The launch of the space shuttle Explorer has been postponed due to a hydrogen leak. Why is it going up at all?
Like most other Americans old enough to remember the event, I was immensely proud to watch the first space shuttle launch. I remain quite proud of the program. But the space shuttle represents a triumph of 1970s engineering; the machine is now obsolete and dangerous. Not to mention purposeless. Scrap the program.
5 comments:
The shuttle program is on its last flights. It's over next year. It will be replaced by Orion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle#Retirement
"Endeavor", not "Explorer".
Without the shuttle, we essentially have no heavy launch capability at all. This would not be the case had not the Bush Administration scrapped the X-33 RLV (successor vehicle to the shuttle) right after its first successful engine test back in 2001.
Orion is behind schedule and over budget, chiefly due to problems with Ares:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-nasa-rocket-troubles-060409,0,2918308.story
Even if Ares/Orion is on schedule, there will be a five year gap between the scheduled end of the shuttle program and the first launch of Orion.
I think it still goes up because Hubble and the ISS are still up there and the government and military still need to put up satellites and they don't want to rely on the Russians for any of those.
The Shuttle was a poor design from the beginning. It's the opposite of what itwas intended to be: it's a nightmare for routine maintenance, and has the highest cost per pound to orbit of any launch vehicle ever.
Even prior to the first shuttle disaster, the Soviet Energia lifted payloads for 22.7 times less per pound(!), and not only that , but 3% less than the best theoretical American design.
Sergei Rostov
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