errm… Russia has announced its plans to build a new re-usable shuttle dubbed the “clipper”… its based on the soyuz design. And obviously, not enough money.
supposed to carry six ppl… no cargo, i think.
google on it…
here’s a link to start… http://www.hindu.com/2005/07/17/stories/2005071700311400.htm
Apparently not. So far the all-purpose truck has killed fourteen people and cost a Godawful amount of money, with no obvious advantages over the Russian approach.
Ok, 14 people have died in the use of the space shuttle. But there were something like 112 missions that happened successfully. STS has put a lot of people and things in space and brought them home successfully. Considering the high risk nature of strapping enormous powerful explosives to your ass and going into an environment completely unsuited for humans, that’s pretty good IMO. And if I had typed that out before Columbia, it would only be 7 people who lost their lives.
Are these losses tragic and excruciatingly painful? Hell, yes. Do I want to see any more of the same happen? Hell no. But each of the astronauts knows the risks and accepts them (no one is forced on board the shuttle).
IMHO, the shuttle has been a terrific success, despite it’s shortcomings.
If we used just that kind of logic, RickJay, we would have scrapped the space program after the Apollo 1 fire. After all, the cost-to-benefit ration at the time was deplorable: 3 lives lost at incredible expense, with nothing gained except the knowledge that, as humans, we were fallible.
So we should applaud NASA for its smashing successes, never mind the destruction of two $2.5 billion orbiters and the needless deaths of 14 highly trained astronauts? Any more successes like those, and we’ll need another batch of orbiters and a new astronaut pool.
Point two. No, the Challenger and Columbia astronauts did not “know the risks and accept them.” Fact is, NASA brass didn’t and still don’t know all the risks. In fact, they are only too slowly learning just how dangerous the shuttle flights really are, despite having downplayed that danger for years. The last estimate, prior to the potentially disastrous Atlantis launch (remember the dislodged chunk of foam and NASA’s blanched faces earlier this week?) suggested a 1 in 110 launch risk “failure,” with failure meaning death of crew and destruction of orbiter. Sure, the astronauts on Challenger knew they weren’t flying a United shuttle, but they also had no idea about the O-ring problem. NASA’s subcontractors did wonder aloud about an possible o-ring problem but, in NASA Land, failure to communicate = death. In a similar vein, the Columbia crew had no idea that a scrap of foam could destroy their orbiter–nor did NASA, by its own admission–but NASA brass nevertheless launched with fingers crossed.
Apollo I? The lesson learned from the deaths of those 3 astronauts has nothing to do with the “fallability” of humans, but instead with NASA’s stupidity–despite warnings–to pump pure oxygen into a capsule that had suffered demonstrated problems with chaffing of electrical wires and concerns over the lack of a quick eggress.
As the shuttles age, the probability of additional catastrophic failures is probably increasing at a faster rate than NASA’s ability to plug the surprise holes in the dike. Translation: Keep launching the shuttle and you better prepare for more deaths and destroyed orbiters. The point isn’t to be macho about spaceflight. Instead, we should find better ways of accomplishing NASA’s missions. The one-size-fits-all approach is a killer.
The deaths were not needless, unless you are going to tell me that we don’t need the space program.
I did not say they knew all the risks. Nobody knows all the risks, all the potential problems that could arise from every bit of material and all the computer programming done on the shuttle. Calm down. Every astronaut is aware that their life is at risk when they go into space. They certainly hope that the risks have been minimized, and planned against, but they know that there are very real risks involved.
Yeah, that’s fallibility. Humans aren’t all as smart as we want them to be, and lots of times, even when they should know better, they do stupid things. It’s terrible that it took the deaths of these 3 brave men to uncover just how stupid people were being in this instance, I agree.
What I was illustrating (or trying to) was that if we took the same approach that RickJay used to evaluate our space program after that disaster, the conclusion might have been reached that the whole thing was too expensive and too dangerous.
I agree with everything you wrote in this paragraph except your last sentence.
When the Titanic went down we didn’t do away with large sea-faring vessels, when a jumbo jet goes down we don’t hear calls to end passenger flights, when a bus crashes we don’t hear screaming to remove all the Greyhound buses from the roads.
Manned space flight is in it’s infancy. There are going to be losses (both human and financial) occassionally. Those things have never stopped humans from making progress, from exploring, from conquering new places. It won’t stop us now.
For me, and for the men and women who have flown and will fly aboard the space shuttle, the risks are worth the potential successes. Can we make a better vehicle? Yes, I think we can. But Deep Purple said it best in 1972:
Whoa, fella. Back that logical nonsense right up.
You’re essentially positing here that because the space program is needed, no deaths caused by are needless. That’s, well, not true at all. We need highways, but many fatal car wrecks are needless and stupid. We need electricity, but pretty much any case of someone electrocuting themselves at home is needless and stupid.
They might have, but that’s a completely different point.
The growing argument against the shuttle program is not that sending people into space is needless (though I guess some people think that) but that the Shuttle program, specifically, is not the correct method for doing so. We’ve had several very good explanations of the history of the Shuttle program suggesting that the entire thing is a boondoggle from the perspective of opportunity cost. Of course some things have been accomplished, but how much MORE could be accomplished with different methods?
As has been pointed out, the Russians, who are widely regarded as a nation of criminals and drunks, have maintained a remarkably successful space launch program using Soyuz and Progress vehicles that costs less and has killed a lot fewer people. There is clearly the possibility that a big sort-of-reusable shuttle that does not havea terrific safetly record is not the best way to go about this.
You could not have applied this same reasoning to Apollo I, because there wasn’t any other way to get to the Moon. They were INVENTING it. Assuming the mission was worth taking risks (and I believe it was) there wasn’t a lower risk option. Assuming the shuttle’s mission is worth taking some risk (and I believe it is) should NASA be looking into a lower risk option? The Russian experience suggests yes.
I agree that we should not be stopping manned space flight, but I’m not suggesting that. What I’m perceiving you’re doing is throwing up a false dilemma - “Oh, we have to take the risk, or else we can’t have manned spaceflight at all.” Dismissing the lives of fourteen people as “there are going to be losses” is preposterous. Both accidents were in LARGE part due to organizational arrogance, groupthink, and mismanagement, not inherent physical risks of spaceflight.
Bo, because the space program is important, it’s acceptable that some people die needlessly?
Anyway, I’m not going to argue with strawmen and Deep Purple, so I’ll just post this latest article from the New York Times.
I thought that was the Irish? 
This sums up the real travesty of NASA. Accidents will happen…but when the happen because it’s “too expensive” to make a change, or because management rewards a “Can do!” attitude (to the point of deception) and penalizes bringing problems to attention, then it’s not a matter of technical limitations but blind arrogance, which is a death-blow to any product or project.
After 114 flights, the Shuttle should not be considered “in its infancy”.
Stranger
I concede a poor conceptualization. I never meant to argue that the deaths of these 14 men and women was needed. I apologize for not being able to make myself clear. They died in service to their country and to mankind, doing something that they believed in, and I would never seek to denigrate them, their choices, or their contributions.
We will never know, will we? We chose to build the shuttle, not do something else. As you point out, there is the Russian space program to look at but I personally have no data in order to make meaningful comparisons.
Cite for the opinion about Russia? 
Cite for “remarkably successful”? Cite for “costs less and has killed a lot fewer people”? I ask not to be deliberately snarky (although I know it seems so), but because I have absolutely no data about the Russian space program other than vague knowledge that they have one.
Also, what would you consider a “terrific” safety record? How about an “acceptable” safety record?
I concede there is the possibility that there is a better way to reach into space than the shuttle, but I will concede that there is virtually any possibility. Let’s see some real numbers.
How many Russian space missions have there been since 1980? How many astronauts were involved in each one, on average? Were there any fatalities, and if so, how many? What was accomplished by a typical mission? What was the cost involved per mission, on average? I don’t know the answers to any of those questions.
I am not trying to throw up a false issue at all. I was responding to what I saw being raised as an issue. My statement is better made as “We have to take some risks, or else we can’t have manned spaceflight”. We also have to take some risks, or we can’t do anything.
I never meant to seem dismissive about the lives lost in our space program, as I said earlier in this post. I apologize again for my inability to always express myself clearly.
I won’t disagree with you on this point. Certainly all those things were factors, even LARGE factors. Now explain how doing things with a different type of vehicle would eliminate them.
If all we differ on in our ideas about the space program is the type of vehicle we should be using, then let’s really talk about the vehicles. We already know about the shuttle, now let’s have some facts about the Russian space program so we can really compare the two. Let’s talk about what should be acceptable risk and what should not. And let’s talk about how money, or a lack of it, really is a factor in how things are engineered.
If what we are talking about is changing the very organizational structure of the entire NASA program that’s a whole other ball of wax, and one that I admit I don’t know enough about to do more than just absorb information. I look forward to reading about how the Russian program is organized, how decisions are reached, how committees are run that differs from what our own space program is doing.
I apologize again for my poorly-worded post. I would never intentionally try and make the argument that these deaths were needed.
The article you linked is interesting, but it admits itself that
bolding mine
Reading the article, it seems to be making the argument that the problems the shuttle is having/has had are more the result of managerial and perhaps organizational flaws in NASA than anything else. Is that your opinion also, and if it is, how would changing vehicles necessarily change any of the other things?
Or are you more of the opinion that we need to scrap all of NASA and start over with new leadership and new organization, etc?
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: It’s all Nixon’s fault.
Quite simply, the shuttle was a bad idea from the get-go, NASA knew it, but didn’t have much choice in the matter, and 14 people have died as a result. If NASA was smart, they’d be busting ass to figure out a replacement to the shuttle that could actually perform, instead, they’re letting the “pointy haired bosses” continue to run things.
Awesome article, Tuckerfan. Lots to think about in there.
Good article. Long, long ago, NASA transitioned from cutting-edge, bold and brainy to being just another agency for whom mission #1 is jobs creation. (Not to say the missions aren’t intriguing and sometimes awe inspiring, but NASA lost that loving feeling sometime after about Apollo 12.) Was it really Nixon’s fault, or simply NASA bowing to the powerful political lobbies of the day? The shuttle program was supposed to be a springboard in the nation’s push toward Mars, but NASA ultimately had to reinvent its mission, as deficits mounted and public interest in geology dimmed.
Good question. The problems with NASA–the arrogance, groupthink, hubris, and disquieting misaaplication of risk aversion and risk tolerance, as RickJay cited–are the problems of all government agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, etc) and of the nation’s declining manufacturers (Chrysler, Ford, Buick, etc). NASA is following a predictable arc that finds once innovative, brainy and efficient young tigers eventually fatten into bloated spectacles. Corporations today fight for their survival by returning to their young tiger roots. NASA cannot easily do so because much of its mission is shaped by powerful, shifting political pressures.
Everything I’ve read, indicates that Nixon’s at fault. He didn’t understand the space program (JFK supposedly did), and hated it because it’s finest hours were the result of of JFK’s proclamation. (To give you an idea of how much Nixon hated JFK, Nixon basically abandoned DC once JFK took office, but caught a plane back to DC within hours of Kennedy being killed.) He killed Apollo, even though the Saturn V was about to hit economies of scale, and NASA had very ambitious plans for future Lunar missons, including month long stays, Lunar bases, and orbiting space stations. Nixon’s staffers told NASA forget about it and to expect their budget to be cut so long as Nixon was in power. NASA didn’t get a significant budgetary increase until Challenger blew herself to bits, IIRC.
right on… i think discussing this issue comes closer to the ‘ok-so-what-do-we-do-now’ question that NASA faces now.
besides all the adminstrative/managerial problems infesting the space agency, on a practical level - they should start drawing up plans for different types of vehiles. Bottomline should be a no-no to such all-in-one vehicle - spacelifting humans and cargo should be dealt as seperate entities.(as has been pointed out earlier)
the nose-fitting soyuz designs seem safe enough. (vis-a-vis the piggy-banking shuttle designs)