Bill_Wright":1elr2jjv said:
Why don't we close this thread with the hope that my concerns are unfounded. I do feel that somewhere Dr. Feynman is not smiling about this, but I'll defer to your opinions. I'd still like to see the test plan and FMEA but I really think that NASA has turned into a "PowerPoint" organization. I blame Congress (specifically the House) for underfunding NASA. I think the whole stimulus bill should have gone to them to create 21st Century high tech jobs, right here in America. But I didn't get to vote on that.
Thanks for all of your input,
Bill
If we gave the entire stimulus to NASA, they'd just blow it on a better toilet seat.
As for the decision to park the JWST in this particular L point, any dust won't obscure the spacecraft's view. We already have things parked out there, and they work just fine. As regards NASA's risk management, this is an organization that was genuinely surprised that a rubber O ring could be affected by weather conditions. They were also shocked when it turned out that a winged spaceschip with a leading edge on the wings constructed from light-weight tiles could be susceptable to impact from a low mass object impacting the tile at high speed. They also lost a Mars probe ten years back because engineers were using a combination of metric and imperial units, and nobody picked up on this until said probe went zipping off into deep space.
Then you have the Mars Polar Lander, which turned into the Mars Polar Impactor when it shut down its descent rockets while still airborne. More recently, Phoenix was almost a relative bust when we failed to design a digging tool which could efficiently scoop up ice and dirt and move it about three feet to an onboard oven. Because the soil at the landing site was clumpy, it stuck to the shovel, and thus several samples of ice were lost because they sublimated in the time it took NASA engineers back on Earth to figure out how to empty the shovel.
While the Spirit and Opportunity rovers have turned out to be monumentally sucessful, remember when we discovered that their flash drive memories had to be purged or the rover would put itself in safe mode? Remember how we only discovered this when Spirit shut itself down a couple of days into the mission? Kind of seems like one of those basic tests of functionality that should have been covered on Earth.
Add to the list Hubble's mirror.
Anyone remember the antennae fiasco on Galileo?
Moving beyond this, NASA is also an organization that went from Mercury to Apollo in under a decade, and then on to Skylab and the Shuttle shortly thereafter. Since then, NASA has lost nearly half of the Shuttle fleet, and have failed to field a single new human spacecraft in 30 years. NASA has the Shuttle slated to retire next year, and while there are certainly some very pretty mockups of the new Orion capsule, the Ares I rocket which is meant to launch it will probably be slated for cancellation later this week. By this time next week, NASA may have an ageing and unreliable Shuttle fleet slated to retire, along with an under-development Apollo throw-back as the Shuttle replacement. Said replacement will have no launch system.
Just the fact that NASA had the audacity to roll out the Ares I design demonstrates that the organization lacks a basic grasp of sound project management, vision, and innovation.
The Augustine Commission delivers their formal report on Tuesday, and I think it is safe to say that their proposals for human spaceflight will have serious ramifications on unmanned space science programs. In the long run, this will probably be a good thing, but I wouldn't put money on seeing the JWST launch any time soon. Some leaks of the report, as well as the preliminary report delivered last week, indicate that there will be a strong recommendation to move NASA away from designing and launching LEO manned spacecraft in favor of commercially provided services (such as SpaceX with the Dragon). The intention will be to allow NASA to focus resources on robotic science missions (like the JWST), and to also develop a deep space human spaceflight capability. What NASA actually does to implement such a strategy, this is part of the reason that in the last couple of weeks we have seen Lockheed role out the "Kissing Orions" near earth asteroid mission configuration, as well as the Bigelow Aerospace proposed Orion Lite, an LEO only Orion configuration which Bigelow would manufacture and launch. Designed in partnership with... wait for it... Lockheed, which is also the primary contractor for the Atlas V rocket, is a likely candidate for replacing the Ares I in a human rated configuration.
The Orion Lite is also being designed with Space X in mind, using their Falcon 9 launcher. What we're seeing is an American space program that has gone badly off the rails. However, private companies recognize that:
A: Project Constellation is toast
B: NASA will not be able to close the gap between Shuttle retirement and Orion rolleout using the Ares I
C: While American's are apathetic toward NASA, they are not apathetic about space exploration in general
D: Not having human spaceflight capabilities will be a political loser, even if NASA is rarely a political winner
E: It is commercially wise to develop alternative launch systems that will be compatible with Orion because there will be a political need to launch our own people
F: Lockheed has Orion and Atlas V. SpaceX has Dragon and Falcon 9. Bigelow has Orion Lite, on behalf of Lockheed, as well as Sundancer. Together, they will be able to provide US-based human launches to LEO and the ISS.
G: Lockheed doesn't need Ares I. They do need a new Heavy Lift capability, which is expected from the Ares V, or a variant of DIRECT.
H: DIRECT can launch the Orion, and most of the systems and components are already flight tested on the Shuttle.
I: NASA has also resurected the Shuttle-C design, which could be Human rated to support the Orion in a side mount configuration similar to the Shuttle. Most of these components are also proven and could be fielded quickly.
So making a long story short Bill, you are correct to doubt NASA's ability to launch the JWST. However, the reasons for doubting them are related to their internal program management and resource utilization. The JWST orbit is probably the only proven part of that mission.
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