Privately flown Shuttle?

On Oct 28, 9:15*am, JF Mezei wrote:
Brian Thorn wrote:
There are facilities and then there are FACILITIES. Hell will freeze
before NASA hands JSC over to someone else.

I could see some leasing arrangement where the private company hands a
big wad of cash to Nasa and gets to use KSC and the pad. *NASA remains
the owner, but instead of being empty shells, those facilities get used.

right.... and the trained shuttle workers keep working

In article om,
says...

I could see some leasing arrangement where the private company hands a
big wad of cash to Nasa and gets to use KSC and the pad. NASA remains
the owner, but instead of being empty shells, those facilities get used.

Never going to happen. NASA has plans for the (soon to be ex-) shuttle
facilities and would not let private industry get their hands on them
for any amount of money.

On top of that, Congress isn't bloody likely to mandate it, since
they've just chosen a path that keeps shuttle pork flowing in the form
of a shuttle derived launch vehicle. They're not about to do a 180
degree turn on that policy anymore than they're going to change their
minds and re-start Ares by giving NASA several billion dollars extra a
year to fully fund it.

Besides, who on this earth would ever want to spend several billion
dollars a year to operate the shuttle? If such commercial money were
available, it would be far better to spend that several billion dollars
a year on developing manned commercial space using current technologies,
as opposed to the decades old technologies used in the shuttle.

Jeff
--
42

In article f820d6aa-4fce-41d7-8191-
, says...

On Oct 28, 9:15*am, JF Mezei wrote:
Brian Thorn wrote:
There are facilities and then there are FACILITIES. Hell will freeze
before NASA hands JSC over to someone else.

I could see some leasing arrangement where the private company hands a
big wad of cash to Nasa and gets to use KSC and the pad. *NASA remains
the owner, but instead of being empty shells, those facilities get used.

right.... and the trained shuttle workers keep working

I thought you'd want the shuttle to stop flying a.s.a.p. because any
further crew deaths would result in the ending of the program. Why the
sudden change of heart, mister self-proclaimed shuttle safety advocate?
Why should *anyone* outside of NASA spend more money on a system which
you personally think has a high probability of killing more astronauts?
Do you honestly think private industry can run the shuttle program safer
than NASA? How many additional billions of dollars should *anyone*
throw down the shuttle rat-hole in the mindless pursuit of improving its
safety, despite the fact that many of its problems simply can't be
addressed without first scrapping the whole system?

Jeff
--
42

Jeff Findley wrote:
In article om,
says...

I could see some leasing arrangement where the private company hands
a big wad of cash to Nasa and gets to use KSC and the pad. NASA
remains the owner, but instead of being empty shells, those
facilities get used.

Never going to happen. NASA has plans for the (soon to be ex-)
shuttle facilities and would not let private industry get their hands
on them for any amount of money.

On top of that, Congress isn't bloody likely to mandate it, since
they've just chosen a path that keeps shuttle pork flowing in the form
of a shuttle derived launch vehicle. They're not about to do a 180
degree turn on that policy anymore than they're going to change their
minds and re-start Ares by giving NASA several billion dollars extra a
year to fully fund it.

Congress is the real player here. Everyone who has said "NASA would never
turn over X" forgets it's Congress that calls th shots. And they can be
convinced with enough money (yes I'm cynical). However, I think Jeff is
right, there's no amount of money a commercial operator could come up with
that would counter the current pork barrel spending.



Besides, who on this earth would ever want to spend several billion
dollars a year to operate the shuttle? If such commercial money were
available, it would be far better to spend that several billion
dollars a year on developing manned commercial space using current
technologies, as opposed to the decades old technologies used in the
shuttle.

Partly because of the flexibility and current database with the shuttle.

Any new booster will start with a database of 0 datapoints vs. the Shuttles
130 or so.

Are those good enough reasons, clearly not as no commercial operators are
clamoring to privatize the shuttle. But they are out there.



Jeff

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

In article ,
says...

Jeff Findley wrote:

Besides, who on this earth would ever want to spend several billion
dollars a year to operate the shuttle? If such commercial money were
available, it would be far better to spend that several billion
dollars a year on developing manned commercial space using current
technologies, as opposed to the decades old technologies used in the
shuttle.

Partly because of the flexibility and current database with the shuttle.

What flexibility is commercially appealing? There aren't a lot of
commercial payloads whose final destination is in an orbit the shuttle
can reach, so the flexibility argument in terms of repair (EVA) and
return of commercial payloads is largely meaningless.

As a launch vehicle, shuttle's reliability is pretty good, but those
solids still create a nasty vibration environment for payloads. EELV's
have a much smoother ride which is less likely to break something on
your payload during launch.

Any new booster will start with a database of 0 datapoints vs. the Shuttles
130 or so.

As far as launch vehicles go, the commercial US launch industry has
enough of a track record there that this should not be a problem. Both
of the EELV's are available commercially and have a decent track record.

Are those good enough reasons, clearly not as no commercial operators
are
clamoring to privatize the shuttle. But they are out there.

I don't think those reasons are good enough to attract commercial
interest in paying several billion dollars a year, just to maintain the
launch infrastructure, never mind actually funding flights.

Jeff
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42