NASA to replace shuttle

[Flybrian]

NASA to replace shuttle

NASA to replace shuttle
September 16, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sep 16, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- NASA's plan to replace the space shuttle with a spacecraft to take astronauts to the moon and Mars has been approved, U.S. officials said.

"It's a thumbs-up for NASA to pursue the shuttle-derived vehicle," said John M. Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University and an adviser to the NASA initiative. "The question is the schedule, not the basic approach."

The redesign would address the dangers of firing engines and falling debris, which caused the disintegration of the Columbia in 2003. However, to save time, many of the shuttle's parts would be used for the space craft, the New York Times reported Friday.

The new spacecraft would separate the jobs of hauling people and cargo into orbit and would put the payloads atop the rockets -- as far as possible from the firing engines.

Michael D. Griffin, NASA's administrator, met with White House officials Wednesday and got preliminary approval for the initiative despite funding issues, aerospace experts told the Times.

Yeah. No crap. Its called the Lockheed VentureStar and was well through development!

Idiots.

[Mike The Canadian]

No shit eh? That picture looks nice...

[LosAngeles]

How many of us wish they would build stuff to look like what we grew up seeing in movies, cartoons, and video games?

[thegriffon]

It's the wrong pic though. They're going back to a system like the Saturn V, but using the solid rocket booster(s) and/or modified fuel tank and engines from the shuttle. Both payload and capsule will ride atop their own seperate lift systems, with the capsule parachuting to the ground, rather than dropping in the ocean. As with the shuttle, the solid rocket boosters will be reusable to save money.

[chris]

NASA to replace shuttle
Yeah. No crap. Its called the Lockheed VentureStar and was well through development!

Idiots.

[post="15866"][/post]

Eeeease off the pedal there, Jeff Gordon. The Venture Star was far from ideal. Don't have to go off calling people idiots for no good reason!

[Flybrian]

Eeeease off the pedal there, Jeff Gordon.  The Venture Star was far from ideal.  Don't have to go off calling people idiots for no good reason!

[post="15901"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

I should've clarified.

There were originally three candidates for STS shuttle replacement - Lockheed's VentureStar, a very orbiter-like Boeing design, and McDonnell-Douglas' DC-X capsule that incorporated a more challenging vertical powered landing scenario. NASA chose the most complicated, challenging, and expensive of the designs - Lockheed's.

'Idiots' refers to the NASA budgeteers who chose the most daunting of the three knowing full well of the potential cost overruns in developing the Aerospike engines, the more unorthodox fuel system, brand-new metallic heat tiles, and the challenges of the lifting body airframe design.

Take into account actually fielding such a budget-killing craft would have Lockheed dumping even more of its own money into development (it already had put quite alot into it). This makes even less sense because Lockheed-Martin earned a nice contract for its Titan IV rockets. It would've been competing with itself and spending its own money to do it.

Sometimes it seems the administrators at NASA want things to fail because it sure seems like they try pretty hard to ensure it.

[Guest Josh]

I don't like Lockheed. They sent us ceast and decist orders on the Skunkworks name so it had to be renamed Underground. Such bastards.

[regfootball]

NASA has the old shuttles listed on ebay already.

[Sixty8panther]

Hmmmmm.... I thouhgt the Skunkworks was closed down now. Popular Sciance said they moved all the secret testing to Alaska. I drove by Area 51 a few years ago. Anyway a Shuttle replacement is LOOOOONG overdue!

[Flybrian]

Hmmmmm.... I thouhgt the Skunkworks was closed down now. Popular Sciance said they moved all the secret testing to Alaska.

I drove by Area 51 a few years ago. Anyway a Shuttle replacement is LOOOOONG overdue!

[post="16014"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

You're confusing the two. Skunk Works is in-house colloquialism (and now unofficial public name) for Lockheed's Advanced Development Projects Unit, located on the edge of the Mojave Desert in California. It was formed in 1943 and its produced America's first combat jet and also virtually all of Lockheed's advanced airframes.

[LosAngeles]

I don't like Lockheed. They sent us ceast and decist orders on the Skunkworks name so it had to be renamed Underground.

Such bastards.

[post="15980"]<{POST_SNAPBACK}>[/post]

They own the term?