End of Shuttle Era

[APG85]

There is nothing on the moon, there has never been a valid scientific reason for going there, and no less an authority than Werner Von Braun said that the moon is a waste of time. .

Von Braun dreamed of a lunar program since the 1930's. I find it difficult to believe that he said "The Moon is a waste of time".

There is plenty of scientific value of Moon exploration. A simple Google search is all it takes...

[Saville]

There is nothing on the moon, there has never been a valid scientific reason for going there, and no less an authority than Werner Von Braun said that the moon is a waste of time. .

Von Braun dreamed of a lunar program since the 1930's. I find it difficult to believe that he said "The Moon is a waste of time".

There is plenty of scientific value of Moon exploration. A simple Google search is all it takes...

There was a lot of science value from the Moon trips. But the question is:

Was the science return worth the dollars spent and the impact on Space travel?

There's nothing the Apollo astronauts did that could not have been done by unmanned vehicles including returning rocks and leaving reflectors and seismometers etc. We got spinoffs from the space program but we would have gotten spinoffs from other scientific and economic endeavors as well. Maybe even better ones. For example, we were well on our way to smaller computers and didn't need Apollo to get there.

More importantly, in my opinion, the Apollo program contributed to the set back of easy, common, economical, manned space travel, decades.

Apollo was a political response to a political situation and not a well considered step in the pathway for easy space access.

The shuttle was an attempt to generate easy and economical access into space but was a failure at that.

It was better to have done both projects than no projects at all. But they weren't the smartest way to go.

[Speedy]

There's nothing the Apollo astronauts did that could not have been done by unmanned vehicles including returning rocks and leaving reflectors and seismometers etc.

I will respectfully, but whole-heartedly disagree with that statement...and for the exact same reason that fighter pilots will fight to their last breath saying that a UAV will never replace 'eyes on the cockpit'.

Just looking at and analyzing rocks after the fact and having the reflectors and sizemometers don't give you the 'big picture' perspective. You have to be able to see the 'where' to understand the how and the why. That is why the Apollo 14, 15, 16, and 17 crews all went through extensive geology training, and why Harrison Schmidtt was an actual geologist (as opposed to a 'test pilot) on the last mission. They needed to be able to see the all around view of where the rocks they got came from, what it looked like when they scooped up samples of the soil. They needed to be able to go up to a boulder to chip chunks off of it, but at the same time figure out that the boulder most likely came from THAT crater, and what the other 'splatter patterns' indicated with the other debris. And more important, they were able to describe what they were seeing and doing to a back room full of specialists who could direct them to do other things based on what they were reporting. You can't do that with an unmanned vehicle--especially in 1970.

Lots of assumptions were made about what the moon was made of, how it was formed, whether it was a 'live moon' or a 'dead moon'...and a lot of the things they thought about volcanic activity, plate techtonics, asteroid impacts, and such were disproved because the eyes of the astronauts were able to provide a 'human' perspective that you could never get with a machine or probe. Understand how the moon was formed, you get an idea of how it relates to how the earth was formed.

Now, as to the cost-effectiveness of the program and whether it was worth it...that's not up for me, or really any of us to decide. Yes, it WAS a political response...but it was a political response that had positive cascading effects that we still benefit from today. I just have an issue with the 'replacing the pilot' mentality.

[APG85]

There's nothing the Apollo astronauts did that could not have been done by unmanned vehicles including returning rocks and leaving reflectors and seismometers etc. We got spinoffs from the space program but we would have gotten spinoffs from other scientific and economic endeavors as well. Maybe even better ones. For example, we were well on our way to smaller computers and didn't need Apollo to get there.

This can be debated all day long. The bottom line is Apollo, the Shuttle and the Space program in general has accelerated technology as a whole, led to widespread national pride, driven a generation toward higher education and advanced our aerospace industry, metallurgy, composites, advanced welding, medicine, etc., etc. Some things are worth the money. Well worth it.
It is estimated that with the shut-down of the Shuttle program, over 100,000 people are losing their jobs. How many more would have been employed by Constellation...?
The Russians declared last week: "We have now entered the era of Soyuz." Well that's just great...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... oW-gxakIU8

[Steve Crewdog]

http://sts134launch.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... -nasa.html

http://sts134launch.blogspot.com/2011/0 ... -that.html


Sunday, May 22, 2011
What now for NASA?
Attending the STS-134 launch and the lift/mate for STS-135 has left me elated, but with a sadness. My pass allows me to attend the rollout of "the stack" from the VAB to the pad next week and the night landing of STS-134, not sure if I'll be attending.


There is a lot of hard feeling about the end of the Shuttle program, for the first time the U.S. will be without a spacecraft being actively developed. How did we get here??? Many want to blame the Obama administration for killing the Constellation Program, but the truth is more complicated than that.


After the loss of Challenger back in 1986 it was obvious that while the Shuttle was a magnificent engineering achievement, it would never be as easy and cheap to operate as claimed, and it had a deep flaw: the inability of the crew to escape a malfunctioning booster. As far back as 1978 an alternative system had been proposed where the cargo would be put on the top of the stack instead of on the side of the booster.



This "in-line" variant of the STS system would allow a greater variety of payloads to be carried since the payload diameter would not be limited by the constraints of being next to the ET. However, until the loss of Challenger this variant remained a paper rocket.

Subsequently this proposal was revived, and evolved into a program called the National Launch System. Using many of the same construction and operating parts from the Shuttle system, it was an evolutionary step.




The NLS made it as far as the Preliminary Design Review before it was cancelled in the early 1990s. Various reasons have been cited, but no matter what, if it had been funded it would have been flying long ago.



After the loss of Columbia a call was once again made for an alternative to the shuttle. The Ares I and the Ares V boosters were proposed, along with the return of a capsule (Orion) for transportation of astronauts to and from orbit.

The Ares V was supposed to be the "heavy lift"booster, but unlike the NLS system that built on existing STS hardware such as the 4 segment SRBs and the 8.4m ET, the Ares V required the development of a new 5 segment SRB, and the construction of a new 10m external tank.

The Ares I was a combination of a 5.5 segment SRB developed from the Shuttle combined with an upper stage powered by an Apollo era J2 engine, updated for digital controls and advances in rocket engine technology such as an expandable nozzle.



From the start the Ares Program generated controversy. Critics called the Ares V the "Franken-rocket", and at one point in it's growth it was proposed that the rocket would have to be tilted to fit out of the VAB. The Ares I suffered from a myriad of issues, but the most serious was called "thrust oscillation".

When a solid rocket motor burns it's not a smooth combustion, but it gives off a considerable amount of vibration. Comments made by Shuttle astronauts always refer to how rough the ride is under the solids and how smooth the ride is after they burn out and the liquid hydrogen/oxygen engines take over. This vibration is called "thrust oscillation" and in a Shuttle launch the vibration is absorbed by a large I-beam going through the ET structure connecting the two boosters.

However, in a single SRB booster such as Ares I there would be no such system to absorb the vibration, and studies showed that the vibration could be severe enough to present hazards to the crew. A system was under development but the addition of it ate into the already marginal boost capability of the Ares I system, which had been further reduced as performance goals were not met.

With the many problems cropping up in the Constellation Program engineers at Marshall quietly began resurrecting the NLS. Insinuations about reprisals directed toward engineers speaking out about the problems with the NASA directed Ares Program (strongly supported by Director Griffin) have been reported but never confirmed, but the end result is that a group of engineers worked on their own time to bring the NLS back under the name "Direct Launch" with the boosters being called the Jupiter class.



Using proven 4 segment SRMs and the existing 8.4m ET, it was believed that had this system been given the go-ahead it would have been operational within 3 years, with the "long pole" being the software to control the rocket. In addition, the basic Jupiter J-130 would have had an excess of capacity, allowing much of the systems eliminated from the Orion capsule as a result of the short comings of Ares I to be brought back such as land recovery at Edwards AFB. Plus the in-line variant would have allowed a variety of payload sizes to be accommodated, up to a massive 15 meter payload diameter.





With the problems in the U.S. economy in 2007/8, and involved in 2 wars, it was determined that NASAs Constellation Proposal was simply unaffordable and the program was cancelled. NASA was directed to return to a more Shuttle-derived launch system, but it is once again undergoing mission creep and is back up once again to a 5 engine Saturn-class booster, and it's doubtful it will ever fly.

In the meantime, NASA is continuing funding of the Commercial Launch systems. Elon Musk's Falcon 9 rocket has flown the first privately developed capsule in orbit, and has a plan for it to be human rated. There are other contenders in the field, and history will show what the outcome is.


Irregardless of what happens in the future, I don't believe history will be kind to those who passed up the work on the NLS in favor of the Ares Program. Instead of continuing to throw money at the Russians to fly U.S. astronauts on Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS, they should have been flying on U.S. made Jupiter rockets.

[The Inspector]

Curiously enough, on this date 7/29/58 Eisenhower signed the bill that created NaSA (emphasis on the small a for aeronautics) since the atmospheric end of it has always been treated like it had curly red hair.

Yesterday the Russians said that the ISS was going to join SKYLAB and is headed for the South Pacific in less than 10 years, makes me warm and fuzzy about all that money being tossed in the dumper.

[Steve Crewdog]

NASA wanted to deorbit it in 2016. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... id=topnews

[Saville]

There's nothing the Apollo astronauts did that could not have been done by unmanned vehicles including returning rocks and leaving reflectors and seismometers etc. We got spinoffs from the space program but we would have gotten spinoffs from other scientific and economic endeavors as well. Maybe even better ones. For example, we were well on our way to smaller computers and didn't need Apollo to get there.

This can be debated all day long. The bottom line is Apollo, the Shuttle and the Space program in general has accelerated technology as a whole, led to widespread national pride, driven a generation toward higher education and advanced our aerospace industry, metallurgy, composites, advanced welding, medicine, etc., etc. Some things are worth the money. Well worth it.
It is estimated that with the shut-down of the Shuttle program, over 100,000 people are losing their jobs. How many more would have been employed by Constellation...?
The Russians declared last week: "We have now entered the era of Soyuz." Well that's just great...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... oW-gxakIU8

But what you are not considering is that technology advancement and cheap easy access to space (and therefore MORE technology) very well might have been much, much greater, and earlier, had we not gone the Apollo/Shuttle route.

All you see is what happened; think about what could have happened: 60 years after the start of all this, only a tiny handful of extraordinary, Type-A personalities get to go into space. And a tinier handful of very rich people.

You or I haven't a chance.

Where were we 60 years after Kill Devil Hill?

THIS is what you call accelerated technology?

On top of which there's no proof whatsoever that all the things you mention: "advanced our aerospace industry, metallurgy, composites, advanced welding, medicine, etc., etc." wouldn't have occurred without Apollo or the Shuttle. We might have even greater advancements in technology. The spin off argument has long been disproven as a rationale. Again, I repeat, we were well on our way to miniaturized computers without Apollo/Shuttle.

Think about it: the Shuttle flew with technology so old and backwards that they brought laptops with them as soon as laptops were available because even early laptops were more powerful than the Shuttle's computers. Clearly the Shuttle was not designed with upgrades in mind.

I'm not saying that the Space program should have been abandoned way back when. But NASA and the Air Force were well on their way to a sane, rational incremental, cost effective, reusable programs for getting into space. Mercury ended all that.

[APG85]

Where were we 60 years after Kill Devil Hill?

THIS is what you call accelerated technology?

On top of which there's no proof whatsoever that all the things you mention: "advanced our aerospace industry, metallurgy, composites, advanced welding, medicine, etc., etc." wouldn't have occurred without Apollo or the Shuttle. We might have even greater advancements in technology. The spin off argument has long been disproven as a rationale. Again, I repeat, we were well on our way to miniaturized computers without Apollo/Shuttle.

Think about it: the Shuttle flew with technology so old and backwards that they brought laptops with them as soon as laptops were available because even early laptops were more powerful than the Shuttle's computers. Clearly the Shuttle was not designed with upgrades in mind.
.

Seems like you've got it all figured out. Good for you!

[peter]

Interestingly, a piece of Columbia was found in a dry lake in texas yesterday....

[muddyboots]

Where were we 60 years after Kill Devil Hill?

THIS is what you call accelerated technology?

On top of which there's no proof whatsoever that all the things you mention: "advanced our aerospace industry, metallurgy, composites, advanced welding, medicine, etc., etc." wouldn't have occurred without Apollo or the Shuttle. We might have even greater advancements in technology. The spin off argument has long been disproven as a rationale. Again, I repeat, we were well on our way to miniaturized computers without Apollo/Shuttle.

Think about it: the Shuttle flew with technology so old and backwards that they brought laptops with them as soon as laptops were available because even early laptops were more powerful than the Shuttle's computers. Clearly the Shuttle was not designed with upgrades in mind.
.

Seems like you've got it all figured out. Good for you!

Seems like you have an open mind about this. Good for you.

[maradamx3]

There's nothing the Apollo astronauts did that could not have been done by unmanned vehicles including returning rocks and leaving reflectors and seismometers etc. We got spinoffs from the space program but we would have gotten spinoffs from other scientific and economic endeavors as well. Maybe even better ones. For example, we were well on our way to smaller computers and didn't need Apollo to get there.

This can be debated all day long. The bottom line is Apollo, the Shuttle and the Space program in general has accelerated technology as a whole, led to widespread national pride, driven a generation toward higher education and advanced our aerospace industry, metallurgy, composites, advanced welding, medicine, etc., etc. Some things are worth the money. Well worth it.
It is estimated that with the shut-down of the Shuttle program, over 100,000 people are losing their jobs. How many more would have been employed by Constellation...?
The Russians declared last week: "We have now entered the era of Soyuz." Well that's just great...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... oW-gxakIU8

But what you are not considering is that technology advancement and cheap easy access to space (and therefore MORE technology) very well might have been much, much greater, and earlier, had we not gone the Apollo/Shuttle route.

All you see is what happened; think about what could have happened: 60 years after the start of all this, only a tiny handful of extraordinary, Type-A personalities get to go into space. And a tinier handful of very rich people.

You or I haven't a chance.

Where were we 60 years after Kill Devil Hill?

THIS is what you call accelerated technology?

On top of which there's no proof whatsoever that all the things you mention: "advanced our aerospace industry, metallurgy, composites, advanced welding, medicine, etc., etc." wouldn't have occurred without Apollo or the Shuttle. We might have even greater advancements in technology. The spin off argument has long been disproven as a rationale. Again, I repeat, we were well on our way to miniaturized computers without Apollo/Shuttle.

Think about it: the Shuttle flew with technology so old and backwards that they brought laptops with them as soon as laptops were available because even early laptops were more powerful than the Shuttle's computers. Clearly the Shuttle was not designed with upgrades in mind.

I'm not saying that the Space program should have been abandoned way back when. But NASA and the Air Force were well on their way to a sane, rational incremental, cost effective, reusable programs for getting into space. Mercury ended all that.

Since you know what would have happened if, what should have happened if, and what needs to happen, why are you wasting our time on this message board? A billionaire like you should get a life!

[APG85]

Seems like you have an open mind about this. Good for you.

I've studied and followed the space program for more than 30 years. I've read well over 100 books on the subject, saw Apollo 9 on the launch pad, am a friend with a Shuttle worker, etc. I'm passionate about it. An "open mind" about this? I would say I have an educated mind about this. Thanks...

[TimAPNY]

Lets play nice!

Tim

[muddyboots]

Seems like you have an open mind about this. Good for you.

I've studied and followed the space program for more than 30 years. I've read well over 100 books on the subject, saw Apollo 9 on the launch pad, am a friend with a Shuttle worker, etc. I'm passionate about it. An "open mind" about this? I would say I have an educated mind about this. Thanks...

I would say you have a closed mind due to 30 years of slavishly following everything NASA and the government told you to believe about space flight. But what do I know, I've only followed NASA for 35years, read hundreds of books on the subject, and have close family working for NASA.