Apollo Astronauts to Congress: Bring Back the Space Shuttles

At this point, I'm more excited about NASA's new SLS that was recently announced.
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/sls1.html

From what I understood, the Shuttle fleet was getting more expensive to maintain. While I can understand why anyone would dislike the idea of hitching a ride with the Russian, I think its best for them to do that temporarily until the SLS is ready (rather than wasting money to resurrect the Shuttle program only for a short period).

Hopefully no more major delays for the SLS program or get canceled again halfway down the line.
 
jojo69 said:
for fucks sake, the United States of America is about to get its lights shut off and you are talking about overhauling the toys?
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That's because of bad management of resources. Why should the people helping advance our understanding of the Universe suffer for this???
 
Jimmy the Greek said:
No, how will we ever progress if we rely on 50s tech? I want a hydrogen-powered fusion core by 2050.
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While I was against such an aggressive shut down of the Space Program (we should have had a solution working and in place to take over) we can not keep using the same $1.8 billion dollar per launch vehicle to only achieve LEO (low earth orbit) .. that's just insanely expensive in today's economy.

The Private Sector is doing lots of great work striving towards much cheaper solutions and while we aren't able to send up our Astronauts for the time being , we have to get over this malice over asking and using the Russian space capsules to get them up there. The cold war is over and we're all apart of the global economy , the political nature of democracy and communism is no longer a factor between us. We've got history , yes but we all wish to achieve the same goals in space ... human exploration. Its drilled into our DNA to explore and we simply must continue if we expect to survive the next few hundred years.

I have lots of respect for these retired Apollo Astronauts but they must realize that we aren't in a space race anymore. The scientific community is thriving because of cooperation , not because of Governmental or Political diversion. In the next 5 years we'll have a solution , the private sector demands it and will make it happen. We will have a cheap and safe LEO solution that will not only solve our problem but with the much cheaper cost per flight we can redirect those funds to funding experiments that continue to expand our knowledge and understanding of the Universe.

Personally I'm excited to see what happens.
 
Here's what you do. You get Robert Zubrin, and place him as Administrator of NASA. He will conquer space for us. He was inspired when he was about 10 years old when Kennedy made his speech about going to the Moon, and then Mars. He went on to get a B.A. Mathematics, a Masters in Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a Masters in Nuclear Engineering so he could help make an impact in the field of space exploration. He's actually developed an entire plan around a manned Mars exploration, from the design of the ship itself, to the technical difficulties involving solar bombardment of that ship. You can feel his passion when he speaks. I think the world needs people like him to be honest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5uImXbhQM8
 
55075743.jpg
 
PornoSatan said:
Here's a good lecture by Robert Zubrin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm34Muv6Lsg
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Whoa! That guy lives a few miles from me (30 miles to be exact, a little more then an hour).

Anyways, am I the only person who thinks it's high time we start consolidating the space programs across the planet into one? Make it multinational so that it would lower the costs for all nations making it easier for everyone to participate? I can't be the only one who wants this. Think of the US and all the other countries trying to start up their own space program, all the amazing progress that could be made if we decided to all pool our resources for this one thing and work together.... Yeah, I'm sure it would end terribly I guess....
 
J32P said:
That's because of bad management of resources. Why should the people helping advance our understanding of the Universe suffer for this???
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because we simply do not have the money...yeah, it sucks
 
SamuraiInBlack said:
What about a hybrid design then that incorporates both? Or would it be too heavy?
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The issue is mass. car in relation to the ground. You could strap an electric motor onto a propeller, and have it move the aircraft in relation to the air.

Once you get beyond those, it gets far more difficult. Have you ever gone into the deep end of the pool, where you can't touch the bottom, and tried to jump? Not much happens.

Rocket fuels work by ejecting a shit ton of mass behind the rocket. The rocket doesn't care what it's going through, whether it is air or not, because all of its thrust is coming from the thick, hot stream of mass flying out of its rear end. Momentum is conserved, and for every kgm/s of burnt fuel shooting through the nozzle, the rocket gains a kgm/s.
 
nalc said:
Nuclear power which is used to generate electricity.

There's no existing technology that lets us reach orbit with electrical motors. Moving air to produce thrust works in the atmosphere, but once the air gets thin enough, the only way to produce thrust is with a rocket motor.
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We do have electric powered propulsion with DS1 Deep Space 1 the impulse is great but the force produced is less but it adds up in space but we need more force to get off this rock.

http://nmp.nasa.gov/ds1/tech/sep.html
 
"This testing was carried out on the DS1 spacecraft in the Solar Thermal Vacuum Chamber at JPL. Increasing the engine throttle level without increasing the available power caused the engine recycling in the video. The engine provides about 10 times the specific impulse (ratio of thrust to propellant used) of chemical propulsion. DS1 is the first spacecraft to use ion propulsion as the primary propulsion system. It is one of the 12 advanced technologies that was validated by DS1 during flight."

http://nmp.nasa.gov/ds1/tech/sep.html
"


"Click here to see a time lapse video (4.4 MB Quicktime movie) of the DS1 Ion Thruster Compatibility Test taped on February 15, 1998.
http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/ds1/tech/ds1_ips.mov
 
Which is cool for moving around things that are already in orbit, but it would not be able to launch a rocket into orbit.
 
CrimandEvil said:
Whoa! That guy lives a few miles from me (30 miles to be exact, a little more then an hour).

Anyways, am I the only person who thinks it's high time we start consolidating the space programs across the planet into one? Make it multinational so that it would lower the costs for all nations making it easier for everyone to participate? I can't be the only one who wants this. Think of the US and all the other countries trying to start up their own space program, all the amazing progress that could be made if we decided to all pool our resources for this one thing and work together.... Yeah, I'm sure it would end terribly I guess....
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That's a great idea actually

Similar to the LHC particle collider project. I don't think any nation could have bear the cost of that project alone, but with the cooperation of multiple nations, that project is a reality today and it is a huge step forward.

So I think it is possible.
 
LOL @ all the "we need to investigate imaginary sci fi technologies NOW" reactions. Jesus. Put down the crack pipe people. Stargate SG-1 is not a documentary series. :)

The shuttle is old, unreliable, expensive to operate, overly complex and unsafe. The decisions to kill it was the right one.

Who's not on this list of proponents of bring back that thing? Buzz Aldrin. Arguably the most active space activist of all of the current and former astronaut corps as well as a ridiculously smart guy.

NASA should not be in the u-haul to LEO business. And that's all the shuttle is good for.

In November Space-X will launch a dragon re-supply to IIS. IN 2010 they will launch Falcon Heavy.

The private sector will fill in the bus service role, as it should. This will free NASA, with their lame ass meager budget to build real space craft, and extremely heave lift launchers.

The president and NASA have made the right call.

"But what about Ares-I and Ares V?" What of it? Ares-I was a scam, it was fundamentally flawed and NASA just kept on plugging away complete with the scam of the Ares-Ix launch which included absolutely zero Ares-I flight hardware and gathered zero actionable data for the program.

The new rocket (if it is ever built) would give NASA ludicrous heavy lift capability. The private sector can handle anything smaller. If they do it right (lol, right) this will allow NASA to assemble real spacecraft on orbit, service IIS and go interesting places.

Add in work being done by companies like As-Astra and things could be pretty bright.
 
Arg. 2012 launch for Falcon Heavy. Not 2010. Hey, how about some fucking edit capability here guys? Fuck.
 
Genny said:
I don't see the value of sending people into space other than some nostalgic ' 'Merica is number one!' thing. At this point, what do we really have to gain that can't be done far better with satellites and robots? Besides, we have other more pressing concerns at this time. Maybe once we have some decent technology in place rather than crap made half a century ago we can give it another look.
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Go back to your hole.
 
The space shuttle was a failure. Face facts.

The concept of a reusable platform for cost savings was a good one, but the execution failed, and considering the state of the economy there is no justification to continue to milk the American people to feed that kind of inefficiency.
 
Well these were supposed to replace the shuttles by 1999, but the whole program was under-funded. Add to that the moon-base program that got stalled in congressional hearings because the environmentalists didn't want to use the moon to store our nuclear waste, and here we are with Astronauts wanting their old shuttles back.

 
Ducman69 said:
The space shuttle was a failure. Face facts.

The concept of a reusable platform for cost savings was a good one, but the execution failed, and considering the state of the economy there is no justification to continue to milk the American people to feed that kind of inefficiency.
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Yes, the shuttle was a failure at its original intent (robust cheap space access).

Sigh. Yes. We should just resolve ourselves to slaving 24/7 so Verizon and BofA can enjoy their negative tax rates while laying off workers by the tens of thousands.

Because we're so poor and all. If only we had some other source of money.

When we bailed out the banks to a tune of $700b it was more than NASA budget for the last 50 years (inflation adjusted).

So we can do the space thing. We just need a functioning government who doesn't fail at math and excel at sucking corporate cock.
 
J32P said:
Of course we have the money. It's that the distribution of the money spent is warped. That said, I'll let Neil tell you.
​

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_F3pw5F_Pc
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I don't think we disagree as much as you might think.

We did not have the money for TARP. We do not have the money for the wars. We do not have the money for SS or health care...we are trillions and trillions in debt and spend far more each year than we take in.

I would love it if this nation had been managed responsibly and we could do great, inspiring things, but that is water under the bridge man. The USA is a washed up has been, broke, strung out, and bitter.
 
I would love it if the Apollo Astronauts could help other astronauts and scientists that want to go into space within their life time... Can we please skip reviving the shuttle and work towards a space elevator? It costs so much to put a device into space. Let's start funding a space elevator with that money? Even if we could get a shuttle to half-way up, you'd think with diminished gravity it would take substantially less fuel to go the rest of the way....
 
ianken said:
The shuttle is old, unreliable, expensive to operate, overly complex and unsafe. The decisions to kill it was the right one.
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They built 6 shuttles and over the last 30 years only 2 of them have failed , even if you factor in those events the track record of the space shuttles are far from "unreliable" as they were some of the most reliable and complex vehicles ever made by man kind. The Columbia crashed because of human oversight and lack of attention to the tiles , not because the design of the shuttle was at fault , the Challenger crashed again because of human oversight. Both instances are due to human error so its not even fair to knock the reliability of the Shuttles themselves because of it.

I agree with everything else you've said and I think the current Admin for NASA made the right choices and so did Obama. We need new and more powerful space craft to reach beyond our comfort zone and start to explore the edge of what's possible and safe. Space is a frontier and frontiers come with risk , there isn't a single Astronaut that wouldn't gladly put there life on the line to go to an Asteroid or Mars. These people are some of the most incredible individuals , they are the best of what we can produce as a species for that purpose and forcing them to stick with LEO another 30 years is downright a waste.

I'm very much looking forward to Space-X's first flight to the International Space Station in November and it will mark a new milestone in history , the one were space flight is no longer reserved for Governmental bodies or the super rich. It may be another 30-50 years before common everyday people like you and me get a shot at experiencing LEO (unless you have a spare $200,000) but the next 30-50 years are going to be extremely exciting for Space flight. We have some very promising prototype engine designs in development that will make journey's to other worlds very feasible and possible on a regular basis. I hope I'm alive long enough to experience that era even if its only brief experience for me.

I wasn't a huge fan of shutting down the Space Shuttle program but I see the reasoning and if we want any kind of progress in human space flight we have to be willing to take risks and understand that through that risk we will pioneer something not only great for science but for mankind as well.
 
niconx said:
Please don't bring back the Space Shuttle. The whole reason they decided on using the Space Shuttle was because they thought it was cheaper because it was reuseable. They were horribly horribly wrong it is so expensive it is hilarious we funded it for so long. We ended up with a craft that had absolutely pathetic lift capability because of this heavy giant freakin glider glued to the side of the lift system.

Space Shuttle Payload to LEO 24,400 kg (53,600 lb)
SLS Payload to LEO 70,000 kg (150,000 lb) - 129,000 kg (280,000 lb) depending on chosen configuration for the mission.

So you can see that even the smallest SLS rocket absolutely dwarfs the Space Shuttle. This lift capability is absolutely essential if we expect to build new spacecraft in space and build new stations in space. You can't manufacture for shit when you are stuck with a Space Shuttle. Look how long it took them to put the ISS together. Tons of money spent on repeated launches because the Space Shuttle doesn't have decent lift capability! That money should have went to real hard space science instead of paying for launch costs.
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We can't do that because it makes far, far, too much sense. :D
 
the Challenger crashed again because of human oversight.
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It didn't crash, it fucking exploded after takeoff and killed everyone in an instant.
I'd say that was a pretty huge failure on NASA's part. :rolleyes:
 
Red Falcon said:
It didn't crash, it fucking exploded after takeoff and killed everyone in an instant.
I'd say that was a pretty huge failure on NASA's part. :rolleyes:
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And yet that still comes down to human error and not a mechanical fault of the Shuttle it's self. That was the point. :rolleyes:
 
Hornet said:
That's a great idea actually

Similar to the LHC particle collider project. I don't think any nation could have bear the cost of that project alone, but with the cooperation of multiple nations, that project is a reality today and it is a huge step forward.

So I think it is possible.
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Yeah, too bad it will never happen. I find it very interesting that in nearly all scifi stories about us colonizing space the most fundamental advance to that has been the unification of space programs of many nations into one.
 
Red Falcon said:
It didn't crash, it fucking exploded after takeoff and killed everyone in an instant.
I'd say that was a pretty huge failure on NASA's part. :rolleyes:
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Way to miss the point.

Disintegration of the entire vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. The O-ring failure caused a breach in the SRB joint it sealed, allowing pressurized hot gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation of the right-hand SRB's aft attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces promptly broke up the orbiter.
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And here is the "human error" :

The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by United States President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The Rogers Commission found NASA's organizational culture and decision-making processes had been key contributing factors to the accident.[1] NASA managers had known contractor Morton Thiokol's design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings since 1977, but failed to address it properly.
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SO again , human laziness or disregard toward a well known fatal flaw. The shuttle its-self was not at fault.
 
CrimandEvil said:
Yeah, too bad it will never happen. I find it very interesting that in nearly all scifi stories about us colonizing space the most fundamental advance to that has been the unification of space programs of many nations into one.
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If only it were possible. We can't even agree on basic foreign policy , however the ISS was a huge international effort (although largely funded by us) so perhaps its a step in the right direction at least.

Its going to take a society similar with an evolved point of existence like "The Federation" from Star Trek however to truly expand into the galaxy. We're far too primitive in our current state society is far from ready for such an endeavor. I still believe we'll get there eventually but not without some serious growing pains.
 
Shuttle was '70s tech in a '80s wrapper. IT SHOULD NOT COME BACK.

We do need a space program tho. NASA spends tens of billions a year on what?
Leave atmospheric research to NOAA, leave politics to The State Department, and NASA needs to focus on space.
 
J32P said:
What? Your sentence doesn't even make sense (to me)! It's a rocket, for one. Please watch "NOVA.scienceNOW season 5, Episode 1 (can we make it to Mars?) before responding and/or telling me it's not. For two, it's being tested on the ISS in 2014 and I don't think that's a satellite either. Three, this...


VASIMR spacecraft concept design

VASIMR_spacecraft.jpg


Also, ask your GF, it's not always about thrust, sometimes it's about technique more then anything!
Last thing, sometimes we use things meant for one thing, for another, and it works better!
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That is good for space based 0 resistant thrust, but to get to space, it is all about thrust and weight. Only exception is a place/spacecraft combo, which reaches 100-120k feet with aero lift, and limited thrust, but even then you have to get from there to 400k feet and above as well as mach 15+ with thrust, while overcoming gravity, and atmospheric resistance.

Ion propulsion is something else NASA has tried, but it's max thrust is the equivalent of a piece of paper in your hand.
 
No, if yoru going to bring back the shuttles, build a couple of new ones with upgraded tech and use lessons learned to remove some of the bugs discovered in the shuttle system.
 
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