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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Scuttle the Shuttle Now

Honolulu HI (SPX) Jul 29, 2005
The dismal failure of the Shuttle RTF effort should signal the end of NASA's suicidal love affair with this fundamentally unworkable spacecraft.

"By any measure of 'safe,' this [program] is not safe... It remains dangerous. We have got to replace this vehicle as soon as possible." -- CAIB Chairman Harold Gehman

"The Shuttle is fundamentally flawed." - NASA Administrator Mike Griffin

NASA has spent 2.5 years and an estimated $14B maintaining the overall Shuttle program while trying to 'fix' a backlog of faults.

And now despite spending billions in federal space funding we are right back where we started, with another Shuttle crew having narrowly escaped another shower of foam fragments. Several of these fragments even came off in almost exactly the same place as that which doomed Columbia.

And why bother? The only thing we can get in return for the $25-30B now budgeted for Shuttle operations between now and 2010 is more heartache and more delays in the new space initiative. Every day that Shuttle cancellation is put off, another $15,000,000 is wasted and the return of humans to the moon is delayed by another day.

The only reason left to fly the Shuttle is to finish the International Space Station. But simple arithmetic tells you that it is not capable of doing this task. The original ISS assembly plans call for 28 more Shuttle missions before compulsory retirement on 30 September 2010. Even before the fiasco of RTF-2, Mike Griffin had stated that there will be only 16 to 20 more Shuttle missions. With the rumored 1-year delay imposed by making even more safety improvements, this number shrinks to 12-16.

A lot more here: www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-05zq.html

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I hate to agree, but it's time to put the Shuttles in Museums and proceed to the generation of Spacecraft.

[Maddad]

When we have the next generation.

[Centaur]

Here's a link to a NY Times article regarding deficiencies in the shuttle's insulating foam:

www.nytimes.com/2005/08/04/science/space/04foam.html?ex=1280808000&en=1a8bb5dd1b9c0388&ei=5089&partner=rssyaho

And another article regarding the abondonment of the idea of another space-walk:

news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050804/sc_nm/space_shuttle_dc

[billybad69]

Although the shuttle program is aging, people also need to understand the trillions of dollars it to invent newer forms of hauling and personel space travel.

Little do people read about the rivalry between Boeing and Lockheed for the newest up and coming space vehicles.

Some don't even bother just bash something we are crutching along the way until PUBLIC OUTCRY deems in necasary for our government to comit completely to new space initiative.

Seriously if one wants to bash the tax dollars blown. Lets quit bailing out bankrupt comapnies.

The only thing wrong with NASA is they don't get enough funding period.

To add about the foam situation, they changed the recipe a longtime ago. They quit using hydroflouricarbon "freon" as a main ingredient: which, made the foam completely stable.
Reason being NASA wanted to be on the good side of the "greeny's". All that has to be done is go back to the old recipe and WAHLAH!
The shuttle only has 5 more years or until the money pit ISS is complete ( so it can crash into earth). Then i suspect Boeing willget the govermental nod and make the new generation shuttle.

[mahesh pherwani]

mr billybad69, hello,
it can't possibly beeeee trillion of dollars, the world's economy would go KAPUT, if so many dollars were spent or projected to be spent ONLY in this manner. and with NASA...whatever are you saying??? i do not understand.....

next time you are in london, pls call me, we'll share a beer and/or a pizza or whatever, you are most welcome, and explain me your ideas/thoughts.

in the meanwhile, let's all take a deep breath and sigh into silence....just for a little while....... and look up into the sky, it's beautiful.

or into your coffee cup....you get revolving galaxies in there too...surely you've seen!!!

mr billybad69 from illinois... it's nice to make friends with you, thanks to mr guzman's chicago astronomer site...i do not mean to belabour the point... we are guests in mr guzman's home, where we are allowed to have a coversation, so please let's not shout / get uptight about whatever one is discussing.

best regards

mahesh

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

Shuttle and space station were mistakes, space agency chief tells US daily

US space agency NASA lost its way in the 1970s when it focused on the space shuttle and International Space Station, NASA chief Michael Griffin told the USA Today daily in a story published Wednesday.
"It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path," Griffin said. "We are now trying to change the path while doing as little damage as we can."

Asked whether the shuttle had been a mistake, Griffin told the daily: "My opinion is that it was. It was a design which was extremely aggressive and just barely possible."

Asked whether the space station had been a mistake, he said: "Had the decision been mine, we would not have built the space station we're building in the orbit we're building it in."

Griffin announced September 19 that the United States will send four astronauts to the moon in 2018 in a major return to its pioneering manned missions into space

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There you have it, from the top man himself....and I agree.

[Rocketman]

2018? Well some of us who wish we'd have been around during Apollo might be S.O.L if it's going to take that long. Another thing that comes to mind is the fact it's projected to take 13 years to go back to the Moon, when NASA of old did it in 10. Now that's what I call a red flag for the "we never went to the Moon" idiots.

I do like the new design better though.

[Maddad]

At another forum I use, we've got a new member who's yapping about our never having gone to the moon. It's annoying. We had a pretty reasonable membership. One girl wrote, "Oh good grief, one of them?"

[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

I do believe we did land on the Moon, but like in other past posts here...I do desire to view some bit of post evidence of the landings, the booster rocket impact craters, (they said the moon rang like a bell), or even contrast shadowing of the area. Clementine and SMART 1 have taken high resolution shots of the entire lunar surface, but nothing conclusive.

What a great sight it will be, when the Apollo sites come into view. and the images start to roll on in, but I would have expected such already tho.

The Chinese are going to the Moon now, perhaps they will image the sites. C'mon NASA, you can do better.

[Rocketman]

How do we get back to the Moon?

(If I were the voice of NASA)

1) Retire the Shuttle. (Might as well if we aren't going to use it)
2) Plan.
3) Build.
4) Test.
5) We plan, we build, and we test some more.
6) We follow through.
7) Hello from the Moon!

I say 2012-2014 is easily reasonable.

No, I don't have an engineering degree, but I'm pretty sure that if we were all millionaires, and banded together with other super nerds, we could send a rover to the Moon specifically designed to image the landing sites way before 2018 or 2015 for that matter. I've mentioned this before, and it was thought of as unnecessary. I disagree, I think there is a lot of science on the Moon.

Yes, there is a big difference between human life, and a machine. 2018 in my opinion is unacceptable. Once again, I know there is a massive amount of planning, and preparation involved in going back to the Moon.

I believe that we went to the Moon. I honestly don't think that countless thousands of people are lying, someone would blow the whole thing wide open, obviously for monetary reasons.

Wouldn't it be great to point your telescope at the Moon's first city, and clearly see it's streets? Wouldn't it be great if you could email or call someone on the Moon? WOW I say!

As for ISS being a waste... that's simply wrong to say, but that's the type of comment that I'd expect from Griffin...

It doesn't matter what orbit it's in. It's in space, and people live there for six months at a time. It would be neater though if it were in lunar orbit. Actually one in orbit around the Earth, and one in orbit around the Moon serving as a loading, and unloading port for resupply vehicles to the Moon.