Shuttle project posterity - lessons learned

[holmec]

I would like to start this post to brainstorm on serious lessons learned that we/NASA has learned via the Shuttle project. In particular I am interested in lessons we can apply to future and present projects.<br /><br />Note this is not a post intended for shuttle bashing but rather and objective look at the real posterity of the Shuttle program - information. <br /><br />Shuttle_guy, Shuttle_rtf, and all you NASA dudes and Shuttle enthusists, YOUR ON! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[holmec]

No takers huh?<br /><br />Well let me start then with my very limited knowledge.<br /><br />One of the first things that I noticed about the Shuttle, building up to Columbia's first launch way back when, was that it allowed for a crew of 7.<br /><br />That may seem insignificant, but up to then we had only sent 3 at a time. With 7 you feel more a part of a "real" team. More tasks can be accomplished. And probably for the first time you had a subdivision of the team. The flight crew and the scientists. So now you did not have to neccesarily be a pilot to be an astronaut. You could be a scientist. This may have not been the first time we had sent up a non pilot before. I understand that in at least one Apollo mission a geologist was sent up. But now this would become routine operation. Also you had female Astronauts. I am sure some Astronauts have some stories to tell about differences with that little addition. But for the first time you had an american female point of view to space flight. Kudos to Sally Ride. Curisiously enough I have not heard anything about this, anyone care to expand? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[holmec]

How about that arm?<br /><br />I believe this was a first. And its had remarkable success.<br /><br />The Orbiter's arm used to capture unmanned craft for maintenance. Also use to move an astronaut around as stable as you can get. Operations with maintenance, repair and construction were all a first in orbit. The arm was key in all of them. So now the ISS has an arm as well. I am sure future space stations and star ships will too. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[shuttle_rtf]

Every flight is a new less, but the imaging has been an amazing lesson in data collecting during STS-114...and the OMSS did a great job.

 

[gsuschrist]

One lesson to be learned is that EVERY space flight should be treated as a test flight. We are barely out of the space starting blocks and DON'T yet know what works. We are smug in thinking that Apollo, Mir, etc. were the beginning stages and we are in some second stage of spaceflight. We aren't. We are still at square one just past the starting line. Our expectation shouldn't be for the Shuttle and the ISS to be great successes in themselves but their success is in what we learn from them. What we learn when things go wrong and how to adapt. How to roll with the punches and learn on the go. <br /><br /> I'm not sure if the Shuttle and ISS worked like a dream that we'd learn that much more than the original designs. We've learned tons because they didn't work as planned. That was an unrealistic expectation because they are experimental projects. Experimental technologies. We learn by tinkering and adjusting and going back to the drawing board to fix a problem.