The Shuttle and American Space Program - A New Strategy

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PoundTheRock: I'm looking forward to the day when we can get Chinese takeout in space. Some potential menu items:

1. Crab Rang-moon
2. Sunspot Stickers
3. Sauteed Pork with Black Hole Sauce
4. Moo Goo Gai Planet

Poor Ricardo -- a loser who hates America, especially on rally days.


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Hcour: Yeah, I heard one of them say that the other day, I think it was Tues. I forget his name, I think it was Bob, something...

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SouthAmerica: Reply to PoundTheRock


I love Chinese food. I can live with that.


I guess they could not make the old pile of junk work for a lift off – Just keep trying guys a little “Crazy Glue” combined with a “band aid” here and a “band aid” there and the old thing might be able to get off the ground some day in the future.

In the mean time if they need to lift an American astronaut into space they can ask the Russians for a ride on their spaceships.

I did posted the same information on the PBS message board and got an intelligent discussion going on in that board – instead of silly comments.

One person brought up that the Chinese were using old Russian technology in their space program.

Then another person said: it is not so. They are using state-of-the-art technology even more advanced than the American system used for the Shuttle flights.

If you have been reading the Thread “China Price” on this message board then you know that the Chinese with the help from the Taiwanese are getting light years away in front of the US in developing new electronic technologies.

The Chinese have the money and the brainpower to leave the US in the dust If the Americans don’t wake up in time try for a come back.

In the mean time keep playing around with the 30-year old technology to see if still works, and also keep in the illusion that your program is up to date. (It is nice in La La Land)

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SouthAmerica: It seems to me that they were able to lift off a disintegrating Shuttle into space – the trick now it will be the return of the old thing without disintegrating into a million pieces.


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“Shuttle Discovery Blasts Into Orbit”
AP - Associated Press – July 26, 2005

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Discovery and its seven astronauts thundered into orbit Tuesday, and engineers immediately began studying video footage of falling debris, hoping to rule out a problem like the one that doomed the last shuttle mission 2 1/2 years ago. American pride and the future of space exploration itself hung in the balance as Discovery rose from its pad at 10:39 a.m. into a hazy blue sky, skirted two decks of clouds and headed out over the ocean in the most scrutinized launch in NASA history and the first shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster.


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SouthAmerica: Now that we know that: “Discovery and its seven astronauts thundered into orbit Tuesday, and engineers immediately began studying video footage of falling debris”

I wonder what are the odds that NASA will be able to bring back the Discovery without the Shuttle disintegrating on re-entry, as the last Shuttle.

Is it possible that the London bookmakers are accepting bets that the Discovery will be able to return to earth without breaking up into little pieces?

Maybe the American astronauts can stay in the space station and wait until a Russian spaceship can be lift off to go and rescue them. (That is another possibility.)

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SouthAmerica: I wonder how many people can stay at the International Space Station?

How many astronauts are at the space station right now?

The International Space Station is supposed to be the size of a regular school bus – that means that the place is very small.

How long the American astronauts will have to stay in the space station, before the Russians can go and rescue them?

I guess it is time to retire the old thing, before more American astronauts are killed.



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“Terrifying moment as tile falls off”
The Daily Telegraph - July 28, 2005

CAPE CANAVERAL: Celebrations at the launch of the space shuttle Discovery were muted yesterday by images of a tile falling from the shuttle's belly and of debris swirling around the fuel tank.

Seconds after launch, a small piece of thermal tile appeared to break off near the hatch containing the nose landing gear in a sobering reminder of the problem that caused the Columbia tragedy more than two years ago.

…The tumbling object falling from the fuel tank could have been insulating foam – the same material that hit the Columbia in 2003.

NASA alerted the shuttle's crew but flight operations crew said the debris did not appear to hit the orbiter.

Engineers and astronauts will spend the next 12 days determining the risk, if any, posed by the two incidents.

The first three days of the mission will be spent photographing and inspecting the shuttle for damage, and the crew are armed with the tools needed to repair the shuttle in space.

If the damage is irreparable the astronauts will be able to disembark at the international space station. The escape plan, called Safe Haven, is one of many changes developed since the Columbia disaster.

After exhaustive safety checks and a resupply mission to the International Space Station, the shuttle is due to return to Earth on Sunday, August 7.


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southamerica, NASA is the most successful space agency and without a doubt most tech development government program. Even the The Shuttle program has a great rate safety record------cost efficient not admirable. But



You can’t judge NASA only on the The Shuttle program---the NASA jet propulsion lab programs include------mar rover, deep impact, huble telescope and UNMANNED AIR FLEET. No one has NASA capabilities----not even China-----maybe Japan, which is working very close with NASA--------sending a Japanese astronaut with Discovery. southamerica, you shouldn’t be criticizing NASA for spending billion. You quarrel should be @Brazilian government and there space agency------sending satellite to monitor the Amazon (good thing but no where close to NASA accomplishment,) I think that the Brazilian government, spend there money on poverty stricken urban ghettos of Rio. I agree, that shuttle is long over due for retirement-------nasa recently turning over control of the X-37 program (NEXT SHUTTLE) to DARPA(notorious us agency for creating the internet).its funny how you don’t mention the RUSSIAN----which successful space history is only second to NASa.

Good day:)
 
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SouthAmerica: Today, NASA grounded all the Shuttles until they can figure out that it is time to retire the old things.

I was watching the news on CNN about the disintegrating Shuttle, and they mentioned and also showed pictures of the Shuttle after they return from a flight.

The Shuttle has been falling apart for a long time. They did show pictures of the Shuttle missing hundred of tiles after returning home. Some of the Shuttle looked like they had been attacked when they were in space, because they had so much damage after returning to earth.

Basically, NASA has been flying the piles of junk for a long time.

Why NASA still call the people who fly these things “Astronauts?”

A name that would be more appropriate to the people who fly these old things is: instead of astronauts they should be called: the new American “Kamikazes.”

What happened to American-Pride, quality of production, and know-how?

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Gideonspy: southamerica, NASA is the most successful space agency and without a doubt most tech development government program.


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SouthAmerica: Why don’t they keep the good work?


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Gideonspy: southamerica, you shouldn’t be criticizing NASA for spending billions.


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SouthAmerica: I never criticized NASA for spending billions!!!!

I have been criticizing them for flying a 30-years old technology.

Today, the Chinese spaceships are 30 years ahead of NASA – the Chinese are not launching into space old Soviet era stuff. The Chinese are launching state-of-art technology. The Chinese are getting ahead of the US on this game.

It is time for the US to wake up and start building the technologies of the future, instead of patching up some old technology of 30 years ago.

How many more astronauts have to die before NASA will realize that it is time to send the Shuttle to some museum?

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Quote from southamerica:

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Today, the Chinese spaceships are 30 years ahead of NASA – the Chinese are not launching into space old Soviet era stuff. The Chinese are launching state-of-art technology. The Chinese are getting ahead of the US on this game.

It is time for the US to wake up and start building the technologies of the future, instead of patching up some old technology of 30 years ago.

How many more astronauts have to die before NASA will realize that it is time to send the Shuttle to some museum?

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More...


I total agree with you on--------the shuttle is old technology, but currently no one has the capability to send 7 crew astronauts into space and dock in a space station. Chinese are a concern in the future (especially in spending cost 2.3 billion in six months for the nasa shuttle)------please read this article “will space be Chinese”----- I hope not, but I agree “America needs to get on the ball”
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Space could be Chinese by the year 2050, experts say


BEIJING (AFP) Oct 16, 2003
It is the year 2053. Zhang Jianwei, a Chinese air force colonel, peeps out of the cockpit of his "Ziqiang VIII" space shuttle to catch a last glimpse of the Jiuquan Space Center before blasting off to Mars.
Sitting next to him is Neil Glenn, a US Air Force major who has been invited to visit China's "Red Horizon" base on Mars, as a goodwill gesture to the American losers in the race to send a man to the red planet.
"Shi, jiu, ba ..." goes the Mandarin-language countdown. "...three, two, one -- and lift-off!"
Could this be simply science fiction, at a time when China has just sent a man into orbit around the Earth and merely succeeded in doing what the Americans and Russians accomplished four decades earlier?
Yes, experts say, but it is definitely within the realm of the technically feasible.
"By 2050, you could see a Chinese base on the moon, or even on Mars," said Brian Harvey, the Dublin-based author of a book on China's space program.
"The challenges are much less technical than they are political and having the money and the will to do it," he said.
For China, money has so far not been a problem, since its entire manned space program has cost a relatively trifling 19 billion yuan (2.3 billion dollars), or what the US space shuttle costs every six months.
Political will could also be a resource in ample supply in China, given the immense boost to the country's prestige after the successful flight of the Shenzhou V.
The sky is no longer the limit, when China's space pioneers start dreaming about the possibilities that the universe affords.
"In the 20 years to come, humans will travel in outer space and space tourism will ultimately become an industry," Zhang Qingwei, deputy chief commander of China's manned spaceflight program, told Xinhua news agency.
A space program could suddenly gain speed, once the will is there, not least because much more is known about space and man's prospects of surviving in it than in the 1960s.
"It took just eight years from when the United States planned to send a man to the moon until it happened," said Harvey.
China's immediate objective after Shenzhou V is likely to be an attempted space walk as well as experiments with space rendezvous.
For the medium-term, China is likely to aim for a space station in 2008, and, in close contest with India, an unmanned mission to the Moon the same year.
Beyond that date, conjectures become more hazy, although China's research programs could indicate the rough direction, and nothing indicates it is about to slow down its efforts.
China has unveiled plans for a new generation of rockets named Long March 5, which are intended for use until the middle of the century, and will be able to carry significantly heavier payloads.
Also indicative of China's long-term plans, the Shenzhou capsule should, with minor modifications, be able to send a Chinese astronaut around the Moon and back.
China has made no clear-cut announcements on whether it hopes to place a man on the Moon.
But local scientists have indicated they are interested in the Moon's resources, including Helium-3, which can be used for nuclear fusion.
But the real prize is Mars, and Chinese space exhibitions have had scale models of what a base on the Red Planet might look like.
"The main objective of a Mars base would be to find life," said Harvey. "It may take humans rather than robots to find it."
 
Chinese space CONTROL FACILITIES

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