NASA Problems Persist

[Del_B_Vista]

3. What was once a cutting-edge concept, the space shuttle, seems more peculiar every year. Essentially, it's a giant gas can blasted with an fancy airplane glued to the side, and all of that is sent racing through the atmosphere by two rockets. I keep thinking of it as two giant bottle rockets tied to an Edsel with wings. I know there's a lot of **** going on out there to improve space flight, but I'm not knowledgeable of what's on the horizon. I vaguely recall that the shuttle is going to be replaced at some point in the near future. Hopefully, the concepts to be introduced in the next 25 years far surpass the current shuttle program.

The problem with the space shuttle stems from its days snaking its way through the budgetary process 30 years ago. It went from being a moving van to take stuff to space to becoming a Subaru Brat. It's lift capabilities are pretty laughable and it's not capable of going any farther than low-earth orbit, and I'm not sure the economics of reuseability (is that a word?) have panned out anywhere close to what they'd hoped.

 

[Pastor]

They are working on a new shuttle and I believe that the contract was already awarded.

I'm looking forward to that.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Jones, I love the concept of space exploration and living in space. But a few things to note here:

1. I don't need to know how to do laundry in space. Frankly, I would go buck naked if I lived on the moon. I'd walk out to get the paper from the driveway and probably stop to scratch myself and then write my name in the sky in much the same way that I write my name in the snow on Earth.

2. The thing that probably bothers me most about the space program is the way in which contracts are awarded. I remember studying this in college and finding that the system is full of holes that allow private companies to fleece the government and the public and various other issues.

3. What was once a cutting-edge concept, the space shuttle, seems more peculiar every year. Essentially, it's a giant gas can blasted with an fancy airplane glued to the side, and all of that is sent racing through the atmosphere by two rockets. I keep thinking of it as two giant bottle rockets tied to an Edsel with wings. I know there's a lot of **** going on out there to improve space flight, but I'm not knowledgeable of what's on the horizon. I vaguely recall that the shuttle is going to be replaced at some point in the near future. Hopefully, the concepts to be introduced in the next 25 years far surpass the current shuttle program.

By the way, how's that pinball machine?

If "Buck Naked On The Moon" isn't an album title by this time next year, I'm going to be very disappointed.
Or maybe, a series of sci-fi porn: "Buck Naked On The Moon," "Buck Naked In The 23rd Century," "Buck Naked And The Amazon Queens Of Deimos."

 

[Starman]

They are working on a new shuttle and I believe that the contract was already awarded.

I'm looking forward to that.

The replacement for the shuttle, the Orion/Constellation vehicle family, expected to be operational by 2012-14, is actually more of an upgrade of Apollo (designed in the early 1960s).

The shuttle, originally, was to have two completely reusable stages, the bottom stage a large supersonic transport/bomber plane similar to the XB-70 Valkyrie, the second stage a stub-winged space plane adapted from the X-15.

Budget cuts mandated by the Nixon administration (facing a huge financial drain from carrying on the Vietnam war) forced the shuttle to become a cobbled-together compromise design-by-committee, with the inherently unsafe lateral design (making any escape whatsoever during powered boost virtually impossible, also rendering the shuttle heat tiles directly vulnerable to strikes from ice and other debris from the main external tank) the fatal result, ultimately costing 14 lives (at least up until now).