Who thinks that the Shuttle Program Needs to be Improved?

Question

I have always been a major supporter of space exploration and the space program in general. But once again, to see a potential shuttle disaster because of another piece of frozen insulation angers me. Did we not learn from the Challenger/Columbia disasters? Why are we still using an obviously antiquated lift system?...and when are we going to shift technology to a safer, more advanced orbiter?

Answer 1

They are going to retire the Space Shuttle and replace it with the Orion C.E.V. (Crew Exploration Vehicle) It will not have wings and NASA will no longer use the same vehicle to carry cargo and people. A separate heavy lift vehicle the Orion V, is going to be built...(roman numeral five as a tribute to the Saturn V), and they will use Earth orbit rendezvous when the system is used for a Moon landing. NASA had it's hands tied when it developed the Shuttle. After the Apollo program ended there was a real possibility, incredible as it may sound, that there would not be any U.S. manned space program AT ALL! The decision to build the space shuttle passed through congress in 1972(by one vote) and NASA was told they would have to work with the Air Force to develope the system and had to do it for 5.5 billion dollars. The Air Force insisted on a 60 foot payload bay for their large spy sats when NASA had designed it with a 40 ft one. Even the wings were included because of Air Force requirements. NASA had already done a lot of research into a lifting body type orbiter. NASA has always done one thing best and that is keeping their own jobs. They knew that 5.5 billion was not enough money to develop such a sophisticated system but their jobs and the entire future of U.S. manned space was at stake. Considering what they had to overcome the Shuttle was pretty much a success despite the two accidents.

Answer 2

Yes, the current space shuttles have only 3 more years to go before they join the Apollo program on the ash heap of history.

At that time we won't have any replacement program, that will take another 10 years and the next replacement will be the Orion program; a rehash of the Apollo using old space shuttle booster rockets.

Saturn Five rockets were huge and the technology to go to the moon was complicated. Frankly, the US lost it. If we had to go to the moon today we couldn't do it. We don't have the equipment to make the tools to make the craft to go on the mission. That's why they are redesigning the Apollo program into the Orion program.

The future of recourses lies in two area, recycling and space. We are running out of resources and a lot of it can’t be recycled. China is going through so much coal, metal, oil and other resources that in a few decades it will need another Earth to meet the demand. This isn’t going to happen. So we can either recycle everything that we can, which has some sharp limits, or we can go into space and get it.

Apothos is an asteroid on a near collision course with the earth. It is hardly the first; the dinosaur killer is proof of that. Apothos is mostly iron and nickel along with a trace of a lot of other valuable materials. It is going to come so close that in 2026 it will fly under our weather satellites. If we could visit these asteroids or even shift their orbit into one around the earth then we would have new mines that would supply the Earth for dozens of years.

Of course to get the tools up there and to get the ore back we are going to need some sort of space truck; i.e. a space shuttle. The original mission of the space shuttle was just to truck the pieces of the space station into orbit. It is and was designed as a space truck. But, NASA will have long abandoned its technology by then. Hopefully private industry won’t be so blind and they will maintain or improve shuttle technology so we don’t lose it.

The first private spaceship to make it into space (100 km high, which is well below the orbit of the space station) is a version of a space shuttle. Its designer got around the need for expensive ceramic tiles and a heat shield by using a huge tail section called the feather, which slows the craft enough. However, this is from low orbit, very low orbit. The space shuttle enters the atmosphere at over Mach 8. Private industry is a good distance away from replacing the space shuttle. Currently there is a space hotel in orbit, and in another few years they hope that there will be a private space program that can reach it. But, right now there isn’t and the inflatable space hotel is just a proof of concept.

Yes, the space shuttle needs to be redesigned and replaced, but don’t look to NASA for that, they are too busy looking backward. Currently we are trying to win the race to the moon, the same race we won in 1969. At our current estimated speed China will beat us by a decade. Meanwhile we have to keep the space station going or abandon it as well. NASA hopes that the Russians and private industry will pick up the slack, but NASA has to help fund a large part of Russia’s space program and private industry hasn’t got anything flying into space. There are designs, plans and programs in operation, but once the X-prize was won those programs went back into redesign and development phases. Thanks to the short sighted views of our government and NASA we will probably by trying to re-invent the space shuttle program in 60 years, long after abandoning the International Space Station simply because we can’t maintain it.

Answer 3

The next generation (in the previous answer) is on its way.
Hopefully after that one we'll have found a nanotube or such that is strong enough to build the space elevator and the whole antiquated and inefficient idea of using a ROCKET to get to space will be dropped.

Answer 4

Check this out. I think they are actually going back to the BDB idea (big dumb booster). And if I have read it right will lift crew (CEV) and cargo separately. Check this link and others for plenty of info.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/spacecraft/ares_naming.html

Answer 5

The shuttle is to be replaced, not improved.
The entire fleet will be retired by 2010.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/main/index.html

Answer 6

Manned missions to low orbit are useless. There is nothing to be learning or gained from sending people a few hundred miles up.

I say we halt the entire manned space program and just use unmanned probes (like Pioneer and Voyager), until such time as we're actually ready to terraform other worlds and colonize them.

Answer 7

Hell with the Shuttle, let us go to Mars. That's where we should be putting our money. The shuttle is usage failure and so is the space station.

Answer 8

"We" all learned, but the folks at NASA are stubborn and incompetent and we have known that since the Challenger Disaster.

Answer 9

How about being scrapped.......NOW!!!?