NASA's suicide missions

From Larry:

I doubt if anything I've said here will change yours, but you never know.

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I agree with all your points. Why are you sinlgeling out Politics from the other issues? Politics is part of reality, isn't it? You also avoided taking a position on the issue of NASA waisting peoples money, my main point. By the way, MV if you're reading this check the latest news on msn.com. NASA fired 5 members and two consultants of its safety team last year for raising their concern about shuttle missions and replaced them with "younger" guys.

mechanic,

I have to take exception to several comments you have made.

1 - I don't believe it was a sucicide mission. The failure here I believe is going to turn out to have been poor judgement. Ground control looked at the launch film and concluded it was a piece of styrofoam that struck the left wing and that it had done no damage.

It would have been prudent for them to have performed an unscheduled space walk and look for any damage.

The ISS has a Russian escape pod and/or there was enough on site to have extended their stay until rescue missions were flown.

2 - NASA does not waste our money. As indicated indirectly the new technology and materials that have been developed are only the tip of the ice-berg.

The fact is the NASA Space program is the ONLY Government program to ever have been cost effective. It has has a positive cash flow. The expenditures made have been repaid many times over by increased jobs due to new technology development; net to mention the value of what we are learning.

3 - I do agree that we should be spending more on updating our space technology.

Mechanic, if you recheck my original retort you will see that I describe the harsh funding concerns of NASA. I agree that many scientists find it hard to get funding because the huge amounts of $ needed to fund the manned space program. You speak of the Russians, yet how many people have they lost in space. Do you think they will volunteer that information? I said in my statement that NASA desperately wants new spacecraft. Congress denies them that funding.
On our national debt, this unreal number is projected by the liberal media (with their vast scientific knowledge) to maintain a status quo over the electorate. Our debt is not balanced like your checkbook with the assets of this country. Start adding up a few trillion dollars in spacecraft, aircraft and carriers, bases, satelites, the growth that these bring mitigate the debt. Contrary to some opinions I say we take this tragedy as an opportunity to reform the space program, to allow these underfunded scientists the ability to try their new ideas in making safer more efficient space craft to carry out the very necessary research in space.

Those people starving and homeless in the world indirectly benefit from our weather forecasts... we teach them to feed themselves using those "suicide" missions. Remember that Columbia was conducting eighty science experiments in microgravity. We have saved thousands of cardiac patients from electrolyte studies in space. Machines, robots, and inefficient russian rockets that spew highly toxic organic materials onto the russian people cannot be the answer.

Finally, our astronauts are patriots of the U.S. Their deaths are not in vain. They understood the risks of traveling in space. Besides, the hunch that a tile was damaged was only that, a hunch. Tiles are damaged on every space flight of the shuttle and we have never had a problem. We must be prepared for the fact we may never know the cause. The shuttle could have struck debris...I cite a previous shuttle flight where a chip of paint struck the shuttle windshield and cracked it. At 12,000 + mph, impulses are tremendous.


Mark Vitrone

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The facts speak for themselves. Watch TV.
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I have, I've been watching it since Sputnik. The last serious accident was about 20 years ago, that's a pretty good safety record.

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Mixing apples and bananas Jeremy?
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That doesn't constitute an argument.

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Yeah, especially when they manage dragging two shadows around on the moon...
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More sarcasm.

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What they have really done is to delay significantly the development of technology for true space travel. Now the old timers are gone along with the Germans who started the whole program and what's left is a bunch of "computer wiz" kids doing simulations all day long. I guess the simulation of the tiles missing from the left wing was not good enough and the thing blew up. Now you call this a good job. I guess different men have a different view of what a good job is.
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I guess so, I suppose a car mechanic is better qualified to design the shuttle. Perhaps the design of airplanes is being hindered by building them before they are "perfect" also.

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This shows statement shows a severe lack of an understanding of the problem. Antigravity allows heavier and stronger spacecrafts. Fuel is utilized to slow down upon reentry and it's not wasted for lifting off. What's done is exactly the reverse.
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It doesn't show lack of understanding. Antigravity is not going to solve all your safety issues, and until it exists it is just talk.

I am more than happy to agree with you that NASA needs totally new management but this painting of the whole space program as the work of inept fools is too broad a brush. Do you honestly think the engineers and ground crew got some kick out of watching the destruction?

A primary problem with NASA and space shuttles is "brittle" design. If anything is damaged, or fails, the entire space shuttle fails. This is not intentional; it is an unavoidable consequence of chemical rocketry. The missions are beyond chemical rocketry in the sense that there cannot be design margin or "cushion" because the capital price of the craft becomes ridiculous. What is required is a more powerful propulsion technology. The next step is nuclear fission thermal rockets. Officially they are too dangerous, but in reality, they would enable a space shuttle to have considerable margin in terms of power, sustainability of power and redundant hardware. (For instance, two or three layers of thermal tiles). Furthermore, re-entry could be done as a powered descent. In reality, they are much less dangerous.

We will never go to Mars by chemical rocketry.

Nuclear fission thermal rockets are not the end of the rainbow, but they are the next, significant improvement. In the long run, we would have to understand gravity well enough to harness it. That would be a propulsion system adequate to exploring the entire solar system.

Gregg Wilson

In terms of propulsion they should be doing more with "Inertial Drives". Being an inventor and having owned a research company for decades, I have designed and built these devices.

They do work. Albeit barely. We have a new one almost complete and another one on the drawing board for the near future. We are making progress but it is slow and there is still a long way to go.

I built my first one back in 1970's, it was by physics exacatly like the one in the following link which has been roduced by Sandia Labs.

www.sandia.gov/media/imbalance.htm

You can put these things in a sealed box and cause the box to move.

The best I have done was a 3 Hp unit, driving one on a 100# cart. The cart was mounted to angle iron rails. We measured 7# pull on a spring scale and we operated the unit both direction down the tracks.

Most have been like the Sandia unit which is impulses and they are very limited due to shock and mechanical stress. Low in output per pound weight.

My last one was however a continuous smooth output.