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Space Science

NASA's New Space Wheels 371

Posted by Hemos from the and-the-wheels-in-the-sky-keep-on-turning dept.
jvarsoke writes "ABCNEWS.com has an article on proposals for NASA's next generation Space Shuttle. But the replacement for the 1970's era wonder look a bit like a step backward baring one exception. Choices are a splash-down capsule, a"half-cone lifting body" (sounds bumpy), and two aircraft landing types . . . and what's that in the upper left corner. Could it be? The Farscape 1 module?"
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NASA's New Space Wheels More

NASA's New Space Wheels

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  • Mmmm... Space Chix0r5.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Monday September 29, 2003 @09:34AM (#7084043) Homepage Journal

    "Could it be? The Farscape 1 module?"

    Dibs on Aeryn and Chiana! (You can keep Zhaan, she wouldn't shut up: "Oh great Spirit, grant me this orgasm blah blah blah..")

  • Not exactly the Enterprise credits is it. (Score:3, Funny)

    by DrJAKing ( 94556 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @09:35AM (#7084046)
    At this rate it'll take years before we make a warp drive.

  • America needs to rethink some priorities (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ... the country is cutting taxes... is running up huge debts... unemployment is rising... the rich are wasting vast amounts of the country's money on useless trinkets, and now the space pioneer that was NASA has fallen behind Europe's ESA/Russian space programs to the point where it is using 1960s rockets compared with ion engines.
    • Europe is not the problem. We launched deep Space 1 with an ion engine in 1998. The chinese are the problem. They are going to blindside the rest of the world when they launch people into space in october. Not to mention that as the chinese economically grow they will pass the economic power of the US, and so become the next superpower. Look for a space race between china and india. Remember that during the early 1400's the chinese almost discovered europe. The chinese explorer Cheng-ho had fleets of

      • that during the early 1400's the chinese almost discovered europe

        teh funny troll. Marco Polo lived from 1254-1324 AD and travelled the silk-street, which obviuosly existed before and its outer branches reached as far as the Mediterranean. He also was a confidant of Kublai Khan. There was nothing to discover. I also wonder what technologies you might be talking about. I doubt the chinese fleet was so much superior to the spanish or portuguese fleet.
        And if you were talking about 1500 BC, you might want t

    • the coutnry is cutting taxes

      A well known and proven way to improve the economy.

      is running up huge debts

      Considering the U.S. is coming out of a recession, some overspending isn't outrageous.

      unemployment is rising

      Nope, it's dropping and is likely to continue dropping as the economy improves.

      the rich are wasting vast amounts of the country's money on useless trinkets

      Generally the rich tend to spend money on new technologies which in turn allows these technologies to grow into new markets. New ma

    • NASA has fallen behind Europe's ESA/Russian space programs to the point where it is using 1960s rockets compared with ion engines

      Really? Damn--that's pretty impressive specific impulse on the ion engine in that Ariane 5.

      Oh wait, apples, oranges and NASA did it first [nasa.gov]. AGAIN.

      It's bad enough when Americans think they invented everything without Euros bettering them by, um, becoming them.
    • Just a couple of points to consider: "60's" style rockets are cheap to operate. They also actually have enough thrust to lift themselves plus a cargo against earth's gravitational pull, unlike an ion engine.

      NASA is falling behind because they are going for glitz and glamour, instead of economy and reliability. Back in the Apollo era, glamour and the prestige of being first was what the space race was all about. These days, the space race is about business and economy: GPS, satellite TV, weather monito
    • "rich are wasting vast amounts of the country's money on useless trinkets"

      Ah, but wasting money on useless trinkets is of great value in economic terms because it keeps the money supply circulating.

      I think you'll find Keynes discussed this at considerable length.
    • Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I remember correctly, Ion engines are great for long distrance travel but are absolutely useless for entering space. They can provide thrust for long periods of time with little energy consumption, but they can't provide enough thrust to break into orbit.
    • ion engines won't get you off the planet. Even the ESA used a massive Arianne rocket to PUT that ship in orbit, and even then, it was a TEST run, and they said it will take 16 months for the ion engine rocket to get to the moon.
    • NASA has fallen behind Europe's ESA/Russian space programs to the point where it is using 1960s rockets compared with ion engines.

      Ion engines are great for propulsion in 0 g, because they don't need massive amounts of fuel to sustain constant accelleration through an entire mission. They're useless though for lauch vehicles, since they don't produce enough thrust to even pick the engine up off the ground, much less an engine with a spacecraft on top of it. In any case, the first vehicle employing an io

  • Upper-left isn't New (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ClubStew ( 113954 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @09:37AM (#7084061) Homepage

    As much as I like(d) Farscape, the upper-left design isn't new. It's actually been around a while, as well as a few variants (like the exact same thing with the wings not turned up). Some designs were bigger - presummably to hold far more cargo - and some were smaller - designed only to carry a few more people than currently possible.

    With new pressure on NASA, news ideas are cropping up about using the old Saturn Vs or new variants to carry only cargo and then to taxi people into space using some of the designs here. It may be safer, but will it cost less? Taking a New York taxi a single mile is expensive enough! Imagine the fare on this taxi (and their "luggage" going in a separate one).

    • Re:Upper-left isn't New (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cybercuzco ( 100904 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @09:52AM (#7084172) Homepage Journal
      Imagine the fare on this taxi (and their "luggage" going in a separate one).

      Dont think taxi, think 747 vs Freight train. When a freight train crashes, it usually doesnt make the news unless there was something toxic on board or somone gets hurt. Theres a much lower margin of safety on a freight train so cargo can be hauled much more cheaply on a freight train than on a 747. You can also haul alot more freight on a freight train. But freight trains are slow, so people want to go by plane instead of train. In the case of space transportation, anything that humans have to fly on has to be tested more and has to have higher margins of safety than something thats only going to be rated for freight. More testing and more engineering means more expensive. And the bigger and more xcomplex the vehicle the more expensive it gets. So the space shuttle costs hundreds of millions to refurbish. What makes the news: Space shuttle blowing up or unmanned rocket blowing up? Unmanned rockets blow up alot more often than the space shuttle does, but they are cheaper to launch. So if you launch cargo along with humans you essentially have to certify the whole vehicle, including the cargo for human spaceflight (you cant have thse stuff in your cargo bay blowing up either) If you seperate out the two, even if you use expendible boosters, you can launch more cargo for less cost than if you launch both together. You wouldnt try to move a piano with a taxi, but if you want to get crosstown in a hurry you take one.

      • Dont think taxi, think 747 vs Freight train. When a freight train crashes, it usually doesnt make the news unless there was something toxic on board or somone gets hurt.

        Anything bigger that a sub-compact re-entering the atmosphere makes [cnn.com] the [spaceref.com] news [space.com]. Over the last 20+ years, if it's been big and on its way down (Mir, SkyLab, Compton, Cosmos-954, etc) it sure as hell generated a lot of publicity.

        What makes the news: Space shuttle blowing up or unmanned rocket blowing up?

        Again, any time something CATOs on t

      • Re:Upper-left isn't New (Score:5, Funny)

        by BESTouff ( 531293 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @10:34AM (#7084547)
        I don't like this. If we continue this trend of sending machines instead of humans to do risky jobs, sooner or later the machines will revolt and we will have to live underground like miserable rats.
    • Small problem with the Saturn Vs. They don't know how to make them anymore. It'd take about as long to figure out how they were built in the first place as it would to design a new one from scratch.

      But yes, having at least two types of vehicles would be ideal: one for heavy cargo lifting and the other for crew transportation. In fact, I think that was the original idea. The shuttle was a kludge by NASA to meet political/economic/technical constraints from the Nixon administration and the military. Fo

      • Is it due to lack of "open source" plans for all components?

      • Re:Upper-left isn't New (Score:4, Interesting)

        by PD ( 9577 ) * <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Monday September 29, 2003 @11:48AM (#7085235) Homepage Journal
        That's an urban legend. We know exactly how to build a Saturn V. The plans were not lost, nor was the knowlege needed to build them lost.

        The problem is that many parts are not available anymore. 35 years ago, guidance equipment used funny things like vacuum tubes. Events in the launch weren't controlled with computers, but with things called 'sequencers'. Some materials used in parts of the rockets aren't made anymore, because improved materials have been developed.

        So, we could fly a Saturn V if we wanted to, but before that would happen we would need to redesign many systems on the rocket to use modern technology. Nobody is going to build a vacuum tube factory to launch a Saturn V; they're just going to redesign that piece to use a modern computer instead.

      • Re:Upper-left isn't New (Score:4, Informative)

        by crawling_chaos ( 23007 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @11:51AM (#7085283) Homepage
        Small problem with the Saturn Vs. They don't know how to make them anymore.

        Urban Legend [urbanlegends.com]

        We know how to make the rocket, the only problem is finding vendors for the vacuum tubes and ferrite cores nad other pieces of late 1950's-1960's technology. By the time we re-did the designs to use modern components, we'd have spent as much as designing a rocket from scratch. I still think a cluster using the Russian engines on the new Atlas in the first stage and SSMEs in a recoverable second and third stage would be able to heft a lot of mass to high orbit.

        Of course, we could start with the F-1 plans and build a truly monstrous rocket engine. Problem is it probably wouldn't pay for itself. We rarely need to lift huge masses, unless we're bound for the Moon.

  • Does the shuttle problem really limit the ISS? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by frovingslosh ( 582462 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @09:39AM (#7084079)
    A Soyuz craft is always docked at the ISS as an emergency escape system if needed. And since the Soyuz can only carry three astronauts, the ISS can only be staffed by a maximum three-person crew until another escape option is available.

    Given how long it takes to ready a shuttle for flight and that there was certainly not always one standing by ready to go up, this 3 man limit was just as true before the last shuttle disaster as it is now. Why were there more than 3 people in the ISS crew before but there can only be 3 now?

    • Re:Does the shuttle problem really limit the ISS? (Score:4, Informative)

      by simong_oz ( 321118 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @09:46AM (#7084131) Journal
      The original plans for the ISS called for a permanent (or was it maximum - sorry don't have the info handy) crew of 7 once the ISS was finished. However, until the habitation module was built it would be limited to a crew of three (like it is now). NASA/US govt cancelled the habitation module during the budget overruns/cuts problems a year or so ago so the permanent crew is now three.

      I'm not sure what the standy safety measures were for a crew of 7 - I seem to remember multiple Soyuz, but I'm really not sure. Hopefully someone else can fill in the blanks.
      • NASA's orginal plan was for a fulltime 7 man crew, who could all use one, single escape vechicle called the X-38. I'm not real sure what the status of this vehicle is now though. There were some test flights [spaceflightnow.com].
      • I remember seeing stuff about a specifically designed emergency reentry vehicle, basically a lifting body type glider that could carry 2 crew, and I think there were supposed to be two of them. I take it that was never implemented?
      • "I'm not sure what the standy safety measures were for a crew of 7"

        As far as I remember, there were plans for the CRX (X38 & X40) that was an automated return craft for the ISS, but this got caught in budget cuts.

        I seem to recall there was some horse-trading between NASA and the Russians over building things in a technology exchange, but specialist tools and materials kept going missing on the way to Baikonur.

    • I guess this isn't really discussed much, but the whole 'Shuttle == lifeboat' thing is only really a big deal because the U.S. and U.S.S.R. and other countries couldn't come together and agree on a standard docking technology ... so the ISS has a couple different types.

      The shuttle is on standby for 'rescue service' only when it is *attached* to the ISS itself. In other words - there can only be, at a time, enough ships to take everyone on board back home to Earth.

      The ISS can't accomodate more than 2 Soyu
    • I don't think the shuttle disaster is the reason for the new limit. There was going to be a special 7-crew escape craft for the ISS called the X-38 - but it was cancelled last year, in favour of a pursuing a multipurpose vehicle.
    • There has never been an ISS crew with more than 3 people. When the shuttle is visiting, there is of course both the shuttle crew of up to 7 and the ISS crew of 3; but the ISS crew has never been more than 3. There were plans to build a separate habitation module and a new escape craft to enable a crew of 7, but those have been postponed/cut for budgetary reasons.
  • Honestly if you look at how things are going the space race has been re-born. Instead of the USSR now we are up against earope and China and Russia...Oh well they say competition is a good thing.. I agree. Maybe now we can actually look to the future and travel somewhere other than earth orbit for manned flights. If space is the last frontier why arent we following Horace Greeleys advice (go west young man) and why has a profitable private space business/exploration model been found?

    • Re:the new space race (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bendebecker ( 633126 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @10:47AM (#7084682) Journal
      "why has a profitable private space business/exploration model been found?"
      Maybe becuase one doesn't exist. People love to compare the new world to space, but the problem is they are very very important differences. The first was the fact that the new world already had an indiginous(sic?) population that was explotiable. The second was the fact that the new world was literally overflowing with gold. It was profitable to send ships there, not for reasons of industry or developement, but simply becuase it was the equivalent of a large bank. Anyone with a handful of guns and a big enough ship could steal as much they wanted. The reason trips to the new world became privatized so quickly is because it was believed that there was much wealth that was so easy to access. Basically, the immediate benefits (historically, business has always been short sighted) very obviously ouweighed the risks. Most to the early explorers and many of the colonists all went "to get rich quick." Even then the first 100 years or so was dominated almost exclusively by state sponsored explorers.

      Now look at space. It has about the same risks, the same costs, etc BUT without the obvious benefits. Imagine if cortez conquered the aztecs only to find that the entire empire's wealth consisted of nothing more than worthless rock. Do you think the spanish would really have built a new world empire if they didn't think the benefits of one were so obvious? How do expect to make money off space? Mining the moon? It is far cheaper to mine the earth. Pure science is not going to bring investors. Secondly, there is the fact that there was competition when it came to the new world. If you didn't do it, your enemies would have. No such competition exists in space. China is decades away from colonizing space, the EU is even farther behind. There's no rush. Lastly, there is the fact that we are technoloigically not up to the task at all. We could build colonies on the moon. For what purpose, that's anyones guess. The real material wealth of space isn't on the moon. It is at mars and the asteroid belt and Jupiter. We are no where near where we need to be technologically to get there effeciently let alone set up a true colony. Imagine if instead of sailing to the new world, the only way to reach it was by riding a horse. That is basically how it is with the space program. The only difference is you have to carry all your supplies on that horse. When the explorers got the new world, they initially didn't have to build colonies, the natives already had. They just had to steal them. In space you got to build it all yourself. Not only can no company afford to sponsor that much technological research, no counrty can either (at the moment). Most of the comercial space attempts you have seen so far have been somewhat silly from a business aspect. They are developing a technology with the hopes that sometime in the future, someone will come up with a profitable use for it. Once they accomplish it and discover that as far as near earth stuff goes there is no comercial use for it, it will probably come to an end.

      To answer your question, we havent goen into space for the same reason we never really colonized antartica: becuase no one wants to live in hell and there is no way to convince people that space is a land of milk and honey. No one wants to live in a place where they know they won't eventually be better off. Maybe if the standard of living falls on earth to the point that living in a barren rusty frozen wasteland is preferable is to living on earth, people will start going to the moon and mars but at the moment, quite honestly, what's the point? (Note: phantom killer asteroid is not going to scare people into doing it.)

      • Re:the new space race (Score:4, Funny)

        by Virtex ( 2914 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @04:29PM (#7088200)
        we havent goen into space for the same reason we never really colonized antartica: becuase no one wants to live in hell ...

        OMG! Antarctica is hell? That means hell has frozen over! And that girl who said she'd sleep with me just as soon as hell freezes over; it's finally going to happen! This is the greatest day of my life!

        (Sorry, couldn't resist)
    • I'm really sick of the space program, especially the US one. While I agree that safety is very important, I really feel that too much money is being spent to make overly complicated transport vehicles that address some safety concerns while opening up a whole new slew of things that can go wrong.

      If there was more money to be made from going into space, more people would be willing to take greater risks in order to do so. I can't help wondering if there will eventually be a "wagon train to the stars" (to c

  • Funding. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Walterk ( 124748 ) <slashdot@@@dublet...org> on Monday September 29, 2003 @09:41AM (#7084090) Homepage Journal
    I wonder if they'll get any funding. NASA seems to have a plethora of ideas, but all you hear about is their budget being cut. So far ever Nigeria seems to be having a more solid space program.

    Anyone remember X-34?
    • I guess the need to brown-nose Congress for funding is an ongoing part of any government space program... but statements like this (from the article) really worry me:

      How much will this next generation vehicle cost? The budget goes first to the White House for approval, then to Congress. The final design will be announced in August 2004.

      The way this is worded, it sounds like they're implying "the project will cost as much as you'll let us spend." I'm really leaning toward the view (often expressed by Sl
      • Nice idea, but the X-prize competition is not anywhere near on par with a real space transport vehicle. The X-Prize is sub-orbital--you only have to go 100km up, which is well short of orbital altitude--and most of the teams are designing their vehicles to just make it past this threshold. Don't look for the X-Prize competitors to build a new shuttle anytime soon.

        Check this drawing [xprize.org] from the X-prize site to see how high they really have to go.

    • Re:Funding. (Score:4, Funny)

      by TheFlyingGoat ( 161967 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @10:02AM (#7084256) Homepage Journal
      Nigeria won't be able to fund their space program for long... one of their officials wants to send $19 million to my bank account. If this continues, I'm sure they'll run out of money.
    • X-34 was a money pit. Single Stage to Orbit is not possible with current engine and constriction technology. In order for the x-34 to function it would have to carry 100 kg fo fuel for every 8 kg of ship carried into orbit. That includes the engines, tanks people and cargo. Not to mention that the x-34 fell victim to nasas "all up" development process. Instead of developing each technology seperately and integrating it into an already existing vehicle, they try to develop all the technology simultaneou

    • Re:Funding. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by iCharles ( 242580 )
      Anyone remember X-34?

      Or the X-30? X-20? Apollo 18?

      Unfortunately, the history of the space program, aside from an exciting-but-wasteful run like the moon program has been par for the course for the space program. We have some idea that needs some investment, but no real desire to follow-though with funding beyond a point.

      I have a dream that, if we were to have built the X-20 back in the sixties (as opposed to Mercury), and grew from that, we would have a sustainable, safer space fleet today. We might

  • What about our future history... (Score:5, Funny)

    by thebruce ( 112025 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @09:45AM (#7084118) Homepage
    from the Enterprise intro? Isn't that shuttle-jet craft we see in the intro going to be built? I mean, it's in Star Trek history, so it must eventually happen, otherwise Star Trek's just a bunch of science fiction!
  • This is rather old news (from before last shuttle broke apart) IIRC.

    The point is to get into a program that is more cost effective, and safer at the same time.

    Current Shuttle program is expensive, the payloads are small, and relatively unsafe.

    NASA needs to remember the 1970's...

    K.I.S.S.

    ;-)

  • Timeframe (Score:5, Insightful)

    by elliotj ( 519297 ) <slashdot AT elliotjohnson DOT com> on Monday September 29, 2003 @09:47AM (#7084135) Homepage
    NASA would like to have the Orbital Space Plane flying by 2008. John Junkins thinks it's possible.

    "If we can go from the drawing board to the Moon in 10 years, we can do this in five years," he said.

    I'm glad to see someone getting aggressive on the topic of a time frame. AFAIK, the ISS won't last forever, so as long as we have problems getting people and things up and back from it, it is going to waste.

    It seems to me that NASA has been farting around for decades. It's an embarrasment that in 2003 we don't have a multitude of different vehicles available for all sorts of specialized space missions. NASAs mandate ought to be the development and maintenance of a large fleet of spacefaring vehicles. Systems need to be developed so that a launch can happen anytime of any day so that the problem of how and when to get up there becomes a matter of deciding when your cargo is ready.

    And if you don't want NASA do it themselves, then this stuff should all be outsourced to the big Aerospace players.

    • I'm glad to see someone getting aggressive on the topic of a time frame. AFAIK, the ISS won't last forever, so as long as we have problems getting people and things up and back from it, it is going to waste.

      Setting an aggressive timeframe and some healthy competition against other nations (Europe, China, etc) can do wonders to boost the US space program.

      The space race is what got America to the moon in such a short timeframe. Frank Culbertson jr.(a NASA mission director) speculated [nasa.gov] that if the Russian

    • -why- nasa was 'farting' around... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by *weasel ( 174362 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @10:10AM (#7084309)
      because it's a heavily politicized bureaucracy.

      the capsule replacement was always intented purely to support a low earth orbit space station. a space station that congress didn't want to build. so the ultimate craft was designed to land like an airplane, and featured some fudged cost-effectiveness numbers so that it would be popular enough to greenlight. the resulting bureaucratic design being the cause of countless safety failures and unnecessary risks.

      This BS ruined our capability to do much of anything for 20 years while we floundered until the ISS rekindled public interest in its primary function.

      We got to the moon in 10 years because the people (and thereby elected officials) were behind it. NASA either has to fix its bureaucratic problems (impossible), privatize the space industry (desireable), or rekindle public interest in beating the Chinese to permanent moon settlement (short sighted, too expensive).

      Look at the smaller cheaper autonomous initiative (good idea) at NASA that was popularized with the Mars Rover, and was subsequently killed in its crib by the follow-up failure of the polar lander (tragic).

      The true irony is that NASA is organizationally incapable of doing things fast, or cheap, as the polar lander should have shown. All that money, all those procedures, committees, and double-checks - and still a small problem got by and resulted in the loss of a $100 million dollar craft and the priceless research it could have done.

      The best solution is for space to become privatized. Public money is best spent elsewhere, and private industry is more suited to rapid expansion, evolution, and reaching cost effectiveness. Look at what the privatized airline industry did in only -50- years after the Wright brothers first flew. From Kitty Hawk to Chuck Yeager in nearly the same amount of time that we've been to the moon and done nothing.

      Why should we continue to let Boeing and the like purely profit from programs like the x34 which get cut before they can produce. Why not share risk/reward more?

      Consolidate the agencies with control over spacecraft (to make privatization pluasible), set rules regarding space related patents (to ensure that tech falls to the public domain quickly), and set -international- rules for extraplanetary rights and coordination.

      I don't want to have to learn mandarin to vacation on Mars.

    • Re:Timeframe (Score:3, Insightful)

      by confused one ( 671304 )
      Part of the problem has been Congressional budget slashing. NASA's been farting around because it doesn't have the money (necessary) to do something fast.

      In the Apollo -> Moon days, NASA was 8% of the national budget. Today, it's around 0.01%. You just can't make cuts like that and expect everything to continue as it did before.

  • Capsules are more efficient (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EvilTwinSkippy ( 112490 ) <yoda AT etoyoc DOT com> on Monday September 29, 2003 @09:51AM (#7084165) Homepage Journal
    Some simple math. Every pound you take with you is several more pounds of fuel that are needed to get you there.

    How much of the space shuttle's "heavy lift" capability is wasted on the airframe and landing gear? A lot. Indeed, the SRB's are a giant fudge factor to get the whole mess off the ground.

    • I completely agree for space missions.

      However, this is an emergency return vehicle...or a taxi to and from the space station. The space station is relatively low orbit..so you arent going deep into space.

      Because of this, and the fact that it will be used to cycle astronauts in the space station, I think a shuttle would be best.

      BUT I completely agree we should be building capsules...and exploring space. And sending people to mars. But if we cant send people to the ISS, we cant think about going to
  • ... baring one exception...
    I think NASA should have bared all...

  • There is an old joke that says it all (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @09:52AM (#7084175) Journal
    The american spend years in research and millions of dollar perfecting a pen that would work in space. The russians used a pencil.

    Yes I know this is not true. The disprove(?) [truthorfiction.com]

    But still it is funny. I watched Jay Leno for a while and he just wouldn't quit with jokes about the space station mir and how it was falling apart. Of course zero jokes about the over a dozen people blown up aboard the space shuttles.

    Exactly what is the body count on both sides? And how does the body count stack up to the amount of time spend in space?

    So once again the americans are looking to go the high tech way. Sure the russians have proven time and time again that the old pod on a rocket works best, hell the russians have got an escape mechanism, their crews aren't doomed to burn up without at least a chance of escape.

    A space plane just for piloting people up? Cause the existing soyuz module is not big enough. Okay here is a bloody simple solution. Add more modules!

    When was the last time you saw on say a passenger ship just ONE big lifeboat? Multiple small ones are way easier to implement and provide reduncancy.

    Oh well no doubt the boys at nasa know better. After all it is not like they haven't learned from past mistakes eh?

    The space shuttle was a great idea. It was part of a huge project to go into space and the shuttle would have been the first of a whole fleet of vehicles to allow this to happen. Instead it became the mainstay of american space exploration and it this role it fails. It is like SUV, nice in theory but in its attemps to be all things it fails at being good at anything.

    Of course the article points out the reason pretty well. Lack of funding. I guess the americans just made so many jokes about mir that they thought they had the space race won and they no longer had to do anything with it. Pity.

    • watched Jay Leno for a while and he just wouldn't quit with jokes about the space station mir and how it was falling apart.

      I hate it when people do this! Yes, Mir was falling apart, but it was nearly 10 years over its designed life (I think, tho it may have been 14, not quite sure). It was growing in ways that were never intended when designed, it had new modules that were never in its origional plan. It housed many more crews than intended, it had multiple systems upgrades that had to be done onsite

    • Exactly what is the body count on both sides?

      Good question, and one that's hard to answer.

      Short answer: the US has lost more astronauts during space missions than the USSR/Russia. According to an airsafe.com article [airsafe.com] the Soviets lost 4 cosmonauts during space missions. The U.S. lost 7 on Challenger in 1986 and 7 on Columbia (although not all Columbia crewmembers were American).

      If you expand the scope of the question to include ground-based deaths in the space and rocketry programs of the U.S. and the

  • Believe it when I see it... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by meta-monkey ( 321000 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @09:54AM (#7084187) Journal
    A few weeks ago I was at the 2003 MAPLD (Military and Space Applications of Programmable Logic Devices [klabs.org]) conference, and one of the talks was by Roger Launius [nasa.gov], chief historian for the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. He talked about the history of NASA, in the context of the Columbia disaster, what he thought lead to the failure, and where NASA could go from here. His outlook was pretty grim, but he made excellent points, which enraged a large portion of those attending the conference, half of whom were NASA employees.

    Essentially, he said the Shuttle failed (and he didn't just mean 'crashed', he meant, failed to live up to its hype, to do real scientific work in space, and be cost effective) because it was designed wrong. It was designed to be all things. It was designed to transport people into space. It was designed to transport cargo into space. It was designed to conduct research in space. By trying to do all of these things, it failed to do any of them well. He made a number of other vary salient points about the reasons we should or should not send people into space, and the impact of public opinion and politics.

    To keep this OT, I'd have to say, considering the historical perspective I learned from Dr. Launius, I like the capsule approach the best for transporting humans into space. It's cheap, it's effective, and it's less likely to break. I'd like to see NASA design vehicles that are inteded for a specific purpose, and do that purpose well. We have a space station for science that can only be done by humans in space (which there isn't much of...how do you really do microgravity experiments with people on board bumping into stuff, and jarring the place around?), we need a low-cost vehicle for transporting cargo, and a high-safety vehicle for transporting humans.
    • Nasa was trying to make the DC-3 of space flight. I had to do all things. Think about the 747. It carries cargo and people. It is also going to be used as a laser platform. The DC-3 has been an airliner, cargo plane, glider tug, gunship, and even electronic recon . I think they tried to do too much too soon. We are still learning about manned space flight. We should be trying new ideas all the time not trying to build a space airline.
    • > I like the capsule approach the best for transporting humans into space.

      But - and this is a big but - it doesn't look like something from Farscape. OK, I know what I sound like, but hear me out! "The Right Stuff" was just repeated on TV here, and the saying that hit me was "You know what makes this thing fly? _funding_!" One reason the Shuttle worked (as in: kept flying) so long as it has was, frankly, that it LOOKS GREAT - if you don't know enough engineering to worry about what might go wrong. Perso
    • >science that can only be done by humans in space (which there isn't much of...

      Humans can say "that's funny", improvise, and do off-the-wall things.

      Today we're not taking full advantage of humans. Astronauts have their time scheduled to the minute. I predict we'll get better science when/if it's possible for brilliant graduate students to tinker and explore in a microgravity lab, without having to get their ideas cleared by a committee years in advance.

      If you're following a written script before you s

  • Where are these on NASA's site? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PSaltyDS ( 467134 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @09:56AM (#7084205) Journal
    I hate getting this kind of thing from network news sites. So I tend to not read them and just look for the link to the horse's mouth. I didn't see a link to the NASA site that might carry this graphic and their own interpretation of it. Does anyone have a link at nasa.gov?

    [Off-topic]

    While looking for the above link, I made the terrible mistake of trying nasa.org, which turns out to be a blatantly commercial site with horridly multiplying pop-ups to boot. How did these bums get a .org registry?!

    [/Off-topic]

    Any technology distinguishable from magic is not sufficiently advanced.
  • There must be some kind of commercial incentive to go to space. The moment the private business steps in, there will be many various designs tried, built and flied. The best one will win.
    Space needs a race similar to what happened in aviation in 1900-1920s. Everyone got excited, startups were popping up left and right, people WANTED to fly.
    Government bureucracy with no incentive to do the thing right is not a way to progress in space. Any congressmen reading /.?
    I personally am looking forward to Xprise l

  • A step backward? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by SDF-7 ( 556604 )
    Interesting spin on this -- didn't this already get hashed out in this prior [slashdot.org] article that the capsule may well be more a "Right tool for the right job" issue?

    It basically boiled down to aerodynamic control surfaces allow you to control your landing more precisely, but introduce a *lot* of complexity and weight (increasing your launch cost) as with the present Shuttle. A capsule based approach can be done much more simply but has issues to work out in the landing (ocean landing is probably easy in this day

  • Why use wings on a space vehicle? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by apsmith ( 17989 ) * on Monday September 29, 2003 @10:02AM (#7084258) Homepage
    If you're launching vertically, the wings give you no extra lift capability. While you're in space, the wings are just dead weight. When you aero-brake in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, the wing edges are where the bulk of the orbital energy gets dumped and has to be dissipated - Columbia's problem obviously was with a wing edge. The only time wings have any advantage is in the final descent stages, where you get much greater maneuverability and a gentler approach and landing - and it looks cool too. But parachutes and retro rockets as used by Soyuz, or just parachutes as used by all the US manned flights before the shuttle, seem to work well enough.

    Mass estimates come in at about 3 times higher for a winged vehicle than a capsule; that's from experience with the Shuttle and European, Japanese, and Russian winged vehicle designs. Is the maneuverability advantage and slightly lower G-forces on re-entry sufficient justification for the vastly greater expense?

  • bigger picture (literally) (Score:4, Informative)

    by 7*6 ( 258602 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @10:04AM (#7084273)
    I hate how the images never link to bigger versions that you can actually make out. So I found this [ospnews.com] for everyone to look at. I got it here [ospnews.com].

  • Yaaaaay. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dan Weaver ( 646556 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @10:14AM (#7084339) Homepage
    The Space Shuttle is a giant screaming space boondoggle whose main justification is the support of the other giant screaming space boondoggle, the Mostly American Space Station. Now that we've gone up into Earth orbit and found it's not a whole lot of fun, there's no use in continuing to put people up there for the sheer sake of putting them up there. It's doubly not worth putting them up there in reusable vehicles that look cool but end up wasting money compared to expendable vehicles unless one uses flight schedules generated by 1975 NASA engineers which expect Shuttles to launch on a manic schedule more characteristic of cocaine-addled weasels with ADD than giant experimental engineering endeavors.

    The NASA manned missions office ought to toss the Space Shuttle, toss the Mostly American Space Station, toss all this Orbital Space Plane crap, get the simple capsule, and then concentrate on developing pre-colonization Martian missions. Earth orbit is for robots, and space planes suck.
    • Yeah , it is , apart of course from the solar array , the escape pod , the living module and the control module. Which are russian.
      Oh and theres some japanese science modules too. Oh and training is currently done at Baikonaur (thats not in the good ole US-of-A incidentaly).
      Oh and you can only get there on a russian rocket at the moment. Apart from that its a 100% american effort!

      Insular prat.

  • If you want a wing to glide to the ground and land accurately

    then why not just use a ram air parachute (like a sport parachute).

    They are very steerable and can provide accurate landings at an airport.

    Just put a big one on the returning capsule.

    That would be a hell of a lot cheaper.

    • The problem with parachutes is... they fail.

      Now, that's not a big problem if you're in an Apollo-style capsule with three chutes because if one fails then you can land safely with two (AFAIR one Apollo landing did just that). Even if two fail you have a fair chance of surviving, and a failure of all three is unlikely unless you have a more fundamental problem with the capsule (e.g. overheating during a bad re-entry).

      But if you're relying on just one steerable chute to land you, you have two choices:

      1. Ac
  • Now they're reinventing the wheel in Spaaaaaace, spaaaaace, spaaaaace!

    KFG

  • Once again here is a possible answer... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JohnnyCannuk ( 19863 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @10:39AM (#7084594)
    From a post [slashdot.org] I did about 3 weeks ago:

    I don't know why NASA or an areospace company (Macdonnell Douglas, are you listening?) is not considering revitalizing the Delta Clipper [nasa.gov]. It was a capsule shaped Single Stage to Orbit (SSO), re-useable space vehicle that was actually built and was flying throughout the 1990's until an unfortunate accident destroyed it. Apart from the strut breaking that caused it's destruction (an engineering problem that is likely easily fixed), it performed exceptionally.

    Consider the costs of revitalizing this "existing" project compared to re-designing and re-creating a new shuttle from scatch. Which do you think is cheaper? The Delta Clipper allowed for totally controlled flight to and from orbit, a lot safer it seems, than an uncontrolled glider.

    This idea seems to have the best of apects of what /.ers and other have been saying - it is a "capsule" so it is more efficient in space and it is a Single Stage to Orbit vehicle with the safety of completely powered landing and flight in the atmosphere. I would expect that Macdonnell Douglas could have a prototype built and flying again in 6 months and that, with enough engineering and money, a production model could be built in 2 to 3 years.

    Can the other four say that?

    Hell, strap on a new areospike engine [slashdot.org] and NASA might actually enjoy a few years of spacefaring success, like they used to in the 60's.

    Just a thought...

    • McDonnell Douglas is not listening. They were bought out by Boeing, and now Boeing is more interested in their own solutions than in SSTO. By the way, to say that the Delta Clipper was "flying throughout the 90s" is rather an exaggeration: the testing program was going well, and it did get off the ground, but never more than a low hover. It would take a hell of a lot longer than 6 months to go from that smaller-scale prototype to a flying production model, though.
      • "did get off the ground, but never more than a low hover."

        The functional test [angelfire.com] that destroyed the DCX involved lifting to a hover, rotating around a horzontal axis, translating laterally, rotating back to vertical and translating down and laterally again. The destruction was caused when a landing strut failed to 'lock', and the whole thing toppled over.

        The thing about the DCX is that it was unmanned, SSTO, powered throughout and scarily good, but it didn't impress people that liked the renderings of the

      • Re:Once again here is a possible answer... (Score:4, Informative)

        by JohnnyCannuk ( 19863 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @01:08PM (#7086119)
        Actually, I beleive in at least one test flight it got to a couple thousand feet and turned about 85 degrees left then right without an issue. All by remote control too.

        My point is, why spend billions on a brand new design, when you can take an already proven design that might need some tweaks and use it. Sure 6 months to go from nothing to the prototype and 2 to 3 years to go from there to the production version might be an exageration, but NASA and the US went a great deal further with spacecraft in the 60's - essentially 0 to the moon in ten years. How hard can it be to go from a working design and prototype to a working production model in this case...even with upgrades?

  • That lifting body shuttle design concept predates Farscape by decades, dating back to the 1950s (see A history of lifting bodies [nasa.gov]). I even remember a traveling road show of these things in early 1970s. And for those that remember the 6-Million Dollar Man TV series, the crash footage in the title sequences is of a lifting body accident.
  • Is it just me, or do all four images look like modeled ships from Escape Velocity: Override?

    NASA will want to visit the bars on every planet, to make sure there aren't any missions available.

  • Good article on a NASA-funded research project, Laser Propulsion Group is studying what may become a new type of rocket engine. They use powerful lasers firing pulses that last only tenths of nanoseconds -- tenths of billionths of a second -- at a wide range of target materials.

    http://www.spacedaily.com/news/laser-02a.html

  • Some concepts already floated... (Score:3, Informative)

    by pjt48108 ( 321212 ) <mr,paul,j,taylor&gmail,com> on Monday September 29, 2003 @01:29PM (#7086343)
    For those of you who wondered...
    Here are some ideas that have already been turned over and rejected (and might have to be revisited!):

    There are variations of the Apollo [astronautix.com]

    Rescue plans/variations [astronautix.com]

    The original Alpha lifeboat [astronautix.com]

    And Alpha lifeboat's replacement [astronautix.com]

    And, of course, the Saturn V variants [astronautix.com]

    Happy surfing!

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