Posted on 07/04/2011 3:07:26 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
As NASA prepares to launch its last space shuttle — ending 30 years in which large teams of creative scientists and engineers sent winged spaceships into orbit — it is facing what may be a bigger challenge: a brain drain that threatens to undermine safety as well as the agency’s plans.
Space experts say the best and brightest often head for the doors when rocket lines get marked for extinction, dampening morale and creating hidden threats. They call it the “Team B” effect.
“The good guys see the end coming and leave,” said Albert D. Wheelon, a former aerospace executive and Central Intelligence Agency official. “You’re left with the B students.”
NASA acknowledges the effect and its attendant dangers. It has taken hundreds of steps, including retention bonuses for skilled employees, new perks like travel benefits and more safety drills. Through cuts and attrition in recent years, the shuttle work force has declined to 7,000 workers from about 17,000.
“The downsizing has been well managed and has achieved an acceptable level of risk,” said Joseph W. Dyer, a retired Navy vice admiral and the chairman of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel. After a slow start, “NASA and its industry partners did a genuinely excellent job” in planning for the shuttle’s retirement, he said. But he conceded, “There’s added risk anytime you downsize.”
Nobody is predicting problems for the coming flight of the Atlantis, the 135th and last launching in the shuttle program. The event is scheduled for Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, before an estimated one million spectators.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Nothing like ceding the high ground.
The moon shots were a bid for global stature during the Cold War. They did succeed at that purpose.
If anyone has the spare dough to do a man-to-Mars shot today, it would be the Chinese. But they lack the expertise.
I hate to tell you this, but the ISS is not an investment. Seriously. Investments pay you back. The ISS not so much. And with a few inventive companies working on the problem, getting held up by the Russians will be a problem for maybe another 2-3 years. After that, we’ll be flying people better faster and cheaper than they will, and just maybe we can start to get some back from ISS. Myself, I’m not sure that humans add value in space that robots can’t do better. Jury is still out even after the Hubble repair. Hopefully the politicians and lawyers (but I repeat myself) can just stay the **** away. http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php SpaceX is already under contract with NASA to do this stuff.
Mission? Hell no. You know what makes things fly? It ain’t propellant. It’s MONEY. No bucks, no Buck Rogers. Gummint space is expensive. Private space, well, while not cheap its less than the welfare program for engineers and contractors formerly known as the big aerospace firms. Here’s a couple of relevant links...
http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/
http://www.orbital.com/CargoResupplyServices/Missions/
We should have been working on a replacement for the last 30 years.
You just don't turn engineering back on after you turn it off. Engineering isn't a step function. Many processes in high tech cannot be put on a drawing or documented. Many times they remain in the brains of people that are being laid off.
In your lifetime you will probably never see a U.S. launched manned vehicle again. No American exceptionalism. I think that is what motivates Obummer.
No commercial company is going to do this. The liability insurance would put them out of business before the first launch.
There is no need to fear, the decline is already fully accomplished.
They need to shift gears. Reduce the manned flight operation to a skeleton crew. Keep a crew of a few young astronauts who you send into space every 5 years or so to keep their skills up.
The rest of the program ought to be robotic. Send robots to the moon to develop infrastructure for an eventual return to the moon by men. Build a moon base and fabrication facilities.
That approach would also have the advantage of stimulating our nascent robotics industry.
Yes, NASA needs to rethink its mission, and some stuff needs to go to the private sector - notably the routine stuff. However, I see NASA’s new mission going in a bad direction.
That would be the direction of navel gazing, and the never ending heavy head trip, lead by non-engineering/non-science types. I do not consider the AGW people to be among the science types, since the AGW’s have gone Lysenko on us. No exploration will get done, no data gathering since that may challenge the dogma of James Hansen spewing that humanity is a virus infecting Earth Mother Goddess Gaia.
Hansen is no scientist, he is now a priest of the AGW cult.
I agree. I drive NASA Road 1 in Clear Lake a couple of times per week, and there are MANY office buildings empty that were full of NASA contractor personnel. Any corporation looking to relocate to Texas can find lots of office space at a very low price.
The private sector has been working this for a long time. Check some of the links posted above. And no, manned spaceflight is not the be all end all. Getting us able to reduce the cost per pound in orbit is what we need now. Please note that humans really don’t do well in space in the long run (we’re built for gravity). We’ve got a bunch to do to figure out how to deal with that before we go to places like Mars. Personally, if we get going out to the Legrange points on a regular basis with unmanned missions until we get the biology right that would be just fine.
We have a 100 Billion dollar investment floating around in space...
Myself, I would like to see more emphasis on the aeronautics and less on the space.
If I were to give you a mission, I would focus on research and experimental design on terrestrial uses; things that could have long term economic benefit.
Your mission would be to create new, better materials; create more efficient engines, better avionics. Something like a Bell Labs of its day.
When you have the new materials and designs, they will scream for a use (and a new and greater mission).
Of course I would prefer to privatize NASA first, maybe owned by a consortium of businesses.
NASA has a mission. According to Obama, its mission is “outreach to Muslims.”
Fly a mullah to the moon.
It’s not necessarily going to outer space that’s important. It’s the Inventions that came out of solving the problem of going to space that gave us some great technology which changed how man lives.
An example. Cordless power tools. Medical imaging. Advanced plastics. It’s not unlike how the problems the military solves produce products that we use everyday.
These are some of the finest engineers and smartest people on the planet. This is where a real ivy league education pays off.
You’ll notice that both Bigelow and Cargo Resupply services are both orbital service industries and that is an indication of the real problem.
Nobody can own mineral rights or plots of land in space which means no one will go further because there’s no hope of future financial gain.
Space is silly. Billions of Muslims need attention and THAT’S the job of NASA.
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