Posted on 07/26/2011 9:30:30 AM PDT by Shout Bits
The final Space Shuttle mission ended last week, amidst calls for Washington to cut spending. The Shuttle program cost over $200bln, not to mention 14 lives, while giving little in return. Clearly a Shuttle launch was a majestic site; no one had ever assembled a machine so complicated that had to perform perfectly. Still, at over $400 million per pop, these are expensive warm-fuzzy moments.
The Shuttles’ accomplishments were few. They launched satellites that could have been delivered to orbit cheaper by unmanned rockets. They built a space station that replaced an existing station – both of which served no purpose that unmanned experiments cannot fulfill.
Similarly, the Shuttles’ failures were many. Due to basic design flaws, they twice failed, killing all on board. Their reusable design philosophy held back engineering advances for decades. The next generation of space vehicles starkly resembles the Apollo modules. Because of the political investment in a space plane, it will take forty years to return to the Apollo solution that was first and best. Imagine if the Shuttle engineers had spent the past forty years perfecting the capsule rather than patching a design that quickly proved to be deeply flawed.
All of the interesting exploration and scientific inquiry of the past thirty years has been done by robots. Pork barrel pols could have directed similar funding to unmanned missions with the same political benefits. Even professed fiscal conservatives loved the Shuttles, but why? Nationalism drives governments to create spectacles of their power, even if they are a waste of money.
Perhaps the greatest display of waste in the name of a nationalistic pride is the Egyptian Pyramids. The Pyramids served no purpose other than to demonstrate the power of Egypt’s dictators, and they wasted the labor and talents of generations of men. Likewise, the US does not need a manned space program; it serves no purpose other than to pump nationalist pride. Without the Shuttle, the talents of thousands of the US’s best minds can now be put to better purposes.
Spectacles of power do not befit the US, because at its finest, it is not a nation of nationalism. Placing a few men on the Moon pales in comparison to the US’s great accomplishments. The US invented the free individual, teaching the world that The People can rule their government, the inverse of thousands of years’ history; the US doubled life expectancy through its medical innovations; the US eliminated starvation throughout the world, except where dictators like Stalin and Mao murder their own people; the average American lives a life of greater comfort than did Egypt’s pharos. None of these accomplishments involved a central plan. None of these accomplishments came with a grandiose spectacle of government might. These accomplishments are a testament to freedom and the power of the individual, and they are inherently not nationalistic because they are open to anyone who will have them.
NASA claimed the last Shuttle launch as a symbol of a great nation. No doubt a few pharos made the same claims about their Pyramids, but that is the mindset of a central power. When the final book is written about the US, the Moon landings and NASA will surely be mentioned, but the bulk of the history will be wonderment at how a few powerless colonies transformed the world in the blink of history’s eye. To whatever extent abandoning the Space Shuttle shifts US pride away from a symbol like the Space Shuttle, and toward the US’s unique purpose, all the better.
[The shuttles] reusable design philosophy held back engineering advances for decades. The next generation of space vehicles starkly resembles the Apollo modules. Because of the political investment in a space plane, it will take forty years to return to the Apollo solution that was first and best. Imagine if the Shuttle engineers had spent the past forty years perfecting the capsule rather than patching a design that quickly proved to be deeply flawed.
My goal is not to tell you what you want to hear.
That’s not mine.
The article made that clear, but the disturbed hornets can’t read more than the statement that destroying the nest was a positive.
You should know whose it is, right?
You didn’t read the whole article either, did you?
Perhaps the way to go is to revive the concept of a small lifting-body for manned access to low-earth orbit, while cargo went atop conventional, unmanned systems? It would come down to cost... and I’d guess that a capsule is just cheaper & safer.
The Shuttle was a continuation of the DYNASOAR project. The Mercury/Gemini/Apollo Project had to use proven ballistic missile technology to meet the time constraint of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Once that was accomplished, NASA went back to the original plan which was the Shuttle.
The Shuttle was not intended to be the heavy lift vehicle. It was the 'truck' that was supposed to haul things back and forth to low Earth orbit. We have not had a heavy lift vehicle since the Saturn 5 was terminated. That's the reason man has not traveled beyond Earth's gravity for 40 years.
One could argue that less expensive techniques could deliver the same payloads, but not the same capabilities. The unique aspects of Shuttle -- its large mass (hence, stable platform in orbit) permitted satellite servicing missions that spacecraft before and after it could not accomplish (e.g., Hubble Telescope servicing). The Space Station could not have been built without it and from that program, we learned a lot about on-orbit assembly, complex satellite design, and maintenance of complex space systems. All of this legacy has now been thrown away by the current administration.
One last comment -- if you would learn to spell (e.g., "Pharaoh" not "pharo") and use words correctly (e.g., "a Shuttle launch was a majestic sight" not "a Shuttle launch was a majestic site") your blog postings might seem to have more credibility.
oops on the spelling.
Saw a picture of the DYNASOAR craft mated to a booster... can’t remember, probably an Atlas. Might have just been an artistic rendering now that I think of it.
Now they have a robotic craft that does the same thing but with far higher mission endurance, so the niche for a DYNASOAR type craft is that much smaller.
my bad, discostu. I did not get the sarcasm.
I do, I also know it has no bearing one what I said.
Anybody that can’t see how the shuttle helped space exploration is being willfully ignorant. Could we have had better tools? Yes. Could we have done more if our space program hadn’t been shunted almost entirely through the shuttle? Yes. Does that mean the shuttle was useless? Absolutely not.
All of the interesting exploration and scientific inquiry of the past thirty years has been done by robots.
When the final book is written about the US, the Moon landings and NASA will surely be mentioned, but the bulk of the history will be wonderment at how a few powerless colonies transformed the world in the blink of history’s eye.
You're an ignorant peasant.
It also gave us computers and technology that is currently being use in medical diagnostics.......among millions of other things. Hell, back in the early 80's, I had an ENT specialist shove a camera thing up my nose that was first developed by NASA in order to allow the astronauts to see behind computer banks in order to help diagnose equipment malfunctions and work on them.
As a side note, look at the technology currently being used in our cars which was first developed for car racing......turbo chargers, super chargers, etc., etc.....
>>Clearly a Shuttle launch was a majestic site<<
The launch of a shuttle was a majestic location?
Proofreading is your friend.
>> My goal is not to tell you what you want to hear. <<
Shout Bits, In general I like to hear actual facts and informed opinions so if your goal is not to do these things then I suppose you’ve succeeded.
The Space Shuttle and International Space Station were never used for their original designed and intended purpose.
That’s Olympic sprinter speed backing away from the thrust of your original post.
At the same time the Egyptians were building those useless Pyramids in North Africa, there were tribes in Central Africa doing important stuff. You know, like practicing free love, sitting around the campfire singing Kumbaya, and being good socialists. You do remember reading about those tribes in Central Africa. Right?? What was their name??
You've seen the travel brochures where people from all around the world travel to Central Africa to see the campfire sites (and sing Kumbaya). And the archeologists, they've never wasted their time and resources documenting the useless Pyramids. The archeologists have spent their time researching, writing books about, and building museums to display the artifacts of those important Central African cultures. Right??
A thousand years from now, if human civilization still exist, which do you think the people will remember about the U.S., Lyndon Johnson's Great Society Program or the Apollo Moon landings???
It's obvious that you are the product of a public school system somewhere.
Nope, I didn’t back away from anything. That’s just the non-sarcastic version of the original post for the reading impaired. Both are saying the same thing, just the second time around was simple enough for you to understand.
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