The wrong approach

Cardman wrote in message . ..

There is no demonstrable correlation between planetary mission
failures and cost.

That mostly depends on where the money is being spent, where don't
overlook success through pure luck.

So, when a data point doesn't fit your preconceived notion, you
dismiss it as "pure luck"?

Nevertheless, the fact remains. When you look at all the data,
expensive missions are not any "luckier" than inexpensive missions --
they are simply more expensive.

I like Sean O'Keefe's comments about the $200 million overspending
on
these Mars rovers, when he said that if he knew that it would cost
this much to begin with, then he would never have allowed it.

Meaning what? Surely, he knew it was a cost-plus contract that
allowed
for overruns, and he allowed it to go forward.

The MERs suffered not unlike other NASA projects, which was to overrun
their original budget, where more money had to be added, when the
other option of cancellation sounds wasteful.

Non sequitar. I asked you to explain the claim that O'Keefe "would not
have allowed" the $200 million overrun if he had known about it. He
did allow it -- unless you think he was unaware that NASA signed a
cost-plus contract. There's no way such a contract can go forward
unless he allows it.

What you're doing is called "reasoning from a single data point."
It's
a logical fallacy. The fact that you spend an extra $200 million on
a
mission and it works properly does not prove that every mission
which
costs that much will work properly or that cheaper missions will not
work properly.

Except that is not what I am saying. When what I am really saying is
that it is worth the extra funding in order to maximise, as much as is
reasonable, the safety of the mission.

Yes, I know that is what you are saying. I also know it assumes that
extra funding *does* maximize the safety of the mission. Most
importantly, though, I know that the facts do not support your belief.

The loss of the Mars Polar Lander and the Mars Climate Orbiter did do
one good thing, which was that NASA was willing to spend the required
funds to ensure a much safer mission.

Extra funds were not required to ensure a safer mission -- only better
management. The success of Clementine and Lunar Prospector, which were
much *cheaper* than MPL or MCO, proves that.

NASA added a *lot* of extra funds between the time of Lunar Prospector
and MRPL/MCO. That extra funding did not increase the success rate of
missions, as it should have if your mantra were correct.

As had they not spent that extra money, then Spirit may have gone
splat. So as these missions come around so rarely, then I believe
that
it is worth overspending in order to ensure safety.

Overspending does not ensure safety.

It does if it is spent on increasing "safety",

So you believe. In the real world, there are plenty of "safety"
devices that turned out to reduce safety. In the case of planetary
missions, the extra money you talk about goes mostly toward additional
layers of management and bureaucracy, which seldom increase seldom and
often reduce it.

You run FCB on human spaceflight and you will end up getting
people
killed.

Of course. So? People get killed in cars, boats, and airplanes --
does
that mean we should make cars, boats, and airplanes prohibitively
expensive, so that no one gets killed?

My point would be more along the line that a tremendous amount of work
has been done on all these transport systems in order to increase
passenger safety.

No, that wasn't your point -- your point was that cheaper spaceflight
"will end up getting people killed."

That is true in an absolute sense -- the best way to have no
fatalities is to have no flights, which is close to what we have now
-- but false in any meaningful sense.

Yes, there has been a tremendous amount of work done on land, sea, and
air transportation systems -- did I say there wasn't? How does that
prove your point?

Do you think air transportation got more expensive as safety improved?
No, it got cheaper.

Today, Southwest Airlines leads the industry in ticket prices,
profits, *and* safety. Better maintenance makes their planes more
efficient and cheaper to operate, as well as safer.

There's no reason to expect spaceflight to be any different. The
things you need to do to improve safety are also the things that
reduce operating cost.

NASA spends billions of dollars
per year on the Shuttle, yet astronauts get killed.

NASA's problems here have all come from the original designs combined
with a touch of arrogance. Not like they ever spent much money
beforehand to stop leaks in the SRBs or things from impacting the
Shuttle.

They spent billions and billion fixing stuff on it. Don't believe your
own bull****.

I personally think that the Shuttle is quite a safe system, when they
are just ironing out the odd glitch in the original design.

What you think is irrelevant. The Shuttle kills its crew on 1% of all
flights -- comparable to the Wright Flyer and other early flying
machines. That is not a safe system, by any standard.

I would more say that spaceflight will never be safe all the time that
they are riding on an oversized firework.

Rocket engines have almost nothing in common with fireworks. You need
to educate yourself, rather than relying on soundbites.

(Edward Wright) writes:

Rocket engines have almost nothing in common with fireworks.

Having seen a couple of Shuttle launches, I can tell you that the
solid rockets have more in common with road flares than fireworks,
except they shine bright orange from aluminium instead of bright pink
from magnesium. But they are VERY reminiscent of road flares --
something that TV (and bozo TV reporters) didn't give me a clue to
expect.

On 20 Jan 2004 21:15:13 -0800, (Edward
Wright) wrote:

Cardman wrote in message . ..

There is no demonstrable correlation between planetary mission
failures and cost.

That mostly depends on where the money is being spent, where don't
overlook success through pure luck.

So, when a data point doesn't fit your preconceived notion, you
dismiss it as "pure luck"?

Well if you want some facts, then both MPL and MCO was developed under
the FCB plan, where both of those are now history. Since FCB was
abandoned, then you now have such shining successes as these MERs.

Nevertheless, the fact remains. When you look at all the data,
expensive missions are not any "luckier" than inexpensive missions --
they are simply more expensive.

Prior expensive missions were mostly shots into the unknown, where
their success really does depend on a high degree of luck.

Even Pathfinder came close to failure, when it landed very close to a
big rock that could have prevented it from opening had it been right
next to it.

The MERs suffered not unlike other NASA projects, which was to overrun
their original budget, where more money had to be added, when the
other option of cancellation sounds wasteful.

Non sequitar. I asked you to explain the claim that O'Keefe "would not
have allowed" the $200 million overrun if he had known about it. He
did allow it -- unless you think he was unaware that NASA signed a
cost-plus contract. There's no way such a contract can go forward
unless he allows it.

The line of reasoning here, that you obviously missed, was that had he
been aware of the additional $200 million cost to begin with, then he
would have selected one of the other projects that was competing
against the MERs, when this project first selected.

I doubt that one Sean O'Keefe would be too unhappy these days about
that $200 million overrun, when here is the first MER working well,
with the second one soon to follow, where this money directly spent on
producing a safer landing has indeed produced a safe landing.

Had it been done on a $600 million budget and failed, then that would
indeed be $600 million down the drain.

Except that is not what I am saying. When what I am really saying is
that it is worth the extra funding in order to maximise, as much as is
reasonable, the safety of the mission.

Yes, I know that is what you are saying. I also know it assumes that
extra funding *does* maximize the safety of the mission. Most
importantly, though, I know that the facts do not support your belief.

I am not talking about the whole mission project, but only that
funding spent on increasing the safety of the mission.

Since I cannot see that spending money on increasing safety would go
and make safety worse, then this is the one key factor that makes the
whole project work out.

The loss of the Mars Polar Lander and the Mars Climate Orbiter did do
one good thing, which was that NASA was willing to spend the required
funds to ensure a much safer mission.

Extra funds were not required to ensure a safer mission -- only better
management. The success of Clementine and Lunar Prospector, which were
much *cheaper* than MPL or MCO, proves that.

Ah, but then the Moon is so close, when these project costs are less
for that and other reasons. Also they did not have to try such risky
things like landing and aerobreaking.

NASA added a *lot* of extra funds between the time of Lunar Prospector
and MRPL/MCO. That extra funding did not increase the success rate of
missions, as it should have if your mantra were correct.

Cheaper was certainly a word inserted into someone's mantra, where
that someone is no longer around this days, when that very mantra was
considered a disaster.

Many people questioned if FBC was directly responsible for the loss of
the MCO and the MPL, where they could well be right.

It does if it is spent on increasing "safety",

So you believe. In the real world, there are plenty of "safety"
devices that turned out to reduce safety.

There are also idiots in this world.

In the case of planetary
missions, the extra money you talk about goes mostly toward additional
layers of management and bureaucracy, which seldom increase seldom and
often reduce it.

And here you are totally missing my point, again. As such additional
funding is worthwhile if it is being spent on safety alone, pending
the odd managerial meeting.

My point would be more along the line that a tremendous amount of work
has been done on all these transport systems in order to increase
passenger safety.

No, that wasn't your point -- your point was that cheaper spaceflight
"will end up getting people killed."

After the loss of the MPL and MCO due to the FBC mantra, then lets see
people here raise their hand if they believed that if FBC had been
imposed of human spaceflight, then no one would get killed due to it.

No one? I thought not.

Hell, maybe it already has, when shortly before the Columbia accident
I read that reduced funding was seriously putting the Shuttle at risk
of another accident.

That is true in an absolute sense -- the best way to have no
fatalities is to have no flights, which is close to what we have now
-- but false in any meaningful sense.

It is amazing at how well you try to dodge the issue, when opting out
is not an option here.

Yes, there has been a tremendous amount of work done on land, sea, and
air transportation systems -- did I say there wasn't? How does that
prove your point?

NASA has had 30 to 40 years to improve and make spaceflight safer. Ask
yourself how much safety it has gained?

The people who most need to stop trying to delude themselves with the
"Star Trek" theme is NASA, when they have a serious job to do here and
no time trying to ass about playing "Buck Rogers".

Do you think air transportation got more expensive as safety improved?
No, it got cheaper.

Corporate negligence is a serious crime, which is why airlines do not
neglect safety in their cost cutting. Instead as history shows they
cut routes, move to more economical aircraft and reduce their staffing
levels.

Even Concorde lost out mostly due to the realization that they exist
in a competitive market.

There's no reason to expect spaceflight to be any different. The
things you need to do to improve safety are also the things that
reduce operating cost.

I am all for reducing operating costs, except in the one area of
safety, which should be reduced naturally anyway due to having to deal
with a smaller vehicle.

The Shuttle is the perfect example of neglected safety in order to
build their wonder machine. No escape option on launch (even the
computers knew that disaster was about to happen), the seats are in
the wrong position for reentry, SRB issues, SSME issues, where last of
all the wing design is constantly a balancing act to avoid disaster.

NASA had no thoughts about crew safety when the Shuttle was designed,
which is why their best safety option is to jump for it.

NASA's problems here have all come from the original designs combined
with a touch of arrogance. Not like they ever spent much money
beforehand to stop leaks in the SRBs or things from impacting the
Shuttle.

They spent billions and billion fixing stuff on it. Don't believe your
own bull****.

The best NASA did on this SRB issue before Challenger was a few
discussions and a computer model predicting how much the O-Rings would
burn through.

They were well aware that the primary seal was failing, where only the
secondary backup seal was preventing disaster before Challenger.

Did they fix this safety failure then and avoid disaster? Obviously
no, when we all know what hot gases will do to the structural supports
and the ET.

I personally think that the Shuttle is quite a safe system, when they
are just ironing out the odd glitch in the original design.

What you think is irrelevant. The Shuttle kills its crew on 1% of all
flights -- comparable to the Wright Flyer and other early flying
machines. That is not a safe system, by any standard.

Maybe so, but both of these faults are very obvious with hindsight,
where both are ironing out faults in the original design.

We know now that leaks in the SRBs and falling foam won't get another
crew, which are two more steps on that learning curve to making a safe
system.

That is another plus for using the RS-84 engines, which do not require
foam on the tank, when the use RP-1.

However, despite making the Shuttle safer, we well know that the
original design was not aimed at crew safety, which is why it is time
to replace it with a design that is.

An ejection system on launch of the CEV is a must have, when these
computers, who can see disaster coming, can also decide in the speed
of a few clock cycles (and long before human thought) that it is time
to get the crew the f**k out of there.

It may be a rough ride, but it sure is a better option to riding a
failing rocket.

I would more say that spaceflight will never be safe all the time that
they are riding on an oversized firework.

Rocket engines have almost nothing in common with fireworks.

Really? :-]

Newton's second law of motion would be one, when pushing something out
the back pushes you forwards.

NASA has to do a lot of work to tame their beast.

Cardman
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk

Cardman wrote in message . ..

So, when a data point doesn't fit your preconceived notion, you
dismiss it as "pure luck"?

Well if you want some facts, then both MPL and MCO was developed under
the FCB plan, where both of those are now history. Since FCB was
abandoned, then you now have such shining successes as these MERs.

No, I don't want just "some" facts. I want you to consider *all* the
facts, not just those that happen to support your preconceived notion.
Anything else is intellectually dishonest.

I doubt that one Sean O'Keefe would be too unhappy these days about
that $200 million overrun, when here is the first MER working well,
with the second one soon to follow, where this money directly spent on
producing a safer landing has indeed produced a safe landing.

O'Keefe's giddiness does not prove the alleged correlation between
mission cost and reliability.

I am not talking about the whole mission project, but only that
funding spent on increasing the safety of the mission.

No, you're talking about funding that was spent on increasing
management and bureaucracy. You equate that with safety, which isn't
even the right word -- there's nobody on Mars, so the probe could not
have been a safety hazard no matter what. What you really mean is
reliability. which comes from the quality of engineering and
management, not the quantity of money spent.

Cheaper was certainly a word inserted into someone's mantra, where
that someone is no longer around this days, when that very mantra was
considered a disaster.

It was not considered a disaster by those who were aware of the facts.
Some people chose to portray it as a disaster to obtain greater
funding for their own projects. If you talk to Dr. Alan Binder or
General Pete Worden, they will tell you a different story.

After the loss of the MPL and MCO due to the FBC mantra, then lets see
people here raise their hand if they believed that if FBC had been
imposed of human spaceflight, then no one would get killed due to it.

No one? I thought not.

That's a strawman argument. Of course, people will get killed. No one
claimed otherwise. The cost-be-damned approach to spacefligh gets
people killed also. You ignore that fact.

Hell, maybe it already has, when shortly before the Columbia accident
I read that reduced funding was seriously putting the Shuttle at risk
of another accident.

You read it, so it must be true? Columbia was not an example of
"better, cheaper, faster." If you think that, you don't understand the
term. If you want to see a better, cheaper, faster approach to
spaceflight, look at the EZ-Rocket or Spaceship One, not the Shuttle.

Yes, there has been a tremendous amount of work done on land, sea,
and
air transportation systems -- did I say there wasn't? How does that
prove your point?

NASA has had 30 to 40 years to improve and make spaceflight safer. Ask
yourself how much safety it has gained?

Very little -- nor has it reduced costs. Do you have a point? I never
claimed that NASA had made spaceflight better, cheaper, or faster. The
fact that NASA hasn't done something doesn't prove it can't be done.
NASA doesn't build Apple computers. Does that mean it's impossible to
build Apple Computers? NASA didn't build Spaceship One. Does that mean
it was impossible to build Spaceship One?

The people who most need to stop trying to delude themselves with the
"Star Trek" theme is NASA, when they have a serious job to do here and
no time trying to ass about playing "Buck Rogers".

Whatever that means. I'm not sure why you think NASA's job is so
serious, but if they want to stop "playing Buck Rogers," that's fine
with me. I like playing Buck Rogers and don't intend to stop.

Do you think air transportation got more expensive as safety
improved?
No, it got cheaper.

Corporate negligence is a serious crime, which is why airlines do not
neglect safety in their cost cutting.

Non sequitur. You claim that doing things faster, better, and cheaper
reduces safety. Airline travel got faster, better, and cheaper. If
your thesis is true, that means it should have gotten more dangerous.
Did it? Southwest Airlines excels at doing things faster, better, and
cheaper. If your thesis is true, that means it should be the most
dangerous airline. Is it?

You *can't* cut costs by neglecting safety. That isn't because of
negligence suits, it's because of economics. Airplanes are expensive.
You don't save money by losing airplanes.

The Shuttle is the perfect example of neglected safety in order to
build their wonder machine.

Yes, and it cost NASA a lot of money, too. It didn't make the Shuttle
faster, better, or cheaper.

NASA's problems here have all come from the original designs
combined
with a touch of arrogance. Not like they ever spent much money
beforehand to stop leaks in the SRBs or things from impacting the
Shuttle.

They spent billions and billion fixing stuff on it. Don't believe your
own bull****.

The best NASA did on this SRB issue before Challenger was a few
discussions and a computer model predicting how much the O-Rings would
burn through.

Which does not prove your claim that NASA "never spent much money"
fixing things on the Shuttle. Once again, you're arguing from a single
data point and ignoring overwhelming evidence to the contrary. NASA
didn't fix everything, but they did spend billions fixing things, and
they're continuing to spend billions fixing things.

However, despite making the Shuttle safer, we well know that the
original design was not aimed at crew safety,

I never said it was. Your constant references to the Shuttle are a red
herring. Shuttle was not faster, better, or cheaper. Quite the
opposite.

An ejection system on launch of the CEV is a must have, when these
computers, who can see disaster coming, can also decide in the speed
of a few clock cycles (and long before human thought) that it is time
to get the crew the f**k out of there.

I'm not even sure the CEV is a must, nor would I call it faster,
better, or cheaper. I'm very sure I'm not going to allow any computer
to eject me, though. Ejection safety is important to me because my
life depends on it. I'm pretty sure yours doesn't, or you would put
more thought into these statements before you make them.

On 22 Jan 2004 02:42:21 -0800, (Edward
Wright) wrote:

Cardman wrote in message . ..

So, when a data point doesn't fit your preconceived notion, you
dismiss it as "pure luck"?

Well if you want some facts, then both MPL and MCO was developed under
the FCB plan, where both of those are now history. Since FCB was
abandoned, then you now have such shining successes as these MERs.

No, I don't want just "some" facts. I want you to consider *all* the
facts, not just those that happen to support your preconceived notion.
Anything else is intellectually dishonest.

MPL and MCO were much more difficult missions than your two example of
Clementine and Lunar Prospector, where with greater difficulty there
is a much greater risk of failure.

Lacking additional funding to increase the safety of these difficult
missions will, and indeed has, resulted in failure.

I doubt that one Sean O'Keefe would be too unhappy these days about
that $200 million overrun, when here is the first MER working well,
with the second one soon to follow, where this money directly spent on
producing a safer landing has indeed produced a safe landing.

O'Keefe's giddiness does not prove the alleged correlation between
mission cost and reliability.

Nothing so complex is ever certain, but your claim that increasing
funding to insure the safety of the mission does not in fact increase
safety is a point that you can never win.

Maybe you should give up trying.

It was correct to spend that extra $200 million redesigning these
airbags and additional landing systems, when as seen they worked
extremely well and have produced one successful landing so far with an
expected second one to follow.

That is a direct connection between spending additional funds to
increase the safety of the mission, which at the end of the day did
just that.

Also I should say that I was impressed by this added feature of tone
transmission during landing, which is a feature that I am sure will be
found on all future landers.

I am not talking about the whole mission project, but only that
funding spent on increasing the safety of the mission.

No, you're talking about funding that was spent on increasing
management and bureaucracy.

My above example does not show this, where the successful landing of
Spirit shows where this $200 million was spent. Sure there has to be
managerial discussions in order to figure out the correct action to
take, but I can certainly write you a list of all the systems and
testing that this additional $200 million provided.

So when these managers did get allocated that $200 million, then they
certainly did not blow it on hookers and blackjack.

You equate that with safety, which isn't
even the right word -- there's nobody on Mars, so the probe could not
have been a safety hazard no matter what.

By safety I mean the safety of these MERs, when if they had used the
old airbags, then the landing would have been unsafe putting at
serious risk this valuable cargo.

Safety hazards are not applicable here.

What you really mean is reliability.

In part, but if like in the case of these old airbags it is considered
a design fault, then it has to be totally replaced.

Also new hardware was added in the aim of increasing the safety of the
landing, when cross winds were considered a risk, which is why small
rocket motors were added to counteract this force.

Reliability only applies to existing hardware.

which comes from the quality of engineering and
management, not the quantity of money spent.

Had not this additional $200 million been allocated, then there would
have been none of that.

It was not considered a disaster by those who were aware of the facts.
Some people chose to portray it as a disaster to obtain greater
funding for their own projects. If you talk to Dr. Alan Binder or
General Pete Worden, they will tell you a different story.

If they indeed support FBC then they are welcome to write documents on
this subject.

Sure, FCB has several good points in reducing program cost and getting
more for your money, but FCB has no place being implemented in the
safety area.

That's a strawman argument.

I am pleased that you know your terms, but there is also something
about pointing out the obvious.

Of course, people will get killed. No one
claimed otherwise. The cost-be-damned approach to spacefligh gets
people killed also. You ignore that fact.

There is also direct connection between ensuring safety in your
designs and support instead of doing things for other reasons.

The Shuttle simply is not a safety minded design, which in a
round-a-bout way has certainly claimed lives.

By contrast Russia's ever popular launch system has been working very
well for a long time, when their ejection system has indeed saved
lives, where even their capsule design saved lives versus the winged
system when their guidance system malfunctioned.

Hell, maybe it already has, when shortly before the Columbia accident
I read that reduced funding was seriously putting the Shuttle at risk
of another accident.

You read it, so it must be true?

It is more about who said it.

Columbia was not an example of
"better, cheaper, faster." If you think that, you don't understand the
term.

No, but this project was indeed subject to those same cost cutting
objectives under the FBC era. Also due to the high Shuttle budget
there are always people looking to reduce costs in order to spend
large sums elsewhere.

This has indeed been putting safety at risk, which maybe even included
matters of falling foam.

If you want to see a better, cheaper, faster approach to
spaceflight, look at the EZ-Rocket or Spaceship One, not the Shuttle.

Pointing out that everyone can do faster and cheaper projects than
NASA is just pointing out the obvious again. If they are indeed better
will be known when they actually start their sub-orbital hops.

I predict a few fatalities along the way, but at least they have a
real business approach in that they are here to launch people and
cargo on sub-orbital hops, where even the odd disaster won't stall
their goal for long.

NASA has had 30 to 40 years to improve and make spaceflight safer. Ask
yourself how much safety it has gained?

Very little -- nor has it reduced costs. Do you have a point?

None beyond maybe they should now start doing so.

There are lots of ways in which NASA should change, where their
objective in decreasing launch costs per pound using the Shuttle is
nothing but people trying to kid themselves.

There is only one correct way to do things, where NASA has been going
in the opposite direction for far too long.

I never
claimed that NASA had made spaceflight better, cheaper, or faster. The
fact that NASA hasn't done something doesn't prove it can't be done.

NASA has been citing such a directive over the past decade, where they
just stood no chance in making it work out.

NASA doesn't build Apple computers. Does that mean it's impossible to
build Apple Computers? NASA didn't build Spaceship One. Does that mean
it was impossible to build Spaceship One?

For NASA I would not put anything beyond them, including disastrous
failures trying just that.

The people who most need to stop trying to delude themselves with the
"Star Trek" theme is NASA, when they have a serious job to do here and
no time trying to ass about playing "Buck Rogers".

Whatever that means. I'm not sure why you think NASA's job is so
serious,

Oh? Seems pretty damned serious to me, when they lead the whole world
in terms of space exploration. Others do not bother trying, where NASA
over the past 30 years have just been messing up in terms of human
exploration.

but if they want to stop "playing Buck Rogers," that's fine
with me. I like playing Buck Rogers and don't intend to stop.

Buck Rogers is what gave us the likes of the Shuttle in the first
place, which stopped human exploration in its tracks by constantly
going around in circles.

When NASA stops trying to appear cool and actually give decent value
for their budget in terms of human spaceflight, then people in
general, maybe including congress, will respect them more.

So one of the thing that really counts is like the option of
physically reducing the launch cost per pound of cargo. As if NASA
manages to do that with their pet projects, when suddenly the whole
world will sit up and take notice.

After all semi-competative launch companies would have a major
interest in reducing launch costs, where NASA may even be able to do
this is they can get a RLV to work out.

Then NASA could really claim "look what we have done", which is sure
better than the likes of the Shuttle and the ISS. Two of their flash
systems in looking cool, even if you have to ask as to just what is
great about these things?

Corporate negligence is a serious crime, which is why airlines do not
neglect safety in their cost cutting.

Non sequitur. You claim that doing things faster, better, and cheaper
reduces safety.

With the MCO and MPL offering strong evidence in this case.

Airline travel got faster, better, and cheaper. If
your thesis is true, that means it should have gotten more dangerous.
Did it? Southwest Airlines excels at doing things faster, better, and
cheaper. If your thesis is true, that means it should be the most
dangerous airline. Is it?

This is mostly an issue of if funding is provided to ensure safety or
not, when flying when things are leaking or falling off is simply not
being safe.

You *can't* cut costs by neglecting safety. That isn't because of
negligence suits, it's because of economics. Airplanes are expensive.
You don't save money by losing airplanes.

NASA has little such concerns, when they are not in the business of
making profit, when congress will no doubt buy them new hardware when
they lose the ones that they have.

The best NASA did on this SRB issue before Challenger was a few
discussions and a computer model predicting how much the O-Rings would
burn through.

Which does not prove your claim that NASA "never spent much money"
fixing things on the Shuttle.

I never made such a claim. Only that funding on the Shuttle has been
subject to cuts from the FBC era and onwards, where this has indeed
put safety at risk.

Once again, you're arguing from a single
data point and ignoring overwhelming evidence to the contrary. NASA
didn't fix everything, but they did spend billions fixing things, and
they're continuing to spend billions fixing things.

Yet as this accident report indicates NASA management is very good at
ignoring clear danger signs.

An ejection system on launch of the CEV is a must have, when these
computers, who can see disaster coming, can also decide in the speed
of a few clock cycles (and long before human thought) that it is time
to get the crew the f**k out of there.

I'm not even sure the CEV is a must, nor would I call it faster,
better, or cheaper.

It should certainly be Faster, Better and Cheaper though, when
anything following the Shuttle is without doubt an improvement, even
if NASA won't excel in it's use.

Since the Shuttle is certainly on the way out, then something to
replace it is needed.

The CEV is the correct answer, when it uses basic designs (and not
trying to look Buck Rogers "flash"), where it may actually get human
spaceflight back on track.

I'm very sure I'm not going to allow any computer
to eject me, though. Ejection safety is important to me because my
life depends on it. I'm pretty sure yours doesn't, or you would put
more thought into these statements before you make them.

One thing I know is computers. The Shuttle has five of them, where
sure enough all five agreed during these two Shuttle accidents that
things were just not going well.

Had these computers and systems been designed to do so, then yes they
could have made the correct decision to active the emergency escape
system moments before disaster.

And so I would certainly have more faith in such an ejection system
than in my own decision making and reflexes during such an incident.

You should also remember that this is not really computers making
these choices, but a whole team is people defining the rules by which
these computer systems abide by.

These computers do what they are told to do, where such an ejection
sequence would have been defined years before by very many people
working hard to ensure the safety of their astronauts.

Further more NASA has a very good system of preventing human mistakes
in such computer code.

So at the end of the day I have complete faith in such a computer
controlled ejection system, where this is really a matter of life and
death, where the computer has the available data and can spot problems
long before humans can.

In the case of the Columbia accident, then the people in the control
center was still wondering what was going on minutes after Columbia
was destroyed, where yes the computer systems aboard the Shuttle and
elsewhere can clearly spell out the steps leading to the point when
ideally the emergency escape system should be activated.

Computers are good because they do what you want them to do, which
includes the decision making process far faster and far better than
humans can.

Computers also do not suffer from "blind faith" in that these Shuttle
missions will be successful, which is a flaw found in most humans.

Should you not wish to see a computer controlled ejection system, then
you will certainly be getting one when the next accident investigation
concludes that these fatalities were due to human limitations.

Cardman
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk

Cardman wrote in message . ..

No, I don't want just "some" facts. I want you to consider *all* the
facts, not just those that happen to support your preconceived
notion.
Anything else is intellectually dishonest.

MPL and MCO were much more difficult missions than your two example of
Clementine and Lunar Prospector, where with greater difficulty there
is a much greater risk of failure.

And your point is...? That's how you do "better, faster, cheaper"
missions. Have you ever heard the acronym KISS -- "keep it simple,
stupid"?

Lacking additional funding to increase the safety of these difficult
missions will, and indeed has, resulted in failure.

So? The idea of doing difficult missions just "because they are hard"
is complete nonsense. Good management sets achievable goals. .

Nothing so complex is ever certain,

Correct. Which is a reason for doing *simple* missions, rather than
complex ones.

You've been claiming that the huge budget for the Spirit mission made
success certain. Do you still think it's certain?

but your claim that increasing funding to insure the safety of the mission does not in fact increase
safety is a point that you can never win.

Maybe you should give up trying.

Yes, perhaps I should. You seem to have a fixed opinion and don't care
about the facts. What you call "increasing funding to insure the
safety of the mission" actually consists of adding layers of
management, stretching the schedule, adding lots of new instruments,
and choosing difficult targets (like Pluto) over easy ones (like the
Moon). None of those things add to safety or reliability.

It was correct to spend that extra $200 million redesigning these
airbags and additional landing systems, when as seen they worked
extremely well and have produced one successful landing so far with an
expected second one to follow.

Leaving aside the question of why an airbag should cost $200 million,
your statement implies that a successful landing would be possible
without the new design. That's obviously false because spacecraft
*have* landed on Mars in the past.

No, you're talking about funding that was spent on increasing
management and bureaucracy.

My above example does not show this, where the successful landing of
Spirit shows where this $200 million was spent. Sure there has to be
managerial discussions in order to figure out the correct action to
take, but I can certainly write you a list of all the systems and
testing that this additional $200 million provided.

And what do you think made those systems *cost* $200 million? Robert
Zubrin (who knows something about Mars) uses $5000 per pound as a
figure for aerospace hardware development. Why did this hardware cost
so much more?

So when these managers did get allocated that $200 million, then they
certainly did not blow it on hookers and blackjack.

I never said that. If you can't argue honestly, don't argue at all.

which comes from the quality of engineering and
management, not the quantity of money spent.

Had not this additional $200 million been allocated, then there would
have been none of that.

No, but there would have been something else. It is possible to do
small, efficient missions. It has been done in the past, and it can be
done again.

It was not considered a disaster by those who were aware of the
facts.
Some people chose to portray it as a disaster to obtain greater
funding for their own projects. If you talk to Dr. Alan Binder or
General Pete Worden, they will tell you a different story.

If they indeed support FBC then they are welcome to write documents on
this subject.

LOL. They have written documents on this subject, and even testified
before Congress on it.

Sure, FCB has several good points in reducing program cost and getting
more for your money, but FCB has no place being implemented in the
safety area.

Any safety engineer will tell you otherwise. KISS is a principle they
live by.

The Shuttle simply is not a safety minded design, which in a
round-a-bout way has certainly claimed lives.

I never said it was. Nor was it simple or low cost, by any definition
of the term. Why do you keep beating this strawman.

By contrast Russia's ever popular launch system has been working very
well for a long time,

So? NASA has spent, and is continuing to spend, a lot more money on
Shuttle than the Russians do on Soyuz. If your notion about the cost
of missions and safety is correct, Shuttle should be much *safer* than
Soyuz.

Columbia was not an example of
"better, cheaper, faster." If you think that, you don't understand
the
term.

No, but this project was indeed subject to those same cost cutting
objectives under the FBC era. Also due to the high Shuttle budget
there are always people looking to reduce costs in order to spend
large sums elsewhere.

What people -- and why didn't they replace the Shuttle with a less
expensive system long ago? Continuing to pour money into the Shuttle
has not increased safety or reduced costs.

If you want to see a better, cheaper, faster approach to
spaceflight, look at the EZ-Rocket or Spaceship One, not the
Shuttle.

Pointing out that everyone can do faster and cheaper projects than
NASA is just pointing out the obvious again.

It apparently wasn't obvious to you. Clementine and Lunar Prospector
-- the best examples of faster, better, cheaper planetary missions --
were not run by NASA. Clementine wasn't even funded by NASA. If NASA
could fund *successful* faster, better, cheaper missions like LP in
the past, they can do so again.

I never claimed that NASA had made spaceflight better, cheaper, or
faster. The
fact that NASA hasn't done something doesn't prove it can't be done.

NASA has been citing such a directive over the past decade, where they
just stood no chance in making it work out.

The success of Lunar Prospector proves otherwise.

Whatever that means. I'm not sure why you think NASA's job is so
serious,

Oh? Seems pretty damned serious to me, when they lead the whole world
in terms of space exploration. Others do not bother trying, where NASA
over the past 30 years have just been messing up in terms of human
exploration.

"Others do not bother trying"? Please speak for yourself, Mr. Cardman.
I assure you, many of us are trying -- and having fun doing so.
Yesterday, we had fun several times. :-)

but if they want to stop "playing Buck Rogers," that's fine
with me. I like playing Buck Rogers and don't intend to stop.

Buck Rogers is what gave us the likes of the Shuttle in the first
place, which stopped human exploration in its tracks by constantly
going around in circles.

When NASA stops trying to appear cool and actually give decent value
for their budget in terms of human spaceflight, then people in
general, maybe including congress, will respect them more.

I didn't realize Buck Rogers designed the Space Shuttle. You must tell
me more about fictional characters working at NASA. :-)

If you think flying four or five flights a year to the Internation
Space Station is cool, we have very different definitions of cool.

I'm sorry if you think having fun and be respected are mutually
exclusive. If I have to choose, I'll live without your respect.

Non sequitur. You claim that doing things faster, better, and
cheaper
reduces safety.

With the MCO and MPL offering strong evidence in this case.

Very weak evidence, since those were "business as usual" missions that
made only a slight effort to be faster or cheaper. Why do you keep
repeating examples that have been discredited?

Airline travel got faster, better, and cheaper. If
your thesis is true, that means it should have gotten more dangerous.
Did it? Southwest Airlines excels at doing things faster, better, and
cheaper. If your thesis is true, that means it should be the most
dangerous airline. Is it?

This is mostly an issue of if funding is provided to ensure safety or
not, when flying when things are leaking or falling off is simply not
being safe.

Do you think it takes less funding to operate aircraft with leaks and
"things falling off"? Do you *really* believe that?

You *can't* cut costs by neglecting safety. That isn't because of
negligence suits, it's because of economics. Airplanes are
expensive.
You don't save money by losing airplanes.

NASA has little such concerns, when they are not in the business of
making profit, when congress will no doubt buy them new hardware when
they lose the ones that they have.

You have NASA on the brain, my friend. The best examples of better,
faster, cheaper planetary missions weren't even run by NASA.

An ejection system on launch of the CEV is a must have, when these
computers, who can see disaster coming, can also decide in the
speed
of a few clock cycles (and long before human thought) that it is
time
to get the crew the f**k out of there.

I'm not even sure the CEV is a must, nor would I call it faster,
better, or cheaper.

It should certainly be Faster, Better and Cheaper though, when
anything following the Shuttle is without doubt an improvement, even
if NASA won't excel in it's use.

No, it certainly will not be. No one -- even NASA -- claims that CEV
CEV (or OSP or whatever it's called this week) will be cheaper than
the Shuttle. You need to some research before making these claims.

Since the Shuttle is certainly on the way out, then something to
replace it is needed.

That does not logically follow.

The CEV is the correct answer, when it uses basic designs (and not
trying to look Buck Rogers "flash"), where it may actually get human
spaceflight back on track.

What track is that?

I'm very sure I'm not going to allow any computer
to eject me, though. Ejection safety is important to me because my
life depends on it. I'm pretty sure yours doesn't, or you would put
more thought into these statements before you make them.

One thing I know is computers. The Shuttle has five of them, where
sure enough all five agreed during these two Shuttle accidents that
things were just not going well.

Had these computers and systems been designed to do so, then yes they
could have made the correct decision to active the emergency escape
system moments before disaster.

The Shuttle had no emergency escape system, and if it did, the pilot
could have activated it. (By the way, the Shuttle has *more* than five
computers.)

So at the end of the day I have complete faith in such a computer
controlled ejection system, where this is really a matter of life and
death, where the computer has the available data and can spot problems
long before humans can.

Computers also do not suffer from "blind faith" in that these Shuttle
missions will be successful, which is a flaw found in most humans.

No, it's no computers that suffer from blind faith, but people who
think of them as the be-all and end-all. If the Shuttle had computers
that ejected astronauts when there was an indication of trouble, NASA
would have lost a lot more astronauts, because the Shuttle computers
often detect problems that turn out to be false positives. Ejecting
from a vehicle is not something to be taken lightly. Pilots call it
attempted suicide to avoid certain death. You're proposing to replace
that with attempted homicide because a red light went on. That would
certainly make spaceflight more expensive, but it certainly won't make
it safer.

Should you not wish to see a computer controlled ejection system, then
you will certainly be getting one when the next accident investigation
concludes that these fatalities were due to human limitations.

That's utter nonsense. Pilot error is often found in accident
investigations, yet aircraft don't have computer-controlled ejection
systems. You have some very strong opinions, but you need to do more
research.

On 24 Jan 2004 12:51:27 -0800, (Edward
Wright) wrote:

Cardman wrote in message . ..

Nothing so complex is ever certain,

Correct. Which is a reason for doing *simple* missions, rather than
complex ones.

Going to Mars as opposed to the Moon is already making things much
more complex, but they do so in order to increase scientific gain.

You've been claiming that the huge budget for the Spirit mission made
success certain. Do you still think it's certain?

Even if Spirit failed now, then it would have obtained a lot of
successful data.

My point was about the safety of the landing system, where it landed
fine did it not? Due to all aspects of this mission, then I feel that
Opportunity should bounce and roll just fine as well.

Famous last words...

Maybe you should give up trying.

Yes, perhaps I should. You seem to have a fixed opinion and don't care
about the facts.

I like facts, but you seem to be making lots of invalid claims and at
times even trying to dodge the issue.

What you call "increasing funding to insure the
safety of the mission" actually consists of adding layers of
management,

Not really, when the project management can always deal with such
problems with the help of the odd outside expert.

stretching the schedule,

There is a saying that a project will take up all of the available
time.

This is very true for these MERs, when despite having to totally
redesign the landing system, then they still made their launch window.

adding lots of new instruments,

Not really. The rocket motors and control system to assist decent was
added to this MER project, but as seen this indeed helped to achieve a
successful landing.

In other words nothing was added that did not increase safety, which
in my view was money well spent.

Future projects can take advantage of this added safety.

and choosing difficult targets (like Pluto) over easy ones (like the
Moon).

Another one of your odd claims, which is also incorrect.

None of those things add to safety or reliability.

Then you are welcome to watch the landing of Opportunity for yourself,
when an extra $220 million was spent on achieving this safe landing.

Had that money not been spent, then having the mission fail would have
just been greatly increased.

It was correct to spend that extra $200 million redesigning these
airbags and additional landing systems, when as seen they worked
extremely well and have produced one successful landing so far with an
expected second one to follow.

Leaving aside the question of why an airbag should cost $200 million,

Not to forget the rocket motors, control system and camera. And even
that does not include all the testing and modification that was done.

your statement implies that a successful landing would be possible
without the new design. That's obviously false because spacecraft
*have* landed on Mars in the past.

It was concluded by this project management that the landing system
that they inherited from Pathfinder was unsafe for this project. And
had they used the Pathfinder landing system, then these two missions
could well have been lost.

And what do you think made those systems *cost* $200 million? Robert
Zubrin (who knows something about Mars) uses $5000 per pound as a
figure for aerospace hardware development. Why did this hardware cost
so much more?

It was done by "NASA".

Any safety engineer will tell you otherwise. KISS is a principle they
live by.

True, but simple does not mean safe.

For example the Pathfinder landing system was a lot more simple with
just a parachute and airbags. And yet the MERs system became more
complex by adding rocket motors, a camera, gyro, a control and more.

Sure that all this extra hardware means that more things can do wrong,
but there is no current safer system to make it down to the surface.

The Shuttle simply is not a safety minded design, which in a
round-a-bout way has certainly claimed lives.

I never said it was.

And neither did I say that you did, when that was a factual statement.

By contrast Russia's ever popular launch system has been working very
well for a long time,

So? NASA has spent, and is continuing to spend, a lot more money on
Shuttle than the Russians do on Soyuz. If your notion about the cost
of missions and safety is correct, Shuttle should be much *safer* than
Soyuz.

You cannot possibly compare the costs spent on safety between a design
that was aimed for safety and a design that was not.

In other words NASA has been paying for their unsafe design ever
since.

What people -- and why didn't they replace the Shuttle with a less
expensive system long ago?

There are also many supporters of the Shuttle about, which could well
be due to the fact that their job depends on it.

Continuing to pour money into the Shuttle
has not increased safety or reduced costs.

That is what unsafe designs do.

Oh? Seems pretty damned serious to me, when they lead the whole world
in terms of space exploration. Others do not bother trying, where NASA
over the past 30 years have just been messing up in terms of human
exploration.

"Others do not bother trying"? Please speak for yourself, Mr. Cardman.

Sure some are starting to get interested now, but before China's
manned launch, then the rest were hopeless enough.

I assure you, many of us are trying -- and having fun doing so.
Yesterday, we had fun several times. :-)

Good for you. I will look forwards to some real results instead of
some "pet projects" to prove some undeveloped technology.

When NASA stops trying to appear cool and actually give decent value
for their budget in terms of human spaceflight, then people in
general, maybe including congress, will respect them more.

I didn't realize Buck Rogers designed the Space Shuttle. You must tell
me more about fictional characters working at NASA. :-)

He had as much of a hand in it, when ever since NASA has been trying
to fool the public into believing that their astronauts and not the
computers fly this thing.

It is clear from the very Shuttle design that they were not after
functional or cheap, when they wanted their very own USS Enterprise.

Look at us and our flash Ferrari of the space lanes...

If you think flying four or five flights a year to the Internation
Space Station is cool, we have very different definitions of cool.

Is it my fault that NASA got hooked up in the failure of their
oversight? They promised grand things, like a hundred space stations
in some LEO colony, where the "cool" factor was lost in their failure.

Bouncing about on the Moon is sure to be a lot more "cool".

I'm sorry if you think having fun and be respected are mutually
exclusive. If I have to choose, I'll live without your respect.

We have the same idea, where the only problem is NASA and maybe
congress.

With the MCO and MPL offering strong evidence in this case.

Very weak evidence, since those were "business as usual" missions that
made only a slight effort to be faster or cheaper.

You greatly understate the case, when these were the very flagship
missions of FBC.

As these followed the likes of the multi-billion dollar projects like
Galileo and Cassini.

Why do you keep repeating examples that have been discredited?

Maybe because your assumptions are incorrect.

Do you think it takes less funding to operate aircraft with leaks and
"things falling off"? Do you *really* believe that?

You should listen in on the aircraft frequency channels some time,
when they give very interesting insight on problems before switching
to a secure channel to hide their serious engine faults.

And sure enough such aircraft get patched up and sent on their way,
when after all they make money by flying.

NASA has little such concerns, when they are not in the business of
making profit, when congress will no doubt buy them new hardware when
they lose the ones that they have.

You have NASA on the brain, my friend. The best examples of better,
faster, cheaper planetary missions weren't even run by NASA.

Then maybe such science projects should be taken out the hands of
NASA.

It should certainly be Faster, Better and Cheaper though, when
anything following the Shuttle is without doubt an improvement, even
if NASA won't excel in it's use.

No, it certainly will not be. No one -- even NASA -- claims that CEV
CEV (or OSP or whatever it's called this week) will be cheaper than
the Shuttle. You need to some research before making these claims.

For research check out the budget plans, when CEV support costs will
be less than 1/5th of that of the Shuttle. They could be wrong, but
they are on the right track to making them right.

Since the Shuttle is certainly on the way out, then something to
replace it is needed.

That does not logically follow.

It does if the US wants manned spaceflight, where certain "moon plans"
seem to clearly point this out.

The CEV is the correct answer, when it uses basic designs (and not
trying to look Buck Rogers "flash"), where it may actually get human
spaceflight back on track.

What track is that?

Outwards instead of circular.

Had these computers and systems been designed to do so, then yes they
could have made the correct decision to active the emergency escape
system moments before disaster.

The Shuttle had no emergency escape system, and if it did, the pilot
could have activated it.

Not in less time than a computer could.

Like with Challenger the loss in thrust from the booster very quickly
turned into the SRB going off course and loss of pressure in the
tanks.

That occurred in a very short space of time, which is much too short
for humans to handle, where the computers on this one could have
noticed these problems and done their "emergency escape system
routine" in mere picoseconds.

(By the way, the Shuttle has *more* than five computers.)

I am talking about the flight control computers, which process data
from all the sensors on the craft. After all it is the computer that
really flies the Shuttle on the way up, in space and on the way down.

They use these computers to come to a conclusion on how the Shuttle
should fly, when an error by one computer will be dismissed by the
other ones.

This same system could certainly have controlled an escape system had
such a feature existed.

Like it or not the computers can handle an emergency ejection system a
lot better than the pilot can. When they can evaluate all the facts in
a very short space of time and come to a conclusion.

And all these steps would have been created by a vast team of computer
and safety people a very long time before, when that would be about
the most evaluated and tested piece of software to ever exist.

Computers also do not suffer from "blind faith" in that these Shuttle
missions will be successful, which is a flaw found in most humans.

No, it's no computers that suffer from blind faith, but people who
think of them as the be-all and end-all.

Computers do nothing more than what you make them do. Computer
problems are never really computer problems, when these are in fact
"human problems".

Garbage in, garbage out.

If the Shuttle had computers
that ejected astronauts when there was an indication of trouble, NASA
would have lost a lot more astronauts, because the Shuttle computers
often detect problems that turn out to be false positives.

Computers can also be made to evaluate and dismiss such false
information.

Like in the Challenger accident, then the fact that the SRB was not
working quite as it should was a minor problem. The fact that this
same SRB was reported to be traveling at the wrong angle was very
alarming, but only when pressure was being lost from the tanks would
this chain of events have pointed to a clear outcome.

Now, it depends on how well the angle reporting of the SRBs normally
holds up, but the emergency sequence would have been activated between
these two.

The Challenger crew did nothing, because they were unaware of a
problem before the Shuttle broke apart. They instead had the honour of
taking a trip up to 100,000 ft before coming down again and going
splat.

Ejecting from a vehicle is not something to be taken lightly.

Certainly, but it should be an option.

Pilots call it attempted suicide to avoid certain death.

It has without question also saved lives. And in reality it is not
that bad, when the pilot is just subject to high G forces during the
ejection (black and blue comes to mind), where they just have to hope
that the other safety landing systems work out.

You're proposing to replace that with attempted homicide because a red
light went on.

My point is that would you trust the extremely slow thought process of
the pilot during a quickly evolving disaster sequence, or would you
instead trust the team of hundreds of people who spent months if not
years researching and testing every possible option in telling the
computer exactly what to do in such a situation?

The choice here seems clear to me.

The only issue is putting your life in the hands of a "computer"
(technophobia), when some people don't like giving up control of their
life to a machine.

Astronauts have to do that everyday with the Shuttle and ISS computer
systems, where the emergency escape system should be no different.

Let me put it this way. As when have you ever heard of a computer
killing someone?

That would certainly make spaceflight more expensive, but it certainly
won't make it safer.

Trust your computer, when it won't kill you.

Should you not wish to see a computer controlled ejection system, then
you will certainly be getting one when the next accident investigation
concludes that these fatalities were due to human limitations.

That's utter nonsense. Pilot error is often found in accident
investigations, yet aircraft don't have computer-controlled ejection
systems.

Maybe because they are content with the loss of life. As you would not
consider adding ejection systems to passenger aircraft.

Also on aircraft that do have ejection systems, then I am sure that
there are also many cases where the ejection system was not used, when
the pilot did not activate it in time.

Since space vehicles during launch and reentry travel much faster than
aircraft, making the response time even less, then a computer
controlled escape sequence is really a requirement.

You have some very strong opinions, but you need to do more
research.

Like that it is already the computers aboard the Shuttle that really
flies it in the first place, where already these astronauts put their
lives in the hands these computers.

The astronauts are happy about that, when they know that the computer
can fly the Shuttle much better than what they can.

Astronauts are not techophobes, but maybe you are.

Trust your computer. When it only does what very many people spent a
very long time working hard to get perfect.

Cardman
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk

Cardman wrote in message . ..

Going to Mars as opposed to the Moon is already making things much
more complex, but they do so in order to increase scientific gain.

Less scientific gain from the Moon? I'd love to see you argue that
point with Dr. Alan Binder, Dr. Phil Chapman, Dr, John Cramer, or Dr.
Buzz Aldrin!

Following your argument, NASA should spend all its money on a single
mission to Alpha Centauri. That would be more complex than going to
Mars mission, but have more scientific gain.

My point was about the safety of the landing system, where it landed
fine did it not?

Once again, your point is invalid. You are reasoning from a single
data point. You are also assuming that correlation implies causality.
Both errors in elementary logic. Constantly repeating an invalid point
will not make it valid.

and choosing difficult targets (like Pluto) over easy ones (like
the
Moon).

Another one of your odd claims, which is also incorrect.

Really? Do you think NASA funded Lunar Prospector II and rejected the
Pluto Kuiper mission?

Any safety engineer will tell you otherwise. KISS is a principle
they
live by.

True, but simple does not mean safe.

Nor does expensive mean safe, as you keep insisting.

So? NASA has spent, and is continuing to spend, a lot more money on
Shuttle than the Russians do on Soyuz. If your notion about the cost
of missions and safety is correct, Shuttle should be much *safer*
than
Soyuz.

You cannot possibly compare the costs spent on safety between a design
that was aimed for safety and a design that was not.

Sure, I can. In fact, I just did. The idea that NASA never "aimed for
safety" is pure cant. Your reliance on press releases and soundbites
over facts is most annoying.

Oh? Seems pretty damned serious to me, when they lead the whole
world
in terms of space exploration. Others do not bother trying, where
NASA
over the past 30 years have just been messing up in terms of human
exploration.

"Others do not bother trying"? Please speak for yourself, Mr.
Cardman.

Sure some are starting to get interested now, but before China's
manned launch, then the rest were hopeless enough.

Again, please speak for yourself. I was interested long before China
put a man into space, and I couldn't care less that China put a man
into space.

I didn't realize Buck Rogers designed the Space Shuttle. You must
tell
me more about fictional characters working at NASA. :-)

He had as much of a hand in it, when ever since NASA has been trying
to fool the public into believing that their astronauts and not the
computers fly this thing.

:-) I see. It's a conspiracy theory -- all the astronauts are lying to
us???

If you think flying four or five flights a year to the Internation
Space Station is cool, we have very different definitions of cool.

Is it my fault that NASA got hooked up in the failure of their
oversight? They promised grand things, like a hundred space stations
in some LEO colony, where the "cool" factor was lost in their failure.

When did NASA promise a hundred space stations???

Where do you get this stuff?

Very weak evidence, since those were "business as usual" missions
that
made only a slight effort to be faster or cheaper.

You greatly understate the case, when these were the very flagship
missions of FBC.

No, they weren't. You're just repeating soundbites from Dan Goldin.
Dan didn't understand what faster, better, cheaper meant, either, and
when he had some embarrassing failures, he used "cheapness" as a
scapegoat to avoid accepting responsibility.

As these followed the likes of the multi-billion dollar projects like
Galileo and Cassini.

No, they following SDIO's low-cost Clementine. If not for Clementine,
NASA never would have tried to do low-cost missions. Again, you are
relying on Dan Goldin's revisionist history.

No, it certainly will not be. No one -- even NASA -- claims that CEV
CEV (or OSP or whatever it's called this week) will be cheaper than
the Shuttle. You need to some research before making these claims.

For research check out the budget plans, when CEV support costs will
be less than 1/5th of that of the Shuttle. They could be wrong, but
they are on the right track to making them right.

They're not wrong, but you're misreading the numbers. The Shuttle
carries seven astronauts and 65,000 pounds of cargo. The CEV will
carry an undetermined number of astronauts and little or no cargo. You
have to add in the cost of the cargo flights to get an accurate
comparison. With a man-rated EELV costing close to $200 million, those
costs will add up fast.

Since the Shuttle is certainly on the way out, then something to
replace it is needed.

That does not logically follow.

It does if the US wants manned spaceflight,

Nonsense. "US" stands for United States, which encompasses more than
just NASA.

Like with Challenger the loss in thrust from the booster very quickly
turned into the SRB going off course and loss of pressure in the
tanks.

That occurred in a very short space of time, which is much too short
for humans to handle,

Not according to the flight data, which showed the astronauts were
probably retained consciousness all the way down. They could have
activated an escape system at any time.

If the Shuttle had computers
that ejected astronauts when there was an indication of trouble,
NASA
would have lost a lot more astronauts, because the Shuttle computers
often detect problems that turn out to be false positives.

Computers can also be made to evaluate and dismiss such false
information.

Maybe on Star Trek. In the real world, computers are very bad at
making those kind of judgements. Airbus computers have even been known
to fly airliners straight into trees.

There's a big difference between video games and the real world. If
your PC crashes while you're playing Flight Simulator, you can reboot.
If you crash a plane in the real world, chances are you're probably
dead. That's why we don't put blind faith in computers, as you want
to.

Even if you "successfully" eject from an airplane, you're probably
going to be badly injured. We aren't talking about "black and blue"
marks, as you call them. Ask any flight surgeon about spinal
compression fractures. No one in his right mind is going to sit on top
of an explosive charge and give control of that charge to a computer
system prone to false alarms, which the Shuttle computers you talk
about have had on almost every flight.

Since space vehicles during launch and reentry travel much faster than
aircraft, making the response time even less, then a computer
controlled escape sequence is really a requirement.

How much less? How many milliseconds? How did you measure this? There
are studies, dating back to the X-15 program, that show pilots are
able to respond fast enough. When you measure, you know.

The astronauts are happy about that, when they know that the computer
can fly the Shuttle much better than what they can.

The computer doesn't fly the Shuttle, the astronauts do. There's a big
difference between computer control and computer-assisted control.

On 25 Jan 2004 19:21:49 -0800, (Edward
Wright) wrote:

Cardman wrote in message . ..

Going to Mars as opposed to the Moon is already making things much
more complex, but they do so in order to increase scientific gain.

Less scientific gain from the Moon? I'd love to see you argue that
point with Dr. Alan Binder, Dr. Phil Chapman, Dr, John Cramer, or Dr.
Buzz Aldrin!

And I could do so early, when the Moon is a dead world, while Mars is
a living an evolving planet. So Mars can indeed provide much more
scientific information.

Following your argument, NASA should spend all its money on a single
mission to Alpha Centauri. That would be more complex than going to
Mars mission, but have more scientific gain.

I am sure that it would return a wealth of science data, but probes to
other solar systems are currently impractical.

My point was about the safety of the landing system, where it landed
fine did it not?

Once again, your point is invalid.

My point is perfectly valid, where it is just that you choose to
ignore it, when it discredits your claim.

You are reasoning from a single data point.

I have listened to and accounted for all your data points, where money
spent on increasing safety certainly helps to increase safety.

My claim remains that spending the extra $220 million to redesign the
airbags and improve the landing system has indeed greatly increased
the safety of these landings.

One successful example has now been changed to two successful examples
I see. My point speaks for itself, trundling on Mars.

Had this additional funding not been spent, then these landings may
have gone vastly differently. Nothing is ever completely safe, but you
still ignore that this $220 million has indeed provided the safe
landings of these MERs.

You are also assuming that correlation implies causality.
Both errors in elementary logic. Constantly repeating an invalid point
will not make it valid.

Ignoring a valid point won't make it go away either. Money spent on
increasing safety does indeed increase safety and is a separate matter
from the general project budget.

Another one of your odd claims, which is also incorrect.

Really? Do you think NASA funded Lunar Prospector II and rejected the
Pluto Kuiper mission?

If not already, then I am sure soon, due to their new Luna goals.

True, but simple does not mean safe.

Nor does expensive mean safe, as you keep insisting.

I have made no such claim. Even low cost spending on increasing safety
can increase safety to a limited degree.

You cannot possibly compare the costs spent on safety between a design
that was aimed for safety and a design that was not.

Sure, I can. In fact, I just did.

Yes and goes to highlight how unwise this flawed logic choice was and
must question the nature of the person behind it.

Russia's system was made to be safety mined when it was designed,
which is one of the reasons why their safety spending is less. Not to
forget that they do not own a fragile bloated white elephant that is
the Shuttle.

Certainly these are two very different classes of vehicles, which is
why your point is and will always be invalid.

The idea that NASA never "aimed for safety" is pure cant.

I never made such a claim. The Shuttle was not made to be a safety
minded design, which causes their great deal of safety work on trying
to make it safe flawed, when it will always contain unsafe design
limitations.

Your reliance on press releases and soundbites
over facts is most annoying.

And your ignoring of the fact supporting truth is unhelpful.

He had as much of a hand in it, when ever since NASA has been trying
to fool the public into believing that their astronauts and not the
computers fly this thing.

:-) I see. It's a conspiracy theory -- all the astronauts are lying to
us???

Since NASA does not control their astronauts, then that is why many
people now know the truth.

Should you remember the Challenger accident, then the last things that
were said before it broke up was...

"Go with throttle up"
"Roger, going with throttle up".

The truth here is that this was simply play acting in order to fool
the general public into believing that it is the astronauts and not
the computers who fly the Shuttle.

As should you check out the log of the events during the Challenger
accident, then you will see that the computer had already moved the
SSMEs to running at 103% long before that false exchange.

The computers fly the Shuttle when they can handle the rapid
adjustments to the Shuttle's flaps (the Shuttle's wings do cause lift
after all) and detect things like wind sheer, where the computer
lowers the SSME's thrust during such an event.

NASA has stopped pretending that the astronauts fly the Shuttle these
days, but they certainly used to for a long time.

Is it my fault that NASA got hooked up in the failure of their
oversight? They promised grand things, like a hundred space stations
in some LEO colony, where the "cool" factor was lost in their failure.

When did NASA promise a hundred space stations???

During their original Shuttle claims.

After all they did claim that they would handle like 100 Shuttle
flights a year. And just what do you think that they planned to do
with their false claim of hundreds of Shuttle flights except equally
false claims of loads of space stations?

Where do you get this stuff?

Congress I am sure has records of NASA's many claims that have not
come true, like that one.

You greatly understate the case, when these were the very flagship
missions of FBC.

No, they weren't. You're just repeating soundbites from Dan Goldin.

Oh and why should you not listen to the head cheese of NASA?

Dan didn't understand what faster, better, cheaper meant, either,

It was his idea, when he had to sort out these multi-billion dollar
projects due to NASA's reduced budget.

and when he had some embarrassing failures, he used "cheapness" as
a scapegoat to avoid accepting responsibility.

No, other people accused his FCB projects of being "too cheap" and
putting safety at risk. MCO and MPL gave them good facts to back up
their claims.

As these followed the likes of the multi-billion dollar projects like
Galileo and Cassini.

No, they following SDIO's low-cost Clementine. If not for Clementine,
NASA never would have tried to do low-cost missions.

Sure they would, following all their budget cuts. And sure projects
like that played a part to show how NASA's projects are overly
expensive.

So they had several good reasons to run FCB.

Again, you are relying on Dan Goldin's revisionist history.

He is no longer here, when his FBC mantra crashed and burned.

For research check out the budget plans, when CEV support costs will
be less than 1/5th of that of the Shuttle. They could be wrong, but
they are on the right track to making them right.

They're not wrong, but you're misreading the numbers. The Shuttle
carries seven astronauts and 65,000 pounds of cargo. The CEV will
carry an undetermined number of astronauts and little or no cargo.

Your overlooking that they will be shipping people and cargo in
different containers in the future.

One cargo only launch should come close to the Shuttle's payload
limits, but of course they have the option to go even larger.

Also it is without question that they will be doing many more launches
each year when the CEV takes off.

You have to add in the cost of the cargo flights to get an accurate
comparison.

Sure.

With a man-rated EELV costing close to $200 million, those
costs will add up fast.

Cargo does not need to be launched on a man rated rocket.

Also I have a feeling that NASA will develop a reusable rocket for
both CEV, CEV + cargo and then cargo only launches. And that if it
works out will greatly reduce their launch costs by being able to
reuse each rocket again and again.

That occurred in a very short space of time, which is much too short
for humans to handle,

Not according to the flight data, which showed the astronauts were
probably retained consciousness all the way down.

Not at all.

There is some evidence that one or more of them was conscious
following the breakup, but since they would have been exposed to the
atmosphere, then people tend to black out very quickly due to the
shortage of oxygen when traveling up to 100,000 ft and then back down
again.

If they came to before hitting the ground is something that will never
be known.

They could have activated an escape system at any time.

Escape systems tend to not work so well if the vehicle you are in has
just been trashed.

Like it or not the computers can see breakups as they happen and
active the emergency escape sequence before the craft gets seriously
damaged.

Computers can also be made to evaluate and dismiss such false
information.

Maybe on Star Trek. In the real world, computers are very bad at
making those kind of judgements.

Rubbish, when computers only do what people tell them to. So that is
the same a questioning the team of safety and computer people who
would have spent years developing and testing the system.

Airbus computers have even been known
to fly airliners straight into trees.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Airbus computers do not see trees, or even know what they are, when
some plonker would have told it to land the plane right there.

And technically the pilot was in control when it hit the trees, when
this false landing was being manually aborted.

There's a big difference between video games and the real world. If
your PC crashes while you're playing Flight Simulator, you can reboot.

Microsoft's buggy programs and mass produced hardware can barely
compare to a system designed to take care of it's craft and
astronauts.

If you crash a plane in the real world, chances are you're probably
dead.

Like it or not computers already fly the Shuttle, where they also play
a large part on modern planes.

Fly by wire starts to enter this area, where the computer stops the
pilot from exceeding the design limitations of the plane and causing a
breakup.

And of course computers already fly planes if you know what an
auto-pilot system is.

That's why we don't put blind faith in computers, as you want
to.

People put blind faith in computers all the time, when they have
already seen for themselves that over long run they work perfectly
fine.

Like it or not computers can also handle an ejection sequence with
much greater data available, with much greater reflexes and with much
greater logic than the pilot.

Your faith in such a system is proportional to the work that was done
by real people in making it flawless.

Even if you "successfully" eject from an airplane, you're probably
going to be badly injured.

Certainly, but with the CEV ejecting from a malfunctioning rocket,
then at least you are within a contained and strong vehicle perfectly
capable of landing.

We aren't talking about "black and blue"
marks, as you call them.

They result from large G forces, which can certainly occur from the
CEV having to separate from an active rocket.

Ask any flight surgeon about spinal compression fractures.

NASA makes good seats and flight suits, but all this is better than 14
crew members having no choice than to die.

No one in his right mind is going to sit on top
of an explosive charge and give control of that charge to a computer
system prone to false alarms,

Such a computer would more likely have greater logic then the pilot,
who can only slowly respond to flashing lights also presented by the
computer.

One thing that is clear from both the Challenger and Columbia
accidents is that these Shuttles can turn from just fine to a broken
craft in a split second.

The Columbia's computer system of course did well in flying the
Shuttle, even if it's wing was being torn off, but this computer
clearly saw this breakup as it happened.

In the case of the Challenger, then the computer saw this leak early
on, then later on saw the SRB fly off course and hit the ET causing
both the tanks to leak.

That happened in a split second and far too fast to the crew to
respond, but to the computer that was nearly an eternity.

How many things have to fall off before you trust the computer in such
a rapidly developing disaster?

which the Shuttle computers you talk
about have had on almost every flight.

Not really. They had like that wiring problem that took out one SSME,
but the computer just compensated there.

Sensors can and do go on the blink, but any emergency escape system
would know this and would only respond to a clear pattern. It also
knows that the escape system carries it's own risks and to only use
this as the last case option.

Since space vehicles during launch and reentry travel much faster than
aircraft, making the response time even less, then a computer
controlled escape sequence is really a requirement.

How much less? How many milliseconds? How did you measure this?

Go watch the Challenger disaster and how it was all over in the time
it takes to blink.

Then in the case of Columbia, then even NASA released a tape showing
how unaware the crew was to impending doom only seconds later.

This is not that the crew did not have a chance of activating an
escape system, had one existed, but they can only do this seconds
following the breakup of the craft.

Now think of the Columbia situation, when it was still traveling
several times the speed of sound. There is only one option to what
happened to this crew when that shuttle broke up, when rapid
deceleration would have meant that they died of blunt trauma.

That highlights the danger of hanging around in a broken craft still
traveling at high speed.

There are studies, dating back to the X-15 program, that show pilots
are able to respond fast enough. When you measure, you know.

And even that was not traveling at Shuttle-like speeds, but it is
still true to say that the computer can do a better job than the
pilot.

That can also be tested, where the ones on the Shuttle have already
proved their worth.

The astronauts are happy about that, when they know that the computer
can fly the Shuttle much better than what they can.

The computer doesn't fly the Shuttle, the astronauts do.

Sure the computer flies the Shuttle.

On the way up it controls the flaps and SSMEs, in space it handles
getting from A to B, where on the way down the pilot can sit back and
open the landing gear at the end.

Sure the pilot tells the computer what to do, not to forget handling
the actual landing, but the computer does the real work.

There's a big
difference between computer control and computer-assisted control.

In the Shuttle it is more the case of computer assisted humans.

Cardman
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk

Cardman wrote in message . ..

Less scientific gain from the Moon? I'd love to see you argue that
point with Dr. Alan Binder, Dr. Phil Chapman, Dr, John Cramer, or
Dr.
Buzz Aldrin!

And I could do so early, when the Moon is a dead world, while Mars is
a living an evolving planet. So Mars can indeed provide much more
scientific information.

You think Mars is a living world??? When, exactly, did you discover
life on Mars?

One successful example has now been changed to two successful examples
I see. My point speaks for itself, trundling on Mars.

As do numerous failures that you ignore, because they don't fit your
prejudice.

Another one of your odd claims, which is also incorrect.

Really? Do you think NASA funded Lunar Prospector II and rejected
the
Pluto Kuiper mission?

If not already, then I am sure soon, due to their new Luna goals.

Which means it isn't "incorrect" that NASA ignored the Moon in favor
of harder target like Pluto.

The fact that you are "sure" something will happen "soon" has no
bearing on what actually has happened.

Russia's system was made to be safety mined when it was designed,
which is one of the reasons why their safety spending is less.

And you've been arguing that NASA needs to spend *more* money to make
missions safe. Did you forget what point you were trying to make?

The idea that NASA never "aimed for safety" is pure cant.

I never made such a claim. The Shuttle was not made to be a safety
minded design,

Laugh. You deny making the claim, then you make it again? Of course,
NASA tried to make the Shuttle a safe design.

He had as much of a hand in it, when ever since NASA has been
trying
to fool the public into believing that their astronauts and not
the
computers fly this thing.

:-) I see. It's a conspiracy theory -- all the astronauts are lying to
us???

Since NASA does not control their astronauts, then that is why many
people now know the truth.

You're attributing this conspiracy theory to the astronauts now? Tell
us which astronaut said this. Names, dates, places.

The truth here is that this was simply play acting in order to fool
the general public into believing that it is the astronauts and not
the computers who fly the Shuttle.

Maybe you think NASA hires astronauts from the Royal Shakespeare
Company? :-)

NASA has stopped pretending that the astronauts fly the Shuttle these
days, but they certainly used to for a long time.

So, now you're a NASA spokesman?

When did NASA promise a hundred space stations???

During their original Shuttle claims.

And where did you read those "original Shuttle claims" that no one
else has seen? Where can I find a copy of them?

Or did you "hear it from a friend", like any good urban legend? :-)

After all they did claim that they would handle like 100 Shuttle
flights a year.

Which wouldn't be nearly enough to support 100 space stations. Your
claims are not even internally consistent.

And just what do you think that they planned to do
with their false claim of hundreds of Shuttle flights except equally
false claims of loads of space stations?

First of all, they never promised "hundreds" of Shuttle flights. 50-60
was the goal. With that number of flights, they hoped to support *one*
space station -- not "hundreds."

Where do you get this stuff?

Congress I am sure has records of NASA's many claims that have not
come true, like that one.

Indeed. If you read them, you would know many of your claims are
false. NASA never planned to build hundreds of space stations, and we
haven't discovered life on Mars.

Airbus computers do not see trees, or even know what they are, when
some plonker would have told it to land the plane right there.

And technically the pilot was in control when it hit the trees, when
this false landing was being manually aborted.

No, he was not in control. He was out of control -- he tried to climb,
and the computer refused to respond.

Ask any flight surgeon about spinal compression fractures.

NASA makes good seats and flight suits, but all this is better than 14
crew members having no choice than to die.

NASA doesn't make ejection seats at all.

No one in his right mind is going to sit on top
of an explosive charge and give control of that charge to a computer
system prone to false alarms,

Such a computer would more likely have greater logic then the pilot,
who can only slowly respond to flashing lights also presented by the
computer.

A pilot can do much more than respond to flashing lights.

You can do more than respond to flashing lights, can't you?

Sensors can and do go on the blink, but any emergency escape system
would know this and would only respond to a clear pattern.

Pattern recognition is something that computers are notoriously bad
at.

I'm getting tired of correcting your nonsense. Goodbye, Mr. Cardman.