NASA: "The Shuttle Was a Mistake"

Bob Noel wrote:

There are a few other uses for a space station, not just a launch point
(I assume you mean space stations in general, not just the ISS).

We've a huge investment in satellites. Real on-site repair could be a time
and money saver if done well.

I'm not sure that there's much advantage to on-site fabrication until/unless
one gets *very* fancy (ie. importing materials from some place like the
moon, with the correspondingly lower transport costs).

- Andrew

Kyle Boatright wrote:

In hindsight (always 20/20, right?), I'd say that the shuttle and the ISS
were both boondoggles. The shuttle was built in order to transport stuff
to a space station that didn't exist until 20 years after the shuttle's
launch.

You're neglecting the cold war mentality that existed at the time of the
Shuttle's introduction. Grabbing the high ground certainly appeared to be
(and likely was, even if it turned out to have been unnecessary) a
reasonable strategy.

- Andrew

In article ,
Ron Garret wrote:

There are a few other uses for a space station, not just a launch point
(I assume you mean space stations in general, not just the ISS).
For example, continued medical research into the effects of space
travel and/or low-g exposure. Materials research (nothing like exposing
materials to the space environment to study how they handle/react to
space. If one expands their view beyond earth and very near-earth space,
a station at L-5 (is that the right name?) could be a good research
platform.
And how about the possible medical benefits of low-g environments?

All these things could be done for a lot less money without the/a space
station.

how?

--
Bob Noel
no one likes an educated mule

In article ,
Bob Noel wrote:

In article ,
Ron Garret wrote:

There are a few other uses for a space station, not just a launch point
(I assume you mean space stations in general, not just the ISS).
For example, continued medical research into the effects of space
travel and/or low-g exposure. Materials research (nothing like exposing
materials to the space environment to study how they handle/react to
space. If one expands their view beyond earth and very near-earth space,
a station at L-5 (is that the right name?) could be a good research
platform.
And how about the possible medical benefits of low-g environments?

All these things could be done for a lot less money without the/a space
station.

how?

The materials and imaging work could all be done with unmanned
spacecraft.

The value of additional physiological work is questionable. We pretty
much know the effects of zero G on the human body, and it's not pretty.
We were designed for one G. Even if turned out that there were medical
conditions that were treatable by low-G environments the benefit to
society is far from clear given how expensive it currently is to send
humans into space. But even if one grants that this work has value, it
could be done with a much less expensive station provisioned by unmanned
vehicles.

rg

Bob Noel wrote:

There are a few other uses for a space station, not just a launch point

Manufacturing in hard vacuum is another. I've read that there are also medicines
that can be made in that environment much more easily than here.

George Patterson
Drink is the curse of the land. It makes you quarrel with your neighbor.
It makes you shoot at your landlord. And it makes you miss him.

Jay:
I'm a very strong proponent of our space program,

I was too, until NASA gave Moller five million dollars for more R&D on
his flying car.

In article ne.com,
Andrew Gideon wrote:

We've a huge investment in satellites. Real on-site repair could be a time
and money saver if done well.

In most, probably all, "repair in space" situations, you can build and
launch a replacement satellite (and throw in some improvements
on the side) for less than -- probably much less than -- the costs of
launching and recovering the manned space vehicle that does the
repairs.

It is pretty easy to say the Shuttle or the ISS or Hubble or anything
else was a huge mistake; that the money would have been better spent
elsewhere. Of course, then you would have people saying that where the
money went instead was a huge mistake.

If Mr. Park or Mr. Griffin think those were mistakes, it behooves them
to say what would have been better.

Heck, you could have spent all the money "fighting poverty" (or
ignorance, or injustice, or whatever), and it probably would have been
even less effective in accomplishing those goals.

cjcampbell wrote:
It is pretty easy to say the Shuttle or the ISS or Hubble or anything
else was a huge mistake.......

If Mr. Park or Mr. Griffin think those were mistakes, it behooves them
to say what would have been better.

Bob Parks has said what he thinks would have been better, several times
over the years:
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/index.html
Search the archives for Space Shuttle and ISS.

Here's the USA Today article on what NASA Administrator Michael Griffin
said:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science...nterview_x.htm
This most certainly is not the complete text of the interview, but
provides a little more context.

"Jay Masino" wrote in message
...
Darkwing \(Badass\) theducksmail"AT"yahoo.com wrote:
in 2010. There are no plans to send a shuttle to service the
world's greatest telescope, but the schedule calls for 18 shuttle
flights to finish the ISS, plus 10 ISS supply missions that's
an average of 5.6 shuttle flights per year. Anyone who would bet
on getting 28 flights out of these rickety-old jalopies has been
living on some other planet. Even with a crew of just five,
that's 140 rolls of the dice. That's a big gamble to support a
space station that is now acknowledged to be of little value.

But it's the world's greatest space station. If they were abandoning the
ISS
and were only sending up shuttles to fix the Hubble the same people would
still be bitching about not saving the ISS. People just like to bitch.

The "world's greatest telescope" is presently in development (the James
Web Space Telescope). The Hubble is a great bird, but there may be
limited value in keeping it going until the James Webb can be launched.

--- Jay


But it doesn't take pretty visual pictures.

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DW