It hasn’t shown up yet on the committee’s web site, but the Senate Commerce Committee’s science and space subcommittee is apparently planning a hearing for next week on issues associated with the retirement of the shuttle and the introduction of the CEV. Such a hearing has been anticipated for some time: new committee chairwoman Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said some time ago she planned to hold two hearings, one on ISS and on the shuttle; the ISS hearing took place last month.
The first hearing of this committee was intended as a dog-and-pony show to prove what great research the astronauts are doing on the space station. The dogs and ponies were so pathetic that the witnesses and the committee spent most of their time talking around them. Even so, Hutchison came out with the ludicrous proposal to designate the space station as one of America’s national laboratories — like Livermore and Brookhaven.
Certainly no one at the hearing was interested in the view of most scientists. As Nicolaas Bloembergen (one of the world’s finest applied scientists) put it in his own Congressional testimony years ago, microgravity is of microimportance. Hutchison’s hearing did not bother to refute this view; they just ignored it.
If this next hearing on the space shuttle were honest, they would point out that the space shuttle is a technological fossil. Reusability put NASA on a 30-year odyssey with a ’75 Cadillac. If the hearing were honest, they would also concede that the space station itself, and not any “human spaceflight gap”, is the real detriment to national interests. Don’t count on honesty at this hearing.
Even so, Hutchison came out with the ludicrous proposal to designate the space station as one of America’s national laboratories — like Livermore and Brookhaven.
Actually, this does not strike me as such a ludicrous idea, especially if the Shuttle goes away. Such a facility is likely to be very permanent, requiring regular logistics and applying pressure to lower prices; it may be the perfect opportunity / market to get the commercial launch vehicle business off the ground. Until there is a market — and there isn’t yet — large scale private launcher development is going nowhere.
— Donald
The day that they retire the space shuttle, the station will be a dead duck.
Greg, I think — and I hope, and all of us should hope — that you are wrong. The model that has worked in history is for a government to establish an initial base or bases in a new frontier, at great expense, for military, national prestige, or even religious purposes having nothing to do with economic sense or efficient operation. That base provides the market that allows private individuals or groups to finance transportation and make their way into that frontier. San Francisco’s Presido served that purpose in the American West, providing the destination for Mexicans, gold rushers, and railroaders alike. Fort Ross served it for the Russian’s less successful but underappreciated attempts to colonize California.
Look to the lessons of history. The Space Station, or something like it on the moon, is vital for the rapid development of space commerce. For our purposes, it does not matter _why_ it was built, or why it is maintained — let Congress dream up any reason they want — only that it needs supplies. To get efficient transportation, you need a reason for it to exist, a market to pull folks out there.
The Space Station is already built and provides a ready market far larger than any other in the immediately foreseeable future. Wouldbe private rocket developers are shooting themselves in the foot if they attack that market on some sort of ideological “free market” grounds, rather than trying to lobby the government into letting them serve that already existing market.
It is my understanding that NASA’s new administrator is predisposed to doing that. For all our sakes, let’s hope that he is.
— Donald
Luckily Firms like t/Space and Kistler are all for being able to service the needs of the space station. Even if t/Space’s plan can not get to the stations orbit, with Kistler supplying fuel, and bigalow doing a “ferry hub” A another vehical could be made to ferry folx to the station from this hub. Which could also be safer for the Space Station. Yeah i know it relys on 4 planed and as yet unproven things, and requires 1 not even thought of componant (the thing to connect multiple Nautilus Modules to form the ferry hub)
As for your fort example above, I wonder if they could have done it cheaper then they did or like the space station the method they established it was as political as building the Station was. (Designing it around the shuttle to justify the shuttles exsistance)
The space station should never be completely abandoned or worse deorbited and forgoten like Mir. It’s the perfect example of how not to do it next time.
While in 20 years a national Labratory is a bit much. But a National Monument on the other hand..
Bulk cargo like fuel and water and food are the things the Space Station will need first, and the most of. Kistler, et al, can handle that, let Soyuz and CEV do crew transport and the Fed Ex items, and no Space Shuttle should be required.
The other stuff will come once the bulk cargo is proven. If the cargo carrier is small enough, it should be easily adapted to drop bulk goods on the moon (semi-hard landing?).
Let’s do it quick, dirty, and fast; we can optimize it once it’s done.
— Donald
We will have spent over $100 billion by time the ISS is finished. Why would we not want to protect our investment not only in the near term but long term as well?
If all the US can do is resupply missions and these are to be only slightly of more in volume than a progress, soyuz combination then the station is in trouble before it is finished.
Any real repairs are going to need shuttle’s lift capacity and bulk size cargo capability for as long as we are willing to protect the investment that we have made. What are the plans to replace the shuttle in this area is of great concern it the shuttle is 100% retired upon completion?
Science questions that utilize the stations capability for a reason yes but science to be preformed only for the sake of doing something with the equipment is a poor waste of time.
We should have moved on other things beyound that by this time. Such as recycling rocket parts into say a lunar cycler, or building a Lunar or mars landers from the same parts and more.
How about melting down the metals from the rockets and making items of need such as micrometeor shields, salvage yard space port docking garage and more.
These are not futuristic uses for the station needing science or technology for we have them. We only need to make the next step.
“The day that they retire the space shuttle, the station will be a dead duck.”
The Shuttle has been “retired” for two years and the station isn’t dead.
Its the other way around, if it wasn’t for the space station, the shuttle would not be flying.
Once built why would you need the shuttle for major repairs? Asuuming Kistler and t/Space succeed, thhe only thing the combination of the ISS and the rest can’t do is add new modules just like the old ones. The US modules we have now was designed to fit in the shuttle. (To justify the shuttle’s exsistance)
We can design new modules to fit on what ever we have available. Or use two kistler launches, one to lauch a nautilus the second the equipment that goes into the module. Use the robitic arm to manver the module into place.
the only “need” i see for the shuttle after the ISS is finished (assuming kistler and t/space, or some other ASP contender, succedes) is a political one.
There are multiple methods of defurring a domesticated feline. If we didn’t insist the shuttle do it all in the 70’s, it would be cheaper to do things today.
Matthew said,
Its the other way around, if it wasn’t for the space station, the shuttle would not be flying.
In a way, that is the point. If it weren’t for Mir and the Space Station, Russia almost certainly would not have a space program today. Infrastructure like the Space Station “pulls” space transportation. Build a station in space (by which I mean any base anywhere) and keep it operational, and the transportation will take care of itself.
What I think we’ve been doing wrong all these years is trying to build the transportation before the destination, rather than the other way around.
— Donald
Well for one the shuttle has the arm to move modules into place.
Trusses and solar panel relacement would need special cargo containers to launch to station on anything other than a shuttle.
Lest we forget the gyro’s is another item which is shuttle delivered for they only last so long.
THe space station will also have an arm (unless thats been canceled too, i’ve lost track
)
the solar arrays.. well there are better solar arrays out there then what is currently used on the ISS. its not as effcient per sqcm, so they will need to be bigger, but they can be rolled up and they can still work even after they’ve been ounctured by micro meteorites. I forget the guys name who invented them. Old guy he and his wife started a company together in the 60’s. See him alot on ascience programs dealing with alternative enrgy. There is also a bonus which isn’t a bonus in space but worth mentioning.. they have the same output when its cloudy as it does when its sunny.
On the trusses, there are other trusses that can collapse in a matter that they can fit in a K-1, or a Falcon (which is supposed to test launch today)
both of these would need development work for be usuable for the ISS but the big boys have a choice to make. Adapt, Politically sabatoage other peoples efforts, or get off the playing field.
Best way for the big boys to adapt.. is to make a heavy luanch capibility that is designed to have the same cargo room as the shuttle. I see Shuttle-Z as still an option, though i forget the cost per pound on that. But it would be the easeiest way for Boeing/Lockheed to make a heavy launch vehical.
ack just saw the flacon test was delayed till tomarrow, do to delta II launch delay.
> We will have spent over $100 billion by time the ISS is finished. Why would we not want to protect our investment not only in the near term but long term as well?
Because wasted money isn’t ‘protected’ by wasting more money. You’re deep in the clutches of the fallacy of sunk costs. Money that has been spent is gone, and actions now depend on the cost/benefit of the additional spending.
By this measure, the ISS is a nearly useless albatross. It can do nothing that comes anywhere close to justifying the cost of continuing to operate it.