The Folly of Our Age. The space shuttle.

National Review Online ^ | today | John Derbyshire

[Jim Noble]

The Saturn V/Apollo stack was superbly engineered, and the deaths of Grissom, White, and Chaffee led to improvements to an already good design.

The superb design was yoked in service to an outstanding mission of exploration and development.

The STS is a bastard design, the result of engineereing compromises that would have led Apollo team members to resign, and the result of granting the wishes of the pimps in Congress. The STS design is not in the service of any mission worth doing.

The deaths of the Challenger astronauts, the Challenger tourist, and the Columbia astronauts were for nothing.

[jpsb]

Both accidents were easily preventable, don't launch in freezing weather with a craft covered in ice. Don't use environment friendly foam, if it gonna falls off and hit the craft during a launch. Hind sight is 20/20 but the causes of both accidents should have been anticipated.

NASA was not allowed to build the space shuttle it wanted, funds were always being cut and NASA was forced to redesign and redesign (just like NASA was forced to redesign the space station over and over again do to funding being cut over and over again) the result is our current space shuttle.

Even so the Space Shuttle is a remarkable space craft, we should be building on that design improving it and building better space shuttles instead of junking the design and going back to rockets.

[Jim Noble]

I guess it comes down to believing humans can ultimately leave the Earth and "colonize" space.

Yeah, I believe that.

Which is why I decry 34 years of wasted money, wasted engineering, and wasted lives.

We landed on the moon when I was 19. We could have, and should have, been supplying the Mars colony from our moonbases today.

Instead, I will likely not live to see the first man on Mars, which is a good thing since I don't speak Mandarin.

And the thinking that lead to the STS design and execution is what is responsible for that, and the Derb should be commended for telling it like it is.

[NonZeroSum]

How much more payload would a space vehicle have if the entire vehicle didn't have to be designed to bring a human crew back to earth?

The vehicle wasn't designed just to bring the crew back to earth. It was primarily designed to bring itself back to earth. If you want to argue that it would have much more payload if it been designed to be expendable (i.e., a "Shuttle-C"), that's true, but then the operating costs would be even higher, and it wouldn't be a "Space Shuttle."

If you want to argue that it shouldn't have been reusable, some believe that, but it's a different argument than the one you made, which was about crew taking away from payload capacity. That's a minor effect.

[megatherium]

The Shuttle was sold as a workhorse that would be able to put 30 tons into low Earth orbit for tens of millions of dollars (one-tenth the cost per kilogram of previous launch systems). But it is now rated as "experimental". The optimistic predictions were based on the notion that Shuttle launches would happen on a weekly basis. But before the Columbia accident, NASA was only doing several launches per year; the fixed costs of the program are on the order of $10 billion per year, which gives the extremely high per-launch costs.

I remember in the late 1970s and early 1980s how enthusiastic we were about the Shuttle. (I worked in a planetarium in those days.) We held in our hands samples of the amazing ceramic tiles. These were very light and could be heated to red-hot yet handled with bare hands (they retained little heat) -- but their fragility doomed Columbia.

What we didn't know is that the Shuttle was a poor compromise: Congress was unwilling to give NASA $10 billion to develop a genuinely reusable system, but the Air Force was willing to subsidize the program if NASA were willing to comprimise the design (to include substantial non-reusable elements) in order to increase the payload. The irony is that the Air Force now uses heavy-lift expendable boosters (Deltas) to put its sensitive payloads into orbit. They built a western Shuttle launch facility, but never used it.

[jpsb]

The craft weigths 100 tons and can carry 20 tons into low orbit. Without the craft to could lift 120 tons into low orbit. This has been proposed as Space Shuttle-C. But never funded, this Shuttle-C could lift almost as much as a Saturn-5. So you are correct.

[Jim Noble]

Surely there is better technology available

That's very unlikely.

Project Apollo had their pick of the best American engineers and designers.

In twenty years, there won't be any.

The 1970s technology, which you rightly decry, was already in decline from the 1960s, which was not as good as the 1950s.

Contrast this with medical technology-the medical technology of the 1970s is unrecognizable now, so obsolete and useless is it.

What's the difference?

Medical technology pioneering has meant big (very, very big) bucks for the pioneers.

Being a space science developer has meant woring for the pimps in Congress.

[jpsb]

The reason the USA decided to concentrate on earth orbit technology and spending is military. Earth orbit is the high ground and the usa wanted to control the high ground during the cold war. The Space Shuttles primary mission was not to build a space station but to service satilites in orbit.

[Tanniker Smith]

Indeed. My goof. What I was thinking of was the Saturn V rockets themselves, not the Lunar program. (But again, I could be wrong on that one, too. I didn't pay as much attention to the news in those days.)

[JamesP81]

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but I am a bit appalled at what I'm hearing.

You people are, of course, aware that humanity has all of its eggs in one basket. If an asteroid of sufficient size were to hit this planet there would be no more human race.

If we had continued the funding, and more importantly, the vision of the space program in the 1960s we would have a colony on the moon right now, and very probably have one on Mars.

It is not overreach to state that many of our modern technologies are spin-offs of the space program. That is a very true statement. Do not be fooled.

We care nothing about exploration anymore. We would rather just send a robot with less brain capability than a cockroach (and before any wiseguys try to dispute this, I do have a degree in computer science, so I can prove this mathematically if you don't believe it) than go and see for ourselves. We are less than we once were.

All of that being said, I have been of the opinion for a while now that the space shuttle well overdue for retirement. The reason it's not retired is political. It looks good to have a space shuttle. As it is, however, if we retire the shuttle, we will have no manned spacecraft and giving current funding, we probably won't be able to get one for the foreseeable future At least, the government won't.

I'm hoping to see the restrictions on private spacecraft removed and allow the market and private sector to develop space. If we let that happen, we will get good results, and fast.

[ValerieUSA]

This is what I wrote to a friend on the day the space shuttle blew up over Texas:

Feb 1, 2003


Gavin, Gabriel and I just heard the President's speech
on the radio. What a tragedy to lose the shuttle and
so many brave and adventurous souls.

Is space travel just a dream? Can it be possible for
men to become independent of Earth and part of the
universe on our own? I doubt it - not in our present
bodies.

I believe this beautiful planet is our temporary home
and we are made to dwell elsewhere in immortal form.
The quest to reach into space is part of our longing
to be home where we belong - before our time. We know
there is more - but where is it? It must be up
there....

There are messages in the stars for mankind, a
beckoning to come closer, a temptation to break free
from the limitations of earth, a mathematical puzzle
to solve. To stare into the heavens can enhance the
feelings we already have, from puny insignificance to
being an integral part of something bigger than all
our world.

The constellations don't exist by accident any more
than we do - and though we observe accidents, as we
did today, does God? Does He see an accident, or the
unfolding of His own plan? To understand what has
happened, must we just examine the evidence of the
destruction, or do we need to ask the Source of our
restlessness what it is He wants us to know? Why are
we compelled to risk all? What can we accomplish? Are
we on the right path, or do we need to turn inward?

As President Bush said today, though the shuttle did
not land safely on earth, we pray the souls aboard are
safe at home.

Perhaps those seven who were lost this morning are
found and the mystery is solved for them. For the rest
of us, the thrill of discovery still lies ahead... and
the adventure goes on. That's how I handle the
grief.... I find peace in knowing that the one who is
gone is finally whole and I find exhiliration in
anticipating that we who remain will explore further
and each of us conquers the horizon in our own time.

[hopespringseternal]

There is no longer much pretense that shuttle flights in particular, or manned space flight in general, has any practical value.

Basing the value of manned space on the shuttle is like meeting one skinhead and pretending he represents America.

The shuttle is a horrible and wonderful thing. It has all these capabilities, yet it is sorely lacking in the capabilities it really needs to have: Cheap, reliable operations.

Oh, they were in the original concept. But they required an investment, a faith in the human entrpreneurial spirit. That faith would have been validated had it been present:

Before it became apparent what a white elephant the shuttle was, when people were still basing their judgement of it on what it was supposed to be rather than what it became, companies wanted to buy the shuttle. They knew they could accomplish things and make money with a vehicle with those capabilities.

Then we found out it didn't have those most important capabilities and never would. It destroyed the faith of a generation in space.

What happened? How did it miss the mark so widely?

When it was first proposed, the shuttle required a level of investment that was not supported by then imagined flight rates. The visionaries and entrepreneurs at NASA (back when they still had some)knew something the bean counters never seem to grasp: dynamic analysis. To actually make the investment and produce a vehicle with the envisioned capabilities would produce such a sea change that judging it by the current number of flight rates was ludicrous.

But that is exactly what the Nixon Whitehouse did. Businessmen understand this sort of thing, politicians and bureaucrats don't. So they pared down the shuttle project to match the current environment. In doing so, they destroyed any reason to do it in the first place.

No businessman gets a loan to grow his business based on the assumption that it won't grow, but that is the assumption that drove shuttle development.

Government is just as happy to spend bad money as good. So it went forward. It was all wrong. It would do none of the things it was supposed to do and a thousand other things it didn't need to do.

But the marketing was never updated. The same promises kept being made until long after it was obvious they were empty.

[Aquinasfan]

There is no longer much pretense that shuttle flights in particular, or manned space flight in general, has any practical value... It is like nothing else in the annals of human folly.

So true. I always got a kick out of the fact that Ayn Rand of all people, the ideologue of ideologues, got fished in.

"What we had seen, in naked essentials -- but in reality, not in a work of art -- was the concretized abstraction of man's greatness."

I'd reserve that kind of praise for someone like Mother Theresa.

[Aquinasfan]

Ferdinand and Isabella didn't front Columbus several billion dollars to circle around in the water in sight of Cadiz doing osteoporosis experiments.

LOL!

[Balding_Eagle]

How much money is wasted on social programs now? Billions? Trillions over the past 50 years?

I think 4 trillion was spent in order to destroy the black family. LBJ's Great Society was the vehicle that started that phase of the Socialists plan.

We should have gone to Mars and established a colony instead.

[CharacterCounts]

We care nothing about exploration anymore.

The issue should be how best to do exploration? Can dollars spent on the shuttle be better spent?

[Charles Martel]

I don't think that's the case at all -- an unmanned rocket is the cheapest way to move payloads into orbit. If anything, the shuttle was conceived as a more effective way to get human labor into orbit to built space stations.

It's obviously a combination of the two. Yes, heavy-lift rockets are more efficient at putting large payloads up there, but human control was needed to position the various pieces and parts as designed, and to actually connect them together. Two separate and more specialized vehicles might've been better - but the realities of budgets and congressional approvals influenced the final plan and vehicle design.

[Aquinasfan]

True, but he was pursuing wealth, and the land that he claimed for Spain and the path that he paved led to that wealth.

And to spread the Faith. Really. It's in his letter to the King and Queen of Spain.

That there shall be a church, and parish priests or friars to administer the sacraments, to perform divine worship, and for the conversion of the Indians.

[Alberta's Child]

Your point is valid -- I should have been more clear about this in my original post.

Anyone interested in this topic might want to read the detailed accounts of polar expeditions over the years. The two that stand out in my mind are the accounts of the Steger expedition to the North Pole in the late 1980s (in which the Steger team, as part of an extensive research effort undertaken by National Geographic to determine the authenticity of various explorers' claims to have been the first to the North Pole), attempted to reach the North Pole using nothing more than the type of equipment that Robert Peary would have had at his disposal in 1909) and the original Amundsen expedition to the South Pole (Roald Amundsen was the first to reach the South Pole) back in the early 20th century.

Once you read a couple of these accounts, it becomes clear that human exploration of this sort is basically an exercise in economics. If you have P people to move from one place to another and it will take them a period of time equal to T, then you'll need equipment and supplies with a total weight of W to help them last that long.

This is quite simple if everyone is walking to where they are going, but exploration isn't that simple. To carry the total weight (W) of the supplies, a means of transport other than human beings is needed (sled dogs, a space vehicle, etc.). But this means of transport will have its own weight and will require its own supplies (dog food, rocket fuel, etc.), so the problem starts to become increasingly complex. We now have to account for several different elements of weight, as follows:

W₁ = weight of human explorers
W₂ = weight of human supplies
W₃ = weight of transport mechanism
W₄ = weight of transport supplies

And depending on your means of transport and the purpose of the mission, the time (T) may grow or shrink. And the number of explorers (P) may have to grow if the mode of transport requires additional human expertise to maintain during the course of the expedition.

Organizing these things ends up being quite a challenge. The more supplies you carry, the more payload capacity you need in your means of transport. And the more payload capacity you need in your means of transport, the bigger your means of transport must be in order for it to carry its own fuel, supplies, etc. In planning a polar expedition, for example, you reach some theoretical point of diminishing returns in which you have sled dogs whose only purpose is to carry their own food -- which makes no sense whatsoever.

Here's a challenge for all you Freepers out there with an understanding of economics and some historical knowledge of these expeditions: How did Peary and Amundsen overcome this basic dilemma?

[JamesP81]

The issue should be how best to do exploration? Can dollars spent on the shuttle be better spent?

Absolutely. I am a huge proponent of space exploration, but the shuttle is due for the pasture, and it's a waste of what little resources NASA has. Unmanned flight is OK and I'm for it, but it can never replace manned flight. It can only complement manned space flights.

The money spent on the shuttle needs to be going into researching better propulsion systems. The Achilles heal of every spacecraft ever designed has been building a sufficient propulsion system. Research and field a propulsion system suitable for interplanetary flight, and then we can do some real space exploration, not this phony counterfeit of spending 100 million dollars to land a 20 pound robot on a passing comet.