In article om, JF Mezei wrote:
On 13-03-04 07:33, Jeff Findley wrote:

been to ground it for five to 10 years while it's completely redesigned
to "make it safer". This is despite the fact that it's clear that NASA
didn't have the money or the political mandate for such a thing.

At this point in time, one can use hindsight to see what might have been
done.

NASA had many plans for shuttle improvements. They also developped new
shields etc.

Perhaps they should have grounded the fleet for a full year just prior
to start of ISS assembly (and take advantage of russian delays) to
retrofit one or 2 orbiters during major maintenance cycle with the new
heat shield tech etc.

Remember that the argument was that by grounding the shuttle, the money
saved was to pay for CEV. Perhaps the same logic could have been used to
upgrade the shuttles.

but part of me thinks the Shuttle continued in a way because whilst it was
still launching & building the ISS (which we can debate was a role to give the
Shuttle something to do) there was some purpose to it, it wasnt perfect but it
was filling a launch capability NASA required,.it meant they didnt pursue a
whole bundle of other stuff as a result, but it meant we could launch to the
ISS and do stuff with it,

as soon as you stop though, and step back and ask the question ok what upgrade
do we need to fix on the Shuttle, you dont end up with an upgraded Shuttle IMO
you shouldnt end up with an Apollo retread either, but the Shuttle design was
such a compromise of competing requirements the majority it never ended up
fulfilling anyway and to continue to fund it and upgrades to it just to keep
it going, to launch to the ISS.

there arefar better ways to get people into space, and its a shame we ended
up so focussed on delivering to the idiosynchracies of the Shuttle in the end
we are virtually back at the beginning again of manned space vehicles.