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UNI-verse Whether to extend life of space shuttles or not? Oh, well maybe?
UNI-verse Whether to extend life of space shuttles or not? Oh, well maybe? | Whether to extend life of space shuttles or not? Oh, well maybe? |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Thursday, 01 May 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 2 Related stories
The Republican congressman from Florida, Dave Weldon, is trying to extend the life of the space shuttle fleet by passing the SPACE Act. The bill, HR 4837, which was co-authored by Rep. Feeney, a Republican from Orlando, Florida, would authorize the U.S. Congress to fund extra money to NASA for at least two space shuttle flights per year through the year 2015. The purpose of the bill would be to enable the United States to provide access to its astronauts to the International Space Station, without relying solely on Russia for human flights between 2010 and 2015. With leaving the developmental costs of Project Constellation as it currently stands, NASA administrator Michael Griffin states that such an extension would cost about $2.5 to $4 billion per year. For five years, that would be an extra $12.5 to $20 billion into the budget for NASA. Another proposal has also been suggested. It would cost $10 billion for three years, which includes flying additional shuttles for three years (2010 to 2013), and speeding up Constellation development by a additional year (2013 or 2014). Thus, for this second proposal, between 2010 and 2013, about six or seven additional space shuttle missions would be conducted and extra money would be appropriated to speed up the development of Project Constellation. As the Vision for Space Exploration is stated within the U.S. federal government, the space shuttle fleet will be used to finalize the assembly of the International Space Station through the year 2010 (except for one flight to make a third and final service call on the Hubble Space Telescope later in 2008). At that time, 2010, the Space Transportation System (STS), what we commonly call the Space Shuttle, will be retired. Thereafter, NASA will devote its manned efforts on developing its new Project Constellation, involving its new Orion space capsule and Ares I and V launch vehicles. Four or five years later, in 2014 or 2015, NASA’s next generation manned space Project Constellation is scheduled to be up and running. As it stands, now, the SPACE bill is within the Space and Aeronautics subcommittee of the House of Representative’s Science and Technology Committee. But, nothing has really been finalized with regards to it. On the other hand, Michael Griffin, NASA administrator, basically does not support any plan to extend space shuttle flights past 2010. He stated within the Houston Chronicle (in the article “A look at NASA's future beyond the shuttle”) in an interview that he gave to the newspaper: “Q [by Houston Chronicle reporter]: The shuttle will stop flying in 2010 so NASA can spend more money on the Constellation program, the next generation of spacecraft. If money were not a concern, would it be safe to continue flying the shuttle until 2015, when the first new vehicles should be ready?” “A [by Michael Griffin]: If money was taken off the table, I would still advocate that we retire in 2010 or thereabouts. Now I'm an engineer, so there's not a cliff you fall off of at a certain date. If you have an orbiter in good shape and somebody says, 'Can that orbiter do one or two more flights?' The answer is, of course. But the way people get into trouble is when you say, 'I can do one more,' and you say that over and over. Pretty soon, you're three or four years down the line, and then something goes wrong. Given that our inherent risk assessment of flying any shuttle mission is about a 1-in-75 fatality risk, if you were to fly 10 more flights, you would have a very substantial risk of losing a crew. I don't want to do that.” In fact, in the April 25, 2008 Houston Chronicle article, “Two faulty descents plague astronauts’ only ride home,” the author, Liz Peterson, stated, “Griffin has said the normal 1-in-75 risk of having a fatal shuttle accident would rise to 1-in-12 if the shuttle flew two missions a year for five more years.” Basically NASA says it wants to get on with its new manned program (Orion/Ares within Project Constellation)--and retire the space shuttles--because Orion/Ares is less complex to operate than the space shuttle fleet, along with being less expensive to operate and better suited for exploring the Moon, Mars, and the inner solar system. There is not a pat answer to this question. Read on. |
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