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| Discovery lands safely |
| 2005-08-09 |
| EFL EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — The Space Shuttle Discovery touched down safely in California Tuesday after spending two weeks in space, making it the first The shuttle landed as scheduled at 8:12 a.m. EDT, which was 5:12 a.m. PDT — well before sunrise in California. A friend said the booms woke her up and got all the dogs barking. A NASA news conference After thunderstorms in Florida prevented the spacecraft from returning to its home base, NASA officials rerouted the shuttle to Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert. Mission managers said they were confident that the thermal protection system would protect the orbitor during re-entry and anticipated a smooth landing. The inherently dangerous ride down through the atmosphere — more anxiety-ridden than normal because of what happened to Columbia 21/2 years ago — skipped most of the continental United States this time. Discovery followed a course that took it over the Pacific and into Southern California. NASA officials had said they would adjust the flight path so the shuttle would skirt Los Angeles, because of new public safety considerations by NASA in the wake of the Columbia accident. "It's going to be a new beginning for the space shuttle program," NASA's spaceflight chief, Bill Readdy, said from the Cape Canaveral landing strip. Some religions say death is a New Beginning. With its launch on July 26, Discovery became the first shuttle to fly since Columbia's catastrophic re-entry in 2003. But its flight to the international space station could be the last NASA grounded the shuttle fleet after a nearly 1-pound chunk of insulating foam Discovery spent nine days hitched to the space station, where astronauts resupplied the orbiting lab and removed broken equipment and trash — one of the main goals of the mission. That included an extra day that was added following the As a result of Columbia, Discovery's crew performed intense inspections of their ship on five different days. Astronauts also did a spacewalk to test new repair techniques and replaced a failed gyroscope on the station during another spacewalk. In a third, unprecedented spacewalk, two protruding thermal tile fillers were removed from Discovery's belly. Engineers feared the material could cause dangerous overheating during re-entry. Shut down NASA and RIF every single employee, down to the janitors. Then start over. |
| Posted by:Jackal |
| #11 I very much like the "Spaceship One" piggyback concept, it's not as "New" as folks think, the idea was bypassed when the concept of a "Shuttle" was first being designed, it's much cheaper when you start from 30 angels and up than from a dead stop on the ground and straight up from there. But the idea fell by the wayside in favor of the "Brute Force" concept, poor decision in light of the results. Another workable concept was to use helium gasbags to lift as high as possible, then light 'er off, several experiments proved the idea workable, including shooting the rocket directly through the lifting gasbag at max altitude. Maybe next generation? |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2005-08-09 18:05 |
| #10 Thanks Tony. One reason the address was so long is I was working off of a Netscape search. DUH! Try this http://www.jerrypournelle.com/ |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2005-08-09 17:47 |
| #9 Cheaderhead, tinyurl.com is probably what you're looking for. |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2005-08-09 17:35 |
| #8 Just Google Chaos Manor. I'd post the link but it is about a gazillion characters long and I can never remember that trick to shrink 'em down. Claims to be the original Blog and might be. Some interesting commentary that pops up from time to time about everything from education to space to Iraq. In the last year I saw someone else using his system to map out just where a person stands in the political spectrum something I first saw in the late '70s or early '80s |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2005-08-09 17:31 |
| #7 Simplest solution is to re-explore the methods fo getting manned craft to orbit - and make them passenger-only craft. Let this out for bid and do it liek we do fighter aircraft. Get 2-3 competitive consortiums, have a bake-off, and whoever loses gets to subcontract form the winners. And unlike military programs, have the contractors bid out the launch and recovery systems, and bid out operations as well. All NASA would be is a management arm - set the direction, put out hte specs, accept bids, and manage how the winners work with the government. Put profit there and we will get humans into space. As for the big satellites (that DoD needs): Leave the heavy lift to a purpose designed lifter. Be easy enough to use the SRBs, and the Shuttle main engines and control systems and come up with a reliable booster system for heavy throw weights to LEO, and be easy to implement quickly since it need not be man-rated. As for an immediate manned solution: Go with Soyuz type system (Russians will sell it cheap) to get the crew on station until we can come up with a better one ourselves. In the meanwhile for heavy lift, you could go back and restart the production lines for the one-shot launch vehicles the USAF was using to loft spy satellites: big fragile loads, lifted to wierd orbits = bigger loads lifted to more normal orbits. FYI, the orbit required dominates the energy needed which sets the amount of payload available. Spy satellite LEOs are at unusual inclinations and perogee/apogee, so take a lot more to loft into orbit. Pretty simple eh? But NASA as it exists now will not go for it; not enough pork in it for Congress to pass it. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2005-08-09 17:28 |
| #6 Interesting post, Cheaderhead. Do you have any recommended reading with respect to Pournelle's concepts? (Yeah, I could Google it, but...) |
| Posted by: eLarson 2005-08-09 14:51 |
| #5 If we have to rely on NASA the future in space is I think bleak at best. The ISS is in an orbit that was chosen more to make the Russians happy than anything else. It's high inclination severely reduces the payload the shuttle can carry to orbit if it is headed there. For transporting crews to and from orbit a simpler vehicle is needed but I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bath water. The shuttle launch stack holds the core of an extremely capable Heavy Lift Vehicle that with expansion could be capable of placing up to 200 tons in LEO. The loss of Challenger can be traced directly to the forced decesion of NASA to go with the low bidder for the original SRB design (thanks to Congress). The original field joints of the casings on the Thiokol SRB desigh had the recieving portion of the joint on the bottom casing. Water could collet and freeze in the field joint causing the joint to unseat. The brittleness of the original O-Ring material at low temps didn't help either. The re-design featured joints that had both casings nesting inside deep groves cut into each section. The foam problem that caused Columbias loss can be traced to several issues IMO. One is the CFC foam issue. The other is the whole issue of using foam on a surface being subjected to high speed airflow in the first goddamn place. This is something that never would of been allowed in a comercial application. Some of this foam is hand applied for Chrit's sake. Take a look at films of the Saturn V being launched. Large amounts of ice are falling off the vehicle at launch. If you are going to use cyrogenic fuels and oxidizers then you are going to a) either put up with debris at launch and allow for it or b) insulate the tanks better. If I were king I'd remove the shuttle operations from NASA'a control and transfer the responsibility to either the Air Force or the Navy. The shuttle itself would only be flown when the mission required it. The operating budget of NASA for the shuttle would be tranfered to either the DARPA or a similiar organization for the development of X-type vehicles as envisioned by people such as Dr. Jerry Pournelle who helped the SDI office get funding for the DC-X test vehicle that flew sucessfully until NASA took it over and they crashed first time out. There have been too damn many studies of how to do it cheaper and easier. What has been lacking is the will in Washington to see that we do it. And don't rely on privte investment to do the job for you. The only way that will work is if you offer a contract to operate supply and ferrying services to say the ISS or something similiar. And while such an operation may not be government run it would be government funded |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2005-08-09 13:30 |
| #4 If we have to rely on NASA the future in space is I think bleak at best. The ISS is in an orbit that was chosen more to make the Russians happy than anything else. It's high inclination severely reduces the payload the shuttle can carry to orbit if it is headed there. For transporting crews to and from orbit a simpler vehicle is needed but I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bath water. The shuttle launch stack holds the core of an extremely capable Heavy Lift Vehicle that with expansion could be capable of placing up to 200 tons in LEO. The loss of Challenger can be traced directly to the forced decesion of NASA to go with the low bidder for the original SRB design (thanks to Congress). The original field joints of the casings on the Thiokol SRB desigh had the recieving portion of the joint on the bottom casing. Water could collet and freeze in the field joint causing the joint to unseat. The brittleness of the original O-Ring material at low temps didn't help either. The re-design featured joints that had both casings nesting inside deep groves cut into each section. The foam problem that caused Columbias loss can be traced to several issues IMO. One is the CFC foam issue. The other is the whole issue of using foam on a surface being subjected to high speed airflow in the first goddamn place. This is something that never would of been allowed in a comercial application. Some of this foam is hand applied for Chrit's sake. Take a look at films of the Saturn V being launched. Large amounts of ice are falling off the vehicle at launch. If you are going to use cyrogenic fuels and oxidizers then you are going to a) either put up with debris at launch and allow for it or b) insulate the tanks better. If I were king I'd remove the shuttle operations from NASA'a control and transfer the responsibility to either the Air Force or the Navy. The shuttle itself would only be flown when the mission required it. The operating budget of NASA for the shuttle would be tranfered to either the DARPA or a similiar organization for the development of X-type vehicles as envisioned by people such as Dr. Jerry Pournelle who helped the SDI office get funding for the DC-X test vehicle that flew sucessfully until NASA took it over and they crashed first time out. There have been too damn many studies of how to do it cheaper and easier. What has been lacking is the will in Washington to see that we do it. And don't rely on privte investment to do the job for you. The only way that will work is if you offer a contract to operate supply and ferrying services to say the ISS or something similiar. And while such an operation may not be government run it would be government funded |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2005-08-09 13:27 |
| #3 Regardless of the future, I'm grateful the Discovry landed safely. Welcome home. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-08-09 12:42 |
| #2 Consolidate the funding and instead offer it as a 'prize' to independent developers and businesses which will accomplished specially achieved goals. Only need a small committee to validate the accomplishment before presenting the award monies. |
| Posted by: Flash Hupomoling8954 2005-08-09 12:32 |
| #1 Or outsource to USAF. Or the USMC. |
| Posted by: Edward Yee 2005-08-09 12:24 |