The three remaining orbiters (commonly known as the Space Shuttle) are due to retire in 2010. Will they?
The
Ares launch vehicle – most of us would call it a rocket – is due to make its first flight in 2009, and its first active
mission in 2015 will be to deliver, unmanned, freight to the International Space Station using the Apollo program shaped Orion capsule.
The Orion differs from Apollo in every imaginable way, with more room, modern materials, modern computing, modern communications and telemetry, and it should make for a far safer journey. In its launches to the Moon, the Ares-plus-Orion will be part of the Constellation program. Hopefully the lunar exploration vehicle (LEV) this time around will look a little more sturdy than the aluminum-clad version we so hopefully watched on monochrome TV.
There have been rumors that Lockheed are behind schedule and that they might not make the 2015 fight dates originally promised. Some Senators (including John McCain) last week sent a
letter to the President asking him to “direct NASA to take no action for at least one year from now that would preclude the extended use of the space shuttle beyond 2010.” The reason is the currently unsettled nature of the relationship between the US and Russia. With a shuttle retirement in 2010, all deliveries, personnel and materials will be one hundred percent dependent on Soyuz and the goodwill of the Russian scientific community, for at least five years.
People feel that events in Georgia remove any hope of continuing goodwill at the political level, transcending what scientists, engineers, and astronauts/cosmonauts might feel about their innate brotherhood with one another.
Now a Florida newspaper has leaked an
internal NASA e-mail showing that the agency is looking at how to extend the shuttle program beyond 2010, anticipating the questions that an incoming Congress and President might ask.
Clearly, without a lot of considerable addition to the financing, extending the shuttle mission will add to NASA’s load and delay the implementation of the new vehicle program.
And, unfortunately, if you care to do the statistical mathematics based on the orbiter’s previous history, the safety of a continuing program is bleak. NASA rates shuttle flights as likely to produce a complete crew fatality to the tune of a one in seventy-five chance. Five years of additional flying with, say, three missions a year makes the chances of losing another orbiter a simple one-in-five shot…
Even five years ago, retired NASA mathematician/rocket engineer, Jud Lovingood
said, “I believe the shuttle is inherently unsafe. We have proven that and there are more problems waiting to jump out. It is too complex. It is 1970s technology.”
It is difficult to disagree. I would not feel at all happy driving a 1970s car at full clip even on my local highway, and the orbiter system is infinitely more complex, with no roadside service available. The truth is that development of the Constellation program should have started much earlier than the year 2006, when it was finally given the go-ahead. Blame NASA, Congress, the President, whomever you like: but this five-year gap in US flights has been clear since the program’s approval. Yet there is not even Congressional approval beyond 2011 to continue using Soyuz to uplift astronauts.
Imagine going to an airline -- the only one providing service for your unique destination -- and asking the price for twelve seats a year for four years to get your employees safely there. Do we think they are going to give you a discount package? A frequent flier reward? Free carry-on bags? And did I tell you about the airline’s ongoing problem about
landing in the right place? Welcome to Air Soyuz: it will make Aeroflot look good.
