Beam Me Out Of This Death Trap, Scotty (April 1980 anti-shuttle article, long)

The Washington Monthly ^ | April 1980 | Gregg Easterbrook

[Timesink]

Yeah, the magazine's practically a house organ of the DNC, but it's an interesting read, nonetheless.

[AmishDude]

Ping.

[TankerKC]

You know, back in 1980 I told a friend of mine not to by a Fiat. I told him that is was a death trap.

Fast forward to 1998. I read in the paper that there had been a terrible accident involving a Fiat, and, get this--the driver had been killed.

Whew! He owes me one.

</stupid hindsight>

[Shermy]

FYI - some of the Orlando TV websites are the best catalogs of stories, national and local, on the shuttle disaster. Better than any national media sites, IMO.

WKMG

WESH

[Ford Fairlane]

The thing is, most of what he says is accurate.

The only way space exploration will ever be practical is to allow commercial enterprises to run their own.

Rockwell (I think) had a replacement for the Shuttle designed in the late 80's, NASA wasn't interested & the company was told they would not be allowed to launch it themselves (commercially).

[My2Cents]

I'd be interested to hear about the feasibility of commercial space exploration. Other than conventional boosters and development of things like communications satellites, I doubt manned space travel is commercially feasible. The return on investment for purely scientific space endeavours simply isn't enough to support such ventures. I suspect if we were to leave space exploration to private commercial enterprises, they'd have been no Mercury, no Gemini, no Apollo, no SpaceLab, no shuttle, no Voyager, no missions to Mars, etc. We'd probably have satellite phones, but that would be it.

[jjm2111]

Long, but good read.

[jjm2111]

I doubt manned space travel is commercially feasible.

Not at the present, but maybe in the future. I think the crux of the matter is we are still sending our ships straight up.

[Ford Fairlane]

The main commercial interest would be mining of certain minerals on the moon & mars, probably.

If someone started a colony on either, I would go.

[norraad]

I'd wait 'til you didn't have to go in a 20 year old flying bread truck whose oil is change by the government.

[My2Cents]

I'd sign up too (despite the sci-fi film depictions of space mining operations as essentially slave camps).

As the poster of post #8 (I think it was) pointed out, the commerical viability of space travel and enterprises is probaby a certainty, but not any time soon.

[You Dirty Rats]

Apollo had a clear goal: Land a man on the moon & bring him back. The rocket was designed for that purpose and that purpose only and was highly successful.

The Shuttle was a mess from the start. It's astronomically costly as a cargo-carrier, and it's also foolish to risk people to do something an ELV can do on its own. It's also way too big and inefficient to send people up into space. As the author points out, the craft really didn't have a clear goal or mission at any point.

At this point, the remaining fleet will need to be evaluated to be sure it is safe. Assuming it is, one then has to ask if whatever missions it is doing are worth $250 million per launch or not. The military abandoned the shuttle after Challenger. Commercial satellites have, for the most part, gone to the ELV Ariane. It's pretty humiliating when the FRENCH are more efficient than NASA.

We landed men on the moon. We don't need manned space flight for prestige. If there are legitimate reasons to send men and women into space, then design a spacecraft to do it safely and efficiently. We definitely need to upgrade our unmanned capabilities. Most of all, we need a clear-headed fresh look at our space program.

Let's also be sure we don't repeat the prior mistake of building yet another of these white elephants. There's no need or justification for it. Spend the money on space, yes, but do it imaginatively and efficiently, not on another 60's technology space truck.

[boris]

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

"Fool" is too polite an epithet for the author.

--Boris

[John H K]

The main commercial interest would be mining of certain minerals on the moon & mars, probably.

It's inconceivable to me that it would be cost-effective to mine ANYTHING on the Moon or Mars. EVER.

We're not really running out of anything on Earth (as Julian Simon accurately predicted, and everyone else, didn't.

[jim_trent]

There is a conspiracy thread at DU (I thought they always said conspiracies were an invention of right-wingers). One of the comments I got a kick out of was one that said (paraphrasing), "This is a metaphor for the Democratic Party. Without their left wing, they too will crash and burn."

[Ford Fairlane]

We're not really running out of anything on Earth

One of these days we may run out of living space (probably long after we are dead), & I would rather go now & be prepared than be forced to go later & not be prepared.

Besides, what about exploration & the spirit of adventure?

[GoreIsLove]

with tuesday morning quarterback on the shelf for a while, it's nice to see some serious articles from easterbrook. thanks for the post.

[Petronski]

EXCELLENT FIND. Thank you very much.

[Petronski]

The tiles are the most important system NASA has ever designed as "safe life." That means there is no back-up for them. If they fail, the shuttle burns on reentry. If enough fall off, the shuttle may become unstable during landing, and thus un-pilotable. The worry runs deep enough that NASA investigated installing a crane assembly in Columbia so the crew could inspect and repair damaged tiles in space. (Verdict: Can't be done. You can hardly do it on the ground.)

[Petronski]

When Columbia's tiles started popping off in a stiff breeze, it occurred to engineers that ice chunks from the tank would crash into the tiles during the sonic chaos of launch: Goodbye, Columbia.

(No pun intended:) This is a chilling level of prescience.