Congressmen want NASA to ax space plane

AP ^ | Tuesday, October 28, 2003

[presidio9]

Two leading members of the House Science Committee are urging NASA to defer its developing space plane program because of concerns about cost and the potential benefit of the craft.

NASA hopes to have the so-called Orbital Space Plane launched to the international space station by 2008, to serve at least initially as a lifeboat.

[presidio9]

[swarthyguy]

Ax what?

[Willie Green]

Related thread: China plans to send three people into space

[presidio9]

Ax what?

I think they want to take an axe to those goofy models that will never be built anyway.

[RightWhale]

X-37, which could be an unmanned shuttle one some versions.

[Cobra64]

I want to axe them a question as to why they want to do this.

[swarthyguy]

Should've said.....


Ax the plane what? It Should be smart enough to reply.

[RightWhale]

I could have maybe figured it out on my own in a day or so.

[repentant_pundit]

Time to privatize NASA.

Put the defense-related programs into DOD, let the universities fund the research programs, and let Hollywood and wealthy people buy the thrill rides.

[hchutch]

Lovely... lovely...

And how much longer will the Shuttle have to hold the line?

The X-37 needs to continue, and we need the X-30 (NASP), X-33 (VentureStar), and DC-X restarted ASAP.

Single-Stage-To-Orbit is what needs to be pursued and developed.

[quietolong]

NASA gets away with blatant age discrimination AND Some reader feedback.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1007763/posts

[Poohbah]

One more time: The X-30 tried to go beyond the boundaries of physics. Basically, it tried to bypass the limits on scramjet performance to get past Mach 8.

The idea was that they'd reach Mach 20. At that performance level, they'd be a bit better in payload:vehicle mass ratio than BDBs (Big Dumb Boosters).

Unfortunately, the breakdown point is no higher than Mach 17, assuming they can get a scramjet to actually generate net thrust (something that has yet to happen). This makes the NASP a much more expensive proposition than a big dumb booster.

The Venture Star ran afoul of similar considerations--the linear aerospike engine wound up giving evolutionary improvements instead of the needed revolutionary improvements.

The problems seem to be tied to basic limits of the propulsion system as opposed to issues amenable to clever engineering.

SSTO is a wonderful plan for giving contractors all kinds of R&D funds. It is NOT any sort of program for producing flight hardware--especially man-rated flight hardware.

The problem is that NASA has yet to explain what the value-added of a man in space is.

[hchutch]

What about the Dogulas Clipper or DC-X?

[RightWhale]

SSTO is a wonderful plan for giving contractors all kinds of R&D funds. . . .
The problem is that NASA has yet to explain what the value-added of a man in space is.

Well said on the first part

Man in space is not a value-added entry on the spreadsheet. Man needs to be there, take physical possession. It might even be expensive for a while, but at some point it should become self-sustaining and even then provide no ROI to earth except in the being of man.

[RightWhale]

SSTO is a wonderful plan for giving contractors all kinds of R&D funds. . . .
The problem is that NASA has yet to explain what the value-added of a man in space is.

Well said on the first part

Man in space is not a value-added entry on the spreadsheet. Man needs to be there, take physical possession. It might even be expensive for a while, but at some point it should become self-sustaining and even then provide no ROI to earth except in the being of man.

[RightWhale]

Hmmm. Double post in spite of normal precautions. Oh, well.

[Centurion2000]

Definately scrap it ... replace it with Orion drive battlecruisers .... we're going to need them eventually.

[Poohbah]

Man in space is not a value-added entry on the spreadsheet. Man needs to be there, take physical possession. It might even be expensive for a while, but at some point it should become self-sustaining and even then provide no ROI to earth except in the being of man.

Sorry, you want people to put up their money, you need to explain what benefit they will derive from doing so. In some fashion, even intangible, there has to be value added, or you're not going to get the money.

And there are things that man can do in space that would provide an ROI. But NASA's allergic to that stuff, because it requires this thing called "vision."

[RightWhale]

Psychic values, not financial.

There is a way to get ROI on a major, world scale even now, but NASA wouldn't be the party to undertake such an operation. Private enterprise would, but private property rights must first be established in outer space.

[tet68]

"Without such consensus on a shared vision, progress on all of these steps will stall and public support for the nation's civilian space program will inevitably founder," they wrote.

So for god's sake STOP DEVELOPMENT, STOP RESEARCH NOW~!

FREAKING IDIOTS!