We lose a lot. We gain incentive to go out into space privately and commercialize spaceflight.
Is living in a Futurama-esque commercialization of space worth it?
I believe so, yes. Bring on the frontier!
What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program
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Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program
#52The Shuttle fails in its primary objective, that of being a "reusable" vehicle. I attended a presentation by a NASA employee that explained the Shuttle process from landing to launch, and I was amazed at how much of the craft is replaced. I think we would have been far better off extending the Apollo program to new missions, similar to the Soyuz (which is still flying although much improved from the moon landing era).
Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program
#53Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program
#54Blame Nixon. Or OPEC.
Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program
#55The Shuttle fails in its primary objective, that of being a "reusable" vehicle. I attended a presentation by a NASA employee that explained the Shuttle process from landing to launch, and I was amazed at how much of the craft is replaced. I think we would have been far better off extending the Apollo program to new missions, similar to the Soyuz (which is still flying although much improved from the moon landing era)…
The shuttle was the worst of both worlds. They replace enough parts to make each mission absurdly expensive, and keep enough components in place that it's extremely difficult to be sure they won't fail in flight.
Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many times did we actually need those capabilities? edit: > 1. Gentle delivery of large modules for attachment to existing complexes. - Probably lost, the main reason the shuttle is gentle is because it carries fragile humans. I cannot imagine we don't have any launcher that can do that. Any launcher, when approaching its payload limit, should be very gentle (as in pull low G's). A Saturn V was much gentler than…
When we did need it, we -needed- it. Hubble for example.
Wait, I'm sorry, I see what you mean. You're right; manned shuttle missions were the only way to keep Hubble from going to waste.
Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program
#57Yes, when you pour money down the money hole, you do tend to get a few things in return. My real question, which we'll see answered hopefully over the next few years, isn't "Were the capabilities we got with the shuttle cool ?" but "Was the shuttle a cost-effective way to obtain those capabilities?" And it's really hard to look at the Shuttle program and say yes . In general, we really need to get over whining about…
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.
Funny thing about that. Bob Taylor ran ARPA and then Xerox PARC. May be that he was his own golden age.
Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program
#58Earlier 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.
Funny thing about that. Bob Taylor ran ARPA and then Xerox PARC. May be that he was his own golden age.
Nothing funny about it. The analogy is good. Garrett Reisman, astronaut, joins SpaceX:
http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20110304
The time of NASA-monopoly (DARPA) is fading, and the time of commercial space (Xerox PARC/Bell Labs) is just beginning. But it really shouldn't be anything for anyone should get worked up over--Xerox PARC/Bell Labs ushered in golden age of innovation and wealth creation, and DARPA still exists and still does amazing things.
Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program
#597. Dead astronauts. The space shuttle was a bad idea and dangerous from the start. Bring on the robots!
The space shuttle is (was?) a test vehicle. Do you know how many test pilots die each year? Actually I don't know either, but I know it's a lot higher than the number of astronauts.
Before anyone jumps on me, I'm absolutely not saying those lives are not valuable. Of course they are, I regret their loss, and I wish that those accidents did not happen. But pushing the envelope is a risky business, and every astronaut knows the odds but gets in the capsule/cockpit anyway. Because if we are not losing lives now and then for reasons unknowable at that time, then we are no longer pushing the envelope and that would be cause for concern.
Re: What We Lose With the End of the Shuttle Program
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reward of human exploration is impossible to quantify. You may as well ask what is the risk reward for basic research, philosophy, religion, or art.
I agree, except for the fact that in the field of space exploration humans can now be largely substituted by machines, and will be more so as our machines advance. Philosophy and art do indeed require lots of human intervention. Thankfully, they are cheap, as is much of the basic science research that we should be prioritizing ahead of, say, super sexy space stations.
But if we do just robotic exploration, we miss out on the unintended side effects of putting people in space.
Kidney dialysis machines for example. And basic research on bone loss which has been a huge help for Osteoperosis patients.
I think the issue here isn't that we know that putting humans in space is expensive, it is, in time as well as resources. I think the issue is that if we don't put humans in space we'll never know what advances we could have made by doing it.