Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

Dayton3 · 2004-12-23 14:33:21

I was reading the book "Lost In Space", about the rise and fall of NASA and what struck me was this:

How much better it would be for NASA if the President simply ordered the Space Transportation System canceled. With Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour mothballed and put on display somewhere.

Currently, NASA clings to the shuttle program and by extension ISS like a man who can't swim with only one buoy within 1,000 miles.

Some observations:

1) We could still send astronauts and modules to ISS by simply paying the Russians to do it. We'd still have people aboard ISS and this would allow us to keep up our committments to ISS as well as paying the Russians still.

2) There would be a mad scramble in NASA and the Aerospace industry to find uses for remaining shuttle tech.

The only logical solution would be Mars Direct or Mars Direct derived long duration lunar missions as both could use SRBs and modified ETs for their launch vehicles.

3) NASA has tended to do better when challenged politically.

When Congress balked in the late 1960s at funding the "Grand Tour" space probes to the outer planets, NASA simply designed a slightly less capable set of probes that proved to work brilliantly (Voyager I & II) as well as a set of precursors (Pioneer 10 & 11) .

When the Reagan Administration canceled the Venus Orbiting Imagine Radar (VOIR), NASA responded by cobbling together Magellan which performed well.

Anyone think canceling the shuttle progam immedately is a good idea?

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-23 14:46:33

Suits me just fine... but with one addendum: Ditch the ISS. Perhaps a political impracticality, but the ISS simply has no worth without Shuttle, and dubious worth even with Shuttle.

"Currently, NASA clings to the shuttle program and by extension ISS like a man who can't swim with only one buoy within 1,000 miles."

Of course they are, it has kept NASA alive for the past thirty years. When Nixon said that "there would be no future" NASA had to do somthing... something expensive and somthing they couldn't easily cancel. And so we got Shuttle and its evil frankenstein stepchild the ISS.

I am wary about rushing headlong into a Shuttle-derived heavy lifter though, I have doubts that NASA could "kick the habit" as it were, or if an economical vehicle is possible at all.

ERRORIST · 2004-12-23 15:14:35

Don't worry the next shuttle disaster will cancel the program.Its like a four way intersection with stop signs that really needs a red light to begin with. They wait till someone dies in an accident before they put up the red light.If there is a safer way to space then that is path we should use and politics should not come into play.

DannyITR · 2004-12-23 16:07:41

Unfortunately, another shuttle disaster might harm not only the shuttle program but NASA altogether and even worse: Mars Direct. The shuttle program should absolutely be ditched (except for a Hubble servicing mission) and resources dedicated somewhere else.

Palomar · 2004-12-23 16:28:15

*A handful of New Mars members have been here for a couple of years now so, yes -- this has been discussed and there are people here who would like to see the Shuttle program canceled.

--Cindy

Dayton3 · 2004-12-23 16:33:04

You know whats really ironic?

The shuttle disaster that Michael Collins and numerous others have feared for decades, a main engine explosion, is the one that hasn't even happened yet!

An engine explosion that takes out the other two engines and probably causes the entire aft end of the orbiter to disintergrate...might never happen.

Or it could happen the very first return to flight mission.

I just can't see what people who work at NASA expect. Do they REALLY think they can keep flying orbiters, year after year after year after year after year....?

Or is it a case of "Just keep flying the shuttle until I can take retirement"?

Dayton3 · 2004-12-23 16:36:16

Just one note. Max Faget did try to get a major shuttle redesign post Challenger.

Replacing the SRBs with dual F-1 engined liquid fueled boosters.

Moving the SSMEs to the base of the External Tank.

Basically, converting the shuttle stack into Energyia/Buran.

Don't know if this would've helped the shuttle system but it couldn't have hurt.

SpaceNut · 2004-12-23 17:41:30

If the shuttle had even been re-designed it should have been made into two entirely different configurations. Shuttle c,z for the cargo and a mini shuttle for crew with maybe no more than the capacity of a progress for cargo.

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-23 18:09:32

You know whats really ironic?
The shuttle disaster that Michael Collins and numerous others have feared for decades, a main engine explosion, is the one that hasn't even happened yet!
An engine explosion that takes out the other two engines and probably causes the entire aft end of the orbiter to disintergrate...might never happen.
Or it could happen the very first return to flight mission.
I just can't see what people who work at NASA expect. Do they REALLY think they can keep flying orbiters, year after year after year after year after year....?
Or is it a case of "Just keep flying the shuttle until I can take retirement"?

The RS-68R engine that will probobly launch the CEV could explode too, and the ML-60/RL-60 2nd stage will be a brand new and little tested engine. The escape mechanism, explosive bolts and a high-G escape rocket, is at best a risky proposition too.

The SSME is a good engine and has never failed once asside from computer glitches, and is probobly the piece of equipment that NASA spends the most time babying and checking and rechecking. I think that the chances of an SSME failure for only another 18 flights is probobly reasonably low. The SRBs are also the most reliable rocket available, equal or moreso then the F-1 engines, when they are used within spec. The NASA gambit that Shuttle will fly another 18 times without incident is signifigant but not outrageous.

"I just can't see what people who work at NASA expect. Do they REALLY think they can keep flying orbiters, year after year after year after year after year....?"

Why not? TWO shuttles have now been destroyed, all hands lost, and guess what NASA was doing prior to VSE and the Bush-II "2010" date? ...Seeing that the OSP probobly wasn't going to fly, NASA was planning on flying Shuttle until a replacement was available. In 2025.

Shuttle, and by extension ISS, has been the life blood of NASA for thirty years now, a whole generation of engineers: after the brush with a quiet death after Nixon, who would have cut NASA down to nothing but probes on USAF rockets, were saved by Shuttle as the criminally fradulent panacea of spaceflight... And it cost NASA its soul

RobertDyck · 2004-12-23 18:54:40

Please don't say NASA only created Shuttle as a make-work program. They seriously wanted to build a reliable, operationally affordable reusable spacecraft. I keep mentioning the proposals I remember seeing. The ones I remember are the http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/shulemdc.htm]Shuttle MDC by McDonnell-Douglas Corporation, and the http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/shulelsa.htm]Shuttle LS A by Lockheed (Lockheed Shuttle phase-A). They both used a lifting body orbiter on a delta-wing booster. Shuttle MDC used an HL-10 body shape; Shuttle LS A used an X-24B body shape. Both designs were from 1969.

It's interesting to look at the http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/shuosals.htm]vehicle requirements. It includes 2 crew and 2 passengers for placement and retrieval of satellites, delivery of propulsion stages & payload, delivery of propellants, and 4 passengers for satellite servicing & maintenance. Short duration orbital missions were listed as 2 crew & 10 passengers. Space station/base logistics support were 2 crew per flight and 50 men per quarter. This in support of a 12-crew space station with 7 flights per year from 1975 through 1979, and 23 flights per year to a 50-man space base from 1980 through 1985. The lunar program was designed for a 6-man lunar orbit station + 6-man Moon base; 48 shuttle flights each of 1978 & 1979, then 34 shuttle flights per year from 1980 through 1985. (I appologize for gender-specific wording, that's the way they said it back then.) Add 2 launches per year for unmanned satellites, and 1-8 per year for unmanned planetary probes and the total was 1975: 16, 1976: 10, 1977: 17, 1978-1985: 60-66 per year.

That's what the shuttle was designed for, not 6 launches per year with no destination. There were Mars proposals scheduled for the 1980's. The real problem is not the cost, but the fact we can't accomplish anything with 6 launches per year from a shuttle that was supposed to launch 66 times per year.

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-23 19:21:45

"Please don't say NASA only created Shuttle as a make-work program."

Its true though. How could it be anything but true? If it wern't, do you think NASA would have ever even got half way through building Shuttle of today?

NASA knew from day one that Nixon/Congress would never give them enough money to build these vehicles right, and would never give them the money to do anything with them.

So they lied. They lied that a vehicle of comperable utility could be built for much less money by going the Shuttle tank+booster+airplane route, when they knew for fact that was not going to happen... it might fly, but never with that kind of flight rate.

If they pushed satelite repair as a selling point, that is another outright fraud, they knew full well that satelites are reliable enough to last the non-obsolete life of their electronics, and they knew that they would be stationed in GEO beyond reach of Shuttle.

Even with the basically sound concept of a space shuttle, Nixon would never have allowed a Lunar program anyway, so why would you need a vehicle capable of mounting one?

Its obvious that NASA thought they needed a make-work program to ensure their survival. And so we got the allmighty Golden Goose.

Euler · 2004-12-23 19:48:30

You know whats really ironic?
The shuttle disaster that Michael Collins and numerous others have feared for decades, a main engine explosion, is the one that hasn't even happened yet!
An engine explosion that takes out the other two engines and probably causes the entire aft end of the orbiter to disintergrate...might never happen.
Or it could happen the very first return to flight mission.

They had good reason to fear such an accident in the early period of shuttle flights. The SSMEs originally emphasized performance above safety, and so they were very risky. However, improving safety has been the driving force behind nearly every SSME upgrade that has happened, sometimes even at the cost of performance. The current Block III engines with Advance Health Management are orders of magnitude safer than the original engines.

http://quality.nasa.gov/qlf/6sigma.pdf]Here is a something on the safety upgrades that the Shuttle has had and the estimated mission risk.

RobertDyck · 2004-12-23 19:55:43

The requirement of a fully reusable design with rapid flight rate was in August, 1968. Remember Apollo 11 didn't land on the Moon until July, 1969. Nixon was elected on November 5, 1968, and sworn-in on January 20, 1969. His campaign claimed a secret plan to end the Vietnam war. Richard Nixon beat Herbert Humphrey by 0.7%, and George Wallace took 14% of the vote. Nobody seriously expected Tricky Dicky to win, and those who supported him didn't believe he would raid NASA's budget. Nixon announced the Space Shuttle program (the Shuttle we know now) on January 5, 1972.

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-23 20:11:15

I may be laying too much blame at Nixon's feet, but when the third Lunar mission wasn't televised, I am sure NASA could see the handwriting on the wall.

I am willing to entertain that NASA thought they could wrangle enough money out of NASA to make a true Shuttle and honestly contemplated it, but when Nixon came to power... they had to do somthing.

RobertDyck · 2004-12-23 20:43:15

Why not blame Nixon? I do. NASA recently talked about spending billions on a Two-Stage-To-Orbit shuttle based on designs from 1968. That's what the current shuttle was supposed to be. How much money has been wasted on this design? Nixon decided to get cheap, cutting research and development money. NASA was only able to build the current shuttle with funds from the military. The orbiter+tank+SRB design was originally intended to be a space taxi ferrying astronauts to a space station, not a full-size shuttle. The military required expanding it to full size, so NASA had to do that to get their money.

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-23 20:57:58

It doesn't change the fact that NASA lied that their vehicle could still launch every other week and be cheap enough to serve the commertial market. If not by active fraud then by omission. Probable that they led the USAF on that their vehicle could handle the payloads that they wanted it to... the USAF even thought about slapping a Titan hypergolic engine under the ET as a booster.

Vir Stellae · 2004-12-23 21:11:53

It doesn't change the fact that NASA lied that their vehicle could still launch every other week and be cheap enough to serve the commertial market. If not by active fraud then by omission. Probable that they led the USAF on that their vehicle could handle the payloads that they wanted it to... the USAF even thought about slapping a Titan hypergolic engine under the ET as a booster.

Ultimately, the major problem with the Shuttle is the Shuttle itself. By carrying it's excess weight up it requires a rocket 3 times larger in mass than say, a Delta 4H, to put up a similar payload.

I wish we could scrap the shuttle, but its uselessness must be in service to keep alive the equally uselesss Hubble and ISS.

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-23 21:17:14

Somebody though is responsable for this debacle, and it looks like it was NASA, who at the least failed by supporting Shuttle when they shouldn't have, and probobly lied about its capabilities, in order to fly a vehicle they knew was too expensive to keep in the money.

Vir Stellae · 2004-12-23 21:23:14

It would be nice if Bush could do a major Shakedown of NASA now since he no longer needs to worry about re-election. It is probably at least 15% overstaffed, and productivity is probably quite low as in other government fields.

RobertDyck · 2004-12-23 22:39:57

I don't believe NASA lied. They seriously expected a greater launch schedule, but never the 66 launches per year that the 1968 requirement called for. It is a good design and should be capable of more than 6 launches per year with 4 orbiters. Now that we have only 3 orbiters, it's time to review why it takes 8 months per orbiter. One excuse was that the Challenger accident was caused by an attempt at more frequent launches, but that accident was caused when management failed to listen to engineer's memo that they shouldn't launch.

The TSTO design had a lower cost to orbit than any expendable design, especially with 66 per year launch rate. The current shuttle still has half the per launch cost for an expendable rocket with the same cargo capacity, and the orbiter has the addition of 7 crew, CanadArm, and manoeuvring capability. The problem is the fixed cost of space centers to support it. The Johnson Space Center has mission control, astronaut training, Apollo moon samples and a bio-hazard lab for extraterrestrial samples, and mission preparation. Any change of launch vehicle will retain the overhead cost of JSC. If you build any sort of Shuttle Derived Vehicle you retain the Michoud assembly facility for external tanks, Kennedy Space Center for launch, Stennis Space Center for SSME testing, etc. Shuttle-C has slightly more than 5 times mass to orbit, but all the cost.

As for blame, Congress chose the shuttle with low development cost, high operating cost, low flight rate, and low safety. Richard Nixon led that decision. You really don't have to look any farther than then president Nixon. As for election promises, you don't understand politics. Once elected an official has to keep promises he made to his supporters. Blatantly violating election promises would result in lack of support for decisions or actions that require congressional support, and lame-duck performance at the beginning of a term could lead to impeachment. George W. Bush promised Texas and Florida he would support NASA, so he's now obligated to do so. Improving performance is an option, but cutting staff by 15% is not.

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-23 23:06:16

They did indeed. They even hired analysts that said the current Shuttle design would aproach or meet the flight rate of the supposed LSA/MDC concepts. I don't think anybody in their right mind would have aproved the Golden Goose concept if NASA didn't "sugar coat" the truth. This isn't so much a matter of debate as public reccord, accounts of the fraud have been written. There is no way NASA could be that incompetant in predicting how such a fundimentally flawed idea would wind up being anything other then an expensive disaster.

Anyway, Nixon wouldn't have agreed to the idea if NASA didn't propose it, and instead of telling him that "no, a Shuttle costs this much..." instead they conjured up the Golden Goose. Nixon could have been forgiven for such a screw up as Shuttle... SEI or SS Freedom didn't kill Bush-I.

"It is a good design..."

No. No its not. Its a TERRIBLE design.

Shuttle Derived probobly wouldn't be using SSMEs, so they are out... Orbiter crews out... Orbiter upgrade programs axed... man-rating level of checkout axed... Signifigant money would be saved, especially if signifigant numbers of JSC employees were outted.

RobertDyck · 2004-12-23 23:25:55

Ok. One reason I said to replace the Shuttle with a mini-Shuttle space taxi was to redirect funds to planetary exploration. I doubt NASA or Congress will axe ISS; I want to see long-term life support tested there, but for political reasons I don't think ISS will be axed. One feature of the mini-Shuttle I proposed is it can be launched from any airport that supports a 747. That permits decomissioning Merritt Island. You could use the Orbiter Processing Building to service the mini-Shuttle, but it could also be serviced in a much smaller building. You could retain the OPB and runway, but turn everything else into a museum.

That raises the question of heavy launch. Is it better to use Delta IV Large / Atlas V 55x, or scaled-up versions of them, or a clean-sheet HLLV, or a SDV like Shuttle-C? Delta IV/Atlas V are launched from Cape Canaveral Airforce Station, not KSC. That still means jobs for Florida, but doesn't retain jobs at KSC. There's one shake-up. You will have to find work for all those people; it's a political requirement. Shifting the Shuttle maintenance staff to build HLLV and Mars habitats is what we want.

I still think we should retain Shuttle long enough for one more service of Hubble.

They even hired analysts that said the current Shuttle design would aproach or meet the flight rate of the supposed LSA/MDC concepts. I don't think anybody in their right mind would have aproved the Golden Goose concept if NASA didn't "sugar coat" the truth. This isn't so much a matter of debate as public record, accounts of the fraud have been written.

I would like to see evidence of this. It's very strong accusation. I am more inclined to believe Congressmen led by Nixon weren't in their right mind than NASA.

GCNRevenger · 2004-12-23 23:47:24

The LSS system is most likly gravity-agnostic enough to test right here on the ground. Thats also somthing we could have the Russians do for us anyway, donate the LSS hardware and end all other involvement.

Developing "mini Shuttle" won't be cheap. It won't have anywhere to go that needs reuseability. It can't handle transfer velocity reentry. By the time we do need reuseability, it will be time to develop a 100% reuseable cargo hauler and not a taxi anyway.

For heavy lift, that depends. An uprated Delta-IV should be able to carry out a modest Lunar program alone. Lockheed is rumored to be considering such modifications too. For Mars... something bigger will be needed. Since there will be so much time between now and Mars according to VSE, that probobly means eliminating SDV and KSC with it. In which case, the option would be clean sheet HLLV. If NASA is satisfied with the two-launch-to-Mars schema, then a launcher in the 100MT range is called for.

RobertDyck · 2004-12-24 10:18:36

Don't forget the Mars mission plan I like includes a reusable ITV that goes from Earth orbit, to Mars orbit, and back to Earth orbit. It could park in high Earth orbit and some crew vehicle could go up to get the crew, but you might as well use aerobraking to drop the ITV all the way down to Low Earth Orbit and dock with ISS. The mini-shuttle would deliver Mars astronauts to the ITV before they leave, and return them back to Earth from LEO.

Likewise for the Moon. Go from Earth orbit directly to Lunar surface, and back to Earth orbit. Again, deliver astronauts to the lunar transfer vehicle with the mini-shuttle, and return them to Earth from LEO. Reusable LTV.

Austin Stanley · 2004-12-24 16:49:41

I would point out that LSS work on the ISS, which is resupplied every month or so, may not be all that applicable to those of a Mars mission which has to work for many months to years without resupply. Likewise other critical issues such as radiation shielding would not addressed as well.

If you want a space mission with some usefull mars spin-offs, I think the moon is the place to look, as it requirments are similar.

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#1 2004-12-23 14:33:21

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#2 2004-12-23 14:46:33

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#3 2004-12-23 15:14:35

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#4 2004-12-23 16:07:41

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#5 2004-12-23 16:28:15

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#6 2004-12-23 16:33:04

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#7 2004-12-23 16:36:16

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#8 2004-12-23 17:41:30

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#9 2004-12-23 18:09:32

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#10 2004-12-23 18:54:40

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#11 2004-12-23 19:21:45

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#12 2004-12-23 19:48:30

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#13 2004-12-23 19:55:43

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#14 2004-12-23 20:11:15

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#15 2004-12-23 20:43:15

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#16 2004-12-23 20:57:58

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#17 2004-12-23 21:11:53

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#18 2004-12-23 21:17:14

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#19 2004-12-23 21:23:14

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#20 2004-12-23 22:39:57

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#21 2004-12-23 23:06:16

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#22 2004-12-23 23:25:55

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#23 2004-12-23 23:47:24

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#24 2004-12-24 10:18:36

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

#25 2004-12-24 16:49:41

Re: Just Cancel The Shuttle Program - Not in five years, do it right now.

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