NASA’s decision to proceed with the July 1 launch of the shuttle Discovery on STS-121, despite the objections of two key officials, has attracted a good deal of media attention. However, in looking through the various news reports, I haven’t seen any comments from members of Congress, although they have not been shy in the past about sharing any concerns they have about shuttle safety. Is this current debate too small of an issue to warrant (public) attention on Capitol Hill, or is something else going on?
They are caught between the risk of another shuttle crash and the debacle of not flying the shuttle. If I were in Congress, I wouldn’t have anything to say about it either.
If you read Griffin’s comments he states clearly while there is risk it is about the loss of the shuttle not the crew.
He feels that the use of the ISS as a safe-harbor plus existing rescue capability means that if a severe debris strike occured that the shuttle would be lost and likely the program be ended but the lives of the crew would not be threatened and they would return by other means (rescue shuttle, soyuz, etc)
He goes further to say that unlike before Columbia they know that the tank sheds debris and they will be checking for any debris strikes before authorizing re-entry.
Personally it sounds like a reasonable decision. We have only so much time before the Shuttle is retired, the crew’s safety isn’t effected on the ascent, they are going to check before authorizing re-entry and there are other ways of getting them down from the ISS.
I agree with Rob. If we’re going to fly the Shuttle, we need to fly it. The risk seems reasonable. The Shuttle — and, indeed, no spacecraft — will ever be completely “safe.” Moreover, if we do plan to send astronauts to the moon and planets, some of them (probably a lot of them) will die, and we need to be prepared to pay that price. If absolute safety is our requirement for flying, we should stop wasting our money right now and retire the whole human space program.
— Donald
Obvoiusly they are tolerating the risk of another shuttle accident, or a near accident. Nonetheless, as Rob Conley says, another accident would end the shuttle program. And I’m convinced that if and when the shuttle dies, the space station will die with it. This is not a point of personal advice; I just don’t see the credibility in the CEV and I don’t think that Congress does either.
So I think that most Congresspeople just don’t want to tempt fate by discussing the flight beforehand. If the flight looks good, then they will come out with a lot of glad-handing. That is exactly what Bush and others did the last time.
“Probably a lot of them will die, and we have to be prepared to pay that price…”
– such statements of make very little sense. We are not storming Anzio beach, or asking the military for volunteers to shovel radiation residue from Chernobyl. If seven Astronauts die, the NASA human spaceflight program gets halted for years, yet when the mission is a flop yet the crew survives as in Apollo 13, the flights continue and the “mission” is deemed a success. Some people just do not understand how the business of human spaceflight works, when it should be obvious to a good average business person.
We need to take into account the benefits that may result from running the risks, the degree of risk involved, and the usefulness of human space flight. Compared to robotics, human spaceflight is not cost effective. The usefulness or “value” just is not there, according to the Lockheed Martin consultant.
Other than to keep humans alive in space, and perhaps to prove survival on other planets, human spaceflight is not necessary. And if the only purpose is to prove survivability on other worlds, then it goes against the basic purpose to kill in order to live.
If survivability is the prime requirement, then safety in proven design should be the priority instead of the current ‘Astronauts know the risk they are taking culture’. NASA should be the example to the auto industry in safe transport design, reducing earth transport fatalities. The goal should be to promote life, not to kill. And colonies on Mars someday will likely be smaller in number than on Antartica – a hundred would be a huge colony for the next hundred years. Perhaps Van Allen is correct – perhaps human spaceflight is obsolete, or nearly so.
TORO: If seven Astronauts die, the NASA human spaceflight program gets halted for years
This is the problem. I is entirely unrealistic to send human beings to Earth’s moon, et al, and expect there not to be fatal accidents. These are extremely dangerous environments and mistakes — fatal mistakes — are inevitable.
Regarding the ability of robots to conduct detailed science on the planets beyond an initial reconnaissance, this is complete nonesense, but I’m not going to reiterate all that again. The amazing thing is that so many people who should know better actually manage to convince themselves that, say, automated paleontology and detailed survey stratigraphic geology are even possible in the foreseeable future.
— Donald
Not just a problem, but also a customer criteria for failure or success. Again Apollo 13 flopped, the mission a failure, but Congress applauded the success. All NASA did was to keep the crew alive. And NASA’s management had little to do with the success – it was the Apollo design, not the management reviews.
NASA needs better designed and tested spacecraft. “Astronauts know the risk they accept” culture simple does not fit in with the customer.
Colonies on Mars and elsewhere in this solar system likely will never exceed in size colonies in Antartica. Highly doubtful global warming will bring about million plus human cities in Antartica.
They won’t be sending geologists. They’ll be sending doctors and nurses taught a bit of geology. Survival will be the only requirement. All else will be trivial pursuit.
Yes, astronauts will always be at risk, and many will die in the future. But as a layman reading articles like this one, I am not convinced that in this particular case the risk is worth it. Why not scrap the shuttle now? For that matter, didn’t the Russians send up and bring back their shuttle unmanned like 15 years ago? Why can’t we do that now with all our high technology?
Chance, I agree that we should scrap the Shuttle now, but because of its cost, not because of its safety shortcoming. Spending five billion dollars a year to have it sit on the ground “until it is safe” serves no one. If we are going to fly the vehicles at all, we should fly them now and retire them as soon as possible.
My point was a more general one. You can spend an infinite amount of money making a vehicle “safe.” At some point, you have to accept the risk and fly. If we are not willing to accept any risk, we will never fly. If we are not willing to accept some risk, we will never be able to afford to fly.
— Donald
My concern with this launch is crew safety. If there is a foam shedding problem during launch that cannot be fixed how do we bring the crew back? The tank for the rescue mission would have the same flaw that crippled the first flight, possibly leaving two crews stranded. To fix and test another tank could strand the crew for 6 to 9 months. The Russians don’t have enough of Soyuz capsules lying around to rescue 7 people nor Progress freighters to keep them supplied.
I agree there are risks to be accepted in spaceflight but the reasons being given for accepting the risks for this flight, namely a safe haven on the ISS, just are not realistic when you think about it.
There is just not much value for humans in space, other than to have humans in space. And it costs a lot of money. The exploration is more scientific and not so bold anymore.
Maybe extremely rich very old people could have a little retirement home on the Moon someday. That way they could avoid dying from the flu and if they fell down maybe their bones would not break and cause them to die. They could get an expensive extension and easy living on life. If they were filthy rich and wanted to live a little longer, they could live on the moon.
Or maybe a small jail on the Moon for Sadam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden. It would be extemely expensive, but those lunatics would be where they belonged and would have no chance to come back like Napoleon. And if their rocket blew up on the journey to the Moon – well the mood would not be as sad as when Astronauts die.
Otherwise just a few people doing scientific research, and colonies no bigger than anything that will ever be in Antartica. It would be much easier to colonize Antartica than Mars, but it won’t happen either place above double digits.
There is no need to kill hundreds of Astronauts as some people seem to propose when there will never be a hundred people on any other planet in the solar system for the next hundred years, just like Antartica, in the first place.
The only exception could be eccentrically rich old people wanting to avoid dying old but still young, and that whole scenario is not very realistic but just a thought to show what the boundary conditions are for so called colonies in space. Space colonies in this solar system won’t happen. we’re all stuck here together and we ought to try to colonize this planet which seems to be pretty habitable for the next billion years or so.
Or maybe a small jail on the Moon for Sadam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden. It would be extemely expensive, but those lunatics would be where they belonged and would have no chance to come back like Napoleon. And if their rocket blew up on the journey to the Moon – well the mood would not be as sad as when Astronauts die.
Is there any reason why we couldnt just put them on a sounding rocket?
I meant the risk for this flight specifically. I know there is no such thing as a “safe” spaceflight but when these big guys won’t sign off on it, but try and say the crew will be safe, that just sounds like double talk. On another board my question about remote control was said to be too costly/impractical, but I still don’t see why this isn’t doable. Losing an umanned shuttle would be embarassing. Losing another manned one? That’s negligence.
Ofcourse it’s double talk. If they say it’s safe and the next one blows up, who do you think is going to be the next on the chopping block, career wise?
On another board my question about remote control was said to be too costly/impractical
It’s too politically costly to do, half of the old astronaut corps being politicians now and all.
TORO: There is just not much value for humans in space, other than to have humans in space. And it costs a lot of money. . . . Otherwise just a few people doing scientific research, and colonies no bigger than anything that will ever be in Antartica.
Than, why don’t we just send robots to Antarctica, and save all the money and personal risk “wasted” on sending and supporting people at this expensive location?
Quite simply, because robots cannot do the job. When we successfully demonstrate doing all the tasks that people do in Antarctica (or in deep sea drilling or deep sea surface shipping) with robots in the near future and for a finite amount of money, then I’ll concede at least that it is possible. (Desirable or cost effective are two other questions.)
Until then, space scientists are just dreaming. They will never answer any but the very easiest of their serious geological questions the way they are going about it now. In the mean time, they are wasting a lot of the money that could be spent to develop the tools that could answer their questions.
— Donald
This is, of course, only half the answer. The other half is that it’s far cheaper (and safer) to send people to Antarctica (and support them there) than it is to send them to space.
In space, yes, astronauts can do things that robots can’t, but they typically can’t do it at a price that is justified by the value of the results. So, restricted to the set of things that are both feasible and affordable, we use robots instead.
Well, Paul, that of course is a value judgement.
but they typically can’t do it at a price that is justified by the value of the results.
There are plenty of terrestrial scientists who would consider spending well over $1 billion to determine that there were probably small pools of standing water on Mars at some undetermined date in the past as “unaffordable” as you consider a human mission that might actually determine things like when the flooding occured, its nature, how often and how long, what may have lived in it, how they may have evolved over time and space — the detailed history of the “seas” over time — questions the MERs and their ilk will never be able to answer in finite time and cost.
Maybe actually getting detailed answers should be considered a part of determining what is “affordable.” Again, if it’s worth spending “billions” to find out just the fact that there may be a history of water on Mars, than perhaps is worth spending “billions and billions” to actually find out what that history was. If we don’t care, why are we spending the money at all?
I do not argue that the MERs should not have been sent. But, now that they have been sent and they’ve given us some ground-truth data, sending a lot more would be a waste. Spending $1 billion each to return an extremely limited set of data over a few kilometers is not an efficient use of whatever funds we choose to dedicate to answering questions about the detailed geology (and possible paleontology) of Mars.
If we care about these questions, we need to send a crew of human geologists on a long-term expedition to produce many deep cores over a wide territory. Nothing less is going to produce the answers planetary scientists claim to seek.
— Donald
Well, Paul, that of course is a value judgement.
No, it’s an empirical observation. The revealed preferences of the political system is that the robotic missions meet the affordable + valuable test, but manned missions don’t. Of course, you could argue that just because something is funded doesn’t mean it’s worthwhile, but that doesn’t seem to be a road manned space advocates would really want to be going down.
I think you overstate what a real-world set of manned Mars mission is going to be able to accomplish, btw.
I do not argue that the MERs should not have been sent. But, now that they have been sent and they’ve given us some ground-truth data, sending a lot more would be a waste.
They have barely scratched the surface of what they can do on Mars (if not at the current sites), and manned missions are and will remain vaporware for decades. For that matter, fine tuning what those incredibly expensive and limited manned visits would do would be reason enough to send more unmanned precursors.
Paul: The revealed preferences of the political system is that the robotic missions meet the affordable + valuable test, but manned missions don’t.
I’m going to agree to disagree on the rest of your statement, but the above is false on its face. If it were true, why are space scientists complaining? The political powers that be — rightly or wrongly — have chosen to continue funding human spaceflight at a far larger rate than many or most scientists would wish. They do that — again, rightly or wrongly — partly because of their perceptions of the potentail scientific value of, say, the Space Station.
Thus, The revealed preferences of the political system are quite contrary to those of many, if not most, space scientists. In addition, the relatively large number of papers in scientific journals attempting to justify human spaceflight (e.g., Earth, Moon, and Planets; New Scientist) shows that even the body of scientific opinion is softening on this issue.
— Donald
There are already robots in Antartica, and advanced drilling tools… AND … more human beings there today than you will ever find on Mars or the Moon for the next 100 years…
… unless rich old eccentrics want to avoid the flu (but they can isolate on Earth) and avoid breaking bones when falling…they could live on the Moon.
Warren Buffet could have bought the Moon, and paved the way for his friend Bill. I guess he didn’t see the “value” in the Moon or in keeping billions. Throw that old folks home boundary condition / idea / thought out.
There is still the Sadam Hussein jail possibility for the Moon. Maybe he could do some geology or operate a telescope for humanity in exchange for a food and water dump off occasionally. It could even be low security – he could pretty much roam the Moon and bravely explore. But it would cost too much, like Alcatraz. Throw that idea out.
As for interesting geology, predicting when the Yellowstone super volcano will erupt would help humanity.
I am out of “value” ideas. Seems the main reason we will go to Mars is just to go to Mars and back, and to prove we can survive elsewhere. It seems too simple to be true, but the reason we go into space is simply to survive, and to improve life on Earth. And if survival is the only prime requirement, then it is an almost absurd present culture to say “kill a lot of Astronauts to do questionable value geology”, or to hear NASA say the (unquantified shuttle) risk is acceptable and the Astronauts know the risk they are taking when the only “value” seems to be to keep the Astronaut alive. Maybe this is what we never learned from Apollo 13, that a mission can be a complete failure, and yet deemed a tremendous success by Congress (some crying) simply because the crew survived. Amazing NASA never learned this and gave up the launch escape system. As automakers added crash dummy tests and the air bags, NASA went the other direction. And there were more mistakes in Apollo 13 than either shuttle loss – failure was an option after all, and the Apollo design, not the management reviews, is what allowed success.
Right stuff irrational exuberance.
{Paul: The revealed preferences of the political system is that the robotic missions meet the affordable + valuable test, but manned missions don’t.}
Huh?
The revealed preferences of the political system is that the politicians are willing to pay significant amounts of funding to put humans in space.
The revealed preferences of the political system is that the space scientists get a huge free “political” ride on the back of the “humans in space” political support.
Why do I assert this?
The science value of a dollar that goes to the NSF, is much higher than the science value of a dollar in NASA space science.
But how do you value creating the 2nd branch of human civilization on Mars?
How do you value forever protecting homo sapiens, and life in general, from a global catastrophe that could destroy all life on Earth?
How do you value extending life into the rest of the Solar System, and eventually (in the long-term) beyond?
None of these “values” are science-based values, but if you asked the average citizen on the street if this was a good thing, the majority of them would say “Yes”. In other words, they value it.
These are the real values issues, and many scientists tend to lose sight of them (or intentionally ignore them) in the fight for “more money” for their pet science projects.
– Al
Huh? […] The revealed preferences of the political system is that the space scientists get a huge free “political” ride on the back of the “humans in space” political support.
Read for comprehension, Al. We were talking about Mars. In case you hadn’t noticed, we haven’t sent any astronauts to Mars, and most politicians have been at best indifferent and at worst downright hostile to the idea.