after years of studies, costs, delays and repairs - the foam still gouges the tiles down to the metal.<br /><br />Is it time to admit the vehicle is hopelessly flawed?
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That's why the program terminates in 2010, though IMO it's at least a decade overdue. <br /><br />Truth be told I'd have continued Apollo with an evolved Saturn IB like booster and an Apollo version of MOL. I'd have used the Shuttles ET/SRB idea though...as the basis for a heavy lifter. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
> <i><font color="yellow">Is it time to admit the vehicle is hopelessly flawed?</font>/i><br /><br />Yes it is. NASA's administrator has agreed. People in these forums who work for NASA have agreed.<br /><br />The shuttle has been officially End-Of-Lifed (EOLed) and will be fully retired in 37 months and 17 days. Their last flight may come well before then.</i>
It may have its flaws, but it arent done bad in building the ISS so far and out of 120 or so flights only 2 accidents
<font color="yellow">only 2 accidents</font><br /><br />Only??!! <img src="/images/icons/shocked.gif" /><br /><br />2 is enough!!<br /><br />Challenger;<br /><br />Michael J. Smith<br />Dick Scobee<br />Ronald McNair<br />Ellison Onizuka<br />Christa McAuliffe<br />Gregory Jarvis<br />Judith Resnik<br /><br />Columbia;<br /><br />Rick Husband<br />Willie McCool<br />Michael P. Anderson<br />Laurel B. Clark<br />David M. Brown<br />Ilan Ramon<br />Kalpana Chawla<br /><br />Losing them to a meteor hit or the like is one thing, but these people were lost to managerial incompetence that IMO borders on criminal negligence.<br /><br />Just when the HELL is enough, enough? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
I didnt mean it like that. Of course the 2 tragedies were very sad for everyone connected with Nasa, and its sad that we lost those astronauts. <br /><br />But purely from a reliability standpoint, the sheer number of things that can go wrong, and the complexity of launching, orbiting and landing a shuttle it has a pretty good safety record
Life is dangerous - spaceflight even more so.<br /><br />I don't expect the shuttle to be accident free. What does amaze me is that NASA continues to fly a clearly flawed vehicle that they simply can't fix.<br /><br />That's bad engineering - at the very least. Maybe even negligent.
Is there ever going to be such a thing as a flawless spacecraft?<br /><br />its about trying to fix or workaround the flaws to minimize the risk
<br />Yes to all your points. But we have the 'safe-harbor' back-up plan now, at least for dealing with heat-shield damage. I wonder if this means the end of Hubble though?
So you are suggesting that minimizing risk as much as possible and flying is worse than not flying any manned spacecraft for the next 15 years?<br /><br />Don't finish the ISS, just deorbit it now.<br /><br />Or worse, when manned flight is perfectly safe (in the year 25,000) we'll fly again? Or is it safe enough in 2050, or 2100, or 2500?<br /><br />That 25,000 is a joke, it will NEVER be perfectly safe.<br />Which means we never fly into space ever again.<br /><br />Where do you draw the line?<br /><br />That's not how I feel.<br /><br />Wayne <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>
you don't draw the line, you stand back and reconsider your options.<br />We had an alternative for manned transportation that would have been extremely cost effective to implement, the HL42 + an expendable booster:<br /><br />http://www.astronautix.com/craft/hl42.htm<br /><br />Not as fancy as the Shuttle, but definitely way better than what we are getting now as a replacement 
<br /><br />And who knows how that vehicle might have evolved in the 20 years that would have elapsed since its inception. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>
<br /><br />And who knows how that vehicle might have evolved in the 20 years that would have elapsed since its inception. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>In the world of today, sadly that is irrelevant.<br /><br />The shuttle is what we got for the next 3 years.<br /><br />As of now, beyond that we have nothing for at least anothet 2 or 3 years (optimistically). More likely 5 or more. <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>
<font color="yellow">you don't draw the line, you stand back and reconsider your options. </font><br /><br />As said here previously I used to race cars, fast ones. <br /><br />Asked then if I would consider going up some classes & driving a De Tomaso Mangusta my first response was "Are you outta your f'ing MIND? NO!!"<br /><br />Why? Because while fast it was a disaster looking for a time & place to happen; virtually uncontrollable in many high speed situations in spite of having several Ford GT-40 parts.<br /><br />Reconsidering <i><b>my</b></i> options I continued driving a Lotus instead.<br /><br />IMO if there were ever a spaceship equivalent of the Mangusta it's the Shuttle; it's <i>made</i> to bite your a** eventually, and we've had 2 "eventually's" so far. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
So, we've been backed into this corner through a combination of bad engineering and bad decision making. I sincerely hope nobody else dies in the next 3 years for NASA's hubris.
"after years of studies, costs, delays and repairs - the foam still gouges the tiles down to the metal. "<br /><br />Yep, that is why we take so much photography during launch, use the OBSS to scan, have focused inspections and multiple repair techniques. There is a serious achilles heel and why we are only flying about a dozen more times. No one at NASA ever said the problem was totally fixed.
I agree that shuttle launch system is a flawed design; it was flawed from the start. I will never forget watching the first launch, to be honest I thought it would crash or blowup. But thinking about it now and don’t take this the wrong way, but if something did go wrong on that first flight maybe we wouldn't’ have 14 dead astronauts today. Maybe somebody would have stood up and said this is not going to work like what happened with the Apollo 1 fire. The present day launch method will never be as safe as single rocket launch like the atlas or titan there are just too many parts, more things that can go wrong there is no such thing as a safe spaceflight.There were 17 manned moon related flights of the Saturn 5 rocket none of those rockets failed even after Apollo 12 was struck by lighting but if there were more flights more chances for an accident . I feel that it’s just sad to just abandon the orbiters. Endeavor has just gone through a complete upgrade; it’s basically a new orbiter.The orbiter is not the problem it's the way it is sent to space. I guess the bottom line is that I am not impressed with NASA’s new spacecraft to me it’s a step backwards it’s just a modern version of Apollo. NASA is sticking to proven technology. But the shuttle orbiter is proven technology that goes back to the X15.We could have built a smaller version of the shuttle but NASA chose not to. I remember a movie called Marooned in it they had a small craft mounted on top of a titan type rocket it was not just science fiction. NASA did a lot of testing of lifting body spacecraft in 60's and 70's. It comes down to money. Also people associate Apollo with success so building a modern version of Apollo is good public relations. The Russians have been using the Soyuz space craft for a long time and it has been successful for them but it’s still just an old design. I think we could do better. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. <br /><br />
All spacecraft have their problems. Apollo killed one of it's crews, and another is very lucky to be alive. Soyuz killed 2 of it's crews, and 2 more crews are lucky to be alive. Shuttle has killed 2 of it's crews, it seems like par for the course, as cold as that sounds. I'd fly it in a heartbeat if they'd let me. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
<i>> All spacecraft have their problems. Apollo killed one of it's crews, and another is very lucky to be alive. Soyuz killed 2 of it's crews, and 2 more crews are lucky to be alive. Shuttle has killed 2 of it's crews, it seems like par for the course, as cold as that sounds. I'd fly it in a heartbeat if they'd let me.</i><br /><br />Very well put. I'd fly any of them, given the chance.<br /><br />The safest possible system is probably a capsule with protected heatshield and LAS, boosted by a single core TSTO rocket. Nothing sidemounted, as few engines as possible for simplicity. <br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>
I have to agree, which is why I'm not at all impressed with Orion. With Bigelow looking to skip ahead to Sundancer, a vehicle like the shuttle would actually begin to make more sense. One of the original ideas that floated around the shuttle was to place a passenger module in the cargo bay. Just how many people would it have been able to transport to a Bigelow complex? Seen in this light, Orion is a vast decrease in capability and a missed opportunity. Basically, Orion means the likes of us flying in space in the next thirty years is zero unless private companies can succeed in building better transport systems. I don't know how large a capsule we can reliably build, but if Bigelow succeeds and manages to launch several of his BA-330 modules, flying a mere six people max at a time to a space hotel is not going to make economic sense. Much as I'd like Bigelow to succeed, going to capsules I think still present quite a bit of a challenge especially in handling on the ground. As I understand it, the biggest advantage of the capsule is re-entry. When we start talking about transporting 10-20 or more people to space at a time, then a capsule shape begins to elongate into a cylinder form since I'd assume it's cheaper to build a cylinder shape than a huge capsule to fill the need. The point is, I still do not see how going the way of Orion, really gets us to being a space faring society. <br /><br />I think Bigelow placing modules in orbit has a better chance of getting us to there than NASA wasting billions going back to the moon or Mars now. The reason being once he finds out how expensive it is to get material up from earth there'd be more interest in grabbing material from the moon or more likely a NEO sporting usable volatiles than shipping up from earths steep gravity well. I think that'd lead to a more creative solution that just rehashing Apollo and actually leave infrastructure on orbit that we want to use. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>So, we've been backed into this corner through a combination of bad engineering and bad decision making. I sincerely hope nobody else dies in the next 3 years for NASA's hubris.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Watch it! Its not bad engineering! And I'm not sure its bad decision making either. What NASA does is research. The Shuttle system is a research system and its R & D itself. No one knew that humidity and ice falling off the external tank would or could damage the orbiter's heat shield. Now we know. Now we know not to place a reentry vehicle on the side of a cryonic tank during launch. <br /><br />I cannot apply the word 'hubris' to NASA. It just doesn't fit. Hubris implies carelessness. And NASA is anything but careless. NASA takes chances, yes it does. Because not all the answers are there until you try.<br /><br />It took twenty three years since the first Columbia flight before its heat shield was damaged and it broke apart on reentry. That's a long time for an experimental craft.<br /><br />Astronauts put their lives on the line every time they launch, and their happy to do it. Can you say the same thing about yourself in relation to your job?<br /><br />Its not 'hubris' its heroism. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>
"Watch it! Its not bad engineering! And I'm not sure its bad decision making either."<br /><br />Apollo 1 – Grissom, White, Chafee. Hatch opened inward; 100% oxygen; 1,407 wiring problems; schedule pressures. Bad engineering and bad decision making.<br /><br />Challenger – 7 crew. O-ring failure; Morton-Thiokol engineers give in to NASA arm twisting; schedule pressures. Bad engineering and bad decision making.<br /><br />Columbia – 7 crew. Debris from the tank rained down on the shuttle from the first launch; tiles were damaged on many previous flights; nothing was done because nothing catastrophic happened on the earlier missions; schedule pressures. Bad engineering and bad decision making.<br />
Exactly correct.<br /><br />What galls me is that knowing foam was flying off on every flight no one did the "shotgun test" vs. the wings brittle leading edge until <i>after</i> the s * *t hit the fan with Columbia. What part of p=mv didn't they get?<br /><br />10,000 130+ IQ's and no one thought "hmmm....better check this out just in case"? Sorry, but I've seen more foresight & common sense in a racing garage full of grease monkeys. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
Too many chiefs & not enough indians perhaps???<br /><br />Andrew Brown. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>
<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>The orbiter is not the problem it's the way it is sent to space.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />That's true if you're only thinking about safety. But there's also the cost and flexibility. It's an expensive way of getting anything into LEO, and it can't go anywhere other than LEO.<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I guess the bottom line is that I am not impressed with NASA’s new spacecraft to me it’s a step backwards it’s just a modern version of Apollo.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />That's like saying a modern-day Boeing is a step backwards to a 1960s Boeing! Sure, they look similar, and do similar things, but the former is clearly more advanced.<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>NASA is sticking to proven technology.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />That's true, because they needed to get this thing into service as quickly as possible and it <i>had</i> to work.<br /><br />The Shuttle was unproven technology. The problem is it remained so.
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