NationStates Jolt Archive

OK, so ever since the Discovery launched, I've been watching the news and wondering to myself "what IS the problem and what SHOULD NASA do?" Well, I've come up with the basis of my personal opinion and I just can't resist holding it back.

So, I've come to the decision of presenting it to the body that we all know and love as the internet's finest gathering of minds, it's greatist collective intelligence, that wonderful keg overflowing with wisdom...the NS General forums. :)

So without further adu, the Cardboard Avenger (Ret.)'s own personal view.

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The shuttle has had a great history as a launch vehicle, and I believe the shuttle program has been a great success. But the remaining shuttles are old, and like used cars, they require frequent maintenence and upgrades. The thousands of dedicated workers who strive to keep the shuttle going are to be appretiated, but in the end are draining NASA's budget as much as new parts are.

NASA can not afford to develop a new spaceplane...the shuttle program is eating it's budget. In order to free up the funds necessary to continue manned flight, it is time to retire the program.

Notice I said the program, not the shuttle.

There is an entire bureaucracy of people and facilities devoted to keeping the shuttle running. It would be wrong to lay everyone off on the spot, and it would be a waste to stick a perfectly good shuttle in some museum. The current problem with the shuttles are their tiles getting scratched off in liftoff, otherwise, they are well running machines.

We can thus give the people who keep the shuttle going one last task. We can keep them employeed long enough to find new jobs as they do one last thing. The shuttle needs to be converted to be compatible with the International Space Station for perminant duty in space.

Lets think about this a moment. What does each shuttle have that would be a boon to the ISS.
1: Redundant systems galore, from environmental to power.
2: A large cargo bay to deliver one last payload, and act as a construction/maintanance point (and all it's tools).
3: An extra robotic arm.
4: Thicker walls! (ISS hull is 1/4th inch thick aluminum...sound safe?)
5: More living space (room for 7, unlike the room for 3 in the obscenely loud Russian module).
6: A potential to carry astronaughts from the ISS to another place in orbit, and back.

All this could be added to the ISS, in triplicate, and give some hard workers a deserved job transition time.

Meanwhile, in the end, the shuttle program will end and a large portion of NASA's budget will be freed up to work on future manned spaceflight.

One last problem remains. It will take time to develop a new orbiter, but we still need to get astronaughts up there. I don't think anyone here, in NASA, or in Washington wants to rely on the Russians (and I doubt the Chinese would consent even if we cared to ask).

We need an interm method of getting people to space. Something simple/cheap/quick. Something limited so that we will be forced to develop a new shuttle. Fortionately, NASA has already provided this.

I was pleasently suprised to read a space.com article detailing a potential use of the Crew Escape Vehicle (CEV) on top of a shuttle Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) as a quick means to space. It is everything we want; simple, cheap, quick, and most importantly limited.

In a time when NASA is afraid to do anything but twiddle it's thumbs, I give it an A+ for thinking of that. I hope it pans out.

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There you have it, my thoughts.

Any comments?

I've heard that NASA is going to go back to using capsules, like the Russians do. I think that'd probably be alot safer. But the shuttle is a symbol. It's like the Statue of Liberty or the Golden Gate Bridge. Because of this, I don't agree on using the shuttles as components on the ISS. I mean, you wouldn't use the Statue of Liberty to house the poor just because it's a convenient solution to the problem. Plus, much of the point in building a space station is for the challenge of building a space station. The process is as valuable as the product.

OK, so ever since the Discovery launched, I've been watching the news and wondering to myself "what IS the problem and what SHOULD NASA do?" Well, I've come up with the basis of my personal opinion and I just can't resist holding it back.

So, I've come to the decision of presenting it to the body that we all know and love as the internet's finest gathering of minds, it's greatist collective intelligence, that wonderful keg overflowing with wisdom...the NS General forums. :)

So without further adu, the Cardboard Avenger (Ret.)'s own personal view.

----------------

The shuttle has had a great history as a launch vehicle, and I believe the shuttle program has been a great success. But the remaining shuttles are old, and like used cars, they require frequent maintenence and upgrades. The thousands of dedicated workers who strive to keep the shuttle going are to be appretiated, but in the end are draining NASA's budget as much as new parts are.

NASA can not afford to develop a new spaceplane...the shuttle program is eating it's budget. In order to free up the funds necessary to continue manned flight, it is time to retire the program.

Notice I said the program, not the shuttle.

There is an entire bureaucracy of people and facilities devoted to keeping the shuttle running. It would be wrong to lay everyone off on the spot, and it would be a waste to stick a perfectly good shuttle in some museum. The current problem with the shuttles are their tiles getting scratched off in liftoff, otherwise, they are well running machines.

We can thus give the people who keep the shuttle going one last task. We can keep them employeed long enough to find new jobs as they do one last thing. The shuttle needs to be converted to be compatible with the International Space Station for perminant duty in space.

Lets think about this a moment. What does each shuttle have that would be a boon to the ISS.
1: Redundant systems galore, from environmental to power.
2: A large cargo bay to deliver one last payload, and act as a construction/maintanance point (and all it's tools).
3: An extra robotic arm.
4: Thicker walls! (ISS hull is 1/4th inch thick aluminum...sound safe?)
5: More living space (room for 7, unlike the room for 3 in the obscenely loud Russian module).
6: A potential to carry astronaughts from the ISS to another place in orbit, and back.

All this could be added to the ISS, in triplicate, and give some hard workers a deserved job transition time.

Meanwhile, in the end, the shuttle program will end and a large portion of NASA's budget will be freed up to work on future manned spaceflight.

One last problem remains. It will take time to develop a new orbiter, but we still need to get astronaughts up there. I don't think anyone here, in NASA, or in Washington wants to rely on the Russians (and I doubt the Chinese would consent even if we cared to ask).

We need an interm method of getting people to space. Something simple/cheap/quick. Something limited so that we will be forced to develop a new shuttle. Fortionately, NASA has already provided this.

I was pleasently suprised to read a space.com article detailing a potential use of the Crew Escape Vehicle (CEV) on top of a shuttle Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) as a quick means to space. It is everything we want; simple, cheap, quick, and most importantly limited.

In a time when NASA is afraid to do anything but twiddle it's thumbs, I give it an A+ for thinking of that. I hope it pans out.

------------

There you have it, my thoughts.

Any comments?


CEV stands for the Crew Exploration Vehicle. Designed to go to the moon and mars, and bring limited supplies to the ISS.

Using the shuttle to resupply the ISS always seemed like more than was required. Why not just launch supplies on unmanned rockets? We already deploy satellites that way. A cargo container could be lifted to the ISS with supplies and then filled with garbage and sent back down. Then if it accidentally burns up on re-entry there's no big loss.

CEV stands for the Crew Exploration Vehicle. Designed to go to the moon and mars, and bring limited supplies to the ISS.
I think he's referring to the 'ejection pod', if you will, of the space shuttle, the main crew cabin that detatched itself from the shuttle during the challenger disaster.

Hell, why don't we just take the Saturn V out of retirement and stick one big crew vehicle/cargo bay (ala apollo) on top of it.

I have an idea.

I agree with your assessment of retiring the shuttle program.
Instead of funneling billions of dollars into maintaining the shuttles, they should take the same annual budget, and invest it into those companies who are interested in commercial space flight.

By allowing private companies to build, operate, and maintain such endeavors, Nasa can use the excess money that it would no longer be spending on the shuttles, and reallocate it into the ISS, and other research programs.
Even if such companies were to charge the Government for shipping supplies to the ISS, certainly it would still be saving billions.

Maybe they ought to scrap the shuttle project, and invest all that money into the development of a space elevator?

a bold plan, I like it

Sean and Khudros: The shuttle has a very, very large cargo bay. Using the shuttle for small payloads is indeed wasteful. However, many of the larger peices of the Space Station require the space shuttle as a lift vehicle. Likewise, some satelites need some manipulating before they are placed in orbit. So the shuttle does indeed have it's uses.



Novoga and CSW: I was indeed refering to the CEV, which in it's origional configuration was designed as an ISS escape pod, and therefore an "emergency" vehicle. I won't contend the point that it now stands for Crew "Exploration" Vehicle.



BackwoodsSquatches: The problem with funding these little companies (like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic) is that they are low-cost, high-risk operations. IMO, they are exactly what we need right now, space startups. We don't want to risk loosing money when they fail (governments are notoriously bad at prediction capital success), and we don't want to risk turning those small, potentially great companies into another bloated Boeing or Lockheed Martin (which rely a lot on government welfare).

I think a design contest between those bloted funds and perhaps some NASA employees would be the best method to get a new heavy-life manned vehicle (ie. a new shuttle). It does not have to be super efficient, it just has to be able the capibilities that only the current space shuttle can (and maybe a couple extras).



Warrigal: Space elevators look great on paper, but the technology doesn't quite exist for them yet, their construction expense would be tremendous, and I personally believe they would be extremely dangerous.

Maybe they ought to scrap the shuttle project, and invest all that money into the development of a space elevator?

Space elevators would be almost useless. You can't achieve orbit in an elevator. Make it go half-way to the moon...you'll still fall to Earth. Gravity gives nearly the same acceleration to the shuttle in orbit as it does to people on the ground. You need sideways (tangential) velocity to keep from falling. Can't do that with an elevator.