NASA Clears Shuttle Fuel Tank for Flight 156
Screamer49 writes "CNN is reporting that NASA approved a major design change in the space shuttle's fuel tank on Wednesday, clearing the last major hurdle before shuttle flights can resume as early as July 1." It's nice to have a more functional space program again, isn't it?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:1)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:2, Insightful)
Because his program needs the money?
I've been trying to put together a RAAM team. This will require what for me is a lot of money. To form the team and compete successfully I need to be home training, forming and training my crew, putting together the gear, planning strategy and tactics, etc.
To get the money I need to be away from home, giving talks, courting sponsors, making public appearances for the benefit of my sponso
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:5, Insightful)
How much will it cost to get a ride into space?
Rides will not be offered in SpaceShipOne. The price of a ride will have to take in consideration the cost of certification and establishing an airliner-like operation. One goal of this research program is to see how low it might be without the burden of regulatory costs. At program completion we will have good data for operational costs and may publish them.
Establishing an airliner? WTF? Seriously dude, require your passenger to aquire a pilot's license, do the minimum required number of flight hours and designate them as a co-pilot. Then get them to sign a waiver as long as you're arm and you'll still have enough rich jerks with $200k each lining up to keep you flying two flights a day, every day, for the next five years.
Speaking of five years, when will Virgin Galatic be offering flights? Who the hell knows. Their web site says:
By the end of the decade, Virgin Galactic - the most exciting development in the story of modern space history - is planning to make it possible for almost anyone to visit the final frontier at an affordable price.
Surely they don't mean US$200k, so how long will it take to go from that to an "affordable" price? 5 years? Can't be, that would mean they have already started flights. 3 years? Sweet, so they'll start flying next year? Don't count on it.
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:5, Insightful)
With that strategy they should have people all ready to fly next week, eh?
Perhaps the people running the private space programs know something about the legalities and economics of running a private space program that you don't?
Here's something for you to try that might teach you about some of the problems involved:
Start an America's Cup racing team. Try financing it, after the race, by giving people rides on the boat. That will require you to have a commercial captain's license, but maybe you can get around that by requiring that all of your paying passengers have commericial mates licenses and, officially at least, sign them on as crew. When someone offers you five grand to give a talk and introduce you to some potential sponsors tell 'em to go to hell. You don't have time for that, you have a business to run.
Good luck.
KFG
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, that's cool then, 'cause that won't even get you in line for a used one.
Tell ya what, since you're interested in space, not boats, why don't you take the direct approach and get in touch with Burt and arrange to run his passenger flights for him, at your expense, your profit. A lease agreement, just like with . .
Piece of cake and lots of money to be made. You're just one signed passenger away from being a millionaire.
But you might well find that the very first step you have to take after inking the deal is to hold a press conference and then go on a speaking tour to stump up your startup money and find your first passenger. If you don't simply have a godzillion dollars from somewhere, that's . .
It doesn't matter whether it's boats, or bikes, or cars, or space ships. That's a McGuffin. It's a business; and one reliant on continuing cutting edge R&D at that. Go read a history of Henry Ford. It's exactly the same deal.
And Henry had to quit designing cars to run his car company.
Do you really want Burt Frickin' Rutan to have to quit designing just to play footsie with some rich twits?
I thought that was the initial complaint.
KFG
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:2)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:2)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:2)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:2)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:2)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:2)
Hmm, wait, lets try that one again.
That's a perfect analogy because, as we all know, Burt Rutan invented the modern, high performance rocket.
Darn. Trying again...
That's a perfect analogy, because, as we all know, Burt Rutan invented a useful, orbital rocket.
Hmm, that's still long. How about this?
That's a perfect analogy, because, as we all know, Burt Rutan invented a low-cost sounding rocket.
Darn, by comparison to sounding ro
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:2)
Think about this. SpaceShipOne seats two. SpaceShipTwo (the passenger version) seats 11. If we assume the profit flying 11 is, say, $50,000 per person, then the cost to fly the thing is $1,500,000. You can't fly one person for a reasonable price. All the safety comments people have made aside, it's just not economical to f
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:2)
As for the jerk comment, don't take my comment out of context. What I said was that even if you put a dozen barriers up and charged an obscene amount of money you'd still make a profit. For a passenger to make it through that kind of filter they would have to be unusually determined, and when people like that are put into regular, not challenging, situa
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:2)
You wanna bet? It takes an ungodly amount of fuel to fire a rocket engine that size for a few minutes, and fuel is not cheap. And that doesn't pay for R&D, staff, fuel for the mothership, insurance, etc. I would not be at all surprised to find that each of those SS1 launches cost in excess of $200k. Rutan didn't pay for it, of course... Paul A
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:2)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:5, Informative)
And using technology he got from Scaled Composites too (IIRC)
Private space industry booming, profitable... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say you want to build a solar power plant in space, or a mining operation on the moon or in the belt, or an orbital facility for producing materials that require vacuum and/or free fall. The startup costs are immense, and it'll be decades before you see a profit. Why invest the money in it now when you could put it somewhere else that'll turn a profit sooner and more reliably? That's how the free market works after all, money takes the path of least resistance, and that's why private industry fairs poorly at anything long term. Government agencies can be short sighted too, but they aren't required to make a profit, and so while they are often ineffecient, they can do things no industry has the patience for.
Half the benefit to space travel is to the whole of mankind; a chance to spread beyond our home world, and a pathway to greater understanding about the universe. These things aren't appealing to the private sector. The other reasons for going to space - valuable resources such as those in the belt, abundant solar energy, technological offshoots that come from developing better craft, etc - those aren't easy enough to turn a quick buck on.
When space technology progresses to the point where low earth orbit is easily accessable, then and only then will the private sector step up and start seriously considering offworld activities such as the ones mentioned above. Remember that it was government agencies, not the private sector, that made satelites possible, and yet now that putting satelites in orbit is easy you have plenty of commercial applications springing up. The public sector paved the way for satelites, and the communications companies took advantage of that when it became cheap enough. And even the X-prize craft were following what had already been done by NASA, they were just finding new ways of doing it.
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:5, Insightful)
Space travel isn't profitable yet. People aren't going from point A to point B and crossing outer space in the process - to profit from space, you must go from the ground to orbit, and bring something back that's worth the trip. Space is mostly empty, and gravity is a strong barrier to entry.
Space travel technology isn't both cheap an reliable yet. Cheap rockets make the satelite business possible, but reliable, reusable craft capable of attaining orbit with a signifigant payload are incredibly expensive (the X-prize craft didn't meet those qualifications, though they were cheap and reusable). Airplanes existed for years before the formation of airlines, and jet propulsion existed for a long time before jetliners were brought into widespread service. It was largely factors like military R&D that made modern airlines possible - jets were weapons before they were anything else.
Lastly, we were traveling from Europe to North America (to give two examples) for centuries before planes were invented. The pathway was already there, and already profitable and useful. Airlines slowly but surely superceded ships as the means to travel long distances. Centuries from now we might have an equivalent in space - if we start with ion drives and later develop fusion propulsion, that would be similar - but right now we're at the stage where intercontinental travel was in the medieval period.
The private sector needs an incentive to go to space. All they have now is the satelite business. Why should they feel the need to go any further than that? There isn't anything to be had up there yet, at least not at the prices they're willing to pay. A billion dollar airliner fleet isn't that expensive if it makes 100 billion in airfare after all. What incentive is there to drop a few billion dollars on space craft when it will take another decade of R&D before they can turn a profit?
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that means the goverments need to create ways of processing high-value or otherwise impossible to produce goods (or information) in space, from materials available in space. If industry can see a proven way to make money from it, you couldn't stop them finding a way to get there.
I guess some "killer app" or process that needs weightlessness or vacuum (or both) to work... maybe some high temperature manufacturing process... oh, like producing titanium or osmium or tungsten or something... from a
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:3, Insightful)
Off the top of my head, there are materials that can be made easily in space like Aerogel, which is incredibly valuable here in earth. Google it or look it up in Wiki to see what I mean - this stuff has amazingly useful properties, and weighs next to nothing. Mass producing it would mostly be a matter of getting a fac
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:2)
That "something" is your passengers and their memory of their experience. Instead of air liner, think cruise liner.
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:3, Interesting)
In the future, assuming we don't die out or go back to the dark ages, I have no doubt that there will be private exploitation of offworld resources. There will come a time in the next few decades where building factories in orbit to take advantage of abundant energy, vacuum and free
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:2, Insightful)
Because it loses money?
KFG
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people don't understand NASA. NASA does what most other people think is impossible. I'm sorry if it takes a little longer.
And it takes longer because Congress decides how much money NASA gets, in large part, from year to year. Would you buy a new car or new house if you don't know if you can make the payments next year?
And lastly, many of NASA's projects go on for decades. NASA had a big involvement with the development of the F-22 Raptor, [nasa.gov] designed the variable-sweep wing on the F-14, [nasa.gov] the hypersonic X-43, which made the world speed record, [nasa.gov] and has a sucessful Mars program. [nasa.gov] Now how many private companies would be willing to take these projects on, when most people think it couldn't be done?
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:3, Interesting)
I think NASA has contributed a lot of wealth that not many people are aware of, and this simply woudl not have happend had they been do
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:2)
Working for NASA, they can get a huge R&D budget for some new technological advance that may or may not pay off.
If it does pay off, the private companies take what they've learned from the NASA project and apply it to their own commericial endeavors.
And if it doesn't pay off, hey, at least it wasn't their share
What pace were you expecting? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Private industry seems slow (Score:3, Insightful)
Faith in NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:5, Informative)
You're kidding me. Yes, there were a few issues, but those things are STILL going. They were designed for, what...a couple months of usage?
I'd call that a big win. You will notice this big win does not owe it's success in any way to the shuttles however.
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
NASA is full of smart and passionate engineers and scientists. They have great resolve to overcome setbacks, and keep on going. (Our own space program seems to be ditched because of one failure).
Please do not become like us British, complaining and makign a big deal a
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
(*) FYI, Opportunity already beat you blokes by coming to rest inside Eagle Crater, which was only about 10 meters across and 1 or 2 deep. From 80 million miles away, baby!
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
Are you still driving a 1984 Pinto in mint condition or something?
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
A human team which would have cost enough to send 30 missions like the rover ones to Mars?
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
I REALL am curious. For real. This is something that I have not thought too much about and would love to hear from someone like you who has obviously (judging from your statements) spent some time considering.
Thanks.
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
Except that a team of humans is so absurdly expensive to send, if we were to even have the technical capabilities to do so, and increase catastrophic mission failure exponentially.
In short, what you suggest is idiotic at best. Which can only mean one thing: Mr President, please stop posting on slashdot.
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:3, Interesting)
You build something that will almost certainly last 6 months. After 6 months, it will probably last another 8 months. After those 8 have passed, it might last another year if you're lucky. After that year is up, it's anybody's guess.
It's not like they built it to self destruct after it's projected mission time expired. They built it to not FAIL in it's mission time, and anthing beyond that is just fine and dandy.
I've seen electronics that were 50 years old (like
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
Welcome to the real world. I'm 45, I've spent 35 of those years following the space program closely - and I can't think of any missions, manned or no, without some form of hiccup. NASA isn't perfect, never has been, never will be - they are merely closer to that state than virtually anyone else.
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
Ah, the follies of youth...
I think as you gain more experience, you'll find that all projects have hiccups. It's a matter of whatever your project design, teamwork, and/or management is strong (or competent) enough to overcome these hiccups..
As other posters have pointed out, although the Mars rover program had issues, overall the project was a success. If you're
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
Look, when NASA gets back into the groove, we will lose more lives. We will also have hiccups. Prepare for it. Just understand that NASA has to do what it takes to g
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
So you are saying, then, it's okay to for the 3000 soldiers to die for their country?
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
Plain and simple, the soldiers and the astronauts knew exactly what they were getting into. It is sad to lose them, but they volunteered. And in the case, of the astronauts, I would gladly trade for their seat on the shuttle or a moon or mars trip, even if it was say 51/49% chance (I want better than 50%).
Now, if you are wondering what is my belief WRT bush's invasion of iraq and the lose of
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
There's never been a manned space flight that didn't have all kinds of problems, from minor glitches to major catastrophes.
There's always a fuse blowing, a cable not wired correctly, a setting reversed, etc.
Sometimes it's really minor stuff, like having a switch break and toggling it with the tip of a pen.
Sometimes it's a major catastrophe, like losing all your fuel, power, and life support consumables in a fuel tank explosion.
Sometimes it's so
Re:Faith in NASA (Score:2)
Test-Induced or Testless Failure? (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA managers decided on Thursday to skip a launch pad test of the shuttle
Discovery's redesigned fuel tank because of the risk the test itself could
damage the tank. The test would have entailed filling the shuttle's fuel
tank with cryogenic propellants and testing its systems. The fuel tank has
been the focus of NASA's shuttle safety upgrades since the 2003 Columbia
accident. [Source: Irene Klotz, NASA to skip shuttle tank test ahead of
July launch Reuters, 5 May 2006; PGN-ed]
Improvements (Score:2)
Re:Improvements (Score:4, Funny)
Now that you mention it...
NASA's PR department has done extensive research over the last 3 quarters and discovered that their audience is strangely disproportionately skewed towards males. In an effort to interest young girls in NASA, the external tank will be repainted in "OMG! Ponies!" pink. There are also plans to take a pony up to ISS.
Re:Improvements (Score:2)
Re:Improvements (Score:2)
Nope. Completely redesigning something like a shuttle fuel tank takes an incredibly long time, not to mention building new ones.
Re:Improvements (Score:2)
Nope. Completely redesigning something like a shuttle fuel tank takes an incredibly long time, not to mention building new ones.
Or, to give you a better idea of just how much work would go into a full redesign, it took them almost a year to OK taking some foam off of the current design. Now, granted, if you were to do a full redesign, a lot of that work could be done in parallel for each modified/new section, but you're still talking lots and lots of engineer months here.
I didn't notice it being gone (Score:3, Insightful)
I never noticed it wasn't active. I could probably think of a government program that is less relevant to my life than the Shuttle program but it would take me a while. Wake me when manned spaceflight accomplishes *anything* that can't be done better and cheaper either with robots or just on the ground (Tang is a wonderful drink*, but there's no reason to blast someone out of the atmosphere to drink it).
* Yes, I was probably the only person in the entire world who actually had a taste for Tang.
Wow, I was wrong about Tang... (Score:2)
Re:I didn't notice it being gone (Score:2)
Hopefully soon, commercial space flight will focus more on the exploitation of space resources than pure sci
Re:I didn't notice it being gone (Score:2)
Re:I didn't notice it being gone (Score:2)
Re:I didn't notice it being gone (Score:2)
Re:I didn't notice it being gone (Score:2)
Other than deliver your mail and maintain some highways, what did the federal government do for you yesterday?
Heck, do you really feel the effect of, say, Homeland Security more than the space program?
A whole year? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A whole year? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A whole year? (Score:2)
It's a shame the insulation issue wasn't nailed a long time ago, but just like building crosswalks on our city streets it often takes a couple of fatalities to make something happen.
Re:A whole year? (Score:2)
obligatory (Score:2)
Re:A whole year? (Score:2)
If the shuttle has a problem at launch: You have several million tonnes of shuttle and associated boosters and fuel tanks, and all the nasty chemicals therin landing in and around the Atlantic Ocean. Not a good thing.
If the shuttle has a problem during re-entry: The mid-west has several thousand tonnes of shuttle and associated nasty stuff falling on it. Again. This time it may kill someone.
If it fails in orbit, well... 7
Its nice, but. (Score:3, Interesting)
Id post AC, but screw it. Im telling the truth. :)
O
Machines cannot do everything (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Its nice, but. (Score:2)
Not Quite True (Score:2)
No need to post AC, you're pretty much right about the science achieved by robotic missions, but there
The Biggest Kludge in Engineering History (Score:5, Insightful)
The original specs for the space shuttle entailed the orbiter (pretty much the same as it is today) and a "reusable booster [wikipedia.org]" vehicle. The "booster" was going to be a hybrid jet/rocket [www.abo.fi] about the size of a 747 (which explains why the shuttle fits so nicely on one) and was going to fly right to the edge of space and deploy the orbiter for the rest of the journey.
The idea was scrapped primarily because of budget contraints. It seems likely these cutbacks were brought on by the vietnam war and the civil unrest occuring around the southern states.
It is a fact that both shuttle disasters have in no way been the fault of the orbiter in any way whatsoever. The Challenger was lost due to the booster rocket and the Columbia from the external fuel tank.
IMO - Rotating the shuttle 90 degrees and strapping it onto a big fat rocket is the biggest kludge in engineering history. Now NASA has no choice but to continue to shoe shine that billion dollar...you know what.
I hate it so much because I love the idea of the Shuttle so much. I love how that thing flipping LOOKS! It's the greatest spacecraft in history! But now it's got such a reputation when it was never the orbiter's fault. And now we take a leap backwards and go with a capsule again (yes, it's tried and tested - but so is walking, but it's not the best means of travel).
Citing "technical difficulties" with the booster vehicle idea is a cop-out. If we had built the shuttle with the booster vehicle then I think it likely we would have learned much more than we have about reusability and runway-to-runway space flight. Heck, I venture to speculate we may have solved the single-stage-to-orbit problem already.
Let's just hope we don't get stuck some other war which will sap the budgets out of our technological development...
some other war (Score:5, Interesting)
You obviously haven't been paying attention.
"United States Federal Government on the fast-track to bankruptcy, News at 11"
The only reason "we've" lasted so long with the twin deficits (trade and federal budget) as large as they are is because of the "petro dollar".
Sometime in the 70's, a U.S. president struck a deal with an Arab royal family that was, essentially, "we'll use our military to keep you in power, if you accept our 'dollar' and only our 'dollar' in exchange for your oil."
Even though manufacturing started fleeing the U.S. in the 80's (in response to inflationary pressures at home) and the trade deficit started ballooning, the dollar has held it's ground relative to other countries' currencies. Why? Because the trade partners who were now building "our" stuff for "us" needed the dollar to buy oil for themselves. So, instead of having a "trade" - a U.S.-produced widget for a Tawaineese-produced widget - foreign manufacturers were happy to take a "dollar", because they could go buy a barrel of oil with it.
The petro-dollar has been breaking down for at least 6 years. Saddam said he wanted Euros for Iraqi oil circa-2000. Iran and Venezuela are now moving in the same direction. Who's to blame them? What good is a dollar, if you've already got all the oil you need?
Further reading on the coming collapse of the $ (Score:2)
See John Perkin's Confessions of an Economic Hit Man [economichitman.com] for more on the Feral Government's response to the 70's oil crisis. Before "we" got involved, the Saudis let goats eat their garbage, because they were all so good that none of them would stoop to the level of garbage collector. Now they import asians to pick up the trash. And so on...
The commentary on the petro-dollar were largely inspired by a recent Freedom Report [free-nefl.com] from Texas congressman Ron Paul [ronpaul.net] (not onli
Re:The Biggest Kludge in Engineering History (Score:2)
I had a thought that the shuttle orbiter should have been built as an evolution of the Apollo service module, with TPS, cargo bay and wings; and the
Re:The Biggest Kludge in Engineering History (Score:2, Insightful)
The capsule isn't a leap backwards anyway. The 'reuseability' of the shuttle is a joke. The ability to bring large payloads back to earth is nice, but it doesn't really come up that often.
I don't think that system made sense... (Score:2)
Once it reaches a certain size/weight, it becomes very heavy. To counter this weight, you need wings with a lot of lift. Once you make a vehicle that can carry this weight it becomes very large itself. Lift creates drag and size creates drag, so you need to put on enough thrust to fight the drag up to 40,000 feet, maybe 50,000 if you want to stretch it. Finally, you need to put in enough fuel to fight this drag created by the vehicles and vehicle lift requirements for at least 15
LOOK OUT MARS, HERE WE COME!!!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Next stop Mars!!! Or the boring old space station AGAIN :(
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Re:LOOK OUT MARS, HERE WE COME!!!!! (Score:2)
Only half the story! (Score:2, Funny)
Specific fuel modifications (Score:2, Funny)
"Well basically what we've done is created a hybrid shuttle. Given a Toyota Prius electric motor, we started playing with it. We ended up attaching solar panels to the side of the shuttle, which provide energy to the motor once the shuttle leaves the atmosphere. This provides us with enough remaining government funding to actually launch the ship, with gas prices at THREE DOLLARS AND FIFTY F**KING CENTS, PEOPLE!!"
Shell and Exxon were not available for comment, as apparently the entire
Headline (Score:2, Funny)
Chicken != Hatched (Score:3, Funny)
Might want to wait to make that assertion
More functional? (Score:3)
Good for the local economy (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You tell me. (Score:2, Funny)
Challenger and Columbia both cleared the tower OK (Score:2)
Re:Copyright Infringement. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:BOOM! (Score:2)
Dan East
Re:BOOM! (Score:2)