The Space Shuttle Must Be Stopped

[damiandoan]

The Space Shuttle Must Be Stopped (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101030210-418518,00.html) By GREGG EASTERBROOK

Interesting read. I can't say that I am that knowledgeable on the subject. Can any one here refute, dicuss, or analyze this article.

DD

[Foxman]

I've read the article, it makes my blood boil. The same type of close mindedness expressed in this article comes from the same type of person who didn't want Columbus to sail the ocean for fear that he'd just fall off of the edge. Unfortunately there is a cost for everything, and sadly, sometimes that means paying with your life, we've seen it happen to astronauts, pilots, soldiers, etc. The gains that we make are worth the risk and the price that we sometimes pay. I for one want to see the program continue, I hope to one day see humans set foot on Mars, and hope that one day after I'm gone we make it out of this solar system. More importantly, those 7 brave astronauts would want the program to continue.

Fox

[Elmo T]

I think this debate can go on and on. I think that some things can be accomplished with un-manned probes and such. But nothing can replicate man's experience in space or the abilities, both mental and physical, that man brings to the task.


"All of a sudden, space isn't friendly. All of a sudden, it's a place where people can die. . . . Many more people are going to die. But we can't explore space if the requirement is that there be no casualties; we can't do anything if the requirement is that there be no casualties."

— Isaac Asimov, regards the Challenger investigation, on CBS television show 48 Hours, 21 April 1988.

And one more...

"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world." -Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden

[RichK]

Good quotes, Elmo.

This article reminds me of the idiots calling for an auto racing ban after Earnhardt's death. However, our space program could be so much more efficient. Hopefully criticism will push NASA in that direction. There are alot of creative ways to get payloads into orbit cheaply, and I'd like to see NASA investing in those.

[mnkywrch]

I kinda see the shuttle as the pickup truck of space travel.

There's a use for it... but is there a need to send the pickup truck every time - when, on some occasions, we just need (the equivalent of) a compact car to get people to/from the ISS?

[JoeBob]

There's a lot of broad generalizations being made. For example, he states that "Two out of three fatal accidents in flight were with space shuttles." That is true. However, this was the 113th flight of the shuttle. I couldn't find data on the total number of Russian manned space flights, but the United States has flown 144 manned missions. If 80% of our flights have been with the shuttle program, the law of averages dictates that we'd also have the most problems during the shuttle program. I don't know the numbers, but it isn't unreasonable to guess that about 2/3 of manned missions have been flown using the shuttle.

As for the technology of the shuttle, I'd have to agree with him. I think the lack of new technology has been one of the biggest dissapointments of the shuttle program. However, this is not NASA's doing. It is a direct results of repeated cutbacks in funding. The fact of the matter is that when the the Shuttle was originally designed and built, it was built almost entirely with "off the shelf parts." That wasn't because NASA didn't have the desire to innovate, it was because NASA didn't have the budget to innovate. They were given the mandate to "keep flying into to space - but do it cheap." And these days, they're being told, "Thats pretty cheap, but see if you can do it cheaper." You can't cut funding and increase expectations at the same time. It just doesn't work.

The end of the cold war has hit NASA hard. The space race was never about exploration. It was about showing off how powerful our missiles were. If our missiles could put a man on the moon, think about what they could do to Red Square! Once we landed on the moon, we were like Wil E. Coyote when he caught the road runner. We'd done what we set out to do, and didn't know what to do next. Add in factors like the Vietnam War and a gas crisis, and you've got the formula for doing something barely better than "good enough."

What this country needs is a bold vision for a future in space. Saying, "We want to fly to Mars" is great. But, saying it isn't enough. You have to fund it, and you have to fund it well, and despite what the critics say, it will benefit the world to do it.

The benefit of flying to the moon wasn't showing off that we could get there. It was the technology that was developed in order to do it safely. If you want to see the benefits of the space program, here's a great place to start: http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/ You'll be amazed at the stuff you find. It ranges from cancer fighting technology to the padding in football helmets. (Too bad Jeff Gordon never thanks NASA for the scratch resistant lenses in his Ray-Bans. They're the ones who developed the technology.)

In the end, don't point your finger at the shuttle program. Point it at Congress for not having the vision, or the funding to do something better.

[devilmaster]

What a load of garbage. Serious, serious garbage.

Don't believe this yahoo has any valid points. He is not 'in the know'. Two or three glaring points I noticed made me believe that this article was written as fear mongering alone.

"Probably a Russian rocket will need to go up to bring them home." - Uhh, anyone who has watched CNN in the past days, or anyone who is a buff on space exploration, would know that the International Space station carries a Soyuz space capsule as a lifepod for the 3 people living on the space station. This is not new.

"Switching to unmanned rockets for payload launching and a small space plane for those rare times humans are really needed would cut costs, which is why aerospace contractors have lobbied against such reform." - Well, after Challenger stopped space flight for the shuttle fleet for three years, NASA returned alot of unmanned payload flights to rockets and up to this day, this continues. So if aerospace companies lobby against it, they aren't doing a good job.

"In two decades of use, shuttles have experienced an array of problems—engine malfunctions, damage to the heat-shielding tiles—that have nearly produced other disasters" - He makes this statement without giving any proof. It would be like me saying that the old IRL cars, if crashed more, would have produced more injuries. Its a statment thrown out, yet not backed up. A high school student would lose points from an English teacher for doing this.

"The Soviet space program also built a shuttle, called Buran, with almost exactly the same dimensions and capacities as its American counterpart. Buran flew to orbit once and was canceled, as it was ridiculously expensive and impractical." - This statement is flat out wrong. The first shuttle flew in 88. The project was officially halted in 93, yet had slowed down for a couple years. Hmmm. I think something big happened in the Soviet Uni..uhh Russia during that time, no? He took the events that happened over those years and used those to make a statment which implies that they cancelled it for no other reason than what he said.

"Throwaway rockets can fail too." - On this point I will agree. I went looking for it, but couldn't find the CNN article that had past Space disasters. It was on their site saturday, showing the failures in the past. A significant amount of rockets had been destroyed, a few of them in the past 10 years.

Anyways, I could go on. But whats the point? I made my real point that this guy wrote an article with no research, and did it to fearmonger. Nothing else.

Steve

[JoeBob]

The other thing that "we should only launch unmanned spacecraft" misses out on are the plethora of scientific experiments that require humans to operate. The 7 Columbia crew members spend 14 days conducting scientific experiments. The entire purpose of their mission was research. You couldn't just launch a rocket to do what they did.

Another great case for humans in space is the Hubble Telescope. Without humans in space, the entire thing would have been a huge waste of time and money. Instead, we first were able to repair its problems, and as technology has improved, we've been able to visit the telescope and make upgrades. It is doing things today that would have been impossible when it launched - even if everything had worked properly from the beginning. Columbia had been scheduled to make another visit to Hubble in the coming years. If we relied on unmanned spacecraft, we'd be building and launching entirely new equipment, rather than just upgrading what we have. And, the costs of doing that would probably mean we wouldn't do it at all.

If we could find a way to eliminate the risk to humans, I'd be all for it. But, at the end of the day, there's certain things we need humans to accomplish. If the writer of that article isn't interested, thats fine. But, I'm glad there are people who are.

[DjDrOmusic]

I'm not going to debate anyone on their opinions of the space program, but speaking purely from a unique perspective of someone who has lost a relative in the program(Roger Chaffee, Apollo 1), I am ready to launch for Mars. Yes it was a tragedy, it always is when someone dies, but using this same rationale, then we should not playing football, baseball, basketball, racing cars, we shouldn't be pumping gas, or driving to the store. We shouldn't be eating food, we could choke, for that matter we shouldn't be breathing the air outside, we could get lung cancer or a deadly virus. Using this line of thinking we should all be in pressurized, sterile suits that would keep us safe from the elements, but then again there would be none of those if it weren't for the space program!

[Napoleon]

this article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22810-2003Feb4?language=printer


Has this quote regarding the guy who wrote the article DD links to

"This time, however, NASA officials appear more open with the public in the way they are conducting their news briefings. We have some previous experience with how NASA responds to criticism. Back in 1991, we wrote about Gregg Easterbrook blasting the space program in the New Republic ("Space Lemons"), The Washington Post ("Lost in Space") and the Los Angeles Times ("Radio Shack's Computers Are More Advanced Than the Shuttle's").

NASA fired back with an eight-page government report attacking Easterbrook – although, with the exception of one mistake admitted by the journalist, the other points involved conflicting interpretations of data.

"One of the bad signs about NASA is that instead of fixing themselves, they dedicate all this time and energy to complaining about being criticized," Easterbrook said at the time. He had considerable standing, having written a 1980 Washington Monthly article questioning the safety of NASA's solid-booster rockets, six years before the Challenger blew up."

[cart7]

originally posted by mnkywrch

I kinda see the shuttle as the pickup truck of space travel.

I agree. Too many trips going up that could just as easily and more cheaply be done unmanned. I'd keep a couple of them on the pads and launch ready as emergency space repair vehicles or rigged to do specialized jobs for companies that would pay part of the cost. Also, by keeping 2 launch ready, if a launch failure like just happened happens, the second could be sent up to inspect, make possible repairs or be used to evac the astronauts from the stricken vehicle.

[mnkywrch]

Originally posted by cart7
I agree. Too many trips going up that could just as easily and more cheaply be done unmanned. I'd keep a couple of them on the pads and launch ready as emergency space repair vehicles or rigged to do specialized jobs for companies that would pay part of the cost. Also, by keeping 2 launch ready, if a launch failure like just happened happens, the second could be sent up to inspect, make possible repairs or be used to evac the astronauts from the stricken vehicle.

I don't mind manned missions...

But why on earth can't we just build some Apollo capsulses for the modern age, complete with the modern equivalent of the Saturn 1-B rocket?

That's all we need for all those missions to send folks back & forth to the ISS, right?

[JoeBob]

The Russians have used their Soyuz capsules for moving people back and forth between the shuttle and ISS. The shuttle's missions to ISS have involved crew exchanges, but more importantly have brought equipment, supplies, and new components to ISS, while bringing completed experiments, used equipment and waste back to earth.

Supplies can be sent via an unmanned rocket, capable of docking with the station, but components and equipment is best delivered and installed with the shuttle. (A shuttle docking is also a lower-risk docking, as it is guided by humans who can actually see everything that is going on, as opposed to a computer guiding an unmanned rocket. Mir suffered significant damage when an unmanned rocket had problems docking and crashed into it.)

[mnkywrch]

Originally posted by JoeBob
Supplies can be sent via an unmanned rocket, capable of docking with the station, but components and equipment is best delivered and installed with the shuttle. (A shuttle docking is also a lower-risk docking, as it is guided by humans who can actually see everything that is going on, as opposed to a computer guiding an unmanned rocket. Mir suffered significant damage when an unmanned rocket had problems docking and crashed into it.)

No problem.

Remember the moon missions?

You know - how the lunar lander was stored under the command module, and how the command module would turn around & dock with the lander?

Why can't you have the American Soyuz capsule dock with (basically) a cargo module... then that combination docks with the ISS?

Don't get me wrong - I recognize an occasional need for the Shuttle... perhaps even the Columbia mission. (Yes, I recall SpaceLab.) What I don't understand is the need for it on every flight.

I mean, wouldn't it be cheaper (than $500 million a flight) & safer to use a one-time-only capsule to take people to/from the ISS?

[JoeBob]

Your model can't deliver a new solar array, or a truss, or relocate components, or attach a new research package to the outside of the station.

If you want to learn how the station will be assembled, here's a great read: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/assembly/index.html There you'll learn about the various manned and unmanned vehicles being used to assemble the station, as well as all of the stages of assembly.

As for doing science in space, you remember SpaceLab, but you don't seen to be aware of Spacehab, who manufactures its modern cousins. In fact, their newest lab, the "Research Double Module" was on board Columbia. It was twice the size of their previous research module. They've also provided other pressurized labs for the shuttle's cargo bay. If you want to learn about those you can check out http://www.spacehab.com

[oddlycalm]

Originally posted by JoeBob
You can't cut funding and increase expectations at the same time. It just doesn't work.

Well, you are obviously not a politician (which you should take as a compliment).;) All I ever seem to hear about these days is wildly ambitious goals in conjuction with tax cuts. Whether it's NASA or the local grade school you are right, it just doesn't work that way.

[spirit_of_99]

It didn't look like anyone posted the link to Easterbrook's 1980 article. You can read it here (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/8004.easterbrook.html) .

I have read both articles, and I think it's worth reading the 1980 article first - it helps understand his points in the recent Time article.

Personally, I haven't made up my mind on this issue. When I first saw the news on Columbia, I immediately asked myself, "why do we even bother with this stuff anymore?" But I also understand that we need to continue to explore, that it's part of being human. But unlike most of the rest of you, I think Easterbrook makes some good points. The 1980 article is amazingly prescient and worth the time to read.

I'll also say that if you think Gregg Easterbrook is an idiot or uninformed, you're sorely mistaken. I've followed his work a bit, and while I completely understand people not agreeing with his viewpoints (I certainly don't agree with everything, especially his views on SUVs, which he's been on CNBC lately discussing), I view him as a very intelligent guy - something of a guru. He tackles an amazing variety of topics with aplomb. He's a fellow at the Brookings Institution, a senior editor at the New Republic, and a contributing editor at the Atlantic Monthly and Washington Monthly. He also writes a great column breaking down each week of NFL action on ESPN.com's Page2, called Tuesday Morning Quarterback. Like I said, he tackles a lot of stuff very intelligently.

By the way, I'm not related to him or even know him. I'm just a fan. ;)

[RaceGrrl]

With all due respect, Spirit, Easterbrook may be a well rounded writer and may be reasonably well informed, but the fact that he can write in an understandable manner about a variety of topics does not make him a guru.

I'd guess that JoeBob is at least as informed, if not more so, than Easterbrook is on the space program.

[spirit_of_99]

Originally posted by RaceGrrl
With all due respect, Spirit, Easterbrook may be a well rounded writer and may be reasonably well informed, but the fact that he can write in an understandable manner about a variety of topics does not make him a guru.

I'd guess that JoeBob is at least as informed, if not more so, than Easterbrook is on the space program.

I can write in an understandable manner about a variety of topics, too, but I don't consider myself a guru - I'm sorry that word is the focal point of your response. I don't want to waste anyone's time referencing all the articles he's written that make a whole lot of sense to me. I'm just saying that if one is interested in actually finding out who this guy is, you can do so, instead of blindly accusing him of being a "yahoo", a "fearmongerer" and writing without doing research, as others have done. All I'm trying to do is to protect this guy, who I happen to think is a pretty intelligent guy who's viewpoint I respect. Not necessarily agree with all the time, but respect.

I don't know anything about JoeBob. He could be the manager of the Shuttle program for all I know. I just happen to know that all else equal, I think Easterbrook makes good points and is very thoughtful about what's going on in society. And, FWIW, if anyone bothers to read the 1980 article or some of the other writing I've seen that he does about space travel, I think you'll find that he clearly has more than a cursory knowledge of what it's all about.

[JoeBob]

Actually, reading what he wrote, he wasn't all that close with his predictions. The only place he was close was with costs, but as I wrote earlier, NASA was constantly pressured to promise more, at a lower cost. I could argue the rest pretty well, but somebody else already has, in a lot better words than I ever could. Here's a link to Columbia's "Eulogy" given by Robert Crippen, who was pilot on Columbia's first mission: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030207columbia/