Bad Year for NASA - So Far

[qso1]

Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis. Atlantis did not become operational till late that year however. So for much of the year, there were 2 orbiters in operation. The other operational orbiter did not fly any missions in 1985 and that was Columbia. Challenger and Discovery carried the bulk of payloads in 1985. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[no_way]

right. If it lifts off before 1st January 2008 and lands safely some time later, you still win.

 

[MeteorWayne]

Recall NASA doesn't like the idea of being in space during at the start of the new year, or has that been addressed? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080"><em><font color="#000000">But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id.</font></em> </font></p><p><font color="#000080">I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function</font><font color="#000080"> </font></p> </div>

 

[ckikilwai]

"Not enough Soyuz vehicles. It can only carry 2 at a time plus the Soyuz pilot."<br /><br />But if the shuttle lost some of those black tiles, couldn't the Soyuz be used to bring new replacement tiles, which then can be attached in a spacewalk?<br />

 

[bobw]

Shuttle_guy made an excellent post with an example of what is driving all of the concern over the Shuttle flying through the end of the year roll over.<br /><br />02/23/07 Post at Uplink<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[CalliArcale]

I think the fact that Soyuz flies twice a year (plus the Progress flights, which use a lot of the same assembly lines, being closely related vehicles) confuses a lot of people into thinking that since its an expendable vehicle, there must be a stockpile of them. But Russia doesn't have the funding to build up a stockpile; while NASA spends money servicing the Orbiter, Russia is spending money to build the next Soyuz vehicle.<br /><br />Regarding swapping vehicles due to hail damage, I seem to recall that NASA did consider swapping the *tank*. But this would've meant a longer delay, since of course then they'd have to wait for yet another tank to be delivered for the launch-on-demand vehicle. (Since of course swapping tanks means they've decided it will take too long to repair the damaged one.)<br /><br />The big problem is that this stuff is expensive and just plain *big*. It's not practical to have a stockpile unless you're operating with a huge budget surplus and want to keep idle employees busy. (And unfortunately NASA is not in that position right now.) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>