With the Shuttle Program Ending, Fears of Decline at NASA

New York Times ^ | 07/04/2011 | William J. Broad

[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.

[RKV]

“In your lifetime you will probably never see a U.S. launched manned vehicle again.”

Elon Musk and Burt Rutan say otherwise. And there are some other competitors in the game.

http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php

http://www.scaled.com/projects/model_339_spaceshiptwo

[CincyRichieRich]

Ought to be a moon mission /colony and a Mars manned mission but Obama hates American greatness and doesn’t want us striving for anything that makes us lead...that’s the bottom line...he hates us.

[RKV]

I think we can get past that. YMMV

[RKV]

Private sector can do the same innovation just fine. Hughes did, Bell Labs did, etc.

[Uncle Ike]

” Nobody can own mineral rights or plots of land in space “

Ya mean that “Square Foot of the Moon” that I got for Christmas back when I was in high school was a scam???

[RKV]

Mars? Not really. When we “own” the Lagrange points by virtue of better, faster, cheaper technology, then let’s talk about Mars. Mine asteroids first.

[CincyRichieRich]

Honestly, if the laid off engineers were smart and entreprenueurs (they’re not since they’ve been on the gubmint dole living in a bubble) they’d start or work for private companies that wanted to go to Mars or go mine the Moon...I mean I bet there’s new Periodic Elements, rare earth/err, rare Moon elements there.

Richard Branson...the Moon X or whatever that group was...

[cripplecreek]

Hell we can’t even get past the EPA here on earth, I don’t see private industry having much success getting past the UN.

The sad thing is that all America needs to do to rush forward into space is ignore the UN.

[RKV]

Ignore the UN? ALWAYS a great idea. ;>)

[samtheman]

It’s a lot cheaper to build a minaret than a launch vehicle... and much more in keeping with the new NASA Prime Directive.

[cripplecreek]

I bet there’s new Periodic Elements, rare earth/err, rare Moon elements there.

Nobody can own them thanks to that idiotic outer space treaty.

[gitmo]

Kennedy created the vision of Americans on the moon.
Obama created the vision of Americans never in space again.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I think the W. Bush idea of going back to the Moon and Mars is correct, but the technique is all wrong. Doing manned expeditions at first is reinventing the wheel. Instead the missions need to begin years ahead of manned arrivals, by using robots.

And I don’t mean cute little probe robots going around digging up tablespoon of dirt and analyzing it.

I mean nuclear powered industrial hard rock tunneling robots.

To start with, the problem of Lunar exploration is vacuum, extremes of heat and cold, cosmic and enhanced radiation, and extremely abrasive lunar dust, all on the surface.

And the way around all of these problems is found in mining horizontal caves, likely in the walls of a lunar crater or mountain. Permanent Lunar shelters that can be enlarged and improved between each and every manned mission.

The tunneling robot will be in a ship designed for a one way trip and to be cannibalized for materials used in the tunnel, such as pressure doors, flooring, ceiling, walls and reinforcing rod inserted into the ceiling rock.

As the robot slowly tunnels into the rock, crumbling it, the rock is collected at its base, then put in a tube with conveyor belt to be transported underneath the robot, to far outside the tunnel. The robot does not have to be fast, just an inch or two a day will be more than adequate. In a single year, assuming 1.5 inches a day average, it will have mined a tunnel 45 feet long. Enroute it can insert reinforcing rod into the ceiling, and eventually spray a sealant on the inside of the tunnel against micro-fissures.

Importantly, it will not tunnel when the astronauts are there, so they can use its nuclear reactor for other purposes, such as heat, electricity, reverse osmosis and water purification, oxygen generation from any Lunar ice they find, etc.

All told, the astronauts when they arrive can bring far more supplies and equipment, instead of living habitat. This will extend the duration of their stay considerably, with much more time to do other things.

[cripplecreek]

The Outer Space Treaty represents the basic legal framework of international space law. Among its principles, it bars States Parties to the Treaty from placing nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in orbit of Earth, installing them on the Moon or any other celestial body, or to otherwise station them in outer space. It exclusively limits the use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes and expressly prohibits their use for testing weapons of any kind, conducting military maneuvers, or establishing military bases, installations, and fortifications (Art.IV). However, the Treaty does not prohibit the placement of conventional weapons in orbit. The treaty also states that the exploration of outer space shall be done to benefit all countries and shall be free for exploration and use by all States.

The treaty explicitly forbids any government from claiming a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet, since they are the Common heritage of mankind. Art. II of the Treaty states that "outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means". However, the State that launches a space object retains jurisdiction and control over that object. The State is also liable for damages caused by their space object and must avoid contaminating space and celestial bodies.

Game Over

[MasterGunner01]

Bluntly, NASA is “led” by a bunch of career government bureaucrat hacks — none of whom could get laid in a Nevada cat house with a wad of bills and billfold full of plastic. Notice the new NASA major concerns are still the fraud of “global warming” (Dr. James Hansen, Goddard Spaceflight Center) and Muslim “outreach” by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. Sounds like some cutting edge science there, Docs.

For the supposed repository of the best and brightest, NASA’s big shots participated in not one, but two Space Shuttle disasters.

The first was the 28 January 1986 “Challenger” disaster caused by burn-through of the O-ring seal on the SRB after NASA ordered a launch when the temperature was below safety norms.

The second was caused by a reformulation of the insulation on the Shuttle's main fuel tank to go “green.” Asbestos was removed from the formulation and the new insulation frequently failed on subsequent launches. A large chunk of this reformulated insulation foam broke-off and compromised the Shuttle's heat deflecting tiles in the port wing. When Shuttle “Columbia” returned from its mission on 1 February 2003, the damaged area burned-through. Shuttle “Columbia” broke-up over Texas on its way to land at Cape Canaveral.

Given the current crop of “leaders” at the highest levels of NASA, the American space program might as well turn out the lights and shut its doors. None of these over-paid losers have a clue as to where NASA’s going. NASA’s like the Titanic after it hit the iceberg — everyone knows it's sinking — but no one knows how long it can stay afloat.

[omega4179]

Conservatives should hail the privatization of space, American can private sector into space while other countries are launching Monkeys like we did in 1961.
Now let us shut down NASA completely and privatize the Postal Service and end the subsidization of Amtrak.

[RKV]

Robots? Yep. Human physiology ain’t made for long term zero g. We figure out how to get around that, sure let’s go with the biologicals. Until then you got it on the money, and maybe long after we get past the biology for that matter. We’ll have to see what happens. Meanwhile, more robots please.

[RKV]

Amen.

[cripplecreek]

See post number 54. There is no privatization of space (Thank LBJ)

[omega4179]

The UN carries as much weight as the US POTUS/POS wants it to.