For now…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Democracy. Does. Not. Work.
(Well okay, it’s technically bureaucracy that creates these problems…but think about it, with a totalitarian autocracy and a command economy, we could’ve landed a Man on Mars by now!)
Neither of which are crew-rated, and despite Elon Musk’s plans for a crewed Dragon, it will likely take considerable design changes and improvements to the Falcon 9v1.1 and Dragon capsule before it can be rated by NASA standards to carry crew.
Crew-rating the Delta IV would be extremely costly and challenging, to wit from the Augustine Committiee’s “Seeking a Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation”:
While launch of the Orion on the Delta IV HLV was found to be technically feasible, it requires some modification of the current launcher, and was comparable in cost and schedule to simply continuing with the development of the Ares I. When the Committee factored in the carrying cost of the NASA infrastructure that would be maintained if any NASA-heritage heavy launcher would eventually be developed (Ares V in any variant or a more directly Shuttle-derived heavy launcher), any cost savings that might have occurred due to using an EELV to launch the Orion were lost. Using the EELV for launch of Orion would only make sense if it were coupled with the de- velopment of an EELV-heritage super-heavy vehicle for cargo launch.
It is worth noting that the Falcon 9 (both the original and v1.1) have had several instances of “set[ting] it’s ass end on fire” due to LOX leakage. In fact, this is a common issue with many vehicles using cryogenic propellants as maintaining seals across the range of temperatures that are experienced, and as long as the structure and propulsion systems are adequately protected against heating this isn’t a problem. The Delta IV experiences fire because of the fuel-right combustion cycle (by design) and has never experienced a failure due to fire and in fact the only failure so far was on the first launch of the Delta IV HLV (triple core configuration) due to premature shutdown and subsequent failure to achieve the desired orbit.
However, a crew-rated Delta IV HLV launch would probably cost around the same as a Shuttle launch (somewhere in the neighborhood of US$800M to US$1.1B) for a vehicle with approximately half the crew capacity and essentially no extra cargo capacity. Cryogenic hydrogen is a very difficult propellant to work with, extremely costly, and has a huge carbon footprint despite the fact that the exhaust products are water and oxygen, and so would not be desirable for a future heavy lift transportation system which will likely move to biofuels or synthesized gaseous hydrocarbon fuels (methane, propane, dimethyl ether) due to both easier handling and reduced carbon footprint.
Frankly, the best outcome here would be to lose access to the ISS which would either spur on the flagging attempts to developed a workable crewed vehicle, pump more interest and money into developing commercial crewed launch capability to a legitimate standard, or refocus NASA into the uncrewed scientific and exploration missions which it has conducted so adroitly and have provided such a massive wealth of scientific information rather than continue to pump budget and energy into sustaining a “destination” that offers only marginal amounts of research and absolutely no value for either exploration or commercial development. A retooled NASA, focused on developing the necessary infrastructure and technology for a sustainable exploration effort that combines remote exploration and technology development missions with a progressive development of commercial crewed and heavy lift capability (e.g. SpaceX, Blue Origin, et cetera) where possible, rather than just shuttling people up and down from Low Earth Orbit to maintain the pretense of being the leading nation in spaceflight, is really what would serve the nation. When we can extract many of the resources we need in space rather than having to haul them from the surface at great cost, have the capability to construct large habitats which can house thousands of people in a genuinely shirt-sleeve environment, and be able to transit interplanetary distances in weeks rather than months or years, it makes sense to focus more on crewed capability. At the current state of the art, even getting people into orbit consumes more than 90% of the cost and effort of crewed missions, so getting any scientific value out of them is almost incidental to the effort of executing the mission at all.
Stranger
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Do you have any information that another nation will overtake the US within the next 25-100 years? There doesn’t seem to be a single nation with that ability on the horizon.
Democracy in one form or another has existed in the US for well over 200 years. It seems to be going pretty well here so far. Perhaps you can describe an authoritarian non-monarchy which has lasted that long or longer in the modern world.
We still have the Shuttles. They were just parked at museums a year ago.
Couldn’t they be made operational again? There was a standard maintenance cycle they went through after each mission.
The big problem is the fools at NASA fired a lot of staff. The country has lost decades of knowledge and expertise.
Umm…haven’t been watching the news lately, have we?
Seriously – the 2nd most powerful nation on Earth just grabbed a big chunk of land from under our noses, and the 1st most powerful nation can’t do jack shit except say “Naughty, naughty!” and threaten to raise tarrifs on vodka & stuff. Meanwhile, Sec. of Defense Chuck Hagel has proposed military cuts to pre-WWII levels, which means soon we won’t be able to project our power all around the globe anymore. (Whatever happened to “American, Fuck Yeah?”) And on the economic front, China’s #2 and rising.
It’s not any nation that’s growing stronger, it’s America that’s growing weaker. And it’s got nothing to do with our particular form of government. Make no mistake – given the due course of time, all empires fall.
The engines, electronics, and a lot of other stuff were removed before the shuttles became museum displays. So no, it’s not possible – or at least, it’s not economically feasable.
(Now, if there was an incoming asteroid and Bruce Willis was available for work…)
It’s more than a little ridiculous to think nabbing Crimea was “right from under our nose” or that it shows Russia is approaching a real challenge to America’s position as a global superpower.
Militarily perhaps, not in any other sense. Economically, Russia is little more than a top-10 country.
Well of course. Just like the USA could invade a chunk of Mongolia and Russia would probably not respond. It’s called having nuclear weapons.
Really? I’m pretty sure that the aircraft carrier I saw last week in Spain was not Russian, Chinese or Kenyan. And what do you know, it was just one of 19 American aircraft carriers, out of a world total of 37. If the USA can’t project its power around the globe, then no-one can.
Yes, so? The USA has still got enough in the tank for another decade or two at the very least. I’m starting to question whether Russia’s economy will hold for so long