unpopular opinion

Aloha, Happy 4'th of July to everyone. I hope that your holiday is fun, and SAFE.

Now, why are we wasting time and money on trying to put the shuttle back into service? We have gotten along for 2 years without the shuttle. We still have unmanned boosters available at a lower cost per pound than the shuttle. We have manned capability via the Russians. (again, at a lower cost per pound than shuttle launches) Why not take the money we are pissing away on the shuttle, and use it to advance the next generation of manned launch vehicles?

Best Wishes, Larry

Reply to
AkaZilla
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I suspect that this is exactly the contract that the folks from Scaled Composites are aiming for. Give Rutan 1% of the bux spent developing the current shuttle and he'll build a fleet of vehicles capable of flying to and from ISS with 2 week turnaround time from landing to relaunch.

Bob Kaplow NAR # 18L TRA # "Impeach the TRA BoD" >>> To reply, remove the TRABoD!

Reply to
Bob Kaplow

Bob, you're exaggerating again. He would probably need 10% to build a fleet.

Mario Perdue NAR #22012 Sr. L2 for email drop the planet

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"X-ray-Delta-One, this is Mission Control, two-one-five-six, transmission concluded."

Reply to
Mario Perdue

You falling into the old trap of it got to be either/or. Yes we need to spend money to get the next generation of manned launch vehicles, but we still need the shuttle in the mean time. You not getting the next manned launch vehicle tomorrow or the next day. We have already put the mark of death on the Hubble. Are we going to abandon the ISS and let it fall into the ocean too. As of today the shuttle is the only vehicle around that can get the ISS boosted back into a higher orbit.

Happy 4th to you too. Bruce

Reply to
Bruce Canino

I thought Progress spacecraft could do reboosts also, and the ISS does have built-in thrusters for reboosting itself if no external spacecraft is available when nededed. (They are normally not used, since the preference is to conserve their available propellant and operating lifetime if docked craft can provide the impulse, but it does have them... they did learn something from the fall of "Skylab"!)

-dave w

Reply to
David Weinshenker

Aloha Bruce, Yes. That is exactly what I am suggesting. The ISS was mainly to keep the shuttle manifests full. The justification given for the ISS was to give us data on long term exposure to zero gee. That data already exists with the russians. We do not need the shuttle as you say. Manned capability is already available in the form of the Russians. We are wasting money that could be better spent elsewhere.

Larry

Reply to
AkaZilla

The ISS has no real scientific purpose. It's purpose was political to show that great nations can set aside their differences and cooperate in space. I'm not a fan of ISS or the Shuttle.

One use of the ISS is to gain experience in long term space occupancy as would be required for a manned mission to mars. Recently the ISS developed an air leak. It would have good to demonstrate that leaks can be fixed, and minor failures repaired, as on a trip to mars, but instead they had new parts sent up from earth to fix the problem, and thus demonstrated against the capability of a manned flight to mars.

The Shuttle is not a total waste. It did launch Hubble and returned LDEF. But for the most part, it is very expensive and not used to take advantage of it's capability. The money could certainly be better spent, such as on unmanned exploration of the solar system. OTOH, if you are looking for government waste, you can find MUCH more by looking outside of the NASA budget.

Alan

Reply to
Alan Jones

But what you both missing is NASA did have a plan near the end of the moon landings to go to Mars which included the Shuttle(s) Man and Unman, a Space Station as a jumping off point to the moon and moon bases. Then when public option waned as the moon landing became boring, All those plans were going to be axed, and the only reason the shuttle made it at all, was the it was being sold as being able to retrieve satellites, maybe some Russian spy satellites.

So what we have is very much a compromises. If you feel the money could have been spent better, yes it might have been, but if you think you could have taken the money that was spent on the shuttle and have it spend someplace else in NASA, I doubt that would have happen, that money was only going to the Shuttle or someplace else outside of NASA.

Reply to
Bruce Canino

That claim would be a good one to test.

Reply to
Jerry Irvine

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