Shuttle program extension?

On Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:03:56 -0400, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

"J Waggoner" wrote in message
.. .
Excellent point on the lifeboat... Thanks for cancelling it Mr.
Goldin. You dick.

And how did you expect him to pay for it when Congress of course the one
writing the checks?


That said, Rand does bring up a good point I had overlooked. While
continuing the shuttle reduces the requirement for us paying for rides,
rescue seats home are still required.

(Though one could argue that at some point one may want to simply accept
that lifeboats aren't required for 100% of the crew.)

Never gonna happen. That's a political non-starter.

Brian

On Sun, 14 Sep 2008 02:02:56 GMT, in a place far, far away, Brian
Thorn made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

On Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:03:56 -0400, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

"J Waggoner" wrote in message
. ..
Excellent point on the lifeboat... Thanks for cancelling it Mr.
Goldin. You dick.

And how did you expect him to pay for it when Congress of course the one
writing the checks?


That said, Rand does bring up a good point I had overlooked. While
continuing the shuttle reduces the requirement for us paying for rides,
rescue seats home are still required.

(Though one could argue that at some point one may want to simply accept
that lifeboats aren't required for 100% of the crew.)

Never gonna happen. That's a political non-starter.

Which is one of the reasons that our space policy is such a disaster.

J Waggoner wrote:
Excellent point on the lifeboat... Thanks for cancelling it Mr.
Goldin. You dick.


Which one?
There were at least three concepts for the ISS lifeboat; none of which
ever got made.
The closest to being made was the scaled-up X-24 lifting body design
based one.
That got as far as landing drop tests under its para-sail; then just
went bye-bye, never to be heard of again.
Your tax dollars at work: ten million here; ten million there; nothing
at the end to show for it.
Once again - like all NASA manned spacecraft designs since the Shuttle.

Pat

On Sep 14, 5:27�am, Pat Flannery wrote:
J Waggoner wrote:
Excellent point on the lifeboat... Thanks for cancelling it Mr.
Goldin. �You dick.

Which one?
There were at least three concepts for the ISS lifeboat; none of which
ever got made.
The closest to being made was the scaled-up X-24 lifting body design
based one.
That got as far as landing drop tests under its para-sail; then just
went bye-bye, never to be heard of again.
Your tax dollars at work: ten million here; ten million there; nothing
at the end to show for it.
Once again - like all NASA manned spacecraft designs since the Shuttle.

Pat

Moose would be a nice option.

Frankly the station is a looser

What if congress just canceled all remaining shuttle flights, and gave
the staioin to the partners?

the boatloads of money could be used to build something new, unsure if
nasa is capable of that

the institution is way too forcused on pork piggies, exploration and
science are dead last priority wise.

the only loosers would be the unemployeed workers, nasa produces
little of value since its mandate got changed to PORK

On Sun, 14 Sep 2008 04:27:10 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:

The closest to being made was the scaled-up X-24 lifting body design
based one.
That got as far as landing drop tests under its para-sail; then just
went bye-bye, never to be heard of again.

X-38 did get a lot farther than the others, though. They were building
the first orbital version when the program was cancelled. It's still
sitting in storage somewhere, evidently.

Brian

On Sep 2, 10:43 am, Pat Flannery wrote:
Derek Lyons wrote:
Between the great expense and difficulty for very little return, the
chances of that are roughly equal to the chances I'll sprout wings and
fly to the moon under my own power.

No, you must use a Dean Drive equipped submarine:http://davidszondy.com/future/space/dean_drive02.jpg

Pat

The Dean Drive!
I remember when John Campbell was extolling that to the sky!
Funniest thing to come out of the Dean Drive madness (besides John
Campbell taking another step down hill in the eyes of the science
fiction community) was that the United Statess Patents Office wrote
Dean back saying he should get in touch with the mining industry ,
that he has a good invention for using on mining processing shaker
tables!
(I don't know if Dean ever followed up on this!)

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:03:56 -0400, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

"J Waggoner" wrote in message
. ..
Excellent point on the lifeboat... Thanks for cancelling it Mr.
Goldin. You dick.

And how did you expect him to pay for it when Congress of course the one
writing the checks?


That said, Rand does bring up a good point I had overlooked. While
continuing the shuttle reduces the requirement for us paying for rides,
rescue seats home are still required.

(Though one could argue that at some point one may want to simply accept
that lifeboats aren't required for 100% of the crew.)

Never gonna happen. That's a political non-starter.

It's a political non-starter, but it's a bit silly.

ISS currently had many redundant systems and modules. With the US and
Russian segments, you have completely separate systems for life support.
Even if something catastrophic happened, it's not very likely to take out
both sets of life support systems.

If safe haven wasn't such a political non-starter it would actually be a
viable way to run the program without the US relying on the Russian Soyuz.

Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...


It's a political non-starter, but it's a bit silly.

ISS currently had many redundant systems and modules. With the US and
Russian segments, you have completely separate systems for life support.
Even if something catastrophic happened, it's not very likely to take out
both sets of life support systems.

If safe haven wasn't such a political non-starter it would actually be a
viable way to run the program without the US relying on the Russian Soyuz.

And the reality is, given the current config, it's quite possible that part
of a crew could be "stranded" on the wrong side of a problem. Suppose
you've got 2-3 crew members in Zvezda and you have a fire in Unity and shut
the hatch. You've got the rest of your crew in say Columbus. You're going
to be hard pressed to "rescue" them.

In my opinion, you really need a single Soyuz for emergency evacuation of a
medically compromised cew member (and two others to help him/her during and
after re-entry).

Beyond that, if a problem occurs, you hole up and wait.

It reminds me of Apollo 13. So many people think "great, they had a
lifeboat". But had the tank problem occurred while the LM was on the
surface, we'd have had 3 dead astronauts.

It's nice to have backups, but you can't reasonably protect against
everything.



Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein





--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.

On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:57:35 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
wrote:

(Though one could argue that at some point one may want to simply accept
that lifeboats aren't required for 100% of the crew.)

Never gonna happen. That's a political non-starter.

It's a political non-starter, but it's a bit silly.

ISS currently had many redundant systems and modules.

So did the Titanic. Now we have lifeboats for everyone.

Brian

"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" wrote in message
m...
And the reality is, given the current config, it's quite possible that
part of a crew could be "stranded" on the wrong side of a problem.
Suppose you've got 2-3 crew members in Zvezda and you have a fire in Unity
and shut the hatch. You've got the rest of your crew in say Columbus.
You're going to be hard pressed to "rescue" them.

True, that's a horrible scenario that even Soyuz doesn't solve. Too bad the
docking and berthing systems on ISS aren't *all* compatible with each other.
If they were, then Soyuz could be used to move them to the functional side
of the station.

But that still doesn't work if the fire strands everyone on the US side of
the station. If that happens, the US life support systems had better be
working.

In my opinion, you really need a single Soyuz for emergency evacuation of
a medically compromised cew member (and two others to help him/her during
and after re-entry).

Beyond that, if a problem occurs, you hole up and wait.

It reminds me of Apollo 13. So many people think "great, they had a
lifeboat". But had the tank problem occurred while the LM was on the
surface, we'd have had 3 dead astronauts.

True. Sometimes you have to take chances when you're in the "wilderness".
As an example, it's not very easy to evac someone from the base at the South
Pole in the middle of winter.

It's even worse for climbers on Mt. Everest. You screw up, you die.

Thanks,
Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein