Shuttle - One and Done . . . .

[CaptnKirk]

ever think it would come to this?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43569936/ns/technology_and_science-space

So here we are, one week from the last scheduled Shuttle launch.

Where do we go in what handbasket?

What would it take to get continuity in Human Space Flight?

Clean sheet of paper - what do we replace the shuttle with.

We do have Solid Boosters, and they function well.
It can lift an External Tank, and if the tank can feed a mother rocket,
we can boost to orbit for ISS rendezvous.

Future designs can enplace Kerolox burners to replace the Solids,
feeding from the mother tank for Oxygen, & carring kerosene.
Stick or side-pod, cargo or crew.

Takes 2 years to restart.

 

[Bowfinger]

Hard to believe we've fallen so far. We've had an active manned space program for essentially my whole life (born in '58, the year of Sputnik). I grew up watching one astonishing space achievement after another. It was an amazing, optimistic era, when Americans took tremendous pride in knowing we had the spirit and the technology to do anything. I never imagined we'd let it peter out the way it has. Very sad.

As to the future of Human Space Flight, I'm not at all sure we have much of a role in it, at least not at a national level. I think we may see limited and relatively mundane commercial efforts, but I'm concerned we now lack the vision and the drive to do anything really exciting. We may well sit on the sidelines while China and Russia blaze the new trails and grab future glory. I truly hope I'm wrong, but I no longer have that optimism I had 30 years ago.

 

[ProfJohn]

We did go 6 years without a manned flight in the 70s.

It is very possible that we will go even longer this time since we don't really have a replacement lined up.

 

[UberNeuman]

The Shuttle program should have been scuttled a long time ago..

 

[CycloWizard]

Private space flight is the future. The government has slowly been loosening its grip on its legally-mandated monopoly and private manned flights are booked solid.

 

[ichy]

Private space flight is the future. The government has slowly been loosening its grip on its legally-mandated monopoly and private manned flights are booked solid.

Show me one company that actually has the capability to put people into LEO.

 

[ichy]

The shuttle program was in hindsight a failure. It was supposed to achieve cheap, reliable and safe access to space and it didn't achieve any of those goals. We would have been far better off continuing with the rockets that were developed for the Apollo program rather than wallowing in low-Earth orbit for 30 years. Sadly instead of replacing it with something better we're essentially throwing in the towel on manned spaceflight. Yeah, I know that NASA has all sorts of plans for a replacement, but the money to actually develop them simply isn't there.

 

[Fear No Evil]

And Obama, the "technology" President sits by and does nothing. I guess unless the technology helps him get a billion dollars in campaign donations he's not really interested.

 

[ichy]

The lack of leadership or direction for our manned space program is a decades old problem. Blaming it all on Obama is absurd.

 

[Fear No Evil]

The lack of leadership or direction for our manned space program is a decades old problem. Blaming it all on Obama is absurd.

I'm not saying its completely his fault, but for a President throwing around more money than any President in the history of the world, you'd think there'd be a billion or 2 for NASA to do something interesting rather than giving away more money to Bank of America.

 

[ichy]

I'm not saying its completely his fault, but for a President throwing around more money than any President in the history of the world, you'd think there'd be a billion or 2 for NASA to do something interesting rather than giving away more money to Bank of America.

I agree that Obama isn't blameless. Compared to the crap that was squandered on "stimulus" NASA's budget is tiny, and a bit more money could have turned Project Constellation into a reality.

One big problem though is that NASA's strongest "supporters" in Congress are simply trying to funnel money and jobs to their districts. As long as the pork flows they don't give a damn if nothing ever flies, half-finished development programs still keep their constituents at work. A sad, sad state of affairs for a country that went to the moon less than ten years after Kennedy said "let's go!"

 

[Fear No Evil]

I agree that Obama isn't blameless. Compared to the crap that was squandered on "stimulus" NASA's budget is tiny, and a bit more money could have turned Project Constellation into a reality.

One big problem though is that NASA's strongest "supporters" in Congress are simply trying to funnel money and jobs to their districts. As long as the pork flows they don't give a damn if nothing ever flies, half-finished development programs still keep their constituents at work. A sad, sad state of affairs for a country that went to the moon less than ten years after Kennedy said "let's go!"

Indeed. We've lost our spirit as a country it seems.

 

[ichy]

Back in 2007 then NASA administrator Michael Griffin wrote an interesting/depressing paper where he showed that for less money than we spent on the development of the shuttle the US could've launched a couple of lunar missions per year plus maintained a Skylab-type space station throughout the 1970s. Instead all of the Apollo R&D work was thrown away, and we threw away billions on the shuttle program.

What makes me cringe even more about the end of Apollo is all the hardware that was already built and then wasted. Once Apollo & its spin-offs (Skylab & Apollo-Soyuz) ended, the US still had two Saturn Vs, several Saturn 1Bs and fully functional backup Skylab station. For a minimal amount of operational money we could've launched two more lunar missions or another lunar mission and a second round of Skylab flights. If we'd built a second batch of Saturn Vs rather than going ahead with the Shuttle then the possibilities really start to multiply.

I hate to sound like I'm hating on the Space Shuttle because it was a fantastic engineering achievement, unfortunately it was also a solution in search of a problem. Re-usability adds an insane amount of complexity, and is pointless if it does not reduce costs. If we're going to have a manned space program we should be exploring new places, not conducting glorified high school science experiments in low-Earth orbit.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Private companies are indeed the future of LEO space travel.

Sadly, they were not ready and it would have been in our national interest to finish Constellation and let the Ares line be the last NASA vehicle for LEO.

Now, no Ares rockets and we are stuck with cancellation fees to the defense contractors. Oh well, development of space technology by the government will continue, just purely for military purposes now.

 

[ichy]

If SpaceX can really deliver people and cargo to LEO for anything like the price they're promising then that would be a fantastic thing for the US. Unfortunately I have to say that I'll believe it when I see them actually put a crew into orbit.

 

[Zedtom]

If a private group can put together the financing and technology to actually stage their own missions, does the possibility exist that a group of "space pirates" could go into orbit and start vandalizing satellites?

I"ll bet that our space program would quickly revive itself if our military and communication satellites were being disabled by some rogue group using a drone spacecraft. Wasn't this the kind of thing Reagan was talking about with the "Star Wars" technology in the 1980's?

 

[a777pilot]

The lack of leadership or direction for our manned space program is a decades old problem. Blaming it all on Obama is absurd.

Blaming anything and everything on this Fool, Bobo, the Post Turtle, is NOT absurd ...... It's a good thing, and accurate.

 

[fskimospy]

Blaming anything and everything on this Fool, Bobo, the Post Turtle, is NOT absurd ...... It's a good thing, and accurate.

Hey look, you said something stupid.

Gotta stick with what you're good at I guess.

 

[ichy]

Blaming anything and everything on this Fool, Bobo, the Post Turtle, is NOT absurd ...... It's a good thing, and accurate.

LOL, P&N's favorite angry little man pops up again.

Not sure why I'm feeding the troll, but Constellation was underfunded from the get-go. I wasn't happy when Obama canceled it, but in some ways he was just acknowledging reality.

 

[CycloWizard]

Show me one company that actually has the capability to put people into LEO.

What does that have to do with anything I said? NASA won't be able to do it anymore after next week. That period of time is called "the future." If there is a need, it will be filled shortly now that the government has allowed private enterprise to step up and fill it.

 

[1prophet]

Indeed. We've lost our spirit as a country it seems.

It was sold for some irrational exuberance and some cheap and easy thrills.

 

[Jaskalas]

Space is a luxury America can not afford. Soon food and water alone will challenge us.

 

[ElFenix]

I agree that Obama isn't blameless. Compared to the crap that was squandered on "stimulus" NASA's budget is tiny, and a bit more money could have turned Project Constellation into a reality.

One big problem though is that NASA's strongest "supporters" in Congress are simply trying to funnel money and jobs to their districts. As long as the pork flows they don't give a damn if nothing ever flies, half-finished development programs still keep their constituents at work. A sad, sad state of affairs for a country that went to the moon less than ten years after Kennedy said "let's go!"

not to mention that practically every time we get a new president we get a new direction for nasa. which really isn't appropriate for something with the time horizons that nasa must operate on.

 

[woolfe9999]

I noticed this:

NASA is retiring its three space shuttles this year to make way for a new space exploration program aimed at sending astronauts to asteroids and other deep space targets.

I don't follow the space news that closely. Is there a detailed plan for this, or is it just aspirational, i.e. something we'd like to do in the future?

 

[ichy]

I don't follow the space news that closely. Is there a detailed plan for this, or is it just aspirational, i.e. something we'd like to do in the future?

No detailed plan and probably not enough money. NASA is continuing to develop the Orion capsule that was originally intended for Constellation, but they don't have a rocket to launch it on. They're supposed to announce the development of a new heavy-lift rocket that builds on shuttle technology in the near future, but the money to do it all probably isn't there. Sadly I predict we'll get lots of Power Point presentations and little or no actual hardware.