Senate Bill Adds Shuttle Flight, New Shuttle-Derived Vehicle 230
simonbp writes "The Senate Commerce Committee this morning marked up a compromise NASA Authorization Act that rolls back some of Obama's plans for NASA, while keeping others. The bill adds at least one more shuttle flight, keeps Obama's technology demonstrators and commercial access to ISS (albeit at reduced funding), restores the Orion crew capsule, and replaces the Ares rockets with a Shuttle-Derived 'Space Launch System' for going to the ISS and Beyond, which could be ready as soon as 2015."
Re:Proven delivery system (Score:4, Interesting)
Plus, as has been discussed somewhere the Senators evidently were not around to hear, the Shuttle program is dead. It's been dead as a program for about five years. Production lines are closed, staff fired, supplier contracts ended. Anything beyond the one additional mission that parts exist for would be hugely expensive, as the production would need to be started up again from scratch. (Consequently, that last one won't have any rescue shuttle on standby.)
Re:KILL IT (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm firmly in the camp that believes that Bush wasn't as bad as we were all told and that Obama is nowhere as great as we've been all told
Nope. Bush was just as bad as we were all told, maybe worse. And Obama is just as bad, maybe worse (just in different ways).
As a gun enthusiast and 2nd Amendment supporter, however, I have to hand it to Obama. At least with Obama, I can now carry my handgun in National Parks. I couldn't do that for the whole time Bush was in power, even during the 6 years he had a Republican-controlled Congress working with him.
Re:Wrong Direction (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh-huh. I had a nice grant from ARPA at Pixar to work on movie-making software. Why, because they wanted to make 3D technology in the states economically viable. That way, they'd have it if they needed it for war. Unfortunately, not even I could keep SGI afloat with my one little grant.
So, that was my military mission. I don't really mind more like that happening.
Re:Proven delivery system (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't forget it also apparently keeps prices down on ICBM parts, because the DOD is so strapped for cash they need NASA to subsidize their equipment(?!)
Oh well. At least the pointless moon mission is dead. Hopefully this compromise doesn't cripple the actual useful and new projects that will expand our capabilities. And hey, maybe we'll actually find a good use for our HLV to LEO, and not just find arbitrary ways to justify its existence.
The Moon mission was dead a couple of years ago... it just took Congress this long to recognize that fact and a change in the presidency (or rather a new NASA administrator to wake up to the fact). Constellation, as it was proposed, was simply unsustainable and required federal spending on spaceflight to be proportional to what NASA got in the 1960's to get it to happen. There is no possible way that Congress would have ever forked out that kind of money for a sustained effort that would have lasted decades.
In terms of orbital rocketry being similar to ICBMs, it should be pointed out that they are two very different engineering regimes and they don't really support each other... except for perhaps rocket nozzles and some minor parts like what would be in common between a farm tractor and a semi truck. They may technically do the same thing, but really are designed for very different tasks and aren't nearly as common as you would think.
The largest argument that seems to be in favor of NASA having continued development of the shuttle boosters and the Ares I is that it would act as a consumer for Ammonium Perchlorate.... the "solid" rocket fuel that is used in the SRBs. For myself, I think it would be far and away more profitable and perhaps even do better for public support of NASA to use the same money, consume even more rocket fuel, and simply make some fireworks for a really awesome 4th of July party. It would actually involve more workers to make the stuff and at least be something that ordinary Americans appreciate. Either that or cancel the program and save the money altogether... but if the money is going to be spent on merely keeping people employed and to keep this particular industry (the solid rocket fuel manufacturing companies) going at least it could be for something that will actually fly up into the sky. $10 billion USD will buy one heck of a lot of fireworks and put on a display that would be impressive as hell.
It might just help advance the development of rocketry at the same time... something that the Ares I simply won't do.
I've got a dumb question (Score:4, Interesting)
The crew returns to Earth via a reentry vehicle. Fill the vehicle with supplies, send it up there, and the crew comes back on a specialized reentry bus.
Re:Proven delivery system (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I would be in favor of keeping it going as a servicer for the ISS until the next generation of craft is actually up and running.
Soyuz is cheaper and safer. There's no scientific or engineering reason not to use it.
They've had a few close calls, but unlike the shuttle, the Soyuz capsule has modes of failure in which the cosmo/astronauts aboard do not die. Hell, a Soyuz rocket once exploded on the pad, and the astronauts aboard walked away from the incident with nothing more than minor injuries.
Re:I've got a dumb question (Score:2, Interesting)
The shuttle doesn't get high enough to stay in permanent orbit without a boost every 3-6 months due to atmospheric drag, exactly like the ISS which was put at that altitude only so it could be serviced by the shuttle.
IE, a shuttle space station, although a cool idea, would be another boondoggle requiring constant maintenance. We want permanent space installations, not another cash sink -- unless you're congress, I guess.