Nasa dropping out of the space race until 2015 at the earliest

Nasa dropping out of the space race until 2015 at the earliest

www.msnbc.msn.com

Tomorrow night, a European spacecraft is scheduled to blast off from French Guiana on its maiden voyage to the international space station, giving NASA and the world a new way to reach the orbiting laboratory.

For NASA, however, the launch of the Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) also highlights a stark reality: In 2 1/2 years, just as the station gets fully assembled, the United States will no longer have any spacecraft of its own capable of carrying astronauts and cargo to the station, in which roughly $100 billion is being invested. The three space shuttles will be retired by then, because of their high cost and questionable safety, and NASA will have nothing ready to replace them until 2015 at the earliest.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I'm just wondering what's going on and why we don't have a suitable replacement yet. I've heard that the original purpose of the scramjet was for traveling to and from the space station and from the space station to mars.
This has sparked my curiosity.

www.msnbc.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

For five years or more, the United States will be dependent on the technology of others to reach the station, which American taxpayers largely paid for. To complicate things further, the only nation now capable of flying humans to the station is Russia, giving it a strong bargaining position to decide what it wants to charge for the flights at a time when U.S.-Russian relations are becoming increasingly testy

Just a bit more of the article.

Yes quite surprising to see this gaping stratgic hole in American planning. It will be interesting to see if other countries will speed up their respective space capabilities to be on parity or even ahead when America get's it's new shuttle. China, India, Japan Russia the E.U all look likely to succed America as space superpowers.

reply to post by Christian Voice


Well, not dropping-out. Just some delays... in the public space manned US built and flown program.

Constellation escape tower mockup gets "unveiled" the 12th... a NASA pic link.

STS-123 on the 11th and Cassini "shoot the plume" on the 12th. ATV is bitchin'. Hope it works... open source nav software. Station-keeping ought to be interesting... docking even more-so. DEXTRE too... oh my, a manned launch every 2.7 months? Pressure? What pressure? Hale "repositioned", Shannon "kicked upstairs"...

Cheers,

Vic

It is a bit of a dropout though isn't it? too not have something to take over if not immediately with a couple of years, not the behaviour one has come to expect from America anyway.

This coupled with the news from some other threads on here, like the National Guard troops being pulled from the border crossings makes me wonder what's going on.

reply to post by Peruvianmonk


Yeah, 2011-2015 Soyuz or bust. Still some paperwork to sign. Griffin was all "impressed" with the COTS stuff. GAO wants blood. Situation normal.

No one mentions the possibility of a covert program(s) often... manned or unmanned you can bet your bottom US dollar that the US is as capable or more capable than any spacefaring nation, "human" that is... LOL.

Frankly 2015 is optimistic for the new "public" bucket of bolts. I look forward to following "progress" very closely.

Cheers,

Vic

Yeh it will be good to see more competition anyway in space so theres no monopolising of the resources up there. It's not just there for America it's there for all of us..........Even speak of the U.k getting involved independent of the E.U!

reply to post by Peruvianmonk


Hmmm. I'd like to see a little "LESS" competition and more "CO-OPERATION" in space. But then, I'm Canadian. We were only the third spacefaring nation. Ain't gonna happen with the current international "leadership" - co-operation, that is... wildly divergent from what woud seem "the cheapest safest way forward".

I always wondered about the UK's rather noticeable absenteeism. My pick for a "black fleet" admiralty in many ways. Damn conspicuous by "not being there".

First "royal" in space? Saudi Arabia's Prince Sultan Salman Abdel Aziz Al-Saud. No one remembers helen Sharman, Phan Tuan or Rakesh Sharma...

Cheers,

Vic

[edit on 7-3-2008 by V Kaminski]

If I remember, they are in the process of creating a new shuttle/launch vehicle/ship with a rocket attached/thingy to replace the current shuttles. I dont remember where i read this, but I will do some looking and try to find it!

EDIT:

According to wikipedia (i know, not a very credible source...so sue me ), they are working on the ARES I and the ARES V for Project: Constellation. the ARES I will be the manned one, and ARES V will carry the cargo. I think they are also working on a shuttle too, but I cant find info on it...sorry!

[edit on 7-3-2008 by unknownfrost]

I think Nasa is just waiting for private companies to build better spaceship technology. Then they can steal it. The future for space travel will be privately build ships.

Could be about the solar maximum we are approaching...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Could be that they have no interest in any merger that would continue to fund the ongoing technology.
www.virgingalactic.com...

Sunspot 24 and the coming global consequences would be my best guess at this point.

Originally posted by Christian Voice
This coupled with the news from some other threads on here, like the National Guard troops being pulled from the border crossings makes me wonder what's going on.

yeah i know,i get the same feeling!.something isnt adding up!.

perhaps the grand old us of a is planning to release some of its anti grav technology in that time period,therefore negating the need for any supersedetion of the boring old rocket based space program?.

becuz america an nasa build things based solely on data an not imagination.....

im serious throw some hardcore sci fi nuts in nasa design team an you will have the star ship enterprise meets the "lexx" lol

we need to bring down this wall between imagination an researched data an combine the two to create some serious machinery for the future......

I really don't know. Something really big is going on and I have no idea where to start. I actually have a friend that is a contractor for the government and is in Australia. He mentioned something about an underground base or bunker or something over there and that people around where he is working have mentioned seeing farm animals being taken down into them in truck loads. I don't have any way of proving anything and it may not even be so, but I just figured I'd throw it out there. This really ought to be an interesting year. NASA knows something.

reply to post by welivefortheson


Addition? Technology? Nah... ice crystals. Wink.


Cheers, and KIBO,

Vic

Originally posted by unknownfrost
I think they are also working on a shuttle too, but I cant find info on it...sorry!

They aren't. The next US spacecraft will be the Orion.

As for NASA dropping out of the space race... hardly. They may lack a manned space craft for a few years, but all their other exploration missions will still be happening.

Also a minor correction on that MSNBC article. The Jules Verne ATV will be launching March 9th, not tomorrow. It was delayed 24 hours due to some technical concern between the ATV and the Ariane 5 launcher separation system.

Addition? Technology? Nah... ice crystals. Wink.

What is that supposed to be that is on the video? I couldn't make heads or tails of it. It looked like a big balloon with a flashlight.

I think it's a good idea for the bulk of NASA's low orbit stuff to be transferred to the military or private industry. That's a perfectly reasonable transfer of interest and authority, similar to what happened when the American continent was first being explored. There's some small initial exploration to gather data, followed by militarization and the setting up of outposts, followed by private commercial development including colonization. Although in this case the colonization will be done mostly by robots, not people.

Sounds good to me.