USA loses technological benefits by cutting back on space exploration. From AL.com
Keeptheshuttleflying.com comment
This article is the biggest pile of ---( nonsense ) that has ever been written .
” political football”
All programs are. The shuttle concept is correct approach, we should fly and improve the shuttle. SLS/Orion wrong approach and will not fly for ten to 15 years. Can’t afford that gap, use and improve shuttle.
“learned so much from Apollo”—-Apollo design approach has draw backs such as limited payload, no arm, ocean landings, not reusable. We learned much from Apollo and shuttle, Apollo design concept not the correct approach as noted above. Read article on shuttle 2 and evolve and use shuttle by Aldrin..
SLS/Orion similar to Apollo, should improve shuttle. Read “shuttle was a design compromise–need shuttle 2.”
“Commercial crew”
Underfunded—USA manned gap at least ten years
"learned so much from Apollo"----Apollo design approach has draw backs such as limited payload, no arm, ocean landings, not reusable .
One by one-----
"50 missions per year" --what program are you aware of this difficulty that ever achieved its original design intent.? Shuttle did not receive the improvements planned due to congress 's lack of funding.
"We are lucky to make this dangerous and expensive vehicle flyable."
With proper management attention to known problems, these accidents would have never occurred. For this vehicle with its capabilities, this is a very safe vehicle. Read article on shuttle extension on Keeptheshuttleflying.com, SPM Shannon felt since columbia, shuttle has been very reliable.
"Very expensive vehicle."
Show me a vehicle that " pushes the envelope" as this one does that isn't expensive. Improvements could be made, if we had visionary leaders rather than the idiots we have including the writer of this poorly researched article.
In summation, we have magnificent vehicle in a museum, extremely capable workforce disbanded , no manned access to Leo to support ISS -- have to hire Russians, can't repair or reboost the magnificent Hubble.
Money wise we have wasted or potentially wasted close to 0.5 trillion of taxpayer funds plus wasting billions more on SLS/Orion , cots and NONE of these systems ARE NOT even CLOSE to the CAPABILITY of the Shuttle.
So where are we, in a bad situation, wasted all this money, and have ZERO capability and a second rate space power and no hope in a change for decades. We aren't even building the correct design---should be improving the shuttle concept and flying the present design until we get the shuttle 2 going. You should read, The Case to Save the shuttle, On the Early Retirement of the Shuttle, The nonsensical retirement of the shuttle, plus many other excellent articles such as NASA knew the right answer, all on Keeptheshuttleflying.com
You mention china gaining capability, hiring the Russians , but you will not operate the shuttle, it is too unsafe. You can't have it both ways. Of course there are risks. You think these new design will not have risks? Meanwhile we have a 15 to 20 year gap. Worse than that we can't do what the shuttle can do now and can't do it (shuttle capability) then with the new designs. No astronaut ever refused to fly shuttle.
Read the list of experts that recommended shuttle extension. Read NASA plan puts America at risk. What about ISS if Russians get mad at us?
You have got to be the most uneducated individual I have encountered. Of course there are many space writers which approach your level of knowledge.
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Al.com. Your view ----USA
USA looses technology benefits by cutting back on space exploration
The vehicle we know as the space shuttle was born 40 years ago this month, when U.S. President Richard Nixon formally announced the new space vehicle would deliver reliability, reusability and low costs. Unfortunately, the space shuttle was a political football, and the program never had the level of support it needed to deliver on the promises Nixon made.
For example, it took more than nine years for the first shuttle, Columbia, to launch. It took only eight years for NASA and industry to take us along on the first trips to the moon following President John Kennedy's lunar pledge.
The original plans for low operational costs and flying upwards of 50 shuttle flights per year were never realized after Nixon demanded that shuttle research and development budgets had to be cut by more that 50 percent of what NASA said the program required. The program was also burdened by a series of disastrous design compromises that were forced on NASA by the administration's demands. In effect, astronaut safety was also compromised by the mandated design changes and budget shrinkage.
Fourteen brave astronauts died while riding the compromised and fantastically expensive shuttle, and the U.S. space exploration potential fell far short of optimistic post-Apollo program expectations during the shuttle years.
The fact the space shuttle did accomplish many wonderful things and carried a lot of people into orbit is a tribute to the men and women of the NASA/industry team that struggled to make a terribly complicated and dangerous vehicle flyable.
The last shuttle flew last summer, as the current White House administration pushed an effort to drastically reduce NASA's space leadership role and turn the space program into a sweepstakes for billionaire entrepreneurs and privileged upstart companies politically favored by the president. Fortunately, Congress intervened, and NASA has begun work on a slow-speed project to build a shuttle replacement while allowing the risky sweepstakes to continue.
We are allowing our prowess in space achievement to wither as China has announced its own robust lunar exploration plans. Meanwhile, we are renting space rides from our former Cold War adversary, Russia.
Some people think it is a waste of time to look to the past for lessons that could be applied to today's challenges. Not so. America's space program of the 1960s launched a technological and human resources management revolution that has repaid the costs of Apollo many times over. The Apollo quest gave us thousands of tools, materials and processes we never imagined. Apollo-derived technology and methods from the 1960s are still making people healthier, smarter, more aware of current events and even keeping people alive and active.
We will realize new and even better benefits than those from Apollo if we keep our brightest and most capable people gainfully engaged in endeavors that use engineering and science to solve big problems, even if it is hard to see a practical benefit to be gained from the required investment to keep them engaged.
Jim McDade
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Sent from my iPad
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