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Monday, December 21, 2015
Friday, December 18, 2015
Killing shuttle illogic !
Killing shuttle illogic--- Walter Cunningham
The self-inflicted hiatus is driven partially by fear of the space shuttle, but mostly by the unwillingness of Congress and the American public to adequately fund manned spaceflight. Timing for terminating the Shuttle and ramping up the Constellation program seems to be driven by the Office of Management and Budget, even though NASA's share of the Federal Budget is a miniscule one-seventh of its peak in the 60s.
The Orion spacecraft will eventually restore an American presence in space, but the heavy-lift and on-orbit servicing capability of the shuttle will be sorely missed, not to mention the Orbiter's dexterous manipulator, or the ability to return 25 tons from space.
This hiatus may be another of those two-steps-forward-one-step-back experiences that has marked NASA's first fifty years. Some consequences of the five-year intermission:
The space industry will lose thousands of experienced and talented workers, especially at the Kennedy Space Center;
Dependency on foreign sources, almost exclusively the Russians, to keep our manned space program going;
The fate of the International Space Station passes out of American hands;
The experienced astronaut corps will suffer attrition and deterioration;
Our position as the world's leading space faring nation will further erode.
NASA survived an earlier hiatus from 1974 to 1981, a period during which we flew one politically motivated, but otherwise meaningless docking mission with the Russians. During that period, the space industry lost tens of thousands of workers, our progress slowed, and our space program has not been the same since. The loss of experience during that period may have contributed to the slow withering of NASA's reputation and credibility. It was not a good thing then and is not a good thing now.
In the early 70s, it was assumed that the Apollo spacecraft had served its purpose and would be useless in accomplishing the next generation of objectives in space. NASA was excited about building a brand new spacecraft and flying brand new missions. They are now back tracking and developing Orion—"Apollo on steroids," as some call it. In retrospect, the Apollo command/service module was not the dead-end once thought. It could probably have evolved to service the ISS. After all, most of the trips to the ISS have been made by Russian space "capsules."
When the Apollo program was canceled in the early 70s, following six historic landings on the Moon, the spacecraft was cited as too risky and the cost of Apollo launches too high. The answer was to be the Space Transportation System—the Space Shuttle.
Now, as we rush to cancel the Shuttle program, all we hear is: that it is too risky and shuttle launches are too costly. I assure you, manned spaceflight will always be risky and the Constellation system will be quite expensive.
Since the Columbia tragedy in 2003, critics, both inside and outside of NASA, have been lobbying to send the space shuttle to the NASA junkyard. They have caught the "new car syndrome;" NASA wants a new spacecraft, so they are finding all manner of things wrong with their current model. That means the safest American spacecraft ever, with the most capability of any space vehicle, will be gone before 2011.
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Thursday, December 17, 2015
Expanding X37 B could get our orbital capabilities back! Critical need not understood by " Leadership" !!
Re Abbey article Lost in Space -- Washington
The X-37B: Exploring expanded capabilities for ISS missions
However, our leaders don't appear to understand the critical need!
Monday, December 14, 2015
Saturday, December 12, 2015
I think not !
We cannot afford to lose our lead among space-faring nations. Narrowing the gap between the shuttle and Orion would reduce the problem of holding on to a skilled workforce and help the United States maintain its lead in space exploration, along with the related science and technology that drives economic growth. U.S. dominance in space hasn't been lost yet, but it is definitely eroding.
What we really need is a fix for the five-year hiatus, not a band-aid. That means both extending the life of the shuttle and moving the launch date for Orion forward. NASA needs a $2 billion appropriation to extend the life of the shuttle for 18 to 24 months, and an additional $2 billion to move the first flight of Orion closer by 18 to 24 months.Four billion dollars is a drop in the bucket for a $3 trillion federal budget and a $13 trillion economy. The money would enable us to maintain world leadership in a range of technologies essential for our future well-being and allow us to continue to sit at the top of the technical pyramid. As the richest country on the face of the Earth do we really want to be dependent on Russia to launch our astronauts into space? I think not!
Friday, December 11, 2015
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