DailyTech - International Space Updates, September 2007

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Science International Space Updates, September 2007
Michael Hoffman (Blog) - September 18, 2007 2:17 PM

13 comment(s) - last by JonnyDough.. on Sep 30 at 4:55 AM

Shuttle Discovery needs an unexpected repair; a Russian space craft will become the latest craft in the spaceship cemetery; and NASA is again ready to launch Dawn

An unexpected but necessary repair to the NASA shuttle Discovery landing gear may force the U.S. space agency to delay the scheduled October 23 launch of the shuttle. NASA flight engineers concluded that at least one leaking seal on the landing gear must be fixed, with repairs slated to begin Wednesday morning. Engineers originally tried to stop the hydraulic fluid leak without replacing the seal, but all attempts were unsuccessful. NASA will now wait to do several more studies before announcing if the shuttle launch must be delayed.

In a much brighter news release from NASA, there are now five scheduled spacewalks scheduled for the Discovery crew. NASA is working desperately to try and complete construction on the aging International Space Station.

Russia's Progress M-60 cargo spacecraft is scheduled to leave the ISS tomorrow before temporarily turning into a mobile research lab. After several days floating in orbit, Russian flight control managers will command Progress to begin its final descent to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere during re-entry.

"The Progress M-60 spacecraft will be undocked from the ISS at 4:37 a.m. Moscow time (0:37 a.m. GMT) on September 19, but will not leave orbit immediately, and will become a temporary research lab," a Russian space official said.

Whatever parts of the shuttle that do not burn up will inevitably become a part of the Pacific Ocean's spaceship cemetery.

A NASA press release issued in July reported the NASA Dawn spacecraft would launch in September due to a crowded launch schedule over the summer. NASA recently said that the scheduled September 26 launch will take place as planned, and the shuttle is now safely secured to its Delta II launch rocket.

The Dawn mission will help investigate Ceres and Vesta, two large floating objects that are said to be “two of the first bodies formed in the solar system.” Both objects are floating in an asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars.

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Shuttle repair.

By Misty Dingos on 9/18/2007 3:51:44 PM , Rating: 3

quote:
NASA will now wait to do several more studies

Repair the freaking landing gear! So they can light this candle! I mean BLEEEP what is so BLEEPing hard about this? What study are they going to do?

An imagined conversation with a new hire in the shuttle repair facility and his boss.
"This is going to be so cool! Hi boss what do you want me to do today?"
"This is very important. We want you to sit here under the wing and count the drops of hydralic fluid that seep out from the landing gear seal. Here is your MLG HF Leak Table. Here is your blue pen. Do not use a black pen or we will have to redo the study."
"How long will I have to do this study?"
"No more than one week, well it could be two or three."
Boss leaves.
New hire mutters to himself. "I have two engineering degrees and I am watching a shuttle take a leak."

It is an aircraft landing gear. Take the thing off the A/C and repair it. Test it. Return it to the A/C. No studies needed! BLEEP!

Please god let private industry take over all aspects of space exploration!

RE: Shuttle repair.

By GroBemaus on 9/18/2007 4:19:15 PM , Rating: 2

Yeah, you would think that they would have some replacements for some things laying around. Unbolt the leaky one, put on the new one, launch shuttle.

Then study the leaky one to your hearts content. It's not like it's....nah that one's too easy :)

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RE: Shuttle repair.

By Cygni on 9/18/2007 4:31:11 PM , Rating: 2

Im really, really thankful that you dont run the shuttle program. Spaceflight isnt a joke. It isnt easy. Its not safe, or routine. It is litterally on the edge. One, minor failure can lead to billions in damages. In fact, one more major shuttle failure could mean the end of US manned space flight for the forseable future.

Why are they running studies? This isnt some $2 napa o-ring we are talking about here. Each individual piece is custom built. In short, they are EXPENSIVE. If there is a problem, it needs to be identified before they order a bunch of new landing gear pieces that are useless.

Also, do YOU know what effect leaking oil is going to have in that area of the shuttle in space? What if the leaking oil contaminated other systems? Fluids flying around inside the shuttle while in zero g dont exactly just drip down on the landing gear doors like in airplanes.

In short, they BETTER run some studies if they have found a problem. This isnt a joke. This isnt run of the mill. The tollerances for a single shuttle launch are mind blowingly tight. 1 failure, and the world is changed.

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RE: Shuttle repair.

By masher2

(blog) on 9/18/2007 4:52:53 PM , Rating: 3

> "Spaceflight isnt a joke. It isnt easy. Its not safe, or routine."

Yes. But it could be. In fact, that's exactly what the shuttle was supposed to make spaceflight-- easy, routine, and safe.

What we got instead was a launch system that in many ways is inferior to the much simpler 1960s-era Saturn V. Sure the shuttle added a few capabilities...but it has to be essentially rebuilt from the ground up after each launch. Its incredibly costly, complex, and has a fraction of the S-V's lift capability. It's a monster that only a bureaucracy could design, and only a government could love.

Time to let it die, and replace it with something that actually does what it promises.

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RE: Shuttle repair.

By Cygni on 9/18/2007 5:47:28 PM , Rating: 2

People quite honestly have this picture of space travel that just does not exist. To put it quite simply, this stuff is NOT easy, and it is NOT cheap. Is a fully reusable, single stage to orbit launch vehicle with the flexibility of the current shuttle possible today? Absolutly. Do you think the people of the United States, the European Union, Russia, or any other country willing to spend the astronomical pricetag to build such a ship? No.

And thats the hitch. The Shuttle is expensive, yes. It did not deliver on some of its initial billings, totally true. But put quite simply, it is the most complicated machine ever built by man... the most versitle and capable spacecraft ever produced by man... and most of all, its what we got.

NASA would love to fire up the Venture Star program again, push out a fully next generation spacecraft that would push the boundries of space exploration to new heights... but nobody is going to pay for it. So were getting the horrendous Orion program instead.

I guess what im saying is cut the Shuttle, and NASA, some slack. Great things cost great sums... and great sums is exactly what NASA lacks.

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RE: Shuttle repair.

By masher2

(blog) on 9/18/2007 6:45:41 PM , Rating: 2

> "To put it quite simply, this stuff is NOT easy, and it is NOT cheap"

You're still missing the point. The Shuttle is twice as expensive to operate as the Saturn V, and has less than 1/5 the lift capacity. And Saturn V is 1960s-era technology, which was already developed, built, and paid for.

You rightly point out that NASA has to operate within a budget. All the more reason to spend that money wisely. Instead, NASA has squandered hundreds of billions of dollars to develop and operate a launch platform that is essentially a giant step backwards .

Had we kept the Sat-V instead, we could have built the entire ISS with only 6 launches, at an enormous savings in time and money. We could be using it to launch deep space probes like Cassini and New Horizons, missions the Shuttle cannot handle, forcing us to use missiles with strap-on boosters, which drastically limits probe size, weight, and means much longer transit times.

NASA spends close to 1/3 its entire budget to do nothing but keep the shuttle running. Its become a self-perpetuating bureaucracy, with almost no scientific or commercial benefit. Time to admit it was a failure. Long past time, in fact.

> "it is the most complicated machine ever built by man... "

And that's exactly what's wrong with it. That complexity isn't a positive, its a negative...and it's one of the primary reasons the Shuttle is so expensive to operate.

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RE: Shuttle repair.

By Cygni on 9/19/2007 3:14:27 PM , Rating: 2

I definitly hear what you are saying, but there are some facts that you are overlooking, and they massivly deflate the argument.

First of all is the cost of a Saturn V launch. In 2007 dollars, the per launch cost would be over $1.5 billion for a Saturn V. By the late 90's, cost per launch of the Shuttle was hovering around $500m. If you include R&D expense (something NOT added to the Saturn V totals), you would hit the $1.5b range per launch. But of course, the more you use the shuttle, the more that goes down.

The primary advantage of the Shuttle, as ive attempted to point out, is its flexability. Launch systems like the S5, and unfortunatly Orion, are FAR less flexible in a variety of ways. The service ability of the Shuttle alone outweighs its cost, as it has allowed countless missions to take place that would simply not even be possible with conventional heavy lift systems. It is the ONLY spacecraft ever built with fetch and return capabilities, and the ONLY spacecraft to offer full in orbit catch and release servicing. Is this worth the cost and the trouble? This is where opinion comes in, but in mine? Yes. Yes it is. The Shuttle is NOT used as a true Heavy Lift booster, and nor should it be even looked at in that role.

The Shuttle was not a step back. Is it expensive? Yes, more so than planned. Has it met every goal outlined for it? No, of course not. Is it a capable spacecraft? The most capable every built.

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RE: Shuttle repair.

By JonnyDough on 9/30/2007 4:55:43 AM , Rating: 1

Not sure where you get your info from Masher, but the Space Shuttle is by no means a failure. It has a payload capacity WELL beyond anything else ever seen and can travel further and do so MUCH more comfortably than any tiny capsule ever could. What the shuttle has allowed us to do is to thoroughly test man in space. The shuttle has a much longer trip time and it has helped us learn what the limits are of men in space and other terrestrial life forms. Not only that but in the long run it really hasn't cost us much more. It's been used for longer than it was intended due to budget cuts and anyone in the space program would argue that it's served us well.

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RE: Shuttle repair.

By Ringold on 9/18/2007 9:27:27 PM , Rating: 2

Masher points out some of what you're saying is valid, but you give NASA far too much credit.

I think anyone familiar with the aerospace industry understands that NASA is simply wildly inefficient with its manpower and other resources. They've got little motivation to be cost-efficient and even if they wanted to be as a government agency they'd scarcely understand how to act upon the desire for efficiency. This isn't a knock against NASA, this is a fundamental truth of government; it can serve many purposes, but in the aggregate efficient use of tax-payer resources is among its last objectives.

NASA has tried to bring in airline people before as I understand it to recommend places where they can streamline their process. It never seems to of accomplished much good. Rigid bureaucracies don't like change.

The OP is completely correct that private enterprise can and will do many of the same functions more reliably and at lower cost. It's a matter of when, which is limited only by the profit potential, rather than if. NASA's done good work, can't deny that, but it's simply the nature of the beast to be inefficient and increasingly so with age. It's a really pretty simple economic argument rather then anything else.

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RE: Shuttle repair.

By Cygni on 9/19/2007 3:26:46 PM , Rating: 2

I actually work for the Federal government, in the aerospace industry. So bite your tongue! ;)

I think if many of the analysts who blast the Federal half of the aerospace world actually took a stroll through one of the offices, their opinion on what we spend and why would change massively. To say that budget concerns are that top of everyones mind is to put it lightly, and to say that we dont have motivation to be efficient is absurd.

I have no doubt that private industry can and will take over many aspects of NASA's programs, and they will do it cheaply and efficiently. I have no doubt in that. But it should be noted that they will be doing it nearly 50 years after NASA, and they will do it by piggybacking on the money NASA already put out in fields like materials research.

The OP is not correct. You cant just slap some landing gear on in a few hours and fly away. Even if the Shuttle was a private company, there is simply zero chance that would happen, as its negligent and ridiculous.

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RE: Shuttle repair.

By Misty Dingos on 9/19/2007 8:33:47 AM , Rating: 2

Your take on this is exactly why NASA is the bloated nerd fest that it is. Everything is one of a kind. Guess what that is expensive.

I worked on frontline fighter A/C for twenty years. Very little room for error. But you know what? We had spare parts and we met schedules. You know one of the catch phrases we used out there? "Designed by guys with PHDs, flown by guys with a Bachelor of Science, and fixed by a kid with a highschool diploma." When a MLG leaked you replaced it and had the broken one repaired. And let's be honest, much of the shuttle is simply an expensive one of a kind A/C.

This is from Wiki. It is the maximum landing weight of the shuttle.

quote:
Maximum Landing Weight: 230,000 lb (104,000 kg)

Here are some stats from a heavy lift passenger aircraft. The empty weight of a 747-400ER is 361,640 lb (164,382 kg). The empty weight of this model 747 is 150% of the shuttles landing maximum landing weight. The maximum weight of this model 747 is 910,000 lb (412,775 kg). So apparently landing gear design is not a factor in the design of the shuttle.

So what this boils down to is simply an exercise in aircraft engineering. The shuttle's landing gear are not cutting edge SUPER LANDING GEAR they are landing gear. In fact they don't even have to be built to the specifications of a typical Boeing 747. Some of you are going to say that I am comparing apples and oranges but really it would be more realistic to say that I have compared tangerines and oranges. So what is going on here then?

Well we invested an enormous amount of national pride and money in a system that never lived up to the hype. Not even close. Never built enough of them to fulfill the requirements. Never met their own launch schedule. Never met the reliability standards. Never met the safety standards. When the first one blew up we should have pulled the plug on the whole program and went back to something that worked.

I want space exploration. It is time to shelve the government model in this endeavor. It is time to push NASA, JSA, ESA and the UN back into their bloated bureaucratic morass and embrace the whole scale commercial development of space both near and far.

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RE: Shuttle repair.

By McTwist on 9/19/2007 12:40:16 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
So what this boils down to is simply an exercise in aircraft engineering. The shuttle's landing gear are not cutting edge SUPER LANDING GEAR they are landing gear.

You need to think about that some more. It's one thing to have the aircraft or spacecraft just sitting on the runway. It's a whole other thing to have it actually absorb the forces involved with landing such a object.

quote:
[The Shuttle's] glide slope is seven times steeper than the average commercial airliner landing. During the final approach, the vehicle drops toward the runway 20 times faster than a commercial airliner as its rate of descent and airspeed increase.

quote:
The orbiter's main landing gear touches down on the runway at 214 to 226 miles per hour

Source: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/launch/l...
Having to absorb that kinda of landing really does make the Shuttle's main landing gear "SUPER LANDING GEAR." There's not so much cutting edge about it other than it has to have a high strength to weight ratio.

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A few things...

By McTwist on 9/18/2007 4:31:43 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Whatever parts of the shuttle ...

quote:
... and the shuttle is now safely secured to its Delta II launch rocket.

Use of the term "the shuttle" in this context is confusing since it usually refers to the Space Shuttle that you referred to earlier in the article. Using satellite or spacecraft is more appropriate.

As for the Dawn mission, it's interesting to note that it will be the first to enter into orbit around two different planetary bodies other than the Earth and Moon (of course).

And I thought that the successful launch of WorldView 1 would be worth a mention on a tech news site since this satellite is essentially intended for the purpose of updating Google Earth and Google Maps and Microsoft's equivalents.

quote:
The WorldView 1 spacecraft will be capable of imaging 290,000 square miles of the planet's surface per day with half-meter resolution, a clarity not possible by any civilian satellite in orbit today.

That anticipated quality has the U.S. government signed up as a customer to receive WorldView's images of specific global hot spots and areas of interest for intelligence-gathering.

And the commercial potential for such imagery continues to increase, ranging from urban planners, real estate developers, environmental monitors and the wildly popular Google Earth.

Source: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/delta/d326/status.ht...