Will foreign Astronauts be on Shuttle?

Well, will they be allowed to fly the Shuttle now, after one got killed?

I personally feel that the agency is running so scared of an accident at the
moment that it will be a wonder if they let pigs fly....

Brian

--
Brian Gaff....
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
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"Brian Gaff" wrote:
Well, will they be allowed to fly the Shuttle now, after one got killed?

By that flawed rationale, Brian... *no one* would fly on the Shuttle now.

I personally feel that the agency is running so scared of an accident at
the
moment that it will be a wonder if they let pigs fly....

Your paranoia level is a bit high today, isn't it? What's with the
doom-and-gloom? You're sounding like Bob.

Roger
--
Roger Balettie
former Flight Dynamics Officer
Space Shuttle Mission Control
http://www.balettie.com/

"Brian Gaff" wrote in
:

Well, will they be allowed to fly the Shuttle now, after one got
killed?

NASA will certainly allow them. Soichi Noguchi of Japan is still assigned
to STS-114, as is Christer Fuglesang of ESA on STS-116. Steve MacLean and
David Williams of Canada are assigned to STS-115 and 118, respectively.
STS-121 and 116 are slated to be ISS crew rotation flights, so there will
be Russians aboard.

If any foreign astronauts are forbidden to fly on the shuttle, it will be
by their home agencies, not by NASA. JAXA has made noises about
independently evaluating NASA's safety improvements before they let Noguchi
fly, but so far all indications are that they will.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
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I may be paranoid, but surely, cancelling the Hubble service mission even
before anyone has tried or tested any repair ideas for rcc panels, and
considering that by the law of averages, the mission is probably going to
have a better chance of success than the first Apollo had, is kind of
counter intuitive.

As has been noted here before, these people volunteer, and they know the
risks, even more so now that the complacency of, long tried=safe has been
pulled back to reveal what should be obvious, namely, that space travel is
risky, and you cannot afford to take anything for granted of stick your head
in the sand.

So, go for it, I say, make the Hubble a better instrument if you have the
technology to do so. Make sure it does not hit anything when it comes back
after you have done all you can with it. It should be a public imperative to
do that.

Brian table thumping mode

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Brian Gaff....
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
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I may be paranoid, but surely, cancelling the Hubble service mission even
before anyone has tried or tested any repair ideas for rcc panels, and
considering that by the law of averages, the mission is probably going to
have a better chance of success than the first Apollo had, is kind of
counter intuitive.

To put things in perspective for a moment in the shuttle program there have
been 26 flights that have gone to a space station (and I'm counting the STS 63
Mir flyby).

That's 26 out of 111 missions where the crew went up and came home safely.
That's less than 25% of the shuttle flights by my math.

Hell, Discovery which has racked up 30 missions only has 6 space station
missions. Only Atlantis will have more station missions flown that solo-Earth
orbit flights, if it is indeed the shuttle that ends up flying STS 114.

And here we are terrified of flying one more non-station mission...

-A.L.

"MasterShrink" wrote in message
...

I may be paranoid, but surely, cancelling the Hubble service mission
even
before anyone has tried or tested any repair ideas for rcc panels, and
considering that by the law of averages, the mission is probably going to
have a better chance of success than the first Apollo had, is kind of
counter intuitive.

To put things in perspective for a moment in the shuttle program there
have
been 26 flights that have gone to a space station (and I'm counting the
STS 63
Mir flyby).

That's 26 out of 111 missions where the crew went up and came home safely.
That's less than 25% of the shuttle flights by my math.

Hell, Discovery which has racked up 30 missions only has 6 space station
missions. Only Atlantis will have more station missions flown that
solo-Earth
orbit flights, if it is indeed the shuttle that ends up flying STS 114.

And here we are terrified of flying one more non-station mission...

Because we were wrong about non-station missions.

It's like flying a plane with a bomb on board that goes off
1 in every 50 flights when you land. But if you rendezvous
with a special plane in the air, the bomb can be defused.
After 100 flights, we discover this, so we decide from
now on we'll fly only when we can rendezvous with that
plane.

And you're complaining, "Hey, you flew most of those
flights without that other plane, why are you afraid
now? The bomb probably won't go off!"

Bruce

And here we are terrified of flying one more non-station mission...

-A.L.

Its a excuse to kill hubble. The botom line, the money saved helps keep ISS
sghuttl;e going.

Nasa p[riorties are really screwed up

"Bruce Sterling Woodcock" wrote in message
om...

"MasterShrink" wrote in message
...
And here we are terrified of flying one more non-station mission...

Because we were wrong about non-station missions.

It's like flying a plane with a bomb on board that goes off
1 in every 50 flights when you land. But if you rendezvous
with a special plane in the air, the bomb can be defused.
After 100 flights, we discover this, so we decide from
now on we'll fly only when we can rendezvous with that
plane.

As usual, it's more complex than that. A space station mission still has to
survive launch and on-orbit operations - both of those carry substantial
risk, together they are in the same ballpark of risk as reentry. Flying to
the ISS isn't going to eliminate those risks. And still, no inspection
technique available at the ISS is going to be completely reliable at
detecting potential TPS-related risks for reentry.

With the changes to the ET foam, there is a much smaller risk of there being
any damage to the TPS during launch. That particular "1 in 50 bomb" has been
largely eliminated. (BTW, where'd you get 1 in 50 from? There was 1 total
loss and several cases of more minor damage from 112 reentry attempts.)

By focussing too narrowly on one particular loss scenario, you risk losing
sight of many other risks. The causes of the loss of STS-107 are being
addressed. We need to ensure that there are no other problems ready to bite
once we've fixed this set.

And you're complaining, "Hey, you flew most of those
flights without that other plane, why are you afraid
now? The bomb probably won't go off!"

We have removed that particular bomb (we think...). Unfortunately, there may
be other bombs on board that we don't know about, and that we can't fix with
that other plane.

--Chris

"Chris Bennetts" wrote in message
...

"Bruce Sterling Woodcock" wrote in message
om...

"MasterShrink" wrote in message
...
And here we are terrified of flying one more non-station mission...

Because we were wrong about non-station missions.

It's like flying a plane with a bomb on board that goes off
1 in every 50 flights when you land. But if you rendezvous
with a special plane in the air, the bomb can be defused.
After 100 flights, we discover this, so we decide from
now on we'll fly only when we can rendezvous with that
plane.

As usual, it's more complex than that.

As usual, that's true of all analogies. Your argument is dead
out of the gate. Of course it's not EXACTLY that... I said it
is LIKE that, to explain it to someone who didn't quite seem
to get it.

A space station mission still has to
survive launch and on-orbit operations - both of those carry substantial
risk, together they are in the same ballpark of risk as reentry. Flying to
the ISS isn't going to eliminate those risks. And still, no inspection
technique available at the ISS is going to be completely reliable at
detecting potential TPS-related risks for reentry.

That's a different bomb completely. I'm only talking about
the one we know about, and the one we know how to fix,
at least for ISS flights.

With the changes to the ET foam, there is a much smaller risk of there
being
any damage to the TPS during launch. That particular "1 in 50 bomb" has
been
largely eliminated. (BTW, where'd you get 1 in 50 from? There was 1 total
loss and several cases of more minor damage from 112 reentry attempts.)

You have no empirical data that shows the risk of TPS damage
is smaller during launch now. None. Zero, zip, nada, zilch.

Secondly, 1 in 50 is LIKE. Get it? It's not the exact figure. It
doesn't matter what the exact figure is for the purpose of the
analogy. Get it?

By focussing too narrowly on one particular loss scenario, you risk losing
sight of many other risks. The causes of the loss of STS-107 are being
addressed. We need to ensure that there are no other problems ready to
bite
once we've fixed this set.

I'm not losing sight of them at all. There are many other
bombs on the plane that might go off. That doesn't mean
then that you shouldn't rendezvous with the ISS to get rid
of one, since there might be others.

And you're complaining, "Hey, you flew most of those
flights without that other plane, why are you afraid
now? The bomb probably won't go off!"

We have removed that particular bomb (we think...). Unfortunately, there
may
be other bombs on board that we don't know about, and that we can't fix
with
that other plane.

Which is no justification for not using the other plane
to remove said bomb. Which is counter to the
previous poster's point.

Bruce

"Bruce Sterling Woodcock" wrote in message
m...

"Chris Bennetts" wrote in message
...
With the changes to the ET foam, there is a much smaller risk of there
being
any damage to the TPS during launch. That particular "1 in 50 bomb" has
been
largely eliminated. (BTW, where'd you get 1 in 50 from? There was 1
total
loss and several cases of more minor damage from 112 reentry attempts.)

You have no empirical data that shows the risk of TPS damage
is smaller during launch now. None. Zero, zip, nada, zilch.

Correct - I don't. However, the changes to the ET foam - particularly around
the bipod area, the probable source of the foam that caused the loss of
Columbia - appear to reduce the chances of foam falling during launch and
damaging the orbiter's TPS. So I do consider the particular "bomb" that
caused the loss of Columbia to be a substantially smaller threat from now
on. We'll still need to keep a close eye on it, of course.

Secondly, 1 in 50 is LIKE. Get it? It's not the exact figure. It
doesn't matter what the exact figure is for the purpose of the
analogy. Get it?

Yes, point taken.

--Chris