Re: Was the space shuttle the right choice?

[Tank]

During the TV programmes dealing with the end of the shuttle program I heard two figures that stuck in my mind. The shuttles flew 135 missions and the program cost $200 billion, thus each flight cost approximately $1.5 billion. It should be noted that the shuttles never reached their intended launch rate and thus the pro-rata mission cost is inflated.

None of the missions required a reusable vehicle, yet each mission was compromised by having to push the weight of all the aerodynamic paraphernalia into orbit that is required to get all the non-aerodynamic parts safely back down again.

So was the shuttle the right system choice?

[fester30]

The fact that the new shuttle program was scrapped several years ago, along with the fact that they are retiring these and not using them anymore, to me is enough to say it wasn't the right choice.  Easy to say in retrospect.  We used to be in the heat of the space race and a reusable vehicle sounded at the time like the way to go.  People had grand ideas of the future of space utilization and space travel.  The US also only had 1 space station during that time, so whatever the astronauts took into space had to be sufficient to conduct whatever studies they wanted to accomplish that a space station would have been appropriate for.  A smaller launch vehicle would not have been sufficient for the room needed for these experiments.  Skylab was a very limited experiment that lasted two years and ended the year before the first shuttle launch.  Once they started the shuttle program, it didn't make much sense to stop it so quickly.  Now that we have a decent space station, the shuttle outlived its usefulness as a space lab.

[Tank]

The fact that the new shuttle program was scrapped several years ago, along with the fact that they are retiring these and not using them anymore, to me is enough to say it wasn't the right choice.  Easy to say in retrospect.  We used to be in the heat of the space race and a reusable vehicle sounded at the time like the way to go.  People had grand ideas of the future of space utilization and space travel.  The US also only had 1 space station during that time, so whatever the astronauts took into space had to be sufficient to conduct whatever studies they wanted to accomplish that a space station would have been appropriate for.  A smaller launch vehicle would not have been sufficient for the room needed for these experiments.  Skylab was a very limited experiment that lasted two years and ended the year before the first shuttle launch.  Once they started the shuttle program, it didn't make much sense to stop it so quickly.  Now that we have a decent space station, the shuttle outlived its usefulness as a space lab.

I agree. And hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[hismikeness]

I think the important thing to remember is that human spaceflight is only still in its infancy. For nearly half of the time that humans have cracked the space barrier, the vehicles delivering the payload (human and otherwise) have been reusable. The many satellites in orbit that have provided the information gained over the last 30 years of both space and of the Earth, and the repairs of those satellites in some cases, is valuable. More valuable than $200billion and a handful of human lives? That's a great question.

To put it in a different perspective, I've read/heard that half a penny on the dollar is what the US budgets for NASA. I'd imagine the bulk of NASA funding went to space shuttle programs, but not all of it. So less than half a penny per dollar spent was on space exploration. When phrased that way, it seems worth it to me.

Whatever is next for NASA undoubtedly will cost more and will be more risky than the shuttle missions. It will hopefully break new barriers, or at least reach and improve upon old barriers like the moon. I can only hope that in 30 more years we are debating this very same question. Was the __________ program at a cost of ______ worth it?

[Medusa]

I think next up is the 'curiosity' land rover on Mars. It's gonna check out some mountains and take samples there.

[Tank]

I think next up is the 'curiosity' land rover on Mars. It's gonna check out some mountains and take samples there.

I think they are aiming it at a mountain in a crater! http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html The idea being that the cratering event will expose a load of stratigraphy for Curiosity to explore. It's got a huge act to follow though what with Oppertunity doing so well.

[Medusa]

I think next up is the 'curiosity' land rover on Mars. It's gonna check out some mountains and take samples there.

I think they are aiming it at a mountain in a crater! http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html The idea being that the cratering event will expose a load of stratigraphy for Curiosity to explore. It's got a huge act to follow though what with Oppertunity doing so well.

Yeah  was reading about that. I think they said they will have some better results because I guess it's winter there and no summer storms etc. It's a smart name for a land rover.

[Will]

There will always be a special place in my heart for the space shuttle, but we have much better technology now. We need a new and more efficient method of escaping earth's gravity. That said, I'm very concerned over the low budget NASA has. This silly small government talk seems to be leaving the United States in a place where scientific progress is taking a back seat to partisan politics and the emerging plutocracy. I find this to be unacceptable. NASA's budget once represented 5% of the Federal budget. I'd like to see that happen again, so we can start concentrating on things like the space elevator and orbiting solar arrays for power.