should space shuttle be cancelled?

How many more of these delays can we take.
Challanger took the shuttle out of operation 4 years.
Columbia 2.5. Now they cancel Atlantis september mission.
3 years... 4...
Soon it is cheaper to develop a new launch system and just make sure
it can launch space station components.
It's time to put down te heal. Use it or loose it!

--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

"John Thingstad" wrote in message
news
How many more of these delays can we take.
Challanger took the shuttle out of operation 4 years.
Columbia 2.5. Now they cancel Atlantis september mission.
3 years... 4...
Soon it is cheaper to develop a new launch system and just make sure
it can launch space station components.
It's time to put down te heal. Use it or loose it!


I believe that once the Shuttle has retired, the people will start voicing
their REAL objections to the vehicle. Too many people at NASA and the
contractors are earning their bread and butter with it so for now you won't
hear them.

But the fact remains that the Shuttle is *fundamentally flawed* in many
ways, both in concept and design. It functions well as long as nothing goes
wrong but it's WAY too fragile to withstand the rigours of launch and
reentry (and operation in outer space probably too). I guess NASA is just
counting its blessings so far (including the current mission). The only nice
thing about it is the huge living space inside it (compared to the cramped
capsules of the Apollo era and of the upcoming CEV) and the large cargo
hold. It's a great space 'truck' but not for much use for anything else.
Expendable rockets could do its job a lot cheaper, albeit with somewhat less
flexibillity.

The US has already lost 14 astronauts to this wretched vehicle so far, with
a reasonable chance for more if the problems with it aren't adressed soon
(and that's not just the foam problem either). The sooner they get rid of
the thing, the better. It has stuck us in orbit with no apparent goal or
vision and has sucked up huge amounts of money with relatively little to
show for it.

My guess is that if they can solve the foam problem the Shuttle will fly
until 2010 but that's a big if since the fundamental flaw is that they're
not using a double walled tank and they won't replace the ET for just a few
years of service. I'm also pretty sure that NASA will not want to use duct
tape to solve the problem (even if it's the reasonable thing to do, as
suggested by some people in this NG) for fear of the publicity it would
create.

I was all in favor of the CEV but I'm more inclined to push along on
the OSP approach. If, instead of the CEV, we were building a new class
of shuttle, what would some of the requirements be?

a) Capable of leaving LEO, comes to mind.

The shuttle we have now is huge and can theoretically stay in space
long enough to go to the moon and back. If we build a new one, have
it able to go farther into space? Couldn't we have a shuttle of
similar size but with more fuel in either the cargo bay or a previously
launched external tank to get this puppy to the moon? We could put the
lunar lander and lots of other stuff in the cargo bay. 10,000 lbs of
lunar ore ought to be enough for decent assays.

b) Better thermal management

Obviously, the tiles have to go. But what to replace it with? A lunar
inbound shuttle would have to use a normal ablative heat shield because
it would be going that much faster, would it not?

c) An onboard jet engine.

One pass at landing sucks.

d) Horizontal landing, horizontal takeoff, horizontal processing. It
seems awefully complicated to pick up a 100 ton aircraft and put it on
its rear end, and then work on it at weird angle.

e) Easier turnaround stuff. It seems like every time they launch the
shuttle they practically have to take the whole thing apart and put it
together again.

Finally

f) Instead of spending 3 billion dollars on a perfectly safe vehicle,
accept some losses at 1 billion a piece and pay the astronauts 20
million bucks a flight.

I noticed a comment up this thread about after the Shuttle program
ends, that some people will have things to say. Just last night
(Sunday July 31) I heard during a news piece on the Shuttle lifting
off, that this time there were about 100 cameras watching various
parts of the machinery. From the character of this news, I infer none
of this observation equipment was there for earlier missions --
especially for the first missions when the Shuttle was new -- and *why
was that*?

I regard numerous reports of interesting things seen, as supporting my
observation about why cameras so late.

Which leads me to suspect the Shuttle's major engineering design
problem, was an admixture of *too much pork*. Before the Shuttle
design was complete its top engineer gave a talk about it at MIT, and
I was there. I asked him, "Are you going to do this metric or
English?" "English," he said, and there were chuckles all through the
room. Now I'm wondering: who chooses English -- engineers and
scientists; or *politicians*? ??

Maybe the prime lesson from the Shuttle is, who should get to do the
basic design work.

Cheers -- Martha Adams

Well, I can see not having cameras on heat shields simply because NASA
has never done it before and it worked. They didn't have camera heat
shields on Mercury, Gemini, or Apollo so the idea of monitoring the
heat shield probably seemed not as important for the Shuttle. They
probably had it in their organizational experience that the heat
shielding works ok so you don't need to worry about it as much.

I wouldn't have been so quick to laugh at the Shuttle engineer. Using
metric shuttle parts would have been an organizational disaster at the
time: 1976-1979. Mountains of subcontractors worked for NASA, in a
country that used predominantly english units at the time of the
shuttle manufacture, would have had all of these specifications coming
in metric. It would mean that the tooling cost would go up - if people
had rules on their cutting or grinding or milling machines in english,
and had to convert to metric, you would either have to get a new tool
or do some kind of a conversion. There would be errors in parts. It
would have been a zoo.

Also, if the bulk of your engineering talent, at the time of the
shuttle, was born in the 1930s and were schooled by all those X
programs, they were probably visualizing problems in english terms, and
making someone switch to metric to make the French happy might make the
guy a lot less effective. After every problem he or she would have to
do conversions in his or head.

Given that computers do all the calculations these days, I really don't
see a need to switch to metric at all. Metric was elegant when its
measurements were all based roughly on a block of water, but, it isn't
anymore.

On Mon, 01 Aug 2005 13:02:02 +0200, "John Thingstad"
wrote:

How many more of these delays can we take.

NASA is just wishing to make it look like the Shuttle is once again a
100% non-crew killing transport system.

Challanger took the shuttle out of operation 4 years.
Columbia 2.5. Now they cancel Atlantis september mission.
3 years... 4...

Only a few month's delay I would expect. They are not going to spend
all this money on a new ET just to throw it away and to start again.

Soon it is cheaper to develop a new launch system and just make sure
it can launch space station components.

It certainly is.

Had follow a Shuttle disaster they killed off the Shuttle completely,
then they certainly could have used that money to build themselves a
complete replacement system.

However, what NASA likes to do is to use these long breaks to pump
serious funding into Shuttle upgrades. As if you believe that they
just spent money fixing this foam problem, then you would be very
wrong. NASA kills a crew, pumping lots of money into Shuttle upgrades,
then they bill Congress under one "foam fixing" price.

I am not too up on what Santa Clause brought the Shuttle programme
this time around, but I do recall their desire for a Glass Cockpit and
to upgrade their SSMEs.

It is hard to believe that they plan on getting rid of the Shuttle in
2010, but at least they can reuse a lot of this launch system.

It's time to put down te heal. Use it or loose it!

I am not quite sure what NASA is up to these days. Their Discovery
launch was without question their safest Shuttle launch to date. And
comparing that foam loss to Columbia is as wrong as you can get.

However, the media starts going on about killer foam, not
understanding, or caring, how safe this launch was, where NASA agrees
and goes on some kind of self-torturing exorcise.

"We messed up! Come beat us with sticks!" and so on. And yet they must
be painfully aware that this Discovery launch was a vast improvement
over any previous Shuttle launch.

Sure it would be nice if foam did not "pop off" following all their
money spent to stop that happening. However, this ET is a thin piece
of metal covered with foam. During that launch just watch how much
that foam tank vibrates. So I would say that their quest to remove all
foam loss is impossible, where their Shuttle certainly is now safe
enough to use.

What NASA's problem is about is not in fixing these problems, but in
suspending their launches while they do it. Maybe it is the case that
they have some other Shuttle upgrades to finish off? However, the ISS
is not getting built, and Hubble is not being serviced, all the time
that they ground their Shuttles over a negligible safety concern.

Still, that is NASA for you. Had their managers suffered a loss in
earnings all the time that they Shuttle was grounded, then you would
soon see some changes.

Cardman.

"Cardman" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 01 Aug 2005 13:02:02 +0200, "John Thingstad"
wrote:

How many more of these delays can we take.

NASA is just wishing to make it look like the Shuttle is once again a
100% non-crew killing transport system.

Challanger took the shuttle out of operation 4 years.
Columbia 2.5. Now they cancel Atlantis september mission.
3 years... 4...

Only a few month's delay I would expect. They are not going to spend
all this money on a new ET just to throw it away and to start again.

Soon it is cheaper to develop a new launch system and just make sure
it can launch space station components.

It certainly is.

Had follow a Shuttle disaster they killed off the Shuttle completely,
then they certainly could have used that money to build themselves a
complete replacement system.

However, what NASA likes to do is to use these long breaks to pump
serious funding into Shuttle upgrades. As if you believe that they
just spent money fixing this foam problem, then you would be very
wrong. NASA kills a crew, pumping lots of money into Shuttle upgrades,
then they bill Congress under one "foam fixing" price.

I am not too up on what Santa Clause brought the Shuttle programme
this time around, but I do recall their desire for a Glass Cockpit and
to upgrade their SSMEs.

It is hard to believe that they plan on getting rid of the Shuttle in
2010, but at least they can reuse a lot of this launch system.

It's time to put down te heal. Use it or loose it!

I am not quite sure what NASA is up to these days. Their Discovery
launch was without question their safest Shuttle launch to date. And
comparing that foam loss to Columbia is as wrong as you can get.

However, the media starts going on about killer foam, not
understanding, or caring, how safe this launch was, where NASA agrees
and goes on some kind of self-torturing exorcise.

"We messed up! Come beat us with sticks!" and so on. And yet they must
be painfully aware that this Discovery launch was a vast improvement
over any previous Shuttle launch.

Sure it would be nice if foam did not "pop off" following all their
money spent to stop that happening. However, this ET is a thin piece
of metal covered with foam. During that launch just watch how much
that foam tank vibrates. So I would say that their quest to remove all
foam loss is impossible, where their Shuttle certainly is now safe
enough to use.

CardMan did you follow the news about the foam shedding AT ALL? The foam
that broke off could have easily punctured the wing just like it had with
Columbia if it had come off just a couple seconds sooner. Luckily this time
around we would have known about it but it would at the very leas it would
have meant the loss of another Shuttle (repairing it in orbit would be
virtually impossible) and that a rescue mission would have had to be sent up
to fetch the stranded astronauts. I can assure you that NASA's counting its
blessings right here and now!

On Mon, 1 Aug 2005 15:20:43 +0200, "Henk Boonsma"
wrote:

I believe that once the Shuttle has retired, the people will start voicing
their REAL objections to the vehicle. Too many people at NASA and the
contractors are earning their bread and butter with it so for now you won't
hear them.

Certainly.

But the fact remains that the Shuttle is *fundamentally flawed* in many
ways, both in concept and design.

I do not believe that. The only real flaw I see in the Shuttle system
is in having no crew escape system. All the other problems with the
Shuttle are simply technology not meeting Shuttle requirements.

So the tiles and wing edges are very fragile. On the other hand had
they been as hard as carbon nanotubes, then they would pose no safety
concern, or even need any servicing.

Apart from the lack of a crew escape system, then the Shuttle design
seems great for their "space truck". Okay, so I would also say that
the original SRB design was flawed as well. However, the problem with
the Shuttle ever since is that the technology does not yet exist to
make it work like it should do.

Instead they are pushing their requirements too far, where as a result
the Shuttle is indeed very fragile.

It functions well as long as nothing goes
wrong but it's WAY too fragile to withstand the rigours of launch and
reentry (and operation in outer space probably too).

True, So one day in the future when they have solved all these
technology problems, which currently make the Shuttle weak, then so
can they really do a Shuttle #2 design... if desired.

I guess NASA is just counting its blessings so far (including the current
mission).

The Shuttle has a rather high kill rate. The solution is just to
accept that the Shuttle can kill.

The only nice
thing about it is the huge living space inside it (compared to the cramped
capsules of the Apollo era and of the upcoming CEV)

Astronauts, who have been on the Russian system, say that their more
cramped conditions are actually more comfortable. So it is not about
lots of space, but a good seat and good leg room.

The problem with the Shuttle is that the seats are in the wrong
position for both launch and reentry. The old Buck Rogers syndrome
strikes again, when ideally the whole cockpit should have been able to
swivel around.

So I am sure that these astronauts will enjoy being launched in the
CEV.

and the large cargo hold.

The only problem with their cargo hold is that all this required
structure is what creates the requirement that makes the Shuttle weak.

It's a great space 'truck' but not for much use for anything else.

Too much mass to be efficient.

Expendable rockets could do its job a lot cheaper, albeit with somewhat less
flexibillity.

True. And in many cases you do not have to care if your cargo goes
bang, when you can simply replace it. So that removes the need for
human launch safety requirements.

The US has already lost 14 astronauts to this wretched vehicle so far, with
a reasonable chance for more if the problems with it aren't adressed soon
(and that's not just the foam problem either).

The Shuttle will never be safe any time soon.

The sooner they get rid of the thing, the better.

True. However, before they can do that they really do need to get
their CEV up and running. It is no good removing their only space
launch ability, even if it is a flawed weak system.

It has stuck us in orbit with no apparent goal or
vision and has sucked up huge amounts of money with relatively little to
show for it.

Well completing the ISS and serving the Hubble are two worthy goals.

My guess is that if they can solve the foam problem the Shuttle will fly
until 2010

That is for sure. If they don't make 2010, then that only means that
they lost another Shuttle and 7 crew.

but that's a big if since the fundamental flaw is that they're
not using a double walled tank and they won't replace the ET for just a few
years of service.

Should you compare the STS-112 and STS-114 launches, then it seems
quite obvious that they have completely replaced the ET.

The issue is not them not being able to do a double walled tank, but a
question of the launch mass involved. As it certainly looks to me that
they removed quite some mass from the ET during this upgrade.

So they could have easily done a double walled tank, and to fix this
problem once and for all, but they do not do so when they simply do
not wish to carry all that extra mass into orbit.

The reason being that with a future Endeavor launch, that this Shuttle
of the least mass, could well break the record on the greatest cargo
mass ever to be launched on a Shuttle.

I'm also pretty sure that NASA will not want to use duct
tape to solve the problem (even if it's the reasonable thing to do, as
suggested by some people in this NG) for fear of the publicity it would
create.

If it works...

Cardman.

Cardman writes:

I do not believe that. The only real flaw I see in the Shuttle system
is in having no crew escape system. All the other problems with the
Shuttle are simply technology not meeting Shuttle requirements.

Hehe, this one was good! :-)

So the tiles and wing edges are very fragile. On the other hand had
they been as hard as carbon nanotubes, then they would pose no safety
concern, or even need any servicing.

I wish we'd have some bacon, then we could make some bacon and eggs,
if we had some eggs.

What are you trying to say? That if the heat shield was much better,
it would be much better?

Apart from the lack of a crew escape system, then the Shuttle design
seems great for their "space truck".

Neither does a 747 have a crew escape system. So what?

Okay, so I would also say that
the original SRB design was flawed as well. However, the problem with
the Shuttle ever since is that the technology does not yet exist to
make it work like it should do.

Instead they are pushing their requirements too far, where as a result
the Shuttle is indeed very fragile.

What now? Is it a great space truck, or is it very fragile? You can't
have both.

It functions well as long as nothing goes
wrong but it's WAY too fragile to withstand the rigours of launch and
reentry (and operation in outer space probably too).

True, So one day in the future when they have solved all these
technology problems, which currently make the Shuttle weak, then so
can they really do a Shuttle #2 design... if desired.

Not if the mindset doesn't change.

Remember, the design starts with requirement engineering. If that step
goes the same way it went for the Shuttle, you'll fail again, no matter
what the state of the technology is.

I guess NASA is just counting its blessings so far (including the current
mission).

The Shuttle has a rather high kill rate. The solution is just to
accept that the Shuttle can kill.

If you don't succeed, redefine success.

I wonder how good a 747 would do with such a philosophy.

The problem with the Shuttle is that the seats are in the wrong
position for both launch and reentry.

[snip]

The only problem with their cargo hold is that all this required
structure is what creates the requirement that makes the Shuttle weak.

[snip]

Too much mass to be efficient.

[snip]

The Shuttle will never be safe any time soon.

[snip]

The sooner they get rid of the thing, the better.

True. However, before they can do that they really do need to get
their CEV up and running. It is no good removing their only space
launch ability, even if it is a flawed weak system.

Now what? It has bad seating config, it's structure is weak, and it's too
heavy. It sounds as if you just changed your mind completely about how
great the shuttle actually is.


Cheers, alex.

"Henk Boonsma" writes:

and that a rescue mission would have had to be sent up
to fetch the stranded astronauts.

With no guarantee whatsoever that the rescue mission wouldn't be bitten
by exactly the same problem, which would leave us with a few more people
stranded at the ISS and with 0 operational shuttles.

I wonder whether Russians would be able to mount enough rescue missions
to bring down the stranded original crew and the stranded rescue crew
before the ISS runs out of supplies.


Cheers, alex.