Fight to Save Shuttle

Edward Wright wrote:

Michael Walsh wrote in message ...

You misunderstand my argument. Accomplishing suborbital tests of
a vehicle designed for orbital flights is a good idea.

I don't believe that suborbital companies are irrelevant to eventual
orbital flight, but that there is a quite large gap in the vehicle design
required for reusable orbital vehicles.

So? Does the fact that there's a gap imply that it's not worth trying
to close the gap? There's also a large gap between orbital vehicles
that are expensive, dangerous, and unreliable and orbital vehicles
that are affordable, safe, and reliable, isn't there?

It is worth trying. However, both the Bush plans for NASA and
the state of private reusable vehicles is beginning to make me
think "Not in my life time".

I am 73 years old, but don't believe I will check out soon.
If I match the age of my parents at death it would be about
17 years.

Where are these "safe and reliable" vehicles you are starting from?

At the moment, I believe they're mostly in Mojave and an "undisclosed
location" in Nevada.

(That was a rhetorical question.

Oops. Too late. :-)

I can guess at Mojave, but I have no idea what is at the "undisclosed location"
in Nevada. I could speculate on military "black" programs.

I am in favor of the private suborbital vehicle programs and they probably
will get to the "reusable orbital vehicle" stage eventually, but I would
predict not for a long time, say about 30 years.

Still worth doing.

Mike Walsh

Sander Vesik wrote:

Michael Walsh wrote:

If I take the news release literally I would say about 6 years of unmanned
tests of the CEV. Or perhaps the term "first manned mission" refers to
some kind of operational mission as opposed to manned test flights.

A reality check on timeline that was forgotten to be edited out? You know,
in a month from now, 2% of the time left to make CEV happen in 2008 will
be gone.

Especially if they spend 2 or 3 years refining and changing the basic
design before even getting into detailed design.

Mike Walsh

Jim Davis wrote in message .1.4...
ed kyle wrote:

But manned space flight contributes nothing to national defense.

Not true. Shuttle was co-developed by NASA and the
Pentagon. Discovery was built to be a dedicated DoD bird.
Several semi-classified DoD shuttle missions were flown.
These ended when Delta IV [I meant to type Titan IV] went
into action,

No. These ended with the return of STS-39 on May 6, 1991, ten years
before Delta IV flew.

Two dedicated DoD missions were flown after STS-39. These
included STS-44 (1991 with DSP F-16) and STS-53 (1992 with
SDS B-3). In addition, according to Jenkin's "Space Shuttle",
DoD payloads were flown on at least four civilian shuttle
missions after 1991: STS-66 (1994), STS-85 (1997),
STS-95 (1998), and the radar topography mission flown on
STS-99 in 2000.

- Ed Kyle

Michael Walsh wrote in message ...

So? Does the fact that there's a gap imply that it's not worth
trying
to close the gap? There's also a large gap between orbital vehicles
that are expensive, dangerous, and unreliable and orbital vehicles
that are affordable, safe, and reliable, isn't there?

It is worth trying. However, both the Bush plans for NASA and
the state of private reusable vehicles is beginning to make me
think "Not in my life time".

I am 73 years old, but don't believe I will check out soon.
If I match the age of my parents at death it would be about
17 years.

Hm. The current timeline calls for a return to the Moon no later than
2020. That means there's about a 50% chance it won't happen in your
lifetime, anyway. On the other hand, there's probably a better than
99% chance that you'll live to see the landing. (NASA is probably
working on computer animations at this very moment.) On the third
hand, however, there's an infinitesimal chance that NASA would allow
you to make the trip, anyway. NASA's version of the Space
Precautionary Act makes it easier to become a professional football
player than an astronaut.

Seems like you'd be better off finding some barnstormers with an old
rocket who are willing to violate the Precautionary Act.

In article ,
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Bj=F8rn?= Ove Isaksen wrote:
So basicly you want to keep the shuttles because you cant trust a
predetermined sum in a contract?
The problem with a "predetermined sum in a contract" is, what are the
incentives for abiding by the contract? ...

I agree, but you dont pay until the goods are delivered.

Unfortunately, if you rather obviously *need* the goods in question worse
than the people on the other end need the money, this doesn't work so well.

Actually, even if they *do* need the money as badly as you need the goods,
it may not work. As I noted, US aerospace contractors are very good at
this sort of thing, and one of the trump cards is "we will go broke if we
deliver at the agreed price, so renegotiate or forget it". (This works
best if you are concerned about your industrial base and don't *want* to
see them go under, but it's moderately effective even without that.)

IIRC there has been
more problems currently with no-paying passengers (on soyuz) than
non-compliance with the russians. And the passengers had no other choice as
to get to orbit.

Their choice was not to go to orbit. Not a happy choice, admittedly, but
an acceptable one. This is very different from a space agency which sees
manned spaceflight as an essential part of what it does.

A "predetermined sum" is trustworthy only if there are at least two
suppliers, so that if X starts acting up, you can say "to hell with you,
we're buying from Y instead".

That is correct, but no delivery gives no money.

It also gives no delivery. If that is unacceptable, then the threat to
withhold payment unless contract terms are adhered to is empty.

(The scenario under discussion was not failure to deliver, but retroactive
price increases.)
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 17:48:40 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Henry Spencer) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Bj=F8rn?= Ove Isaksen wrote:
So basicly you want to keep the shuttles because you cant trust a
predetermined sum in a contract?

The problem with a "predetermined sum in a contract" is, what are the
incentives for abiding by the contract? You need look no farther than US
aerospace contractors to see various innovative ways of reneging on an
allegedly fixed-price contract, and the Russians are quick studies on this
capitalism stuff.

Well, to the degree that being a monopoly provider to a monopsony
government customer can be called "capitalism."

On 17 Jan 2004 08:28:17 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(ed kyle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

But manned space flight contributes nothing to national defense.


Not true. Shuttle was co-developed by NASA and the
Pentagon.

No, it wasnt. The Pentagon submitted some requirements, but the
development was totally by NASA.

Am Mon, 26 Jan 2004 05:42:02 GMT schrieb "Rand Simberg":

But manned space flight contributes nothing to national defense.
Not true. Shuttle was co-developed by NASA and the Pentagon.
No, it wasnt. The Pentagon submitted some requirements, but the
development was totally by NASA.

.... but the DOD requirements (especially cross-range capabilities
necessary for once-around Vandenberg launches, but minimum payload
mass and payload by dimensions, too) gave so much restrictions for
NASA's 'development envelope', that the DOD can be called a major
contributor even in development decisions - imho without any doubt ...

cu, ZiLi aka HKZL (Heinrich Zinndorf-Linker)
--
/"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign
\ /
http://zili.de X No HTML in
/ \ email & news

On 15 Jan 2004 14:45:51 -0500, in a place far, far away, jeff findley
made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

(ed kyle) writes:
Government IS the only customer for man-rated orbital
space launches. Dennis Tito, etc., were stunt passengers.
They came nowhere near paying their fair share for what it
really cost to develop and build the spacecraft in which
they flew.

While what you say is true, every time the Russians sell a seat on
Soyuz, they are essentially traded flying one of their cosmonauts for
$20 million. The development costs were paid for long ago. That $20
million per passenger goes to pay today's expenses.

By his standards, everyone who flew on the Concorde was a "stunt
passenger."

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..
On 15 Jan 2004 14:45:51 -0500, in a place far, far away, jeff findley
made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

(ed kyle) writes:
Government IS the only customer for man-rated orbital
space launches. Dennis Tito, etc., were stunt passengers.
They came nowhere near paying their fair share for what it
really cost to develop and build the spacecraft in which
they flew.

While what you say is true, every time the Russians sell a seat on
Soyuz, they are essentially traded flying one of their cosmonauts for
$20 million. The development costs were paid for long ago. That $20
million per passenger goes to pay today's expenses.

By his standards, everyone who flew on the Concorde was a "stunt
passenger."

Concorde, slightly less a stunt than a Soyuz tourist
flight, was more like a Franco-British prestige-technology
infomercial. One could argue that the investment paid
dividends, especially to France.

- Ed Kyle