Astronaut Careers May Stall Without the Shuttle 142
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that former shuttle commander Chris Ferguson now moonlights as a drummer for MAX Q, a classic rock band comprised solely of astronauts. 'Perhaps we'll have some more time to practice here once the shuttle program comes to a slow end,' says Ferguson, raising the question — what does the future hold for NASA's elite astronaut corps after the agency mothballs its aging space shuttles in the coming months? NASA currently has about 80 active astronauts, as well as nine new astronaut candidates hired last year. But there will be fewer missions after the shuttle program ends, and those will be long-duration stays at the space station. When the Apollo program ended, astronauts had to wait years before the space shuttles were ready to fly, but the situation was different back then. Space historian Roger Launius says, 'Even before the end of the Apollo program, NASA had an approved, follow-on program — the space shuttle — and a firm schedule for getting it completed.' These days, no one knows what NASA will be doing next. Meanwhile, private companies are moving forward with their efforts, raising the possibility of astronauts for hire. NASA administrator and former astronaut Charlie Bolden talked about that prospect earlier this year, saying it would be a different approach for NASA to rent not just the space vehicle, but also a private crew of astronauts to go with it. 'When we talk about going to distant places like Mars, the moon, [or] an asteroid, we will not be able to take someone off the street, train them for a few weeks and expect them to go off and do the types of missions we will demand of them,' said Bolden."
Don't they already have jobs? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Apollo Cancelation (Score:5, Funny)
About the time that Apollo was canceled I was just beginning to try to figure out what I wanted to do when I "grew up". Until that point, I was thinking that being an astronaut. Yes, the shuttle was being developed, but that wasn't getting any press at the time. So, after graduation I was still on my original choices:
Carter and Ford had basically raped the CIA so secret agent was out. I didn't think there was any money in being a cowboy, but a friend in England suggested I could be a jockey. Fireman was out after my first ride along and I had to look into the brain pan of a kid who wasn't wearing his helmet when he decided to take his motorcycle Christmas present for a spin.
I tried being a cop for awhile.
So, after being a drill instructor, aircraft mechanic, and working in the IC industry for awhile, John Glenn goes back into space and I start thinking, "Hell, the way things are going, my fifth career could be as an astronaut!" But, nooooo, they go and cancel the shuttle and damn near kill the follow on.
So, as of about a month ago, I've bought a ranch in Idaho...
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Idaho is cool. I was driving north one night in Idaho, and realized that I had seen no electric lights in more than an hour. So, I started watching, thinking that I had just missed some. I drove, and drove, and drove. No lights. Not even oncoming traffic. No porch lights, no parking lot lights, nothing. I've driven through huge swathes of America that had no power due to blizzards or hurricanes, and saw more lighting! Talk about the wide open spaces. I've never driven so far without seeing lights,
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So, after being a drill instructor, aircraft mechanic, and working in the IC industry for awhile, John Glenn goes back into space and I start thinking, "Hell, the way things are going, my fifth career could be as an astronaut!" But, nooooo, they go and cancel the shuttle and damn near kill the follow on.
So, as of about a month ago, I've bought a ranch in Idaho...
I might be movin' to Montana soon
Just to raise me up a crop of Dental Floss Raisin' it up
Waxen it down
In a little white box
I can sell uptown
By myself I wouldn't
Have no boss,
But I'd be raisin' my lonely Dental Floss
Raisin' my lonely Dental Floss
Well I just might grow me some bees
But I'd leave the sweet stuff
For somebody else...
but then, on the other hand
I'd Keep the wax N' melt it down
Pluck some Floss N' swish it aroun'
I'd have me a crop
An' it'd be on top
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Re:Don't they already have jobs? (Score:5, Informative)
The shuttle pilots, yes, but pilots are a minority of astronauts these days; more are mission specialists with science or engineering backgrounds and no military experience.
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Like you need a better resumé than "I worked at NASA".
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Re:Don't they already have jobs? (Score:5, Informative)
I thought so too, so I looked into it. Apparently this was the case in the early days of the program, and is still mostly the case for pilot astronauts. "At least 1,000 hours pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft. Flight test experience is highly desirable." [1 [nasa.gov]] (In practice, they all seem to be test pilots). This is not a requirement for Mission Specialist Astronauts.
I also suggest browsing some of the astronaut bios from the last couple batches. Of the last five pilot astronauts candidates, all five are former military test pilots. Among the twelve Mission Specialists selected during the same period, there is only one that I can confirm as a test pilot. At least four have a military background, and at least three were pilots before entering the program. At least two others were flight surgeons; this may well mean that they qualified as pilots
Really, though, they're all very well qualified in their respective fields. They may lose their jobs, sure, but I doubt they'll have trouble finding others.
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Really, though, they're all very well qualified in their respective fields. They may lose their jobs, sure, but I doubt they'll have trouble finding others.
Not only that, but they'll probably find higher paying jobs. The most an astronaut can make is about $100k right now (starting around $65k). With qualifications that beat out thousands of other applicants, they probably turned down much more lucrative offers. They took the job because they wanted to be in space, not for the cash.
So yes, they'll land on their feet. But their dream will probably be gone.
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but this is slashdot. Everything revolves around money. Nobody anywhere has ever done anything at any time for anything other than cold hard cash. Except the Government of course.
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Really, though, they're all very well qualified in their respective fields. They may lose their jobs, sure, but I doubt they'll have trouble finding others.
I'm not too worried about the astronauts finding new jobs. I'm worried about NASA losing highly skilled specialists, in whom they have invested significant money through unique training. It's time consuming and expensive to replace an astronaut, so we had better try to hold onto them and keep them active if we want to maintain whatever edge we still have in manned space flight.
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Until we develop better ways of making the journey sending meatsacks is just pretty damned wasteful and IMHO dumb. ...
Let the unmanned remotes and robots do the hard and dangerous stuff and keep the meatsacks on the ground working on better propulsion systems so we can actually get somewhere in our lifetimes. Sending humans into space at this point is just a monumental waste of resources ATM.
Putting humans in space now gives us the expertise for later, when we do have those improved propulsion systems. Humans are also more versitile and flexible than a special-purpose robot when mission parameters or experiments change. Not every mission needs humans, but many do.
And as for rent-an-astronaut, they will need to be trained by a private corporation (who has to build their facilities and training programs from scratch), and once we use them a few times it will end up more expensive than having N
A new era. (Score:4, Interesting)
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It is doubtful that manned space exploration has anything to do with "industrial might, military might, or technological advancement" anymore. If you want to advance technology and improve industrial and military might, then you should invest in robotics and artificial intelligence; that is, unmanned exploration.
Change the band's name (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems obvious to me... (Score:1)
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Before Charles Bolden there was Richard Truly [wikipedia.org] and Frederick Gregory [wikipedia.org] (acting administrator for 62 days). So yeah, being an astronaut has at least helped a couple of people in getting the job. Also, more than a few have become deputy administrators and filled other key positions in NASA as well, certainly adding to leadership pool for the agency.
I expect the number of astronauts to go up (Score:5, Interesting)
and hopefully it won't just be government astronauts who get to go. Back when the shuttle was seen as a way to reduce the cost of getting into space, and NASA launched commercial satellites, a few ordinary engineers got to go to space. Of course, Challenger changed all that. And the Launch Services Purchase Act proved that the best way to reduce the cost of launch is to cut NASA out of the picture all together. So hopefully, when the job of taking humans to space has suitably placed NASA in an oversight only role, we'll see ordinary people flying to space again to do economically valuable work. Then the market takes over and everything changes.
That said, NASA will still be flying their own astronauts. If there's any sense left in them, they'll be flying to beyond low earth orbit.
Re:I expect the number of astronauts to go up (Score:4, Informative)
If there's any sense left in them, they'll be flying to beyond low earth orbit.
The problem is a lack of mission, and a lack of budget, and they need to sell both to Congress and the general public.
People seem to think NASA has a huge budget, in some ways they do, but the budget doesn't really allow for manned space exploration beyond LEO. In real dollars, it's down a lot from the Apollo-era budget and that was just what was needed to cover a few jaunts to the moon. In order for NASA to do something beyond Apollo, they need to have a plan and a stable long-term budget to carry out the plan.
Re:I expect the number of astronauts to go up (Score:4, Informative)
When you're in low earth orbit you're half way to anywhere. NASA could do a beyond earth orbit mission right now if they'd just swallow their pride and plan it around using the Soyuz to take astronauts to their deep space vehicle on orbit that they launch there using existing boosters. Instead they've poured $9 billion down the money pit of Ares to develop yet more costly launch capability. But, for some reason, having international partners on the critical path of an international mission is just too ego shaking for NASA.. the next best thing is to pay 3 to 4 times as much as Soyuz for taxi services from US commercial suppliers (and that's assuming the Soyuz flights couldn't be gotten for free with suitable recognition of Russia as an international partner). In fact, it's starting to look like the commercial suppliers that NASA is trying to engage to provide them with flights on a cheap per-seat basis will actually be demanding large upfront development costs.. in the $billions range.. all of them except SpaceX, who are happy to develop crew carrying capability under the COTS-D option for about a third of that.
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But, for some reason, having international partners on the critical path of an international mission is just too ego shaking for NASA.
It's not an issue of ego, it's one of reliability. The US and Russia aren't exactly the best of friends; Russian aftermarket/product support is, well, less than notable; and the incorporation of Russia into the current ISS program was less a matter of needing them there than an effort to essentially bribe their rocket engineers and keep them busy on civil applications instead of military ones. I'd be extremely reluctant to put anyone outside of my own group on the critical path to one of my projects unles
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More importantly, if we are going to go to the moon and set up a base, WE NEED multiple architectures. Not just for lift, but for transportation to the moon. Ideally, we will have different
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That's because the US treats Russia like a "little brother" and doesn't ask them to seriously contribute in any way that matters. Russia responds by saying "this isn't a partnership, you pay."
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By more than I would've thought, too, although in retrospect I suppose it's obvious Apollo was really, really expensive.
Numbers: the peak Apollo-era budget was around $6 billion in 1966, which according to the government's CPI calculator, is about $40 billion in 2010 dollars. NASA's actual current-year budget is less than half that, a bit under $19 billion.
In terms of money that can be devoted to a particular program, it's an even bigger decrease. T
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So that explains why NASA are now only launching one or two moon missions per year and only developing a complete new launch and crew system every ten years rather than every five? Yes?
Or, less sarcastically, the value being extracted with 50% of the budget isn't eve
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They spend much more of their budget on unmanned missions these days, and I think have gotten much more of a scientific return on that than the Apollo program did. I'd say the value being extracted with 50% of the budget is at least 1000% of the Apollo era, which did relatively little science, and lots of photo ops and Cold-War posturing.
These days, NASA does things like operate a space telescope, send a rover to Mars, send a probe to Europa, operate dozens of scientific satellites, etc.
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There still is a role for a professional and experienced astronaut, and the astronauts certainly do much more than flying spacecraft. Even if the whole program is mothballed and somehow NASA boycotts or is blocked from using the Soyuz spacecraft, the astronauts will still have things to do at NASA for awhile.
Still, I'd have to admit that the draw to becoming an astronaut is to get into space and doing stuff "up there".
I do know that several companies have been hiring astronauts explicitly for their service
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The dispute that is going on at SpaceX amounts to "Hey NASA, what do you want?" and NASA saying "Hey SpaceX, what should we want?" etc. It's your typical government leaderless program.
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It's like ex-fighter pilots (Score:5, Interesting)
It's like being an ex-fighter pilot. If you've worked in aerospace, you've probably met plenty of former fighter pilots. They're a fun crowd, and they do OK after giving up the cockpit.
Being an astronaut hasn't been glamorous for a long time. Those guys spend far more time doing "Lunch with an Astronaut" [kennedyspacecenter.com] than they do flying.
Astronaut Careers May Stall Without (Score:2)
... a manned flight program.
ya think?
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In other news: Tang sales plummet.
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This had better not impact the supply of freeze-dried ice cream!
There's always showbiz (Score:1)
Private Sector jobs? (Score:3, Funny)
Virgin Galactic is going to need some space-stewardesses...
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From the Space-Captain-Obvious-dept.? (Score:1)
Now there's a shocker...
Oh Really? (Score:2)
May? Astronaut careers may stall without any manned spacecraft for them to fly? How insightful.
In other news, the careers of professional football players may stall due to the NFL's decision to stop buying footballs.
NASA will keep grounded astronaut skills fresh (Score:2, Funny)
Migrate to a country with a manned space program (Score:3, Insightful)
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Branson looking canny-typical private sector story (Score:2)
Indeed Richard Branson is looking a bit canny right now, he might pick up a few pilots that need little to no training having already been trained by the tax payer. Typical private sector story, get the public sector/tax payers to provide your staff training and then pick up tip-top crew when the public sector has to offload in time of recession. Over here in the UK they say the biggest influence against the public sector being reduced is the parallel private sector, e.g. private hospitals rely on the publi
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A launch vehicle without a license to launch is pretty much like tits on a bull.
Sorry, there are no launch licenses being given out. You need clearance from both FAA and EPA. Without that, there will be an army of government agents making sure nothing gets launched.
Nobody is going anywhere unless the license problem get solved, and there are no solutions on the horizon.
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*golf clap* Well played. Always good to see a Lehrer reference here.
They'll become paid spokesmen... (Score:3, Funny)
The SGC will take,..jhkggk (Score:2)
The SGC will take,.kihi. opps I said to much
why not? (Score:2)
When we talk about going to distant places like Mars, the moon, [or] an asteroid, we will not be able to take someone off the street, train them for a few weeks and expect them to go off and do the types of missions we will demand of them,' said Bolden."
You need people who are reasonably stable, intelligent, and healthy. They should also have some medical training for emergencies. SCUBA diving may also help. What additional, lengthy training is needed, and what's the cost/benefit tradeoff supposed to be?
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Astronaut Careers May Stall Without the Shuffle (Score:1)
User Error: Fixed by pressing play again to unpause.
No More NASA Mission 'Movie' Posters? (Score:2)
Astronauts play stars in NASA mission 'movie' posters [cnet.com]: For every space shuttle mission since STS-96 in 1999, which was the first time a U.S. shuttle docked with the International Space Station, the Kennedy Space Center's graphics department has been creating some pretty cool (and kitschy) mission posters.
Astronauts have bright futures (Score:2)
A great opportunity (Score:2)
This is the right decision and it's overdue franky.
It's all been downhill since the amazing achievements of the 1960s.
The entire agency should be dismantled, and at that time the
U.S. government should:
1) Publish a list of X-prizes for space research achievements.
2) VC fund a number of companies designed to go after those X-Prizes.
3) Put a salary cap on startup employees. Weed out the dispassionate.
This has two effects:
It makes the cost of failure a linear and known quantity.
It incentives the people who will
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Sure, but unless the FAA and EPA release their hold on licensing of launches, nobody is going anywhere. Right now, NASA and the Air Force have been allowed to launch. Rutan's company managed to get White Knight off the ground because it is an airplane and was apparently licensed as an airplane, not a space launch vehicle.
As far as I know, nobody else has ever been given a license to launch from the US. There have been some test engine firings, mostly tethered, but nothing that would count as a launch.
No
Hockey player's career stalls with out skates... (Score:2)
...and truck driver's career hits skids without a truck
Comprised? (Score:1)
a classic rock band comprised solely of astronauts
It is either "composed solely of astronauts" or "comprising solely astronauts". "Comprised" means "composed of".
New Career Paths (Score:2)
Time to switch into cushy government jobs in the healthcare business
Not even close (Score:2)
USA In Decline (Score:1)
There's no question about it. After 3 more shuttle missions, that's it. No more shuttles, no plans in place to go back, thanks to the genius in chief canceling the moon rocket.
Make no mistake, this is going to get steadily worse. We don't have money for most everything we need - health care, infrastructure maintenance, etc. We couldn't afford to build the interstate highway system any more.
This is the result of all our jobs going overseas, and especially the manufacturing jobs. GO to business school, t
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You forgot repeal the 40 hour work week, the child labor laws, minimum wage, and the elimination of OSHA and the EPA. Because obviously the only way to manufacture anything is under working conditions slightly worse than Malaysia or northern Africa.
Stupid asshole.
-1, Poor Reading Comprehension (Score:2)
He didn't forget it. The guy more or less said exactly what you're saying when he said that U.S. manufacturing wasn't being killed off by high wages and unions. Believe it or not, it's possible to recognize what a problem taxes are for a healthy economy without advocating that all the proletariat toil for 23 hours a day in the slave pits of the bourgeoisie.
What they say is true (Score:2)
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Re:Obama policies lead to higher unemployment! (Score:5, Interesting)
One should judge the success or failure of a program by how well it has achieved the goals it was built to achieve. By that most sensible metric, the Shuttle is a colossal failure. Not only has the Shuttle failed to reduce the cost of launch, it has also failed in its military and flight rate goals. Only someone who is too young to remember the promise of the Shuttle would ever suggest that it has been a "success", let alone wildly so.
Worse yet, Shuttle has set back the goal of a reusable launch vehicle for decades. Whenever anyone suggests that an RLV may be the best way of reducing the costs to space (an obviously true argument, imagine throwing away a 747 after every flight), skeptics need only point to the Space Shuttle.
Re:Obama policies lead to higher unemployment! (Score:4, Interesting)
While I would generally agree with what you are saying here, the Shuttle did "prove" that at least in theory a "reusable" vehicle could be built. As a **very** expensive prototype done with six test beds, the Shuttle at least met the engineering test goals of the program, and they did have over 130 different test flights working out some of the bugs in the system with two notable failures.
For an experimental vehicle, I think the Shuttle met its criteria of success, at least comparable to the X-15.... which BTW also took out some lives of some of the test pilots. When viewed from this perspective, the Shuttle program isn't all that bad.
On the other hand, why there are members of Congress that are trying to extend an experimental research vehicle a couple more flights when it has proven itself as unreliable and dangerous merely to take trash down from orbit is beyond me. This next flight of the Shuttle that is supposed to happen tomorrow (Monday) is precisely such a garbage hauler trip.
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But the shuttle proved that a reusable launch vehicle was impractical for equipment launches. Getting things down from orbit is very expensive, so reducing costs requires that you allow anything you don't need to burn up. There's nothing so expensive that it's worth preserving through atmospheric re-entry.
The only case where that's not true is people, but we never send up enough people that a re-entry vehicle the size of the shuttle is justified.
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It's not obviously true that reusability is the best way. Reusability increases the launcher complexity and weight, hence design costs and launcher costs. You produce less launchers, so gain less from mass production. You can produce fewer launchers, but you need to pay for recovery and turnaround.
It may still turn out to be the best way, as SpaceX are trying to prove, but it isn't obvious.
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Reusable missiles obviously don't make sense. Reusable launch vehicles obviously do make sense. The problem is that people seem to think missiles make good launch vehicles.
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So far, missiles are the best launch vehicles by far. This will remain so until we can build engines which don't require air with a specific impulse greater than 800.
The shuttle's failure comes from sticking a plane on top of a missile, that alone increased launcher size by a factor of 4 at least (for the same payload).
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Not to mention making it manned, which increased complexity, weight, and cost again. Launch vehicles must be as slim as possible, any excess pound taken to orbit is at least an extra 20 pounds launcher mass.
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So far, missiles are the best launch vehicles by far.
It should be obvious that a missile is not the pinnacle of launch vehicle technology. Innovation in this market is rare.
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Can you suggest an alternative?
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Sure, a gas and go reusable horizontal takeoff and landing vehicle. I'm partial to two stage to orbit designs, a hydrocarbon lower stage with a liquid hydrogen upper stage, others would argue for a single stage to orbit design - but I've yet to see their numbers close for a manned vehicle. The advancement needed here would be just engine reusability. The cost reduction comes from the massive decrease in the size of the standing army required for ground operations.
Airbreathing engines like what you descri
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Horizontal takeoff designs are no go. Wings are only efficient at very low speeds and altitudes (there's a reason the Concorde is offline); you're increasing efficiency for the first 1000 m/s and 30 km but you have to carry them for the other 7000 m/s and 200 km (less if you have two stages, but still horribly inefficient).
Engine reusability can be had with recoverable missiles (see SpaceX).
The ground operations staff increases with reusability instead of decreasing since you have to inspect and repair you
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The ground operations staff increases with reusability instead of decreasing since you have to inspect and repair your reusable spacecraft; this is what killed the shuttle economically. These engines operate so close to the edge of the envelope you have to trade efficiency for maintenance time, and you just can't afford to lose efficiency.
Yeah, and you're proving my point. The Shuttle is not the pinnacle of reusable launch vehicle technology, it's 1970s technology, and NASA has absolutely no motivation to reduce costs.
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Yeah, agreed. And what's worse is that they've been working on a safe, simple, soon replacement for launching humans to LEO since before the Columbia "accident" in 2003. During the Columbia investigation retiring the fleet immediately was seriously considered, because it was recognized that if the shuttle kept flying there would be no motivation to get a replacement going soon. What started out as a kludge to use existing infrastructure to get humans to space evolved through 3 engineering revisions to th
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over one hundred? In 30 years?
The goal was one launch a week. Getting 8% of the target is a "damn good"???
They'd have done better with standard rocket launches, since the much promised lower per launch cost via amortization was a complete joke.
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Of course, that goal didn't assume we'd stop building shuttles once we had five of the damn things. Which was the biggest failure of the Shuttle era. We should have built one or two every year for the last 30 years.
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First rule of thumb, if NASA can botch something, they will. SST was a disaster from what was promised (what was it, 30 day turn around @ vehicle? Weekly launches and I forget what the cost @ pound they were initially spouting, damn crooks), the years worth of delays and the lack of employment of those who were layed off after Apollo 17 (that would include my late father) mission. Challenger disaster that was needless, the botched search for the crew cabin (which was found within a square mile of where
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There certainly is some sort of analogy that can be made. The Shuttle is kind of like a hacked together old code base made out of Cobol and MUMPS that requires special mainframe hardware to stay running. In theory, we could replace the whole think while some Pyth
The shuttle is an analogy for web programming... (Score:2)
Wherein the end product is constrained by the size and functionality of the delivery system.
At least with the shuttle, though, there were no legions of mercenaries possessing ownership of each molecule of the air, adding fees for traversing that molecule, snooping to see what the payload is and altering, impeding, or blocking that payload based upon their opinion of that payload...and perhaps even imprisoning - or worse - the creators or receivers of that payload...
Re:Obama policies lead to higher unemployment! (Score:4, Interesting)
"I see the same old heavy client programmers who couldn't adapt to web programming."
Where did you get the idea they were different? Different languages, maybe, different platforms, but not a differnet paradigm from what I'm seeing. The current epitome of web programming is some pretty heavyweight shit. Not counting Flash. Of course, I just see what passes for AJAX and massive doses of Java at work. If only it were different.
Now, NASA does need to reconsider the direction it takes. Somehow I think launching more ore less straight up is just too difficult. How about sending things up more like planes?
Oh, wait. that's being tried. Just not by NASA.
I hate this. NASA needs to stay in the game, but it's lost the edge. And the funding.
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Planes fly around 300 m/s. To get to orbit you need 8000 m/s. Launching horizontally means you have to fight air resistance all of the way.
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It's fairly obvious, even before your comment, that we would need new types of planes. Even the independents know this.
Next, you're gonna tell me we should simplify things and just let a capsule slash down into the ocean? Avoids a lot of complicated stuff like 'flying' back and whells and such.
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Somehow I think launching more ore less straight up is just too difficult. How about sending things up more like planes?
Orbital vehicles don't just launch more or less straight up. They start launching straight up to get ground clearance, then they pitch over and thrust 'forward.' The main challenge in a launch is not to achieve altitude, it's to achieve orbital velocity. This velocity is extraordinarily difficult to achieve with any kind of thrust other than what amounts to, essentially, a big ass bomb with a nozzle on the end. Planes would have a very difficult time lifting something the size of most orbital launch vehic
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I see the same old heavy client programmers who couldn't adapt to web programming.
This is partially true due to the fact that over the past 15 years the functionality available through the web platform has increased greatly and is approaching the level of traditional client applications. It's close, just not quite there. That said, while the web platform is usually excellent there are some mitigating factors hindering it's growth like the slow adoption and vendor lock-in. Considering the enormous improvements to the web platform there still is a substantial need for client application
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BAG (bad analogy guy) modded flamebait here? Why? That stupid shuttle was a crappy idea from the word go. It was a compromise of many things. A spaceship is not an airplane, and an airplane is not a spaceship. It's about what you would get if you tried to make a Cadillac pickup truck. A butt ugly piece of shit that doesn't do anything as well as some other alternative vehicle. http://www.automedia.com/NewCarBuyersGuide2007/photos/2007/Cadillac/SRX/SUV/2007_Cadillac_SRX_ext_1.jpg [automedia.com] Go ahead, look at it
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Oh FFS. It's not like they are going to be flipping burgers, or in a homeless shelter any time soon.
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You can't flip a burger in 0-g.
Sure you can. Just not in the traditional way. You could have two griddles parallel to one another and maybe 5-6 feet apart. Cook one side of the patty, flip it to the other cooking surface, spin yourself 180 degrees, finish cooking.
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Complicate much? Just let go the pressure keeping the burger on the grill, it'll float, flip it, press it back down.
Pressure doesn't keep a burger down. It is a combination of gravity and surface tension. Remove the gravity and the burger would still stick weakly to the grill surface. We need to break that adhesion, preferably with some sort of fully functional fembot - with a spatula.