Hail and Farewell, Atlantis!
Well that, as they say, is THAT. The space shuttle program is OVER… The U.S. now officially has NO manned boost-to-orbit capability… NASA tried to put a brave face on it as Atlantis rolled to a halt, but for the foreseeable future, we must rent-a-ride on the Russian Soyuz if Americans wish to go to space! How messed up is THAT?
That’s a sweet picture of a sad event. I’ve officially now blown my last chance of ever seeing a liftoff or landing of an amazing piece of technology.
I will always regret missing the opportunity to see the first landing ever in April of ’81. My brother and I lived in El Cajon, Ca – due east of San Diego and would have had to get up at 4 in the morning to make the trek up to Edwards AFB in time to see it. We were too damn sleepy. What idiots! You just can’t judge the historic import of something like that at the time.
Comment on July 21, 2011 @ 5:21 am
I think it’s important to let other nations dominate space. That’s the smart ticket. That way, we’re dependent on others, the way we are with oil. And that’s worked out so well.
We used to be somebody.
Comment on July 21, 2011 @ 7:05 am
I regret never seeing a launch too. The closest I ever got to the shuttle ‘in action’ was very early in the program when STS-3 Columbia (sadly fated to burn up on re-entry in 2003) landed at White Sands, NM. I was still in Phoenix, and saw the shuttle go directly overhead (albeit still at about 100,000 feet, but it was moving FAST). The sky was clear, and the triangular shape was clearly visible to the naked eye… which surprised me a little (I’d expected to see a DOT)! I later visited a full-scale mock-up of a shuttle and understood why… those babies are BIG! It’s one thing to read that it’s over 120 feet long, but quite another to stand next to one!
Although the entire Space Shuttle program never achieved its stated goal of making orbital flight cheap and safe, it CAN point proudly to the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station as major accomplishments… neither of which would have been possible without the Space Shuttle!
Comment on July 21, 2011 @ 8:48 am
At least we still have JPL and some hella cool robotic space missions, both underway and in development.
But while it’s very cool to watch a little vehicle roll around on Mars, to see men and women walking around there would be a thrill of another scale entirely!
I suggest that America should look upon manned space missions as a crucial part of our national infrastructure. If we’re not leading in space, we’re TRAILING.
Comment on July 21, 2011 @ 9:09 am
Check out this very strange shot (from Wikipedia):
Shuttle launch of Atlantis at sunset in 2001. The sun is behind the camera, and the plume’s shadow intersects the moon across the sky.
Comment on July 21, 2011 @ 10:02 am
Forgive please… it’s hard for me to leave this subject alone! BTW: I removed my spurious ‘debt ceiling’ flame from the original post. Important but irrelevant.
Although I’ve often bitched about NASA’s ‘space truck to nowhere’, I must admit to a surprising amount of nostalgia now that it’s come to an END… and NASA is at loose ends, firing many thousands MORE of loyal and talented workers into a shitty economy…
(I know of course that I’m preaching to the choir as it were, to be such a constant manned space ‘booster’ at New Worlds!)
It did not escape my notice that yesterday, 20 July, marked the 42nd anniversary of the first Moon landing. FORTY-TWO YEARS! And we’ve never even returned to our Moon! We were supposed to be on Mars and well BEYOND by now fer gawdsakes! And we COULD HAVE been! but for a collective lack of will and timid politicians pandering to an easily bored public…
Beyond national prestige, and the constant commercial spin-offs which have changed our society in ways that few give a second thought to… sending men and women into space charges our imaginations and INSPIRES us! That’s something that is hard to calculate on a balance sheet, but to see a kid’s eyes LIGHT UP and make him/her say “I wanna do THAT!!” is something that I submit we just CANNOT put too much of a premium on!
Space IS expensive! But it is CHEAP at the price! Yes, CHEAP!! A society which has LOST the FIRE to EXPLORE and ADVANCE reminds me very uncomfortably of the decline and fall of Rome. Decadent and inward looking… Has it REALLY come to THIS? Is America REALLY to be such a momentary (less than a century) flash in the pan?? I’m worried.
I don’t care so much about the ‘stars and stripes’ on Mars. I want the whole planet to go “Humans, Humans! Rah! Rah! Rah!…”… But we must LEAD if we are to fulfill our potential… To those who loudly say “We just can’t AFFORD to do it!” I retort just as loudly “We just can’t afford NOT to!!”
Comment on July 21, 2011 @ 11:06 am
Choir, here. Singing loudly.
Comment on July 21, 2011 @ 11:50 am
byronius: and singing right on key too! Thanks!
We must admit (sadly), that the ‘space race’ wasn’t motivated by the noble ideas of science and of exploring ‘beyond the horizon’ NEARLY so much as it was by the very sophomoric idea to ‘beat the Russkies’… Once we’d ‘beaten’ the Soviets to the Moon, ‘we’ (as a society) seem to have lost interest. Don’t forget that at the same moment we heard “Tranquility Base here… the Eagle has landed.”, we were also burning villages (and peasants), bombing the living shit out of Hanoi and dying by the thousands in Viet Nam… The irony was STUNNING!
Compared to what we spend for ‘Defense’, our space budget is not even a DROP in the bucket! I’m ALL FOR protecting the nation and erasing those who would do us harm, but REALLY…
What the FUCK is WRONG with America??? We could be SO MUCH MORE…
Alack and Alas!
Comment on July 21, 2011 @ 12:33 pm
I’d have to look up the link, but there was a recent DU post noting that more was spent on air conditioning for the troops in the Middle East over the last ten years than on NASA’s budget for the same period.
Stupid, shameful, backwards.
Comment on July 21, 2011 @ 12:42 pm
All those who’d like to start a new SPECIES and begin OVER on a new planet please let’s have a show of HANDS (or similar appendages)!!??
Comment on July 21, 2011 @ 12:57 pm
Hands being raised here, loudly.
(what my other appendages are doing I consider a personal matter)
Comment on July 21, 2011 @ 2:08 pm
THOSE ‘appendages’ really can’t be ‘raised’ (as it were) in complete ‘silence’, but yeah… you got my message!
Comment on July 21, 2011 @ 2:22 pm
Well, there’s scant chance that we could do WORSE than the mess on THIS world! Whenever I study history, it’s the MISSED OPPORTUNITIES that bug me the MOST!
Of course, I have the benefit of hindsight… but STILL!
Comment on July 22, 2011 @ 1:29 am
Okay, the following is a wake up call to many of us but despite how you might balk at it, give it a fair honest and attentive read.
http://discovermagazine.com/2011/jul-aug/22-how-to-avoid-repeating-debacle-of-space-shuttle
Comment on July 23, 2011 @ 1:01 pm
Actually, New Worlds readers will note that I’ve said much the same thing about the shuttle’s shortcomings at various times on these pages, mais sans Mr. Zeeberg’s very snide bitterness… and while the article promises a solution in its title, the author delivers not ONE single suggestion on how best to move forward.
I instinctively dislike those who bitch and moan without offering any constructive ideas on how to improve the situation. Zeeberg I’m afraid, has written just such an article IMHO…
I think I can do better if the gentle reader will bear with me:
I recently saw an interview with current NASA administrator (and ex-astronaut) Charles Bolden regarding the end of the shuttle program, and winced when he stated that “The Space Shuttle’s accomplishments DWARF those of the Apollo program!”. Really? REALLY? I understand that Dr. Bolden must be a public cheerleader for NASA, but that comment made me question his competency!
To see a clear way forward, we need I think to take a brief look back… and maybe learn a few lessons…
The Past:
How did the space shuttle come about in the first place?
It was 1972. Apollo had successfully made it to the moon, ‘winning the space race’. But after the ‘glorious failure’ of Apollo 13, the public was quickly loosing interest. NASA’s budget was slashed and the last three planned moon missions were cancelled (even though they were already paid for and the hardware delivered!). The final mission was Apollo 17 in December, 1972. The Apollo program was over. No (living) human has been beyond low Earth orbit since.
Then, as now, NASA was left at loose ends. The more visionary ‘true believers’ lobbied hard for a manned Mars program. That idea was shot down immediately as ‘pie in the sky’ (it probably was too early)… NASA finally opted instead for a program to make human space flight practical, routine and cheap…
The result? Too many ‘cooks in the kitchen’, too many conflicting design requirements, too much needless complexity (the bane of any competent engineer!), too much red tape, and last but not least a management/bureaucracy structure that was as imposing as Mt. Everest… and just about as agile too!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the ‘Space Shuttle’ orbiter! “The Space Truck to Nowhere!”…
Put bluntly, the design and management flaws that eventually cost the lives of 14 good men and women were ‘built in’ from the very beginning. I’m surprised in fact that we had only two catastrophic ‘anomalies’… just damned lucky I guess. But the cost overruns were enormous and ‘turning around’ a shuttle for reuse took at least 10 times what was projected and sold to Congress.
So by its own design standards and mission statement, the Space Shuttle was indeed a failure. But it’s certainly had a few grand moments!
The Shuttle DID launch and repair the HST and build the ISS… and looked at objectively, a success rate of 133/135 (98.5%) isn’t too bad. So credit where due, and the Space Shuttle DID at least keep us in the space business!
(plus I always liked the live TV feeds just looking out the window on orbit! ;-})
The Future:
While the end of Apollo took place against the backdrop of Viet Nam and the first inklings of Watergate, the Shuttle’s demise occurs in an awful economic climate, where the extreme Right (that doesn’t ‘believe’ in evolution or space travel [or 'science' in general]) is seemingly ascendant.
It’s just plain a very bad time to have to re-tool and the way forward will be painful, especially at first:
First, NASA needs to be largely dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up. There are a lot of good people there, but its management structure is simply too calcified to be fixed. I just cannot see it continuing as it is. That rigid structure was largely responsible for the losses of Challenger and Columbia.
Mundane tasks such as commercial/military satellite launches must be jettisoned. There are other people for that. A leaner-and-meaner NASA with ONLY exploration as its mission is my suggestion:
(1) Robotics missions should continue with JPL and the small part of NASA involved in un-manned missions. I find little fault currently at JPL. They seem to have learned their lessons from the ‘cheaper faster’ Mars probe debacles of the late ’90′s.
(2) Earth to orbit/ISS operations must be farmed out to (more or less) private companies, subsidised as needed. The profit-motive to ‘cut corners’ worries me here, so oversight and open books will be CRITICAL.
(3) A clear set of GOALS in manned space must be well defined and vigorously sold to the public and Congress. We don’t have the USSR to point to as ‘the boogie man’ any more, so getting the public educated and excited is absolutely crucial! I think ‘The Mars Society’ has already given us a good start here… As with the ISS, an international consortium will be required to help shoulder the cost burden…
Then, in this order:
Lots easier said than done of course, and NOT inexpensive! New propulsion and life-support systems (including rotating crew quarters to simulate gravity on long missions) need to be developed, and myriads of details will need working out, but if we can turn some of our brighter kid ‘gamers’ and ‘hackers’ into legit space engineers (yes kids, it DOES mean you’ll have to take Calculus and Physics!), I firmly believe IT CAN BE DONE. And I think that IT MUST BE DONE. Do we really have a choice? For to NOT do these things would mean that America truly IS a bit of a ‘has been’ wouldn’t it?
That’s the way I see it anyway. Cheers!
Comment on July 23, 2011 @ 5:40 pm
I’m all for increased exploration, but I believe the radiation environment around Jupiter is problematic. Manned exploration of Jovian satellites may be a long way off simply because there is no way for a human to disembark on the surface of Ganymede or Europa. Simply shielding a vessel enough that the electronics could handle multiple days of continuous exposure to Jupiter’s radiation belts is no easy feat, and a space suit that could keep a person alive in that environment would be downright magical from a 21st century perspective.
Perhaps, in time, Jupiter will see human visitation and perhaps even human basis on its moons. In our lifetimes though, I think the priorities should be on a permanent Moon base, cutting the energy cost of getting mass into orbit, and a program of manned missions to Mars. If there are Martian fossils or even Martian microbes, future rovers ought to point the way toward ideal areas for scientific exploration. Europa still deserves attention, but advances in robotics and AI seem to be marginalizing the importance of human beings in exploration.
Having human footprints on Mars and survivors of Martian expeditions living among us would do much to lift our morale and improve our spending priorities, so I see it as worthwhile in the relatively short term. With a much longer commute and less hospitable destinations, a Jovian journey seems implausible without huge technological advances beyond what can be predicted as an outgrowth of present capabilities.
Comment on July 23, 2011 @ 8:35 pm
Demonweed: I admittedly DO tend to get a bit starry-eyed now and then ;-P… and I will agree that visiting Jupiter is still a long ways off… But I was taking the long (and maybe over-ambitious) view. Your point about Jupiter’s massive EM field is well taken, but don’t forget that we’ve already managed to successfully shield electronics and other systems in that environment. I expect our robotic minions will visit Europa and Ganymede well in advance of any manned visit. But there is no intrinsic reason we could not land manned craft on those worlds… at least briefly.
Radiation of various sorts will ALWAYS be a danger in space travel though, so you’re right to raise a cautionary flag. Even recent Shuttle astronauts have routinely banked sperm and ova if they wish to have future kids… they KNOW that radiation caused genetic damage is a REAL possibility…
I’m all for robotic expeditions where-ever possible, but I also think there’s a lot to be said for actually BEING there…
LOX/alcohol and solid fuel boosters are kindergarten stuff for rocketry. We’ve got at least a start on ion/plasma and such, but I agree, we seriously NEED better and more economical propulsion systems if we’re to get out of our ‘back yard’ and make ‘decent time’ so to speak…
But Mars is reachable with more or less current technology, and I expect a two year expedition is doable for people too…
We’re designed to EXPLORE after all… It may not always be practical, but we want to go see for ourselves anyway! I’m afraid that if we ever lose that and become complacent, it will NOT bode well for our species…
As clever as our machines are getting, there’s still no substitute for human senses (well, enhanced/aided ones anyway). And the psychological impact such a trip will have on Earth is important for firing the imaginations of the NEXT generation, who maybe themselves WILL solve the problems of Jupiter… and beyond.
Comment on July 23, 2011 @ 9:10 pm
On rereading my comments, I perhaps should have included only the first two bullet points… and Demonweed is right to gently accuse me of pushing an over-ambitious program, particularly in the current national climate where many would love to see NASA and any American space program go the way of the dodos…
Jupiter space probably won’t be reached by manned missions until the end of the century, well after I’m long gone… But I CARE about it, and firmly believe there is no better medicine for the human spirit than to continue moving OUTWARD…
So I’m the first to admit that yes, I am a ‘true believer’ in a manned presence in space. I date myself badly, but I actually remember (I was a somewhat precocious six) Sputnik I. Dad had a Heathkit shortwave radio and I heard for myself the plaintive ‘beep… beep… beep’… And our own stumbling first steps into space. As I grew up in Woodland Hills, CA, many if not MOST of the men in our neighbourhood worked as engineers and technicians for companies like ‘Rocketdyne’ and ‘TRW’, major contractors for both military ICBM and NASA propulsion and guidance systems… Rocketdyne also had a test facility just to the north in the Santa Susana mountains. It was common to hear a low rumble and I’d go outside and look up to the rocky hills to see an eerie blue-white glow… we all knew of course that they were testing rocket engines, and I later learned that they were testing (amongst other things) the big primary thrusters that eventually powered the Apollo to the Moon (those babies were LOUD!)… They would mount the engine on its side so it pushed against the mountain instead of ‘blasting off’ ;-}. And I thought it all was WAY cool! (“neato” and “bitchin’” were the words then ;-}). Not infrequently, you’d hear a big BANG and you knew they’d had another ‘anomaly’… I was awakened in the middle of the night (at my request) to watch every televised satellite launch… which were often scrubbed or would blow up on the pad, and crestfallen, I’d plod back to bed… But I was INTO it!
I only include that bit of personal history to explicate my ongoing belief and confidence in our ability to get to and maintain a presence in space. It’s almost in my blood! So please forgive me if I occasionally get a bit over-enthusiastic!
Comment on July 24, 2011 @ 8:25 am