NASA: "The Shuttle Was a Mistake"

Jay Honeck wrote:

As for the shuttle? It was a great idea that, again, was so
*******ized by the bureaucrats and politicians that it lost its
purpose. It should have been replaced a decade ago.

And the AF bailed on it a long time ago in favor of regular
boosters. Back when I was working for Martin, they were
gearing up for the second (Vandenburg) launch base and some
classified missions, but that all got shelved.

Andrew Gideon wrote:
Bob Noel wrote:


There are a few other uses for a space station, not just a launch point
(I assume you mean space stations in general, not just the ISS).


We've a huge investment in satellites. Real on-site repair could be a time
and money saver if done well.

Do you have a clue where those satellites are in orbit compared to where
the space station is or where the shuttle can get to? It's not like
you can go up and grab a geosynch satellite and take it to the ISS for
repair and then plop it back in the right orbit easier.

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m...
Jay Honeck wrote:

As for the shuttle? It was a great idea that, again, was so
*******ized by the bureaucrats and politicians that it lost its
purpose. It should have been replaced a decade ago.

And the AF bailed on it a long time ago in favor of regular
boosters. Back when I was working for Martin, they were
gearing up for the second (Vandenburg) launch base and some
classified missions, but that all got shelved.

Sure they did. Everyone knows there is a secret military shuttle. Don't you
watch West Wing?

("Gig 601XL Builder" wrote)
Sure they did. Everyone knows there is a secret military shuttle. Don't
you watch West Wing?


I liked it much better when the coke/meth? addict was getting his half
finished scripts in late every month. g

So, who tipped the press?

CJ ....too easy.
Margaret .....naw.
The Prez ....maybe.
Toby .........too easy ...but fire him anyway :-)
National Security chick? ...not so much.
The evil Situation Room guy ...this is my guess.

The Republican candidate? ...We'll see.


Montblack
Same Bat Time. Same Bat Channel.

"Montblack" wrote in message
...
("Gig 601XL Builder" wrote)
Sure they did. Everyone knows there is a secret military shuttle. Don't
you watch West Wing?


I liked it much better when the coke/meth? addict was getting his half
finished scripts in late every month. g


So did I.



So, who tipped the press?

CJ ....too easy.

That's who I thought at first. But not now.


Margaret .....naw.

Maybe, but not on purpose

The Prez ....maybe.

No... The Vice Prez, maybe. He is an idiot.


Toby .........too easy ...but fire him anyway :-)

No then he'll go to the Santos campaign. Which would be funny with Josh as
his boss.

National Security chick? ...not so much.

No... Too military.

The evil Situation Room guy ...this is my guess.

The DOD guy. No.


The Republican candidate? ...We'll see.



No, I don't think they'd queer the race like that.

cjcampbell wrote:
It is pretty easy to say the Shuttle or the ISS or Hubble or anything
else was a huge mistake; that the money would have been better spent
elsewhere. Of course, then you would have people saying that where the
money went instead was a huge mistake.

If Mr. Park or Mr. Griffin think those were mistakes, it behooves them
to say what would have been better.

I'm not either of those, but I consider myself a behoover.

The shuttle was a boondoggle. NASA couldn't afford to do squat after
the money for Apollo was pulled, so they searched and searched for
_something_ that _somebody_ would pay for. In steps the military.

"We'll pay for it if you design it so that it fits our mission
profile. We want something that can place a spy satellite (or other
stuff to be named later) exactly where we want it and then go back and
get it later."

Bingo. We'll build this huge monstrosity that can carry really big
payloads into low Earth orbit. Unfortunately, it can't really do much
else than that. Can't truly be entirely reusable since it's so darn
big that we need to bolt on this huge explosive tank of gas that's
thrown away every time.

What should they have done? Exactly what the real scientists wanted to
do. Continue the X-15 project to get to the point of developing an
actual reusable manned space plane. If you need to get people into
space, don't strap them down with enormous payloads. That just adds
to the complexities needed and makes for a dangerous vehicle. If you
need to get payload into space to rendevous with the people, you use
unmanned boosters.

Next step? Once you've got that, you're well on you way to being able
to build a truly working space station. One either in geo-synchronous
orbit or at L5. Of course, by this time we might have found that just
skipping the space station part and going straight for a permanent
presence on the Moon would have been better. There are lot's of ideas
for making a Moon base pay for itself. I think though that once we
get there, the real benefit will be something we haven't thought of
yet.

The bad part about the current Moon/Mars boondoggle is... well... Mars.
Ain't gonna happen. Mars is far away. Real far away. With tons of money
and resources we could go there. Once. Why bother? If, after spending
some time on the Moon, we find a good reason to go, then go!

Heck, you could have spent all the money "fighting poverty" (or
ignorance, or injustice, or whatever), and it probably would have been
even less effective in accomplishing those goals.

This sounds like, "Just throwing money at the schools isn't the answer".
I keep wondering where all these shining schools with super paid teachers
and 10 student class sizes with state of the art computers and clean
fancy lab equipment are that are still failing to teach kids...

--
Don Poitras

Recently, Kyle Boatright posted:

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
On 2 Oct 2005 05:04:08 -0700, "Jay Honeck" wrote
in . com::

The fact is, the ONLY long-term reason for a space station is for
use as a launch point for interplanetary (or, eventually,
interstellar) travel.

Please provide the name of one other single human endeavor that has
brought so many nations together for a CONSTRUCTIVE purpose.

The International Spaced Station is a start on the "long term" goal
of peaceful coexistence among the nations of our would, if not a
meaningful scientific achievement.

You could argue that this is the UN's function.

Only tangentially. The UN is primarily a forum to address grievances in a
peaceful manner, not to work collaboratively on a complex technological
problem that could benefit the human race.

Also, the countries
which are participating in the ISS generally are not the bomb
throwing loonies who are the real concern in today's world.

True, its participants are the bomb-dropping loonies who *should* be the
real concern in today's world, largely because we're creating the need for
the existance of "bomb trowing loonies" (and in more than one instance
arming them) in the first place. But, what does that have to do with the
value of the ISS?

In hindsight (always 20/20, right?), I'd say that the shuttle and the
ISS were both boondoggles. The shuttle was built in order to
transport stuff to a space station that didn't exist until 20 years
after the shuttle's launch. The US joined the ISS effort because NASA
needed a space station to validate the shuttle. Circular logic and
justifications like these have cost US taxpayers hundreds of billions
of dollars.

The shuttle was, and largely still is, a platform to test the viability of
reusable space vehicles (the notion of this kind of vehicle seems to be as
deeply imbedded in our psyche as flying cars). Giving it missions such as
supplying the ISS is to provide further knowledge about working in space.
We are still quite primitive in that area, as the most recent in-flight
shuttle repairs show. There is still much to learn, and at this point,
there is no other space vehicle on the planet capable of providing the
same quality of "classroom" in which to obtain that education.

The ISS was, and largely still is, a platform to perform low-gravity
experiments and to address the effects of long-term space living on the
human body. A manned mission to Mars (much less anything further) would be
an impossibility without the information and systems resulting from these
experiments. And, the notion of long-term space travel is also deeply
embedded in our psyche, so the value of the ISS should be self-evident; do
it or give up the idea of long-term manned space travel.

Neil

In article ,
Ron Garret wrote:

All these things could be done for a lot less money without the/a space
station.

how?

The materials and imaging work could all be done with unmanned
spacecraft.

Of course it could. But for a lot less money?


The value of additional physiological work is questionable. [snip]

I guess that depends on your vision. Do you really think we should stay
on this earth? Do you really lack the vision to see humans in space?

--
Bob Noel
no one likes an educated mule

In article ,
Bob Noel wrote:

In article ,
Ron Garret wrote:

All these things could be done for a lot less money without the/a space
station.

how?

The materials and imaging work could all be done with unmanned
spacecraft.

Of course it could. But for a lot less money?

The way to think of this is that very few scientific experiments or
engineering tests are done anymore using human manipulations, human
observations, or directly human-operated equipment -- EVEN ON EARTH.

Essentially all experimental equipment these days in most any field you
want to name is computer operated or controlled (the experimenters are
at keyboards); the samples are loaded or otherwise manipulated by
mechanical elements (i.e., robotic manipulators); measurements are
taken by sensors or cameras (which are immensely more capable, accurate,
and reliable than any human observer); and the data is captured,
recorded. and transmitted electronically (which means it can be
immensely detailed, permanent, and subject to repeated and ever more
detailed examination by multiple experimenters simultaneously) -- EVEN
IN TERRESTRIAL LABORATORIES.

Given this, in essentially any field you can name there's no need, and
it makes no sense, to incur the immense extra difficulties of putting
live human experimenters into space with the experimental apparatus used
there. It's just a dumb and wasteful thing to do.

In article ,
AES wrote:

The materials and imaging work could all be done with unmanned
spacecraft.

Of course it could. But for a lot less money?

The way to think of this is that very few scientific experiments or
engineering tests are done anymore using human manipulations, human
observations, or directly human-operated equipment -- EVEN ON EARTH.

That is certainly a way to look at it. It's wrong, but hey....

The reality is that experiments and tests are setup manually. Many are
performed or conducted with computers or machines. But they still
have to setup, debugged, etc etc.

--
Bob Noel
no one likes an educated mule