Author Topic: Extension decision no closer after “one heck of a year” for shuttle  (Read 40766 times)

Offline Analyst

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This whole "ISS was invented to give Shuttle something to do" is really strange, no, it is just plain wrong. By this reasoning we can say "the LM was invented to give Saturn V a lunar payload" or "the lunar base is designed to give Ares V something to do." And you pretty fast come to the point of the uselessness of HSF. A point you don't want to reach but do reach by bashing Shuttle and ISS in favour of your pet project.  If you don't want a particular payload (ISS whatever), you declare the transport vehicle obsolete. great.

Shuttle is an attempt to make spaceflight more regular, more reliable ... to open up space for more payloads and people. In many respects it did achive these goals, contrary to popular mythology.

ISS was the next step, from sortie missions to a permanent station. Shuttle was the natural transport and assembly craft for this task, being designed with (also) a station in mind.

Analyst

Offline daniela

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[ We also know why the astronauts doing the test later renamed Apollo 1 died, they were testing a spacecraft that was to bring humans outside of earth orbit; using oxygen was not an obvious mistake, and it had worked successfully for Mercury and Gemini programs
No, it was different than Mercury and Gemini programs.  They did not pressurized the cabin to 16 psia with 100% O2 on the ground.
There were no obvious reasons to think that the choice of pure O2 would lead to danger (or to a tragedy), in fact there were a few advantages which everyone could see. I have also talked to someone in the Soviet space program who confirmed me that their choice (of not pursuing O2) was advised by all sorts of boundary conditions and not by anybody envisioning an intrinsic danger. (Also, I don't think that the original version of Apollo would have 100% O2 for the vehicle on the ground as a standard. It was a test.)
On the other hand, everybody knew that the O-rings presented a danger and that in various occasions they had been eroded significantly. Everybody knew that the TPS is fragile and that there had been already some close calls. There was even a commission. I think the conclusions on the Orbiter side was "it's a problem of foam detaching; either tell the ET people to fix it, or live with the extra risk" and the conclusions on the ET side was "it's a problem of TPS fragility: either tell the Orbiter decision makers to modify that, or live with the extra risk". I think that eventually this commission ended up being disbanded.

Offline William Barton

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DoD payloads which caused the mess in the first place...)


Urban myth.

I have a foggy memory of either an AW&ST or maybe AIAA (Astronautics/Aeronautics) editorial from some time in the (early?) 1970s entitled, "With Friends Like These," talking about STS payload bay dimesion and cross-range requirements being tied to DoD requirements, but DoD not contributing to STS funding. I looked for an archive, but didn't find one. I wonder if any other geezer remembers something like that.

Offline William Barton

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It's probably worth remembering STS stands for "Space Transportation System," and was originally envisioned as including a manned TSTO RLV, a 12-man LEO space station, a manned nuclear LEO/LLO transport, and a reusable manned lunar lander, supporting a permanent moonbase.

Offline daniela

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This whole "ISS was invented to give Shuttle something to do" is really strange, no, it is just plain wrong. By this reasoning we can say "the LM was invented to give Saturn V a lunar payload" or "the lunar base is designed to give Ares V something to do." And you pretty fast come to the point of the uselessness of HSF.
You are correct that HSF should be done for a reason, not just "to be there". For some time the Cold War was enough of a reason and people did their best to make these project useful. A lot was learned that way - not to mention the contribution it had towards avoiding nuclear self-destruction of mankind.
However I guess now it's no longer enough.
We are aware that a human can stay in orbit for long periods but sometimes requires medical care, which is hard to provide unless we are in LEO. We also know that a human who stays for too long in micro-g will have trouble returning to 1g, some even question if it will be irreversible. Mir taught us that, and ISS won't go further. The centrifuge module was cancelled a long time ago.
We are aware that humans have troubles sharing close quarters with others for long periods, so far many experiments have failed (we are waiting for the ESA which are still ongoing) and we are totally clueless about how to select people that are capable to do that (see the idiot whose name I won't advertise....) Please notice she was not in close quarters, she was not in deprivation from many things, and the victim did not really do something highly terrible (such as taking food or oxygen and putting her life at risk) the victim just was having a story with the idiot's ex boyfriend. Many people during the war had a way harder time.... and still survived because they helped each other, realising that sometimes you have to control your nerves - even to someone who caused your spouse or children to die - in order to save the life of your remaining loved ones and of yourself, plus of course the idiot's life too. Except that currently, psycologists don't know how to profile for those character traits.
We are clueless about radiations and cosmic rays and we will stay that way, as we will be lucky enough if we succeed in sending the AMS-2 to LEO, and surely we dont have similar probes in let's say moon orbit.... in fact we don't have too many things in moon orbit, do we?
We know it is possible, even though very risky, to go to Moon for a few days, because it has been done. Can we set up long-term moon stations? Hardly. Do we have programs that humans (as opposed to machines) could do on the moon if, by some magic, it'd become instantly possible? Hardly. At the same time we don't really have too many machines exploring our satellite, do we?
I could go on.....

Offline daniela

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It's probably worth remembering STS stands for "Space Transportation System," and was originally envisioned as including a manned TSTO RLV, a 12-man LEO space station, a manned nuclear LEO/LLO transport, and a reusable manned lunar lander, supporting a permanent moonbase.
You are totally correct about the original STS.

Offline Jim

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There were no obvious reasons to think that the choice of pure O2 would lead to danger (or to a tragedy),

Yes, there is, it is extreme flammability hazard.  Almost everything burns in 100% O2 and there had been accidents before.

Offline Jim

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DoD payloads which caused the mess in the first place...)


Urban myth.

I have a foggy memory of either an AW&ST or maybe AIAA (Astronautics/Aeronautics) editorial from some time in the (early?) 1970s entitled, "With Friends Like These," talking about STS payload bay dimesion and cross-range requirements being tied to DoD requirements, but DoD not contributing to STS funding. I looked for an archive, but didn't find one. I wonder if any other geezer remembers something like that.
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/sp4221.htm

The Space Shuttle Decision by T.A. Heppenheimer

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/ch5.htm
Chapter 5

"While NASA did not need so much length, its officials wanted a 15-foot diameter to accommodate modules for a space station."

"In addition to this, NASA and the Air Force shared a concern that a shuttle might have to abort its mission and come down as quickly as possible after launch. This might require "once-around abort," which again would lead to a flight of a single orbit. A once-around abort on a due-east launch from Cape Canaveral would not be too difficult; the craft might land at any of a number of sites within the United States. In the words of NASA's Leroy Day, "If you were making a polar-type launch out of Vandenberg, and you had Max's straight-wing vehicle, there was no place you could go. You'd be in the water when you came back. You've got to go crossrange quite a few hundred miles in order to make land."

The requirements weren't forced on NASA.

"Yet while NASA needed the Air Force, the Air Force did not need NASA."

NASA make a deal with the devil.


Offline Namechange User

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I could go on.....

Please don't.  What you have said thus far is wildly inaccurate and wrong on many levels. 
Enjoying viewing the forum a little better now by filtering certain users.

Offline daniela

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In hindsight everything is easy, but in 1966 it was not that obvious. It was known that there was a danger but it was a trade-off (same with the hatch).
One more thing: There are people who claim that staying in chambers with pressurized 100% O2 will help with some medical conditions (usually it is children with severe disabilities after childbirth problems). This is forbidden in many European countries but is allowed in same states of the USA (I think that includes Florida). There are, needless to say, risks for the patient, the medical personnel, and the person who sometimes accompanies the patient inside the pressure chamber; and there is no demonstrated effectiveness. Still this happens in our days, sometimes with deadly accidents that cause terrible deaths (or months-long pains before finally passing away) and it's not forbidden, many people raise money for these "hope journeys" and sometimes find their death there. So, if it was *that* obvious, it'd be forbidden over there too.

Offline fredm6463

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If I recall correctly, there was a panel lead by Vice President Agnew in the 1970's that called for a Space Shuttle, a Space Station for the shuttle to support, as well as a manned mission to Mars by the mid 1980's.

Of course the budget wasn't there to fund all or any two of these goals, so NASA made the choice to support the Space Shuttle and hope future funds would be available for the Space Station.

In my opinion it was wrong to completely abandon the shuttle for launching satellites (and military missions launched from Vandenberg) after the loss of Challenger. (Yes, I know there was a design flaw in the SL-6 pad that would have needed $Billions to correct). But what a different space program might the shuttle have provided if we didn't cut and run like President Reagan did after the troops in Lebanon were killed.

As mentioned previously, both shuttle disasters could have been avoided, as the problems were well known prior to the accidents. It was mismanagement at NASA that allowed the two accidents to occur. (Yes, I know there were other close calls).

In my opinion human spaceflight experience, working in LEO, assembling and servicing ISS and Hubble, etc., has been more beneficial to human space flight experience than Mercury, Gemini and Apollo combined. NASA has flown about 130 space shuttle missions each of which had a crew of at least seven astronauts (except for the few earliest flights) over almost 30 years and gave more humans the knowledge and experience necessary to live and work in micro gravity in LEO. Yes, Apollo was a great achievement, but as the Augustine Commission has suggested landing back on the Moon or Mars might not be the first goals we should pursue in expanding space flight beyond LEO.

Yes, the shuttle is more dangerous because there is no escape system, but as Apollo 1 and Apollo 13 have shown, tragedies and accidents can happen during any part of a space flight. And although commercial air travel is very safe, I still wouldn't mind having some ejection mechanism or parachute system available for when an accident does occur, because unlike a shuttle tragedy, where only seven people are killed, in an airline accident one, two, or three hundred people can be killed. On a 747 or the Airbus A380, 500 people would be killed.

It is impractical to put an escape system on commercial aircraft and it was so with the space shuttle. There are always risks with any vehicle, cars, planes, and spacecraft.

I just wish the powers that be had not allowed the Space Shuttle suppliers to cut production capabilities so soon knowing that the new Presidential administration may change the plans set forth by the previous administration.

A gap in US spaceflight capabilities is unacceptable. But, our politicians, not our engineers or scientists have gotten us in to this mess. There could be plenty more funding for NASA if a small part of the Pentagon budget were cut, which consumes almost half the government spending each year in the USA, for many projects that are NOT necessary in this new century.

Oh, what achievements NASA could have made if only we could spend more money on constructive programs than destructive programs (weapons, war, etc.) But, human kind will never grow out of its infancy and our animalistic tendencies will always be present to cause wars, terrorism, etc. If only we humans could mature beyond these petty things, then imagine what advancements we all could achieve.

Offline Jim

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In hindsight everything is easy, but in 1966 it was not that obvious. It was known that there was a danger but it was a trade-off (same with the hatch).


It was obvious but ignored.  No different than Orings or foam shedding

Offline Jim

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1.  In my opinion it was wrong to completely abandon the shuttle for launching satellites (and military missions launched from Vandenberg) after the loss of Challenger.


2.  In my opinion human spaceflight experience, working in LEO, assembling and servicing ISS and Hubble, etc., has been more beneficial to human space flight experience than Mercury, Gemini and Apollo combined. NASA has flown about 130 space shuttle missions each of which had a crew of at least seven astronauts (except for the few earliest flights) over almost 30 years and gave more humans the knowledge and experience necessary to live and work in micro gravity in LEO.


1.  It was wrong to put them on the shuttle in the first place.

2.  Wrong.  You are grossly over stating benefits provided by the shuttle.  The shuttle only refined lessons already learned by the other programs.  We would be no where without the lessons learned by Gemini.

Offline fredm6463

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1.  In my opinion it was wrong to completely abandon the shuttle for launching satellites (and military missions launched from Vandenberg) after the loss of Challenger.


2.  In my opinion human spaceflight experience, working in LEO, assembling and servicing ISS and Hubble, etc., has been more beneficial to human space flight experience than Mercury, Gemini and Apollo combined. NASA has flown about 130 space shuttle missions each of which had a crew of at least seven astronauts (except for the few earliest flights) over almost 30 years and gave more humans the knowledge and experience necessary to live and work in micro gravity in LEO.


1.  It was wrong to put them on the shuttle in the first place.

2.  Wrong.  You are grossly over stating benefits provided by the shuttle.  The shuttle only refined lessons already learned by the other programs.  We would be no where without the lessons learned by Gemini.

I agree with you on number 2.

And I can agree with you in some respects regarding number 1, but because their was no space station funding NASA needed to find missions for the shuttle. After Apollo, NASA and particularly the politicians were not in favor of continuing human exploration beyond LEO due to Vietnam and other budgets woes. And a lot of the decisions made post Apollo was because their was no leadership for a new space goal, as was set by JFK, and because the politicians and the American general public lost interest in landing on the Moon (especially after Apollo 12).

But, the shuttle gave a lot more people (astronauts) experience in micro gravity and increased medical knowledge due to the larger crews and extended missions. Unfortunately the shuttle did not live up to its NASA promised routine and low cost access to LEO. Unlike most other human endeavors, at least in the last century, we continued to pursue and improve upon already established technology, i.e., cars, trains, aircraft, etc., but when it came to space projects, we junked each program and started a totally new one for each transition from Mercury to Gemini, from Gemini to Apollo, from Apollo to shuttle and now from shuttle to Apollo on steroids. Unlike the Russians who developed Soyuz and stuck with the same basic program for 40 years.

It will take a lot more time than in previous endeavors to make a truly reusable spacecraft with routine, low cost access to space. But that, along with the new exploration beyond LEO is something we should continue to pursue in order to make space flight as routine as air flight.
« Last Edit: 12/22/2009 03:59 pm by fredm6463 »

Offline William Barton

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DoD payloads which caused the mess in the first place...)


Urban myth.

I have a foggy memory of either an AW&ST or maybe AIAA (Astronautics/Aeronautics) editorial from some time in the (early?) 1970s entitled, "With Friends Like These," talking about STS payload bay dimesion and cross-range requirements being tied to DoD requirements, but DoD not contributing to STS funding. I looked for an archive, but didn't find one. I wonder if any other geezer remembers something like that.
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/sp4221.htm

The Space Shuttle Decision by T.A. Heppenheimer

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/ch5.htm
Chapter 5

"While NASA did not need so much length, its officials wanted a 15-foot diameter to accommodate modules for a space station."

"In addition to this, NASA and the Air Force shared a concern that a shuttle might have to abort its mission and come down as quickly as possible after launch. This might require "once-around abort," which again would lead to a flight of a single orbit. A once-around abort on a due-east launch from Cape Canaveral would not be too difficult; the craft might land at any of a number of sites within the United States. In the words of NASA's Leroy Day, "If you were making a polar-type launch out of Vandenberg, and you had Max's straight-wing vehicle, there was no place you could go. You'd be in the water when you came back. You've got to go crossrange quite a few hundred miles in order to make land."

The requirements weren't forced on NASA.

"Yet while NASA needed the Air Force, the Air Force did not need NASA."

NASA make a deal with the devil.



Thanks for the links. I've got Heppenheimer's book (packed away, unfortunately, along with the rest of my non-revenue-producing library). I keep hoping the editorial itself will turn up, since it has stuck in my memory for what I assume is a reason, and I'd like to see it again. The sentence you quote is pretty much what I remember as the gist of it. At the time of the early STS proposals, I was rooting for something more like the Lockheed Star Clipper.

Offline Jorge

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[ We also know why the astronauts doing the test later renamed Apollo 1 died, they were testing a spacecraft that was to bring humans outside of earth orbit; using oxygen was not an obvious mistake, and it had worked successfully for Mercury and Gemini programs
No, it was different than Mercury and Gemini programs.  They did not pressurized the cabin to 16 psia with 100% O2 on the ground.
There were no obvious reasons to think that the choice of pure O2 would lead to danger (or to a tragedy), in fact there were a few advantages which everyone could see. I have also talked to someone in the Soviet space program who confirmed me that their choice (of not pursuing O2) was advised by all sorts of boundary conditions and not by anybody envisioning an intrinsic danger. (Also, I don't think that the original version of Apollo would have 100% O2 for the vehicle on the ground as a standard. It was a test.)

Stop making a fool of yourself, daniela. Jim is right. The dangers were obvious. There were even North American personnel from outside the Apollo project (X-15 test pilot Scott Crossfield among them) who warned their Apollo counterparts of the risks, and were ignored. The Apollo 1 accident was caused by negligence and haste just as much as the 51L accident, and arguably moreso than the 107 accident.
JRF

Offline daniela

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Thank you for your kind (?) advice. Now I suggest you google "hyperbaric oxygen therapy" and the like, confirm that the therapy is indeed regularly used, now and not in 1966, upon patients with no evidence-based medical indication (with pathologies ranging from autism to cerebral palsy and other severe disabilities), by the way usually those patients are children and in most cases are incapacitated and can not give informed consent. In my opinion this is wrong and has a risk/benefit ratio which is not acceptable. But saying that Apollo 1 tragedy (not a frivolous test, but one that was necessary to improve safety on a dangerous mission with a new vehicle) was caused by negligence, seems to me exhaggerated and perhaps outright wrong.

Offline Namechange User

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Thank you for your kind (?) advice. Now I suggest you google "hyperbaric oxygen therapy" and the like, confirm that the therapy is indeed regularly used, now and not in 1966, upon patients with no evidence-based medical indication (with pathologies ranging from autism to cerebral palsy and other severe disabilities), by the way usually those patients are children and in most cases are incapacitated and can not give informed consent. In my opinion this is wrong and has a risk/benefit ratio which is not acceptable. But saying that Apollo 1 tragedy (not a frivolous test, but one that was necessary to improve safety on a dangerous mission with a new vehicle) was caused by negligence, seems to me exhaggerated and perhaps outright wrong.

There is a difference.  Hyperbaric chambers typically are not chauked full of flamible material (which pretty much anything is at 100% O2 and at pressure) with the 100's of miles of wiring running through it that have the potential to short. 
Enjoying viewing the forum a little better now by filtering certain users.

Offline daniela

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Yes, it is true. But keep in mind it was 1966 and bleeding-edge spaceflight testing, not routine. I know that in a medical facility with such a chamber here in Italy, the people who receive hyperbaric O2 (severe burns, some cases of decompression, CO poisoning) must be naked. It is theoretically forbidden to bring electric and electronic items of any sort, but when a patients needs them for life support and life monitoring on a critical patient, well, sometimes someone takes responsibility even though it's a big risk. On the other hand elsewhere it is customary to go inside the chamber with full clothing, which in itself is not too dangerous, but no one had advised the family of one child who perished in one of such accident, that it is absolutely forbidden to use synthetic fiber clothing (that's where the spark in this accident came from). After this accident (the family had pursued treatment in USA as they were refused off-label HBOT in Italy) there was an enquiry and the minister of health found out that most of the other patients who had chosen to do the same, had no idea about this. The ministry sent out an advisory to all primary care doctors, that people who go abroad for HBOT must be warned about the deadly consequences of a seemingly small mistake. This was just a few years ago, not in the late sixties.

What would you have done had you been the decision maker? Forgone the test? Done at low pressure O2 and reduce leak test reliability? Blocked the program deeming it too unsafe? (and being grilled, it goes without saying)

Offline Jorge

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But saying that Apollo 1 tragedy (not a frivolous test, but one that was necessary to improve safety on a dangerous mission with a new vehicle)

Incorrect. The Apollo 1 test, obviously, was not successfully completed. If it really were necessary, a repeat test would have been required, with appropriate safeguards, as part of the return-to-flight process after the Apollo 1 mishap. The fact that it wasn't repeated, and that Apollo successfully flew to the moon without it, proves that it was not necessary.

Quote
was caused by negligence, seems to me exhaggerated and perhaps outright wrong.

The facts are not on your side. The facts are that the general risks of high-pressure O2 environments in the presence of flammable materials were understood by practicing engineers in the 1960s and that the specific risks of the Apollo 1 test were warned against by knowledgeable outsiders such as Crossfield. I assert that not only is my position not exaggerated, but that the 51L and 107 mishaps can only be fully understood by including the context of the Apollo 1 mishap.
JRF

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