Question????

[Sean G.]

I have to give a "persuasive" presentation on why it is impoprtant to
support the space program despite the various dumb mistakes, tradgedies, and
other mishaps.

Does anyone know of a place where I can find a complete listing of all STS
missions since day one??

I have dug around all over NASA's site, and had little luck. the closest
thing I have found is a year by year breakdown. I would like an entire list.

And as if that weren't enough, I would also like to know exactly how many
STS missions there are total. though, I suppose that could be gathered from
the complete list...

Anyway, any help would be appreciated....

thanks,


--
-------------------------------------------
Sean G.
Who is neither nasty, tricksy, nor false!

[Roger Balettie]

"Sean G." > wrote:
> Does anyone know of a place where I can find a complete listing of all STS
> missions since day one??

Sean -- I have what you're looking for on my website.

Specifically: http://space.balettie.com/ShuttleHistory.html

Each flight also has a link to a NASA PAO page with more info.

Roger
--
Roger Balettie
former Flight Dynamics Officer
Space Shuttle Mission Control
http://www.balettie.com/

[OM]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 21:41:05 -0500, "Sean G."
> wrote:

>I have to give a "persuasive" presentation on why it is impoprtant to
>support the space program despite the various dumb mistakes, tradgedies, and
>other mishaps.

....Use my favorite one: if you're against space exploration, you're an
anti-American Godless heathen communist ******* deserving of a painful
death followed by hanging your carcass from a tree to provide food for
the buzzards.

Oh, and you'll go to Hell for denouncing NASA, too.


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

[Sean G.]

"Lefty Skywalker" > wrote in message
...
> Sean G. wrote:
> > I have to give a "persuasive" presentation on why it is impoprtant to
> > support the space program despite the various dumb mistakes, tradgedies,
and
> > other mishaps.
> >
> > Does anyone know of a place where I can find a complete listing of all
STS
> > missions since day one??
> >
> > I have dug around all over NASA's site, and had little luck. the closest
> > thing I have found is a year by year breakdown. I would like an entire
list.
> >
> > And as if that weren't enough, I would also like to know exactly how
many
> > STS missions there are total. though, I suppose that could be gathered
from
> > the complete list...
> >
> > Anyway, any help would be appreciated....
>
> Hey, this sounds like something to discuss!
>
> 1. Why go to space?
>
> a. "Because it's there." It's big and interesting and there's lots of
> stuff out there we don't know a thing about.
> a. Space contains vast quantities of resources, especially metals and
> sunshine.
>
> 2. Why send people to space?
>
> a. People can do things robots can't, from mechanical, cognitive, and
> political perspectives. Perhaps most interestingly, people can claim
> territory - especially if launched from a nation that hasn't signed any
> of those silly 1960s treaties.
> b. There's no lightspeed delay to the robot when you're actually on
> Mars. Hence, no silly boulder-collision incidents, an opportunity to
> catch kilos-to-pounds conversion mistakes, etc.
> c. Space is interesting. If you can walk outside on Titan with a heated
> parka and a breather, isn't that worth doing? (And if you can also
> strap on a set of wings and fly, well hell!) If there's life on Europa
> or Ganymede, shouldn't a person be there to see it first?
>
> 3. Is NASA the right way to do it? (Cover your eyes, Bill.)
>
> a. NASA was subverted out of NACA to do the moon shots. They've been
> dicking around in LEO ever since.
> b. NASA's shuttle program is an abject failure, at least compared to
> what they said they were going to do.
> c. Every attempt to replace the shuttle gets canceled a few years after
> it starts. Meanwhile, the three remaining airworthy shuttles are
> nineteen, eighteen, and eleven years old, respectively. They are
> textbook hangar queens, going a year between flights.
> d. NASA wasted nearly a decade and billions of dollars on "Faster,
> Cheaper, Better", which resulted in the loss of Mars Observer, Mars
> Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander and Deep Space 2, and the
> cancellation of missions to Europa, Pluto and the Kuiper belt.
> e. NASA reports to the President and is mainly a prestige toy for
> American politicos. Dems build it up in the wrong direction with
> boondoggle products, then the GOP slashes the budget and takes credit
> for what got done. So Nixon cancells Apollo, Reagan slashes the
> Shuttle, and Shrub slashes the Station
> f. Ah yes, the station. Built on 1970s Russian hamster-tube
> technology, the station is almost worthless. Due to the budget cuts by
> Shrub, there is zero chance of meaningful science taking place there.
> It's in a Russian-style orbit so the Shuttle can't lift nearly as much
> to it as it could to an American orbit. Columbia, which was an early,
> heavy iteration of the Shuttle design, couldn't make it to the Station
> at all with a worthwhile payload. With the Shuttle down and out, the
> crew is forced to rely on Russian capsules which haven't changed design
> since even longer than the Shuttle has been around.
> g. Let's not even talk about Columbia. What's happened since is far
> worse than the accident itself. The real outcome, however, is to
> showcase what a mess the Shuttle program is in the first place.
>
>
> --
> Daniel O. Miller
>
> "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the
> fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true
> science. Whosoever does not know it and can no longer marvel, is as good
> as dead, and his eyes are dimmed." - Albert Einstein
>
> WWYD?
>
> (hotmail addy is a red herring; I'm at em see aych ess aye)
>

Suggestions for improvement then??

I think some good common sense folk in amongst the nerds at NASA would be a
great help....


*dream sequence Monday AM at Kennedy, the water cooler*

Bill the nerd: "I have been tasked with finding a ballpoint pen that will
write in zero-grav applications, for further use in space! Isn't that
exciting?!"

Sean G the normal guy (slightly hung over and praying for less humidity):
"Umm, yea Bill great. Will you use the millions of dollars worth of grant
money to fix the masking tape on our glasses?"

Bill: "No WAY, wow, that would be like, misappropriation of government fund
and stuff, I could NEVER do that."

Sean G: "So beer and lap dance lunches at the Pink Palace are out from now
on, huh? Damn. Your turn to buy too. All because of a pen."

Bill: "You know about that?!"

Sean G: "I started the tradition. That and a few others around here..."

Bill: "I can't wait to get to work on defying the laws of gravity that
restrict use of ballpoint pens in space. I wonder how I'm going to figure
the physics of the whole thing." *mind starts churning*

Sean G: "Straightening your tie and getting rid of the flood pants, and
pocket protector might help."

Bill: "Like, wow, I wonder who will be on my R&D team? How long you think
we'll have until deadline?"

Sean G: "Bill, I think you should hire a Russian consultant. He could solve
you problem in about thrity seconds, and we could then get back to the
covert work of misappropriation we were discussing earlier."

Bill(shocked): "A Ruusky?! How the hell could a Russian solve my problem
that fast?! Have they figured it out? When??"

Sean G: "The Russians use pencils in space, Bill."

*end dream sequence*

AS I understand it, something closely akin to this happened. We waste vast
amounts of money overthinking simple problems, while often, the solution is
basic. An example would be the metric conversion mars debacle.

That is my suggestion...get some common sense folk in amongst the nerds.
I bet it would work wonders.


--
-------------------------------------------
Sean G.
Who is neither nasty, tricksy, nor false!

[Jorge R. Frank]

"Sean G." > wrote in
:

> Bill(shocked): "A Ruusky?! How the hell could a Russian solve my
> problem that fast?! Have they figured it out? When??"
>
> Sean G: "The Russians use pencils in space, Bill."
>
> *end dream sequence*
>
> AS I understand it, something closely akin to this happened.

Nope, everything you wrote above was horse****.

NASA didn't develop the "space pen". The Fisher Pen company did, using its
own funds, then sold pens to NASA and the public.

Pencils in micro-g are a bad idea. They shed graphite dust that can be
inhaled by the crew, and can float into sensitive electronics. The
Russians wised up and started using Fisher Space Pens years ago.

> That is my suggestion...get some common sense folk in amongst the
> nerds. I bet it would work wonders.

This is my suggestion: study actual history instead of fiction and urban
legends.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

[jeff findley]

"Roger Balettie" > writes:
> Specifically: http://space.balettie.com/ShuttleHistory.html

Just so you know, Roger's site is a good place to go for this info.
He's not saying this just because it's his site.

Jeff
--
Remove "no" and "spam" from email address to reply.
If it says "This is not spam!", it's surely a lie.

[Roger Balettie]

"jeff findley" > wrote:
> Just so you know, Roger's site is a good place to go for this info.
> He's not saying this just because it's his site.

Thanks Jeff... :)

Actually, I just made an update on the history page
(http://space.balettie.com/ShuttleHistory.html)... I had the STS-98 payload
mistakenly listed as "Unity", rather than "Destiny"... a cut-and-paste
error!

It's been corrected (thanks Julian!).

Roger
--
Roger Balettie
former Flight Dynamics Officer
Space Shuttle Mission Control
http://www.balettie.com/

[Terrence Daniels]

"Roger Balettie" > wrote in message
. ..
> Actually, I just made an update on the history page
> (http://space.balettie.com/ShuttleHistory.html)... I had the STS-98
payload
> mistakenly listed as "Unity", rather than "Destiny"... a cut-and-paste
> error!
>
> It's been corrected (thanks Julian!).

Roger,

Just an idea... How about adding a link to this page here:

http://members.aol.com/WSNTWOYOU/mainmr.htm

That would make your page the handiest & most complete individual mission
reference site on the Internet, I think. :)

[Mike Speegle]

In news:Sean G. > typed:

> It was half meant to be a joke. I think I realize the implications of
> pencil shavings floating around sensitive electronics.
>
> But that doesn't really explain the footage of astronauts playing
> with food then does it?
>
> My god what a catastrophe a wayward zero-g banana would cause if
> what's his name didn't actually catch it with his mouth that time and
> it whizzed past him and into the big red button or something.
>
> Oh, and yeah, microscopic graphite is REAL hazardous...better get them
> schoolkids using those Fisher-Price pens instead. Wrote your
> congressman on the hazards of microscopic graphite dust right away.
>
> You should be a little MORE uptight...really, you should.

Hey rube, and what turnip truck did you just fall off of? What a
maroon.
--
Mike
__________________________________________________ ______
"Colorado Ski Country, USA" Come often, Ski hard,
Spend *lots* of money, Then leave as quickly as you can.

[Sean G.]

"Mike Speegle" > wrote in message
...
> In news:Sean G. > typed:
>
> > It was half meant to be a joke. I think I realize the implications of
> > pencil shavings floating around sensitive electronics.
> >
> > But that doesn't really explain the footage of astronauts playing
> > with food then does it?
> >
> > My god what a catastrophe a wayward zero-g banana would cause if
> > what's his name didn't actually catch it with his mouth that time and
> > it whizzed past him and into the big red button or something.
> >
> > Oh, and yeah, microscopic graphite is REAL hazardous...better get them
> > schoolkids using those Fisher-Price pens instead. Wrote your
> > congressman on the hazards of microscopic graphite dust right away.
> >
> > You should be a little MORE uptight...really, you should.
>
> Hey rube, and what turnip truck did you just fall off of? What a
> maroon.
> --
> Mike
> __________________________________________________ ______
> "Colorado Ski Country, USA" Come often, Ski hard,
> Spend *lots* of money, Then leave as quickly as you can.
>
>

Rube??

That supposed to be me??


--
-------------------------------------------
Sean G.
Who is neither nasty, tricksy, nor false!

[Sean G.]

"OM" <om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_research _facility.org> wrote
in message ...
> On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 01:09:20 -0500, "Sean G."
> > wrote:
>
> >Rube??
> >
> >That supposed to be me??
>
> ...Depends. Does the "G" stand for "Goldberg"? :-P
>
>
> OM
>
> --
>
> "No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
> his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
> poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society
>
> - General George S. Patton, Jr

No.

I'm Irish.


--
-------------------------------------------
Sean G.
Who is neither nasty, tricksy, nor false!

[OM]

On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 01:09:20 -0500, "Sean G."
> wrote:

>Rube??
>
>That supposed to be me??

....Depends. Does the "G" stand for "Goldberg"? :-P


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

[Mike Speegle]

In news:Mike Speegle > typed:

>
> And rube was intended to mean you. You were being a smartass to
> Jorge after he had explained about the space pen and the risks of
> using a pencil in zero g. Jorge maintains his cool here despite the
> idiocy he encounters. I'm not saying your story about the pen and
> pencil was idiocy (it's been heard here many times before), but
> you're new here, hence the rube comment. Google a bit and learn who
> the knowledgeable players are before you get snippy and snide when
> given a correct answer. mmkay??? ;-)

I'm sorry. "New here" means sci.space.shuttle, I forgot to add that
part.
--
Mike
__________________________________________________ ______
"Colorado Ski Country, USA" Come often, Ski hard,
Spend *lots* of money, Then leave as quickly as you can.

[Brian Thorn]

On 19 Jul 2003 00:26:18 GMT, rk >
wrote:

>>>d. NASA wasted nearly a decade and billions of dollars on "Faster,
>>>Cheaper, Better", which resulted in the loss of Mars Observer,
>>
>> Mars Observer was *not* a "Faster, Cheaper, Better" mission. In
>> fact, its failure was the catalyst for beginning the FBC missions.
>> The two Mars Rovers that NASA launched this year together cost less
>> than Mars Observer did. The two Mars probes lost in 1999 together
>> cost about half of Mars Observer's total (although there was some
>> Mars Observer legacy hardware in the Orbiter.)
>
>Mars Observer was supposed to be a low cost mission.

Well, cost is relative. The Planetary Observer series was meant to use
off-the-shelf technology to reduce the cost of inner solar system
exploration, and I think create a common spacecraft bus for a variety
of missions. But the Observers were cheap only in relation to Galileo
and the Mariner Mk.II (Cassini, et. al.) program also in development
at the time. In other words, they were hoping for a billion dollar
mission, instead of a 2 billion dollar mission.

In contrast, the Discovery Program missions (the poster children of
FBC) were/are aimed at $200 to $300 million each, and the contemporary
(but unrelated) Mars missions only a little more than that.

The Mars '98 disasters had the effect of putting more money into each
Mars mission, at the cost of fewer launches. Its unclear what effect
the CONTOUR fiasco will have on other Discovery missions.

Brian

[Lefty Skywalker]

Brian Thorn wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 23:32:05 -0700, Lefty Skywalker
> > wrote:
>
>
>>d. NASA wasted nearly a decade and billions of dollars on "Faster,
>>Cheaper, Better", which resulted in the loss of Mars Observer,
>
>
> Mars Observer was *not* a "Faster, Cheaper, Better" mission. In fact,
> its failure was the catalyst for beginning the FBC missions. The two
> Mars Rovers that NASA launched this year together cost less than Mars
> Observer did. The two Mars probes lost in 1999 together cost about
> half of Mars Observer's total (although there was some Mars Observer
> legacy hardware in the Orbiter.)

Bragging that you wasted only half of the money you did last time isn't
terribly convincing. The new missions aren't "money" until they roll
off their cute little balloons. I hope they make it, because Pathfinder
was terribly limited.

>>Mars
>>Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander and Deep Space 2, and the
>>cancellation of missions to Europa,
>
> No mission to Europa has ever officially been given the go-ahead, so
> it is difficult for NASA to have cancelled it. Regardless, the Jupiter
> Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission is still in development.

I know people who work orbits, and all the good windows for those
missions are *gone*. As for JIMO, I'll believe it when I see it launch,
and not before. The concepts I see are politically untenable and
godawful expensive, to say the least.

>>Pluto and the Kuiper belt.
>
> So is the Pluto/Kuiper Express mission, or whatever it's called these
> days. Due for lauch in 2006. Although to be fair, NASA had this one
> rammed down its throat.

Also to be fair, I wasn't aware it had been reinstated. Last I was in
the loop it had been pushed back indefinitely.

Still, a Pluto mission should have been launched ten years ago and been
an orbiter to capture the transition of Pluto's atmosphere. No chance
of that now.

>>e. NASA reports to the President and is mainly a prestige toy for
>>American politicos. Dems build it up in the wrong direction with
>>boondoggle products, then the GOP slashes the budget and takes credit
>>for what got done. So Nixon cancells Apollo,
>
>
> Nixon pulled the plug, but Johnson had left Apollo with very little
> chance of continuation.

In thousands of dollars:

1968:
Fiscal budget appropriation NASA: 3,970,000
with FY 1967 supplemental Apollo: 2,556,000

1969:
Fiscal budget appropriation NASA: 3,193,559
Apollo: 2,025,000

1970:
Fiscal budget appropriation NASA: 3,113,765
with FY 1969 supplemental Apollo: 1,686,145

1971:
Fiscal budget appropriation NASA: 2,555,000
Apollo: 913,669

Even if we didn't keep going back to the moon, Apollo technology could
have been leveraged far better than a mostly-unmanned, one-room space
station and a single detente game with the Russians. We had high-power,
reliable rocket engines and proven technology to build from, and we
****ed it away.

>>Reagan slashes the
>>Shuttle,
>
> Reagan dramatically increased Shuttle funding, and began the Space
> Station program.

The blame for the Shuttle's goofy design is also mostly Nixon's, with
some for the Air Force to share. He killed the 1970-vintage Station
program. With no destination, the Shuttle design changed from a shuttle
to a 3-week temporary space station on every launch. NASA went to the
Air Force for more money and came back with a requirement for a ship
that could launch from Vandenburg with 7 crew and 20 tons of payload.

So I looked it up, and you're right, Reagan increased Shuttle funding
enough to get a few flying and save face when things got tense with the
Russians again. But not enough to make it a worthwhile space
transportation system.

>>and Shrub slashes the Station
>
> Shrub has actually raised the ISS budget, the vast majority of the
> NASA budget slashing was done by his predecessor, and a 1990's NASA
> Administrator who never saw a budget cut he didn't like.
>
>>f. Ah yes, the station. Built on 1970s Russian hamster-tube
>>technology, the station is almost worthless. Due to the budget cuts by
>>Shrub,
>
> Clinton.

NASA budgets were steady from 1992-1998, and it's not all about budget
anyhow. No one ever heard the words "core complete" until W was in
office. The X-38 and the crew quarters were cancelled or indefinitely
delayed, resulting in a station that crews three and needs all their
effort merely to keep functioning. Bush has slashed the station.
That's not an accusation, that's a fact.

In millions of 2003 dollars:
Year 2001 2002 2003 2004
------------------------------------------------------------
Shuttle 3118.8 3272.8 3208.0 3301.0
Station 2127.8 1721.7 1492.1 1195.9

>
>
>>there is zero chance of meaningful science taking place there.
>>It's in a Russian-style orbit so the Shuttle can't lift nearly as much
>>to it as it could to an American orbit. Columbia, which was an early,
>>heavy iteration of the Shuttle design, couldn't make it to the Station
>>at all with a worthwhile payload.
>
>
> Yes, it could, and was scheduled to do so in Oct 03. Resupply and
> light assembly missions were well within Columbia's capabilities.

And that's all.

>>With the Shuttle down and out, the
>>crew is forced to rely on Russian capsules which haven't changed design
>>since even longer than the Shuttle has been around.
>
> Soyuz underwent a major design improvement that culminated in the
> first flight of the Soyuz TMA model in 2002.

So maybe they got better electronics and an improved engine. That helps
a lot. It's still the same core design they've been flying since the
1970s. They're still landing on parachutes over Siberia. But that also
isn't the point. The point is that it's damn embarassing to be relying
on the Russians for space launch capability, and even more embarassing
that theirs hasn't significanty improved either.

Now that we *have* a station - assuming we ever finish it - we once
again need a true space shuttle to ferry crew and supplies. Will we get
it? Will it be worth having once we do?

There are other problems. Many are institutional. They substitute
enormous amounts of documentation for doing quality work in the first
place. They never accept a simple robust design when a complicated and
fragile design requiring triple redundancy is available. When there's
an accident the whole organization siezes up for a year, and the actual
cause of the accident is lost in the political fallout. For example,
the cause of the Challenger accident was in bonding the segments. But
the fundamental cause was the choice of a segmented booster from Thiokol
- which was political. Aerojet tried to sell them a single-piece
booster for less money, and was turned down.

I don't believe that NASA is ever going to get people out of LEO. If
anyone does it'll be corporate and for money. I hope I see it in my
lifetime.


--
Daniel O. Miller

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the
fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true
science. Whosoever does not know it and can no longer marvel, is as good
as dead, and his eyes are dimmed." - Albert Einstein

WWYD?

(hotmail addy is a red herring; I'm at em see aych ess aye)

[Brian Thorn]

On Sat, 19 Jul 2003 12:21:10 -0700, Lefty Skywalker
> wrote:

>> Mars Observer was *not* a "Faster, Cheaper, Better" mission. In fact,
>> its failure was the catalyst for beginning the FBC missions. The two
>> Mars Rovers that NASA launched this year together cost less than Mars
>> Observer did. The two Mars probes lost in 1999 together cost about
>> half of Mars Observer's total (although there was some Mars Observer
>> legacy hardware in the Orbiter.)
>
>Bragging that you wasted only half of the money you did last time isn't
>terribly convincing.

So which is it? Do you want big, expensive missions or small,
relatively inexpensive missions? Faster, Cheaper, Better. Pick any
two. You can't get all three in one mission.

Mars Pathfinder, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars
Polar Lander, and Mars Odyssey 2001. Together they cost about 1.5
times as much as 1992's Mars Observer. Two of those failed. The other
three were successful.

>The new missions aren't "money" until they roll
>off their cute little balloons. I hope they make it, because Pathfinder
>was terribly limited.

Mars Pathfinder began life as the MESUR Pathfinder mission, the
prototype for a series of landers to be sent all across Mars in the
Mars Environmental Survey project. Follow-on MESUR missions were never
funded, and this was evident by the time the Pathfinder was launched,
so the mission was renamed Mars Pathfinder. But Pathfinder was still
an engineering demonstration, not a science mission. That it produced
any science at all is something of a triumph.

>> No mission to Europa has ever officially been given the go-ahead, so
>> it is difficult for NASA to have cancelled it. Regardless, the Jupiter
>> Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) mission is still in development.
>
>I know people who work orbits, and all the good windows for those
>missions are *gone*.

Windows to Jupiter come around every 15 months or so. How exactly are
the good ones "gone"?

>As for JIMO, I'll believe it when I see it launch,
>and not before. The concepts I see are politically untenable and
>godawful expensive, to say the least.

The problem is, so were the old concepts. Getting into orbit around
Europa with existing technology was simply too limited in capabilities
for the cost of the mission. So a new power system, Prometheus, is
being developed. Yes, this will have to run the nuclear minefield to
get approved, but we have probably already reached the limits (with
Galileo) of what an RTG-powered spacecraft can do in the Jupiter
system.

>Also to be fair, I wasn't aware it had been reinstated. Last I was in
>the loop it had been pushed back indefinitely.

http://sse.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/pluto_missns/pluto-pkb.html

>Still, a Pluto mission should have been launched ten years ago and been
>an orbiter to capture the transition of Pluto's atmosphere. No chance
>of that now.

Nonsense. Arrival at Pluto in 2015 is still within the estimated
period where Pluto will have a discernible atmosphere. And there has
lately been indications that Pluto's atmosphere is longer-lived than
originally thought.

>We had high-power,
>reliable rocket engines and proven technology to build from, and we
>****ed it away.

Agreed, but it was LBJ who did most of the ****ing. Requests for
funding on future Saturn V and Apollo production was zeroed-out as
early as 1966.

>The blame for the Shuttle's goofy design is also mostly Nixon's, with
>some for the Air Force to share. He killed the 1970-vintage Station
>program.

No, he didn't. He never approved one. Again, you're acting as though a
project existed as an official budgetary item and your political
opposition killed it. It didn't. They didn't.

NASA had ambitious plans for a reusable spacecraft, a space station in
orbit, and manned flights to Mars. Nixon agreed to fund only the first
part, the Shuttle. Station would have come later, once Shuttle was
operational. Which, in fact, it did in 1984. In 1989, Bush 1 proposed
a human mission to Mars. the proposal was dead-on-arrival on a
completely uninterested Capitol Hill.

>NASA budgets were steady from 1992-1998, and it's not all about budget
>anyhow.

From Rusty B.'s table in sci.space.history posted on Jul 16...

NASA Then Year 1996 Consumer
Budget Year DOLLARS Price
Year Dollars (Billions) Index
(Billions) 2001 Table

1990 12.429 14.714 0.8447
1991 13.878 15.735 0.882
1992 13.961 15.310 0.9119
1993 14.305 15.301 0.9349
1994 13.695 14.351 0.9543
1995 13.377 13.692 0.977
1996 13.882 13.882 1
1997 14.358 14.067 1.0207
1998 14.206 13.743 1.0337
1999 13.664 12.998 1.0512
2000 13.601 12.618 1.0779
2001 14.035 12.688 1.1062
2002 14.500 12.946 1.12 (estimated)
2003 15.500 13.596 1.14 (estimated)

Notice the real-world decline in buying power during the Clinton
Years. (The first Clinton budget was 1994, Dubya's 2002).

That's not "steady". That's an 18% decline during the Clinton years.

>No one ever heard the words "core complete" until W was in
>office. The X-38 and the crew quarters were cancelled or indefinitely
>delayed, resulting in a station that crews three and needs all their
>effort merely to keep functioning.

True, but all these problems (which made headlines in early 2001) did
not suddenly materialize on January 20, 2001. They were there for
years and Clinton simply had no interest in doing anything about them.
Bush did. He brought in an accountant to be NASA Administrator.
Although its been (obviously) overlooked during the Columbia disaster,
NASA's budgeting and accounting system is now much more reliable, and
Space Station is finally coming under control, all things considered.
Of course, now it has bigger problems to worry about.

>Bush has slashed the station.

No, he didn't, his budget gives the Station program the funding it was
projected to receive all along. Bush simply did not greatly increase
the ISS budget to meet cost overruns created by his predecessor. Given
how the ISS budget was spiralling upward out of control when he took
office, he really had no choice but to reign in the program. Bush did
however, increase the budget enough to keep up with the rising CPI,
something Clinton did only in an election year (the 1997 budget
written in 1996.)

>That's not an accusation, that's a fact.


>In millions of 2003 dollars:
>Year 2001 2002 2003 2004
>------------------------------------------------------------
>Shuttle 3118.8 3272.8 3208.0 3301.0
>Station 2127.8 1721.7 1492.1 1195.9

Of course, the spending should be winding down now, with all the major
construction finished and the elements just waiting for their turn to
launch. We were supposed to be transitioning from "construction" to
the much less expensive "operations" phase by now. NASA had $26
Billion to build a Space Station with, and that funding was spread out
over the years as you indicate in the table above. All of the elements
NASA could afford under that cost cap are either in orbit or at KSC.
NASA had to cut some of the other parts (Hab, Node 3) because that
would have exceeded the $26 Billion limit they agreed to, and neither
Congress nor two Presidents would raise that limit. Although, to be
fair, no one ever said they were cancelled. It was more like Bush put
NASA on probation to see if they could get the costs under control
before he'd throw more money at it. It appears they have done so.

>>> Columbia, which was an early,
>>>heavy iteration of the Shuttle design, couldn't make it to the Station
>>>at all with a worthwhile payload.

>> Yes, it could, and was scheduled to do so in Oct 03. Resupply and
>> light assembly missions were well within Columbia's capabilities.

>And that's all.

So first you claim Columbia couldn't go to the Station at all. Now
you're whining that it could only have done light assembly and
resupply. Geez.

>>>With the Shuttle down and out, the
>>>crew is forced to rely on Russian capsules which haven't changed design
>>>since even longer than the Shuttle has been around.

>> Soyuz underwent a major design improvement that culminated in the
>> first flight of the Soyuz TMA model in 2002.

>So maybe they got better electronics and an improved engine. That helps
>a lot.

Yeah, yeah... keep dancing. Just admit you are wrong and move on.

>For example,
>the cause of the Challenger accident was in bonding the segments. But
>the fundamental cause was the choice of a segmented booster from Thiokol
>- which was political. Aerojet tried to sell them a single-piece
>booster for less money, and was turned down.

Because no one had ever flown a large monolithic Solid Rocket Motor
before, while large segmented Solid Rocket Motors had a substantial
history of success with the Titan III program. NASA chose the SRB to
save development costs, remember, and the segmented booster was
considered by far the least risky, both to budget and schedule.
Thiokol got the Shuttle SRB contract as something of a surprise. It
had been expected that United Technologies would get it, since they
were already building the Titan solids. But politics did get
involved... the Air Force didn't want its Titan production threatened
by Shuttle SRB distractions, and that played into the hands of
politicos who wanted Thiokol to get a big fat government contract for
Utah.

Brian

[Jorge R. Frank]

Celaeno > wrote in
:

> You will not evade me, "Alex R. Blackwell" >:
>
>>Lefty Skywalker wrote:
>>
>>> Still, a Pluto mission should have been launched ten years ago and
>>> been an orbiter to capture the transition of Pluto's atmosphere. No
>>> chance of that now.
>>
>>That's a rather sweeping (and debatable) assertion. Scientific
>>opinion on this subject (i.e., the predicted collapse of Pluto's
>>atmosphere as it recedes towards aphelion) is becoming increasingly
>>mixed. In fact, a couple of papers published last week in the journal
>>Nature suggest that Pluto's atmosphere is actually *expanding*.
>>
>>See http://www.nature.com/nature/links/030710/030710-6.html
>
> And how does this remove the point that it would have been interesting
> to have sent something in time to see what actually goes on up close?

It doesn't, and AFAIK it wasn't intended to. It *was* intended to remove
the point that Pluto is no longer a high-priority target.


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

[Celaeno]

You will not evade me, "Alex R. Blackwell" >:

>Lefty Skywalker wrote:
>
>> Still, a Pluto mission should have been launched ten years ago and been
>> an orbiter to capture the transition of Pluto's atmosphere. No chance
>> of that now.
>
>That's a rather sweeping (and debatable) assertion. Scientific opinion
>on this subject (i.e., the predicted collapse of Pluto's atmosphere as
>it recedes towards aphelion) is becoming increasingly mixed. In fact, a
>couple of papers published last week in the journal Nature suggest that
>Pluto's atmosphere is actually *expanding*.
>
>See http://www.nature.com/nature/links/030710/030710-6.html

And how does this remove the point that it would have been interesting
to have sent something in time to see what actually goes on up close?

[Sean G.]

"Mike Speegle" > wrote in message
...
> In news:Sean G. > typed:
> > "OM"
> > <om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_research _facility.org>
> > wrote in message ...
> > > On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 01:09:20 -0500, "Sean G."
> > > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Rube??
> > > >
> > > > That supposed to be me??
>
> > No.
> >
> > I'm Irish.
>
> And rube was intended to mean you. You were being a smartass to
> Jorge after he had explained about the space pen and the risks of using
> a pencil in zero g. Jorge maintains his cool here despite the idiocy he
> encounters. I'm not saying your story about the pen and pencil was
> idiocy (it's been heard here many times before), but you're new here,
> hence the rube comment. Google a bit and learn who the knowledgeable
> players are before you get snippy and snide when given a correct answer.
> mmkay??? ;-)
> --
> Mike
> __________________________________________________ ______
> "Colorado Ski Country, USA" Come often, Ski hard,
> Spend *lots* of money, Then leave as quickly as you can.
>
>

What if the correct answer is given in a snippy and snide manner? Does that
justify being snippy and snide??

Hmmm???


--
-------------------------------------------
Sean G.
Who is neither nasty, tricksy, nor false!

[Mike Speegle]

In news:Sean G. > typed:

> What if the correct answer is given in a snippy and snide manner?
> Does that justify being snippy and snide??

Google is your friend. This subject has been discussed *often*.
And your accusations regarding the "space pen" were snippy and snide, so
was Jorge wrong to respond in kind? I think not.
--
Mike
__________________________________________________ ______
"Colorado Ski Country, USA" Come often, Ski hard,
Spend *lots* of money, Then leave as quickly as you can.