|
|
Blog Feeds
Anti-Empire
The SakerA bird's eye view of the vineyard
Public InquiryInterested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
Human Rights in IrelandPromoting Human Rights in Ireland |
NASA's 'Permanent human presence in space' national |
miscellaneous |
news report
 Monday February 03, 2003 02:29 by Dust in the Wind
 Phrase joins 'Challenger' and Titanic's 'God Himself couldn't sink this ship' in annals of arrogance Before the Titanic began its fatal journey, its owner boasted, "God Himself couldn't sink this ship!". At the sudden conclusion of its maiden journey, Titanic found itself on the surface of the ocean floor. NASA's 'Permanent human presence in space' joins 'Challenger' and Titanic's 'God Himself couldn't sink this ship' in the annals of human arrogance Before the Titanic began its fatal journey, its owner boasted, "God Himself couldn't sink this ship!". At the sudden conclusion of its maiden journey, Titanic found itself on the surface of the ocean floor. Then along came NASA with the space shuttle "Challenger". No one in NASA ever quite had the courage to explain just Who it was that Challenger was supposed to be challenging, but together with its Teacher in Space, Challeger also found its way to the surface of the ocean floor. Not having learned its Challenger lession, NASA has brought on the International Space Station. Only 3 months ago, NASA proudly boasted before God and man: "The world's first international orbital outpost celebrates the second anniversary of continuous residency and permanent human presence in space Saturday, Nov. 2." Continuous residency and permanent human presence in space? Ah, pitiful humanity. After the vaporization of the Zionist in Space and the Columbia space shuttle, it now appears that the International Space Station will have to be vacated, for what period no one yet knows, but the current talk is in terms of years. Someday the Space Station will return to Earth, just as it predecessors Mir and Skylab. When it does, its grave will be - the surface of the ocean floor! Would it have hurt NASA to say, "Insha'Allah"? Please note that 3 articles follow: *FIRST INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION TURNS TWO
FIRST INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION TURNS TWO October 31, 2002 Allard Beutel/Dwayne Brown James Hartsfield Release: #H02-212 The "terrible twos" aren't so terrible for the International Space Station. The world's first international orbital outpost celebrates the second anniversary of continuous residency and permanent human presence in space Saturday, Nov. 2. The anniversary marks an ambitious and virtually flawless year of expansion and research in space. Already the largest, most sophisticated and powerful spacecraft ever built, when its second year of occupancy began in 2001, the station has grown by more than 56,000 pounds in components added during the past 12 months. Over the last two years, the station has grown by more than 200,000 pounds, and its internal volume has increased from that of an efficiency apartment to a three-bedroom house. This year, construction began on the station's backbone, a truss structure that eventually will support almost an acre of solar panels to provide more power for orbital research than ever before. "The International Space Station was truly spectacular a year ago, but with each new assembly mission -- almost one every month -- it's further enhanced," said Bill Gerstenmaier, International Space Station Program Manager, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston. "Our success in the past two years has been phenomenal. We are blazing a trail in space and on Earth, through research and international cooperation, which can improve lives and expand exploration. We have many challenges ahead, but this team's continued hard work and dedication will build a final facility that eclipses even today's station," he said. By the end of 2002, the station's truss will stretch almost 133 feet. When completed in 2004, the truss will stretch 356 feet; longer than a football field. This year has seen assembly of the first "space railroad," including a mobile base on the truss for the station's Canadian robotic arm and a "hand car" for spacewalkers. As the station expands, so does its research capability. Experiments aboard the complex have attained more than 90,000 hours of operating time. Sixty-five U.S. investigations have been launched as well as numerous international studies. An example of Station-based research recently involved the first-ever soybean crop grown in space. After spending nearly 100 days aboard the Station and returning on a visiting Space Shuttle, the seeds are undergoing several months of chemical and biological tests on Earth to reveal whether their growth in a low-gravity environment changed their chemical composition. Soybeans are a leading source of protein in the human diet and are used in many products, from oil to crayons. Space Station research, in conjunction with commercial companies, in this area could lead to producing crops that support long-term human presence in space and possibly pave the way for improving crops grown on Earth. In the past 12 months, 33 people have visited or lived aboard the orbiting complex. A total of 112 visitors have been aboard the station since it was launched, including men and women from six nations. The first crewmembers docked with the Station to begin its permanent occupancy on November 2, 2000. Five three-person crews have lived aboard for durations ranging from four to more than six months. In its second year of occupancy, astronauts and cosmonauts have conducted 16 spacewalks for maintenance and assembly of the Station. More information about the Station is available on the Internet at: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov -end- ### NASA Johnson Space Center Shuttle Mission/Space Station Status Reports and other information are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to [email protected]. In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type "subscribe hsfnews" (no quotes). This will add the e-mail address that sent the subscribe message to the news release distribution list. The system will reply with a con firmation via e-mail of each subscription. Once you have subscribed you will receive future news releases via e-mail. http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/spacenews/releases/2002/H02-212.html
Space station and shuttle missions may be mothballed for years For the Americans Ken Bowersox and Don Pettit, and the Russian Nikolai Budarin, the next 24 hours will be lonely. And they could earn the title of the last men in space – for a long time. They are at present aloft in the orbiting International Space Station (ISS), waiting for the Russian Progress cargo ship launched yesterday to ferry supplies to them. It is scheduled to dock tomorrow to deliver food, equipment, fuel and post. While they are safe, with enough supplies to last them until June, and a Russian Soyuz rocket is scheduled to go and pick them up in April, whether anyone will follow them up there for years is unclear. The future of the ISS, and of manned space travel beyond the Earth's orbit, is now uncertain. The failure of the space shuttle Columbia – which disintegrated on re-entry to Earth's atmosphere on Saturday, killing all seven astronauts on board – will almost surely mothball the ISS for about two years. All of Nasa's shuttles have been grounded until the cause is found and rectified. After Challenger blew up in 1986, 32 months – nearly three years – passed before the next one flew. There is no knowing how long it will take to fixwhatever went wrong this time. "It is the fate of the ISS that is at stake now," Boris Chertok, a Soviet space pioneer, said. With the shuttles grounded, there are too few Russian Soyuz and Progress rockets available to keep the supply and crewing missions flying. Sergei Gorbunov, of the Russian space agency Rosaviakosmos, said that while the shuttles were grounded, "work in orbit [on the ISS] will be carried out in a truncated regime". But, he added, "you can forget about further construction on the station until the resumption of American shuttle launches". The ISS can be left dormant, with nobody on board, for years; it has been designed that way. But that's not what anyone involved in space travel wants. One former top Nasa administrator said over the weekend that "the space station was intended to help us learn to live long-term in space. If we're going to go to Mars and to the outer planets, we've got to learn how to live for long periods of time in space". The ISS is a joint project between the US, Russia, Japan and European Space Agency. But it has been suffering cutbacks already – from the expected seven full-time crew to the three now there – and only the US and Russia have had spacecraft capable of actually getting useful goods to it. And since Saturday, and for an unknown time into the future, it's only Russia. But Russia does not have enough launchers or funds to pick up the slack. If Nasa plans to use Russian craft for crewed missions to the space station, it will have to buy Russian Soyuz TMAs, and those new craft would take two years to build. Russia builds two every year, but, unlike the shuttles, they can be used only once. The shuttles can also carry more cargo into space – 100 tons, against the Progress launchers' five tons. The only other way for Russia to boost its funds would be to do what it already has, by taking more "space tourists" like the internet entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, who paid $20m (£12m) to travel into space last April. But, after the weekend, demand may slacken. Grounding the remaining three shuttles will significantly delay the completion of the £65bn space station. Nasa had scheduled five flights this year to ferry components and supplies to the station, whose core structure is only two-thirds finished. Nasa and its international partners had expected the station to become "a research facility with unmatched capabilities" by early next year. Those expectations, added to the presence of the three men on board, may lead to pressure for a quicker resolution than happened after Challenger. "Obviously the shuttle has to be grounded for a limited time," the Republican James Sensenbrenner, former chairman of the House of Representatives space sub-committee, said. "[But] this investigation ... has got to be done much more quickly than the Challenger investigation." The possibility is that changes in Nasa's culture in response to Challenger will help. "There's a far more open attitude inside Nasa. We want to know what happened. We want evidence. If it were being run by Dick Cheney, we wouldn't be being told a damn thing," wrote one woman, whose boyfriend works at Nasa. To add to the complexity, Nasa acquired a new administrator last April, Sean O'Keefe, a former deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, to replace Dan Goldin, the man who had given Nasa the slogan of "faster, better, cheaper". Mr O'Keefe had made his priorities clear in Senate hearings, where he pushed for fewer crew on the ISS. In one of his first speeches he said: "Our future decisions will be science-driven, not destination-driven." David Shayler, an American journalist who has written a book on space disasters, said: "The guys who fly these missions accept that risk. It all depends on politicians and the public, who don't fly these missions, and whether they accept the risk. That will tell you whether you have a future space programme or not." Now, it all comes down to how big a risk it really was to send shuttles into space. And that depends on what emerges from the investigations, which will fill the waking hours of all the Nasa staff for days and weeks to come. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=375103
Space station schedule in doubt PARIS - The loss of the Columbia and the halt to further space shuttle flights threatens a temporary shutdown of manned missions to the International Space Station (ISS) and delays in finishing its construction, experts said yesterday. But officials stressed the current crew of three astronauts - two Americans and one Russian - on board the ISS is not in any immediate danger, although Nasa shuttles have been the main means of transport to and from the station. "They are not stranded, and if necessary they can be repatriated on board the Russian Soyuz rocket," said Lionel Suchet, an ISS senior official based at the French space agency CNES in the French capital. The complex always has a three-seater Russian Soyuz vehicle docked to it in case of emergencies. Russian Nikolai Budarin and Americans Ken Bowersox and Don Petit were due to return to Earth on board the US Space Shuttle Atlantis on March 1. But Nasa halted shuttle flights until investigators determine what caused the Columbia to disintegrate as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere. The astronauts have enough supplies to last until late June without a shuttle visit, said Nasa shuttle programme director Ron Dittemore in Houston. Any long-term interruption of flights would inevitably put at risk future manned missions and consequently the station assembly work, due to be completed in 2006, said Suchet. A Russian space expert who did not wish to be named said the Columbia catastrophe could force the suspension of manned missions and "the return of the [ISS] crew to Earth and the switching of the station to automatic pilot for an indefinite period". While Russian Soyuz craft could be used to keep a manned presence on the ISS, there is little for astronauts to do without the shuttle to bring up scientific experiments and components for further construction of the station. But with only two Soyuz capable of docking with the ISS, a manned presence can be maintained on the ISS for only one year. Thirty-six astronauts were due to visit the ISS this year on five shuttle flights, and six on two Soyuz flights. Flights of Russian Progress supply vehicles would also need to be stepped up, according to experts cited by Russia's Ria-Novosti agency, but these take two years to construct. A Progress flight to the ISS, planned for today, is due to proceed as planned after consultation with Russian officials, Nasa officials said. The mission is due to take fuel, equipment, food and documents to the crew of the ISS, built mainly by Russia and the US, with the participation of space agencies from Europe, Canada and Japan. There are no other quick alternatives to replace the shuttle. A US replacement for the Soyuz, the Orbital Spaceplane, is not due to be ready until 2010. The Europeans abandoned a manned vehicle for the Ariane-5, and its cargo vehicle will not be ready until next year. "Europe is dependent on the Russians and Americans to reach the station," said France's junior research minister Claudie Haignere, a former astronaut. James Newman, Nasa's director of human space programmes in Russia, said that space co-operation between Russia and the United States was bound to intensify. "It is vital to analyse what happened and eliminate problems in order to ensure safe flights for ISS crews," said Newman, who flew aboard Columbia last year. Increased use of Soyuz rockets would be a potential windfall for the Russian Space Agency, which has seen its budget shrink drastically since the collapse of the Soviet Union and has sought alternative sources of funding. Soyuz rockets are used to send Russian crews to the space station for short visits and are also used for emergency escape capsules on the ISS. US space shuttles have been used to ferry permanent crews back and forth to the station. After dumping its Mir space station in March 2001, the Russian space programme has concentrated its meagre resources on the 16-nation ISS, a US-led project. Russia has sought to earn money by taking "space tourists" to the ISS, who pay vast sums for a trip into orbit. But some specialists said development of the unfinished ISS would inevitably be affected. Boris Morukov, who flew aboard the shuttle Atlantis, said that any alteration of Shuttle timetables would throw back further construction plans. Roald Sagdeyev, one of Russia's most celebrated space experts, said the effects could be both immediate and long-term. "This tragedy will without any doubt affect the ISS programme, it already has. "It is clear that no more shuttles will fly to the station for some time. What happens later is unclear. "This is a testing time for everyone in the programme. Will they now be able to make proper collective decisions at critical moments?" - AGENCIES http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3099127&thesection=news&thesubsection=world |
printable version
Digg this
del.icio.us
Furl
Reddit
Technorati
Facebook
Gab
Twitter
|
View Comments Titles Only
save preference
Comments (5 of 5)
Jump To Comment: 5 4 3 2 1Agreed with last commentator, that the problems of the world
are not lack of money, but are the politics. Also agree that
if they did not launch the Shuttle, money saved, in the current
political regime in the World, would not be spent on 'good' causes,
but I still say and I am sure the last commentator agrees, (as
he seems to), that both the Space Shuttle and Space Station are
still a complete waste of perfectly good human resources and
intellect and of world resources too.
It is still of course necessary to punch holes in the argument as
to why American taxpayers should not support them.
Space Shuttles are useful to America, as it helps them affirm their greatness, and gives their people a sense of national pride. What good is that to the rest of us, well apart from giving us something to strive for? nothing - but then it doesn't cost the rest of us anything either.
The Space Station is an attempt at global unity and cooperation - that's its use. It is hopefully the first of many international space-projects.
Yes, there are problems here on Earth - plenty of them - but nearly all of them are not caused by the Space Shuttle, they are caused by oppression and violence - things that exist independently of the Space Missions. Things that won't go away by just throwing the money you saved from not launching the shuttles.
e.g. when given the oppurtunity the sign the Kyoto protocol, George Bush rejected. But do you think that if they hadn't had the space launches, he would have signed it with the money he saved?
The poor of the world are poor because of money-*making* institutions and military and other corrupt regimes - things which not benefit from money saved by not launching space-shuttles.
What is needed to solve the worlds' problems is not more money - the world has plenty of money - it is changes in national and international policies.
If anything, NASA should be given more money, and it be taken out of the American military budget which is about 20 times bigger.
While the loss of the 7 lives on the Shuttle is certainly to be regretted, it has
to be said that both the Space Shuttle and the Space Station are a tremendous waste
of human resources and money.
Each Shuttle launch costs $500 million and it's main purpose recently has been to
service and build the Space Station. Unmanned rocket launches can achieve almost
everything for weather, environment, astronomy satellites and planetary probes
which supporters of the Shuttle cannot possibly claim it is neccessary for.
The Space Station was originally going to be much bigger and far more useful. It's
original price tag was $8 billion. They have already spent $40 billion and up to
before the latest Shuttle accident, officials were suggesting at least another $60 billion
to complete it, making for a total of $100 billion. Even this is probably an under-estimate.
The present Space Station is a much trimmed down version. It can now only support a
crew of 3, all of whom are needed to simply maintain the Space Station. NASA freely
admits this and to do any Science would require a larger crew. Again the freely admit
the Space Station will not be doing any science for the foreseeable future.
The science that could be done on the Space Station is extremely limited. Much of the
talk about perfect crystals and all that crap has never been proven to be of commerical
value over the years. Science in these same areas on the ground is far far cheaper and
has advanced very significantly over the years without the help of experiments in space.
As for remote-sensing/view the earth with the Space station -it is useless. Modern remote
sensing satellites, because of the high resolution and ground registration required, need
very stable platforms that do not move more than milli or even micro-radians. An astronaut
moving from one end of the space station to the other results in minor movements because of
the basic physics of a reactionary force, and these would greatly exceed the stability
requirements of these missions. Besides modern earth/weather/astronomy satellites tend to be
more useful in different orbits than that of the space station, also the significant amount of
trace gases and other contaiminates is more than enough to affect and coat the very delicate
optics of satellite instruments and affect their calibration. Micro-gravity research is of
little practical benefit at the moment.
So what use is the Space Shuttle and Space Station. Answer is none. Their supporters point
to vague break-throughs in the distant future or for future generations. The fact is if the
same amount of energy and resource were used to addressing the incredibly serious environmental
problems on Earth, it could make a big difference. Back in the late 80's NASA and ESA had a
plan called 'Mission to Earth' which was to be a whole series of environmental satellites
monitoring a vast array of physical parameters from a whole range of satellites. It price
tag would have been about $5 billion or so. This would have provided incredibly useful and
important data on the global environment. Instead the project was cancelled because the
Space Shuttle and Space Station were chewing up so much of the budget. Although I suspect
the right-wing anti environment Republics had a role to play in it's cancellation too.
At the moment there won't be any future generations to benefit. And bear in mind also, the
implicit argument, is that this future they talk about is some kind of rosy future where
all our problems are solved. It ignores the fact that as with today, any benefits would
largely accure to the elites of this world. The biggest problem today is lack of democracy
and I am sure if the people of the USA, realized that the real beneficies of the Shuttle
and Space Station are large Aerospace Corporations instead of their nations human and
environmental health and the education of their kids, they would be a lot less reluctant
to support this useless and pointless side of the Space industry as opposed to the more
useful end like climate and weather satellites.
There is no Father Christmas, there are no fairies at the bottom of the garden and there is no geezer with a white beard who made the earth.
Supersticion among the downtrodden is understandable but among people with an education and an income it is just plain childish. Isn't it time you believers in hokum grew up? At any rate save us your infantile fairy stories about "God intended this..."
Touch wood, throw salt over your shoulder, don't walk under ladders, watch some child molester with a funny collar pretend to turn wafer and wine into flesh and blood..., For chisakes grow-up!!!!!!!!!! Allah is great!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mr. In The Wind, the space program is a brilliant effort to propel humanity ever forward in the pursuit of civilisation, knowledge, discovery and achievement. How can you deny this? It's merely the latest effort in an attempt to discover the universe around us - where we are and who we are, just like Magellan, Columbus and Marco Polo - not an attempt to defy God.
Whoever said, "God Himself couldn't sink this ship" might have been exaggerating, but he could never have expected that He would put such an idiot behind the wheel - the ship itself was sound.
As for Challenger, I think you're missing the point - they didn't intend to challenge God, they were attempting to challenge the limits of human achievement, to "rise to the challenges" of the space age. Not to give God the finger.
You are like these people who say, "If God had intended us to fly, He wouldn't have invented airline food"... well I say, If God hadn't intended us to fly, He wouldn't have given us the imagination and curiosity to discover how.
If we gave up a project every time we hit a hiccup, we'd still be in the Stone Age, wondering what could have been if only we didn't ban wheels to prevent all those car-accidents...
(I hope that reference to evolution didn't offend you)