| The Europeans, and even the Japanese, are developing their own
space shuttles - ESA's is called HERMES. It may not have the carrying
capacity of NASA's Shuttle, but it has many more safe-guards built
in, essentially making it easier for HERMES crews to escape an
explosion of their booster rockets.
It is also logical to assume that they will bring their future
space shuttles up to par and even beyond NASA's Shuttle, and I think
both the Europeans and Japanese will concentrate more on scientific
and commercial payloads.
We might even get a CHINESE space shuttle someday, as they have
talked about launching astronauts with their own rocket systems,
and they are already selling payload space in their existing space
program.
This might be over-optimistic, but perhaps cooperating with
the Soviets (sharing space on their space shuttle) could bring
political cooperation as well - basing it on the reason that if
the U.S. and Soviets need each other to work on various space projects,
battling would only cripple their productivity.
And let's also realize that the current Space Shuttle is only
a TEMPORARY setback, not a permanent handicap. Only if we do not
learn anything from the CHALLENGER incident will it become fatal
to us.
Larry
|
| Remeber the Apollo fire? I'm sure you've all heard of it, but how many
realize that it took the space program almost a year and a half to recover
from it (i.e. the time to next launch an Apollo). After the program got
itself going again look where we went. I know that the situation was different
and all that, but you've just gotta believe.
If you want hope, just think of something hokey like "Americans are the
greatest people in the world and are the seat of innovation. Being number
1 is so strong in our minds and hearts that no country will ever be able
to overcome us." Maybe it's not all hokey, but it sounds like something Reagan
would say.
Besides, it's all just a matter of having the right competition. The advent
of ESA, the Japanese, the Indians, the Chinese and even a couple of private
ventures may be enough to scare a few people in the U.S. into action. If
you're a believer in space, don't ever give up. Period. We're going into
space.
John
|
| I am speaking of unification in terms of colonizing the Solar
System, and eventually the stars. No one country alone can do it
feasibly - and it would not be fair or right even if they could.
The concept of aliens coming to straighten out us poor humans
goes back to the psychological theories behind UFOs. Personally,
I would not hold my breath waiting for "them" to either show or
force us to the way of global unity - we have to do it ourselves,
and it IS possible.
Humanity is on a very large, but not infinite, space "ship"
called Earth (not a new idea, I know, but still very applicable).
And just like in any spaceship, if the crew starts fighting and/or
hoarding the resources, everyone will die; and if the crew does
not go beyond the confines of the ship - to explore and live - then
the crew will stagnate and die just as if it were warring with itself.
Larry
|
| Much as I despise the militarization of space, and the
military/civilian payload mix in coming years, I have to point out
the following about 0: NASA (as I recall) willingly got into bed
with the DoD, because only with DoD support would the shuttle be
approved. It was all part of the same idiotic set of promises that
they felt obliged to make about how the shuttle would replace all
expendables, etc etc. And now look where we are.
By the way, I am not all that sure that Mr. Reagan is really such
a space freak. Anyone care to speculate on whether he would have
approved a replacement shuttle if Star Wars was not on the line?
Bah.......I also feel discouraged.
Burns
|
| Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: USAF throws in the towel
Date: 8 Aug 89 04:22:12 GMT
Sender: [email protected] (Michael B. Brooks)
Organization: Stanford University
Since I haven`t seen it discussed on the net yet, I have reprinted
some text of an article that appeared in the SF Chronicle today, taken
in turn from a NY Times article by William J. Broad. Broad used to
write for the journal SCIENCE in the news and comment section, and I
consider most of his work to be more reliable than most reporters`.
[My comments are bracketed]
Why Pentagon Axed Secret Shuttle Group
by WJ Broad (NY Times) 7aug89
When a secret military payload is launched on the civilian space
shuttle tomorrow, it will be without the Air Force`s Manned
Spaceflight Control Squadron in Houston.
The Defense Department has gradually dismantled its secretive,
coast-to- coast network of space equipment and personnel that cost at
least $5 billion and was intended to operate in collaboration with the
civilian space shuttle.
Over the past three years, the department has mothballed a $3.3
billion spaceport in California [Vandenberg] and scrapped a sprawling
control center in Colorado. Last year, it disbanded a secret cadre of
32 astronauts based in Los Angeles.
[Text deleted]
After two decades of shuttle collaboration with the civilian space
agency, the Pentagon has decided that manned spaceships are too risky
for its payloads, which include satellites intended to spy on other
countries or warn of a missile attack. Instead, it has bought its own
fleet of big unmanned rockets.
[Text deleted]
[The rest of the article details the AF decision to go with a
fleet of unmanned boosters, and some comments by others that the the
AF is either "doing the right thing" or possibly setting itself up for
further troubles by "putting all its eggs in one basket" - that of
unmanned rockets.]
The "Air Force officials disagee that they need the shuttle." in
response to said worries.
The point, as is probably well known to many here already (though
I confess not myself), is that the enormous AF committment to manned
spaceflight is gone. Obviously some military astronauts will fly, but
probably not on AF owned "blue" shuttles. The magnitude of how
"gone" the AF effort is seems rather impressive and tells alot as to
how the DoD feels about manned spaceflight.
This is not a good sign for those of us who support such things -
it`s unlikely that NASA will take up much "slack" left over by the AF
withdrawal. Also clear is the point that private "peopled" spaceflight
is a substantial time away at best.
Put another way, is this beginning of a US government trend -
withdrawal from manned spaceflight? (The statements of George Bush
and the talk about the space station not withstanding.)
Also, does anyone know more details, beyond what has been posted
before on the topic of the AF getting more Titans? How about the
seemingly scrapped idea of a "blue" shuttle, or a USAF NASP? NASP
looks pretty unlikely, given this latest bit of news; are we to
conclude that the AF figures "people are out" or is this strictly a
payload economics move?
Mike Brooks/Stanford Electronics Labs/SU
[email protected]
From: [email protected] (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: USAF throws in the towel
Date: 9 Aug 89 18:11:31 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Michael
B. Brooks) writes:
>[from news story]
>After two decades of shuttle collaboration with the civilian space agency,
>the Pentagon has decided that manned spaceships are too risky for its
>payloads...
This is a somewhat one-sided presentation. One should remember
another factor which strongly encouraged the USAF to avoid the shuttle
and use Titan instead: the USAF controls the Titans, while there was
not a lot of prospect (despite the "blue shuttle" notions) that it
would ever have very much say in operation of the shuttle. Like any
bureaucracy, the USAF hates depending on services it does not control.
Even before Challenger, they were stubbornly insisting on maintaining
Titan launch capability, not so much because of the official
"redundant launch systems" argument but because Titan was *theirs*.
For a short while after Challenger they were crowing about the
vindication of their redundant-systems policy, but in fact they were
already moving away from it, with increasingly many Titan-unique
payloads. (Case in point: they didn't make a fuss when NASA scrapped
Shuttle-Centaur, even though Shuttle-IUS isn't good enough to boost
some of their payloads.)
>Put another way, is this beginning of a US government trend---withdrawal
>from manned spaceflight? ...
I doubt it. The USAF would still like manned space systems,
provided they are *Air Force* manned space systems. It's not going to
happen any time soon, though, because their justifications for it are
weak. (The argument that ultimately killed DynaSoar and MOL, the
previous generation of USAF manned space systems, was the lack of
compelling need for them.)
>...How about the seemingly scrapped
>idea of a "blue" shuttle, or a USAF NASP? NASP looks pretty unlikely, given
>this latest bit of news...
The "blue shuttle" idea was pretty much a non-starter once the
decision was made to have only 4-5 orbiters, in my opinion. It's
definitely dead now, since there is no further hope of treating the
shuttle as a "truly operational" vehicle (the sort that could be
serviced by USAF crews) rather than a semi-experimental one (needing
lots of babying from its developers, NASA).
NASP is running into problems for fairly unrelated reasons, I
would say. The USAF likes the idea in general but sees it as
long-term, and has bigger fish (well, bats :-)) to fry in the budget
war. One thing that has just happened to NASP is a strong
recommendation from NSC saying that attempts to make the X-30 more and
more of an operationally-capable vehicle should stop forthwith, as it
is a big enough challenge as a pure research aircraft. This will
lessen USAF interest further.
1961-1969: 8 years of Apollo. | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1969-1989: 20 years of nothing.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry [email protected]
|
| The USAF was never really happy about the shuttle. They were against
it back in the late '70s and only used it because of pressure from
Jimmy Carter when he was in the White House.
After the Challanger accident, the White House changed their policy
which had been "everyone must use the shuttle". The USAF resumed plans
for using expendable boosters right away and manufactures of expendables
started pushing the idea of using expendables for communication satellites.
I think that the change of policy was made not so much because they
thought the shuttle was dangerous, but because they realized that they
would never achieve the launch rates that they once thought were possible.
At one time, they were thinking of launching the 4 shuttles 24 times a year.
Now they realize they will be lucky to hit double figures.
The Freedom space station, space telescope, space labs, and a few other
launches will more than eat up the available capacity.
George
|