NASA & World Space Exploration...News, Views, Photos & videos

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

Equation said:

I agreed, when it comes to space exploration there's no such thing as wasted money, but waste of opportunity for something new for man kind to learn from.

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Oh, I don't know about that, waste can happen even with the most worthy of causes and missions. Space exploration is worth doing, but it needn't and shouldn't cost astronomical sums.

The perfect example of totally avoidable cost can be found in the old space race joke - When man first went into space, it was discovered that terrestrial pens did not work in the zero-G environment of space. The Americans spend years and millions of dollars to develop a state-of-the-art 'space pen' that can write in zero-G, while upside down, underwater and even out in vacuum. The Russians used a pencil.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

plawolf said:

Oh, I don't know about that, waste can happen even with the most worthy of causes and missions. Space exploration is worth doing, but it needn't and shouldn't cost astronomical sums.

The perfect example of totally avoidable cost can be found in the old space race joke - When man first went into space, it was discovered that terrestrial pens did not work in the zero-G environment of space. The Americans spend years and millions of dollars to develop a state-of-the-art 'space pen' that can write in zero-G, while upside down, underwater and even out in vacuum. The Russians used a pencil.

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Now the new twist to the story is that floating debris or small broken part from pencil lead would get into the eyes. Anyway what do astronauts use to write with nowadays?

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

Quickie said:

Now the new twist to the story is that floating debris or small broken part from pencil lead would get into the eyes. Anyway what do astronauts use to write with nowadays?

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The only time that broken lead pencil CAN be hazardous is when somebody or something gave it a little velocity in zero-G. If no velocity, then it would just be floating there until something applies force to it.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

Equation said:

The only time that broken lead pencil CAN be hazardous is when somebody or something gave it a little velocity in zero-G. If no velocity, then it would just be floating there until something applies force to it.

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A particle would not need to be moving fast to cause harm. A small hard particle with sharp edges would cause a lot of problems if it gets caught in the eye.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

jackliu said:

Space shuttle was definitely waste of money, if they stick with the appolo program's Saturn rocket and using conventional capsules, they would still have moon capability and way cheaper of sending payload up and down, shuttle's original goal was a economical reusable ways to send stuff up there and back, but the cost overrun just got out of control, by the later stage of the program, I believe the cost of 2 shuttle launch was more than the entire Chinese Shenzhou program include all the manned launches and R&D cost.

Just because Qian had drawing of space plane does not mean it is worthy, it was more of a fav of the moment, everyone saw American doing it, so everyone want to get in on it. But in the end, most people agree it was not worth the opportunity cost, ESPECIALLY the Americans themselves.

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While there are always waste in any large organization, I think we need to be careful with applying hindsight to everything. I think the Space Shuttle was a worthy endeavour. It had its share of problems, but that's how we learn, right? If you don't make mistakes, then you don't know what problems to address.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

solarz said:

While there are always waste in any large organization, I think we need to be careful with applying hindsight to everything. I think the Space Shuttle was a worthy endeavour. It had its share of problems, but that's how we learn, right? If you don't make mistakes, then you don't know what problems to address.

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With that being said, it is still a huge failure, the Shuttle was a dead end system, the booster rocket has no other use and the shuttle themselves are now useless, and US lost high thrust booster technology, the rocket are developing right now for Mars is actually almost identical to Saturn rocket's thrust, and it is expect to ready at earliest by 2020, it is a shame, if they were stick with Saturn rockets, they would still send human and payloads into space at 1/3 of the cost and get things done, and so much more opportunity would still be open. Oh and not to mention much safer as well, the death rate for astronauts in shuttle is astronomical compare to the Russian's Soyuz rocket.

Also during the shuttle's deployment that high cost was already apparent, but since everyone was getting in on it, there was no serious objected to the cost overrun.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

jackliu said:

With that being said, it is still a huge failure, the Shuttle was a dead end system, the booster rocket has no other use and the shuttle themselves are now useless, and US lost high thrust booster technology, the rocket are developing right now for Mars is actually almost identical to Saturn rocket's thrust, and it is expect to ready at earliest by 2020, it is a shame, if they were stick with Saturn rockets, they would still send human and payloads into space at 1/3 of the cost and get things done, and so much more opportunity would still be open. Oh and not to mention much safer as well, the death rate for astronauts in shuttle is astronomical compare to the Russian's Soyuz rocket.

Also during the shuttle's deployment that high cost was already apparent, but since everyone was getting in on it, there was no serious objected to the cost overrun.

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Whoa...hold on there cowboy, without the shuttle use their wouldn't be an International Space Station or the Hubble Space Telescope (not to mention the sometimes little fixes on it) in the first place.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

Equation said:

Whoa...hold on there cowboy, without the shuttle use their wouldn't be an International Space Station or the Hubble Space Telescope (not to mention the sometimes little fixes on it) in the first place.

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Yeah there would be, it is NOT impossible to send ISS or Hubble with traditional rockets you know, and it is NOT impossible to do spacewalk without shuttle, the only reason they used shuttle to send these things up is because shuttle is the only transportation they had left. And if they didn't have the shuttles, they can't send those thing up at 1/3 of the cost.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

jackliu said:

Yeah there would be, it is NOT impossible to send ISS or Hubble with traditional rockets you know, and it is NOT impossible to do spacewalk without shuttle, the only reason they used shuttle to send these things up is because shuttle is the only transportation they had left. And if they didn't have the shuttles, they can't send those thing up at 1/3 of the cost.

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Yeah but the shuttle provides more payload capacity plus a crew of more than 3 (Typical Apollo Crew). Plus it can be reused over and over again. A rocket requires building of new boosters and stages every time. This could be added cost over a time period.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

Equation said:

Yeah but the shuttle provides more payload capacity plus a crew of more than 3 (Typical Apollo Crew). Plus it can be reused over and over again. A rocket requires building of new boosters and stages every time. This could be added cost over a time period.

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Dude, that is the whole point, Shuttle was originally designed to be a cheap and reliable way to sending stuff up in space, but later it turns out that it is actually 3 times MORE expensive than just build disposable rockets, every time after a shuttle touch down, they have to spend billions to prepare it for the next launch.

As for payload, the shuttle's payload is actually less than Apollo rocket they used to send to the moon, so actually if they have stick with the Saturn rockets, it can do anything the Shuttle can do, but cheaper, and more multi mission ability.

The final cost of the Space Shuttle program, averaged over all missions and adjusted for inflation, was estimated to come out to $1.5 billion per launch. NASA just signed a contract with Russia to sending astronauts to the ISS, the cost is only $753 million for 12 round trip, and Russian are making a good profit on this, so you do the math.

And not to mention the 2 shuttle that exploded and killed 12 astronauts, while only 4 astronauts ever died flying in Soyuz, which had a perfect safety record since 1971 to now.