NASA Details Risks to Astronauts on Mission to Hubble

Richard Schumacher writes:

So we can either send willing astronauts to Hubble to perform uniquely valuable
work while risking unknown dangers, or send them to the International Space Station
to do jack **** in relative safety.

What a bunch of worthless pussies we've become.

Without a doubt. Apollo 1 killed three astronauts before any manned
Apollo capsule ever flew, Apollo 13 very nearly killed three more, and
there were "tense moments" on several other Apollo flights. An
overwhelming desire to keep the crew safe isn't what stopped Apollo
capsules from flying, but it appears to be what is killing any non-ISS
shuttle missions.

Even if NASA does start flying missions to ISS, it's going to be hard
for them to justify risking a crew on the relatively new CEV beyond
the "safety" of ISS.

Jeff
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Joann Evans writes:

"Scott M. Kozel" wrote:
The agency's bottom line: Any flight to Hubble or elsewhere "is clearly
riskier than a flight to the station," NASA deputy shuttle program
manager Wayne Hale said.

There, "you have friends that have air and electricity and food and
water and all the necessary means to hang out and give you options to
fix the problem," he said. "That's just common sense."


Wow. What did we ever do before ISS...?

We had balls. Somewhere, somehow, the US has been neutered.

Jeff
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George Kasica wrote:
35 (almost) years after Apollo 11's landing I wonder what that group
of NASA folks (astronauts, engineers, etc.) would have to say to this
line of thinking....my guess would be they are none too thrilled at
our lack of to use a polite term "backbone".

In fairness, there is a big difference between Apollo and Shuttle. Apollo was
meant to be single use aka "disposable". Shuttle is meant to be reusable.

Shuttles are now a precious vehicle produced in extremely limited quantities
and irreplaceable.
So like a piece of rare artwork, they need to treat the 3 remaining babies
with extreme TLC.

However, this doesn't negate the fact that a mission to Hubble has no more
risks of damage than a mission to Station. Both have similar launches and re-entries.

The risk is the same, the procedures are different. And NASA still has plenty
of time to fine tune its procedures and stuill make it to Hubble safely and
prove to the world that it is capable to adapt and take on difficult challenges.

By abandonning Hubble and risking all the bad PR when it falls back on earth
uncontrolled, NASA is admitting that it is incompetent, unable to tackle a
fairly simple challenge (in the grand scheme of things). And if it can't even
fly to somewhere it used to fly regularly before, how the hell is anyone
supposed to believe NASA is able to design a new space vehicle ?

Stephen Bolton wrote:

..
Richard Schumacher wrote in
:

http://www.floridatoday.com/news/spa...cestoryN0501SH
UTTLE.htm

NASA details risks to astronauts on mission to Hubble
_FLORIDA TODAY_ - May 1, 2004

So we can either send willing astronauts to Hubble to perform uniquely
valuable work while risking unknown dangers, or send them to the
International Space Station to do jack **** in relative safety.


What a bunch of worthless pussies we've become.

The ISS is the millstone around NASA's neck. After all the hype and effort
involved in its construction none of its leaders seem capable of standing
back and applying rational analysis to the situation that has evelved. If I
were the US president I would not just withdraw ISS support but actively
support the destruction of the station so that no country can waste its
valuable resources. Start agan with a clean slate. Mind you, there is a VERY
strong argument that un-manned space activity is far more scientifically
productive (actually the argument should be conceded). Best spend the money
to invent the warp drive or else we will be forever limited to marginal
(from a biological perspective) operations in the solar system.

The Apollo program returned orders-of-magnitude more scientific
information about the Moon than all the unmanned flights put together.
And, had cost been an issue, it could have been done for far less
money. Nobody denies that unmanned spacecraft do a good job of
collecting particles and fields data, or taking pictures from orbit, but
for lunar and planetary *exploration*, or for such things as building
advanced astronomical observatories on the lunar farside, the presence
of humans is virtually mandatory.

This issue, thus far, has been confused by the sorry state-of-the-art in
space transportation. Once we have reliable, fully-reusable launch
vehicles (and we could have had them 20 years ago), the situation will
become a lot clearer. The argument is most definitely not conceeded.

On or about 03 May 2004 14:38:16 -0400, jeff findley
made the sensational claim that:
An
overwhelming desire to keep the crew safe isn't what stopped Apollo
capsules from flying, but it appears to be what is killing any non-ISS
shuttle missions.

And that's the ****er of it all. We'd already pretty much thrown away the
need for the shuttle's versatility (with the lone exception of Hubble), so
the Columbia accident actually made more of an impact than it might have
otherwise. If ISS weren't the *only* priority, would we be so willing to
wallow in this fear of losting another crew?
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"Jorge R. Frank" writes:

Indeed, what is the probability of *any* spacecraft in a 28.45 degree
inclination orbit coming down on NYC (latitude 40.4 deg N) or Moscow
(latitude 55.45 deg N)? Especially if said spacecraft has no propulsion
system and an L/D of zero?

I'm going to guess zero. ;-)

Seriously, this isn't worth spending money on.

I'm sure NASA will give the public the appearance they're keeping
their options open (they always do), but it all comes down to funding,
doesn't it? If congress and the administration think Hubble is worth
saving, they'll ask NASA how much money it will take and will put that
money into NASA's budget.

Jeff
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(Henry Spencer) wrote

As Robert Forward said some years ago, "antimatter propulsion is no longer
science fiction". There is much engineering still to be done, and the
extremely high production cost of antimatter is a major problem, but at
the level of basic physics, there is no question that antimatter rockets
are feasible.

Much the same could be said of a 5000 kph maglev subway running
in evacuated tunnels between Chicago and Budapest. There's
no doubt that in some form, at some cost, such is possible.

The BPP effort was pursuing much more exotic possibilities.

Indeed.

Henry Spencer wrote:

I There is much engineering still to be done, and the
extremely high production cost of antimatter is a major problem, but at
the level of basic physics, there is no question that antimatter rockets
are feasible.

Positrons are straightforward to produce, at the ~10% efficiency level.

Unfortunately, storing them isn't easy. The best way may be a very
large magnetic bottle with a very weak magnetic field, storing
a cold electron/positron plasma. At a density of 10^6/cm^3 the
positrons should last about a year, IIRC. Since the plasma is cold,
the energy of the magnetic field is the annihilation energy of
the plasma (this is not true of Penning traps.)

Using the positrons is also not easy, since the energy comes
out as gammas.

Paul

jeff findley wrote in
:

"Jorge R. Frank" writes:

Indeed, what is the probability of *any* spacecraft in a 28.45 degree
inclination orbit coming down on NYC (latitude 40.4 deg N) or Moscow
(latitude 55.45 deg N)? Especially if said spacecraft has no propulsion
system and an L/D of zero?

I'm going to guess zero. ;-)

Seriously, this isn't worth spending money on.

Not a whole lot of money, anyway - like I said earlier, any competent
insurance actuary would tell you that, and were this a commercially-insured
operation, probably nothing would be done. This being a government
operation, the decision will be made on political and diplomatic bases
rather than an actuarial basis.
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George Kasica wrote in
:

35 (almost) years after Apollo 11's landing I wonder what that group
of NASA folks (astronauts, engineers, etc.) would have to say to this
line of thinking....my guess would be they are none too thrilled at
our lack of to use a polite term "backbone".

If they're honest, they'll place it in the general context of US society in
general becoming more litigious and risk-averse. The process of
hallerbization is not confined to NASA, nor did it occur overnight.


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