get rid of the shuttle!

[dragon04]

From the perspective of not only a taxpayer, but a taxpayer who fully supports our space program, I personally feel that Columbia should have been the last shuttle mission.<br /><br />Let me take a moment of your time to explain why I feel that way.<br /><br />Our shuttle fleet cost us a lot of money to build, maintain, retrofit and launch.<br /><br />2 terrible disasters. In and of itself, considering the sheer number of manned missions we have launched into and returned from space, that's a testament to those who designed, built, tested and oversaw the vehicles we have put into space.<br /><br />But how much total time has the shuttle fleet been down due to these 2 disasters. How much extra money has it cost me, the taxpayer to retrofit the remaining shuttles for RTF's?<br /><br />I mean no offense to the folks at NASA. There are some of the finest minds on the planet down there doing everything humanly possible to make shuttle flights as safe as one can make a ship that rides into space on a bomb. And the heroic souls who ride those bombs. Their dedication is almost inspirational.<br /><br />But now, almost 2 1/2 years and God knows how many billions of dollars later to fix the fleet, we are falling behind in manned spaceflight.<br /><br />I would much rather have seen the shuttle fleet retired after Columbia and all that money, time, and effort put forth in the effort to get the next generation orbiter into space.<br /><br />I realize that had we done that, we would not be returning to space this summer. Or any summer in the near future.<br /><br />But sometimes, you have to cut your losses and start your future right there and then.<br /><br />Such is the case with our shuttle program IMHO as a taxpayer. So while I'm expecting to draw some heavy fire after posting this, I think it's important for NASA to hear from the folks paying the bills. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>

 

[drwayne]

"I would much rather have seen the shuttle fleet retired after Columbia and all that money, time, and effort put forth in the effort to get the next generation orbiter into space."<br /><br />I will repeat this for the last time. (Cheers in the background) The money saved would NOT go to fund a next generation orbiter - it would have gone to the war in Iraq,and school parks and midnight basketball and everything BUT space. Thats the way government funding works.<br /><br />The future would not start "there and then". If we were lucky, the future might *start* before 2020.<br /><br />I understand your message about building the future, and its not a bad one. But the political and budget environment reality in which programs such as NASA live - well, it is a bad one.<br /><br />Wayne<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[najab]

><i>I provided a convenient link to my sources. You provide...? </i><p>Well, my source for the lift capacity to the Station was an email from shuttle_guy, so I can't provide a link. He said that post-Columbia they can lift 37,000 (16,780kg) lb to Station. This is down by about 1,000lbs (~500kg) from pre-Columbia due to RTF mods. Not to slight Mark Wade's excellent Encyclopedia Astronatica, but I'll take the word of a senior STS program engineer over his on this matter.<p>><i>Oh? Is that the full weight of Destiny with all 23 racks (each of 550 kg)? Or the Destiny of only 5 racks that was to be fully outfitted by later missions?</i><p>To the best of my knowledge, that was the mass of Destiny as launched. That was, however, not the heaviest payload taken uphill. That honour would go to ITS-P6, to quote the NASA human spaceflight site: "The entire 15.4-metric ton (17-ton) package is called the P6 Integrated Truss Segment, and is the heaviest and largest element yet delivered to the station aboard a space shuttle."<p>><i>Even according to your own numbers, you are still off by one tonne. Unless of course you are now going to claim the Russian modules are only 19 tonnes instead of 20 tonnes!</i><p>I have seen different masses quoted for the both Zarya and Zvezda (ranging from 19,500kg up to 20,500kg). I'm guilty of using the lower numbers, instead of the middle of the range.</p></p></p></p></p>

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">what capabilities does hubble have that the JWST is not going to have? Hubble is just another glory object, another heirloom that old nasa folks and mean IT teachers want to cherish and keep</font>/i><br /><br />Today we have Spitzer Space Telescope (infrared), Hubble (visible), and Chandra (X-ray), but the Hubble still gets the press. Meanwhile, JWST is behind schedule and overbudget, so it may face some pressures to be scaled back or worse. Also, JWST is only infrared, so science focused on visible light will be hurt.<br /><br />But beyond science, IMHO the primary reason to fly the Hubble mission is to keep the people who pay the bills happy.</i>

 

[spacefire]

I hope they will not mount another mission to Hubble. It seems like an unacceptable risk to send a shuttle there to fix it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"Hubble (visible)"</font><br /><br />Hubble has the ability to process IR, visible, and UV wavelengths. Ground-based scopes with adaptive optics are rapidly eating into Hubble's visible light realm. While JWST may be delayed, Herschel will be launched in a couple of years, and is an IR scope with a larger primary mirror than Hubble. However, there are no UV scopes on the horizon (with funding) and UV can't be viewed effectively with ground scopes because the atmosphere filters it out. There's a proposed World Space Observatory which is UV-only, and a whole bunch of countries have signed on to assist with it... maybe... so long as no money is involved apparently... <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> (I haven't looked into it recently -- maybe they're further along now).<br /><br />At any rate -- one of the very unique things about Hubble is the ability to look at the same patch of sky in three distinctly different fashions. No scope being proposed has that capability.

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow">I hope they will not mount another mission to Hubble. It seems like an unacceptable risk to send a shuttle there to fix it.</font>/i><br /><br />As Rutan has said several times recently, if NASA does not have the courage to go to Hubble, how can they have the courage to break LEO and go to the Moon, NEOs, or Mars. There are always going to be risks. The goal is to make sure the mission is worth the risk.<br /><br />From bits and pieces that I have read, the astronauts who would be risking their lives are very eager to go to the Hubble. I think they see the rewards (science, good will, feeling of accomplishment) as worth the risk (one shuttle flight).<br /><br />Meanwhile, there seems to be less support for completing ISS even though there is considerably more risk (15-28 flights). <br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Witnesses called for a renewed sense of purpose and a more focused vision for NASA's programs. Huntress [Director of the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory and a former NASA official] testified that the Space Station and Space Shuttle do not merit the risks that they entail. He said, "If space explorers are to risk their lives it should be for extraordinarily challenging reasons - such as exploration of the Moon, Mars, and asteroids, and for construction and servicing space telescopes - not for making 90 minute trips around the Earth. The whole point of leaving home is to go somewhere, not to endlessly circle the block."<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=10687<br /><br /><br />From Griffin in 2004:<br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p> If there is a single fundamental point to be found in the report of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board – beyond identifying the technical and cultural causes of the mishap – it is that the nation’s hum</p></blockquote></i>

 

[spacefire]

Maybe we shouldn't focus on science as a theme and reason for manned space exploration. Maybe it should be drummed into the public's mind that we are doing it for the expansion and preservation of the human race, for its collective future. I believe that way a lot of people would be less adverse to risks and to spending. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[cyrostir]

well i honestly consider that an insult, with you automatically assuming authority over me like that....<br />makes you seem god like, which you obviously are far from it.....<br /><br />"Now, you can learn from what I just told you, or you can be insulted, that is entirely up to you. "<br />

 

[thinice]

<i>I have seen different masses quoted for the both Zarya and Zvezda (ranging from 19,500kg up to 20,500kg).</i><br /><br />Zarya was launched with 2/3 filled fuel tanks, so it weighted about 2.2 tonns less than with fully filled tanks. Zvezda mass after the separation from the launch vechicle was 20295 kg according to Novosti Kosmonavtiki.<br />

 

[quasar2]

this is for all. what we should look at quite seriously is what another failure would do. being brave & wanting to risk your life doesn`t make the Shuttle any safer. i`m beginning to think it`s about ego instead of the reality of permanent residency in Space. failure would slow completion. does anyone doubt this? if we`re going to be this emotional about the triumph, the tragedy will be equally so. is ego getting in the way of Shuttle alterations? & i ike the idea too of just letting others manage ISS. let`s remember folks, we still have Space Debris to deal with. ISS, Soyuz, Shuttle are too vulnerable to it. even completing ISS still doesn`t make it safer. there are several safer directions. Higher Orbit, L1, straight to The Moon. straight to Mars. anything other than LEO. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>