The Space Shuttle Replacement Project
MonsieurEvil
Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 4Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 4Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">Ahead 1/3rd, Mr. Sulu</div> (from NYTimes.com - <a href='http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/01/science/space/01ORBI.html?8hpib' target='_blank'>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/01/science/...ORBI.html?8hpib</a> )
Always interesting to see where the next 20 years of space travel looks to be pointed.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->NASA Goes Shopping for a Shuttle Successor, Off the Rack
By WARREN E. LEARY
ASHINGTON, June 30 — It is called a space plane, but it may not be a plane. It is supposed to take over several jobs of the space shuttle, but it is not a shuttle replacement.
It is to be the most modern spaceship designed to carry humans in 30 years, but it is not supposed to use breakthrough technology. It is to be all that it can be, but less.
No one quite knows what the proposed orbital space plane will be, what it will look like, how many people it will carry or how it will operate. But attention is beginning to focus on NASA's new program to bridge the gap between today's shuttles and a next-generation spaceship that may have a mission well beyond Earth's orbit.
Little is known about the new craft because NASA only recently asked private companies for proposals, and the agency has gone out of its way not to be too specific, officials said, to encourage creative thinking.
The future of human spaceflight for the United States lies beyond the aging space shuttle system, but planners and experts with NASA, industry, universities and Congress have yet to agree on what it is.
In the meantime, NASA says, it wants to build the orbital space plane, or O.S.P., to complement the shuttle and play several supporting roles in maintaining the International Space Station. The program calls for producing spacecraft that can rescue crews from the station by 2010, and by 2012 to transfer crews routinely to and from the station.
NASA proposed the new spacecraft in November as part of its Integrated Space Transportation Plan. But everything changed on Feb. 1, when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry from a research mission, killing its crew of seven. The loss raised doubts about whether and how long the shuttles could continue to operate and focused attention on alternatives.
Losing Columbia put more urgency on the space transportation plan and finding other ways to get to space, said Dr. Jerry Grey, science and technology policy director for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
The new three-part space transportation plan calls for upgrading the shuttle fleet so it can continue to build and support the space station for 12 to 15 more years; building the smaller space plane to serve as a emergency rescue vehicle and to take crews to and from the orbiting outpost; and developing technology that will lead to a vehicle — beyond the space plane — to replace the shuttle.
But because of the Columbia accident, critics are wondering if the plan is still valid. Last month, before the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee of the House Science Committee, several members expressed skepticism about the shuttle and the length of time it should be operated.
One, Representative Joe Barton, Republican of Texas, said that astronauts should never again fly on the shuttle and that NASA should concentrate on a safer replacement.
In their first opportunity to comment on the transportation plan, Democrats and Republicans alike criticized NASA for past failures to replace the shuttles and questioned the wisdom of spending billions of dollars on a new space plane designed primarily to serve the space station.
Representative Dana Rohrabacher, the California Republican who heads the subcommittee, said NASA had little to show for hundreds of millions of dollars spent on rocket and high-speed jet programs that were supposed to lead to a next generation space vehicle.
Representative Bart Gordon of Tennessee, the panel's ranking Democrat, criticized NASA for cutting costs in 2001 by shelving plans to build an emergency return spacecraft called the X-38, and now proposing to develop a new space plane for the same job that is likely to cost much more. "NASA hasn't yet convinced me that the orbital space plane should be our main transportation goal for the next decade," he said. "There are still too many unanswered questions surrounding the program."
The agency wants to spend $2.4 billion through 2007 on defining and developing technology for the space plane, money that would be reallocated from a program to develop new rockets. By then, NASA says, it will have a firm idea of what the ship will do, how to build it, how many are needed and what they will cost.
The agency, stung by criticism of its cost and accounting performance, refuses to estimate the program's cost until its initial studies are done. But outside aerospace experts estimate a cost of $9 billion to $12 billion.
Frederick Gregory, NASA's deputy administrator, said the agency wanted the space plane to assure access to the space station with less cost, and more safety, than shuttle flights. A craft that can transfer and rescue crews represents a better approach than having separate programs for each purpose, he said. Ultimately, he said, the shuttle will be used only to lift heavy payloads needed to finish the station.
"We believe the O.S.P. system will, in combination with other launch systems, provide the vital human transport capability necessary to retire the shuttle," Mr. Gregory said.
Sean O'Keefe, NASA's administrator, said he wanted industry to use simple off-the-shelf technology for the new system. "We are not trying to push the envelope here," he said. "We are taking the `KISS and tell' approach: Keep It Simple, Stupid, and tell us the best way to get what we need."
The craft will most likely be launched on one of two new expendable rockets developed for the Defense Department, Lockheed Martin's Atlas 5 or Boeing's Delta 4. But what it looks like and how it works is anyone's guess.
NASA's early requirements for the system, simple enough to be printed on a single page, include an ability to carry at least four astronauts, with or without spacesuits; the ability to return an injured or ill crew member within 24 hours; less chance of loss of life than either the shuttle or Russian Soyuz spacecraft; more orbiting maneuverability than the shuttle; and less launching preparation time than the shuttle requires.
In April, NASA awarded $135 million to three competing aerospace groups to work on vehicle concepts, technology development and ground operations. The Boeing Company of Seal Beach, Calif., the Lockheed Martin of Denver and a team including the Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., and Northrop Grumman of El Segundo, Calif., each got $45 million to develop ideas.
Early concepts for the craft released by the contractors and NASA include winged vehicles, bathtub-shaped lifting bodies whose configuration gives them some buoyancy in the air, and even capsules like those used in the early space program.
"We have no preconceived idea of what the ultimate design will be like or if the functions we want will be satisfied by one spacecraft or multiple ones," said Dr. John R. Rogacki, NASA's director of space transportation technology. "We are being very flexible in looking for an alternative way to get people to and from the space station."
Much progress has been made in aerospace technology since the shuttles were built, he said, adding, "So in using technology that is on the shelf or close to it, the space plane will still be an important bridge to a future-generation vehicle."<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Always interesting to see where the next 20 years of space travel looks to be pointed.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->NASA Goes Shopping for a Shuttle Successor, Off the Rack
By WARREN E. LEARY
ASHINGTON, June 30 — It is called a space plane, but it may not be a plane. It is supposed to take over several jobs of the space shuttle, but it is not a shuttle replacement.
It is to be the most modern spaceship designed to carry humans in 30 years, but it is not supposed to use breakthrough technology. It is to be all that it can be, but less.
No one quite knows what the proposed orbital space plane will be, what it will look like, how many people it will carry or how it will operate. But attention is beginning to focus on NASA's new program to bridge the gap between today's shuttles and a next-generation spaceship that may have a mission well beyond Earth's orbit.
Little is known about the new craft because NASA only recently asked private companies for proposals, and the agency has gone out of its way not to be too specific, officials said, to encourage creative thinking.
The future of human spaceflight for the United States lies beyond the aging space shuttle system, but planners and experts with NASA, industry, universities and Congress have yet to agree on what it is.
In the meantime, NASA says, it wants to build the orbital space plane, or O.S.P., to complement the shuttle and play several supporting roles in maintaining the International Space Station. The program calls for producing spacecraft that can rescue crews from the station by 2010, and by 2012 to transfer crews routinely to and from the station.
NASA proposed the new spacecraft in November as part of its Integrated Space Transportation Plan. But everything changed on Feb. 1, when the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry from a research mission, killing its crew of seven. The loss raised doubts about whether and how long the shuttles could continue to operate and focused attention on alternatives.
Losing Columbia put more urgency on the space transportation plan and finding other ways to get to space, said Dr. Jerry Grey, science and technology policy director for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
The new three-part space transportation plan calls for upgrading the shuttle fleet so it can continue to build and support the space station for 12 to 15 more years; building the smaller space plane to serve as a emergency rescue vehicle and to take crews to and from the orbiting outpost; and developing technology that will lead to a vehicle — beyond the space plane — to replace the shuttle.
But because of the Columbia accident, critics are wondering if the plan is still valid. Last month, before the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee of the House Science Committee, several members expressed skepticism about the shuttle and the length of time it should be operated.
One, Representative Joe Barton, Republican of Texas, said that astronauts should never again fly on the shuttle and that NASA should concentrate on a safer replacement.
In their first opportunity to comment on the transportation plan, Democrats and Republicans alike criticized NASA for past failures to replace the shuttles and questioned the wisdom of spending billions of dollars on a new space plane designed primarily to serve the space station.
Representative Dana Rohrabacher, the California Republican who heads the subcommittee, said NASA had little to show for hundreds of millions of dollars spent on rocket and high-speed jet programs that were supposed to lead to a next generation space vehicle.
Representative Bart Gordon of Tennessee, the panel's ranking Democrat, criticized NASA for cutting costs in 2001 by shelving plans to build an emergency return spacecraft called the X-38, and now proposing to develop a new space plane for the same job that is likely to cost much more. "NASA hasn't yet convinced me that the orbital space plane should be our main transportation goal for the next decade," he said. "There are still too many unanswered questions surrounding the program."
The agency wants to spend $2.4 billion through 2007 on defining and developing technology for the space plane, money that would be reallocated from a program to develop new rockets. By then, NASA says, it will have a firm idea of what the ship will do, how to build it, how many are needed and what they will cost.
The agency, stung by criticism of its cost and accounting performance, refuses to estimate the program's cost until its initial studies are done. But outside aerospace experts estimate a cost of $9 billion to $12 billion.
Frederick Gregory, NASA's deputy administrator, said the agency wanted the space plane to assure access to the space station with less cost, and more safety, than shuttle flights. A craft that can transfer and rescue crews represents a better approach than having separate programs for each purpose, he said. Ultimately, he said, the shuttle will be used only to lift heavy payloads needed to finish the station.
"We believe the O.S.P. system will, in combination with other launch systems, provide the vital human transport capability necessary to retire the shuttle," Mr. Gregory said.
Sean O'Keefe, NASA's administrator, said he wanted industry to use simple off-the-shelf technology for the new system. "We are not trying to push the envelope here," he said. "We are taking the `KISS and tell' approach: Keep It Simple, Stupid, and tell us the best way to get what we need."
The craft will most likely be launched on one of two new expendable rockets developed for the Defense Department, Lockheed Martin's Atlas 5 or Boeing's Delta 4. But what it looks like and how it works is anyone's guess.
NASA's early requirements for the system, simple enough to be printed on a single page, include an ability to carry at least four astronauts, with or without spacesuits; the ability to return an injured or ill crew member within 24 hours; less chance of loss of life than either the shuttle or Russian Soyuz spacecraft; more orbiting maneuverability than the shuttle; and less launching preparation time than the shuttle requires.
In April, NASA awarded $135 million to three competing aerospace groups to work on vehicle concepts, technology development and ground operations. The Boeing Company of Seal Beach, Calif., the Lockheed Martin of Denver and a team including the Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va., and Northrop Grumman of El Segundo, Calif., each got $45 million to develop ideas.
Early concepts for the craft released by the contractors and NASA include winged vehicles, bathtub-shaped lifting bodies whose configuration gives them some buoyancy in the air, and even capsules like those used in the early space program.
"We have no preconceived idea of what the ultimate design will be like or if the functions we want will be satisfied by one spacecraft or multiple ones," said Dr. John R. Rogacki, NASA's director of space transportation technology. "We are being very flexible in looking for an alternative way to get people to and from the space station."
Much progress has been made in aerospace technology since the shuttles were built, he said, adding, "So in using technology that is on the shelf or close to it, the space plane will still be an important bridge to a future-generation vehicle."<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Comments
or a big bubble.
(runs and hides)
<a href='http://www.fas.org/spp/guide/usa/launch/x-38.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.fas.org/spp/guide/usa/launch/x-38.htm</a>
cancelled, but it's cheap so they may bring it back, especially since columbia disaster.
(runs and hides) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ever hear of a Harrier, or Helicopter?
Sad to say (from my perspective) NASA and the USA are the only one's with big state funded space programmes. If anyone is going to lower the cost and make reusable rentry vehicles accessible and safe, its them. Go USA.
/edit spelling.
or its dwindling fast or something
i dunno, but theyre not getting nearly enough
maybe if we could divert funds from the education system.... now thats a thought
Good luck getting to Mars.
By the way, there are currently two big organizations which pursue space exploartion with considerable strength: NASA and ESA. It'd maybe be better to cooperate, if only to spread the financial pressure over more shoulders.