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)
A new era. (Score:4, Interesting)
Change the band's name (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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.
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:3, Interesting)
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.
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.
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.
Re:I expect the number of astronauts to go up (Score:3, Interesting)
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 architectures on these bases as well. And we need it to be both private space and international. I have little doubt that we will go back to the moon by 2020. And it will consist of multiple private space companies as well as international partners. Ideally, those partners will be our current ISS and perhaps India, Brazil, and South Korea.