The Shuttle and American Space Program - A New Strategy

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Tradernik: Let me ask you something, SA. What the hell is your point in all of this? Why are you spending so much of your valuable time here, mocking the U.S. space effort?



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July 5, 2006

SouthAmerica: Because Americans are becoming complacent and they are living of glories of the past – in the meantime countries such China, India, Taiwan, South Korea, Brazil, and many others are leaving the US in the dust – in state-of-the-art electronics, software development, energy field and so on…….

Today Americans accept “mediocrity” as a superior achievement – the current Shuttle program is an actual example. By now, the United States should be working on and developing its "3rd generation" of Shuttles and adopting the latest in technology available and aerospace design - and not trying to fix the bugs on the original Shuttle system developed over 30 years ago.

I want to remind you that various countries are "leapfrogging" their space development including China, Russia, European Union, Brazil, and other players.

Like on everything else the US is complacent about everything until they lose its market leadership and also market share – for example the auto industry (GM and Ford), aerospace industry (Boeing), and so on…..



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Note: “Leapfrogging” is a theory of development in which developing countries skip inferior, less efficient, more expensive or more polluting technologies and industries and move directly to more advanced ones.




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Quote from southamerica:
Because Americans are becoming complacent and they are living of glories of the past
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Yes, we could infer this from your posts. You didn't answer my question.

The question I asked you is - why do you care?
 
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tradernik: The question I asked you is - why do you care?



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July 5, 2006

SouthAmerica: I live in the USA and the USA decline is affecting not only myself but also my family and friends in many ways.


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Quote from southamerica:
SouthAmerica: I live in the USA and the USA decline is affecting not only myself but also my family and friends in many ways.
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Ok. You don't sound much like a patriot to me, and you don't seem to have a lot of constructive suggestions. You mock those who are making the efforts by saying that the only value in the program is the suspense of seeing whether the astronauts die.

But whatever. I am sure that the Shuttle program leaves a lot to be desired. As I said, it's a huge bureaucracy and bureaucrats are more interested in keeping their power than instituting positive change. A lot of jobs would be lost if the Shuttle program were scrapped.

I reviewed your posts since 2005 and there is a lot of sarcasm but not a lot of positive suggestion. You said that

'If I were in charge I would fire a bunch of people'

Did you mean the engineers or the bureaucrats?
 
Why anyone bothers with this guy, me included, is somewhat a mystery. He mocks the death of the courageous people who strapped them selves to a 10 story tank of explosives solely for the pursuit of knowledge and human advancement...

The space shuttle will be retired shortly, clearly it is at the end of its life-cycle. Your imbecilic posts accomplish nothing in regard to raising-awareness to the obvious.

The private sector will soon be able to accomplish the objectives of the shuttle missions, for far less $$$, and will be able to do so primarily because of the vast knowledge base Nasa has created over the past 30 years... (see, www.nasa.gov)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/06/18/ssone.flight.history/

NASA will move on to big and better things and space travel among the public will soon become routine entirely because of NASA's incredible accomplishments.


And this SouthAmerican Peckerhead will find more tradegy to mock and ridicule ... All the while, whining like a little girl, about "How his friends and family are being affected by the decline of the US"....

Get back in your bananna boat, dueche
 
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Tradernik: You mock those who are making the efforts by saying that the only value in the program is the suspense of seeing whether the astronauts die.

But whatever. I am sure that the Shuttle program leaves a lot to be desired. As I said, it's a huge bureaucracy and bureaucrats are more interested in keeping their power than instituting positive change. A lot of jobs would be lost if the Shuttle program were scrapped.


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July 5, 2006

SouthAmerica: After the last disaster (Columbia) NASA should have retired the current fleet of Shuttles and sent them to museums around the country as show pieces.

By the way, the 2nd generation of Shuttles was supposed to be ready for retirement around our time and NASA at this time should be using a 3rd generation of Shuttles with the state-of-art in technology and aerospace knowledge.

I never implied that they should layoff people from the Shuttle program – only the ones who are incompetent or are responsible of major screw-ups.

When Congress approved the Shuttle program they also should have held NASA accountable for all the goals to be achieved that NASA specified when that program was approved.

Congress approved the money to build these Shuttles (billions of dollars) and by 1990 the Shuttle program was supposed to be flying at least mission # 1,500 – the number of missions that was promised by NASA when Congress approved the money for the Shuttle program – here we are in 2006 and they still flying mission # 116 and on top of that they still working out bugs that should have been iron out by 1980 and not 2006.

You guys are saying that I am mocking your great space achievement – but all the news coverage the Shuttle gets for many years - it is if it will be able to liftoff and re-entry without blowing out into pieces.

Wait a few days and the conversation about the Shuttle will be if the Shuttle Discovery is O.K. to make a re-entry after the Shuttle left a few pieces of itself along the way on its way up.

In the last Shuttle flight the biggest news story about that flight it was that the astronauts spent a lot of time in space trying to patch up the old thing for them to be able to return to earth.

Before this flight even went up - NASA was talking of the possibility of the astronauts of the current Shuttle Discovery having to stay in the space station to wait for the Russians to rescue them in the near future - because the old thing was not in shape to bring the astronauts back to earth.



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pattersb: The space shuttle will be retired shortly, clearly it is at the end of its life-cycle. Your imbecilic posts accomplish nothing in regard to raising-awareness to the obvious.

The private sector will soon be able to accomplish the objectives of the shuttle missions, for far less $$$, and will be able to do so primarily because of the vast knowledge base Nasa has created over the past 30 years...

NASA will move on to big and better things and space travel among the public will soon become routine entirely because of NASA's incredible accomplishments.


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SouthAmerica: The current fleet of Shuttle’s life-cycle was supposed to be 10 years – that means that their life-cycle ended around 1990.

What is the obvious?

How many more Shuttles have to explode on its way up or on re-entry for NASA to stop flying these old things?

Your comment about the private sector is pure bullshit.

NASA does not build the Shuttles – the American private sector does it.


As you said on your posting: “space travel among the public will soon become routine entirely because of NASA's incredible accomplishments.”

Sure – very soon people will take vacations in the moon…… or a vacation on Mars is around the corner……


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pettersb: And this SouthAmerican Peckerhead will find more tradegy to mock and ridicule ... All the while, whining like a little girl, about "How his friends and family are being affected by the decline of the US"....


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SouthAmerica: I was not whining about anything. I was answering a question that another member of the message board asked me.

I don’t whine - I have the power of the pen – And I fight back by exposing all the weak points of our system – I know where all the cracks are on our “economic dam” – and the wall is full of cracks – believe me.

When I expose our system's delusions and current widespread mediocrity – I drive people like you crazy; people who thinks that everything is hank-dory here in the US when the reality is a complete opposite.


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Quote from southamerica:
You guys are saying that I am mocking your great space achievement
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Wait a minute

Did'nt you say your reason for posting is that you are an American???

Why is it your great achievement??

Why didn't you say our great achievement? If you were speaking as an American concerned about America as you claimed, why would you use the word your??
 
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Your achievement = NASA

NASA did great things in the past, but for many years I don't know what is going on with that organization.

Today's NASA is not the NASA of the 1960's and 1970's - For all practical purposes today's NASA is a failure.


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July 13, 2006

SouthAmerica: I find it amazing that NASA spends so much money trying to fly these old Shuttles and when they finally are able to manage a liftoff without the old thing blowing up – the astronauts spend a lot of valuable time on space trying to fix the old jalopy to be able to return to earth.

They use the following things to fix the Shuttle in space: duck tape, band-aid, crazy glue, gum or anything that can stick on the Shuttle’s surface.

The ironic part is that after all these hi-tech repairs the Shuttle still can explode on re-entry. So much for state-of-the-art in technology.

I guess Peter Sellers is back and he is doing his comedy act – this time around in space.



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“Spacewalk Repair Drill Takes 7 Hours”
By WARREN E. LEARY
Published: July 13, 2006
The New York Times

HOUSTON, July 12 — Two astronauts ventured on Wednesday into the cargo bay of the space shuttle Discovery, and tested techniques that might be used to make emergency repairs to a shuttle’s heat shield.

The astronauts, “Peter Sellers” and Michael E. Fossum, stepped into space with caulk guns and putty knives, and made their way to the back of the cargo bay to work on heat shield samples brought up in a cargo box. It was their third and final spacewalk since the shuttle docked with the International Space Station on July 6 for a 13-day mission.

Mr. Sellers and Mr. Fossum applied an experimental compound for fixing heat shield damage, and took videos with an infrared camera designed to spot heat shield cracks that might be too small to be seen.

The spacewalk, which lasted 7 hours 11 minutes, went 41 minutes longer than planned so the astronauts could attach equipment to the space station that could be used for future construction on the outpost.

Tony Ceccacci, mission flight director at the Johnson Space Center, said at a news conference here that the spacewalk was a success, although it was tiring for the Discovery crew.
“Tomorrow, the crew’s going to get a well-deserved day off,” Mr. Ceccacci said. “They’ll be doing the standard: looking out the window.”

The two spacewalkers spent most of their time working on samples of the carbon composite material that lines the shuttle’s nose and the leading edges of its wings, material designed to withstand the hottest re-entry temperatures, which approach 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The hard but brittle heat protection material, called reinforced carbon carbon, is the kind that was damaged by launching debris on the shuttle Columbia three years ago, leading to the loss of the craft and its seven-member crew.

Since then, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has focused on keeping debris from falling from the shuttle’s external fuel tank at launching. Major damage to the heat shield would require abandoning the shuttle while the crew took refuge in the space station for later rescue, agency officials said. But NASA has also developed techniques and materials for repairing the tiles and the carbon composite panels that shield the shuttle if they suffer minor damage.

Mr. Sellers and Mr. Fossum focused on applying a special putty to cracked and gouged samples of the composite material to see how it would work in weightlessness and at a range of temperatures in space.

They used special caulking guns filed with a sticky, black material that has the consistency of peanut butter and that the space agency calls NOAX, which stands for nonoxide adhesive experimental.

“O.K., we’re starting to get goo,” Mr. Sellers said as he squeezed the trigger of the caulk gun. “Got goo, good goo!” Methodically working their way through the samples in the box, the astronauts applied the NOAX and worked it in with their tools, sometimes adding multiple layers and commenting on how well it stuck or how easily it could be smoothed out.

“The best practice for this is to have an old house in Houston,” Mr. Sellers said as he smoothed the sealant into a crack.

The spacewalk went without major incident, but Mr. Sellers lost one of his spatulas, and mission control confirmed that it had been spotted drifting away from the shuttle.

“It’s of no hazard to us,” said Tomas Gonzalez-Torres, the mission’s chief spacewalk officer, adding that the 14-inch-long metal tool would be tracked by radar.


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