What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program • Hacker News Board

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#41

Post by nate_meurer » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 5:48 PM UTC

TheCondor wrote: post #34

nate_meurer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, especially shitty since the project is so far along. It needs to be said that JWST isn't primarily over-budget because of technical problems, but because they didn't do realistic cost and time estimates in the first place. Overall, the project has suffered very few technical surprises.

So what does this mean? We just shit can it? Or it sits on a shelf for a couple years or what? If we want to save money, shouldn't we kill something before we start it?

Projects of this complexity are difficult to mothball, and the costs of restarting are very high. We've seen that with the F-22 fighter.

What we really need are politicians who can grasp the ROI of basic science (which is what I believe the JWST is) and have the will to prioritize it.

Sadly, politicians with both brains and courage are a rare breed.

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#42

Post by jamesbritt » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 5:51 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #31

jamesbritt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's really hard to look at the Shuttle program and say yes. How effective/efficient would a tax-payer supported version of Xerox PARC or the Golden Age Bell Labs be? Something more pleasant than DARPA, for example.

What is your problem with DARPA?

It has a military focus. I'd like to see devlopment with a broader scope. Like how to teach more people to read. Or farming.

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#43

Post by jamesbritt » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 5:54 PM UTC

nate_meurer wrote: post #41

TheCondor wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what does this mean? We just shit can it? Or it sits on a shelf for a couple years or what? If we want to save money, shouldn't we kill something before we start it?

Projects of this complexity are difficult to mothball, and the costs of restarting are very high. We've seen that with the F-22 fighter. What we really need are politicians who can grasp the ROI of basic science (which is what I believe the JWST is) and have the will to prioritize it. Sadly, politicians with both brains and courage are a rare breed.

You say that like politicians with either brains or courage is somehow not rare.

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#44

Post by nate_meurer » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 5:54 PM UTC

mturmon wrote: post #36

garyrichardson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy shit! This just happened: http://appropriations.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?Doc... $4.5 billion for NASA Science programs, which is $431 million below last year’s level. The bill also terminates funding for the James Webb Space Telescope, which is billions of dollars over budget and plagued by poor management.

Thanks for that link. People should know that there's a lot of turmoil in the astrophysics community about JWST. In current plans, JWST overruns have resulted in elimination or long-term postponement of all other NASA astrophysics missions in the next decade. Even non-flight-project research is being cut significantly.

I am utterly incapable of intelligently commenting on the cost effectiveness of this telescope, but I will note that all of NASA's current money problems could be solved by allocating it just a tiny fraction of what we instead wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I'm sorry to keep talking about these fucking wars, but it really does make me want to cry.

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#45

Post by eropple » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 6:00 PM UTC

zeemonkee wrote: post #40

bdunbar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of Shuttle was good. The execution was flawed.

The shuttle reminds me of one of those awful software development projects which start with clear, simple goals, until all the "stakeholders" start wanting their pet feature and need to be appeased because they will bring more money to the table, and you end up with a bloated, over-engineered mess.

As I remember, it was supposed to be two vehicles: a people-mover and a "space truck". Budget cuts and general human stupidity turned the project into a single, crappy vehicle.

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#46

Post by bdunbar » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 6:04 PM UTC

zeemonkee wrote: post #40

bdunbar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of Shuttle was good. The execution was flawed.

The shuttle reminds me of one of those awful software development projects which start with clear, simple goals, until all the "stakeholders" start wanting their pet feature and need to be appeased because they will bring more money to the table, and you end up with a bloated, over-engineered mess.

Wings!

Shuttle had wings thanks to the Air Force joining the project, then the Air Force dropped out, but Shuttle still had wings.

Of all the problems with Shuttle the wings bother me the most.

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#47

Post by nate_meurer » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 6:04 PM UTC

LaGrange wrote: post #39

nate_meurer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except those risks must be evaluated against the reward. In this present day and age, what exactly do we gain from using humans instead of robots in space that justifies their expense?

The gain is, actually, putting humans in the space. It's an arbitrary objective that you (or me) may not share, but it seems to be the primary objective. Other gains usually don't outweigh the costs, but are useful at marketing the idea to bot people. They lower the perceived-by-bot-people loss, to the point where the loss may be accepted as the cost for winning the human-people. As far as I am concerned, I want huma…

Interesting point. So is your user name, given the discussion :)

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#48

Post by bdunbar » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 6:08 PM UTC

OstiaAntica wrote: post #20

rrrazdan wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to sound insensitive but 134 flights and 2 accidents is a good enough record. I for one would have volunteered to go, if I was presented with these odds. Robots can't do everything.

The risk is worth it, if the mission actually does something. Most of the shuttle missions were just jerking off in orbit or hauling stuff to the space station. The shuttle program was an unmitigated disaster that set back space exploration a generation. By trying to build a "reusable" space plane we ended up with the most complex machine ever built-- and complexity is dangerous-- that does nothing especially well.

Shuttle does one thing very well: it's a gorgeous sight watching her lift off. And seeing her glide to a landing is like poetry.

Too complex, too expensive, not best at any one thing.

But a sight to see.

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#49

Post by protomyth » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 6:20 PM UTC

jamesbritt wrote: post #42

protomyth wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your problem with DARPA?

It has a military focus. I'd like to see devlopment with a broader scope. Like how to teach more people to read. Or farming.

In the US, USDA funds a lot of farming research and DoE has its own labs for energy research.

Military and Space seem to have a lot of civilian offshoots. Probably because of focus and demanding environments / specs.

Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program

#50

Post by InclinedPlane » Thu, Jul 07, 2011, 6:39 PM UTC

The Shuttle is inspiring, and compared to nothing it looks excellent. But on the whole it is not a good system. It has unique capabilities that it uses extremely rarely or not at all (such as the cross-range flight ability) but which impose tremendous compromises on the system's cost, reliability, and safety.

All of this added up to the system falling far, far short of its design goals in payload cost and flight rate, by nearly 2 orders of magnitude. By any sound measure the Shuttle is a failed experiment that was left to run, and bleed NASA budgets dry, for far too long. On the whole each Shuttle mission cost $1.6 billion dollars.

The alternative to not building the Shuttle was continuing with what we had before, which even at a reduced budget compared to the Shuttle would have resulted in larger space stations, moon bases, and perhaps manned Mars missions. The alternative now to not continuing the Shuttle is relying on commercial launch providers as the base of manned spaceflight, which looks to be both cheaper and more capable than the Shuttle.