Apollo Astronauts to Congress: Bring Back the Space Shuttles

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
75,399
Admittedly it is an uphill battle, but that is not going to stop two famous astronauts from proposing halting the retirement of the space shuttles. Gene Cernan and Neil Armstrong told Congress to get NASA back into the business of transporting its own astronauts into space and not to depend on other nations for a lift.

"Get the shuttle out of the garage," Cernan told members of the House of Representatives' Committee on Science, Space and Technology. "It's in its prime of its life. How could we just put it away?"
Click to expand...
 
Let's bring back the X projects but this time put them under DARPA and bid development out to contests and crowd source some of the tech. We should be able to build a new shuttle for under $1 billion and get the whole country involved in developing the space program. Sadly bringing the shuttles back out of mothball retirement isn't the answer.
 
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.
 
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.
 
SamuraiInBlack said:
Maybe with nuclear power?
Click to expand...

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.
 
There is one current way to put a large payload into orbit with nuclear power. You put a big steel plate on the bottom of a massive ship, and start detonating nuclear weapons underneath it.

:)
 
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.
Click to expand...

I agree. It would be cool to eventually visit and even inhabit other planets/solar systems, but we are nowhere remotely close to doing that, so for now our money would be much better spent on robots and probes (which are becoming more capable all the time).

The only thing humans have been doing in space that robots had trouble with was making repairs, and apparently they can do that now too
 
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.
Click to expand...

What about a hybrid design then that incorporates both? Or would it be too heavy?
 
Jimmy the Greek said:
Should we be looking at wormhole technology, instead of convention propulsion systems?
Click to expand...

We should be looking at wormhole jump drives, warp drives, matter teleportation, and matter energy conversion. All the stuff on Star Trek. The problem is that NASA and every other space organization has absolutely no involvement in the basic physics research needed to develop these technologies.
 
Even if they wanted to use the shuttles again, it's too late. There are no external tanks left, and the shuttles have already been heavily disassembled.
 
lol , actually the only concern of the Apollo team is, if we are going to space, lets do it on our own, if there is really no other way yet, then get the shuttles out of the garage til we have, or until the so called private sector gets there by 2015, which they honestly doubt. they just dont like the idea of the US relying on others to give us a lift, wont you agree on that?
 
Screw the shuttles, just go right for the starship. All we need is a few dilithium crystals.
 
Jimmy the Greek said:
Should we be looking at wormhole technology, instead of convention propulsion systems?
Click to expand...

IIRC to open a 3' diameter (yes, 3 *feet*) wormhole would require the energy contained in (and this is only vague so I could be off by a factor of 10,000 or more) at least one JOVIAN mass.
 
I agree in the sense that we can't really afford to go any amount of time without the ability to put people into space on our own. We've only been relying on the Russians for a few months and they already dropped the ball - with talks going on now about possibility leaving the space station uninhabited for the first time in 10 years - LAME.

If bringing the space shuttles back is the only viable short-term solution that gets us back into space NOW then fine.

What I don't really understand is why they can't just adapt existing extremely functional cargo launch rockets (the kind that launch government satellites into space all the damn time) into something that can actually carry people? If you made a crew pod that was the same size as existing satellites then I would think you could do it with very little modifications. These rockets are already putting satelites into geostationary orbits 20,000+ miles above ground. The ISS at less than 300 miles above the surface is a joke in comparison. So what's the fucking holdup? I understand that cargo launch rockets have a failure rate closer to 1/50 compared to 1/100 for the shuttles but going into space is risky and we shouldn't let that fact hold us back.
 
The answer is: Vasimr (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma) rocket(s)

Or

Water Vapor Thrusters

Or

Teleportation (hee,hee)

Or

prayer (no, seriously, try it!)
 
J32P said:
Water Vapor Thrusters
Click to expand...

That made me think of those "rockets" where you pump air into a bottle and it launches...:D

I wonder if that would work on a large enough scale... The pressure needed might mean that the walls of the rockt would make it too heavy to fly :(
 
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.
Click to expand...

This right here. I am glad they put that obsolete money pit out of its misery. I believe we can do way better for way cheaper with the level of tech we have at our disposal.
 
What ever happened too those lift vehicles they developed to replace the shuttle and then were defunded when half complete.
 
Vasimr is meant for satellites, not rockets. It doesnt have the thrust capability to lift a rocket.
 
What we need to do is develop a system to harvest and employ H3. Also colonize the moon.
 
txaggies07 said:
Vasimr is meant for satellites, not rockets. It doesnt have the thrust capability to lift a rocket.
Click to expand...

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!
 
I am a huge supporter of the space program but bringing back the space shuttle at this point would be a colossal mistake.

The real problem here is that we did not have a replacement in the pipeline far enough back that it would be ready to take the shuttle's place once we shut it down. Bringing it back wouldn't fix anything, two wrongs don't make a right. Our best bet right now is to get a new heavy lift and human capable space capsule/ship/whatever ready as soon as we can.
 
While I understand the futility of reusing the shuttle, this will make you just a little sad.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-awesome-images-that-will-make-you-mourn-space-shuttle/

My Favorite:
Odds are you're at work right now, reading this instead of collating or conglomerating or whatever adults with real jobs are supposed to do. Also, odds are your cell phone has a camera in it. So let's perform a quick social experiment: Fire it up, and take a self-portrait of you just doing your job, right now.
How'd that picture turn out?
Does that gripping image of you making crude pixel-tits in Excel fill onlookers with awe and wonder? Does that photograph of you quietly mourning the death of the last Red Bull capture the insanity, beauty and existential terror of mankind's progress?
No?
Funny, because when Clay Anderson, flight engineer for Expedition 15 tried this same experiment at his job ...

HTRlf.jpg


... it totally did all of those things like a motherfucker.
Click to expand...
 
I'm in for a redesign; new tech, modern technology, but not this flying piece of box we call a shuttle.
 
I think the Russians were smart when after blatantly copying the shuttle, they immediately shit canned it.
 
Spidey329 said:
I think the Russians were smart when after blatantly copying the shuttle, they immediately shit canned it.
Click to expand...

It is believed the Soviets never understood the logic and reasons we created STS to begin with. Buran was just a side mound payload for Energia. They were both canned because a lack of money in the economy during both era's.
 
wtiger said:
What ever happened too those lift vehicles they developed to replace the shuttle and then were defunded when half complete.
Click to expand...

Orbital Space Plane, X33/VentureStar, The 'Crew Exploration Vehicle' proposals?

Ares 1 performance shortfalls for the past several years forced Orion to be redesigned once the new performance baselines were known. I think the current baseline had two different versions of Orion, one for earth orbit, and lunar missions. The crew size for both versions are thought to be 4 to 6.
Ares V could not use RS-68 and had to switch to SSME, because of base-heating issues from the SRBs. Altair is a powerpoint.

The SpaceX Dragon and Boeing's CST-100 are in development. The next Dragon flight is excepted to dock with ISS in December, or early next year. CST-100 could fly in a few years.
 
ThisIsTheNewSound said:
I am a huge supporter of the space program but bringing back the space shuttle at this point would be a colossal mistake.

The real problem here is that we did not have a replacement in the pipeline far enough back that it would be ready to take the shuttle's place once we shut it down. Bringing it back wouldn't fix anything, two wrongs don't make a right. Our best bet right now is to get a new heavy lift and human capable space capsule/ship/whatever ready as soon as we can.
Click to expand...

The Human Space Flight Program is not important with The Beltway, since the moon race or the collapse of the Soviet Union. The STS and HSF programs evolved to who call a "jobs program". It's unfortunate it happened this way.
 
for fucks sake, the United States of America is about to get its lights shut off and you are talking about overhauling the toys?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top