NASA Cutting Funding on Mars Projects

GoldenTiger said:
kool-aid
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slap-through-the-pc-monitor-7.gif
 
mope54 said:
Get their what? :confused:

This is strange news coming on the heels of discovering the closest thing to a habitable planet. Or perhaps we'll redirect money toward getting to that one? I doubt it but possible.
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Much as I hate to admit it,the odds of us discovering the secret to interstellar travel are pretty long,perhaps some time in the very distant future. So getting to any already habitable planet would be a bit of a problem. I'd say the odds of us developing the technology to terraform Mars would be a better bet.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Remember, they attacked us, not the other way around. America is NOT some "evil" imperialist nation. We're defending ourselves, and people who want a free standard of living rather than oppressive nation-states that pretty much do whatever the hell they want to/with you. In most cases America is not the aggressor, and when we have been, it's been for good reason (at the time).
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Do you seriously believe that?? That the world wide hate upon USofA (Sorry dude, America is a continent) is unfounded?? Iraq and Afghanistan and the hundreds of thousands of their citizens dead under the US invasions to those lands would like to have a word you.

OT, those of you guys thinking we would go to mars and found a new civilization, sorry, at best we will found an extension to our own, that is, rape the crap out of the new planet natural resources.

Which in the end is why this (landing in mars) won't happen on our collective life times, until a single country or private corporation for that matter, which every passing days is coming to be more or less like the same anyway, develops the means to get there on their own, to claim the riches for their own, we won't even be landing in the moon (again) any time soon.
 
krogen said:
They want to eradicate the Jews. Why? Because the Jews claim that Israel is their land. It has been for a few decades, but before then it was a Muslim territory for hundreds of years. Going back further in time, it was Jews...

Who's to say that America, "the Big Brother", is to fix this s***? Who are we? Are we God? Who is right here? Who is wrong?

You can't say that Muslims are wrong in this case. If you do then you must be taking one side because of religious / biblical beliefs.

Jews lost their land long ago. It is not their anymore.

Also, listen to some of what Bin Laden had to say. Not just the U.S. propaganda war machine. The fact is, we have been in their holy land. We built bases there. After 9/11, The CIA concluded, what Bin Laden said himself. We were attacked because of our presence in the middle east.
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You are correct in that the US should not be involved. But any claim that Israel does not belong to the Jews is laughable. The Jews took the Holy Land back via, politics, violence, and outright purchase. Same way it was taken from them, same way they took it in the first place. It is theirs as long as they can hold it. Kind of like the Europeans and American Indians, or Australian Aborigines.
 
GoldenTiger said:
You guys are misinformed whackos, that's the only reply I have.
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Sorry to burst your bubble, the one who is misinformed here is you, learn some US history, at least you will be able to understand.

The United States military has been intervening in other countries for a long time. In 1898, it seized the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico from Spain, and in 1917-18 became embroiled in World War I in Europe. In the first half of the 20th century it repeatedly sent Marines to "protectorates" such as Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. All these interventions directly served corporate interests, and many resulted in massive losses of civilians, rebels, and soldiers.
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http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html


Also, it wouldn't do you any harm to read these, the hate upon USofA is not unfounded, it's the result of exercising more than 100 years of aggressive imperialism


For the sake of what has become a very very poor attempt at brevity, or in recognition of the precedent set by the Nuremberg Tribunal and principles laid out under the UN charter, these notes will mostly focus on post-WWII history - though it would seem imperative to include interventions that fly in the face of the popular misconception that the United States ended its imperial project at the end of the Spanish-American war. There were military involvements during the 1890s by the United States Government ("USG" hereafter: it's not like it's your or somebody else's fault -- it's an institution with its own prerogatives which rarely accord with those it preposterously claims to represent) in Argentina, Chile, Haiti, Hawaii, Nicaragua, China, Korea, Panama, Samoa, in extremely brutal labour conflicts within the nation, and something akin to a war on working Americans waged by the National Association of Manufacturers that will otherwise go undiscussed. The Phillipines makes a decent representative example of the US' first official exercise in colonial imperialism and formal empire [*], also referred to as "civilizational imperialism" - a project we're presently repeating.
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http://www.flagrancy.net/timeline.html

Showing 1-20 of 100 recently added events: next 20

4/19 - US Banker Praises Unregulated Financial Policies of Venezuelan Dictator, 1985, posted by blackmax
10/25 - Christian Broadcaster Calls for Assassination of Venezuelan President, August 22, 2005, posted by blackmax
10/25 - Deputy Intelligence Director Recommends US Air Strikes against Nicaraguan Military Targets, December 14, 1984, posted by blackmax
10/16 - US Ambassador: US Will Subject Chileans to ‘Utmost Deprivation and Poverty’ after Allende Takes Office, September 1970, posted by blackmax
10/16 - US Diplomat: Brutal Caribbean Dictator ‘Fine’ with America, After May 30, 1961, posted by blackmax
10/3 - Rightists Assert Control of El Salvador’s Post-Coup Armed Forces, October 15-16, 1979, posted by blackmax
11/16 - US Diplomat Joseph Wilson Faces Down Iraqis, Prevents Americans from Being Taken Hostage, September 20, 1990, posted by blackmax
2/6 - US Wargame Anticipates Looming Gulf War, June 9-August 4, 1990, posted by newmex
12/4 - Bush Praises Acting Ambassador in Iraq for Heroism, November 29, 1990, posted by blackmax
11/28 - Regime of Carlos Humberto Romero Overthrown in Coup, October 15, 1979, posted by AJB
8/23 - US Assists Salvadoran Government in Creation of New Security Agencies, 1960s, posted by AJB
8/23 - USS ‘Stark’ Attacked by Iraqi Warplane, 37 Sailors Die; US Holds Iran Responsible, May 17, 1987 and After, posted by blackmax
8/19 - Cheney Secures Permission for US Forces to Attack Iraq from Saudi Arabia, August 5, 1990 and After, posted by blackmax
8/19 - US Intelligence Community Predicts Iraq Will Not Invade Kuwait, Mid-1990, posted by blackmax
8/12 - Defense Secretary Cheney Helps Plan Iraq Invasion, Late 1990, posted by blackmax
8/12 - National Intelligence Estimate Predicts Iraq will Withdraw Rather than Face US Invasion, Late December 1990, posted by blackmax
6/18 - British MP Files Complaint over Use of Diego Garcia in Rendition of ‘Ghost Detainees’, June 2, 2008, posted by blackmax
2/22 - CIA Organizes General Strike in Guyana, April, 1963, posted by Szamko
2/10 - Presidential Candidate Walter Rodney Assassinated, June 3, 1980, posted by Szamko
12/28 - President Bush Waives Restrictions on Iraq’s Access to US Funds, January 1990, posted by blackmax
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http://www.historycommons.org/project.jsp?project=us_interventions_project
 
wow way to go OT thread lock in 3...2...1
also
i dont think some of you know how much spin off tech we get/got from NASA
you do know any thing NASA comes up with is in the public-domain right?
also that computer your sitting at yea that was thanks to the push to make them smaller for Apollo
wile it might not seem like it NASA does a lot of good and insanely under funded
you know that bail out we gave the banks? that could of kept NASA funded and the shuttle flying for another 20 years

to the comments about a gas tank and a nozzle tech
the issue is it takes a MASSIVE amount of energy to get in to LEO even more for higher orbits and more of the moon, mars would take VERY big rockets to lift very little cargo
a big gas tank and a nozzle really is the best way short of a nuke to get that kind of energy atm
unless you can build a space elevator
 
Even before Phoenix was launched, the amount of new missions after MER and MSL were going to be sufficiently less, to the point of nothing. That day is not too far away, just a couple years. Speaking of MSL, the landing system known as 'Sky Crane' really needs to work correctly, or better than hoped. Or that day will come sooner than expected. Depressing outlook.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Amen.

We just need one big asteroid to come on a collision course with us and we'll be screwed because of no defense setup existing... or some of the "not so good" nations to get laser targeting mounted on satellites... and we're screwed.

Oh, and we'll fall behind on technology at a quicker pace too, without these research programs going.
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Funny you mention that because there is already one well on its way. Is called Apophis and it will be our best chance to test wether we can actually manipulate an asteroid on its way to earth. But the US gov't couldn't care less :(
 
Fuck NASA.
If NASA wants that money they can do what school systems do and have a bake sale!
The only way it will happen, If anything can get it done is free market capitalism. If there is any money to be made out of it, then fine, other wise it's a toxic rust bucket. There will be no return on money wasted there.
 
griff30 said:
Fuck NASA.
If NASA wants that money they can do what school systems do and have a bake sale!
The only way it will happen, If anything can get it done is free market capitalism. If there is any money to be made out of it, then fine, other wise it's a toxic rust bucket. There will be no return on money wasted there.
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um no?
or it would you know been done already
again NASA isnt just boosting things in to orbit
you really need go back see what things NASA has done for you
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off
so you need to stop using any thing thats on this page
 
griff30 said:
Fuck NASA.
If NASA wants that money they can do what school systems do and have a bake sale!
The only way it will happen, If anything can get it done is free market capitalism. If there is any money to be made out of it, then fine, other wise it's a toxic rust bucket. There will be no return on money wasted there.
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Like war?
 
Elios said:
wow way to go OT thread lock in 3...2...1
also
i dont think some of you know how much spin off tech we get/got from NASA
you do know any thing NASA comes up with is in the public-domain right?
also that computer your sitting at yea that was thanks to the push to make them smaller for Apollo
wile it might not seem like it NASA does a lot of good and insanely under funded
you know that bail out we gave the banks? that could of kept NASA funded and the shuttle flying for another 20 years

to the comments about a gas tank and a nozzle tech
the issue is it takes a MASSIVE amount of energy to get in to LEO even more for higher orbits and more of the moon, mars would take VERY big rockets to lift very little cargo
a big gas tank and a nozzle really is the best way short of a nuke to get that kind of energy atm
unless you can build a space elevator
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Actually, very on topic, it was mentioned that trimming US' defense budget would open funds for NASA, the point being that, if it was for the benefit of humanity, we would already be established in the moon and en route to mars, the problem is, right now, war is a better business.


Funny you mention that because there is already one well on its way. Is called Apophis and it will be our best chance to test wether we can actually manipulate an asteroid on its way to earth. But the US gov't couldn't care less
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Thank You, my country is the "path of risk" for the 2036 approach of that thing. :eek:
 
griff30 said:
You really hate the USA, don't you?
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Actually, no, not at all. I love the land and people that I grew up around/in. I Love myself some Texas and New York environments too (I have much family in both states).

That said, I do find it funny that when I speak only the truth ones uneducated response is "You hate America you damn terrorist!". If that's not the most common dumb ass American comment than I don't know what is...lol. Nothing I said was wrong even if it hurts your false pride. The growing hatred towards our country is definitely not the stuff they sell you on your paid for news/TV show.

More and more of the worlds hatred towards us (our Governments foreign policy) is starting or escalating because of our actions in the world ("Actions cause reactions/blowback" - CIA). Trust me, they don't just hate us because we're cool and super duper sexy awesome and we know it!

Seriously, They hate us because we drop bombs on theirs families heads (remember my stated facts on the size of our military industrial complex), pillage their land, in-debt their people, take what we want when we want, and on top of doing all that turn around and lie to the world about our/their actions, etc.

That said most governments (not just ours) are screwed beyond repair. I'm all for humanity but we need to fix how we're governed before something seriously devastating happens (again).
 
Great more budget cuts so we can continue to blow ourselves up.


Welcome to the Human Race.
 
yeah I love how people say we are not threatening towards Iran, if you look at a fucking map of Iran you will see it is completely surrounded by US bases. Imagine what we would do if China started building bases in Mexico and Canada???!?
 
Very sad

Nasa-funding.png


I would gladly volunteer an extra 1% tax on myself to help Nasa...I already donate to them as I can.
 
Xrave said:
Very sad

Nasa-funding.png


I would gladly volunteer an extra 1% tax on myself to help Nasa...I already donate to them as I can.
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Sadly the powers that be would rather see our legacy as a smoldering crater in the earth than a monument of the human condition on some far away land.
 
I never understood why the jump to Mars. We send probes and robots to check things out now. Lets concentrate on building proper orbiting stations and a few bases on the moon. We have got to have a better jumping off point than Earth, and the Moon would be a great place to start.

Lets figure out how to better explore asteroids for materials, and then bring them into an orbit around the moon to process. (You make a mistake and it crashes into the moon, no harm done.)

Spend more money on scientific research, to develop new materials or ways of converting/transmitting power. Lets get some kind of satellite system up that can tap into all the free energy pouring off the sun every second and transmit it down to the earth/moon.

Continue exploring outer planets with robotic missions. Getting a proper station built and bases on the moon would be a major accomplishment. Can you imagine having the option of moving to the moon/space station to work?

This BS about getting a man on Mars is just stupid. I could see trying to get men on Mars if it already had an oxygen rich atmosphere and could support life. But, considering our current technology level, it is the same as the moon. Lets develop a real, achievable plan, to build a stepping stone into future space exploration.
 
Krenum said:
Sadly the powers that be would rather see our legacy as a smoldering crater in the earth than a monument of the human condition on some far away land.
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why are there no dinosaurs? they didnt have a space program :(
 
VRMan said:
I never understood why the jump to Mars. We send probes and robots to check things out now. Lets concentrate on building proper orbiting stations and a few bases on the moon. We have got to have a better jumping off point than Earth, and the Moon would be a great place to start.

Lets figure out how to better explore asteroids for materials, and then bring them into an orbit around the moon to process. (You make a mistake and it crashes into the moon, no harm done.)

Spend more money on scientific research, to develop new materials or ways of converting/transmitting power. Lets get some kind of satellite system up that can tap into all the free energy pouring off the sun every second and transmit it down to the earth/moon.

Continue exploring outer planets with robotic missions. Getting a proper station built and bases on the moon would be a major accomplishment. Can you imagine having the option of moving to the moon/space station to work?

This BS about getting a man on Mars is just stupid. I could see trying to get men on Mars if it already had an oxygen rich atmosphere and could support life. But, considering our current technology level, it is the same as the moon. Lets develop a real, achievable plan, to build a stepping stone into future space exploration.
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Biggest problem there trying to figure out now is how to combat the solar radiation in deep space, right now our technology just isn't there. Also we have to figure out how to keep men from falling apart in a zero gravity environment, with no resistance on our muscular structure our bodies would become frail on long journeys through space.

But nevertheless we must continue to explore options and seek out new things.

"Man must explore, its a fundamental true to our nature".
 
I think we need to stop putting all of our time and money into the development of the next big iphone app and start planing out the expansion of our species.

All these little distractions are neat and fun, but do we really need them? No. They didn't have them in the 60's and shit got done.
 
If we are going to be burdened by high taxes and ridiculous amounts of government debt, I'd at least like an interplanetary spaceship to fucking show for it.
 
VRMan said:
Lets develop a real, achievable plan, to build a stepping stone into future space exploration.
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Two things.

1) You plan on developing this by...cutting budgets? Last time I checked, hard working, intelligent people aren't cheap.

2) You don't develop big jumps in technology by looking at the small picture. You set huge goals, and work toward them. You don't get this by cutting the budget of a group that has introduced many, many technological advancements.

Cutting the space shuttle program, I could at least see the point. NASA could have (not saying they were) been using it as a crutch, and holding them back from finding new ways to get into space. Not to mention the fact that the shuttles are old. Make them start over and find new ways of getting to space.

You can't find new things if you constantly remove their ability to get good talent.
 
BigJayDogg3 said:
Two things.

1) You plan on developing this by...cutting budgets? Last time I checked, hard working, intelligent people aren't cheap.

2) You don't develop big jumps in technology by looking at the small picture. You set huge goals, and work toward them. You don't get this by cutting the budget of a group that has introduced many, many technological advancements.

Cutting the space shuttle program, I could at least see the point. NASA could have (not saying they were) been using it as a crutch, and holding them back from finding new ways to get into space. Not to mention the fact that the shuttles are old. Make them start over and find new ways of getting to space.

You can't find new things if you constantly remove their ability to get good talent.
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i dont really think that killing the shuttles was a great idea at lest till there was replacement space plane or an upgrade plan
the AIRFRAMES of the shuttle are about as good as your going to get for its mission profile
the systems on them were VERY old but that could of been fixed
hell look at the B-52 some of the airframes are 50 years old lol or more :eek:
 
Elios said:
i dont really think that killing the shuttles was a great idea at lest till there was replacement space plane or an upgrade plan
the AIRFRAMES of the shuttle are about as good as your going to get for its mission profile
the systems on them were VERY old but that could of been fixed
hell look at the B-52 some of the airframes are 50 years old lol or more :eek:
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I don't quite look at space travel the way I do air travel.

B-52 has an issue that requires abandoning it, you jump out and pull a 'chute. Risky, but you have a relatively good chance of making it out of the plane without injury.

Space shuttle has an issue, you're stranded in space.
 
BigJayDogg3 said:
I don't quite look at space travel the way I do air travel.

B-52 has an issue that requires abandoning it, you jump out and pull a 'chute. Risky, but you have a relatively good chance of making it out of the plane without injury.

Space shuttle has an issue, you're stranded in space.
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ANY space craft has an issue your stranded in space
tell me how the shuttle is special?
 
and forgot lets look at Apollo 13 here as well they were DAMN lucky the heat shield wasnt damaged
so its not just the shuttle
how many 'issues' did Mir have?
 
BigJayDogg3 said:
Two things.

1) You plan on developing this by...cutting budgets? Last time I checked, hard working, intelligent people aren't cheap.

2) You don't develop big jumps in technology by looking at the small picture. You set huge goals, and work toward them. You don't get this by cutting the budget of a group that has introduced many, many technological advancements.

Cutting the space shuttle program, I could at least see the point. NASA could have (not saying they were) been using it as a crutch, and holding them back from finding new ways to get into space. Not to mention the fact that the shuttles are old. Make them start over and find new ways of getting to space.

You can't find new things if you constantly remove their ability to get good talent.
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I agree with you 100%, but I didn't say anything about budget cutting. If anything, my post was more of a case for increasing the budget, but coming up with an achievable plan that actually made headway into space and R&D.

The issues with the shuttles was the cost. NASA worked with contractors (aka private industry), to build and maintain them. You don't think they were getting gouged just like any other government contract? Turn it all over to the private industry to develop and compete for the government money (free market and all that). We, the taxpayers, get a much better return on our investment. Now, as to why they didn't start this years ago so we'd have something in place when the shuttles were retired? *shrug*

It still amazes me that so many corporations that benefited from those past discoveries aren't pushing their lobbyists to get more funding for NASA. That's research and development on the taxpayers dime, not theirs, so win-win. It's a shame that non-profit groups like The Planetary Society have to go in and try to lobby to get funding for them.
 
While I clearly remember the excitement of going to the moon, Mars (or any other planet) exploration brings problems to the table due to distance alone. We don't have the technology to get us there fast enough economically enough (though it sounds like the plasma engine is getting close to fruition.)

Forget interstellar travel for now...we're not even close.

Basically, sure we could go to Mars just to get to Mars, but what good would it do? We can't mine it, we can't grow food there, we can't expand civilization there.

Biologically, less time in space means fewer resources consumed, less radiation exposure, less bone density loss, and less time to for things to go wrong in general, so propulsion is the key.

So it seems to me that we would need the problems of drive speed and strength to be solved first, but I don't see that cutting NASA's budget is a way of getting us closer to that, even, unless we were to divert EVERYTHING they get to propulsion...and that's a viable idea because that would defintely affect everything else we'd need for this, and get us far closer to be able to use the solar system's resources to our best benefit.

Gaseous planets and their moons have fuel and water in abundance. Asteroids are rich in dense minerals. The space just out of our atmosphere provides more solar energy than we would even think about consuming in a million lifetimes. The building blocks of everything we need are just out of reach.

But how do we harvest these resources? How can we get to them and then safely bring them back to us without depleting the Earth of our needed natural resources that are quickly waning? Our current chemically-based engines simply aren't going to cut it, no matter how you look at it.

Propulsion is the problem we need to solve first.
 
Unless we get off this planet in a real way, the human race will go extinct. This is not a negotiable point. Furthermore, it doesn't matter if the sun comsumes us anyways because we will run out of natural resources before then.

My guess is we will implode long before then by destroying ourselves. What took our planet billions years to finally create (the human race), we will destroy it in a fraction of it.
 
krogen said:
*If* NASA had the money, they should focus on getting people on Mars, rather than sending rovers there. Much more exciting. (See Dr. Zubrin on YouTube... It isn't that complex of an undertaking.)
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The estimates for Bush I's Mars program were ~$500 billion+. Kinda hard to justify pumping up the aerospace industry with more cash after the Shuttle was over-promised and under-delivered by contractors.

Let's say we had gone to Mars in 1985 as was envisioned by the Apollo applications program. How much funding do you think there would have been for the Mariner/Pioneer/Viking/Voyager/Skylab/ISS programs? We might have been able to make it to Mars, but we probably would have ended up knowing less about the Solar System than we do now. The trajectory that took Voyager 2 past all the gas giants only comes up once every 175 years or so, and it was still a much smaller probe than NASA wanted because of budget cuts.

Brent_Justice said:
RIP American Space Exploration, it was nice while it lasted.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System

The Constellation program's Ares V heavy-lift rocket wouldn't have been ready until 2030. The SLS utilizes all the tech developed for Ares I (extended 5-segment Shuttle SRBs, J2-X engines, Orion crew module), can provide lift capacity equal to the Saturn V, and should be in service around 2017. SpaceX's Falcon/Dragon should be adequate for ISS crew rotations and resupply missions (and at less than half the price per launch of the Shuttle). The current mission lineup includes trips to the Earth-Moon Lagrange points, asteroid missions, and eventually missions to Mars's moons. A manned Mars landing would theoretically be possible using nuclear chemical propulsion and a vehicle constructed with 7 SLS launches, similar to the plan NASA conceived for a post-Apollo Mars mission in the 80s.

I'd personally be more worried about cuts to our unmanned programs. NASA and SpaceX want to use a modified Dragon capsule to drop a complete biology lab on Mars and possibly do a sample return mission. We need to be able to do something like that before we send people down, and unfortunately it's exactly the sort of thing that will be eliminated by these budget cuts.

Zubrin is right that the rovers haven't been able to do a whole lot of life-detection research on Mars, but that's largely because we're still working on the capability to land large payloads there. It has 1/3 Earth's gravity, but only 1% the atmosphere to slow you down. Take a look at the landing system they're using for the MSL Rover. Moreover, Zubrin has a tendency to underestimate the risks of spaceflight. We've done long-duration flights on the ISS, but the ISS is protected by Earth's magnetic field. If a solar flare hits you out in interplanetary space or on Mars (which has no magnetic field or any real atmospheric protection) you'd be cooked. Our current propulsion systems are also inadequate for the task. Once you leave you can't abort and you have to wait 8 months for the next Mars-Earth launch window to come home. Fuel and resources for the mission would need to be launched ahead of time (hopefully the astronauts land at the right spot on Mars...) or produced in-situ. We have a hard enough time reprocessing urine on the ISS, are we really ready to make rocket fuel on Mars?

Zubrin says waiting for electro-magnetic propulsion systems like VASIMR is just delaying the Mars program, but they're much safer than nuclear chemical propulsion and could greatly reduce the trip time (and actually give the crew a chance to abort to Earth at any point if something goes wrong). It will probably require an on-board nuclear reactor, but that's probably going to be the case with any serious Mars mission proposal. Unfortunately, the Juno mission and other NASA research into these propulsion systems was heavily cut during the last administration.

The Shuttle has been dragging NASA down for years, but now that it's gone we can start focusing on the future.
 
AnonymousUser said:
That said, I do find it funny that when I speak only the truth ones uneducated response is "You hate America you damn terrorist!". If that's not the most common dumb ass American comment than I don't know what is...lol. Nothing I said was wrong even if it hurts your false pride. The growing hatred towards our country is definitely not the stuff they sell you on your paid for news/TV show.
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I simply asked if you hated the USA. I never called you a terrorist. Actually I never insulted you nor did I say you were "uneducated". You directed that at me, someone with a masters degree. For a 17 day newb to this forum, that's not the brightest thing to do.
Welcome to the forum anyway threadcrapper.

Back on OP before you get the ban?

NASA may have given the world some technology but I don't think exploration of Mars is more important than using our funds for education. The future is our children, not an uninhabitable planet.
 
Elios said:
i dont really think that killing the shuttles was a great idea at lest till there was replacement space plane or an upgrade plan
the AIRFRAMES of the shuttle are about as good as your going to get for its mission profile
the systems on them were VERY old but that could of been fixed
hell look at the B-52 some of the airframes are 50 years old lol or more :eek:
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Well, I'm no engineer, but I think the stresses are probably magnitudes larger on the shuttle frames. I know they were built for it, but as to how many times they could keep doing it...

Retrofitting them would probably be just as costly as building a new ship. Plus we probably have developed new alloys since the 70's that could reduce weight while providing a stronger frame.
 
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