32 Comments

1. richard mcenroe:

I’m an absolutely unyielding advocate of manned space flight. Robots are cute, but you don’t realize how limited they are until you see a roomful of rocket scientists at JPL trying to figure out how to move one past a rock an astronaut could step over. There’s no substitute for boots on the ground, even big clunky white boots.

That said, the Shuttles are 70’s tech. It’s outrageous that NASA does not have a replacement in the pipe. What happened to the SSTO concept?

Jul 19, 2005 - 7:34 am 2. chuck:

Well,

They are certainly exciting. A lady who flew on Atlantis told me that the whole thing was moving and rocking, and that was *before* ignition. The problem now is that there is no replacement. As to manned vs robotic, I love the idea of man in space but the current technology offers too little return on the dollar; more development is needed. Is NASA the right agency for that? At the moment, probably not, it is too top heavy and overmanaged.

The stars? I suspect that the Galaxy may end up populated by AI, but the distances and times involved are far larger than the human scale.

Jul 19, 2005 - 7:55 am 3. David C:

I think one of the biggest, most baffling, historical questions for future generations will be “And then we just *left* and didn’t go back? For over 30 years???”

There’s so much that just doesn’t make sense about our space program, and we should have had the shuttle’s replacement in operation a decade ago.

Jul 19, 2005 - 7:56 am 4. photoncourier.blogspot.com:

I suspect that many of the problems with the shuttle lie not so much in the device itself but in cultural problems at NASA. The fact that something was designed and built a long time ago doesn’t automatically make it unsafe, and while creating a new platform is something that should be done, the newness wouldn’t automatically make it safe..indeed, both design factors and production factors lead to what is called “infant mortality” in any manufactured system.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to seed NASA with some people (at high levels) from the FAA and from the commercial aerospace industry…organizations that *do* have strong safety cultures.

Jul 19, 2005 - 8:06 am 5. Syl:

Not so sure we should keep the shuttle, but I don’t want to lose NASA!

I’m on Mars! I see through a robot’s eyes. That’s more than good enough for me personally because I’ll never have the chance to go myself.

I’ve hit a comet, I’ve explored Mars, I’ve landed on moons of planets I’ll never see.

I’ve often wondered why galaxies are so shockingly beautiful. Why we see beauty at all. I guess because nature is so hostile to life that if we didn’t see the beauty we would simply give up.

NASA represents the American spirit to me. Sure, the Soviet Union sent up Sputnik, but when we attempt the impossible we do it because we can and we’re so damned open that we show our failures to the whole world. It takes confidence and guts and that good old can do spirit to pick yourself up and go even farther next time.

Perhaps rocketships and space travel should move to the private sector, but I, as a citizen, still want our government…us…to be involved in exploration and experiments and pushing boundaries too.

Jul 19, 2005 - 8:15 am 6. Baron Bodissey:

Mr. Simon, you are not alone in your distaste for the shuttle. I am a space freak, but I hate the shuttle — all those billions of dollars that are wasted on it keep us from doing better things in space. As John Derbyshire says, the shuttle exists to supply the International Space Station, and the ISS exists to give the shuttle something to do.

I say: unleash private enterprise! If there is a cost-effective way to get into space, and a profitable motive for doing so, let a thousand flowers bloom. I don’t mind if somebody gets rich inventing the new systems for getting there.

Jul 19, 2005 - 8:15 am 7. common_cents:

I would hate to give the shuttle up. It is a very strong symbol in the fight against post modernism (the religion of the left and the MSM).

Post modernist philosophy = Words have any meaning therefore they no meaning therefore they mean only what we (the left/MSM) say they mean.

Amoung the great proofs against post modernist theology are great human built wonders like the shuttle. If words have no real meaning, if people only hear what racist sexist society has taught them to hear how is it possible that tens of thousands of engineers, scientists and craftsmen could team together to build such a complex and wonderful machine?

Jul 19, 2005 - 8:34 am 8. photoncourier.blogspot.com:

There’s a science fiction story that was written sometime in the 50s…about a society in the year 2000 or so. This society had the technology to go into space easily…they had flying cars that could make the trip without much trouble. But no one was interested, because the obsession of this society was studying “psychology.” The desire for exploration had completely died out.

Significant attributes of that society exist in our society today..indeed, things are even worse, in some ways, because the people influenced by the self-esteem movement aren’t usually interested in studying society in general, only their own individual psychologies.

Jul 19, 2005 - 9:29 am 9. ahem:

I don’t mind spending the bucks for the shuttle as long as they’re serious about the program; technology projects give us an opportunity to develop technologies that would otherwise go undiscovered. But lately NASA has been looking like a bunch of amateurs. They no longer inspire faith. Clearly, they have lost their way. Perhaps they should go on hiatus for a couple of years and get their act together before continuing. It’s time for a major re-evaluation of their purpose and goals.

Jul 19, 2005 - 9:32 am 10. Lola:

Well, the previous NASA administrator was “playing it safe” and bent on putting NASA into maintenance mode, in other words, spend minimum amount of time on developing new projects, wrap up existing projects in the safest possible way, including an indefinite moratorium on sending up the shuttle flights.

The current NASA administrator is better – he’s been trying to get rid of the top level management and bringing in younger people, and bringing back the people who had all those great ideas for doing stuff in a different way, and rejuvenating that “can-do” attitude. It’s going to be a tough march uphill, though, thanks to decades of stagnation (consider that things started going downhill in the late 60s when funding was cut and people were distracted by that inconvenient war in the Asian jungles).

Jul 19, 2005 - 9:42 am 11. Occam's Beard:

Sorry, but I view the whole thing as an enormous boondoggle, a PC circus in space. NASA jumped the shark big time in proposing to send a teacher into space to teach her class from there. What the hell was the point of that, besides circus-style political grandstanding for Congressional appropriations? That that shuttle blew up only compounded their sin; the teacher lost her life for absolutely nothing.

If there’s a valid scientific or military reason for a launch, fair enough, but that’s got to be rare. To launch a Noah’s Ark with the requisite contigent of minorities and women to sing “Kumbaya” from space at huge taxpayer’s expense is indefensible.

/curmudgeon off

Jul 19, 2005 - 9:48 am 12. Lola:

Occam’s Beard, folks said the same exact things (well, different words, certainly, but essentially the same idea) when Columbus came up with his mad scheme to sail into the Great Unknown and find a new path to the Indies. Exploring is part of what makes up human society; if we lose that, what are we now?

Jul 19, 2005 - 10:03 am 13. Joe Schmoe:

We should cancel it immediately. From what I can see, there is no reason for manned space flight at all.

We aren’t really learning anything up there. Space is a vacuum, the Moon is a big barren rock in a vacuum. There is nothing to see, nothing to discover, and no longer any reason to strap human beings to giant bombs just so they can go “explore” emptiness.

There is no reason to travel to Antartica and there is no reason to travel to the Moon either. At least Antartica has weather stations and penguins. The Moon has only rocks. But because it is in space, it has a mystique, and suddenly we are willing to risk human lives in order to go.

Think of the wonderful men and women who died on the Challenger and on the Discovery. Picture their faces in your mind’s eye. Now consider that many had spouses and children.

What did their deaths accomplish? The answer is NOTHING. Did they die to protect us? No. Will the “experiments” conducted up there lead to a cure for cancer? No. Is there any national secrutiy reason to go into space? Not at present. Maybe someday — we need to maintain the capability — but not right now. There was no reason for those wonderful men and women to die. Their children and loved ones have been deprived of spouses and parents for absolutely no reason.

I certainly marvel at the technological accomplishments of the space program. And I understand — and respect — man’s desire to explore and move ever onward.

But that’s the key issue, right? There really is NO WAY TO TRAVEL to other stars or galaxies. The distances are simply too vast. It is a basic physics problem to which there is no answer. As I understand it, there is no way to travel faster than light (even if we could find a way to reach to such a speed, and even if relativity issues didn’t kill all of the astronauts on board), and the closest other planet is four light-years away. And there’s nothing there. Also, better hope you don’t hit anything while traveling at that speed. Space isn’t completley empty. The distances are just too vast. Maybe we could develop technologies like hibernation, etc., etc. but any travel to a distant star would basically be a suicide mission.

If trips on Space Shuttle were just the first step toward trips to other galaxies, I would be all for it. Even if progress was glacial, even if it was outrageoulsy expensive — I would want to go see what is out there. Most huamns would. But the fact is, at present, we don’t know how to do that.

Now, if the astronauts were conducting expriments that might lead to some breakthrough in interstellar space travel, maybe that too would be worthwhile. But my understanding is they aren’t. It’s all ant colonies and weather forecasting up there.

As things stand, we can only go as far as the Moon. There is no reason to go there, it is a barren hunk of rock. The “reward” is nil. Traveling there, and even into orbit, entails an enormous risk of precious human life. What we really want to do is find intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. That would be the biggest “reward” of all. But we can’t, it is too far away, so there is no reason to incure the risk. We should pull the plug.

Jul 19, 2005 - 10:20 am 14. Hogarth:

I’m a pilot, and passionate for just about anything with wings, but I see the shuttle program, in its current form, as nothing but a jobs program.

I’d prefer to see the budget re-purposed to something more far-reaching, such as a way to harness solar energy in space and transmit it to the ground. A more pragmatic view of space utilization, if you will.

The shuttle is now “been there, done that,” and no longer worth the price in dollars or lives.

Jul 19, 2005 - 10:56 am 15. JohnAnnArbor:

I’ve been a space geek as long as I can remember. That said, the shuttle was a blunder of truly epic proportions. NASA actually “advised” Europe not to build the Ariane launchers. You see, the shuttle would make Ariane obsolete by flying 60 times a year and having a low cost-to-orbit. They claimed that many people would fly as astronauts on certain missions after a few day’s training. They talked of 72-hour turnarounds from landing to relaunch. They talked of NASA making a huge profit from the shuttle as it took over almost all space-launch services.

They HAD to know these were hopelessly optimistic projections. In short, they lied. They lied, and they took a system that worked well (Apollo capsules and Skylab) and THREW IT AWAY. Apollo was much safer than the shuttle. Re-entry, as long as it’s at the right angle, is pretty foolproof. And at all stages of launch, there were always options to abandon a malfunctioning rocket. The Shuttle is designed to kill its passengers if any rocket fails in the earlier stages of launch.

We could have continued Apollo, launching follow-ups to Skylab and even joining them together. Two or three Skylabs together would be larger than our present space station can ever hope to achieve; Skylab itself was so large astronauts tested jet backpacks indoors! Over time, we could have refined the system, perhaps reducing the costs of Saturn rockets, perhaps recovering rocket engines for re-use, while retaining the capability to go to the Moon and maintain space stations.

Instead, we threw it all away on a lie. For that, the management of NASA deserved condemnation.

The present management deserves further condemnation for their approach to a shuttle follow-on. They are going to the really-expensive route AGAIN. The obvious solution is resurrecting the Apollo capsule with modern materials and electronics, using a different rocket.

Jul 19, 2005 - 11:05 am 16. Katherine:

I am enormous fan of space of exploration and I am dreaming of the time when we will be able to ìgo to the starsî. That being said, I wonder why we all assume that only taxpayers funded projects will get us there?

NASA completely lost a focus ñ and a sense of mission- right after the Moon landing. Shuttles, as exciting as they might have been in the early days today resemble nothing but celebrity cruises, with the risk factor up high. They do not even push new technology forward these days; the impression one gets is that they barely switched from vacuum tube technology to transistors. What is the last scientific goal/experiment accomplished by the shuttle? Giving John Glen opportunity to relive his glory days does not qualify, in my book.

Space exploration will only go forward if the private sector gets seriously involved. SpaceShip One was a step in the right direction. NASA, if we want to keep it at all, should concentrate mostly on R&Ds and perhaps deep space unmanned probes. And when we are dismantling the UN, we should get rid of all those space treaties that give government employees preference in space over the entrepreneurs.

PS. Lola, that trip that Columbus took was privately funded by Isabella and Ferdinand

Jul 19, 2005 - 11:11 am 17. Lola:

Yeah . . . but where did Isabella and Ferdinand get their money?

Jul 19, 2005 - 11:28 am 18. Steven E. Ehrbar:

I love manned spaceflight.

I hate the shuttle, which was badly designed from the beginning and should have been retired after Challenger gave us an excuse to end the program. 80 tons of orbital throw weight to launch 20 tons of payload might — might — have made sense if the orbiter were truly reusable, instead of a rather fragile vehicle requiring an overhaul after each flight.

Given that we had a third-scale prototype of an actually resuable system, built on a budget of a mere $60 million, back in 1993, there is no excuse for us not having a real SSTO reusable vehicle today — except we elected Clinton, and the DC-X was a product of the SDI program, not NASA, and so was killed when Clinton tokk a meat-axe to SDI. NASA, of course, then mismanaged the X-33 program even worse than it mismanaged the Shuttle, starting with the decision to go with the Lockheed-Martin proposal instead of the McDonnel-Douglas DC-Y proposal.

Jul 19, 2005 - 11:37 am 19. Pat:

As a former NASA Flight Surgeon, I have reluctantly come to accept the fact that NASA us the biggest impediment to space exploration. The Shuttle program has a lot to do with this and has eaten up resources that might have got us back to the Moon and beyond. But to my mind the biggest problem at NASA is the cult of the astronaut. NASA has abandoned real exploration and its associated risks; it has lacked vision and leadership for quite some time. In the 70’s we could have had a moon base. We don’t even have the capability now.

I agree with Baron Bodissey. Get rid of NASA and let free enterprise do it. If the government wants to stimulate research and development, they should set up more prizes and let the private sector assume the risk. I became interested in space exploration and passionate about it after the Apollo moon landing. I will never in my lifetime get to see us return to the moon. I consider myself an “orphan” of Apollo. Never in my wildest imagination would I have thought as a teen that when I was older the U.S. would not even be able to go back to the moon–let alone beyond.

NASA is dead. Long live space exploration!

Dr. Sanity

Jul 19, 2005 - 2:46 pm 20. Katherine:

Lola: private purse. Even Queen Elizabeth has ample private funds, though she and her family do not turn their noses on the taxpayerís generous ìdonationsî.

Dr. Sanity: thank you for the insiderís view.

“NASA is dead. Long live space exploration!”

Indeed(TM).

Jul 19, 2005 - 3:10 pm 21. rickl:

Dr. Sanity:

“Never in my wildest imagination would I have thought as a teen that when I was older the U.S. would not even be able to go back to the moon–let alone beyond.”

I said almost the same thing word-for-word in a comment on another blog. (Actually I said something about being “still stuck in Earth orbit with 30-year old technology.”)

JohnAnnArbor:

What you said.

Joe Schmoe:

I hate to start a flame war, but your post is the stupidest load of bilge I’ve ever seen. I don’t even know where to start fisking it, so I won’t bother. Just because you can’t think of any way to travel to the stars–and I can’t think of a way either–the whole human species should just give up and accept that it’s impossible?

It’s a no-brainer: private initiative and free enterprise are what we need to pursue space exploration, and the economic exploitation of space-based resources.

Imagine what it would be like if the government had controlled the development of aviation during its formative years: Today our airplanes would still be made of wood and canvas, they would have six wings, 12 engines, a crew of 20, could do about 90 mph in clear weather, and we would still be looking forward to the first transatlantic flight.

Jul 19, 2005 - 7:39 pm 22. rickl:

JohnAnnArbor:

“The obvious solution is resurrecting the Apollo capsule with modern materials and electronics, using a different rocket.”

Actually, I’m not sure if that’s possible. I read somewhere that today it would not be possible to build a Saturn rocket, because all the blueprints, tools, factories, and so forth have been scattered, lost, and/or destroyed.

But I’ve had a related thought. When we finally retire the shuttle (the sooner the better), until we develop a next-generation space vehicle, why don’t we just license the rights to build Soyuz capsules from the Russians as a stop-gap measure? At least they are tried and proven technology.

Of course, that would entail some swallowing of pride, and we can’t have that (especially by gov’t officials).

Jul 19, 2005 - 8:03 pm 23. rickl:

JohnAnnArbor:

OK, it being late at night, I missed the part where you said “using a different rocket”, but I believe my remark about Saturn rockets also applies to Apollo capsules.

Jul 19, 2005 - 8:10 pm 24. effie:

Interesting. Fark.com had a photshop contest today titled “If NASA were run by NASCAR” or something close. The most amusing shot was the Shuttle landing with Viagra and GE logos, among many more. However, when I first saw the title of the Photoshop, I thought, well, I bet they could complete the circuit to the moon and back faster than NASA has. I say give it a shot.

Jul 19, 2005 - 8:55 pm 25. JohnAnnArbor:

rickl:

I’m more concerned with the shape of the capsule, which is proven to work for re-entry, even from the Moon (which is much faster than from Earth orbit). Maybe they could make one a bit larger, reconfigure the interior for more people/equipment, and other stuff. Definitely, they’d have better electronics and batteries and fuel cells.

The point is, Apollo is a place to start, with incremental improvements. NASA’s attitude is, clean sheet of paper, never mind the cost.

Jul 20, 2005 - 5:42 am 26. Jack:

Rick,

Joe Schmoe has it correct. There will not be star travel for a very long time – if ever. What NASA is doing with the shuttle and the Space Station is a complete waste of money. Your idea of making space exploration a private enterprise is a non-starter though. It’s way too expensive. I think Rutan is shooting for the sight-seeing business and that’s about it.

Jul 20, 2005 - 6:07 am 27. Anthony (Los Angeles):

I watched the first Moon landing as a kid and got to stay home from school every time there was a launch: I love the space program and think the nation needs manned flight projects. That said, the current shuttle is dated and dangerous (those vehicles are *old!*). It’s time to retire them and find a replacement. Maybe something based on Burt Rutan’s experimental craft? Or perhaps a revival of Project Orion? (The sci-fi fan in me wants the latter, of course! )

Jul 20, 2005 - 6:29 am 28. jimmitude:

I’ve been a aerospace freak since before we landed on the moon (36 years ago today, BTW). The time for the Shuttle’s retirement was overdue before the Challenger accident. As a technology demonstrator, it showed us what we could do, but there were few if any ‘insiders’ who ever thought that the Shuttle could make the turn around rates/money that NASA constantly fed to Congress. It worked well for a few missions but the real reason for the program was to keep all us space wonks busy until a real program came along. Then in good beauracratic (sp?) fashion where budget begets importance, the shuttle became the real program.

I believe that manned space exploration is important, but the Shuttle is not a vehicle capable of ‘real’ space exploration. Using the Columbus analogy, the Shuttle is a really big scow capable of rowing around the Spanish coastline. Columbus would be proposing the Apollo program.

Re: rickl, I don’t want to sound harsh but the ‘we can’t build the Saturn V anymore’ arguement was a canard. As an aerospace engineer, I was pretty insulted when NASA floated that one. I’ve also worked on gov. programs; I can pretty much guarrantee that nothing ever gets thrown away, and if it gets burned, there are ten copies left.

Apollo II would not have to be a cutting edge technology program. Lockheed Martin has engines (some that they buy from the Russians) with the thrust range to make a very similar launch vehicle quite easily. The Command Module (capsule) would likewise be easy to cob together using old Shuttle parts. The re-entry design is not a problem anymore. Probably the biggest re-design job would be the lunar lander, as those were pretty much hand made, tested, and then modded as needed. Everybody who worked on the LM (that I knew, anyway) had their own ideas what a ‘real lander’ would be.

Jul 20, 2005 - 6:37 am 29. JohnAnnArbor:

jimmitude, maybe you’ll know this:

Weren’t there proposals on the drawing board for using the standard Saturn 5 to launch other equipment to the moon, for a possible lunar base? It would be interesting to see all the old proposals from the late ’60s for the extended use of Saturn hardware.

And the more I think about it, the more I think Saturn could be revived. jimmitude is right; the engines don’t have to be identical. Improved Russian or American engines could be used.

What kills me is that we threw away a design that worked. I have books about the development of the Shuttle. One concept drawing stood out; it had a shuttle mounted on a Saturn first stage. The idea was obvious; keep the Apollo-Saturn program going as the shuttle was developed. If the shuttle failed, Apollo-Saturn could continue.

It’s heartbreaking they didn’t take that approach.

Jul 20, 2005 - 6:56 am 30. Red Chicagoan:

Personally, I feel that this program might have had a chance if Rockwell Int’l had NOT been the lead designer.

Just my 2 cents, but, I mean they were too busy acquiring appliance makers to commit the needed management’s attention to getting this done properly.

Jul 20, 2005 - 7:37 am 31. jimmitude:

JohnAnnArbor, I don’t recall any specific proposals like that, but it sounds pretty logical. An unmanned S-V could probably chuck a good sized piece of hardware to the moon. If my fuzzy memory is working, they launched SkyLab using a Saturn Ib, so even the little brother rocket could heft quite a load up to a parking orbit.

Re: redoing Apollo. Yeah, there’s no need to use the same stuff because the hardware has evolved quite a bit. In fact, I’d wager current cargo only engines are safer than the S-V engines were. Other proven tech, like better aluminum and/or wound composite tanks would only make an Apollo II cheaper and safer. (Okay, maybe I’m trying a little to insure I’d have a job on the project.)

Again, I wouldn’t see any need to go to the razor’s edge of technology like they tried with the X-33. That could have flown if they had designed it from the start with aluminum cryo tanks, but they had to develop composite tanks and couldn’t keep them from cracking. Then the aluminum backup design (because they never had them in the weight budget) made it too heavy.

There was a lot of pressure both in the early Shuttle days and later when it actually started flying, to get rid of heavy launch capability to insure the Shuttle was the one heavy lift vehicle. In fact, after Challenger, we had to upgrade the Titan so it could launch payloads that had been designed as Shuttle only.

It’s a shame so much politics was injected into the space game, but I guess it was inevitable seeing as Apollo et al were fueled as much by Cold War politics as technology. I have a lot of faith (and hope) that NASA’s new Administrator will steer things more towards exploration, technology, and knowledge gathering and away from a political fiefdom (a game they never played well anyway) otherwise I fear the days of NASA as we know it are numbered.

Jul 20, 2005 - 9:06 am 32. Occam's Beard:

I don’t think the rather shopworn Columbus analogy is apt, for several reasons, but the primary one is motivation.

Columbus wasn’t just screwing around in the ocean at great taxpayer expense. He was testing a hypothesis that, if borne out, would have had enormous economic and strategic implications for Spain providing a shorter route to the Indies, and given Spain a huge competitive advantage.

Teaching a grammar school class from space, on the other hand, is a straight-up, and totally pointless, waste of money. That alone convinced me that the space program should be canned, if they can’t find anything better to do than that.

As for satisfying the urge to explore, how about the depths of the ocean? There might actually be a point to that (manganese nodules and all that), and there are already schools down there (sorry).

Jul 20, 2005 - 10:17 am

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