NASA Lacks Confidence
From TechNewsWorld:
Recent events have underscored the need for a rescue option. NASA officials said last month that they aren’t yet confident in new methods for fixing a shuttle in orbit. Without viable repair methods, the only way to rescue a marooned crew would be through a second shuttle.
NASA are preparing the shuttle Atlantis to be able to launch within a month of Discovery’s scheduled launch. It would be sent up to rescue the seven crew should something happen to Discovery that made mission control fear another Columbia-like incident. This would this require NASA technicians working round the clock to get Atlantis ready, possibly even putting aside several safety protocols devised after Columbia. While all this was happening Discovery’s crew would have to quietly wait out their time on board the International Space Station. Assuming of course that they can reach it.
The final decision to send Atlantis would fall to the newly appointed NASA Administrator. Was this what he signed up for, I wonder? They would destroy Discovery in the process, ditching in the Pacific. That part I’m slightly confused about. A $3 billion piece of equipment. Admittedly it must have it’s faults, or else there would be no need for a rescue mission. These things can pretty much fly themselves. If there are fears that it might break up over a population center then why no put it into a parking orbit and go fix it on another shuttle mission.
They talk about how the shuttle program would not be maintainable with only the two shuttles that would be left. That the ISS needs a working shuttle program to even finish being built. That the cost of a shuttle mission is in the region of $400 million. Surely a single mission specifically to fix a broken shuttle has to be cost effective against the cost of losing the shuttle altogether.
Because to lose yet another shuttle, would mean that three of the original five shuttles, had been lost. Sadly they have done so taking all hands with them. More importantly for the future of the NASA’s manned missions it would virtually cripple the effort. Congress have lots of ideas of where they could spend all those billions of dollars that would keep the shuttle program alive. No, I don’t think it would be on a new vehicle.
At least the US aren’t the only nation that is pushing men into space. The Chinese are pushing ahead. As are the Japanese. Russia has been doing it for even longer than the U.S. and here’s hoping that the aftermath from the X-Prize and other commercial innovators either get us up there or embarrass the U.S. into at least trying to keep up.
After all, it took competition from the Russian space program to get Kennedy to reach for the Moon in the 60’s. For now we have to wait until Bush has got his head out of the sand. Or replaced with a visionary, which will probably be the sooner of the two options.