Griffin: Shuttle-CEV Gap Unacceptable

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
The part that says it's a "direct and explicit promise from the
president of the United States to the American people." It's just a
frickin' policy statement. Policy statements are made to be changed.

That is just such lame backpedalling. The man was on national television,
alone on camera with a prepared, vetted manuscript. He looked straight
into the camera and told the American people, "In 2010, the space shuttle,
after nearly 30 years of duty, will be retired from service." Not only
was it a direct national address, it was Bush's last direct national
address on space policy. So it both a direct and unqualified statement
about NASA's future. And anyone who missed it is free to download this
direct national address from the White House web site:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040114-3.html

It is also a plainly explicit statement about NASA's future. Bush did not
say "About 2010", he said "In 2010". He did not say "we will try to" or
"we hope to" or "we might" retire the shuttle in 2010. He did not say
"I hope that my successor will" or that "I pull put NASA on a path"
to retire the shuttle. He said that the shuttle "will be" retired.

Not only did he explicitly promise this in this one address,
his office repeated it verbatim in the FY2006 NASA budget request
issued in February of this year:

On January 14, 2004, the President said in announcing his Vision:

The Shuttle's chief purpose over the next several years will be to help
finish assembly of the International Space Station. In 2010, the Space
Shuttle - after nearly 30 years of duty - will be retired from service.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/nasa.html

Unlike you, Bush isn't backpedalling from this at all.

--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \ Home page: http://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~greg/
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 13:35:01 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
So who exactly do you think will be brave enough to take responsibility
for keeping the shuttle flying past 2010?
Currently we have a fixed date to stop flights,
The "fixed" date is in fact completely arbitrary, so stretching it will not
require much bravery.

It would require the courage, or maybe the cowardice, to contradict a
direct and explicit promise from the President of the United States to
the American people.

laughing

Try not to be such an ass, Gregg. Stating a policy is not a "direct
and explicit promise to the American people." The president didn't
stand up there and say "Read my lips! No Shuttle flights after 2010!"

You're one of the few "American people" who give a rat's patoot. He
just stated that this was the new policy. Policies can always change,
if necessitated by events. Particularly after the president that made
them has left office...

Rand Simberg wrote:

In terms of killing people, it should be better, since it will have
an
abort system.

That will be a much needed, and I think
necessary and long overdue, improvement, but
not a panacea. Three of the four in-flight
fatal human spaceflight accidents that have
occurred happened in space or during the
reentry/recovery phase. Only the Challenger
crew might have been saved by an escape
system.

There is no question that one Soyuz crew
(Soyuz T-10-1) *was* saved by its launch abort
system (an accident that a shuttle crew would
not survive). A second crew (Soyuz 18a)
survived an abort during the third stage burn
after the escape system had been jettisoned
(A space shuttle could perform this type of
abort).

There have been more close calls in space
or during the return-to-earth phase. Soyuz 23
ended up at the bottom of a lake, for example.
It took a long time to recover the capsule,
and divers were surprised to find the crew
still alive. The U.S. ASTP crew were exposed
to near-fatal doses of nitrogen tetroxide
during reentry. Vostok 1, Gemini 8, Soyuz 5,
Apollo 13, Soyuz TM5, etc., all provided wild
rides that were close calls for their crew.

- Ed Kyle

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 13:57:30 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
Stating a policy is not a "direct and explicit promise to the American
people."

What part of "In 2010, the Space Shuttle will be retired from service"
do you not understand?

The part that says it's a "direct and explicit promise from the
president of the United States to the American people." It's just a
frickin' policy statement. Policy statements are made to be changed.

Jeez Louise...

On 13 Apr 2005 08:12:45 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Well, I don't think Congress will do either (most likely the shuttle
will stop flying in 2010 and CEV will never happen), but if they did
decide to bring CEV forward and gave NASA the money to do so, they
could blame NASA if they lost one. If they ignored Bush and told NASA
to keep the shuttle flying after 2010, they'd be the ones blamed,
instead... after all, having lost two, 'everyone' knows the shuttle
is
a death-trap now.


We've discussed this before, so you might do a search
on shuttle vs. soyuz reliability. Shuttle's record is
no worse than Soyuz or Shenzhou or Apollo, etc.. There
is no reason to expect that CEV would be much better.

In terms of killing people, it should be better, since it will have an
abort system.

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 15:58:21 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
The part that says it's a "direct and explicit promise from the
president of the United States to the American people." It's just a
frickin' policy statement. Policy statements are made to be changed.

That is just such lame backpedalling.

No, your comment is lame ignorance.

Unlike you, Bush isn't backpedalling from this at all.

Who said he was? Why would he?

I'm not "backpedaling" either. I'm simply explaining how policy works
to someone who apparently knows absolutely nothing about it.

Rand Simberg wrote:


No, your comment is lame ignorance.


I'm not "backpedaling" either. I'm simply explaining how policy
works
to someone who apparently knows absolutely nothing about it.

sea lawyer.

You're wrong dude, admit it. Changing the argument to one of semantics
about 'policy' is arguing what the meaning of the word 'is' is.

The fact is, the agreed upon, intitiated, and momentum of the policy is
solidly for shuttle retirement in EXACTLY 2010. So just shut up and
admit that Greg *might* have been correct when you were wrong.

cuddihy

On 13 Apr 2005 09:59:38 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg wrote:

In terms of killing people, it should be better, since it will have
an
abort system.

That will be a much needed, and I think
necessary and long overdue, improvement, but
not a panacea.

I didn't say it was. Just that it would probably kill fewer people
than the Shuttle has.

Greg Kuperberg wrote:
In article ,
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
So who exactly do you think will be brave enough to take responsibility
for keeping the shuttle flying past 2010?
Currently we have a fixed date to stop flights,
The "fixed" date is in fact completely arbitrary, so stretching it will not
require much bravery.

It would require the courage, or maybe the cowardice, to contradict a
direct and explicit promise from the President of the United States to
the American people.


No you just need to feed another "promise" to some other (or possibly
even the same) president sometime before the date.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 13:35:01 +0000 (UTC), (Greg
Kuperberg) wrote:

In article ,
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
So who exactly do you think will be brave enough to take responsibility
for keeping the shuttle flying past 2010?
Currently we have a fixed date to stop flights,
The "fixed" date is in fact completely arbitrary, so stretching it will not
require much bravery.

It would require the courage, or maybe the cowardice, to contradict a
direct and explicit promise from the President of the United States to
the American people.

Like "Read my lips; no new taxes" did?

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer
or