Let's keep the Dem's on the run!
Click the Pic!
Posted on 07/15/2003 6:29:25 PM PDT by anymouse
The Space Shuttle system should be retired, and all further investments in the Shuttle ended, argued the non-profit Space Frontier Foundation today.
A growing consensus in Congress and the space community affirms that the Shuttle system is hopelessly inadequate to our needs and cannot be made safe or affordable, stated the group s founder, Rick Tumlinson. It's time for the venerable Space Shuttles to make way for the improvement in safety, innovation, and competitive pricing that would occur if the private sector were to be given the chance to do for space travel what commercial aviation has done for air travel.
The Foundation points out that while NASA spends billions maintaining and flying the Space Shuttles, a new generation of privately funded commercial spaceship firms has sprung up to fly people on sub-orbital flights, conceivably for mere hundreds of thousands of dollars per ticket. Rather than continuing to waste taxpayer funds, the group believes an era of commercial orbital space flight could be in the making, if the government would nurture it using the money currently spent on government-only space systems.
NASA should not be in charge of designing, building and operating what is essentially a glorified space truck/bus, added Tumlinson. Imagine if the government had done the same thing with an airline. With no competition it would never get cheaper, better or more efficient - and no one would be able to afford to fly on it. That's the socialist monopoly we have in space flight. It has not improved safety or access and wasted billions of tax dollars.
To begin the hand off to the private sector, NASA should be banned from developing any replacements, and should be made to examine every alternative to safely end the Space Shuttle era, including ending Shuttle flights upon completing the international core of the International Space Station (ISS); flying the Shuttle using its remote control systems in the meantime; and/or mothballing the ISS until commercial LEO transportation becomes available.
None of the Shuttle's capabilities are indispensable, argued Tumlinson, and the ISS should not be used as an excuse to keep flying it at the risk of more astronauts lives. If needed, the Russians can keep it going, or it can be mothballed until it can be taken over by a private Space Port Authority, and then operated, serviced and expanded by private spaceships and cargo vehicles. Now is exactly the right time for a change that can eventually open space to the people who have paid for it all.
Let's keep the Dem's on the run!
Click the Pic!
The careerists are always talking about "justice" and "rights" and "equal pay for equal work," "fairness", "glass ceilings", "discrimination", etc., and whining that they get no respect. Then the careerists hire and are replaced by time servers, who hire even worse people. Only the very best people will hire people who are better men than they are.
This is just the way things are. "Human nature," they call it.
NASA to Accelerate Orbital Space Plane Schedule
By Lon Rains
Space News Staff Writer
posted: 01:00 pm ET
15 July 2003
DAYTON, Ohio -- NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe has instructed the agency to accelerate development of the Orbital Space Plane and to have a vehicle ready to send to the international space station by 2008 to serve as a crew rescue vehicle.
"In light of Columbia, the administrator has asked us to accelerate by two years," said Daniel Dumbacher, manager of the second generation reusable launch vehicle program office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. He said O’Keefe requested the new schedule about two weeks ago.
The previous plan had been to have a crew rescue vehicle ready for the station duty by 2010. By 2012, NASA wants a crew transfer vehicle ready to replace the shuttle and Russian-built Soyuz space vehicles for transporting crews to and from the space station
Dumbacher noted that the acceleration of the program will be subject to congressional approval. He made his remarks during a presentation on the Orbital Space Plane here at the The Next 100 Years, an International Air & Space Symposium and Exposition sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Dumbacher said NASA officials have been studying how much it will cost to accelerate the Orbital Space Plane but declined to give details.
Three industry teams are competing for the Orbital Space Plane contract. Those teams are led by Boeing; Lockheed Martin; and Northrop Grumman and Orbital Sciences Corp.
While the contractors are aware of the likely schedule change, they won’t be formally notified for about two weeks, while NASA officials develop the specific requirement changes, said Stephan Davis, manager, Crew Transfer Vehicle Project at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
6 months. Won't be a Space Shuttle, just an old, proven tech capsule. New one actually. Need to get a booster man-rated, too.
Yeah, think you are right. My dad was in on that, in Europe, D-Day to the Bulge and into Germany with the IV, as an infantryman, over 200% casualties for the division by war's end. Yeah, that was commitment and motivation. For the whole world, pretty much, on both sides.
I have often thanked God that my own personal little family has not had to go through such a thing. Though I fear it is starting now.
But if we want to be "good men," we'll prevail.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.