Space Shuttle Program to be Extended?

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
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NASA is looking into possibly extending the space shuttle’s service time beyond the planned retirement of 2010, according to a report from the Orlando Sentinel. With US and Russia relations strained in the wake of the Georgian conflict, NASA is facing increased pressure to use solutions that are not reliant on Russian resources.

The Russian invasion of neighboring Georgia has chilled relations between Washington and Moscow. The incursion has threatened NASA's carefully laid plans to rely on Russian spaceships to ferry astronauts to the international space station during the years between the shuttle's retirement and the maiden voyage of NASA's next generation of rocket in 2015.
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Maybe if our government stops saber rattling over this stupid Georgia shit.

This is the 21st century, the only right any government had to lead is the will of its people. If those regions no longer want to be under Georgian control, we should SUPPORT them leaving. Not try and stir up trouble. Yeah, Russia's tactics were heavyhanded, but so was unseating Saddam. If we're gonna say violence for a long term benefit is okay, we shouldn't be so two-faced about it.

Let Ossetia and Abkhazia join up with Russia. If its what they want, its their right.
 
NKDietrich said:
Maybe if our government stops saber rattling over this stupid Georgia shit.

This is the 21st century, the only right any government had to lead is the will of its people. If those regions no longer want to be under Georgian control, we should SUPPORT them leaving. Not try and stir up trouble. Yeah, Russia's tactics were heavyhanded, but so was unseating Saddam. If we're gonna say violence for a long term benefit is okay, we shouldn't be so two-faced about it.

Let Ossetia and Abkhazia join up with Russia. If its what they want, its their right.
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They invaded another country and annexed territory. How is that possibly reasonable?
 
NKDietrich said:
Maybe if our government stops saber rattling over this stupid Georgia shit.

This is the 21st century, the only right any government had to lead is the will of its people. If those regions no longer want to be under Georgian control, we should SUPPORT them leaving. Not try and stir up trouble. Yeah, Russia's tactics were heavyhanded, but so was unseating Saddam. If we're gonna say violence for a long term benefit is okay, we shouldn't be so two-faced about it.

Let Ossetia and Abkhazia join up with Russia. If its what they want, its their right.
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I don't believe anyone opposed them leaving. They just opposed them taking the land with them ;)
 
Nemesis999 said:
They invaded another country and annexed territory. How is that possibly reasonable?
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When the territory WANTS to be annexed? How is it any worse than invading a country, toppling its leadership, and subjecting their country to half a decade of instablity?

If you believe it's wrong. That's fine, most people probably think it is. But the U.S. government has zero right to say anything about it with what they've been doing in Iraq for the last 5 years.
 
NKDietrich said:
When the territory WANTS to be annexed? How is it any worse than invading a country, toppling its leadership, and subjecting their country to half a decade of instablity?

If you believe it's wrong. That's fine, most people probably think it is. But the U.S. government has zero right to say anything about it with what they've been doing in Iraq for the last 5 years.
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Who said anything about Iraq being right? Putin and his puppet Medvedev are more interested in rebuilding the Soviet Union then anything else. This just goes to prove that Russia shoudl have been crushed into nothingness after the cold war and never been allowed to rebuild any significant military.
 
Don't hold your breath for a shuttle extension. I'm not saying it definitely won't happen, but the money it would take to fund even a few more flights, let alone five years worth, would significantly accelerate the Orion schedule.
 
I'm surprised NASA's silly enough to retire the Shuttle before they're certain it's replacement works.
 
Our space program should never be reliant on a foreign power, ever.

As far as the Russians in S. Ossetia, they have done nothing that the U.S. hasn't been doing.
Sure they did it decisively, it is the Russian way.
It is much better than the American approach of long drawn out deployments.

You shouldn't be so naive as to believe all the American propaganda.
We have absolutely no business meddling in the affairs of that part of the globe.
Putin is a good leader for Russia, these are Russians not Americans.
They still look upon Stalin as a great leader, he did bring them into the modern world after all.
He did it the Russian way, it is different than our way, that doesn't make it wrong, for them.
There is a great big world out there outside of U.S. borders, we need to learn to respect the ways of other cultures and quit trying to turn them into America clones.
 
How about instead of NASA having a shoe string budge for space missions we give them proper funding and stop funding a faceless war that done nothing but strain relationships with almost ALL of our ally's. Maybe then they won't have to resort to paying the lowest bidder or using recycled 40+ year old gear to fill out there probes.

The US and Russian Federation will always have points of conflict , its just in our nature against each other, as a country we need to become far more self reliant and less reliant on the rest of the world to supply our needs.
 
Didn't NASA give billions to Boeing to design a next gen "space plane" that was to be the shuttles replacement? Only to get a report that it'd be technically unfeasible with the materials and processing technologies that currently exist?

Sounds to me like they wasted a bunch of money to find a replacement and didn't have the balls to go to Boeing and ask for their money back. Hell I can do that too, I'll design the god damn USS Enterprise (star trek) and then say "well it's not feasible to build with todays technology)
 
its time to find an alternative to rocketry. it is poor design to most of your weight in fuel
 
doh stupid lack of edit
well it would still need a rocket of some kind just much less of one
 
Lou Cypher said:
You shouldn't be so naive as to believe all the American propaganda.
We have absolutely no business meddling in the affairs of that part of the globe.
Putin is a good leader for Russia, these are Russians not Americans.
They still look upon Stalin as a great leader, he did bring them into the modern world after all.
He did it the Russian way, it is different than our way, that doesn't make it wrong, for them.
There is a great big world out there outside of U.S. borders, we need to learn to respect the ways of other cultures and quit trying to turn them into America clones.
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QFT!

On the whole space shuttle thing, I think they should let it go and not extend it. That would be an excellent motivation to get on with a replacement.

If they don't have the technology, then develop it! That's part of what the space program is for, isn't it?

It shouldn't be "This is how far we can go with current technology." It should be "This is how far we want to go, and this is the technology we need to get it done. Let's get to work."
 
Elios said:
rail gun
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Accelerations would make it very "painful" for astronauts, and probably equipment for unmanned missions.

Also you get max speed after it leaves the gun, which usually is too fast as air friction would be a major issue, where as with rockets it's more of a gradual increase as you rise in altitude.
 
NKDietrich said:
Have any suggestions on how to get things into space without using rockets using todays technology?
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i bet the $600 billion + we just pissed away in iraq the last 5 years could have funded a little useful research on the subject, hmm? i once read that what was spent on vietnam would have built everything seen in 2001: a space odyssey; i only wonder would this most recent bit of fun would have built.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Accelerations would make it very "painful" for astronauts, and probably equipment for unmanned missions.

Also you get max speed after it leaves the gun, which usually is too fast as air friction would be a major issue, where as with rockets it's more of a gradual increase as you rise in altitude.
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who said it had to be short... your thinking to small

we got LOTS of room out west make it 10-20 miles or longer and acceleration isnt an issue

sure it would cost a ton but it would save a ton on fuel and how much weight you can launch
 
/sigh lack of edit strikes again
also it have to be even that flat think about it
the shuttle uses 2 VERY big boosters just to help it get going
all you have to do is replace even that much with a rail gun type setup and you dont need a barrel think like a Maglev type setup
the largest waste of fuel is just getting the damn thing going in the first place

like i said you would still need a rocket for the 2nd stage but you can replace the whole first stage with rail gun

ever ride on a rollercoster like Superman ? same idea just scale it up 1000x
 
how about a plane launched rocket? much cheaper to run a 757 or 340 up to 40k than use a rocket.

but preferable would be a conventional launch plane capable of reaching orbit. or an advancement beyond the lifting wing design.


i personally think we need to get to space or the deep sea asap. its far too easy to not die of stupidity these days; space and the depths are far less forgiving, maybe we could thin out the heard a bit.
 
Martyr said:
how about a plane launched rocket? much cheaper to run a 757 or 340 up to 40k than use a rocket.

but preferable would be a conventional launch plane capable of reaching orbit. or an advancement beyond the lifting wing design.
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Google Space Ship One and White Knight
 
lets think industrial instead of hobbyist


maybe nasa should fake an announcement of a huge asteroid of gold or platinum, or something else very valuable out in the belt, that would get some greedy asses in gear.
 
Martyr said:
how about a plane launched rocket? much cheaper to run a 757 or 340 up to 40k than use a rocket.
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40,000 feet is only a tiny portion of the distance needed to get into orbit, or beyond. Low Earth Orbit is defined as like 200-2000km. That's a minimum of 600,000 feet. It would save a little fuel, but limit you to something uselessly small and light, that could fit on the back of a plane.

For example, SpaceShipOne and all that Virgin Galactic crap is a plane-carried setup and it doesn't even reach orbit.

maybe nasa should fake an announcement of a huge asteroid of gold or platinum, or something else very valuable out in the belt, that would get some greedy asses in gear.
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It's not just a matter of money. You can't just throw more money at a problem and get more results. You can accelerate development in the long term, and get certain product finished faster, but you're still limited by the available technology. Buying more scientists isn't going to make a space elevator or some kind of alternative propulsion get here overnight. Could maybe shave a few years off a few-decade long plan, but thats it.

What money CAN do however is get short term goals accomplished sooner. Shuttle replacement, and so forth. (Though nothing radically superior.)
 
Elios said:
who said it had to be short... your thinking to small

we got LOTS of room out west make it 10-20 miles or longer and acceleration isnt an issue

sure it would cost a ton but it would save a ton on fuel and how much weight you can launch
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You're joking right? At least, I hope you are. Here's assuming you're not:

10-20 mile long magnetic launcher? How do you propose to point the thing in the correct direction? How do you deal with air friction burning your payload to a crisp? How do you come up with the power required? Current "railgun" technology can't do anything more than hurl a small aluminum slug at about Mach 7. Even then, the slug could probably never reach orbit.

An object thousands of times heavier, comprised of shock and heat sensitive parts? I doubt that'd ever be feasible. By the time science evolves to the point where something like that could be done, it'd be irrelevant anyway because people would be using something better.

Just because you saw it in a comic book somewhere doesn't make it applicable to the real world.
 
NKDietrich said:
You're joking right? At least, I hope you are. Here's assuming you're not:

10-20 mile long magnetic launcher? How do you propose to point the thing in the correct direction? How do you deal with air friction burning your payload to a crisp? How do you come up with the power required? Current "railgun" technology can't do anything more than hurl a small aluminum slug at about Mach 7. Even then, the slug could probably never reach orbit.

An object thousands of times heavier, comprised of shock and heat sensitive parts? I doubt that'd ever be feasible. By the time science evolves to the point where something like that could be done, it'd be irrelevant anyway because people would be using something better.

Just because you saw it in a comic book somewhere doesn't make it applicable to the real world.
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your not under standing

it only has to get the mass moving fast enough that you can then use smaller rockets

the space craft would only have to get to mach 2 or so on the launcher
at which point it would leave the launcher and then use its own power

your still thinking of using only the launcher to get it to orbital speeds

my idea is just to use it as a non-chemical booster stage

once moving you can use SCRAM/RAMJETs or even liquid rockets at that point or both jets till you run out of air then rockets

but the idea is just to use less fuel to get the massing moving in the first place and this is were most of the fuel to get rockets off the ground is used
 
A possibility for building a mass driver on Earth is a compromise system: a mass driver accelerates a payload up to some high speed which is not high enough for launch. It then releases the payload, which completes the launch under its own power. This would drastically reduce the amount of thrust that would be required for a launch, while allowing the mass driver design to use well-tested maglev components.
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quote from Wiki this is exactly what im thinking of
 
They should just build a ramp and use magnetic acceleration like a carrier's launch pad except much larger. If the vehicle is more like a glider and the ramp long enough you can accelerate the craft to a rather high rate of speed and then launch it skywards so you dont waste so much fuel on the initial acceleration. Lots of rollar coasters use this type of acceleration very cheaply and productively to propel thousands of riders a day.

Then you need less fuel to propel the craft the rest of the way as you just build upon the already existing momentum.

Using an airplane to launch the shuttle will just never happen. Fully loaded crew and cargo a plane would need a ton of power to get it going. Thats why they have 2 SRB's and a lot of juice to get it skyward.

This thread is about the shuttle, why are you arguing about the Russia and Georgia conflict so much? Relying on Russians in some way helps bring our interests together and brings about some sort of unity with forigners...
 
Elios said:
quote from Wiki this is exactly what im thinking of
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I'm not saying it's theoretically impossible, I'm saying the technology isn't there.

By the time we could actually BUILD something like that, we'd no longer need it. Seriously, as I said, the technology doesn't exist to build it. Even simple railgun weaponry that goes on a ship is 20 years from practical deployment. And those only launch something that is 7 pounds and has no moving parts, and only up to Mach 7. Something powerful enough to launch something thousands of times heavier? Not in the next hundred years, or probably 200.

What you're talking about is just not practical. Yes, the theory is there, but we aren't even remotely close to being able to build a mass driver or any other large scale magnetic launcher.
 
NKDietrich said:
I'm not saying it's theoretically impossible, I'm saying the technology isn't there.

By the time we could actually BUILD something like that, we'd no longer need it. Seriously, as I said, the technology doesn't exist to build it. Even simple railgun weaponry that goes on a ship is 20 years from practical deployment. And those only launch something that is 7 pounds and has no moving parts, and only up to Mach 7. Something powerful enough to launch something thousands of times heavier? Not in the next hundred years, or probably 200.

What you're talking about is just not practical. Yes, the theory is there, but we aren't even remotely close to being able to build a mass driver or any other large scale magnetic launcher.
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still not getting it

your thinking is off YOU DONT NEED to get the oribtal speeds just with the launcher

just Mach1 or 2 which can easily be done now with the tech we have now
would it be cheap no
would it be cheaper over all i think so
and a better step up from what NASA wants to do
 
Elios said:
still not getting it

your thinking is off YOU DONT NEED to get the oribtal speeds just with the launcher

just Mach1 or 2 which can easily be done now with the tech we have now
would it be cheap no
would it be cheaper over all i think so
and a better step up from what NASA wants to do
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Yes, as a matter of fact I AM getting it. I'm saying you cannot launch an object of that size at ANY useful speed from a magnetic launcher with current technology. Least of all mach 1 or 2. We can only get a 7 pound slug to Mach 7. Something several thousand times heavier is not going anywhere. If you can point out where there have been actual practical applications of launching large objects at high speeds with a magnetic launcher, please let me know. I've never heard of anything.

So anyway, why don't you go work for NASA if you have better ideas than they do? I'm sure their thousands of experienced and highly trained scientists just forgot about the whole mass driver thing.

You can't just say "Spend more money and anything is possible." That's not how science works.
 
NKDietrich said:
You can't just say "Spend more money and anything is possible." That's not how science works.
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people said that same thing about getting the moon in the 60's and we did that
NASA is badly under funded

they should be getting a blank check to do what ever it takes
we should be developing 2 or 3 replacements for the shuttle at the same time
with one for a the short term and other 1 or 2 as options for long term SSTO plans
 
Elios said:
people said that same thing about getting the moon in the 60's and we did that
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Different thing entirely, the basic technologies were identical to what were already being used. Just on a more complex scale. Bigger rockets, bigger, more complex payload, and a hell of a lot more planning. They didn't have to come up with a brand new method of propulsion in a few years.
NASA is badly under funded

they should be getting a blank check to do what ever it takes
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No one is going to give them a blank check when the public largely believes space is empty and useless. Anyone who started dumping a ton of money into NASA would not be re-elected. Yeah it sucks, but the American people are largely ignorant near-sighted turds.

we should be developing 2 or 3 replacements for the shuttle at the same time
with one for a the short term and other 1 or 2 as options for long term SSTO plans
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A shuttle replacement doesn't require any radical new technologies (relatively speaking), so yes, you could fix this particular problem with more money. That's because it's a problem of production timelines and manpower, not turning theory into reality.

For the forseeable future we're still going to be reliant on rockets to get crap into space.
 
Elios said:
people said that same thing about getting the moon in the 60's and we did that
NASA is badly under funded

they should be getting a blank check to do what ever it takes
we should be developing 2 or 3 replacements for the shuttle at the same time
with one for a the short term and other 1 or 2 as options for long term SSTO plans
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Seeing as there is a really large wad of cash burning a hole in our government's wallet that we simply can't seem to find a way to blow, it appears obvious now that NASA will receive a blank check. As for NASA being underfunded, you could say the same for virtually any research institution.
..

'Should' is too easy term to use, and nearly meaningless. Space exploration certainly isn't high in our list of priorities and with a potential Democrat in office I can't see funding increasing at all. I don't mean to scoff at your remarks but I gotta agree with NKDietrich here. Accelerating anything within a few OOM of the shuttle's mass to mach 2 reliably and safely while still being more cost-effective? Not happening for at least a decade and a half, even then if we're lucky.

Its not like I work for NASA, but this is the general consensus among my friends (avid aerospace engineers.)
 
Elios said:
who said it had to be short... your thinking to small

we got LOTS of room out west make it 10-20 miles or longer and acceleration isnt an issue

sure it would cost a ton but it would save a ton on fuel and how much weight you can launch
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Not claiming to be an expert, but I have looked at this technology a bit for potential launch applications for the company I work for. First of all, it is impossible to get to orbit with a mass driver alone. You can theoretically get orbital velocity, but you won't be headed in the right direction, so you will end up crashing back into the planet eventually. It would be possible (theoretically) to replace the lower stages of a rocket with this type of technology, but there is another problem. Launching things into space is a constant trade-off between wanting to go as fast as possible (to minimize gravity losses) and not wanting to go too fast (too much aerodynamic drag). As you get higher, the drag becomes less important (the atmosphere thins out) and therefore you can go faster. However, if you get a lot of velocity close to the ground -- as you would with a mass driver -- then you run into huge drag losses. I am not saying that this is impossible to overcome, but for what we were doing, the designs ended up being heavier than a simple ground launch.

NKDietrich said:
40,000 feet is only a tiny portion of the distance needed to get into orbit, or beyond. Low Earth Orbit is defined as like 200-2000km. That's a minimum of 600,000 feet. It would save a little fuel, but limit you to something uselessly small and light, that could fit on the back of a plane.

For example, SpaceShipOne and all that Virgin Galactic crap is a plane-carried setup and it doesn't even reach orbit.
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While airplanes can only get a fraction of the distance to LEO, there is still sometimes a significant advantage to using an air launch. As I said before, as you get higher, the atmosphere thins out. If you can use an airplane to get above a lot of the the atmosphere, your rocket does not have to overcome as much atmospheric drag. I am not sure if this launch strategy would scale up well to big stuff like the space shuttle, but for some applications it does yield significant weight savings.

Oh, and while I think SpaceShipOne is pretty badass, they do not get anywhere near orbit. For a real example of an airplane launch to orbit see Pegasus.
 
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