompasses pretty much all of the reasons I can think of. The shuttle is heavier than a Soyuz, for instance, so how are you going to correct the station's orbit with this large mass hanging off to one side? The shuttle's thrusters weren't designed to move it plus a space station around. Not to mention the extensive maintainance you mention. True, most of that is probably due to the great stresses of launch and reentry, but the shuttles are finicky machines, and I don't think you could trust one not to simply fall apart when forced to be in space indefinitely.
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Add to those reasons that the ISS is constantly peppered with high-velocity space debris (far less so than Mir was though) and a permantly docked shuttle could be seriously damaged before too long.

I was watching Science Frontiers on PBS a few months ago and they were discussing the problem of space debris: they mentioned that during any EVA the shuttle acts as a shield for the astronauts because -at those speeds- even a small chip of paint or gold foil could kill an asrtonaut.
Oddly, the shuttle uses it's heat shield to intercept any oncoming debris.

I wonder what experiments they proposed to do on the ISS that were not already performed on Mir...
How did they sell the idea anyway?
 

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Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
 
God if only somebody had already designed and tested a dedicated lifeboat. Can you imagine them cancelling a project like that after having already spent billions of dollars without deploying a single prototype to the ISS?

Do you see what will happen if NASA abandons the shuttle fleet at this point? That money will go somewhere else. Congress will not sit on their hands and the Space Program's budget would surely feel their bad-touch. This is not your Civilization: III game. Grounding the shuttles would not hurry production of the replacement hypersonic SSTO mega-ram-jet. (note: It might spur the design process but development would still be decades away). ISS and shuttle clearly aren't perfect, but they are still impressive solutions for reusable launch vehicles and frontier bases.
 

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Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
Damn, and instead they had to go and let that Commander from IASA use it to try out some crazy sligshot-manoeuvre experiment. Did they ever find out what happened to him? Probably ended up in lots of little pieces. . .
 

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Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
 
Oh, he showed back up eventually. Or priorly. Or both.

I never did figure out how he intended to get home in the first place...
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
You're not supposed to notice that part.

Just as you aren't supposed to notice Congress raising the military budget, and giving themselves a raise while slashing NASA's budget.

It's all a matter of "suspension of disbelief".
 

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Posted by Grand Master General Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
 
bah, nevermind.
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Bah? From Latvaria are we?
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
I'm not saying that NASA should scrap the shuttle in favor of building a next-generation ship, but rather that it seems possible that the shuttle deserves to be scrapped on its own merits, regardless of what (if anything) might replace it, or when.

(The Encyclopedia Astronautica is such an awesome site.)

(I am not necessarily in the "manned spaceflight is a waste of resources" camp ((and when it comes to ideas that make me happy, manned spaceflight is way, way up there)), but I do think we need some serious reasons to engage in it, and I'm not sure that the space shuttle supplies any, especially under the new requirements. Though here I will betray my very limited knowledge and ask: to what extent will the need to dock with the station limit shuttle missions? I mean, obviously shuttles operate with a healthy fuel reserve already, and presumably the fuel required to get to the station won't be taken from this reserve, but rather from the amount dedicated to regular operations. Now my first guess would be that the amount of fuel required to match the station's orbit and dock with it is not insubstantial, causing all sorts of missions, such as a Hubble repair mission, to be out of the question. But it is quite possible that most shuttle missions, even most interesting shuttle missions, don't require enough fuel to be rendered unworkable by the new rules. Nevertheless, it seems clear that the shuttles are well along the path of diminishing returns, and their capabilities are only going to get more limited from now on.)
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
As a means of deploying billion-dollar satelites into stable orbits, the shuttle cant be beat, but I agree that the shuttle's role is becoming more limited all the time.

I dont think the shuttle should be replaced with a radical new design all at once, but rather that a series of new designs should be built using what works well on the shuttle and incorperating innovations from there.

How difficult (for example) would it be to build a slightly larger shuttle that could serve as a command post for a moon mission?
I would probably be possible to convert the shuttle's cargo bay for that purpose (or even as an additional oxygen and fuel reserve for extended missions.)

The idea of keping the shuttle design exactly as it's been for the past twenty years is just...stagnant.
 

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Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
 
They need some sort of big "dust-buster" in orbit to pick up all the space debris. Maybe a shepherd moon?
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jason Abbadon:
As a means of deploying billion-dollar satelites into stable orbits, the shuttle cant be beat

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Well, except, in most situations, by relatively cheap unmanned rockets. The Shuttle's real advantage, re payloads, is its ability to bring them back.

NASA's Return to Flight page, for those interested (and currently unaware of it, I guess).
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Er...the shuttle's record on actually (safely) inserting satelites is near 100%.

Rocket delivery....not so good.
Spaceprobe delivery: far far worse.

Of course the shuttle is financially impractical for most companies to use as their deployment system...but that could (really should have already) change.

I recall that prior to the Challenger disaster, the shuttle went up pretty regularly with commercial payloads.

And government deathrays.
We must not forget the non-existant SDI weapons platforms that kept the world safe from the Red menace.
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
First of all, according to some NASA answer-man, there have been something like 4,000 satellite launches since satellites were invented. The subset of those launched by space shuttle is, as one might imagine, significantly smaller. That the shuttle is more reliable is not something I'm disputing, but how expensive is that reliability?

According to some dude on the internet (well, military historian James Dunnigan) the shuttle's launch costs for satellites run around twenty-five million dollars per ton, versus, at the lowest end of the scale, three million dollars. How much does it cost you to develop New Satellite X? (This isn't taking insurance into account, which the linked article does; in fact, it comes down in favor of the shuttle, sort of.) My point isn't that some particular rocket is better or even cheaper than the shuttle; simply that unmanned rockets in general can do almost everything the shuttle does in terms of payloads with only slightly less reliability and at much lower costs.

And as for "spaceprobe delivery," I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. "Spaceprobes" don't launch satellites, for one thing; but I am guessing you're refering to the number of Martian probes lost, the majority of which were lost at Mars, making me wonder what delivery systems have to do with it.

(Incidently, a list of probes sent to Mars, along with their fates. "Failed and fell into the sea.")

((How many interplanetary probes has the shuttle launched, anyway? Galileo, and. . . ? I can't seem to find a simple list of both probes and their launch vehicles. Anyway, not many, compared, again, to the number of launches in total.))
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
i was not really touting the shuttle as a spaceprobe delivery system: I was more poking a stick at rockets reliability by mentioning them.

It's probably just really bad luck, but there's been a lot of cringeworthy moments as some new and imporntant probe went down in flames with it's rocket.

Though (as you brought it up) I'd think the shuttle could fill a vital role in deploying spaceprobes. I dont know how dangerous it would be, but the shuttle's cargo bay could probably hold a small rocket with a probe attached to the top.

Heck, if they could just remotely pilot the shuttle's boosters and fuel tank, they could put damn near anything they wanted into orbit!

Imagine the telescope that could be launched if the payload was that of a fully-loaded space shuttle.

Biiiig.

Mabye there is a way to have the shuttle randevous with space-based fuel tanks (launched by remote rockets for safety reasons) so it's effective ange is extended.

I'd dearly love to see a telescope placed on the moon's far side.

Of course if they can get this to really work, then the shuttle's cargo capacity would become chump change.

Though I worry that there are no real guidelines for the waste that rockets (and the shuttle itself, I suppose) accidentally place into orbit.

Mankind may one day be planetbound by a prison of high-velocity space junk.
Keeps them aliens out though!
 

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Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
 
You may want to recheck your numbers on the Shuttle's cargo capacity vs. the Ariane 5-ECA. Price? You get no argument. Capacity? You will. Now if you could get a two-stage Energia to work on a commercial schedule, you'd really have something. Buran's only orbital flight was entirely remote controlled.

For some time there had been talk of putting some little OMS boosters on the External Fuel Tanks to lift them into orbit for use as I dunno what. Those would probably make for great junk sweepers.

quote:

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Jason Abbadon was all:
I'd dearly love to see a telescope placed on the moon's far side

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quote:

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Originally posted by Balaam Xumucane:
Incidentally if they were talking about ordering the mirror segments for Webb in 2003, that's a bit further along than sketches on napkins.

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Meanwhile, we have this to entertain us.
 

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