What would we need to largely replace the Shuttle?

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote in message
...

Then how do you get men and supplies to the space station?

We don't. Get a clue, man: the space station is utter crap
and should be terminated immediately.

While I could support that realistically it is not going to happen.

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 22:00:22 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Dholmes"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

And your suggestion is?

Create incentives, rather than disincentives, for the development of a
private space transport industry.


What do you mean?

Some sort of super X-prize?

Perhaps.

Something similar to the EELV contracts?

Absolutely not. No one gets a dime until the service is available.
No more welfare for aerospace dinosaurs.

Also come up with a rational regulatory regime.


Then you might aswell just outsource it...

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Dholmes wrote:

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote in message
...



To answer the question in the subject line: we do not need to
replace the shuttle, since it does not serve any purpose that
would justify either continuing to operate it or developing
a replacement vehicle.


Then how do you get men and supplies to the space station?


See the logic (well, the logic used by one side in such arguments)
is that both are useless, so you don't get such a problem.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Sander Vesik wrote:

We don't. Get a clue, man: the space station is utter crap
and should be terminated immediately.


Frankly - that is just an opinion and not some absolute truth
one needs to get a clue about.

We're all entitled to our opinions. Mine just happens to be
the correct one.

Paul

Explorer8939 wrote:

Question #1: What is the purpose of the Space Program? If your answer
is 'science', then you're probably pretty happy with the way things
are going.

Why? NASA is spending a lot of money on things that just about
worthless for science. Do you think Van Allen is happy with the
current state of the space program?

Paul

On Sun, 31 Aug 2003 21:27:28 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
Sander Vesik made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg wrote:
No one gets a dime until the service is available.
No more welfare for aerospace dinosaurs.

Also come up with a rational regulatory regime.


Then you might aswell just outsource it...

That would be fine, if the price and performance were right, but
there's no existing provider that would satisfy my requirements.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

On 31 Aug 2003 16:26:13 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(Explorer8939) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Question #1: What is the purpose of the Space Program? If your answer
is 'science', then you're probably pretty happy with the way things
are going.

Well, actually, very few scientists are very happy with it, either.

--
simberg.interglobal.org * 310 372-7963 (CA) 307 739-1296 (Jackson Hole)
interglobal space lines * 307 733-1715 (Fax) http://www.interglobal.org

"Extraordinary launch vehicles require extraordinary markets..."
Swap the first . and @ and throw out the ".trash" to email me.
Here's my email address for autospammers:

"Paul F. Dietz" wrote in message ...
Explorer8939 wrote:

Question #1: What is the purpose of the Space Program? If your answer
is 'science', then you're probably pretty happy with the way things
are going.

Why? NASA is spending a lot of money on things that just about
worthless for science. Do you think Van Allen is happy with the
current state of the space program?

Paul

Mr. Van Allen is not a happy camper.

We can accomplish at least 100 robotic missions that'll do far more
good and sustain themselves for years over the price tag and potential
carnage of accomplishing one relatively limited manned excursion, such
as to our moon, as that quest alone will cost trillions, and for what
good (at least nothing so far that couldn't have been accomplish far
better by robotics, and of still interactively operating, yet we've
got squat nothing)?

Station keeping something like TRACE-II at Venus L2 (VL2) is not
hardly even rocket science anymore. Utilizing this instrument as a
relay platform for various communications while the optical features
of TRACE-II goes about imaging the visible portion of the sun and of
its coronasphere is hardly an insignificant opportunity. The CCD
camera and associated optics and filters are well proven, the
resolution and range of scan speed is way more than sufficient, it's
entirely proven and best of all, the original TRACE is about due for a
replacement. So, the entire TRACE team will not have to be retired
and, this new vantage point of VL2 is nearly ideal for accomplish
certain tasks that the original instrument was not only handicapped
but much further away. The TRACE-II could have an even more capable
CCD of perhaps 4 times as much resolution plus being upon average
0.275 AU closer to their target. That at least 8 fold improvement in
solar imaging, not to mention the other aspects of what TRACE-II could
accomplish for essentially pennies on the dollar.

Modern robotics and of controlled crash landings on places like Mars
or our moon are well developed and reasonably reliable, with no chance
whatsoever of inflicting carnage or of having to make up cold-war lies
and subsequently having to spend further millions and billions on
their "spin" and "damage control".

Regards, Brad Guth / IEIS~GASA / Discovery of LIFE on Venus
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-town.htm

What would we need to largely replace the Shuttle?

How about something and/or many of what's smaller, vastly more
efficient and a whole lot cheaper, while not involving one astronaut.

Actually, by far the cheapest and safest way into space, as well as
for being the utmost environmentally friendly by creating the least
CO2 impact, is via compact robotic missions like TRACE or perhaps
TRACE-II, and of those going to/from the sorts of places that actually
matter to the greater humanity of Earth. That means no more of this
deep space stuff and, of hardly anything beyond Mars.

I've posted on the subject of doing far more robotics, such as
affording 100 of those per the cost of a single manned mission (that's
including anything using the shuttle for launch and/or servicing).

However, if folks must insist upon doing things the hard and expensive
way, not to mention most risky, via manned missions, then I do believe
there's a reasonable back-door way out of this fiasco or perhaps
toilet. It's a little somewhat spendy, but not nearly as God offal
spendy as any future Earth Space Elevator (ESE) fiasco that's at best
decades down the road of carnage at a truly horrific price tag.
Although, a perfectly good means to many ends has been and is still
obtainable and, it could be as all American as apple pie.

Hard to imagine but, there's been some learning going on, this being
in spite of those wizards of pro-everything Apollo and of absolutely
anti-everything other under the sun.

This is almost getting downright ridiculous, as for doing a lunar
space elevator seems to technically win hands down time after time.
This following page/link is merely about our safely accommodating the
LSE lobby, or elevator sub-lobby, that's if we wanted to take some
limited advantage of what the lunar thermal signature has to offer.
This is where I've learned from others that our moon is far from being
a dead horse, in fact it's somewhat toasty hot in the center, such as
830°C, as well as (wizard Jay will not want to hear this) internally
more radioactive than Earth. Is this good news or what?

LSE Lobby: http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-lse-lobby.htm


Regards, Brad Guth / IEIS~GASA / the discovery of other LIFE on Venus
Besides way too many other topics, here's other ongoing LSE UPDATES:

LSE-CM/ISS Flywheels: http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-se-flywheels.htm
PRO/CON of ESE/LSE: http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-ese-lse.htm
Basalt tether GPa update: http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-lse-gpa.htm
What stinking insurance?
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-ese-invincible.htm
Your basic lunar space elevator:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-cm-ccm-01.htm
This is for the ESE huggers cult:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-edwards-se.htm
Another LSE delivery effort:
http://guthvenus.tripod.com/gv-cm-ccm-elevator.htm