Posted: 6/15/2011 4:09:36 AM EDT
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Are there any chances of it coming back?
Someone was telling me that a new administration could come in and ressurect it. I am thinking about all of the employees with very specific knowledge and training that have either retired for good because of it's death or those which have become scattered to the wind, looking for new employment. Also, once you end a program that big, to start it back up would be even harder. Anyone have any specific info? |
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Quoted: Are there any chances of it coming back? Someone was telling me that a new administration could come in and ressurect it. I am thinking about all of the employees with very specific knowledge and training that have either retired for good because of it's death or those which have become scattered to the wind, looking for new employment. Also, once you end a program that big, to start it back up would be even harder. Anyone have any specific info? How is it going to be resurrected when the shuttles are getting mothballed and put in museums? The future is the new heavy lift launch vehicle. Whenever or whatever that is...
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I am the biggest supporter of NASA and space exploration in general, and I would increase its budget by 10 times if I could. It's one of the few things the federal government does that has a "big picture" impact on actually advancing mankind instead of just keeping it on life support.
That said, the shuttle is done and it should be. It's 1970s technology and it's an unnecessarily complex and inherently dangerous vehicle system. NASA needs to develop completely new lift vehicles and start moving toward deeper and longer exploration by humans. |
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Quoted:
Are there any chances of it coming back? Someone was telling me that a new administration could come in and ressurect it. I am thinking about all of the employees with very specific knowledge and training that have either retired for good because of it's death or those which have become scattered to the wind, looking for new employment. Also, once you end a program that big, to start it back up would be even harder. Anyone have any specific info? Facing facts, the program is done. It would take an insurmountable amount of time and money to get things rolling again, now that the ball has started to slow. Discovery is already in a state of 'retirement'; it is dismantled to the point where it would take more than a normal amount of effort to bring her back to flight status. This leaves only two remaining orbiters, Atlantis and Endeavor, and with the general safety rule of having one on near standby for a recovery mission within so many days, it would slow the schedule dramatically since they would have to always wait for the other to return and be brought to near flight ready status before the original standby could launch. You'd be lucky to get two launches per year, tops. That's too low a yield of deliveries for the cost of keeping the entire program running. (lots of infrastructure, personnel, equipment maintenance, etc.) Add to that the fact that the ISS is largely completed at this point, and no other large modules are currently planned for it AFAIK, there's not a lot of need for the assembly abilities the shuttle provides. (it was the only craft with a mechanical boom) As much as I love the program, and was fortunate enough to secure launch tickets to STS133, I have to admit that the program needs to end. The problem I have is that there's nothing on the table to replace it. 
E. |
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I say this is great opportunity to evolve the space program to a new level by deploying new technology & the benefits of observation from 40+ years of manned spaceflight. The only proven way that technology progresses is through daring. We need a frontier to push, push, push, and reusing Apollo era designs isn't pushing nearly hard enough IMO. |
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The shuttle actually cost us too much to launch and the quick turn-around never materialized. It was as much, or more, work and money as just doing a staged/disposible vehicle launch. NASA had to swap parts back and forth between shuttles to build one into flyable condition for each mission.
Kinda like fixing a broken printer, compared to buying a new one. Cheaper in most cases to just buy a new printer with current technology, etc. With a disposible vehicle, you can introduce improvements to the production line that immeadiately take effect. With the shuttle, we were stuck with whatever era technology existed when it was built. For example, Columbia had analog "steam" gauges, and the ship weighed more than Endevour, which had a glass cockpit. That's why they used Columbia for science missions and Endevour to lift stuff to the space station. Columbia couldn't get as much into orbit. But because it was reusable, we had to keep using it. In a disposible, as motors get stronger, or material gets lighter, or whatever you just build the next one with that newer tech. We probably would have been better off if we had started a replacement program after Columbia died. By now it would be ready and we could roll right into it. |
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Quoted: How far along are they with the new Ares V? I know obungo destroyed the first one and scaled it down, but I have not heard anything for several months on this. Even the private companies have been quite for the past couple months. IIRC, Congress overturned Obongo's changes to Ares / Orion (whatever its called). I heard somewhere that Congress got them the $$$ and something like a year or two to produce a prototype. IF they cant do that, they are screwed. |