Can We Do This?

[vh5150]

Long-time lurker, first-time poster... Briefly, I'm a 42-year old physician living in the Midwest. I greatly appreciate the knowledge, expertise, feedback, etc., expressed on these forums. Now to the point...<br /><br />Given the recent launch delays with STS, give me (and other less-interested taxpayers, politicians, etc.) some reasons for optimism that the following can be achieved:<br /><br />1) The Shuttle can undertake 15 more missions (by the end of 2010) to complete the International Space Station (and maybe one more Hubble servicing/re-boost).<br /><br />2) The VSE components can be implemented to get us back to the moon and possibly beyond before we're all really old.<br /><br />Fact of the matter is, most "average" Americans don't share our passion for human space exploration; they've become numb to the past 30 years of floating around in low-earth orbit. We need something ambitious and exciting soon to re-kindle the interest that seemed to touch everybody during the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo days. <br /><br />Is there reason for hope? Give me some...

 

[PistolPete]

First of all, five launches a year is nothing spectacuar. 7 to 8 launches a year in the 90's was the average.<br /><br />Now with the Ares/Orion/Constelation programs, the concept is to take proven Apollo program concepts and expand on them. While this has drawn criticizm from some, most of those people don't take into account the fact that larger, more expensive proposals have never made it past the paper concept. This is the only plan that has been approved by Congress. NASA's plan is not to re-invent the wheel, but to simply get to the moon as cheaply as possible (assuming that Thiokol stops price gouging on the Ares-1) to do research, so that others may use the information gathered to create newer/cheaper meathods of getting to the moon.<br /><br />The predecessor to NASA was the NACA (National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics). The purpose of the NACA was to do reaserch on aviation to advance aeronautical knowledge for the military and civilian aviation enterprizes. During the post Apollo/Shuttle program NASA, desparate to survive, forgot this and tried to, in essence, be a launch contractor. This caused NASA to become a virtual monopoly in the US for almost 20 years. If you wanted to launch something into space, you had to go throuh NASA and it's contractors. Now that NASA is begining to remember it's lineage, space-for-the-masses concepst like space tourism are begining to flourish. NASA is going to concentrate on making discoveries on the moon (water in Shakleton crater, helium 3 deposits, ect.) and it will be the job of others to come along and exploit these resources. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><em>So, again we are defeated. This victory belongs to the farmers, not us.</em></p><p><strong>-Kambei Shimada from the movie Seven Samurai</strong></p> </div>

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">First of all, five launches a year is nothing spectacuar. 7 to 8 launches a year in the 90's was the average.</font>/i><br /><br />Once concern I have (and I have no idea if it is a valid concern or not) is that today the Shuttle may have much smaller launch windows than it did in the past. Because of this, small technical glitches that may take a few days to fix may cause weeks of slips in launches because of missed windows.<br /><br />Any idea if this is concern?</i>

 

[PistolPete]

Well, I just looked on spaceflight.nasa.gov, and NASA managed between 5-6 launches per year between 2000 and 2002 at the begining of the ISS construction. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><em>So, again we are defeated. This victory belongs to the farmers, not us.</em></p><p><strong>-Kambei Shimada from the movie Seven Samurai</strong></p> </div>

 

[djtt]

We need something ambitious and exciting soon to re-kindle the interest that seemed to touch everybody during the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo days.<br /><br />^ agreed

 

[qso1]

djtt:<br />We need something ambitious and exciting soon to re-kindle the interest that seemed to touch everybody during the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo days.<br /><br />Me:<br />This is a tough one because we do need to be able to inspire the public. Problem is, the inspiration does not last. The public imagination was captured with the Apollo 8 flight and lasted just barely through Apollo 11. By the time the Apollo 13 mission got underway. Apollo had become nearly as routine at lunar landings as the shuttle is now perceived as making LEO routine.<br /><br />Even the shuttle captured public imagination at the beginning of that program. But seemingly routine operations and inability to live up to the economic promise ended most of the publics fascination with the shuttle and space exploration.<br /><br />Another contributing factor is the media generated perception that space exploration is somehow unaffordable. <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>

 

[nyarlathotep]

>"Now that NASA is begining to remember it's lineage, space-for-the-masses concepst like space tourism are begining to flourish."<br /><br />NASA has done didly squat, they even quashed MIR so that they could keep their precious monopoly. The only reason we are seeing any space tourism at all is because of Amir and Anousheh Ansari and those wonderful Russian capitalists.

 

[PistolPete]

Believe me, I'm totaly with you on Mir, don't even get me started with that. The best thing that NASA has done in recent years is to simply get out of the way. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><em>So, again we are defeated. This victory belongs to the farmers, not us.</em></p><p><strong>-Kambei Shimada from the movie Seven Samurai</strong></p> </div>

 

[scottb50]

NASA has done didly squat, they even quashed MIR so that they could keep their precious monopoly....<br /><br />I think MIR had more than outlived it's usefulness. While it served it's purpose very well it was showing serious signs of aging. It might have limped on for a longer period but the risks probably out weighed the usefulness. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[webtaz99]

How can you "capture the imagination" of creatures who utterly lack it in the first place? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[gawin]

"First of all, five launches a year is nothing spectacular. 7 to 8 launches a year in the 90's was the average."<br /><br />I have my dough's about the shuttle being able to pull off 5 launches a year.<br /><br />I have a car that was built around the same time as the shuttles. 1972 caddy. Now ill try and explain why i don't think the shuttle can pull this off. This car is in excellent shape. I have spent more then $8,000.00 over the last 4 years restoring it. Even though the car is in roughly "new" condition it still breaks down more then a new car would. Parts have been under normal stress for 30 odd years. This alone makes the car unreliable. I drive it on a weekly basis but i do Not commute with it, take long trips nor to tow heavy loads. The car costs me about 4 times the amount of maintaining and gas mileage of a new car.<br /><br />NASA has been tasked with using virtually the same basic setup. Like my car many of the shuttles systems are new but the base craft is 30 odd years old and they are expected to produce the same results as if the crafts were brand new. Not to mention that the stresses that the shuttles go through are <gussing here /> 1000 times the amount of stress my car has been though. This makes the base craft Even more likely to break down then my car. <br /><br />I do not see them being able to pull this off with out making some serious concessions to safety.

 

[radarredux]

<font color="yellow">Second concern:</font>The shuttle fleet may be getting too creaky to fly as frequently as it has in the past.<br /><br />Once again, I don't know if this is a real concern or just a fear of the moment. Does anyone have numbers to back this up or refute this? Are the recent ECO sensor failures (including last year's) and the fuel cell problems simply symptoms of a larger problem - namely the shuttle is getting older - and we should expect more components to start failing more frequently as time goes on?

 

[PistolPete]

Well, the ECO is on the ET, which is replaced on every launch, so that is not a part of the aging issue.<br /><br />Keep this in mind: There are aircraft right now that are far older than the Space Shuttle (i.e. the DC-3) that fly on a regular basis. And I am sure that these aircraft don't recieve the same kind of coddling that the Shuttles do. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><em>So, again we are defeated. This victory belongs to the farmers, not us.</em></p><p><strong>-Kambei Shimada from the movie Seven Samurai</strong></p> </div>

 

[askold]

I have a "classic" 70's car too and it reminds me of the shuttle a lot.<br /><br />One thing - you learn to live with problems. The car is never 100% working; something's always wrong.<br /><br />Like the shuttle - if it launches tomorrow, it'll fly with a suspect fuel cell and ECO sensor. Like that windshield wiper that sticks half way ...

 

[radarredux]

Nature has an article on just this very issue. Below is a quote of about a quarter of the article, for the full article go to:<br /><br />Shuttle schedule besieged by delays<br />http://uplink.space.com/newreply.php?Cat=&Board=missions&Number=572766&page=1&view=collapsed&what=showflat&sb=5&o=0&fpart=1&vc=1<br /><br />From the Nature article:<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>The continuing delays highlight the problems facing the race to finish the ISS before the shuttle is retired in 2010. "The station is done. It's in plastic bags at the Kennedy Space Center," says Keith Cowing, a former space-station programme manager and editor of NASA Watch. The problem is trying to cram the last 16 missions needed to get those parts into space into tightly constrained windows that meet ISS needs, stringent new safety requirements, and Russian schedules. "It's a ballet," Cowing says. "Welcome to the new way of launching the space shuttle."<br /><br />The chief constraint on shuttle launches to the ISS is the so-called 'solar beta angle', the angle of the space station with respect to the Sun. Because of variations in the station's orbit and position relative to the Earth and Sun, it receives a variable amount of sunlight at different times of year. The shuttle can only meet the station when its solar arrays are receiving enough sunlight to power the station, but enough darkness to allow the shuttle and station to cool properly. <br /><br />This happens for only a few weeks at a time every few months or so, says Jonathan McDowell, an expert in rocketry at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. <br /><br />Within those weeks, each day has only two 10-minute launch windows that put the shuttle in the right</p></blockquote>

 

[halman]

qso1,<br /><br />To date, the American manned space program has consisted of missions, a launch, a period of time in space, and then a return to Earth. Initally exciting, but after a few, it is difficult to see why. We only get excited when there is an element of newness, or of danger, or of tremendous difference from what we are used to.<br /><br />I believe that there is something which can capture the public's interest, and hold it, because it would be something which would be highly visible, without having to be a space fanatic to find, and it would go on and on, not end after a few days like a mission. Imagine what it will be like to look up at the Moon and to know that there are people living and working up there! Not test pilots, trained for years for a single mission, but regular people, who you might know. Of course, there are people who will not be stirred by such an intellectual paradigm shift, but I am convinced that educated, aware people will be influenced and affected by the knowledge that the Earth is not the only place that there is. Until there are people living somewhere else, it is difficult not think of the Earth as the whole of the universe, in spite of all of our knowledge to the contrary. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[vh5150]

re: last post by halman...<br /><br />Yep, that's just about what I was looking for...<br />Thank you, very insightful. This is the type of response I can take to a politician who will ultimately decide how much money we devote to such endeavors.

 

[j05h]

> Imagine what it will be like to look up at the Moon and to know that there are people living and working up there!<br /><br />Great post, Halman. My only beef with it is that there are plenty of people who think we already have moon bases and other human infrastructure beyond the ISS. No accounting for ignorance and FOX TV UFO specials. I'm totally serious about this - of people that don't give-a-hoot about space, probably half of them think we are already doing way more than we are, the other half think it's all faked in a Hollywood backlot.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[nyarlathotep]

>"Imagine what it will be like to look up at the Moon and to know that there are people living and working up there! "<br /><br />I can just imagine it now... <br /><br /><i>I'm spending WHAT a day to send them drinking water? And they're just collecting more useless rocks?!? <br /><br />Ok... if they're just collecting rocks, is what they're doing atleast going to make it slightly more affordable for me to go? Wait... more expensive than in the 60's? Then what the hell are we paying these 'geniuses' $12B a year for then? </i>

 

[j05h]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>> I can just imagine it now...<br /> /> I'm spending WHAT a day to send them drinking water? And they're just collecting more useless rocks?!?<br /> /> Ok... if they're just collecting rocks, is what they're doing atleast going to make it slightly more affordable for me to go? Wait... more expensive than in the 60's? Then what the hell are we paying these 'geniuses' $12B a year for then?<br /><p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />This attitude is usually followed by the "fix stuff on Earth first" sentiment. Many peeps don't understand how little of the federal budget NASA consumes, and assume it is much more, like DoD levels or subset thereof. For all the Utopians out there, private space development will create new tax revenues so you can have the money to porkbar^H^H fix all the problems on Earth. <br /><br />I've had more than one person express surprise that there hadn't already been a human mission to Mars. seriously.<br /><br />Nyarlathotep - FYI that quote is Halman's, the rest was my response. <br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[halman]

vh5150,<br /><br />When you do communicate with said politician, remind them that the United States has been spending less than 1 percent of the federal budget on manned space exploration for the last 25 years. Less than 1 percent, on what is most likely to be the area of the greatest growth and creation of wealth in our future. Tell them that you see outer space as a frontier, a place where there are unlimited resources and unlimited energy. Tell them that what we are doing up there is not just scientific research, but learning how to survive in the environment that constitutes nearly all of the Cosmos. Tell them that if this nation has a future, it will lie in outer space, in developing the technologies needed to extract resources and process them outside of the Earth's environmental system, not in competing with Third World countries for semi-skilled labor. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[halman]

Nyarlathotep,<br /><br />Do you begrudge the workers on an off-shore oil platform their drinking water? I would imagine not, because you perceive what they are doing to be important. We will not be going back to the Moon to collect more rocks, but to figure out where the titanium is, and how to get to it. We will be learning how to survive without an atmosphere to interdict for us the raw power of the Sun, and the dust and debris which is found everywhere in space. We will be learning how to extract oxygen from regolith, how to recycle our wastes into drinking water and food, just like as happens here on Earth.<br /><br />But, most importantly, keeping these people alive on the Moon will mean learning how to get back and forth between the Earth and the rest of the Cosmos safely, reliably, and cheaply, because we will have to do it a lot. Maintaining a base on the Moon will be the single greatest incentive to develop launch systems which do not require extensive turnaround times, armies of workers to prepare, and other armies to launch. The man on the street may not agree with what is being done on the Moon, but, at least he will know where it is being done, and not wondering if he is being swindled because his money is going to some point of light in the sky.<br /><br />The majority of people today cannot tell the difference between Jupiter and Andromeda, they have no idea that there have been two people living and working in space for the last several years, and they still unconciously think of the Earth as being all that there is. Even if they disagree with the work being done on the Moon, they at least will know that it is being done some place other that the Earth, which will broaden their horizons whether they want it or not.<br /><br />I am not sure where you got the figure of 12 billion dollars a year, because the NASA budget is closer to 16 billion. Unfortunately, only about 4 billion of that goes to manned space exploration. Of course, we could spend that <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[mithridates]

That was well written. I'd just like to point out that the Colonization of the Moon article on Wikipedia seems to be nearing featured article status, and that a day on the 16th most popular page on the internet certainly couldn't hurt. If anyone hasn't yet registered on Wikipedia now might be a good time to do so, take a look at the article, add sources or make revisions to make the article as good as possible. That's something that we can do right this minute to help keep the subject in the public view.<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_the_Moon <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>----- </p><p>http://mithridates.blogspot.com</p> </div>

 

[askold]

NASA's 2006 budget is $16.6B of which $6.8B is for "manned exploration" - the shuttle and ISS. Not $4B.<br /><br />We've had 3 launches since Columbia so those trusses on their way to the ISS are costing us about $20B.<br /><br />I can't wait to see how much we're going to be paying per pound for moon rocks.

 

[qso1]

JO5H:<br />This attitude is usually followed by the "fix stuff on Earth first" sentiment.<br /><br />Me:<br />Not only that, they seem to fail to realize that the moneys not going to go to fixing anything. Its going to such wastes as deficit spending and fixing other countries problems such as rebuilding Iraq. <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>