Our space shuttle fleet is awful!

Don't you think NASA is endangering our Astronauts by launching them into space with our aging space shuttle fleet? It seems that with every launch, something goes wrong or is flying off the space craft.

What are your thoughts about the current conditions of the shuttles?


This was just release an hour ago by The Associated Press:


By MARCIA DUNN – 1 hour ago

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Space shuttle Endeavour's astronauts unfurled a 100-foot, laser-tipped pole and surveyed their ship for any launch damage Saturday while drawing ever closer to their destination, the international space station.

At least two pieces of debris were spotted Friday night in launch photos, Mission Control reported, and engineers were poring over the images to determine whether anything hit Endeavour. Mission Control told the astronauts there were no obvious signs of damage.

The spacecraft and its crew of seven were on track to hook up Sunday afternoon with the space station, currently home to three astronauts. The shuttle was delivering tons of equipment for remodeling, including a new bathroom, kitchenette, two sleeping compartments and an unprecedented recycling system for turning urine into drinking water.

"It's the eve of showtime," space station commander Mike Fincke told flight controllers on the ground. "Everyone get some rest. We're going to have a great day tomorrow."

The day centered around the shuttle inspections, standard procedure ever since Columbia shattered during re-entry in 2003.

Rest of the article can be found here: www.google.com...

[edit on 16-11-2008 by Quazze]

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[edit on 16/11/08 by Jbird]

Well aren't they supposed to be retiring the orbiter in 2 or 3 years? I agree it needs replacement, then again I don't think they have the funding for it right now with the way things are going right now financially.

reply to post by Quazze


Something usually does fly off, but it's exceedingly rare that it would do any fatal damage. Even if it did, we'd now be sure to catch it and rescue the crew with a second shuttle. As such, I don't think flying debris is the greatest threat to astronaut safety by any means, just something that requires meticulous attention to offset. There are greater threats that face shuttle imho, things like multi-engine failures early in flight and APU fires. Those are rare occurances, but they cannot be fully compensated for. Did you know a shuttle once had to abort to orbit because of an engine failure late in the launch, which was almost a multi-engine shutdown? And did you know that an APU once caught fire during landing, putting the crew at risk of losing hydraulic power or worse? These are not well-publicized issues, but they've plagued the program since before the columbia and even challenger accidents. In the case of engine failure though, that issue will haunt every astronaut and cosmonaut who ever flies. Spaceflight is intrinsically risky, and no one can ever get rid of the danger completely. For what it's worth, the orbiter's engines are some of the most reliable ever flown, and for that I would say the orbiter fleet is not "awful." Unfortunately, offsetting some of the orbiter's other issues has increased the expense of flying it drastically from what was originally envisioned.

[edit on 16-11-2008 by ngchunter]

I find it disturbing.. that in this day and age... after the fatal disaster of one shuttle.. why there would be any chance of debri coming off during a launch.... heads should be rolling ... there is no excuse.

reply to post by philjwolf


Because to completely redesign the design of the external fuel tank at this point would be pointless. You'd have to totally redesign it so that you use something different than the foam that is currently on it. There are only 10 shuttle missions left, so why spend billions of dollars to redesign it for the last 10 flights.

Well one major issue with the shuttle fleet and NASA

Was when they designed the thing in the first place

Instead of having a evolving system where there would be changes while the fleet grew and each would be more advanced than the last. that way it would never be out of date.


Insead they did a few modifications I think I read someplace that the first and last shuttle had something along the lines of a 600 pound weight reduction mainly do to the advancement in computer hardware.


We ended up with a fleet designed and engineered in the 70s


It was very high tech back in the day but now

I mean outside of collectors who drives around in a 38 year old car?
or uses a 38 year old computer?

Anybody still watching TV on a 38 year old set?

Get my drift

Peace

Russia is going to "bail" us out!
NASA has announced that they will switch to the

Russian made space crafts (those round balls, with cramped personal, and free-fall
re-entry, called a Ballistic decent(!) as simple transportation after 2010 and will purchase their own vehicles, rather than become dependent on Russia.

There has been training going on for future NASA astronauts, quietly,

along with Canadian Space Agency personal.

2 catastrophes out of well over 100 missions. Given the stress the orbiters go through every mission, I think is doing pretty well. Yes there are 14 men and women who would still be alive today if not for the space shuttle. Every single one of them knew the risk they were taking. And I salute each and every one of them. As well as every soldier who has fallen in battle. Every firefighter, and police officer who has ever lost their life in the line of duty.

But lets not cheapen their deaths by making unreasonable statements about their equipment. Hundreds of people die every year in crashes involving any number of specific cars. Let just say Volkswagen Jetta's for the sake of argument. So does that mean all the Volkswagen Jettas are in horrible condition and need to be taken off the road.

The bottom line is this: Before Columbia the general public knew nothing about chunks of foam falling off and causing potential problems. Nobody cared because it had never been a problem before. The general public has no idea how many of these chunks of foam have impacted the shuttles throughout the various launches over the years.

The quote from the news article fails to mention that no damage was found.

On a slightly side note, can anyone provide me a reliable source on the russian bailout thing? I have heard it mentioned a few times but never saw a source. A google search did yeild a youtube video, but I can cut together a youtube video saying extraordinary things and that doesnt make it true.

Oh man this is such an oudated issue as is the shuttles being outdated!!!

Those things were designed in the late 60's, prototyped in the early 70's, and put into service in the later 70's.

They use oudated computer systems and support electronics that arent even considered safe for road worthiness.

The shuttles WERE a viable vehicle for their time. They are well past their retirement.

Cheers!!!!

reply to post by zombiemann


It was NOT the shuttle that was the reason for the 14 deaths. It was sheer management blunders that caused those deaths, in both Columbia and Challenger!!!

Plain and simple.

Not only does the shuttle need to be retired and replaced, but management also needs to be revamped as well. You dont put people's lives at risk just to get some stupid satellite into orbit!!! A single life is worth far more than some mutli-billion dollar satellite!!

Cheers!!!!

[edit on 17-11-2008 by RFBurns]

I agree with RF Burns. In the case of Challenger, it was management errors......sorry, I'll rephrase that.....a shocking lack of concern regarding known facts about the SRB O-rings lack of performance at low temperatures....that resulted in the destruction of the vehicle, and the loss of seven lives. As for Columbia, whether NASA could have formulated a rescue plan for the astronauts is unclear. The shuttle was in a completely different orbit to ISS, so that couldn't be used as a "lifeboat". I'm not sure that another shuttle could have been prepared and launched in time to enable a complicated rescue attempt. Still, refusing suggestions to use spy satellites to photograph Columbia's left wing was a criminal offence as far as I am concerned. They just crossed their fingers, and prayed.

Obviously, the prayers didn't work.

Nevertheless, the Space Shuttle itself is a remarkable piece of technology, and we shouldn't let a couple of catastrophic errors mask that. To be able to bring an object of that size back from space and land it on a runway without any power whatsoever is quite amazing. I am currently enjoying recreating a few of the shuttle missions on my PC with a superb simulator called Space Shuttle Mission 2007. It's fascinating to learn aspects of shuttle operations whilst I undertake tasks like deployment of satellites, capture and retrieval of objects already in orbit, alignment and approach to those objects, use of the RMS arm, EVA activities etc. In addition, it's a blast when I nail a successful deorbit and landing at the first attempt


[edit on 17-11-2008 by Mogget]

[edit on 17-11-2008 by Mogget]

[edit on 17-11-2008 by Mogget]

If you want to blame anyone for NASA using outdated Shuttles blame congress! Each shuttle was only designed to fly 10 missions and then be replaced. But Congress cut off funding to build new shuttles. the newest shuttle is Endeavor which replaced Challenger. the oldest shuttle that flew into space was Columbia

There are only 10 more shuttle missions planned. It wouldn't be a wise investment to redesign the external tank with only 10 missions left. Also no matter how they redesign the tanks Ice will always be a problem.

If ice or foam caused a large enough hole to prevent the shuttle from landing the shuttle would stay connected to the ISS, and a rescue shuttle would be launched with supplies to fix the damaged shuttle if it could be repaired. if not the crew would board the rescue shuttle and return to earth, and NASA would either bring the damaged shuttle back to earth on auto or they would burn it up in the atmosphere.

Nasa is already developing the replacement for the shuttle. they are going back to capsules a little bit larger than the apollo capsules. But they won't enter service until 2015

A look at Orion the proposed replacement/moon lander for 2015

I have to say, it's rather pathetic... really, nothing new or anything beyond what we have done before...

People claim there are aliens... but look at our interest in space, non existent




It's going to take 7 years to replace aged space shuttles with... Junk we have made before?

Oh wait it's bigger

let's not loose track of that, it's BIGGER

Nice Job (Not)

Thats kind of taking a narrow view of things Mopusvindictus. Basically what you are saying is that because it doesn't look flashy on the outside there havent been any changes in technology. Besides, thats just one artists concept of what it might look like.

I am wondering how this awful fleet comapres with the shuttle fleets of other countries. Is ours really the worst?

compared to any other such fleet, I would say that ours is aweful, not awful.

I was watching the show "Universe" on the History channel the other day and they said the Orion was going to use a higher concentration of o2. If I am not mistaken is that not what caused the Apollo 1 fire?

I know NASA is short on money but it seems that they have no imagination left. I wonder why they do not send up the next series of "Lunar Missions" to the ISS and depart to the moon from there and on the way back dock again and bring the crew back with the shuttle. Is that not cheaper than completely redisigning the whole concept?

Originally posted by capgrup
I wonder why they do not send up the next series of "Lunar Missions" to the ISS and depart to the moon from there and on the way back dock again and bring the crew back with the shuttle. Is that not cheaper than completely redisigning the whole concept?

ISS is completely in the wrong orbital plane to serve as a platform for launching or receiving lunar missions, not to mention the fact that doing an earth orbital insertion burn rather than direct reentry would require far more fuel than Apollo had. For heading to the moon from ISS you would have to do an off-plane transfer which would use massive amounts of fuel compared to an on-plane transfer. The moon's orbital inclination is 23.4 degrees. ISS is about 51 degrees inclined.

[edit on 17-11-2008 by ngchunter]

As far as I know, the shuttles were only continued so that they could build that multi-billion dollar Reagan-era boondoggle, the International Space Station, which has basically proven to be a huge waste of time, effort, and money. How many freaking zero-gravity ant colony studies have to be done to pay off that investment?

The entire future of manned spaceflight is iffy to begin with, since the more we find out about space beyond our own little planet and moon, the more expensive and dangerous it is found to be.

And as our robots and virtual reality get more sophisticated, the less enthusiastic anybody is going to be about shooting living humans into space. Not just because we care so much about people. There are plenty willing to take the risk. But because it becomes way too expensive to keep a group of humans alive in that environment.

Maybe the Chinese and Japanese and Indians have something to prove by putting somebody on the Moon or Mars, but it's all about public relations, not science.

Originally posted by Nohup
As far as I know, the shuttles were only continued so that they could build that multi-billion dollar Reagan-era boondoggle,

Astronaut John Young learned that the shuttle program had been passed by congress while he was standing on the moon. Approach and landing tests of the space shuttle Enterpise began in 1977. Enterprise was test fit on a full stack at Pad 39A in 1979. The shuttle was inevitable, with all of its pros and cons, long before Reagan took office. In my opinion, the more we learn about keeping humans alive in the most demanding environment, the more we can learn about keeping humans alive in less demanding environments. There are many spinoffs we've gained as a result of manned spaceflight that never would have come about without it. Even ISS has contributed, though I think the most important reason to follow through is to keep our promises to other nations intact as much as possible so that there can be future cooperation with manned missions to mars etc.

[edit on 17-11-2008 by ngchunter]