Spacecraft Designer Calls for Retirement of Shuttle

Kansas City Star/Los Angeles Times ^ | Fri, May. 16, 2003 | RALPH VARTABEDIAN and PETER PAE

[RightWhale]

Just wondered. My Master's thesis was on asteroid mining. Almost 1/4 century ago.

[DPB101]

we can't design and deploy a general purpose scientific instrument that can react to new facts on the scene. We have to design and send an entirely new device in most cases. And forget it if something goes wrong. I somehow think an astronaut could have yanked on the "umbrella" antenna of the Galileo if they'd been along for the ride.

Assumes the failure rate for manned flight is zero. That is not the case as we know. Each Shuttle launch costs about $400 million. The Mars Pathfinder costs about $260 million. We are paid the Russians $473 million to use MIR. Apollo cost $117 billion. Voyager, Galileo and Pathfinder combined were just over $2 billion. Much more bang for the buck with unmanned vehicles.

We use robots for deep sea exploration and commerical activity. Why not the same for space? At least until we have the technology to do more than what we can now.

[Paul Ross]

I don't know that he gave up on BDB, but that since it promises low profits, there is a dearth of interest among those most likely to be asked to bid on the production contracts. Jerry probably got tired of preaching his dream to the guys who have diminishing desire to hire him as a consultant...and may have informed of that...

[Paul Ross]

Apollo cost $117 billion

Most of all of that was actually the massive front-loaded R&D to get to the point of actually fabricating space-craft that wouldn't blow up on the pad and get out there and back again. And a lot of the Shuttle technology was paid for with Apollo monies. The actual per-unit cost of the Apollo missions was basically a billion per. And with ramping up and the economies of scale, rather than the perverse cost-inflation of shutting it down, it's unit cost likely would have fallen to around $150 million per shot in 1970 dollars. Instead we retreated, and have the monstrous expense of the shuttle. Nonetheless, there are portions that would be affordable. The ET's (external tanks) are not horribly expensive. Neither are the SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters). Its the bird itself, the Orbiter, which requires the lion's share of the expense with the degree of maintenance and launch-rediness preparations required.

It has been a wondrous expression of American wealth and technology. It's ability to bring repairs and return with hardware is unmatched in any other current approach. But for the dream of the common man's access to space, we need to do better. And we can. For the future, the shuttle should be reserved for repairs operations, and the unmanned boosters should do the heavy launch capability. The human-ferry mission to ISSS and other manned operations should be filled by a new set of alternate reusable vehicles. SSTO should be explored. VTOL should be explored.

I personally like the idea of a mountain-side rail-gun-launched lifting-body with throw-away strap-ons.

[Phsstpok]

My Master's thesis was on asteroid mining.

Is it available to read? I've read (and think I understood) the proceedings of the geophysical sciences review of the Appollo moon landings. As I said, I've read both O'Neill's book and papers and find that sort of stuff fascinating. I would really enjoy getting a chance to look at something put together by someone like yourself who has actually looked at the issue in detail, not from 30,000 feet like I have.

[Phsstpok]

Assumes the failure rate for manned flight is zero.

where did I assume that? Casualties happen. Planes crash. Connestoga wagons sink mid stream. All of the people involved are volunteers. I would go in a heartbeat, even at far worse odds than we have now.

We use robots for deep sea exploration and commerical activity. Why not the same for space?

Yes, but we don't launch those robots from shore to explore the deep ocean. We launch the deep sea robots from manned exploration vehicles. We aren't at the point where Calypso is blythely plying the waters. We're at the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria stage. We've got to get out there.

[RightWhale]

Yes, it is, and somewhere in the Library of Congress. However, I am intending to redo it as a Web page. It is an economic analysis rather than a technical analysis, which at the time was unique, and which also makes it kind of dry.

It came up with iron and aluminum as the profitable products. The companies that ought to be interested are steel companies like Weirton Steel and US Steel, and aluminum companies like Alcoa. This is at variance with popular sentiment, for sure, but business is business.

[Phsstpok]

It came up with iron and aluminum as the profitable products.

I mentioned Larry Niven's pieces on asteroid mining (by "belters"). These include not only fiction but non-fiction essays. He also highlights iron and aluminum, as well as things that would be valuable to space habitats and space industry itself, like water and other elements, or even the left over "slag" for shielding.

He wrote a really nice piece about some work done by folks he'd talked to at JPL : take an mylar Echo satellite (am I dating myself) and spray it with something to make it rigid, cut it in half to form a hemispherical mirror, place an nickel - iron asteroid at it's focal point. Drill down the axis of the asteroid and insert water tanks along the axis. Spin the asteroid at the focal point of the mirror (focusing raw sunlight) and you'll gradually make the asteroid molten, from the inside out. Finally you'll reach the water tanks, which will burst inside the molten nickel - iron mass. If you've done it right you form an instant sperical shell, suitalbe for use as a habitat. Of course he gets the basic tools for this from the tools for processing the minerals out of the asteroid in the first place. I always figured I didn't want to be the one to try this the first few times, before they worked out the math (g)

[KevinDavis]

Robots is the wimp way of going into space...

[KevinDavis]

Check out the X-Prize. A lot of companies is trying to replace the shuttle.

[KevinDavis]

Oops try this X-Prize

[KevinDavis]

Try this again X-Prize

[DPB101]

Ok. Go ahead. Man in a can has failed repeatedly for 20 years to get the general public interested but spend another five, ten or twenty billion or so doing more of it. See how long before NASA has no political support whatsoever.

Whatcha going to do for the first gimmick to get public attention? Send Chris Reeves into orbit? The first transgendered person? The first Hottentot? Clowns juggling whipped cream pies in zero gravity?

[KevinDavis]

You see things the short term. I see things long term. It has not failed for 20 years. I'm talking about human colonization on mars, the moon. You sir are a wimp. A wimp supports robots only in space. A true american would go into space aboard the space shuttle. You must be a lefty.. THey are wimps like you!

[DPB101]

Just telling you the political reality as I see it. Were you around for the first flights? Every 13 year old boy was glued to the TV and knew the names of all the astronauts. That is the excitement which must be generated. You can't keep flying Limburgh over the ocean. You can't send Columbus to the New World over and over without some point to it. There has to be a hook . Not a new record of time in orbit or going beyond the moon and coming back with nothing to show but you went or the first this or that in space.

A shuttle launch costs about $400 million and most people could care less if they see it or not. Suppose you had that money and were promised another $400 million in 6 months if your could, with some sort of space program, generate widespread interest in space. How would you spend the cash?

[KevinDavis]

I call it money well spent. I would rather see the money spent on the space program then some welfare bums.

[bvw]

I like whirlygigs pivoted at the L points.

[DPB101]

Well me too if that were the only choice. But it isn't. The question is how can the money be best spent on space? The British needed a chronometer for their voyages of discovery to succeed. They put up a nice fat prize for anyone who invented one. 1% of the cost of 1 shuttle launch is $4 million. A lot of incentive in that kind of money for the little guy to start thinking.

[Paul Ross]

You can't keep flying Limburgh over the ocean.

"... The girl in the Chinese pagoda, Ate onions from fair Minnisota, And garlic from Greece, And Limburgher cheese, And her friends dropped like flies from the odor ... "

[DPB101]

I know. I caught it the second I clicked reply. A typo. Haha. Discredits everything I said.

Think I wander over to an AOL chat room for some thoughtful debate.