rupp@noscvax.UUCP (William L. Rupp) (03/13/86)
Much has been said about the loss of Challenger and what it means to the future of the space program and even the human race. Perhaps the most telling message is the sudden realization that too many of us really did not understand what the loss of one of the shuttles would mean. It is one thing to say that the astronauts, NASA officials, etc., knew what the risk was. They probably did sense the personal dangers to crew and even launch area personnel. It is another matter to weigh the greater consequences of a loss of one quarter of the shuttle fleet. It now seems clear (to me anyway), that it was unbelievably foolish to rely totally on the shuttles to launch our coming space satellites. It was a gamble, a huge one. Didn't somebody every ask the question, "If a shuttle goes down, for whatever reason, how will we launch satellites?" If a 747 crashes, you can ground all the remaining 747's and still have plenty of jet planes left to carry the load. Not so with a tiny fleet of shuttles of a single design. It is this incredible gamble which worries me more than the fact of loss of life, as tragic as that is. Accidents will always happen from time to time; people will be lost. We cannot foresee all the circumstances which might lead to those disasters. Those risks are accepted by those persons bold enough to do the exploring. You prepare as well as you can (in the case of the Challenger, apparently the preparation was not what it should have been, but that is another matter) and hope for the best. What should have been given greater consideration was the fact that the consequences of a catastrophic accident would probably ground our whole space program for months, even years. I was frankly astonished to learn that we have only a handful of expendable rocket boosters and none in production. Those responsible for putting all our space eggs in the shuttle basket made an error in judgement which is inexcusable. I don't count funding as an excuse, since any amount of compromise in shuttle development and launch schedule would have been better than what we have now. What we have now is the worst of both worlds; seven people killed and the shuttle program on indefinite hold on one hand, and no backup rocket boosters to take up the slack on the other. (One last point. I am very disturbed by what appears to be critical mistakes in judgement on the part of NASA. We are now in a situation where one more loss of a shuttle could change the history of this country. That's quite a lot of pressure to work under. We all knew that someday there would be an accident. Well, that accident has not yet happened! A sudden change in cross winds during re-entry, a computer malfunction, that sort of thing will one day occur. The verdict in that type of situation will be "Unavoidable accident". It's a shame that we have lost one which, apparently, was lost due to an avoidable error of judgement.)
desj@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (David desJardins) (03/15/86)
In article <259@noscvax.UUCP> rupp@noscvax.UUCP (William L. Rupp) writes: >What should have been given greater consideration was the fact that the >consequences of a catastrophic accident would probably ground our whole space >program for months, even years. I was frankly astonished to learn that we >have only a handful of expendable rocket boosters and none in production. Well, actually there is a production line tooling up to produce boosters for the Air Force. >Those responsible for putting all our space eggs in the shuttle basket made >an error in judgement which is inexcusable. Your opinion. I strongly disagree. >I don't count funding as an >excuse, since any amount of compromise in shuttle development and launch >schedule would have been better than what we have now. What we have now >is the worst of both worlds; seven people killed and the shuttle program on >indefinite hold on one hand, and no backup rocket boosters to take up the >slack on the other. The hold is indefinite, but certainly no more than 1-2 years. I don't agree that "any amount of compromise in shuttle development ... would have been better than what we have now." If we had only two orbiters instead of four we *might* have been able to use this money to maintain an expendable rocket program (duplicating the ESA effort). "Might" since these things are not simple tradeoffs; it is not clear that NASA could have gotten as much funding from Congress for that type of a program. But this would leave us with **one** orbiter, and some expendable rockets. Do you really think this would be better? I think it would be much worse. Think of all of the things that only the shuttle can do and imagine trying to do them all with only one orbiter!! As an aside, I don't see why everyone wants to start building lots of expendable boosters, even now. Why do we need to compete for commercial launch operations with the Europeans? Isn't cooperation more efficient? And it is certainly less costly, since every commercial launch is subsi- dized; this is why commercial companies have been unable to compete! I can only attribute this to American arrogance, that we have to do every- thing ourself (defense is of course different; this is why the Air Force has been building expendable boosters!). I would *much* rather spend the money on new orbiters, and on research for the next generation (airbreathing?) launch vehicle. -- David desJardins
mrgofor@mmm.UUCP (MKR) (03/18/86)
In article <259@noscvax.UUCP> rupp@noscvax.UUCP (William L. Rupp) writes: >Much has been said about the loss of Challenger and what it means to >the future of the space program and even the human race. Perhaps the >most telling message is the sudden realization that too many of us >really did not understand what the loss of one of the shuttles would >mean. It is one thing to say that the astronauts, NASA officials, etc., >knew what the risk was. They probably did sense the personal dangers to >crew and even launch area personnel. It is another matter to weigh the >greater consequences of a loss of one quarter of the shuttle fleet. > >It now seems clear (to me anyway), that it was unbelievably foolish to >rely totally on the shuttles to launch our coming space satellites. It >was a gamble, a huge one. Didn't somebody every ask the question, "If >a shuttle goes down, for whatever reason, how will we launch satellites?" > >I don't count funding as an >excuse, since any amount of compromise in shuttle development and launch >schedule would have been better than what we have now. The only reason we have even the shuttle is because the military wanted it and was therefore able to help secure the funding. You seem to be saying that we should have had several programs going at once, at several times the cost, but then discount funding problems. Funding is at the heart of it - if we had more funds we probably would have more systems. As for your assumption that nobody thought about what would happen if there was a crash: come on, do you really think they just forgot about that? Be serious - I'm sure NASA would have loved to have had all sorts of different launch systems and programs, but there is one BIG problem, and its name is: * * ***** * * ***** * * ** ** * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * *** * * * * * * ** * * * * ***** * * ***** * -- --MKR The first half of a project takes 90% of the time. The other half takes the other 90%.
desj@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (David desJardins) (03/22/86)
rupp@noscvax.UUCP (William L. Rupp) in <271@noscvax.UUCP> (> = Rupp, >> = me): >> The hold is indefinite, but certainly no more than 1-2 years. >One or two years!!!! Did you read about the Cosmonauts in orbit RIGHT NOW! >What makes you think a pause counted in years is not serious? What do cosmonauts in space have to do with our space program?? The two seem completely unrelated (unless you are saying that we should run our space program more like the Soviet one, which seems unlikely). >> I don't agree that "any amount of compromise in shuttle development ... >> would have been better than what we have now." If we had only two >> orbiters instead of four we *might* have been able to use this money to >> maintain an expendable rocket program (duplicating the ESA effort). >> "Might" since these things are not simple tradeoffs; it is not clear >> that NASA could have gotten as much funding from Congress for that type >> of a program. But this would leave us ... > >Interesting points here, but the fact is that we should have had at least >some vestigial expendable booster program. What I was trying to say was that >the consequences of all shuttles grounded and no solid rocket boosters to >speak of leaves us in a very precarious position. I surely hope we do not >have an international crisis soon in which many destroyed recon satellites >must be replaced quickly. >I, too, would like to put more money into research. How about a permanent >space station, etc.? But let's keep more balance in the program from now >on. I find it interesting that I, a strong advocate of space exploration by >humans, should be speaking in favor of more unmanned vehicles. We need >a strong capability in both types of space craft, since each can do certain >things better than the other. You have ignored the issue. Stop bringing in military applications; NASA is a civilian agency. It is up to the Air Force to build more expendable boosters if it feels it needs them! "Balance" is a euphonism for less of what we have and more of something else. Are you or are you not saying that you would trade two of the remaining three orbiters for an expendable booster program? I certainly would not; I consider NASA's decision to start building expendable boosters (which essentially mean giving up on new orbiters, or even a replacement) almost as much of a catastrophe as the explosion! -- David desJardins
kenny@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU (03/23/86)
I'm *really* getting confused by all the statements that ``our satellite
launch capability is gone as long as the shuttles are grounded'' and
so on.
I realize that we've lost our capability for really big payloads (even the
few dozen Titan III's we have around don't have anything like the Shuttle's
capacity), but I haven't read anywhere that Delta and Scout launches have
been suspended for the duration of the present emergency. Have I missed
an announcement to that effect?
(Incidentally, the Delta has for literally decades been the workhorse of our
fleet of expendable boosters. It has the capacity to lift nearly a tonne
to geosynchronous orbit. The Japanese N-1 is a copy of Delta, with a new
LH2/LOX upper stage).
Kevin Kenny
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
UUCP: {ihnp4,pur-ee,convex}!uiucdcs!kenny
CSNET: kenny@UIUC.CSNET
ARPA: kenny@B.CS.UIUC.EDU (kenny@UIUC.ARPA)
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