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Blog: Science The NASA Year of Controversy
Michael Hoffman (Blog) - July 29, 2007 2:57 PM

5 comment(s) - last by peldor.. on Jul 30 at 3:37 PM

The two faces of former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak (Source: Scott Audette/Reuters)

What will happen next for NASA?

NASA started off 2007 with extremely high hopes for the space program, but a number of controversies continue to distract what should be exciting times for NASA.

Navy Captain Lisa Nowak's infamous journey halfway across the country to apparently try to kill another female astronaut unofficially started off the headaches for NASA. The crazy astronaut was arrested at Orlando International Airport - arrested and charged with crimes such as of attempted kidnapping, attempted vehicle burglary with battery, battery, attempted murder, and destruction of evidence.

The headaches continued after a NASA contractor killed one person before turning the gun on himself during an incident at the NASA Johnson Space Center building in mid-April. NASA security and the Houston police department appeared to follow procedure accordingly, but obviously didn't expect such a tragic event to take place on the Johnson Space Center campus.

The successful mission of shuttle Atlantis help erode lingering thoughts of Nowak and the shooting, then NASA turned its sights to shuttle Endeavour launch plans. But attempted computer sabotage by a NASA contractor once again has the spotlight on the U.S. space agency for another wrong reason. It looks like the contractor cut wires inside of a data relay box which will fly aboard the shuttle Endeavour.

The latest controversy deals with the apparent revelation that NASA let astronauts fly while under the influence of alcohol. Much to the shock of the independent investigation panels, the astronauts were so wasted that fellow astronauts and flight surgeons "raised concerns to local on-scene leadership regarding flight safety."

Unverified interviews claim that an astronaut was intoxicated during a flight on a Russian soyuz spacecraft - and a different astronaut was not stopped before flying on a NASA shuttle.

The U.S. House of Representatives Science and Technology committee will meet in September, hoping to stop nonsense like this.

Aside from the chaos, NASA looks forward to the shuttle Endeavour launch, which is scheduled for August 7.

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Not the real controversy

By kkattula on 7/30/2007 12:08:00 AM , Rating: 5

NASA has far worse problems than a few Astronauts and other employees going off the rails. That can happen in any large organization.

Their bigger issue is the ESAS program is in real trouble. The Ares I crew launch vehicle was supposed to use the existing 4 segment Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) with a Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) powered second stage. But they couldn't figure out how to safely start the SSME in mid-air, so they've gone with the less efficient J2 engine from the old Saturn V 2nd and 3rd stages.

This meant redesigning the SRB to have 5 segments, and has increased the height of the stack & it's vulnerability to aerodynamic bendng forces. So the interstage has had to get heavier. Also the Orion capsule's Service Module has to be used as a sort of third stage to make up some of the shortfall to get it to orbit. Which , along with other problems, is making Orion heavier.

So the rocket is getting heavier and losing payload capacity, while the payload is getting heavier. But anyone at NASA who points out this issue is being marginalized or demonized. They have a serious case of "shoot the messenger" syndrome.

Yet there is a simple solution to the problem that will actually save billions of dollars, and years of development time. It's called Direct 2.0 or Jupiter. Take the existing External Tank and SRB's and put RS-68 engines under the ET. Beef up the ET thrust structures a little and put the Orion on top. This will put 40+ tons in orbit compared to Ares I's 23. Add a second stage, and lift goes up to 70+ tons. Two of these will actually put more mass in orbit than NASA's plan for one Ares I & one Ares V for each moon mission.

NASA itself has studied a similar option and calls it ARES IV. But NASA management seems to have too much pride invested in Ares I to change a failing design.

RE: Not the real controversy

By Ringold on 7/30/2007 4:18:46 AM , Rating: 2

Get it done early, with lower cost and more capability? This is NASA we're talking about, after all. ;)

No, I agree though. The Ares I was clearly inferior from a pretty early stage (or so insiders have accused) and that it's continued to dominate their plans is a prime reason why pride can be a sin -- a sin that costs taxpayers billions.

If I were King, I'd look at my stumbling space program and pick this moment right now, right after these scandals, to retake the iniative and announce that a souped-up Ares IV would be the new default launch vehicle for an Orion of expanded size and capability, as well as set concrete dates for manned landings on both the Moon and Mars, dates which would be kept come hell or high Florida water. These dates would also be years in advance of anything the Chinese could possibly muster. I'd also urge my rubber-stamp committee/the Senate to juice NASA up with a few extra billion a year to make sure I don't look bad by missing my dates.

But no, NASA's much too lethargic for stunning PR moves. They'll just put another woman on TV with a hair-do out of the damned 60s to say a lot of words which amount to little and wallow in their own troubles.

Parent

Why blame NASA as a whole ?

By FS on 7/29/2007 5:53:18 PM , Rating: 3

How could they have known beforehand that Lisa Nowak would try to do something like that or one of their employee would kill someone. Though, the alcohol incidence is a little different.

NASA Year Of Controversy

By BCCM on 7/30/2007 8:37:05 AM , Rating: 2

POSTED ON SCIFRAUD 7-6-07

When BCC Meteorites launched our analytical information on the geomorphology of stellar grain composition and cometary grain composition, NASA began to panic. Why? Because these discoveries overshadowed their pending Deep Impact-Tempel 1 and the Stardust Wild 2 cometary missions. Since they were aware of us, scientists for those missions began quietly releasing information on the results and not surprisingly, and lo and behold it agrees with our high temperature "micro-crystalline silicates" which we obtained from our sample analysis.

The federal agency that expended considerable resources pulling political and academic strings, up and down left and right, to shut down BCC Meteorites is at it again in fake science. NASA is scheduled to launch a mission this month (DAWN) to Ceres and Vesta (asteroids) to, as put by the mission scientist Christopher T. Russell (UCLA); "To bring high-resolution images of previously unseen worlds to the public, including, perhaps, mountains, canyons, craters and ancient lava flows". In addition to the images, Dawn will generate data that will help scientists identify geologic minerals and will take measurements of gamma rays and neutrons. The gamma-ray measurements will reveal which elements are in the minerals. The data are expected to arrive a scant 30 minutes after the spacecraft obtains them.

This is rather perplexing, because the scientific community has sufficient numbers of asteroid samples to study in the lab to yield the information Dr. Russell is interested in. For instance the lattice parameters at the molecular level in samples can be deduced to reconstruct the temperature and pressure conditions native to the asteroid. In addition, remote spectral sensing can be employed for whole body composition to reconstruct the entire mass associations for paring asteroid samples, hence reconstruct the entire body size.

So what is the mission really about? Let me relate it to a known example. When Dr. Kauffman was engaged in keyboard frenzy on Mary Sue Coleman; "she is a law breaker, a criminal, a fire breathing dragon unwilling to honor the voters' proposition 2 etc". I instructed Dr. Kauffman, "her conduct has nothing to do with minorities and their station". She is trying to preserve the federal funding that comes with programs for "helpless victims" and this sometimes means creating more victims to justify the programs in order to maintain the jobs for a homogenous race of people. He didn't believe me, went back to the minorities and checked, and lo and behold, I was correct!

So what is the relationship with this NASA fake science program? You have to see who is involved and who the players are? The military defense industry, Lockheed, Boeing and numerous military defense related subcontractors stand to reap huge financial dividends from the hardware associated with this and many other similarly situated programs. The academics involved also get jobs and funding for these fake programs. Of course the list does not have to believe this you can take it from NASA's own web site, in an interview with the Project Manager. Here is the relevant section.

Meet Dawn's Project Manager, Keyur Patel. The following interview took place at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California on May 22, 2006 between Keyur Patel, Project Manager of the Dawn Mission (JPL), and Education and Public Outreach team member John Ristvey from Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL).

JR: Since reinstatement, you've been re-establishing your teams and pulling people back on. How has that been going as far as getting back up from a 'stand-down' to a 'cancel' to a 'reinstatement' and then back up again?

KP: It's actually going quite smoothly because both institutions, JPL and Orbital, are both committed to making this happen--in fact, more than trying. They are in full support of bringing back the people that were on the project to begin with and then, they are letting the project handpick individuals for certain jobs and reassigning them from other jobs to make this mission successful.

JR: Can you tell us a little bit more about what you do when you're not managing the Dawn mission? Do you have other responsibilities at JPL?

KP: This is my primary mission; I have no other responsibilities at JPL. Dawn is it.

JR: Can you tell us a little bit about your career path that led you to become a project manager? Tell us a little about your background prior to coming to JPL as a project manager.

KP: I was in college. I have no background. This is the only place I have ever worked. In fact, it is by sheer accident I got into the space business, because my entire college history and study history is airplanes--aerodynamics. I started working here in the summer, and I've never looked back at an airplane yet.

Cordially,
S. Ray DeRusse
www.bccmeteorites.com

minor correction

By peldor on 7/30/2007 3:37:43 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Navy Captain Lisa Nowak's infamous journey halfway across the country to apparently try to kill another female astronaut unofficially started off the headaches for NASA.

Shipman (the target) is an Air Force engineer, not an astronaut. The 'boyfriend' (Oefelein) was an astronaut though (recently released from NASA).

"I'm an Internet expert too. It's all right to wire the industrial zone only, but there are many problems if other regions of the North are wired." -- North Korean Supreme Commander Kim Jong-il