Shuttle Successor Flawed, Dangerous (Constellation)

[ReformedChris]

Source: Orlando Sentinel

WASHINGTON - NASA's Constellation program -- the successor to the aging space shuttle -- faces critical problems and might never work as intended, according to a congressional report set for release today.

The report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, ticks off a list of difficult issues, especially with the Ares I rocket, which it said is prone to violent shaking on liftoff and might not have enough power to reach orbit with a capsule full of astronauts.

In fact, according to GAO, the whole project is dogged by such "considerable unknowns" that it is doubtful whether NASA's request for an additional $2 billion during the next two years will be enough to overcome design flaws and speed its development for a first liftoff before 2015.

"We do not know yet whether the architecture and design solutions selected by NASA will work as intended," says the 20-page report, obtained Wednesday by the Orlando Sentinel. It will be presented today at a congressional hearing that is taking a critical look at NASA's plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2020.


Read more: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/orl-nasa0308apr03,0,7779196.story

---

What is it with RePukes and destroying the space program? Nixon's penny pinching killed Apollo and brought us a Space Shuttle where safety was compromised for military desires (Air Force demanded critical changes to shuttle wing design for military launches from California). Reagan brought in a bunch of losers to run NASA in the 80's and put in a terrible beaurocracy that NASA never has recovered from. Dubya brings us Constellation (which is the ONLY program of merit Bu$h has really given us) and it is now flawed. The NASA managers should be ashamed of themselves, this was the first program since Apollo where NASA is taking a step forward instead of meddling in Low Earth Orbit. Hope this problem gets fixed.

[yurbud]

1. gets rec for your commentary even more than article.

[MindMatter]

37. By all means, let's dump $2 billion into Iraq next WEEK

This ain't no "Star wars" program. NASA project have a well documented history of spinning off technologies that AMERICAN companies use to increase AMERICA's competitiveness. Unlike "star wars", space travel is a real thing. We need to replace the space shuttle, and it is a very small price to pay a price equal to one week of the Iraq adventure in order to try to perfect this system to carry our astronauts as safely as we can do it.

[yurbud]

73. and it kills far fewer people than the other stuff defense contractors make

Over 40 years in space, and NASA has barely broken into double digit fatalities? That beats the hell out of most weapons systems.

[Barrett808]

2. Personally, I think the manned space flight program should be abandoned...

...until we get next-generation propulsion that's not based on chemical engines.

The robotic program is so spectacularly successful (and inexpensive) that it's hard to justify the immense quantities of money necessary to keep a few people in low Earth orbit.

[FredStembottom]

4. I agree.

I am old enough to have been in school at a time when astronauts were our heroes and the manned space program was a heartfelt expression of true American virtue. Such feelings never quite go away.

But..... the robots are so spectacularly successful and cost/effective (and nobody dies) and the pictures just as interesting.......

Let's shelve the manned program for awhile and really dig into the robotics. It's win-win-win. :thumbsup:




(oh........ wait......... the manned program has probably been turned into something involving waiting for Jesus in Space while mixing anthrax and listening to cell phone calls. They need people up there.)

[ElboRuum]

15. Soooo....

We're waiting for two generations?

As far as the robotic program's success, have we forgotten the lost mission?

How many failures in space were due to human error during the flight? How many due to human error before the thing even launched?

By this reasoning it is difficult to rate the robotic success vs. manned success as anything but equally spectacular, especially since the mishaps are largely due to engineering mistakes and poor decisions while the vehicle is being built or is on the ground, concerns whether manned or unmanned.

On edit:

Perhaps the cost effectiveness of the robotic missions ARE the future of NASA, but it is the PR value of the manned missions which manages to get it its (ever declining) funding.

[BearSquirrel2]

34. The problem is ...

The problem is ... you can do something cool and that's it. No one cares anymore. The Apollo program was canceled because people lost interest and it was costing an arm and a leg.

The cheapness of robotic missions means you can do a lot more of them. The fact that no one is watching means you can dedicate all your time to science instead of macho PR bullshit. Robots are completely capable of taking rock samples and bringing them back. It's a matter of funding. And the cost of having live humans do it dwarfs the cost of robots by orders of magnitude.

You want Mars?? Get your checkbook out and write 9 zeros. The number that goes in front of it start at one and goes up.

[ElboRuum]

67. So...Lessee...

Macho bullshit, eh? If no one is watching, what's more likely to happen is that you aren't going to get your 9 zeroes because there aren't going to be 9 zeroes. With no manned missions, there's no public interest. No public interest, no reason for these same people who've been cutting the program for years to stop cutting it.

Shit, you'll be lucky to get 3 zeroes without a manned program.

[Syntheto]

19. Here, here!

[Johonny]

22. I agree

[sabbat hunter]

28. for the foreseeable future

We will need chemical based engines (ie solid rocket boosters, Hydgrogen/oxygen liquid fuel) to get us off earth and to other planets.

Until we develop impulse drive or ion drives.

[Plucketeer]

56. I'm with you!

Have a space program. It IS a good thing for all humankind, but now we've even got a robot to do stuff on the outside of the space station.

I'd like to be able to buy a simple American car that would give anything NEAR the service that the Mars Rovers have delivered! And yet, all we're doing is developing quarter Mil a shot artillery shells. To kill fellow humans with. :dunce:<- our leader

[Deep13]

3. Frankly, I think it is time to rethink the whole idea of humans in space.

We are at a point technically where a robot can do anything a human can do in space, but do it better, longer and cheaper. The fact that humans cannot live naturally in space and the fact that they might want to survive the trip adds tremendous costs and complications to any misson.

We still have no idea how to prevent astronauts from being cooked in their own juices once they are exposed to solar radiation beyond the magnetic influence of the Earth. It is only dumb luck that prevented Apollo astronauts from being cooked by a solar flare.

Considering how far in the hole the R.s have put us, there is no way we can afford this anyway. Frankly, I have always assumed Bush's push for more nuclear-propelled human flights into deep space was just a funding vehicle for SDI anyway.

[ReformedChris]

5. I respect and understand the robot sentiment, but nothing beats a pair of trained eyes in the field.

Even with the ability of our probes today, they could still not match the performance of human beings in the field during Apollo. If our probes went to the moon today, even they could not give us the discoveries our astronauts did:

Dave Scott and Jim Irwin discovering the Genesis Rock on Apollo 15, conducting a mission that was a watershed moment in scientific history (People forget Scott and Irwin also brought back green core tubes of glass and even more discoveries). Scientists still use this mission to defend manned space exploration.

Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt had another tremendous moment in Apollo 17 when only by human chance, Orange Soil was found in the Shorty Crater. You can hear the unbridled joy of discovery in their voices "There is ORANGE SOIL HERE!!!, IT"S STILL ORANGE!!!!". The Taurus Littrow field site enhanced our understanding of the moon in a way only a manned mission could have.

John Young and Charlie Duke turned the moon upside down on Apollo 16, proving all of science wrong about Lunar Highlands.


It just comes down to basic human exploration. Humankind must explore and I strongly feel were are destined to be forced to leave this Earth (especially at the rate we are destroying it) at some point. There are an endless number of reasons for us to continue manned exploration, but it comes down to improving life on Earth for me. From the Helium 3 to Massive Telescopes, the moon can help mankind in numerous ways. Our future in my mind, lies in the stars.

[Deep13]

7. I think they can because they are not in a hurry.

I know you are well informed and that this is just a difference of opinion, so I don't want to seem quarrelsome.

The Mars rovers found things of similar significance as the orange soil and the lunar crust chunk. Frankly, every place that astronauts had to hurry past, a robot could have spent a month there. A.17 spent a total of 21 hours in EVA. Everthing they did was rushed. Plus they could not go anywhere that was not within walking distance to the LeM. While A.15-17 showed what people can do up there, A.14 showed how human error can screw things up. Shepard and Mitchell spent two EVAs collecting rocks, but neglected to give sufficient context for what they found. Shepard was under the impression that just getting there was the mission and that collecting rocks was some kind of side show.

I don't think leaving earth will ever be a realistic possibility as long as we are human animals. We are fundamentally terrestrial creatures and saying we should live somewhere else is like suggesting that the great red spot should leave Jupiter.

[ReformedChris]

10. Very Good Points, especially about 14 and Shepard's Glory Flight.

You are also well informed and I greatly respect the robotic probe crowds opinion on the manned programs future. Apollo 14 is a scab on the overall success of Apollo. This is horrible to say, but I wish that Shepard kept Apollo 13 (and the near death experience that it was) before he was rotated out of it for more training and Lovell and Haise were able to land on the moon on Apollo 14 as scheduled originally. Lovell and Haise were RABID about the science of their mission, Lee Silver did a great job getting them ready to explore. Shepard and Mitchell failed miserably and if they took the actual geology more seriously, they would have found Cone Crater in addition to documenting their data properly. There is a long list of commander astronauts that would have done more with the 14 flight than Shepard did. But their failures aside, I must disagree respectfully with you.

While the astronaunts were constantly hurried, they did have the great opportunity of covering a great field site for a wide variety of data. While a probe can offer a lot in the way of data and stay in the same place for months on end, it cannot bring the amount of samples that a human could do. Samples are still a wonderful legacy of Apollo, we were finally able to solve the Moon formation riddle in the 80's because of those samples. Even though John Young's 16 flight was considered "wasted" by many due to Descartes being impact and not volcannicaly derived, they still brought back the largest haul of Anorthosite. Again, only humans could bring this to light. If NASA listened to Jack Schmitt and we landed 18 or 19 at the Lunar North Pole (they were cancelled), we could have the data we need to land at the Lunar Poles with Constellation.

Thanks for a great post on this subject and I love respectful debate about this subject. Without the probe crowd, we never would have had Voyager or many other probe programs. I feel that NASA's LEO hell they have put us in with the Space Shuttle has damaged NASA critically. We have so much to discover in the manned program outside of LEO and NASA's failure to give us a future has allowed Americans to foget how truly wonderful and beneficial the manned program can be.

[BearSquirrel2]

38. When we do go to Mars ...

When Humanity (as a planet) does decide to pull together and reach out, I think Mars HAS to be a terra-forming project from the beginning. We can build clastrophic mole tunnels here on Earth. There is no need to build them on Mars.

The atmosphere must be made suitable for plant life and ultimately, animal life. We are not at a point of technological sophistiction where we could accomplish this. It they can get robots to make rocket fuel on the moon. They can certainly make robots siphon gas off from Neptune and make snowballs. Then the robots could shoot their snowballs at Mars. Likewise, they could play planetary pinball and perturb asteroids into Mars. The point, increase the mass and the density of its atmosphere so it can better sustain transplanted Terran life.

[BearSquirrel2]

35. Better robots ...

That just means we need better robots. And they're getting good. Even the most sophisticated bling robot will be a fraction of the cost of a manned mission.

BTW, I think we should invent a sustainable reactor for Helium-3 before we start making plans to mine it. The conversion rate will greatly influence the sustainability of sending it back ... presumably by robots.

[ElboRuum]

14. Actually by making the point you make, you make the opposite.

"We still have no idea how to prevent astronauts from being cooked in their own juices once they are exposed to solar radiation beyond the magnetic influence of the Earth."

OK. And precisely how long would we still have no idea if we simply resigned ourselves to the idea of "no humans in space?" A long time to never?

I would wager that the draw of space travel is in the human experience rather than the science. How many people who watched the Apollo missions on TV when they were happening really cared much about the discovery of a specific rock on the moon which pretty much confirms that it was once a part of the Earth? Not many. How many children grew up during this time and said "I wanna do that!!!" Very many.

[Deep13]

23. You seem to be suggesting that there is no reason to explore space at all.

I know that's not what you mean. It does illustrate why we need to be clear on what our purpose for all this really is.

[ElboRuum]

68. Why climb a mountain?

Because it is there.

Look, unless you're going to go to places of interest, there IS no point to it.

We can send our probes everywhere we want and do some science, because we are SOOOO interested in Saturn's upper atmospheric composition. Maybe there is life under the miles of Europan ice.

Fucking whoopee if our collective human experience will be remote photos and telemetry data.

If there's life out there, don't we want to go meet it?

If there's something beautiful and extraordinary out there, don't we want to see it with our own naked eyes?

Have we grown so cynically pragmatic that we've forgotten that a little adventure might be good for the soul?

[Xithras]

27. You're incorrect about the "better" part.

It's been pointed out several times, even by NASA itself, that all of the exploration and science completed by the rovers since 2004 could have been completed by a couple of humans in about a month. There have also been a number of situations where researchers have wished that they could turn over rocks, dig a little, etc, but were prevented from doing so because of the limitations of the robot.

There are plenty of people who would willingly accept the health risks in return for the chance to explore another planet. If they want to do so, let them.

[Deep13]

32. Frankly, my concern is the cost, not the physical risks.

Even if what you say is true, the fact remains that what the Rovers have done since 2004 costs a small fraction of what a month of human exploration would cost. And these rovers were intended to be little more than a feasibility study to see if it is worth the effort to send really sophisticated models in the future. Obviously, a robot can't do anything it is not engineered to do, but humans have limitations too and they are pretty substantial.

I heard or read somewhere that if a coronal mass ejection (not a rare event) or a powerful flare erupted while astronauts were on the moon, they might have made it back to Earth to die in bed, but probably not. There simply has to be a way to protect astronauts from this before they can go anywhere.

[Xithras]

36. There are two ways to protect them.

The first is an interior chamber, and is included in most plans for human Mars exploration. We'll see CME's long before they can hit a spacecraft, giving the crew time to grab cover for a few hours until it passes. Gamma ray bursts can be shielded against too, and a rapidly reacting crew can dive for cover before any real damage is done. In the case of a gamma ray burst, they may have to stay in the shielded room a little longer.

The second option is a water jacket. Several researchers have already demonstrated that wrapping the spacecraft in a 36" thick water jacket is sufficient to shield it. This can be as simple as storing the water and waste tanks along the outer hull. Three to four feet of water would be enough to stop any radiation they're likely to see. If done this way, the crew won't even need to be aware of exterior radiation spikes.

Solutions are there, but both options do increase launch weight.

By the way, the Apollo astronauts were in primitive spacecraft without any safety gear and a hull as thin as tin foil in spots. A well placed grain of sand could have taken it out. Comparing modern spacecraft to the Apollo crew vehicles is like comparing a Winnebago to a Model T. They both burn gas and drive, but beyond that they're so different that they cannot be reasonably contrasted to each other. We'd never launch something like that today because it's just too dangerous. Any modern craft is going to have redundant self-sealing hulls, emergency escape rooms, an exercise gym, a library, etc.

[Deep13]

42. I see.

Apollo did an awful lot with very little. I knew about the aluminum foil. I heard when the LeM was pressurized, the whole thing puffed out like a balloon--even the windows! Waste disposal that consisted of a plastic bag that got taped to ones ass seems a bit rustic too.

[BearSquirrel2]

39. Are you paying???

There are plenty of people who would willingly accept the health risks in return for the chance to explore another planet. If they want to do so, let them.

So long as they pay the bill, they're welcome to go! I don't take kindly to financing other people's $2 trillion joyrides.

BTW, the solution is to just build a better robot. The limitation is the payload capacity of the vehicle based on the financing of the project. You can double the payload at 8 times the cost for a robot. OR you could go 16x the payload for a manned mission at 2056x the cost.

You choose.

[galledgoblin]

69. we stop wasting money on this war, our backwards domestic infrastructure

and any one of a hundred other idiotic policies, we'd be able to pay for all the neglected necessities and have more than enough left over for cool stuff that advances humanity like NASA.

[BearSquirrel2]

76. Neglected necessities like ...

Yes, neglected necessities like healthcare and education. Manned space flight is not a necessity. Manned space flight is not a "step forward" in managing a prosperous, clean happy planet.

[liberal N proud]

6. Maybe they shouldn't have destroyed those Apollo Rocket plans

They destroyed the plans for Apollo after the program was discontinued because they didn't want anyone to go back to them. Now they are re-inventing the wheel and the same geniuses who flew to the moon with a slide rule are not involved.

[FredStembottom]

9. I bet somebody's got copies in a box in their rec-room somehwere.

;-)

[progressoid]

21. Rec-room. heh heh heh

[FredStembottom]

70. OMG - that picture is the platonic

ideal of a Rec-room!

Should be an ashtray or 2 in there, though........

[Dukkha]

54. what plans? the moon landing was a hoax!

get a clue, man! they just want you to think we went to the moon. it was all staged to divert people's focus off Vietnam! :tinfoilhat:

:sarcasm:

[liberal N proud]

60. My mother believes that to this day

[magellan]

8. What is with Repubs and destroying EVERYTHING worthwhile?

We used to be able to DO this sort of thing. Now we can't?

The brain drain at NASA is obvious from this article. Sadly it's no different than all the other scientific fields in this country, where knowledgeable professionals have been driven out by politics and replaced with incompetent RW hacks.

[librechik]

61. If they don't get the glory, they don't wqant anybody else to have it

and a big spending program like that makes Republicans look bad from any angle--unless a bunch of brown people get killed and we get a lot of oil or something for their trouble. The moon? you have got to be kidding!

[Dukkha]

11. by the time they launch China will be on the moon

We deserve the global humiliation for allowing corporate and military bureaucratic influence to ruin what was once the shining beacon of American achievement. It paralleles the RW eco-scientists who can be bought by corporate influence to claim global warming isn't real.

My fiance's mother is an engineer at Cape Canaveral who worked on the Atlas V rocket and she hates what the current administration has done to the science community.

[BearSquirrel2]

40. I welcome them ...

I welcome them to waste their money going to the moon. Better to spend money on moon missions than Aircraft carriers as far as our adversaries are concerned.

For those who think China will invent mass drivers and bombard us from their planetary moon base, ... even if they accomplished this, we can still just nuke them in retaliation. MAD still works in the age of science fiction.

[LTR]

12. So now we're back to using multi-stage rockets?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Constellation

Conventional wisdom would dictate that the Shuttle's successor would expand on the reusable aircraft idea. This looks like the Apollo program. Then again, Apollo did get us to the moon. I guess this will work better in some situations.

I think some of the more interesting stuff is happening in the private sector. Look what people like Richard Branson are accomplishing.

[Xithras]

30. Conventional wisdom would be wrong on that.

Winged spacecraft are more efficient, safer, and cheaper to build. Until there's a leap in propulsion technology (allowing runway launches), there is no point in having wings.

[BearSquirrel2]

41. What part was reusable ...

They constantly replaced pretty much every part of the aircraft except the frame. Exactly WHAT part was reusable to a reliable degree?

[1776Forever]

13. Remember this - X-33 - Cost 1.5 Billion to the tax payer - Let's get it right this time!

As someone who retired from NASA aerospace industry I remember this plan well.

http://www.fas.org/spp/guide/usa/launch/x-33.htm

X-33 VentureStar

The Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) Technology Program is a partnership between NASA and industry to design a new generation of launch vehicles expected to dramatically lower the costs of putting payloads in space. On August 5, 1994, President Clinton issued the National Space Transportation Policy and designated NASA as the Lead Agency for advanced technology development and demonstration of the next generation of RLVs.

In July 1996, NASA selected Lockheed Martin Skunk Works of Palmdale CA to design, build and test the X-33 experimental vehicle for the RLV program. The selected team consists of Lockheed-Martin (lead by the Skunk Works in Palmdale, CA), Rocketdyne (Engines), Rohr (Thermal Protection Systems), Allied Signal (Subsystems), and Sverdrup (Ground Support Equipment), and various NASA and DoD laboratories. NASA has budgeted $941 million for the X-33 program through 1999. Lockheed Martin will invest at least $212 million in its X-33 design.

......

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/content/?cid=4180

The X-33 VentureStar was highly criticized as a chunky flying fuel tank with little to offer once the satellite launch business diluted between several regular and proven launch systems around the world.

But for those that worked on the X-33, the pure complexity of the new system - and the chain reactions felt from issues and bad decisions such as the heavy engine ramps to the resulting need for the low weight of the LH2 tank - to the lack of options open to use a solution for the LH2 tank failures, turned her from a potential leap in space vehicle technology, to one that became a $1.5 billion white elephant to the tax payer.

..........

Is this new Constellation plan going to cost us the same? I sure hope not! Let's get it right before investing that kind of money! We need to stay competitive in space but not loose our treasure in doing it!

[Mustellus]

16. It was BushCo...

...who literally put a wrecking ball through the X-33 in the hangar, literally during Bush's inauguration parade! Literally!

This made the world safe again for expendable rockets, which can cost upwards of $200 million a copy, and can only be used once. And they are less reliable, since they've never been flight tested... that copy, that is.

The fuel tank was Bush's cover lie. The tank failed during a repeated fill / vibrate to simulate launch / drain and warm test. In other words, a test that would only be needed for a reusable launch vehicle. An aluminum / lithium tank would have been the fallback position, but Bushco lied, and made the tank the scapegoat.

We lost a great opportunity to explore the boundaries of reusable launch vehicles here, all to keep Lockheed and others rolling in expendable cash. 'Cause if reusable launch vehicles worked, the worldwide demand would be for... _two_ of them. One to fly, one as the spare.

As I've worked in the space business for my whole adult life, I know whereof I speak.

[1776Forever]

43. Interesting - I know Al Gore was very high on this X-33 plan - link.......

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/missions/x33_cancel_010301.html

NASA Shuts Down X-33, X-34 Programs
By Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
01 March 2001

Unveiled in July 1996 by then U.S. Vice President Al Gore and still-on-assignment NASA Administrator, Daniel Goldin, the pilotless X-33 was slated to rocket skyward on the first of a series of suborbital test hops three years later.

The X-33 design is based on a lifting-body shape with two novel "linear aerospike" rocket engines and a rugged metallic thermal protection system. The X-33 also features lightweight components and fuel tanks built to conform to the vehicle's outer shape.

[BearSquirrel2]

44. The only remotely feasible concept ...

The requirements of getting to orbit is the SAME with ANY chemical rocket solution. Our "reusable" systems ended up being more expensive.

The only feasible paradigm shift I've seen are high orbit space planes combined with orbital launch vehicles and the space elevator concept.

[kestrel91316]

26. I think I know the guy behind the X-33.

Gonna google to refresh my memory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Urie
Yep, that's him. I know Dave and his wife pretty well. They were kitty clients of mine (GREAT pet owners!!) in So Cal but moved up north a few years ago. I get letters all the time. He's not with those people in OK anymore (was commuting there to work with some private space travel outfit). He was with Lockheed when I first knew him.

VERY nice people, BTW.

[1776Forever]

47. I met some of the Skunk Works guys in St Louis in 1997. They were great people!

:hi:

[kestrel91316]

63. I also know the first pilot to crash a Blackbird, lol. And in retrospect I am guessing

he probably knows Dave Urie very well.

Ken Collins - his name just came back to me. He's still in the area, but his kitty passed on, and his wife too, IIRC, so haven't seen him in a while.

http://roadrunnersinternationale.com/collins.html
http://www.blackbirds.net/sr71/sr-timeline/srtl60.html
"...24 May 1963 - First loss A-12 art.#123/#6926 crashed near Wendover, UT; Ken Collins ok, pitched up and became inverted during subsonic flight (AM1; LSB; SME; BB)....."

[whistle]

17. Another republican administration under Dwight D Eisenhower allowed

...America to fall way behind the Russians in the 1950s missile space program with Sputnik, the Russian dog in space and Russia's first to put a man in space. Then Eisenhower got smart and took the space program away from the military followed by JFK giving NASA over to civilian control. Then after Nixon took power in 1969 he returned the military to be share control of NASA and it eventually followed with Reagan that the military assumed full control where it has remained ever since.

Now we face new challenges with China coming to the forefront in space and America weaponizing space for the ulitmate destruction of humanity.

<snip>
China's Space Program: A Strategic and Political Analysis
By Rosita Dellios (1)


A Nuclear Beginning

On a winter's day in 1955 the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Mao Zedong, addressed an enlarged meeting of the Politburo's Central Secretariat. At issue was whether the People's Republic of China (PRC) should become a nuclear power. There had been preliminary feasibility studies, and Chairman Mao pointed out that China possessed uranium deposits and rudimentary atomic technology. If the scientific community worked hard, he believed China could succeed. The meeting passed a resolution to proceed with the program. It was codenamed '02'.(2) To hasten the program Soviet assistance was sought and obtained, though the Sino-Soviet split of the early 1960s terminated this arrangement and China developed nuclear weapons independently. The first atomic test occurred in 1964 at a test site in Lop Nor in China's Northwest. The device was called '596' - short for 20 June 1959, the date that the Soviets denied China a prototype nuclear bomb.(3)

An integral part of the program was the development of aviation and rocket technology for the construction of the nuclear warhead delivery systems. In May 1956, it was decided at a meeting of the Central Military Commission to set up a missile research institute, the Fifth Academy of the Ministry of National Defence. The following year, 1957, the Soviet Union launched an artificial earth satellite, Sputnik I, into orbit. It was a world first and indicated the Soviet Union's mastery of heavy rocket propulsion, a precursor to intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability. Not only were the Americans spurred into action by this perceived 'missile gap', redoubling their space technology efforts, so were the Chinese. "We also want to make artificial satellites," Mao proclaimed at the Eighth Congress of the CCP in May 1958.(4) The Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Fifth Academy organised the scientific expertise in this field to come up with a long-term plan for satellite development.(5)

Venturing into the Politics of Power

Thus China's space program was instigated in the 1950s by a decision to acquire nuclear weapons. The political reasons behind this decision were driven by the twin imperatives of territorial defence and national prestige. CCP Secretary General, Deng Xiaoping, who was later to play his most important policy role in introducing market-driven reforms and opening China to the world, addressed the matter succinctly. "The Soviet Union has the atom bomb. Where does the significance lie?" he asked in 1957. "It lies in the fact that the imperialists are afraid of it. Are the imperialists afraid of us? I think not . . . The United States stations its troops on Taiwan because we have no atom bombs or guided missiles."(6)

The US had demonstrated its nuclear capability - and the will to use it - the previous decade. While such a demonstration on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was to China's benefit by ending Japanese aggression, it was a cause of concern for 'Red China' in the subsequent Korean War of 1950-1951 and the two Taiwan Straits Crises (1954-55 and 1958). The use of nuclear weapons against China had been contemplated at the highest levels and nuclear-capable weapons systems were deployed in Taiwan.(7) Mao's 'paper tiger' thesis aside,(8) the US 'imperialists' were viewed as posing a threat to China.

<snip>


Conclusion: Historical Continuities

China has taken its place at the forefront of spacefaring nations: it joins only the United States and Russia in operating an independent manned space program. As a developing country this is a major feat. Moreover, its space program is a full-spectrum, comprehensive concept. From microsatellites to manned space missions, from satellite and rocket design to launch capabilities, it spans both civilian and military requirements. Such ambition may see a Chinese astronaut landing on Mars, though the likelihood is that the Mars mission will be undertaken in the company of other nations.

While China has come a long way since 1955 when the nuclear program was approved, certain themes remain. The first and foremost is that the primary threat is still the United States. The young People's Republic feared for its survival in the face of US nuclear power. Today too, Major General Zhu Chenghu, Commandant and Professor at the College of Defence Studies at China's National Defence University, points out that the US has designated nuclear targets east of Xian. In the event of a war breaking out between China and the US over Taiwan, he has told foreign visitors on two occasions in 2005 that: "We will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all the cities East of Xian."(74) He reminded his audience of China's nuclear targeting capacity on US cities. This disturbed post-Cold War sensibilities, and was not accorded official status by the Chinese Department of Foreign Affairs but treated as a private view. The deterrent threat it makes, however, is valid and in keeping with Deng Xiaoping's warning back in 1957 about the significance of nuclear weapons. Deterrence - the ability to frighten the adversary against taking action detrimental to one's territorial integrity - is as desirable in the 21st century as it was in the 1950s.

Just as the nuclear deterrent retains its logic, so too does the space program's service to military aims. Space has become crucial in future warfare. Thus while the space program was the handmaiden to the nuclear project in the fifties, half a century later it would give China's military its high-tech edge. That which remains the same is the element of deterrence. It may be postulated that through the guerilla warfare method of surprise attack on American satellites, plus Chinese survivability and flexibility in space through the operation of distributed systems (nanosatellites), an asymmetrical deterrence becomes possible.

Another factor that has not changed is the climate of great power competition. The United States occupies its place as the new Rome of global politics and China has not lost its sense of historical greatness. In other words, one cultivated its 'manifest destiny' to be great, the other its 'Mandate of Heaven' to be central. American exceptionalism continues to collide with realist policy.(75) Chinese state power will continue to prevail, with or without the Communist Party. If today the East is not particularly red in the ideological sense it is increasingly Chinese in geopolitical terms. China is a rising economic and military power with an expanding presence in regional diplomacy. Even the old triangular relationship has re-emerged with a return of Russian mentoring of China's capabilities. Russian assistance for the Chinese space program has been considerable and by 2005 a joint program for deep space exploration was signed - together with a pledge to pursue multipolarity. This means a diminished American leadership role. If the historical tide is to turn yet again, American realism may rendezvous with Chinese idealism in space cooperation. When Washington realizes it needs to concentrate on allies more than enemies, and Beijing decides that the world is truly a unity of diverse nations, or datong, in classical parlance(76), then both parties could give cause for a more auspicious reading of space. Instead of becoming the new strategic battleground between East and West, space could provide a lesson for cooperation on Earth.

<much more> http://www.international-relations.com/CM7-1WB/ChinasSpaceWB.htm

[backscatter712]

18. Welfare for defense contractors.

It is actually in the defense contractor's interest to either make a product that barely works, or doesn't work.

Efficient, cost-effective programs don't generate the big profits. It costs them money to do it right, and they can't pull in the big margins if their profits are restricted to a fixed percentage.

It's a more profitable business model to lobby your projects through Congress, dick around for years, squander the money while funneling some of it to the executives, then lobby for more money, lather, rinse, repeat. That's your basic defense-contractor cost spiral. It's why it costs two billion (yes, with a B) dollars for a single B-2 bomber.

[sabbat hunter]

20. the current space shuttle fleet

are at the end of their operational lifespan and need to be replaced.


The air force redesigns did not compromise safety.


They cut back on Apollo due to budgetary constraints plus a lack of real need to keep flying apollo missions to the moon. They had done the research that they had planned on, and more really. they proved that we could get to the moon and back succesfully, use devices like the lunar lander etc.

The offshoot of the Apollo mission, Skylab, proved that man can stay in space for extended periods. We see those results now with the ISS.

It is not a shock that this program is behind schedule, as most space related programs seem to have that problem

[ReformedChris]

25. The USAF need of a 1000 mile abort range from Edwards resulted in a much larger wing for the shuttle

The Thermal Shield needed to be larger to meet that USAF demand and we all know the thermal shield failed on Columbia. Having that much thermal shielding was a dangerous and expensive addition for the shuttle. Max Faget had a much smaller, conventional wing design that would have served the shuttle just as well. Most of the NASA Managers at the time were on board with Faget's design (Including Deke Slayton, who was in charge of the ALT Program). It came down to the USAF being involved in a program they wanted nothing to do with and making demands that NASA had no choice to meet (the wing being one of them).

Don't get me wrong, the Columbia disaster is not the Air Force's fault, but it just shows how this program was mismanaged from the beginning. Same thing with the number of Astronauts on a shuttle flight. If they kept the crews down to 4 instead of sticking 7 on board in order to prevent the mission damaged by SAS (Space Adaptation Syndrome) sickness, they could have kept the Ejection Seats on the shuttle (First 5 flights had the Ejection Seats). Ejection Seats that could have possibly saved the Challenger crew if NASA was a little more creative and less beaurocratic.

[sabbat hunter]

62. ejection seats

sadly would not have saved the Challenger crew. It blew up, with very little warning or notice to the crew. There was an "uh oh" right before it blew up.

Even with the ejector seats, the were not designed to be used in mid launch like that. They were designed to be used if there was a problem on the launch pad so that the crew could be ejected free of the shuttle, or if there was a problem on final approach to the landing strip.

In mid launch the body would be subject to extremely high G forces plus altitude issues. Same goes with decent. Given the altitude that the Columbia broke up, it is unlikely they would have saved that crew either, if they even had enough warning to use them.

[eringer]

24. Constellation was to be the Bushco legacy

Bush pushed for the Constellation. I will not mourn its passing. Right now, to satisfy our future energy needs, we need to mine He3 from the moon using cheap rockets and existing robotics (like the Chinese plan to do). Further exploration of the Galaxy is not due until April 4, 2063, when Zephran Cochran will pilot the Phoenix powered by the warp drive engines he will invent.

[bushmeister0]

29. Moonbase Alpha: Moondoggle?

When W. announced his grand space plans he said: "It’s time for America to take the next step...The moon is a logical step toward further progress and achievement" Of course, in Bush speak that means the exact opposite. We've alread been to the moon.

I saw this interesting article regarding alternatives to going to the moon and things we might to be wanting to asking Hillary and Obama about their space plans.

Aviation Week reported in Jan.

"Some of the most influential leaders of the space community are quietly working to offer the next U.S. president an alternative to President Bush's "vision for space exploration"--one that would delete a lunar base and move instead toward manned missions to asteroids along with a renewed emphasis on Earth environmental spacecraft.

Top U.S. planetary scientists, several astronauts and former NASA division directors will meet privately at Stanford University on Feb. 12-13 to define these sweeping changes to the NASA/Bush administration Vision for Space Exploration (VSE).

Abandoning the Bush lunar base concept in favor of manned asteroid landings could also lead to much earlier manned flights to Mars orbit, where astronauts could land on the moons Phobos or Deimos.

Their goals for a new array of missions also include sending astronauts to Lagrangian points, 1 million mi. from Earth, where the Earth's and Sun's gravity cancel each other out and spacecraft such as replacements for the Hubble Space Telescope could be parked and serviced much like Hubble.

The 'alternate vision' the group plans to offer would urge far greater private-sector incentives to make ambitious human spaceflight plans a reality."

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/ASTER01188.xml&headline=Space%20Leaders%20Work%20To%20Replace%20Lunar%20Base%20With%20Manned%20Asteroid%20Missions&channel=space

Naturally, if the next president decides to go another way, away from the moon, that would upset Bushco's plans for building a firebase on the moon to ward off aliens, as Paul Hellyer, the former Canadian Minister for National Defense, warns.

http://www.exopolitics.org/Exo-Comment-38.htm

In his speech in 2004 Bush said: "Human beings are headed into the cosmos." With him that could be taken a few different ways. It could mean we're going to become spacefarers, or it could mean he's just going to blow us all into the cosmos to accomplish his messianic mission to save Israel from Iran.

[ramapo]

31. Just one more total FU to add to the list

It is genuinely mind-boggling to think how the United States destroyed the most incredibly successful technical enterprise of all time, the US space program of the 1960s. How could we have squandered the 35 years since during which we might've made any number of incredible space voyages. No question, the Mars rovers and other unmanned missions have been amazingly successful but our manned program is a joke. We will wind up watching the Chinese walking on the Moon before we figure out how to recover what we learned 45 years ago.

[BearSquirrel2]

46. So what ...

So what ... Watching astronauts prance on the moon is only interesting for so long. Then you get the bill in the mail. I'd rather the Chinese pay that bill out of the money we send them via Wal-Mart. We don't need any additional expenses.

[BearSquirrel2]

33. The Space Shuttle ...

The space shuttle was designed to be a platform vehicle that would "look" like a spaceship. But they needed a vehicle that you could perform orbital experiments so you could cost justify the program with junk science. Then you have to add in the need for astronauts to do "spacey" things like putting satellites in and out of orbit when launching them on rockets would be WAAAY cheaper.

Sure, they did fix the hubble space telescope. But considering that's one of a few things they ever really did using the capacity it would have been far cheaper just to build a new telescope and launch it on a cheap rocket.

The Lunar and Mars manned programs are a waste of money. Why would anyone want to travel months in space so they can live in a whole. If you want to colonize anything, colonize Antarctica. It's warmer than both Mars and Luna and there's an abundance of water. Bonus ... a breathable atmosphere that you can crawl out of your whole into.

I'm very confident that if we ever see "the big one" coming, humanity can dig deep holes stocked with potable water, water purification, a couple nuclear reactors, hydroponic caves ... etc... and live out a decade underground (minus 99.8% of their friends). Such a whole would cost tenths of pennies on a dollar and climging out of your whole to repopulate the Earth is a hell of a lot easier than traveling 8 solar minutes.

Space travel should reserved for dedicated, lifetime career professionals ... robots.

[1776Forever]

50. Your argument makes financial sense since this came out last month about China........

China's space development can pose military threat: Japan

Space Daily by Staff Writers
Tokyo (AFP) March 26, 2008

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Chinas_space_development_can_pose_military_threat_Japan_999.html

A Japanese defense ministry think-tank has warned that China's space program could pose a military threat to other countries. The review, released on Thursday, also said China is likely to continue its space development program "as a vital means of achieving military competitiveness against the United States."

"The organizations engaged in China's space development have strong ties to the People's Liberation Army and a considerable number of its satellites are presumably intended for military purposes," the National Institute for Defense Studies said in an annual strategic review of East Asia.

China launched a space probe in October as part of an ambitious exploration program that has included successes with man-made satellites and manned space flights. The think-tank said the program had the "effect of raising national prestige."

It added that China's test in January last year to shoot down an object in space -- its own weather satellite -- had fueled military concerns.

"Missiles can destroy not only US artificial satellites but also Japanese intelligence-gathering satellites," the review said. "The possibility has emerged that the cluster of satellites will come under a great threat when international tension heightens."

[BearSquirrel2]

51. Killer Satellites ...

Killer Satellites have nothing to do with a moonbase.

[1776Forever]

52. I meant for the financial aspect of spending on a moonbase & forgeting the threat

I agree with that but there is only going to be a certain pool of money especially for the next few years. The U.S. will have to make some choices between the two or how much to spend on each. But I think we need to keep an eye on the Chinese space program and how they are putting it together.

[BearSquirrel2]

64. Let them howl at the moon

:popcorn:

I watch with baited breath as China wastes there money on a moonbase.

[PATRICK]

45. Neocons and technology and

well, just about anything. primary goal: make money extravagantly in building the tools of empire while destroying the base of democracy. The math however means destroying reality and hopefully, their plans before everything goes into the can.

What about Cheney's space plans? None of that, not a single idea has anything to do with science. He wanted warships capable of satellite destruction and other fine earthward aimed offensive capabilities. Well, they ran out of dough to boondoggle so the typically (useful for glutted profits) wasteful way they go about anything seems to have given them a setback. And the poster is correct. This is yet another totally consistent Bush dreamchild that was always meant to be Rosemary's baby. Mars and Moon were always smokescreens for the Cheney sci-fi Darth vader intentions. Always lies, always fake, always treated with 100% legitimacy by the fawning, deliberately dense news media. Same as NCLB, Homeland Security, etc. ad nauseam. All of these things were eventually meant to turn out like our military.

The army a minor tool for conquest outnumbered by Blackwater and leaning heavily on a nuclear arsenal blackmail with a drooling ape of a neocon at the pushbuttons. The public(finances, health and education utterly ruined), even worse, and topped by the enforced delusions of a MSM controlled by a few more drooling barons. that is why we face no real election this fall, but in effect a revolution disguised as routine democracy against a vicious RW coup.

But the beat goes on.

[tinrobot]

48. Just buy some Soyuz hardware.

Reliable, cheap, proven.

Why reinvent the wheel?

[tocqueville]

57. see my post below n/t

[AntiFascist]

49. 2$ billion is a drop in the bucket, compared to Iraq n/t

[tocqueville]

53. meanwhile, largely unreported in US media....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7328816.stm

Europe's sophisticated new space truck, the ATV, has docked with the International Space Station (ISS).

The unmanned vessel carries just under five tonnes of food, water, air, fuel and equipment for the orbiting platform's three astronauts.

The Automated Transfer Vehicle used its own computerised systems to make the attachment at 1445 GMT.

Ground control and the ISS crew were on alert just in case there was a problem - but it was a textbook docking.


http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/ATV/index.html
_________________________________________________________________________________

this is of course no current replacement for the shuttle. But developments of the ATV could bring people to the station :

ATV evolution scenarios

With a mass of around 21 tonnes at launch and up to 9 tonnes of onboard propellants and payload, the Automated Transfer Vehicle is the largest orbiting space vehicle besides the US Space Shuttle.

The ATV is unique in combining both the full automatic capabilities of an unmanned vehicle able to rendezvous and dock on its own, and the human spacecraft safety requirements when it is docked to the ISS. Its 48 m³ pressurised cabin section represents the internal volume of a mid-size bus.

The Space Shuttle will retire and will be out of service in 2010. Cargo return to Earth will be limited to only a few kilos using the Russian Soyuz capsules. The ATV is an excellent basis for developing a wide variety of new space vehicles whose evolution can go from simple to complex projects.

http://www.esa.int/esaMI/ATV/SEMNFZOR4CF_2.html

[balantz]

55. Perhaps the space missions will be more profitable

run from another country.

Maybe this is just a hint of shifting things elsewhere.

[Zachstar]

58. Everyone! A grassroots effort has been trying to gain support for a better rocket

http://www.directlauncher.com/

PLEASE contact the Obama and Clinton campaigns and urge them to support the Direct launcher!!

[sam sarrha]

59. and they are laying off 8000 NASA technicians.. that will be hard to imposable to replace, with 50%

HS dropout rate, and a bottom line state collage 4 yr degree costing over $30,000.. no jobs when they get out.. no financial aid for the poor.

[shireen]

65. but why reinvent the wheel?!

If I remember correctly, they used to have a powerful and safe rocket. It was called Saturn V, which successfully carried 18 men to the moon.

Rocket science has matured enough to the point where there should not be such weird technical difficulties. The Russian manned space program has a stable workhorse that regularly transports astronauts to Mir. The Ariane rockets by ESA are a popular means to get satellites into orbit. NASA, for that matter, still uses some outstanding rockets for launching satellites and probes, like the Atlas V. So it is pretty puzzling that Constellation is plagued with so many problems.

:shrug:

[Laelth]

72. It's called graft.

Design money can be more easily stolen. You have to provide a real product when you sell old, reliable models. It's much harder to steal from "we, the people" with the old stuff.

... just a thought.

-Laelth

[Codedonkey]

66. Looks like China will be the first country with a REAL space program afterall.

[Laelth]

71. That's just how Republicans see government.

It is a vehicle for maintaining power and enriching one's friends. It doesn't have to work for the people. If it makes you and your buddies rich, it works well enough.

:puke:

-Laelth


Edit:Laelth--idiom.

[Vidar]

74. "What is it with RePukes and destroying the space program?" They kill hope:

hope for today with their support of thieving monopolist; hope for tomorrow by eviscerating the space program.

[leftofthedial]

75. repukes ALWAYS destroy everything

except their own bank accounts and those of their cronies

[Phoonzang]

77. **NASA solves rocket flaw **

Or at least they claim to:

http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_NASA_Solves_Important_Rocket_Flaw_15967.html

I don't see why we can't just use the Direct Launcher, but I guess daddy doesn't get his sugar that way. By Daddy I mean the aerospace companies building the new rocket.

[guitar man]

78. The Constellation, my gods, man...

Don't they pay attention to anything? Don't they know how the Constellation ends up? :shrug:

[Barrett808]

79. Heh. Always good to run into a TOS geek.

:toast:

[guitar man]

80. yep

there's only one Star Trek for us old buggers :toast: