Obama Space Plan: Return to Moon: "No Go"

[bigdaddy]

Johnny Rico wrote:

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This just in...

Obama's Space Plan just axed NASA's plan to return to the moon.

Well, so much for the Messiah reaching for the stars.

So who wouldda thunk that 'Dubya' was the "space/science-friendly" President?

Who would have thought the spin here would stop?!

Bush said "Let's go to the moon by 2020!" and then gave no money!!!!

That's a great space president! Any asshole can say it, but it there is no more funding then it will never happen.

Also NASA of today is run by fuck-ups, I say we cut the budget to nothing.

[T'Girl]

MARC: Do you have any details on what would of been different with the Shuttle is it hadn't been the bastard child of NASA and the Military? ---

The wings would of been smaller, the air force wanted "cross range" capability. The cargo hold would of been smaller, air force again wanted the big 15 x 60 feet for some of their cargos.

The Hubble Space Telescope would of had to be lifted by titan (?) booster or be much smaller to fit NASA's original shuttles cargo hold. the current size module for the ISS wouldn't fit either. Many of the satelites NASA lifted through the years would have fit, but not the deep space probes.

The smaller shuttle still could of performed crew transfers.

bigdaddy: Bush said "Let's go to the moon by 2020!" and then gave no money!!!! ---

Old president with a big dream and no spare money -- new president with no clue and too much money.

[Marc]

T'Girl wrote:

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The wings would of been smaller, the air force wanted "cross range" capability. The cargo hold would of been smaller, air force again wanted the big 15 x 60 feet for some of their cargos.

The Hubble Space Telescope would of had to be lifted by titan (?) booster or be much smaller to fit NASA's original shuttles cargo hold. the current size module for the ISS wouldn't fit either. Many of the satelites NASA lifted through the years would have fit, but not the deep space probes.

The smaller shuttle still could of performed crew transfers.

In a way it sounds like the the military demands stopped the shuttle from being a total turkey. I'm not sure how a small capacity would of really helped things unless I'm totally dense this morning.

Or was the intention to use the Titans etc to do the heavy lifting the shutttle would then launch and do the final work in space?

[sojourner]

It wasn't just the military. Lack of budget was a problem too. Originally the entire system was supposed to be reusable. instead of srbs and external tank there would have been fly back boosters. the money just wasn't there to develop a reusable "first stage". The increase in size exasperated(sp?) this by making the mass fraction to reach orbit larger.

There is a really good article here on the entire design process:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/shuttle.htm

[Lindley]

The word you're looking for is exacerbated.

[Marc]

Lindley wrote:

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The word you're looking for is exacerbated.

but no doubt some people have been exasperated by the whole deal

[diankra]

Marc wrote:

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In a way it sounds like the the military demands stopped the shuttle from being a total turkey. I'm not sure how a small capacity would of really helped things unless I'm totally dense this morning.

Or was the intention to use the Titans etc to do the heavy lifting the shutttle would then launch and do the final work in space?

With the smaller designs, then yes, use expendables to launch big cargoes, including space station modules, and then the orbiter would have been a genuine shuttle, carrying a crew of maybe five plus the contents of a smaller payload bay up to the station (or on solo missions).
It might seem limited, but it would have been able to carry more crew and cargo than Apollo (the payload bay could have carried small station modules, akin to Kvant on Salyut 7/Mir), while being fully reuseable (the other half of the system being a flyback booster stage). And there would potentially have been the option to launch large unmanned payloads by attaching a second stage to the payload and launching that from the shuttle booster (akin to Shuttle-C, or the first test of the Buran launcher Energia with an unmanned satellite as payload).

[sojourner]

Marc wrote:

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but no doubt some people have been exasperated by the whole deal

Hehe, yea, that's what i get for relying on firefox's spellcheck too much. I knew it didn't look right, but FF didn't complain.

Actually, just googled both words. They can have the same meaning when used in the same context.

So no, I wasn't horribly mispelling the word I was thinking of. You just thought I was.

[T'Girl]

The fly-back booster, F-1 (?), was to be a saturn five first stage with nose cone, wings, jets and landing gear. Advertised as just a standard first stage to be constructed with exsisting forms and tools, I really don't see how it could of been used repeatly.

Interesting thing about the russian buran - snow flake (?) - shuttle is that it was designed to be flown by ground control, if a crew wasn't required in orbit. Delivery runs.

[sojourner]

^That's only one of many conjectured flyback first stages they assessed. Check out the link I posted earlier.

[Dale]

Johnny Rico wrote:

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Um, it was...what part of verbatum do you not understand?

The spelling?

[Finnegan]

I think that China will catch up to, then surpass, the West when it comes to manned space exploration. This actually might be a good thing, as it could spur a new "space race", with China this time, not the old USSR.

I do find it odd that the US could go to the moon, several times, using 1950's/1960's technology, and then has never gone back. It's like Columbus discovering the new world--and then Europe never returning because of the cost of building some big new boats. Not exactly the same thing, but you get my point.

I know it's a matter of political will, and the desire to spend huge sums of money on space research, but come on--it should still be a matter of national pride that the US gets back to the moon with a manned presence.

[diankra]

T'Girl wrote:

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The fly-back booster, F-1 (?), was to be a saturn five first stage with nose cone, wings, jets and landing gear. Advertised as just a standard first stage to be constructed with exsisting forms and tools, I really don't see how it could of been used repeatly.

Interesting thing about the russian buran - snow flake (?) - shuttle is that it was designed to be flown by ground control, if a crew wasn't required in orbit. Delivery runs.

As Sojourner says, the Saturn V 1st stage-derived booster was a later proposal for an interim booster once it became clear that there wasn't the budget to develop the fully reuseable booster (and, to be honest, as a proposal it probably had a lot to do with Boeing wanting to keep a share of the pie).

All Soviet craft were built to be ground controllable, not just Buran - partly for dual use (Vostok also flew unmanned as the Zenit spy satellites), partly due to the medics' early worries about whether pilots could function in space, and also for political reasons (so the pilots could be over-ruled by ground control if they tried to land in the west).
One of the sillier things was that on Vostok 1 the manual controls were actually locked, and could only be turned on if Gagarin entered a PIN number that the capcom would relay up from the ground if needed. But as the ground controllers and designers were worried that they might lose communications, at least three of them grabbed a chance to whisper the combination in Gagarin's ear before launch...

[Doran]

Recently the powers that be in Washington decided that it would be too expensive to go back to the moon. Additional funding for the space program was not approved. They'd rather give that money to bank presidents, oil company execs, and car companies ... just to name a few.
They would probably argue that these moves help sitmulate our aeconomy, but what about the creation of jobs and new technologies in our efforts to expand beyond the confines of this planet. Earth won't last forever, and typical of our powers that be, they will remain too complacent until it may be too late to do something about our civilization and culture.
As Trekkers, we are for the most part dreamers. Trek is our escape mechanism, our coping device outside of our normal everyday lives. Some of us are lucky enough that Trek is our everyday life. But we need to be more than that. We need to be advocates for our space program. I want to see man on another planet before I die, and at the rate they're moving, my grandchildren will be lucky to see us on another planet. I have several grandchildren, most of them want to be sports stars or rock stars when they grow up. As a society we have successfully quashed the childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. One of my youngest grandchildren is a Stars Wars buff. He is only 5 and there is the potential for that old childhood dream to be reborn thru kids like him.
Write your legislators, talk to your friends and family about it. Help replant the seed and we can get the idea to grow. It will be through people like us that our space program can be reborn, but we need to let Washington know that this is what we want.
Post your efforts and ideas here so that I know that I don't stand alone.
I talk about issues like this in my forum... pay a visit and read additional posts.

[sojourner]

Recently the powers that be in Washington decided that it would be too expensive to go back to the moon. Additional funding for the space program was not approved.

No, if you read the thread, you would know that the Augustine Commission reported that at current levels there is not enough money with the current plan NASA is using. NO DECISION HAS BEEN MADE by Obama on providing addition funds, changing the goal, or changing the plan to achieve that goal. Please stop spreading FUD.(Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt)