NASA Starts Planning to Retire Space Shuttle

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/02/science/02nasa.html

NASA Starts Planning to Retire Space Shuttle
By WARREN E. LEARY
Published: April 2, 2005

WASHINGTON, April 1 - Even as the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration prepares to resume flights of the space shuttle, the
agency has begun forming detailed plans to retire the spacecraft in five
years, if not before, a top NASA official said on Friday.

The official, Michael Kostelnik, the agency's deputy associate
administrator for the shuttle and the International Space Station
programs, said he had established a special group within his office to
deal with retiring the shuttle. Agency leaders decided to create a
separate entity to deal with shuttle retirement issues so there would be
no conflict of interest with the flight program, Mr. Kostelnik said in a
telephone briefing with reporters.


Within a year or so, Mr. Kostelnik said, NASA will have to start the
shuttle retirement process in earnest, moving toward canceling contracts
for shuttle-related supplies, decommissioning some sites and redirecting
or eliminating some of the work force.

"Transitioning these resources is a very complex problem," he said. He
added that after reviewing assets and work needs, NASA should begin
within a year to terminate some contracts for items like the shuttle's
external fuel tank and start planning how to mothball equipment and
structures used by the shuttle.

It would be premature to end shuttle activities until NASA determines
how many more shuttle flights are needed to complete the space station
and how many flights can be made each year before the planned end of the
program in 2010, Mr. Kostelnik said.

As part of President Bush's vision for NASA that he announced last year,
the shuttle is to resume flying until 2010, when it is scheduled to
complete the station, then be retired. The plan also calls for the
United States to stop using the station by 2017 and to redirect
resources from both programs to new space vehicles for exploring the
Moon and Mars.

The nation's fleet of three shuttles has been grounded since the
Columbia disaster on Feb. 1, 2003. After the program is revamped and the
spacecraft are modified, and if all recommendations made by Columbia
accident investigators have been carried out, shuttles are to resume
flights between May 15 and June 3.

Mr. Kostelnik acknowledged that it was taking NASA longer than expected
to complete all the reviews of design and procedural changes, as well as
the necessary paperwork and documentation required to satisfy a special
panel overseeing compliance with the recommendations. It will take at
least another two weeks to gather this information and deliver it to the
oversight panel, which is headed by the former astronauts Thomas P.
Stafford and Richard O. Covey, he said.

"Everybody would have liked to have had this work completed sooner," Mr.
Kostelnik said. "But it's just kind of the way it is, and we're not
going to cut short any of these milestones just to make an arbitrary
date."

The Stafford-Covey panel on Wednesday indefinitely put off what was to
be its final meeting to assess NASA's return-to-flight progress, saying
it could not proceed without the necessary data. The group has said it
wants to deliver its final report on compliance at least a month before
the first flight.

[end of article]

Sounds sensible to me. It still seems strange to me that sometime in the
90's someone was not working on a replacement for the aging hardware OK, so
they have updated avionics etc, but technology marches on, and I'd suspect
an even better system would have emerged if they had started the planning
earlier, when there had already been one accident and it was, I think to
most, obvious that the Shuttle, though needed, was not very cost effective,
and was too complex for even remotely intelligent safety assessments to be
made.

Still, 20/20 hindsight is a great thing, now I'd suggest it is time to learn
from it, and maybe design things around vehicles for particular tasks, not
a one size fits all, almost system as the Shuttle is. Certainly, some
modular or reusable approach is possible, and maybe some standardisation of
equipment, but its obvious that cargo, personnel into leo and ferrying to
moon and mars are totally different needs.

Brian

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Email:
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Brian Gaff wrote:

Sounds sensible to me. It still seems strange to me that sometime in the
90's someone was not working on a replacement for the aging hardware OK, so
they have updated avionics etc, but technology marches on, and I'd suspect
an even better system would have emerged if they had started the planning
earlier, when there had already been one accident and it was, I think to
most, obvious that the Shuttle, though needed, was not very cost effective,
and was too complex for even remotely intelligent safety assessments to be
made.

Still, 20/20 hindsight is a great thing, now I'd suggest it is time to learn
from it, and maybe design things around vehicles for particular tasks, not
a one size fits all, almost system as the Shuttle is. Certainly, some
modular or reusable approach is possible, and maybe some standardisation of
equipment, but its obvious that cargo, personnel into leo and ferrying to
moon and mars are totally different needs.


Best bet at this point is to outsource lift services to
the Chinese when they're up to speed, shouldn't be too long.
It's obvious that we can't do it, or afford to do it, ourselves.
About the only thing we need a national launch capability for
is military, and that's easily handled by non-manned launchers
already in service. For that matter, we could outsource
that to the French too.

JazzMan
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On 2005-04-02, Scott M. Kozel wrote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/02/science/02nasa.html

NASA Starts Planning to Retire Space Shuttle
By WARREN E. LEARY
Published: April 2, 2005

Similar articles area at:

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/20...rom_the_n.html
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs...uttlelife.html

One thought that occured to me was what knock-on effect any
potential shutdown of these Shuttle Contracts would have on
any possible Shuttle Dervived Launch Vehicle ?

It could be that its a step away from a SDLV, esp if any of
the associated assembly lines are lost. Then again, NASA,
could of course put a re-activation clause in. I guess time
will tell.


Iain

"Brian Gaff" wrote in
:

Sounds sensible to me. It still seems strange to me that sometime in
the 90's someone was not working on a replacement for the aging
hardware

You must have missed the X-33 and X-34 projects. And the X-30 before that.
And SLI after that.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

Iain Young wrote in
:

On 2005-04-02, Scott M. Kozel wrote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/02/science/02nasa.html

NASA Starts Planning to Retire Space Shuttle
By WARREN E. LEARY
Published: April 2, 2005

Similar articles area at:

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/20...rom_the_n.html
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs...uttlelife.html

One thought that occured to me was what knock-on effect any
potential shutdown of these Shuttle Contracts would have on
any possible Shuttle Dervived Launch Vehicle ?

It could be that its a step away from a SDLV, esp if any of
the associated assembly lines are lost. Then again, NASA,
could of course put a re-activation clause in. I guess time
will tell.

They are not saying, "we will shut down these contracts now". They are
saying, "if we really intend to retire the shuttle in 2010 and not follow
up with an SDLV, the planning must start soon."

In turn, that means that the exploration folks need to make a mode decision
(SDLV vs EELV vs something else entirely) quickly so that intelligent
decisions can be made on the shuttle side of the house.

I would not bet any money on a quick decision, though.
--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

read: NASA starts planning the end of manned spaceflight.

Funny thing is that NASA isn't talking about accelerating development of
some vehicle that can deliver parts to the space station. For instance,
when a CMG needs replaced in 2011, what will bring the replacement up ?

Have the americans begun to work on a replacement for MPLMs ? Or will
all reasearch from 2010 onwards have to be burned over the pacific
instead of having the results brought back to earth ? Have the americans
signed contracts to have the Japanese build HTVs to replace MPLMs ? Have
the american signed contracts to have europe build more ATVs or russians
to build more Progress to keep the station in orbit ?


Starting the winding down of the shuttle now is plain stupid. This is
like starting to shutdown a coal fired electrical generator before
you've begun construction of a hydro electric project meant to replace it.

I can't believe that americans aren't seeing this as a ploy to simply
end manned spaceflight.

Until NASA has seen a prototype of the mythical CEV and actually places
firm orders for 4 or more such vehicles, no steps should be taken to
prevent the shuttle from flying.

Rand Simberg wrote:
That will be bid out to commercial providers. For example, Kistler is
raising money to complete their vehicle with that as one of the
markets.


All the cancelled projects of the 1990s were also bid out to commercial
builders. Just because NASA subcontracts for some mythical vehicle
doesn't mean that NASA will fund the project to completion and that some
government won't decide that budget deficits are too high and that cuts
must be made.

Has NASA completed mission specs for a vehicle capable of bringing crews
to and from an orbital station ?

Has NASA completed specs for a cargo vehicle capable of replacing the
MPLM ? Will NASA modify at least one MPLM so it can stay at the station
permanently as a storage module ? Or will they all be wasted in some
wharehouse in Florida ?

How far is NASA along with the robot that is supposed to safely de-orbit
Hubble ? What will they test it on before sending it to Hubble ?

How many separate projects will the decommissioning of the shuttle
create ? Can NASA realistically work on, complete and more importantly
fund that many projects at the same time ?

And if, to bridge the gap, NASA gets the right to buy Soyuz, is there
then a point in completing the mythical CEV when Soyuz would end up
cheaper anyways ?


That's because "americans" recognize that manned spaceflight is now
being developed privately.

Virgin Galactic won't be much different than that florida company
offering 0g experience in a 727. It isn't space flight, not even close.

Jorge R. Frank wrote:
Iain Young wrote in
:

One thought that occured to me was what knock-on effect any
potential shutdown of these Shuttle Contracts would have on
any possible Shuttle Dervived Launch Vehicle ?

It could be that its a step away from a SDLV, esp if any of
the associated assembly lines are lost. Then again, NASA,
could of course put a re-activation clause in. I guess time
will tell.

They are not saying, "we will shut down these contracts now". They
are
saying, "if we really intend to retire the shuttle in 2010 and not
follow
up with an SDLV, the planning must start soon."

In turn, that means that the exploration folks need to make a mode
decision
(SDLV vs EELV vs something else entirely) quickly so that intelligent

decisions can be made on the shuttle side of the house.


We may have a better idea about this by the end of this
year, when the first CEV contracts are let, but maybe
not. Heavy lift would not be needed until sometime
well after 2014, so an SRB/ET multiyear production
gap could very well result.

To me, this news item seems to be meant as a wake up
call for the in-house (NASA and contractor) SDV crowd.
Time is running out. The message to them seems to be
"you only have about one year to make your case".

- Ed Kyle

On Sun, 03 Apr 2005 17:35:58 -0400, in a place far, far away, John Doe
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way as
to indicate that:

read: NASA starts planning the end of manned spaceflight.

Funny thing is that NASA isn't talking about accelerating development of
some vehicle that can deliver parts to the space station. For instance,
when a CMG needs replaced in 2011, what will bring the replacement up ?

That will be bid out to commercial providers. For example, Kistler is
raising money to complete their vehicle with that as one of the
markets.

I can't believe that americans aren't seeing this as a ploy to simply
end manned spaceflight.

That's because "americans" recognize that manned spaceflight is now
being developed privately.