Killing the Shuttle Softly

This probably belongs to sci.space.shuttle, so setting
Followup-To appropriatly. [The Shuttle isnt history
just yet ]

On 2004-01-12, Mark Haslam wrote:

If current info is correct, the initiative has two main
aspects. One: it will do things that the Shuttle is wholly
unsuited for (Moon and Mars). Two: it will not increase
NASA funding. It already explicitly says that the Shuttle
will be retired as part of this effort.

Shuttle was probably going to be retired around the same
rough time anyway. OSP/CRV would have been coming online
approx 2008, with OSP/CTV as soon as possible afterwards
(but by 2012).

Once you've replaced the Shuttle's manned mission, all
you have is its up and downmass capability to replace. I
believe NASA were already looking at a number of options
here, including dmaking the Shuttle unmanned, or using an
EELV with some kind of deborbit module.

It seems to me that this means ending the Shuttle well before
the new program can get anywhere near started, and that the funds
available will never cover the development cost of a Saturn
class booster (can you even get to Mars without a super-heavy
booster?), not to mention the cost of the spacecraft themselves.

Shuttle is needed to get the ISS completed. Shuttle wont fly
until `late 2004 at the earliest. According to spaceflight.nasa.gov,
there are 8 missions to core complete.

Additionally IIRC, there is one potential HST servicing mission,
and a potential de-orbiting mission as well.

Thats 8-10 missions. Best we could hope for is two missions in
2004, and we might very well only get one.

With the extra flight rules (Launching so the ET falls in
daylight etc), and only 3 orbiters flying (with maybe 1 in ODMP),
there are almost certainly flights thru to 2007, if not later.

The inevitable result is a retired shuttle, several years of
half-assed attempts to pursue the program, followed by
cancellations that leaves the NASA budget, now conveniently all
in one place, a howling wasteland.

If anything its the OSP (CRV and CTV variants) that are in danger
of being quitely (and not all that quietly either) cancelled, as
others have noticed, the features of OSP have 'crept' to CEV.



All the Best

Iain

Iain Young wrote in message
Shuttle is needed to get the ISS completed. Shuttle wont fly
until `late 2004 at the earliest. According to spaceflight.nasa.gov,
there are 8 missions to core complete.

Additionally IIRC, there is one potential HST servicing mission,
and a potential de-orbiting mission as well.

Thats 8-10 missions. Best we could hope for is two missions in
2004, and we might very well only get one.


You're looking at U.S. core complete. There are something like 24 or
25 more shuttle flights required to reach international core complete,
IIRC.