Poll

Greatest disappointment in human spaceflight?

Discontinuation of Apollo/ Saturn-V
54 (60.7%)
Cancellation of soviet N1/ manned lunar landing
12 (13.5%)
Discontinuation of space shuttle program
8 (9%)
Cancellation of Constellation Program (target 2020 return to the moon)
7 (7.9%)
Discontinuation of energia rocket/ Buran
8 (9%)

Total Members Voted: 89

Voting closed: 03/11/2019 06:21 am


Author Topic: POLL: greatest disappointment in human spaceflight?  (Read 6647 times)

Offline FinalFrontier

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Re: POLL: greatest disappointment in human spaceflight?
« Reply #20 on: 02/10/2019 10:50 pm »
Cancellation of the Apollo applications program and the follow on moon base and mars drms is obviously the correct answer.

However, I picked cancellation of CXP. Not because it was cancelled but because of what happened afterward.
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Offline AS_501

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Re: POLL: greatest disappointment in human spaceflight?
« Reply #21 on: 02/10/2019 11:06 pm »
1.  Cancellation of the entire Apollo Saturn architecture (including Saturn IB) and the follow-on Apollo Applications Program.
2.  Failure to reboost Skylab for possible reuse.
3.  Failure of the Space Shuttle to achieve high flight rates and low delivery costs.
4.  Cancellation of Space Shuttle launches from Vandenberg.
5.  John Glenn not flying Gemini or Apollo missions.
6.  Cancellation of a probe to fly by Halley's Comet in 1986.
7.  The downsizing of Russia's segment of the ISS.
Launches attended:  Apollo 11, ASTP (@KSC, not Baikonur!), STS-41G, STS-125, EFT-1, Starlink G4-24, Artemis 1
Notable Spacecraft Observed:  Echo 1, Skylab/S-II, Salyuts 6&7, Mir Core/Complete, HST, ISS Zarya/Present, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, Dragon Demo-2, Starlink G4-14 (8 hrs. post-launch), Tiangong

Offline Lar

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Re: POLL: greatest disappointment in human spaceflight?
« Reply #22 on: 02/10/2019 11:49 pm »
(mod)
A gentle reminder ... for some kinds of polls it may be best to first have a discussion about what the options ought to be first, THEN create the poll. I see a LOT of possible things that I'd consider voting for that aren't in the poll as written. Or at least always include an "other - see comments" so that people can add their own.

Too late to change this one now. But everyone should keep it in mind for future.
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Offline QuantumG

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Re: POLL: greatest disappointment in human spaceflight?
« Reply #23 on: 02/11/2019 04:03 am »
The US state department interference in the American attempt to rent Mir.
 
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline ChrisWilson68

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Re: POLL: greatest disappointment in human spaceflight?
« Reply #24 on: 02/11/2019 07:01 am »
The five options in the poll are all things that are not disappointments to me.  They are all things I'm glad happened.

All five of these were huge programs that sucked up a lot of money.

Apollo was worth it, but it couldn't continue forever, and it was right to end it.  OK, I'd rather they had done a few more flights before ending it, but still it was better to end it and shift instead to a reusable launch vehicle.  Which is what was intended when Apollo was cancelled.  Unfortunately, STS didn't live up to its design goals, but the goals were the right ones.

The other four programs were all too big and expensive for what they did.  It was right to cancel them all.  The money for them could be better spent on other programs.

Offline ChrisWilson68

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Re: POLL: greatest disappointment in human spaceflight?
« Reply #25 on: 02/11/2019 07:07 am »
My biggest disappointment: that in the 1980s when it became apparent that STS wasn't fulfilling its original design goals that a realistic, near-term replacement program wasn't instituted with lessons learned from STS.

There were many ideas for next-generation replacements for STS, and NASA spent a lot on them, but they were all missing the main lesson of STS: focus on costs.

Offline dchill

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Re: POLL: greatest disappointment in human spaceflight?
« Reply #26 on: 02/11/2019 01:15 pm »
The re-vectoring (effectively the cancellation of) Orbital Space Plane (OSP) into Constellation.  By starting over we lost any hope of a continuous (or at least short gap) US crewed capability.

Offline Patchouli

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Re: POLL: greatest disappointment in human spaceflight?
« Reply #27 on: 02/15/2019 09:40 pm »
I picked Apollo/Saturn V because with a few more flights we could have either kept Skylab in orbit or launched a second Skylab. Then the Shuttle program would have started with Skylab as a destination. It was a long wait before Shuttle could go to Mir and until ISS was started.
I picked Apollo Saturn mostly because the Saturn V architecture could have been adopted to other missions and the cost could have been greatly reduced if the S-ID booster was developed.

http://www.astronautix.com/s/saturns-idbooster.html

The Saturn V-B could have been a useful workhorse for many LEO missions.
The HL-20 and HL-42 plus the Saturn VB could have done most of the Shuttle's missions.
The Saturn V-C would have been a good vehicle for general science payloads and deep space probes and the Saturn V-D would have been capable of launching crewed Mars missions.
« Last Edit: 02/15/2019 09:45 pm by Patchouli »

Offline intrepidpursuit

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Re: POLL: greatest disappointment in human spaceflight?
« Reply #28 on: 03/25/2019 11:21 pm »
The cancellation of the various programs that came before constellation would get my vote. DC-X and Venturestar both had potential that was managed out of existence. In hindsight it should have been clear (probably was to some) that when we pivoted from trying something new to reusing the existing failed and bloated equipment that we'd stopped climbing and started falling back. Shuttle-C was the only shuttle applications program that was worth a damn imo.

Hopefully the last 30+ years of complete inaction on the part of NASA (congress) to advance tech has given enough momentum to the commercial providers that they can make it through the political hurdles to get programs like Starship, New Glenn, Blue Moon, and Bigelow operational. Then NASA can just buy services and get back to working on new things instead of old things.

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