NASA Details Risks to Astronauts on Mission to Hubble

jeff findley wrote in
:

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.

I don't know if I'd state it that absolutely. While the Congressional
decision to cap Saturn V production spelled a definite end to Apollo, the
argument could be made that post-Apollo 13 risk-aversion among NASA
management played a role in NASA truncating lunar landings after Apollo 17
and not pushing for 18 and 19, despite the flight hardware already having
been built. Certainly the marginal cost of those two missions would not
have been that high.

Bob Gilruth, in particular, felt that an accident on one of the remaining
lunar flights could jeopardize future NASA programs. Re-reading Murray &
Cox, or Dethloff, I'm seeing parallels between Gilruth's post-13 thinking
and the current post-107 thinking among NASA management concerning the
shuttle. So the roots of NASA's risk-aversion appear to go back quite a
way.

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.

No question about that. The logic chain that NASA officials are using here
could come back to bite them hard when the time comes to commit to fly CEV
beyond LEO.


--
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Dick Morris wrote:
The Apollo program returned orders-of-magnitude more scientific
information about the Moon than all the unmanned flights put together.

Which says more about the paucity of unmanned work than it does about
the relative abilities of manned vs. unmanned work/science. Much is
made of the manned scientific return while ignoring the inconvenient
fact that serious (in terms of both quality and quantity) unmanned
science was simply never even attempted.

In the one area where we have both significant human and
robotic/automated/teleoperated working being done, and a significant
sized experience base in both, (deep sea science and commercial work),
the unmanned side of the house seems to be carrying the day.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in
I don't know if I'd state it that absolutely. While the Congressional
decision to cap Saturn V production spelled a definite end to Apollo, the
argument could be made that post-Apollo 13 risk-aversion among NASA
management played a role in NASA truncating lunar landings after Apollo 17
and not pushing for 18 and 19, despite the flight hardware already having
been built. Certainly the marginal cost of those two missions would not
have been that high.
Bob Gilruth, in particular, felt that an accident on one of the remaining
lunar flights could jeopardize future NASA programs. Re-reading Murray &
Cox, or Dethloff, I'm seeing parallels between Gilruth's post-13 thinking
and the current post-107 thinking among NASA management concerning the
shuttle. So the roots of NASA's risk-aversion appear to go back quite a
way.

A large factor, I've been told by veterans, is the massive departure of
experienced personnel,
starting immediately with Apollo-11 (when fully-qualified backup experts
moved to replace
those leaving), exacerbated as people were moved into shuttle, or entire
contractor teams
were disbanded. The final Apollo missions were being flown with a much
narrower
experience base than at first, and getting worse each flight.

general becoming more litigious and risk-averse. The process of
hallerbization is not confined to NASA, nor did it occur overnight.


Oh I think we should go, but with enough backup capacity to save the day when
things go wrong.

Like quick supplies to orbit capacity.

If ISS is lost someday for lack of parts I wonder what you will say about me
then?

At least the co dependent shuttle ISS woulsd all be over and we could hopefully
build the next generation vehicle
HAVE A GREAT DAY!

In the one area where we have both significant human and
robotic/automated/teleoperated working being done, and a significant
sized experience base in both, (deep sea science and commercial work),
the unmanned side of the house seems to be carrying the day.

D.
--

I think nasa doesnt push that much, its low prestige, and it might adversly
effect jobs.

IF we put all the $ being presently spent on ISS shuttle for unmanned
exploration imagine what we could do.

Continious mssions to all the planets, one to go take a close look at the sun,
a nuclear powered in space booster for fast transit times.

Note I dont advocate ceasing manned operations, but what were doing presently
is a failure
HAVE A GREAT DAY!

In a sense, the decision has been made, since NASA has a safety
requirement that no NASA spacecraft should re-enter with a greater
than 1 in 10,000 probability of loss of life (on the ground), and an
uncontrolled HST re-entry has a 1 in 700 probability. The only
question is how NASA addresses its safety requirements, by attempting
a high risk robotic mission to de-orbit HST, or a low-risk (from a
mission assurance perspective) Shuttle mission to deal with HST.

My bet is that NASA pretends that the robots will work, the robot
mission suffers extrement cost overruns, and is either cancelled, or
is launched and fails to engage HST, leading to all sorts of second
guessing 4 years from now, when O'Keefe is safely gone.

I do not believe that O'Keefe has any interest in keeping HST alive,
only in getting rid of the HST issue so that JWST and the Moon Mars
program can move on.




"Jorge R. Frank" wrote in message ...
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.

(Derek Lyons) wrote in message ...
In the one area where we have both significant human and
robotic/automated/teleoperated working being done, and a significant
sized experience base in both, (deep sea science and commercial work),
the unmanned side of the house seems to be carrying the day.

But of the "robotic/automated/teleoperated", isn't the vast majority
of that teleoperated? And is there really a valid comparison to space
exploration there, given that you can get a bunch of people and lots
of equipment to within 20 kilometers of anywhere on the sea floor very
cheaply compared to the cost of getting them *to* the sea floor, while
putting people within 10,000 kilometers of a likely planetary
exploration site is nearly as expensive as putting a boot on the
ground, so to speak?

When I look at the MER missions so far, they're certainly doing a lot
of good science, but it's taken them three months to do what a
geologist on the surface could do in about a day.

-jake

In sci.space.policy LooseChanj wrote:
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?

Yes, you would be wallowing inthe same fear,a s it has nothig to do with ISS.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

In sci.space.policy Jake McGuire wrote:
(Derek Lyons) wrote in message ...
In the one area where we have both significant human and
robotic/automated/teleoperated working being done, and a significant
sized experience base in both, (deep sea science and commercial work),
the unmanned side of the house seems to be carrying the day.

But of the "robotic/automated/teleoperated", isn't the vast majority
of that teleoperated? And is there really a valid comparison to space
exploration there, given that you can get a bunch of people and lots
of equipment to within 20 kilometers of anywhere on the sea floor very
cheaply compared to the cost of getting them *to* the sea floor, while
putting people within 10,000 kilometers of a likely planetary
exploration site is nearly as expensive as putting a boot on the
ground, so to speak?

Having them within 10000 KM vs on earth is not majorly different. Look at
teh Mars rovers which are essentialy teleoperated. The limit is not just
not being stretched, its not even being looked at seriously.


When I look at the MER missions so far, they're certainly doing a lot
of good science, but it's taken them three months to do what a
geologist on the surface could do in about a day.

Why do you care about the time it takes?


-jake

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

On Sat, 01 May 2004 21:51:17 -0400, "Scott M. Kozel"
wrote:

CAPE CANAVERAL -- NASA for the first time Friday detailed its reasons
for a controversial decision to scrap a servicing mission to the Hubble
Space Telescope, saying the flight would entail higher risk to
astronauts.

I could point out that the risk of a non-ISS flight is no higher now
than it was five years ago, that it entails no risk that was not
already known before the first shuttle ever flew, that ISS would do
nothing to save the crew of a shuttle that exploded on launch, and
that several ISS flights (which are planned) carry more risk than a
single Hubble flight. But those would be quibbles.

The real problem is that our civilization's moral degeneracy has
progressed to the stage that a man whose fat arse is parked in an
office chair on Earth presumes to tell astronauts what they can and
can't do in the name of their own safety; and that not only is that
man not immediately dismissed as unfit to hold any public office on
grounds of moral turpitude, he is actually retained as the
administrator of NASA, of all things.

The guff about manned Moon and Mars missions just caps it with a layer
of irony. Apollo was as far as we got, and it's as far as we're going
to get in the foreseeable future. Perhaps the Chinese will take over
where we left off, in a reverse of last millennium; but our
civilization has passed its high water mark.

--
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