Re: Shuttle program extension?
J Waggoner
administration and Dr. Griffin to put the decision on hold to retire
the shuttle for 1 year... why... because everyone
can see the "coolness" developing. Its just silly to think that if
we have a direct conflict with Russia that they will continue the
space relationship with NASA beyond what is necessary. This
is especially true if sanctions occur. Which is unlikely, unless the
Russians invade the rest of Georgia, which is possible. Depending
on how much Putin is feeling his cheerios.
So Shuttle should continue to be made available to the USA and our
European and Japanese partners so we don't have a repeat Skylab
experience and watch the ISS drop out of the sky and burn into
a million pieces while the press destroys NASA for the failure of ISS.
NASA can't and won't let this happen, if Orion is put on hold for 5
years oh well, welcome to the real world of geopolitics, the space
programs very familiar and old hunting ground.
This will definitely probably stop Atlantis from being mothballed.
As a bonus this will give time to work out Orion and Ares 5 problems
that may not have been able to occur before the current time table.
As for the facilities if necessary Launch Pad C could always be built.
Why not, all the blueprints are in the vault aren't they? Don't
answer that last question. Its just something that's possible as all
things are like just retooling the existing Apollo base design and
redoing the electronics. Welcome back... to ideas that are proven.
Jonathan
On Sun, 31 Aug 2008 08:46:57 GMT, "Brian Gaff"
<Bri...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>Hang on a moment, I seem to recall that Mike Griffin did in fact say a long
>time ago that there was no fundamental reason why it could not fly, except
>that at some point the tooling for tanks etc, and the modification to the
>pads for the next craft may mean that some decision were to be made on this,
>it would have to be fairly fast.
>
>In my view, its the apparent disagreement with Russia over policies on the
>ground etc, which may have made this a higher priority. After all, you can
>hardly fly Americans on Soyuz, if you are daggers drawn over policies in
>Eastern Europe.
>
>From over here, I cannot see why the US seems to be going out of its way to
>annoy Russia, if the boot, so to speak was on the other foot regarding
>missile bases and for that matter, a neighbouring country threatening
>etchic Americans (OK no such thing) I'm sure the response would have been
>very similar.
>
>Anyway, I think I said back in the start, that they may wish to fly longer.
>The bottom line really is the bottom line though, and that is will it be
>funded as well as Orion, or is the return to the moon etc, going to be
>quietly forgotten?
>
>The are old and someone needs to make a long term decision not overturn by
>any administration coming up in a few years.
>
>Brian
Derek Lyons
>As for the facilities if necessary Launch Pad C could always be built.
Between the great expense and difficulty for very little return, the
chances of that are roughly equal to the chances I'll sprout wings and
fly to the moon under my own power.
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
bob haller safety advocate
The current pads have lived a proud and historic life. Perhaps its
time to retire them as exhibits and build new pads for whatever
replaces the shuttle?
a add on to existing ewxpendable pads would likely cost way less than
rebuilding 39 a and b.
so how much would a new pad set cost in comparison to the program
cost?
its likely low, and new pads could be built with a retractable roof so
rockets sitting stacked at the pad arent out in the weather...
something every pad rat would likely appreciate
Martha Adams
news:2b101291-26b8-46cc...@f36g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
================================
A launch pad with a retractable roof? ?? ...!!
I think the problem here has two prime roots.
Root1 is the nontechnical/religious character of far too many
Americans. America is not a spacefaring nation.
Root2 is the system has politicians making engineering
decisions. Politicians make *really* bad engineers.
Titeotwawki -- mha [sci.space.policy 2008 Sep 02]
charlie...@yahoo.com
>
> The current pads have lived a proud and historic life. Perhaps its
> time to retire them as exhibits and build new pads for whatever
> replaces the shuttle?
No
> a add on to existing ewxpendable pads would likely cost way less than
> rebuilding 39 a and b.
No, it wouldn't be
> so how much would a new pad set cost in comparison to the program
> cost?
Too much
> its likely low, and new pads could be built with a retractable roof so
> rockets sitting stacked at the pad arent out in the weather...
> something every pad rat would likely appreciate
No, that defeat the purpose of the VAB. The key is to minimize work
at the pad and do most of it in the VAB
Pat Flannery
Derek Lyons wrote:
> Between the great expense and difficulty for very little return, the
> chances of that are roughly equal to the chances I'll sprout wings and
> fly to the moon under my own power.
>
No, you must use a Dean Drive equipped submarine:
http://davidszondy.com/future/space/dean_drive02.jpg
Pat
bob haller safety advocate
so what could a replacement for 39A & B cost? what percentage of a new
launcher program would that be?
certinally if retractable roofs can be built over stadiums they could
in a fashion be built to protect a pad and vehicle.
would have to be perfect but keep thew rain off would certinally help.
workers do a better job when comfortable:)
I wonder how structurally sound they aRE AFTER ALL THESE YEARS? steel
re bar in salt environment is tough, rebar rusts and grows,
Jeff Findley
"Derek Lyons" <fair...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:48bde3fe....@news.supernews.com...
>J Waggoner <jwa...@alltel.net> wrote:
>
>>As for the facilities if necessary Launch Pad C could always be built.
>
> Between the great expense and difficulty for very little return, the
> chances of that are roughly equal to the chances I'll sprout wings and
> fly to the moon under my own power.
More likely the shuttle will continue flying and Ares I problems will keep
getting worse, to the point where that program is cancelled.
Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein
J Waggoner
<jeff.f...@ugs.nojunk.com> wrote:
>
>"Derek Lyons" <fair...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:48bde3fe....@news.supernews.com...
>>J Waggoner <jwa...@alltel.net> wrote:
>>
>>>As for the facilities if necessary Launch Pad C could always be built.
>>
>> Between the great expense and difficulty for very little return, the
>> chances of that are roughly equal to the chances I'll sprout wings and
>> fly to the moon under my own power.
>
>More likely the shuttle will continue flying and Ares I problems will keep
>getting worse, to the point where that program is cancelled.
>
>Jeff
This wasn't about the pads first all, that was an aside. If you want
to start a pad thread go ahead, be my guest.
There is no reason the shuttles can't be maintained thru 2020 if
necessary. Lets face it Griffin has been campaigning for this
since Bush announced the back to the moon plan. The Russians
have given shuttle fans a gift in this way. Remember the Shuttles
were not to blame for the loss of Columbia or challenger. It was the
SRB joint and the tank foam. The real blame of course sits with
engineers who are human.
Another method of launching the shuttle could always be revived. But
I do think Orion will be slowed down and perfected. Its not good to
rush a new program, you end up with disaster like Apollo One or
Challenger.
kT
> On Tue, 2 Sep 2008 15:38:39 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
> <jeff.f...@ugs.nojunk.com> wrote:
>
>> "Derek Lyons" <fair...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:48bde3fe....@news.supernews.com...
>>> J Waggoner <jwa...@alltel.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> As for the facilities if necessary Launch Pad C could always be built.
>>> Between the great expense and difficulty for very little return, the
>>> chances of that are roughly equal to the chances I'll sprout wings and
>>> fly to the moon under my own power.
>> More likely the shuttle will continue flying and Ares I problems will keep
>> getting worse, to the point where that program is cancelled.
> This wasn't about the pads first all, that was an aside. If you want
> to start a pad thread go ahead, be my guest.
>
> There is no reason the shuttles can't be maintained thru 2020 if
> necessary. Lets face it Griffin has been campaigning for this
> since Bush announced the back to the moon plan.
You are either delusional or a liar.
Where do you cranks come up with this shit?
> I do think Orion will be slowed down and perfected.
Perhaps washing machines really do fly.\
John Doe
Same core design, but with some of the improvements wanted by NASA (such
as electric APUs).
Someone had mentioned that it would cost about 2 billion to build one.
(perhaps another billion for the second shuttle ?).
This would allow NASA to implement many of the improvements to reduce
costs, and retire the older shuttles instead of having them go through
the recertification and major maintenance cycles needed after they've
done ISS assembly.
Would building new shuttles end up costing same ballpark as rebuilding
the current ones ?
They could keep one shuttle pad and maintain a few shuttle missions to
LEO per year (to ISS' hubble etc).
They could develop a re-entry capsule to be used as ISS espace pods
(brought up by shuttles), and later scale those capsules up to be able
to go to the moon on some new rocket.
If NASA were to gear down to support only 2 or 3 shuttle flights per
year, could it seriously lower its fixed costs on the ground ? I am
thinking that if fast turnaround were no longer needed, wouldn't they
require far fewer workers ? And with only 2 shuttles, wouldn't that free
up some buildings used for shuttle maintenance ?
Jeff Findley
"J Waggoner" <jwa...@alltel.net> wrote in message
news:m6orb495eaus4unfp...@4ax.com...
> There is no reason the shuttles can't be maintained thru 2020 if
> necessary. Lets face it Griffin has been campaigning for this
> since Bush announced the back to the moon plan. The Russians
> have given shuttle fans a gift in this way. Remember the Shuttles
> were not to blame for the loss of Columbia or challenger. It was the
> SRB joint and the tank foam. The real blame of course sits with
> engineers who are human.
With Challenger, the blame sits squarely on management's shoulders. The
engineers recommended to *not* launch Challenger in such cold conditions.
They had some data to back them up, but management wanted them to prove the
shuttle would fail if they launched. Management turned safety upside down.
With Columbia, some management decisions were equally silly. As testing on
the ground showed, there was likely a huge hole in the wing leading edge,
yet no attempt was made to look for the hole. Many of the post-Columbia TPS
repair methods were originally concieved before STS-1 even flew. Obviously
it was a mistake for NASA to slowly start treating the TPS as a maintenenace
issue rather than a safety issue.
Once you go down that road, there isn't any point in inspecting the TPS,
since you couldn't fix it anyway, right? The mistake in this logic is that
if the hole had been discovered while Columbia was in orbit, every attempt
would have been made to save the crew. The engineers never had the
opportunity to attempt a rescue like Apollo 13.
> Another method of launching the shuttle could always be revived. But
> I do think Orion will be slowed down and perfected. Its not good to
> rush a new program, you end up with disaster like Apollo One or
> Challenger.
Look at the details of Ares I. That program is one giant hack on top of
another. It needs to die a quiet death and be replaced with something more
sane, like Orion launched by EELV's. The shuttle's paint shaker SRB's ought
not be allowed on any future launch vehicle, manned or otherwise.
nx1...@hotmail.com
>
> Look at the details of Ares I. That program is one giant hack on top of
> another. It needs to die a quiet death and be replaced with something more
> sane, like Orion launched by EELV's. The shuttle's paint shaker SRB's ought
> not be allowed on any future launch vehicle, manned or otherwise.
>
I agree with the Aries I launcher(although I think continuing
development of the J-2X powered second is a good idea), it would
really save them a lot of money if they just simply man-rated both the
Delta IV and the Atlas V (just like they did in the 60's with the
Atlas and Titan II launchers). Also man-rating the two EELVs would
have an additional benefit of reducing insurance premiums for
satellite makers as a man-rated booster would be more reliable.
Alan Erskine
news:4d7c2de3-ac07-45b9...@z6g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
I agree with the Aries I launcher(although I think continuing
development of the J-2X powered second is a good idea), it would
really save them a lot of money if they just simply man-rated both the
Delta IV and the Atlas V (just like they did in the 60's with the
Atlas and Titan II launchers). Also man-rating the two EELVs would
have an additional benefit of reducing insurance premiums for
satellite makers as a man-rated booster would be more reliable.
The Delta IV is already more 'man-rated' than any version of the Ares 1 is
likely to be - lower vibration, smoother ride, proven reliability.
Fred J. McCall
:
:How long would it take to build one or two new shuttles from scratch ?
:Same core design, but with some of the improvements wanted by NASA (such
:as electric APUs).
Probably about a decade.
:
:Someone had mentioned that it would cost about 2 billion to build one.
:(perhaps another billion for the second shuttle ?).
:
Preposterously low numbers.
It cost almost $2 billion to build Endeavour at the time and it
started with a full spares set that were 'free'.
:
:This would allow NASA to implement many of the improvements to reduce
:costs, and retire the older shuttles instead of having them go through
:the recertification and major maintenance cycles needed after they've
:done ISS assembly.
:
How would it do that? One of the reason for retiring the Shuttle is
that the operating costs are so high.
:
:Would building new shuttles end up costing same ballpark as rebuilding
:the current ones ?
:
Define 'rebuilding'.
:
:They could keep one shuttle pad and maintain a few shuttle missions to
:LEO per year (to ISS' hubble etc).
:
:They could develop a re-entry capsule to be used as ISS espace pods
:(brought up by shuttles), and later scale those capsules up to be able
:to go to the moon on some new rocket.
:
'Scale up' means redesign.
:
:If NASA were to gear down to support only 2 or 3 shuttle flights per
:year, could it seriously lower its fixed costs on the ground ? I am
:thinking that if fast turnaround were no longer needed, wouldn't they
:require far fewer workers ? And with only 2 shuttles, wouldn't that free
:up some buildings used for shuttle maintenance ?
:
They're called 'fixed costs' because they're FIXED. They don't change
no matter what your flight rate is.
--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn
Derek Lyons
>On Tue, 2 Sep 2008 15:38:39 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
><jeff.f...@ugs.nojunk.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Derek Lyons" <fair...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>news:48bde3fe....@news.supernews.com...
>>>J Waggoner <jwa...@alltel.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>As for the facilities if necessary Launch Pad C could always be built.
>>>
>>> Between the great expense and difficulty for very little return, the
>>> chances of that are roughly equal to the chances I'll sprout wings and
>>> fly to the moon under my own power.
>>
>>More likely the shuttle will continue flying and Ares I problems will keep
>>getting worse, to the point where that program is cancelled.
>>
>>Jeff
>
>
>This wasn't about the pads first all, that was an aside. If you want
>to start a pad thread go ahead, be my guest.
Here's a clue for you - you don't control what is discussed in what
thread.
>There is no reason the shuttles can't be maintained thru 2020 if
>necessary.
There is a difference between what is theoretically possible, and what
is practically doable. Keeping the Shuttles flying for another twelve
years will be hellaciously expensive as they (and their supporting
infrastructure) will require ever increasing maintenance as they age.
What other problems, like the Kapton wiring of a decade ago, lurk?
>Another method of launching the shuttle could always be revived. But
>I do think Orion will be slowed down and perfected. Its not good to
>rush a new program, you end up with disaster like Apollo One or
>Challenger.
Given that neither Apollo 1 or Challenger was caused by programs being
rushed, I fail to see your point. Doubly so since by any rational
measurement Orion isn't being rushed either.
Derek Lyons
>
>"J Waggoner" <jwa...@alltel.net> wrote in message
>news:m6orb495eaus4unfp...@4ax.com...
>> There is no reason the shuttles can't be maintained thru 2020 if
>> necessary. Lets face it Griffin has been campaigning for this
>> since Bush announced the back to the moon plan. The Russians
>> have given shuttle fans a gift in this way. Remember the Shuttles
>> were not to blame for the loss of Columbia or challenger. It was the
>> SRB joint and the tank foam. The real blame of course sits with
>> engineers who are human.
>
>With Challenger, the blame sits squarely on management's shoulders. The
>engineers recommended to *not* launch Challenger in such cold conditions.
>They had some data to back them up, but management wanted them to prove the
>shuttle would fail if they launched. Management turned safety upside down.
Of course, once again, the engineers mistakes go umentioned - because
management is blame. Always and forever.
Pat Flannery
Derek Lyons wrote:
> Given that neither Apollo 1 or Challenger was caused by programs being
> rushed, I fail to see your point. Doubly so since by any rational
> measurement Orion isn't being rushed either.
>
Apollo 1 was certainly caused by the program being rushed (or "Go Fever"
as the astronauts referred to it). Challenger was due to trying to
maintain a unrealistic flight rate.
Pat
Jeff Findley
> "Jeff Findley" <jeff.f...@ugs.nojunk.com> wrote:
>>With Challenger, the blame sits squarely on management's shoulders. The
>>engineers recommended to *not* launch Challenger in such cold conditions.
>>They had some data to back them up, but management wanted them to prove
>>the
>>shuttle would fail if they launched. Management turned safety upside
>>down.
>
> Of course, once again, the engineers mistakes go umentioned - because
> management is blame. Always and forever.
I used to have a good link for this one...
Here we go, straight from the Rogers Commission Report:
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Chapter-5.txt
Quote from above:
The decision to launch the Challenger was flawed. Those who made
that decision were unaware of the recent history of problems
concerning the O-rings and the joint and were unaware of the initial
written recommendation of the contractor advising against the launch
at temperatures below 53 degrees Fahrenheit and the continuing
opposition of the engineers at Thiokol after the management reversed
its position. They did not have a clear understanding of Rockwell's
concern that it was not safe to launch because of ice on the pad. If
the decision makers had known all of the facts, it is highly unlikely
that they would have decided to launch 51-L on January 28, 1986.
I think that just about does it. The engineers at Thiokol knew there were
problems with the o-rings when launching in cold weather. They were opposed
to launching in cold weather. They were overruled by Thiokol management.
Also, NASA management was pushing Rockwell around as well (on the issue of
ice on the launch vehicle): "In this situation, NASA appeared to be
requiring a contractor to prove that it was not safe to launch, rather than
proving it was safe." Even though ice turned out to not be an issue in this
case, NASA's decision making process was clearly flawed when it came to
safety. There was a whole boatload of recommendations about safety and
safety processes that came out of the Rogers Commission Report. IMHO,
safety is something that has to be managed very carefully.
So, just how was the Challenger disaster the fault of the engineers?
Derek Lyons
>So, just how was the Challenger disaster the fault of the engineers?
Have you ever actually studied the Challenger accident as opposed to
quoting soundbites?
Derek Lyons
Schedule pressure on a single flight, or series of flights, is not the
same thing as a program being rushed.
Brian Thorn
wrote:
>Schedule pressure on a single flight, or series of flights, is not the
>same thing as a program being rushed.
How many flights does it take until the program is, in fact, rushed?
Brian
John Doe
> Look at the details of Ares I. That program is one giant hack on top of
> another. It needs to die a quiet death and be replaced with something more
> sane, like Orion launched by EELV's. The shuttle's paint shaker SRB's ought
> not be allowed on any future launch vehicle, manned or otherwise.
Doesn't Arianne also use SRBs ? How do their fare compared to the
shuttle SRBs in terms of noise/vibration ?
And how does the Ares SRBs fare against the Arianne ones ?
John Doe
> They're called 'fixed costs' because they're FIXED. They don't change
> no matter what your flight rate is.
I think this is an over-simplification. If your ground infrastructure
is setup to handle X flights per year and this requires that one shuttle
enter maintenance phase before another one is finished, it means that
you need 2 maintenance bases, and enough employees to process 2 shuttles
concurrently (or even more if a 3rd shuttle is in a heavy maintenance
phase monopolising a maintenance bay and employees for months/year)
Lower the launch rate to a point where shuttle #1 has fully exited the
maiintenance facility by the time shuttle #2 lands, and it means that
shuttle#2 can use the same facility and staff that have worked on
shuttle #1 just before.
In other words, once NASA is given the order to plan for no more than
say 3 launches per year for Shuttle, it could then scale its ground
infrastucture down. But as long as it has dreams of 12 launches per
year, NASA will keep ground infrastructure scaled up to handle the
remote possibility of 12 launches per year, even if in reality, it may
never do more than 6.
So I think there is room to significantly reduce ground costs after
assembly complete if NASA is told to not plan for more than 2 or 3
shuttle launches per year allowing it to scale down its ground
infrastructure.
Fred J. McCall
:Fred J. McCall wrote:
:>
:> They're called 'fixed costs' because they're FIXED. They don't change
:> no matter what your flight rate is.
:>
:
:I think this is an over-simplification. If your ground infrastructure
:is setup to handle X flights per year and this requires that one shuttle
:enter maintenance phase before another one is finished, it means that
:you need 2 maintenance bases, and enough employees to process 2 shuttles
:concurrently (or even more if a 3rd shuttle is in a heavy maintenance
:phase monopolising a maintenance bay and employees for months/year)
:
If they scale with flight rates then they are not fixed costs. That's
not "over-simplification". That's the bloody definition of fixed
costs.
--
"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the
truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong."
-- Thomas Jefferson
John Doe
> If they scale with flight rates then they are not fixed costs. That's
> not "over-simplification". That's the bloody definition of fixed
> costs.
If they have facilities to support say 12 flights per year, you have
fixed costs whether you operate 1 or 12 flights that year.
But if you know you won't need more than 3 flights per year, you might
be able to scale down those facilities and staffing levels and reduce
your fixed costs. (at which point, your costs would be fixed whether you
operate 1 or 3 flights per year).
Think of it in terms of a factory. If you operate 2 production lines in
3 shifts, your factory will have equipment and employee costs that are
fixed whether the factory runs at capacity or below capacity.
But if you are only using 1/6th of the maximum capacity, you could
shutdown one production line and only hire one shift of employees to
produce what is needed and your fixed costs would be much lower.
Martha Adams
news:48bf7604$0$12405$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
==========================================
From my point of view of being aboard one of those
Shuttles when launched, what is happening to the skills
and knowhow level of the remaining work crew while this
is going on? ?? I recognize great advances in manuals
and literature accessibility as computer technology
comes in, but I really don't want someone working on my
hardwares who hasn't had one of the things apart and
reassembled personally at least two or three times, and
then tested severely? Someone who hasn't spent *days*
looking at fault trees and thinking about what if this
or that which isn't there (yet) happens anyway? These
staff and physical plant reduction schemes may work ok
in a candy factory, but are they really such a safe
idea for extremely dynamic machinery such as Shuttles
and the like? ??
Titeotwawki -- mha [sci.space.policy 2008 Sep 04]
Martha Adams
news:nnaub49sap6iv4o3b...@4ax.com...
======================================
The idea of lifting off on a single one of those SRBs
came into focus for me when I saw a proposal described
here in sci.space.policy, for a three-ton weight on
springs (surely with friction dampers too) to absorb
and damp the vibration. *Three tons of dumb steel* on
a spacecraft? !!? Somebody is spinning like Road
Runner up a wrong tree, and no Wiley Coyote in sight.
It sounds to me like a severe fault in upper level
management.
I haven't heard yet why those SRBs vibrate longitudinally
in liftoff. Is the burning rate of the solid fuel too
pressure sensitive?
Fred J. McCall
:
Go look up the definition of 'fixed cost'.
If it varies with level of activity, it is a VARIABLE cost.
Let me help you out:
Fixed Cost: Fixed costs are operating expenses that are incurred when
providing necessities for doing business and have no relation to the
volume of production and sales (as opposed to "variable costs").
Examples are rent, property taxes, and interest expense.
Alexander DeClama
costs. They are there whether you use them for 12 flights or 2. The
maintenance personnel, replacement parts, etc are all variable costs
because you use them only when needed. It's a mix of both.
Jeff Findley
> "Jeff Findley" <jeff.f...@ugs.nojunk.com> wrote:
>
>>So, just how was the Challenger disaster the fault of the engineers?
>
> Have you ever actually studied the Challenger accident as opposed to
> quoting soundbites?
Since when is the official accident report published by an independent team
of experts a soundbite? Just what have you been smoking lately?
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
news:q1kvb4hncc67af3sj...@4ax.com...
Let me help you out Fred.
The fixed costs of my local airport are a LOT lower than JFK. Of course my
local airport handles a lot less passengers than JFK.
So yes, fixed costs CAN vary depending on how you size the program.
John has a point. If you're no longer maintaining say the second OFP
because you plan on a flight rate of 3 a year rather than 12, your fixed
costs WILL change.
Now, you won't be able to reduce your fixed costs by 75% by reducing your
flight rate by 75%. Hell, you might not even be able to reduce it 15%.
But, if you change your assumptions, you can change the fixed costs.
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
news:b62809b0-ddcc-432a...@b2g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
Except even that's not fully true.
For example, do you need both OFPs if you're only flying say 3 flights a
year? Generally something like an OFP would be considered a fixed cost, but
the minute you reanalyze your assumptions, you might be able to eliminate
it.
--
Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting Remote and Onsite available!
Email: sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com/sqlserver.html
Fred J. McCall
:"Fred J. McCall" <fjmc...@gmail.com> wrote in message
:
Don't bother. You're usually wrong.
:
:The fixed costs of my local airport are a LOT lower than JFK. Of course my
:local airport handles a lot less passengers than JFK.
:
:So yes, fixed costs CAN vary depending on how you size the program.
:
Then they're not 'fixed costs'.
See definition above.
Fred J. McCall
:"Alexander DeClama" <adec...@gmail.com> wrote in message
:news:b62809b0-ddcc-432a...@b2g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
:> Perhaps a better way to put it is: the facilities themselves are fixed
:> costs. They are there whether you use them for 12 flights or 2. The
:> maintenance personnel, replacement parts, etc are all variable costs
:> because you use them only when needed. It's a mix of both.
:
:Except even that's not fully true.
:
:For example, do you need both OFPs if you're only flying say 3 flights a
:year? Generally something like an OFP would be considered a fixed cost, but
:the minute you reanalyze your assumptions, you might be able to eliminate
:it.
:
Then it's not a fixed cost.
Eric Chomko
> John Doe <j...@doe.org> wrote:
> :Fred J. McCall wrote:
>
> :>
> :> They're called 'fixed costs' because they're FIXED. They don't change
> :> no matter what your flight rate is.
> :>
> :
> :I think this is an over-simplification. If your ground infrastructure
> :is setup to handle X flights per year and this requires that one shuttle
> :enter maintenance phase before another one is finished, it means that
> :you need 2 maintenance bases, and enough employees to process 2 shuttles
> :concurrently (or even more if a 3rd shuttle is in a heavy maintenance
> :phase monopolising a maintenance bay and employees for months/year)
> :
>
> If they scale with flight rates then they are not fixed costs. That's
> not "over-simplification". That's the bloody definition of fixed
> costs.
>
What in the history of mankind has ever been fixed that was dubbed
"fixed cost"?
Even gold at $35 an ounce as a fixed cost changed. Nothing is fixed
WRT cost, Freddy. Given enough time.
Eric
Eric Chomko
> John Doe <j...@doe.org> wrote:
> :Fred J. McCall wrote:
>
> :
> :> If they scale with flight rates then they are not fixed costs. That's
> :> not "over-simplification". That's the bloody definition of fixed
> :> costs.
> :
> :If they have facilities to support say 12 flights per year, you have
> :fixed costs whether you operate 1 or 12 flights that year.
> :
> :But if you know you won't need more than 3 flights per year, you might
> :be able to scale down those facilities and staffing levels and reduce
> :your fixed costs. (at which point, your costs would be fixed whether you
> :operate 1 or 3 flights per year).
> :
> :Think of it in terms of a factory. If you operate 2 production lines in
> :3 shifts, your factory will have equipment and employee costs that are
> :fixed whether the factory runs at capacity or below capacity.
> :
> :But if you are only using 1/6th of the maximum capacity, you could
> :shutdown one production line and only hire one shift of employees to
> :produce what is needed and your fixed costs would be much lower.
> :
>
> Go look up the definition of 'fixed cost'.
>
> If it varies with level of activity, it is a VARIABLE cost.
>
> Let me help you out:
>
> Fixed Cost: Fixed costs are operating expenses that are incurred when
> providing necessities for doing business and have no relation to the
> volume of production and sales (as opposed to "variable costs").
> Examples are rent, property taxes, and interest expense.
>
All of which change over time...
Eric Chomko
> "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" <mooregr_deletet...@greenms.com> wrote:
>
> :"Fred J. McCall" <fjmcc...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> :news:q1kvb4hncc67af3sj...@4ax.com...
Ah, Freddy, being his normal lovable self...
I bet the kids stop coming by at Halloween at your place, right Fred?
>
> :
> :The fixed costs of my local airport are a LOT lower than JFK. Of course my
> :local airport handles a lot less passengers than JFK.
> :
> :So yes, fixed costs CAN vary depending on how you size the program.
> :
>
> Then they're not 'fixed costs'.
>
> See definition above.
Does it say something about how hard your head is? Because if not,
then it isn't relative to the discussion at this point.
Eric
Alexander DeClama
Doesn't apply.
"Fixed" denotes the fact that no matter what you do, you have to pay
for x item. If you rent an apartment, your rent is a fixed cost. The
electric bill is a fixed cost, because most complex if not all require
you to have electric service to move in. Your cable and internet
service is not a fixed cost. Car insurance is a fixed cost by law.
Collision coverage is not.
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
> "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" <mooregr_d...@greenms.com> wrote:
>
>
> Don't bother. You're usually wrong.
You know, a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while Fred. You're not
even that lucky.
>
> :
> :The fixed costs of my local airport are a LOT lower than JFK. Of course
> my
> :local airport handles a lot less passengers than JFK.
> :
> :So yes, fixed costs CAN vary depending on how you size the program.
> :
>
> Then they're not 'fixed costs'.
By your definition then, nothing can ever be "fixed costs".
>
> See definition above.
>
> --
> "Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
> territory."
Don't worry, a lot of people have offered you a map, you keep turning them
down.
> --G. Behn
Fred J. McCall
:"Fred J. McCall" <fjmc...@gmail.com> wrote in message
:news:snuvb4pcoumaquj3m...@4ax.com...
:> "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" <mooregr_d...@greenms.com> wrote:
:>
:>
:> Don't bother. You're usually wrong.
:
:You know, a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while Fred. You're not
:even that lucky.
:
Oh, I don't know. I keep finding you.
:
:>
:> :
:> :The fixed costs of my local airport are a LOT lower than JFK. Of course my
:> :local airport handles a lot less passengers than JFK.
:> :
:> :So yes, fixed costs CAN vary depending on how you size the program.
:> :
:>
:> Then they're not 'fixed costs'.
:
:By your definition then, nothing can ever be "fixed costs".
:
Hogwash. Go look up the real definition of 'fixed cost', which you
'cleverly' snipped.
:
:>
:> See definition above.
:>
:> --
:> "Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
:> territory."
:
:Don't worry, a lot of people have offered you a map, you keep turning them
:down.
:
:
:> --G. Behn
Gee, arguing with a .sig now? The epitome of Usenet cluelessness...
John Doe
If your facilities were built to sustain 12 flights per year, you would
be operating a certain number of facilities/buildings dedicated to
maintaining and preparing shuttles for flight. It is a fixed cost to
maintain a facility having a certain capacity, whether you use that
capacity to its fullest extent or not.
But you can scale back that capacity and cut costs. If the current
launch rate requires that you have multiple maintenance halls because
the current lauch rate requires that you be able to work on 2 shuttles
at the same time, it also means that you need to have 2 sets of crews
that do the maintenance work.
Once you decide to limit the lauch rate to a fraction of what your
current capacity is, then you can probably close (or retask) some of the
buildings and reduce your ground workforce since the reduce schedule
makes it possible to only require one maintenance hall/crew to do the
shuttle maintenance. And perhaps even use the same employees to work on
the pad to complete the preparations for launch since those employees
wouldn't have an orbiter waiting to be maintained.
So, if they were to extend the shuttle program with a very limited
flight rate, it might very well be possible to significantly lower the
ground fixed costs. It might work well as in interim measure until full
replacement of shuttle has been achieved. (manned and cargo).
John Doe
> Then it's not a fixed cost.
Say you are an airport with 12 gates/jetways. You need to pay $X per
year to Jetway Corp for maintenance of the jetways. Those are fixed
costs associated with your ground based infrastructure. And you want 12
gates because you want the ability to accept 12 flights simultaneously.
But years later, when you accept that Podunk Airport will never have 12
flighst land at the same time, you can decide to let go of 8 gates and
only keep 4. You reduce your infrastructure and also reduce the costs of
maintaining those jetways, so from then on, your fixed costs are lower
because you have a smaller infrastructure to maintain.
Jeff Findley
You two are splitting hairs, but I tend to agree with John Doe. But, and
this is a *big* but, you can only reduce your fixed costs if you can
eliminate infrastructure and the jobs associated with that infrastructure.
Let's make up two examples.
Say a small aerospace vehicle program maintains two processing bays which
are needed to maintain a flight rate of 12 flights per year. The same
workers are used in both bays, because the work they do is very specialized
and with only 12 flights per year, you really don't need dedicated staff for
each bay. Ten years down the road, you decide you only need 6 flights per
year so you "close" one processing bay and use it to store one of the
vehicles in case you ever need it again. How much do you save by doing
this? Precious little. Since the bay is in the same building, and because
it's being used to store one of the vehicles, you don't save much in
building costs. You save almost zero in staff costs since there is no one
you can lay off since all the workers are specialized.
Say a small aerospace vehicle program maintains two processing buildings
which are needed to maintain a flight rate of 1200 flights per year.
Because the flight rate is so high, each building has its own dedicated
infrastructure. In other words the contents and staffing of the buildings
are identical and there is little to no "cross pollination" between the two.
Ten years down the road, you decide you only need 600 flights per year so
you lay off all the workers from one of the buildings and sell that building
and all of its contents. This includes selling half of your vehicles so you
don't even have to pay storage costs on them. How much do you save by doing
this? Obviously half of your fixed costs since you've sold off half of your
vehicles and buildings and laid off half your workers.
Which one of these is closer to the shuttle program? Do you really think
NASA is going to save much money by reducing the flight rate of a vehicle
that flies less than a dozen times per year? Even if buildings are
"closed", do you think NASA will sell them off or keep them in case they are
needed for Ares/Orion in the near future?
In the case of the shuttle, the fixed costs are just about fixed in stone.
The OMDP's in California aren't even done anymore. What else could really
be cut? There are already news reports that NASA, USA, and other
contractors are having trouble retaining key people in the shuttle
workforce, so I doubt you could even lay off many people by reducing the
flight rate to two per year. You really need two of just about everything,
in case you need to launch a rescue mission or in case something bad happens
to one of the facilities, pads, crawlers, MLP's, etc.
Fred J. McCall
:
Capital costs and fixed costs are not necessarily the same thing. You
seem to be assuming that they are.
Eric Chomko
> "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" <mooregr_deletet...@greenms.com> wrote:
>
> :news:snuvb4pcoumaquj3m...@4ax.com...
> :> "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" <mooregr_deletet...@greenms.com> wrote:
> :>
> :>
> :> Don't bother. You're usually wrong.
> :
> :You know, a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while Fred. You're not
> :even that lucky.
> :
>
> Oh, I don't know. I keep finding you.
>
> :
> :>
> :> :
> :> :The fixed costs of my local airport are a LOT lower than JFK. Of course my
> :> :local airport handles a lot less passengers than JFK.
> :> :
> :> :So yes, fixed costs CAN vary depending on how you size the program.
> :> :
> :>
> :> Then they're not 'fixed costs'.
> :
> :By your definition then, nothing can ever be "fixed costs".
> :
>
> Hogwash. Go look up the real definition of 'fixed cost', which you
> 'cleverly' snipped.
>
> :
> :>
> :> See definition above.
> :>
> :> --
> :> "Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
> :> territory."
> :
> :Don't worry, a lot of people have offered you a map, you keep turning them
> :down.
> :
> :
> :> --G. Behn
>
> Gee, arguing with a .sig now? The epitome of Usenet cluelessness...
Those who post quotes as you always do, need to ahere to them more
than anyone else. THAT is why you post them. You think WE need them,
but really YOU need them.
Eric Chomko
> On Sep 4, 1:00 pm, Eric Chomko <pne.cho...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Sep 4, 1:20 am, Fred J. McCall <fjmcc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > John Doe <j...@doe.org> wrote:
> > > :Fred J. McCall wrote:
>
> > > :>
> > > :> They're called 'fixed costs' because they're FIXED. They don't change
> > > :> no matter what your flight rate is.
> > > :>
> > > :
> > > :I think this is an over-simplification. If your ground infrastructure
> > > :is setup to handle X flights per year and this requires that one shuttle
> > > :enter maintenance phase before another one is finished, it means that
> > > :you need 2 maintenance bases, and enough employees to process 2 shuttles
> > > :concurrently (or even more if a 3rd shuttle is in a heavy maintenance
> > > :phase monopolising a maintenance bay and employees for months/year)
> > > :
>
> > > If they scale with flight rates then they are not fixed costs. That's
> > > not "over-simplification". That's the bloody definition of fixed
> > > costs.
>
> > What in the history of mankind has ever been fixed that was dubbed
> > "fixed cost"?
>
> > Even gold at $35 an ounce as a fixed cost changed. Nothing is fixed
> > WRT cost, Freddy. Given enough time.
>
> > Eric
>
> Doesn't apply.
>
> "Fixed" denotes the fact that no matter what you do, you have to pay
> for x item. If you rent an apartment, your rent is a fixed cost.
Over the term of the contract. Many apartments have hidden costs as
well.
> The
> electric bill is a fixed cost, because most complex if not all require
> you to have electric service to move in. Your cable and internet
> service is not a fixed cost. Car insurance is a fixed cost by law.
Until you get into an accident and then they change your premium.
And if insurance companies have fixed costs, then why are all the
premiums different?
Further, since the cost of insurance is fixed by lawa as you state,
then what is the fixed cost?
> Collision coverage is not.
Fixed costs are singular. That is, the cost is fixed for a single
transaction at a single time. Your delusion of "fixed cost" is naive
like the manner in which Fred sees it. Economies don't function on
fixed anything as we live in a changing world. To claim something is a
fixed cost is simple-minded at best. It gives the buyer the illusion
of secuirity over a single time interval related to a cost. Even tax
rates change and taxes are probable the most "fixed" anything when it
comes to money.
John Doe
> :Say you are an airport with 12 gates/jetways. You need to pay $X per
> :year to Jetway Corp for maintenance of the jetways. Those are fixed
> Capital costs and fixed costs are not necessarily the same thing. You
> seem to be assuming that they are.
jetway maintenance costs would not be capital costs. They would be fixed
costs to operate the airport no matter how many flights you have.
Getting rid of excess jetways allows you to perhaps sell some jetways
(selling off capital) but more importantly, it allows you to reduce your
fixed annual maintenance costs.
When you consider the recent decisions on the shuttle, the shuttle
program was to run at full speed until 2010 and then abruptly stop. So
there would be no reason to scale back infrastructure to save costs
since you wanted to have all of the capacity you could get to ensure you
could deliver the number of flights within that time frame.
But, if a decision is made to extend the shuttle by a number of years
with a limited number of flights, then it may make sense to review the
ground infrastructure and scale it down to match the needed flight rate
for the next decade or however long the shuttle might be fliying at a
reduced rate.
bob haller safety advocate
Pittsburgh international airport is walling off parts of 2 terminals
to reduce the fixed costs of lighting heating maintaing the closed
sections, traffic ios way off and USAIR downsizing more today.....
fixed costs can change
Pat Flannery
Martha Adams wrote:
> "Brian Thorn" <btho...@suddenlink.net> wrote in message
> news:nnaub49sap6iv4o3b...@4ax.com...
>> On Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:36:28 GMT, fair...@gmail.com (Derek Lyons)
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Schedule pressure on a single flight, or series of flights, is not the
>>> same thing as a program being rushed.
>>
>> How many flights does it take until the program is, in fact, rushed?
>>
>> Brian
>
> ======================================
>
> The idea of lifting off on a single one of those SRBs
> came into focus for me when I saw a proposal described
> here in sci.space.policy, for a three-ton weight on
> springs (surely with friction dampers too) to absorb
> and damp the vibration. *Three tons of dumb steel* on
> a spacecraft? !!?
On the first stage, you can get away with extra weight far more than on
the upper stage(s).
Considering how much the SRB weighs already (around 96 tons for the
Shuttle variant at launch) three extra tons doesn't add all that much
weight in proportion to overall weight.
> Somebody is spinning like Road
> Runner up a wrong tree, and no Wiley Coyote in sight.
> It sounds to me like a severe fault in upper level
> management.
>
> I haven't heard yet why those SRBs vibrate longitudinally
> in liftoff. Is the burning rate of the solid fuel too
> pressure sensitive?
Any large solid fuel motor undergoes what's called "organ pipe
resonance" while firing; the trick is to prevent it from increasing in
intensity to the point where it destroys the motor by vibrating it to
pieces.
This was one of the major problems faced by designers of large solid
fuel motors after WWII.
If you look at this cutaway of a Nike-Ajax SAM solid-fuel booster from
the 1950's, you will note "resonance rods" are incorporated into its
fuel grain to "de-tune" it and prevent a dangerous harmonic vibration
from developing while it fires:
http://ed-thelen.org/booster.gif
Pat
J Waggoner
Even the head of the shuttle program in 1986 said the flight schedule
was AMBITIOUS to say the least.. 12 flights? perhaps 20? Cmon
what kind of Holocaust hoax man are you.
Secondly didn't I see you trying to sell a bridge near Brooklyn? LOL
On Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:42:33 -0500, Pat Flannery <fla...@daktel.com>
wrote:
nx1...@hotmail.com
> I think that just about does it. The engineers at Thiokol knew there were
> problems with the o-rings when launching in cold weather. They were opposed
> to launching in cold weather. They were overruled by Thiokol management.
>
> Also, NASA management was pushing Rockwell around as well (on the issue of
> ice on the launch vehicle): "In this situation, NASA appeared to be
> requiring a contractor to prove that it was not safe to launch, rather than
> proving it was safe." Even though ice turned out to not be an issue in this
> case, NASA's decision making process was clearly flawed when it came to
> safety. There was a whole boatload of recommendations about safety and
> safety processes that came out of the Rogers Commission Report. IMHO,
> safety is something that has to be managed very carefully.
What i'd like to know is why the managers who made the decision to
launch(and willfully ignored the engineers warnings) weren't jailed
for manslaughter which if you ak is what they're guilty of.
Brian Thorn
wrote:
>Even the head of the shuttle program in 1986 said the flight schedule
>was AMBITIOUS to say the least.. 12 flights? perhaps 20?
I think they were aiming for 17 or 18 that year.
Brian
bob haller safety advocate
> What i'd like to know is why the managers who made the decision to
> launch(and willfully ignored the engineers warnings) weren't jailed
> for manslaughter which if you ak is what they're guilty of.
NASA PROTECTS THEIR MANAGERS:( Columbia Managers who clearly
ignoredtheir own flight rules got cushy promotions after columbias
loss. While because they didnt floow the rules deserved to be
FIRED!!!!!
SEN...@argo.rhein-neckar.de
Sure, but they could blackmail the White House!
Just minutes ago I saw in ARTE TV (a French / German channel) a British
semi documentary of 2006. Was from Pioneer Productions. I would lable it
fair but not good. I saw much worse ones on Challenger and Columbia in
last years. So I`m in the mood to talk about.
The one and only reason why NASA was eager to launch this day was not
mentioned at all. Its not in the official history and you have to dig to
find it. President Reagan wanted to do a TV interview with teacher astronaut
Christa McAuliffe in space for his State of the Union speech in Congress.
He had to tape it before to present it at Congress as live show. NASA and
White House were willing to take almost any risk to get this PR event.
Feynman investigated this reason but found no smoking gun. Till today none
went up but the cirumstances speak for itself. The Rogers Commission was
set by the White House. Its chairman Rogers said to the other members he
has no intention to do an accident investigation. That reported Feynman
in his book.
In last years some of the secret meetings of this Commission were published.
In it we read that NASA and the Commission prepared questions and answers
for the next public session. In one case I read Rogers himself said he
wanted a different answer from what a NASA guy suggested to give and he
formulated it self. This all was not reported by Feynman because it was
secret. The main objective of the Commission was to "let NASA look good"
as Feynman was told. As a result, those responsible at NASA and MTI got
better jobs elsewhere. Only the whistle blowers got it bad. With the
result that there were no whistle blowers during Columbia.
In this GB 2006 production the old myth that Feynman got the O-rings
failure was presented again. Feynman in his book already told how it
realy went. Someone from the astronaut corps got it but did not dare
to tell it. He went to General Kutyna and he tried to get it in a very
subtile way in Feynmans mind as his own idea. Even this General feard
it as professional show stopper to blow it to the public. As Kutyna
explained to Feynman, Feynman was the only member of the Commission not
for blackmail.
Interesting here today the interview with the widow of Challenger commander
Scoobe. He said a day before the launch he was absolutely sure that by
that low temperatures and that much ice NASA wont launch for several days.
In his last telephone call before the launch she heard his fear. This
astronauts are not just drivers but often well educated and capable
engineers. Maybe they even were aware of the O-ring problem before.
Not in this GB 2006 was that NASA months before surpressed the mentioning
of the O-ring problem in an internal report. Such strange action is often
input in "silent channels" every large organisation has. Critical news
there is not spread on paper but from mouth to mouth.
The GB 2006 had an often mentioned spin. In the night telephone conference,
after the MTI managment said "go", Mulloy of NASA asked for opposing
opinion. All went silent and he concluded the telcon. Boisjoly and the
other engineers were blamed not to speak up again a last time.
But in such a high level telcon the engineers were not the decission makers.
They, the mangment from MTI and the other NASA centers were asked by Mulloy
from KSC. Specialy Hardy of MSFC, who lost his job afterwards too. Of
course Mulloy was only a scapegoat because his chief Reinartz was during
the whole telcon in the seat next to him.
Most awfule today was to hear the voice of Reagan that the astronauts were
the victims of space exploration what costs live. Instead they all died for
him. Interestingly I saw some film snips of Gene "we achived perfection"
Kranz in mission control during the Challenger launch and the explosion.
It looked like he was close to explosion too. I never heard anything about
his involvement there. He always talked about his Apollo times.
Most poor in GB 2006 was the use of computer graphics. State of the art
but most uninformative. Compared with the original KSC tracking footage
it was the most impressive way how not to do it! Strangely, they did not
show this tracking film from the dark side of the orbiter where the flame
did its work. Btw, I never ever saw the last seconds tracking film of this
camera in one piece. Only parts or stills of it.
Ok, Sunday already. Good night!
## CrossPoint v3.12d R ##
Joe
Drop dead! <ploink!>
Brian Thorn
>The one and only reason why NASA was eager to launch this day was not
>mentioned at all. Its not in the official history and you have to dig to
>find it. President Reagan wanted to do a TV interview with teacher astronaut
>Christa McAuliffe in space for his State of the Union speech in Congress.
>He had to tape it before to present it at Congress as live show. NASA and
>White House were willing to take almost any risk to get this PR event.
This is an old story that has never been supported by any facts
whatsoever. Sen. Fritz Hollings, one of Reagan's most ardent foes,
pushed that theory heavily at the time, but eventually dropped it for
lack of supporting evidence as well as evidence to the contrary.
Most damning is that neither NASA nor the White House had begun any
work to make possible a live linkup from the House chamber through
Mission Control to the Challenger so that Reagan could talk to
McAuliffe *that night*. That's not the sort of thing you can put
together on the fly, and that lack of preparation strongly indicates
there was no plan for Reagan to speak to McAuliffe live during the
SOTU.
Brian
Rand Simberg
Waggoner <jwa...@alltel.net> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:
>Thankfully both McCain and Obama have sent a letter to the
>administration and Dr. Griffin to put the decision on hold to retire
>the shuttle for 1 year... why... because everyone
>can see the "coolness" developing. Its just silly to think that if
>we have a direct conflict with Russia that they will continue the
>space relationship with NASA beyond what is necessary. This
>is especially true if sanctions occur. Which is unlikely, unless the
>Russians invade the rest of Georgia, which is possible. Depending
>on how much Putin is feeling his cheerios.
>
>So Shuttle should continue to be made available to the USA and our
>European and Japanese partners so we don't have a repeat Skylab
>experience and watch the ISS drop out of the sky and burn into
>a million pieces while the press destroys NASA for the failure of ISS.
>NASA can't and won't let this happen, if Orion is put on hold for 5
>years oh well, welcome to the real world of geopolitics, the space
>programs very familiar and old hunting ground.
Shuttle alone does not allow either we or the Euro/Japanese partners a
means of occupying the station between visits, unless they're willing
to do it without the Soyuz lifeboat.
Rand Simberg
Findley" <jeff.f...@ugs.nojunk.com> made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:
>
>"Derek Lyons" <fair...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:48c0ad51....@news.supernews.com...
>> "Jeff Findley" <jeff.f...@ugs.nojunk.com> wrote:
>>>With Challenger, the blame sits squarely on management's shoulders. The
>>>engineers recommended to *not* launch Challenger in such cold conditions.
>>>They had some data to back them up, but management wanted them to prove
>>>the
>>>shuttle would fail if they launched. Management turned safety upside
>>>down.
>>
>> Of course, once again, the engineers mistakes go umentioned - because
>> management is blame. Always and forever.
>
>I used to have a good link for this one...
>
>Here we go, straight from the Rogers Commission Report:
>
>http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/rogers-commission/Chapter-5.txt
>
>Quote from above:
>
> The decision to launch the Challenger was flawed. Those who made
> that decision were unaware of the recent history of problems
> concerning the O-rings and the joint and were unaware of the initial
> written recommendation of the contractor advising against the launch
> at temperatures below 53 degrees Fahrenheit and the continuing
> opposition of the engineers at Thiokol after the management reversed
> its position. They did not have a clear understanding of Rockwell's
> concern that it was not safe to launch because of ice on the pad. If
> the decision makers had known all of the facts, it is highly unlikely
> that they would have decided to launch 51-L on January 28, 1986.
>
>I think that just about does it. The engineers at Thiokol knew there were
>problems with the o-rings when launching in cold weather. They were opposed
>to launching in cold weather. They were overruled by Thiokol management.
>
>Also, NASA management was pushing Rockwell around as well (on the issue of
>ice on the launch vehicle): "In this situation, NASA appeared to be
>requiring a contractor to prove that it was not safe to launch, rather than
>proving it was safe." Even though ice turned out to not be an issue in this
>case, NASA's decision making process was clearly flawed when it came to
>safety. There was a whole boatload of recommendations about safety and
>safety processes that came out of the Rogers Commission Report. IMHO,
>safety is something that has to be managed very carefully.
>
>So, just how was the Challenger disaster the fault of the engineers?
It's not. If someone had said it was the engineers' fault, Derek
would have blamed it on management, and complained that we didn't
agree with him.
SEN...@argo.rhein-neckar.de
>
> Most damning is that neither NASA nor the White House had begun any
> work to make possible a live linkup from the House chamber through
> Mission Control to the Challenger so that Reagan could talk to
> McAuliffe *that night*. That's not the sort of thing you can put
> together on the fly, and that lack of preparation strongly indicates
> there was no plan for Reagan to speak to McAuliffe live during the
> SOTU.
>
> Brian
I wrote not about a real live interview during the State of the Union
Speech. To much risks that something may go wrong. Specialy the strain
on MacAuliffe could be to great. They needed a taped one with here in
space to presented at Congress. No big deal.
But you mentioned the need to prepare such a interview from White House
to Mission Control to Challenger in Space. Exactly that point Feyman
investigated. He reported in his book that without special notice such
an telephone (or even video?) link could be established. It was already
state of the art in 1986. Not unimpressive. But I see no need to downlink
the video simultanious with the telephone, that could be dumped later.
Because of the ease to do such an interview there was no need to inform
a lot of people before.
kevin willoughby
> Given that neither Apollo 1 or Challenger was caused by programs being
> rushed,
huh? You don't think there was any "go fever" with Apollo 1?
You don't recall the schedule pressures for lots of shuttle launches in
1986?
Pat Flannery
kevin willoughby wrote:
> Derek Lyons wrote:
>> Given that neither Apollo 1 or Challenger was caused by programs being
>> rushed,
>
> huh? You don't think there was any "go fever" with Apollo 1?
That would be sort of odd, as the astronauts involved in the program
said there was...in those exact terms.
We were very concerned that the Soviets could do a lunar loop mission
with a Proton/Zond before we could do a Apollo lunar orbit mission with
a CSM on a Saturn V.
That's why Apollo 8 did the mission after only two unmanned Saturn V
launches, even though the second launch was a real mess.
Pat
Pat Flannery
It was either Popular Science or Popular Mechanics that had the cover
article about "Our Biggest Year In Space" that hit the newsstands around
a week after the Challenger blew up...showing all the planned missions
for 1986.
There were one mighty lot of them, and they had it broken down in a
illustrated graph on a month-to-month timeline showing what was going up
in any particular week during the year.
Hubris.
Pat
Ed Kyle
>
> The one and only reason why NASA was eager to launch this day was not
> mentioned at all. Its not in the official history and you have to dig to
> find it. President Reagan wanted to do a TV interview with teacher astronaut
> Christa McAuliffe in space for his State of the Union speech in Congress.
> He had to tape it before to present it at Congress as live show. NASA and
> White House were willing to take almost any risk to get this PR event.
>
This is oft-repeated hogwash. The real driver pressing for launch was
the 1986 summer STS schedule, which included Gallileo and Ulysses,
both of which were to go within a short span - one from 39A and one
from 39B. Both were to use newly-developed Centaur upper stages.
Missing the short (several week) windows on these launches would have
meant multiyear program delays. Timelines were already tight.
Multiple Challenger 51L launch scrubs had made the already tight
schedule even tighter. There was plenty of pressure to launch from
within the program. Reagan had nothing to do with it.
Eric Chomko
Too bad Reagan didn't bug himself like Nixon did, then we'd know for
sure.
Eric
max...@mission51l.com
"Hogwash?" Or a well-planned political diversion from the "tight
schedule?"
"Summer?" Or spring?
"Several week?" Or a "short span" of only a few days?
"Within the program?" Or Reagan's militarized program?
"Nothing?" Or something?
JTM -- www.mission51l.com
J Waggoner
Goldin. You dick.
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
news:gdioc41ll8t2tq08q...@4ax.com...
> Excellent point on the lifeboat... Thanks for cancelling it Mr.
> Goldin. You dick.
And how did you expect him to pay for it when Congress of course the one
writing the checks?
That said, Rand does bring up a good point I had overlooked. While
continuing the shuttle reduces the requirement for us paying for rides,
rescue seats home are still required.
(Though one could argue that at some point one may want to simply accept
that lifeboats aren't required for 100% of the crew.)
--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.
Brian Thorn
<mooregr_d...@greenms.com> wrote:
>"J Waggoner" <jwa...@alltel.net> wrote in message
>news:gdioc41ll8t2tq08q...@4ax.com...
>> Excellent point on the lifeboat... Thanks for cancelling it Mr.
>> Goldin. You dick.
>
>And how did you expect him to pay for it when Congress of course the one
>writing the checks?
>
>
>That said, Rand does bring up a good point I had overlooked. While
>continuing the shuttle reduces the requirement for us paying for rides,
>rescue seats home are still required.
>
>(Though one could argue that at some point one may want to simply accept
>that lifeboats aren't required for 100% of the crew.)
Never gonna happen. That's a political non-starter.
Brian
Rand Simberg
Thorn <btho...@suddenlink.net> made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:
>On Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:03:56 -0400, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
Which is one of the reasons that our space policy is such a disaster.
Pat Flannery
J Waggoner wrote:
> Excellent point on the lifeboat... Thanks for cancelling it Mr.
> Goldin. You dick.
>
Which one?
There were at least three concepts for the ISS lifeboat; none of which
ever got made.
The closest to being made was the scaled-up X-24 lifting body design
based one.
That got as far as landing drop tests under its para-sail; then just
went bye-bye, never to be heard of again.
Your tax dollars at work: ten million here; ten million there; nothing
at the end to show for it.
Once again - like all NASA manned spacecraft designs since the Shuttle.
Pat
bob haller safety advocate
Moose would be a nice option.
Frankly the station is a looser:(
What if congress just canceled all remaining shuttle flights, and gave
the staioin to the partners?
the boatloads of money could be used to build something new, unsure if
nasa is capable of that:(
the institution is way too forcused on pork piggies, exploration and
science are dead last:(:( priority wise.
the only loosers would be the unemployeed workers, nasa produces
little of value since its mandate got changed to PORK:(
Brian Thorn
wrote:
>The closest to being made was the scaled-up X-24 lifting body design
>based one.
>That got as far as landing drop tests under its para-sail; then just
>went bye-bye, never to be heard of again.
X-38 did get a lot farther than the others, though. They were building
the first orbital version when the program was cancelled. It's still
sitting in storage somewhere, evidently.
Brian
Al
> Derek Lyons wrote:
> > Between the great expense and difficulty for very little return, the
> > chances of that are roughly equal to the chances I'll sprout wings and
> > fly to the moon under my own power.
>
> No, you must use a Dean Drive equipped submarine:http://davidszondy.com/future/space/dean_drive02.jpg
>
> Pat
The Dean Drive!
I remember when John Campbell was extolling that to the sky!
Funniest thing to come out of the Dean Drive madness (besides John
Campbell taking another step down hill in the eyes of the science
fiction community) was that the United Statess Patents Office wrote
Dean back saying he should get in touch with the mining industry ,
that he has a good invention for using on mining processing shaker
tables!
(I don't know if Dean ever followed up on this!)
Jeff Findley
It's a political non-starter, but it's a bit silly.
ISS currently had many redundant systems and modules. With the US and
Russian segments, you have completely separate systems for life support.
Even if something catastrophic happened, it's not very likely to take out
both sets of life support systems.
If safe haven wasn't such a political non-starter it would actually be a
viable way to run the program without the US relying on the Russian Soyuz.
Jeff
--
A clever person solves a problem.
A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
news:1d63b$48cfb403$927a2cda$20...@FUSE.NET...
>
>
> It's a political non-starter, but it's a bit silly.
>
> ISS currently had many redundant systems and modules. With the US and
> Russian segments, you have completely separate systems for life support.
> Even if something catastrophic happened, it's not very likely to take out
> both sets of life support systems.
>
> If safe haven wasn't such a political non-starter it would actually be a
> viable way to run the program without the US relying on the Russian Soyuz.
And the reality is, given the current config, it's quite possible that part
of a crew could be "stranded" on the wrong side of a problem. Suppose
you've got 2-3 crew members in Zvezda and you have a fire in Unity and shut
the hatch. You've got the rest of your crew in say Columbus. You're going
to be hard pressed to "rescue" them.
In my opinion, you really need a single Soyuz for emergency evacuation of a
medically compromised cew member (and two others to help him/her during and
after re-entry).
Beyond that, if a problem occurs, you hole up and wait.
It reminds me of Apollo 13. So many people think "great, they had a
lifeboat". But had the tank problem occurred while the LM was on the
surface, we'd have had 3 dead astronauts.
It's nice to have backups, but you can't reasonably protect against
everything.
>
> Jeff
> --
> A clever person solves a problem.
> A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein
>
>
--
Brian Thorn
<jeff.f...@ugs.nojunk.com> wrote:
>>>(Though one could argue that at some point one may want to simply accept
>>>that lifeboats aren't required for 100% of the crew.)
>>
>> Never gonna happen. That's a political non-starter.
>
>It's a political non-starter, but it's a bit silly.
>
>ISS currently had many redundant systems and modules.
So did the Titanic. Now we have lifeboats for everyone.
Brian
Jeff Findley
"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" <mooregr_d...@greenms.com> wrote in message
news:FpydnR3g5538IFLV...@earthlink.com...
> And the reality is, given the current config, it's quite possible that
> part of a crew could be "stranded" on the wrong side of a problem.
> Suppose you've got 2-3 crew members in Zvezda and you have a fire in Unity
> and shut the hatch. You've got the rest of your crew in say Columbus.
> You're going to be hard pressed to "rescue" them.
True, that's a horrible scenario that even Soyuz doesn't solve. Too bad the
docking and berthing systems on ISS aren't *all* compatible with each other.
If they were, then Soyuz could be used to move them to the functional side
of the station.
But that still doesn't work if the fire strands everyone on the US side of
the station. If that happens, the US life support systems had better be
working.
> In my opinion, you really need a single Soyuz for emergency evacuation of
> a medically compromised cew member (and two others to help him/her during
> and after re-entry).
>
> Beyond that, if a problem occurs, you hole up and wait.
>
> It reminds me of Apollo 13. So many people think "great, they had a
> lifeboat". But had the tank problem occurred while the LM was on the
> surface, we'd have had 3 dead astronauts.
True. Sometimes you have to take chances when you're in the "wilderness".
As an example, it's not very easy to evac someone from the base at the South
Pole in the middle of winter.
It's even worse for climbers on Mt. Everest. You screw up, you die.
Thanks,
Jeff Findley
Tell that to the guys at the South Pole research station. Where's their
lifeboats? On top of that, evac from there in the middle of the winter is
extremely dangerous at best. At some point, your station grows so big you
simply can't supply lifeboats for everyone.
What do you do for a Mars mission? Multiple reentry vehicles? Do you make
them the safe haven for the trip back as well as the return vehicle? How
big would they need to be to support the astronauts for the entire trip
back? I think the lifeboat analogy breaks down for a Mars mission.
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
Remember, most Titantic boats didn't even carry a full complement of
passengers. So having even more lifeboats wouldn't have helped all that
much.
>
> Brian
Rand Simberg
Thorn <btho...@suddenlink.net> made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:
>On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:57:35 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
But we don't insist that they be able to deliver ship's complement all
the way back to Southampton. NASA demands a lot more than a
"lifeboat."
Pat Flannery
Al wrote:
>
> The Dean Drive!
> I remember when John Campbell was extolling that to the sky!
> Funniest thing to come out of the Dean Drive madness (besides John
> Campbell taking another step down hill in the eyes of the science
> fiction community) was that the United Statess Patents Office wrote
> Dean back saying he should get in touch with the mining industry ,
> that he has a good invention for using on mining processing shaker
> tables!
> (I don't know if Dean ever followed up on this!)
>
Western Gear corporation actually did some tests on the Dean Drive.
There's more on it here: http://www.jerrypournelle.com/science/dean.html
Then there's the other wild space drive from the same time period, T.
Townsend Brown's strange widget:
http://members.gcronline.com/cbrauda/0001.htm
For me, the test of a antigravity device would be to seal it in a
watertight sphere weighted to achieve neutral buoyancy, rev it up and
drop it into a swimming pool so that it is fully submerged, but not
touching the bottom. If it starts moving in one direction, you are on to
something.
Pat
Pat Flannery
Jeff Findley wrote:
>
> ISS currently had many redundant systems and modules. With the US and
> Russian segments, you have completely separate systems for life support.
> Even if something catastrophic happened, it's not very likely to take out
> both sets of life support systems.
>
Unless they close airtight hatches as they move from one module to the
next, one meter hit that blew a foot-wide hole in the thing is going to
vacuumate it in short order.
Even if you were in a sealed-off module, it had better have spacesuits
in it if you want to get to the escape Soyuz.
Even a rescue Shuttle EVA would be a real problem...you'd have to
repressurize the station before you opened the door to the module they
were trapped in, or detach the module with them in it and return it to
Earth.
Pat
Brian Thorn
Simberg) wrote:
>>So did the Titanic. Now we have lifeboats for everyone.
>
>But we don't insist that they be able to deliver ship's complement all
>the way back to Southampton. NASA demands a lot more than a
>"lifeboat."
They have to. The sea lanes are relatively crowded, while LEO has
exactly one human-capable "ship". The Titanic's lifeboats were only
needed to await the next ship to come along. ISS's lifeboats don't
have that luxury.
Titanic had many ships within hours' travel of rescue The Californian
was within sight (her radioman had gone to sleep and distress rockets
were ignored by her captain, another change after Titanic was that all
large ships have their radios manned 24 hours a day) and the Carpathia
arrived on scene just after sunrise. ISS cannot expect to have other
ships available to rescue the crew within a reasonable amount of time.
Being able to "deliver all the way back to Southampton" is a lot
cheaper for NASA than having a Carpathia on standby for launch 24/7.
Brian
Brian Thorn
<jeff.f...@ugs.nojunk.com> wrote:
>> So did the Titanic. Now we have lifeboats for everyone.
>
>Tell that to the guys at the South Pole research station. Where's their
>lifeboats?
Last I checked, dry-land facilities don't require lifeboats, no matter
how remote. Ships universally do.
>On top of that, evac from there in the middle of the winter is
>extremely dangerous at best.
But not impossible. It has been done. Without a lifeboat on ISS,
you're dead when the O2, the scrubbers, or the power die.
>At some point, your station grows so big you
>simply can't supply lifeboats for everyone.
That's ridiculous. Why not?
>What do you do for a Mars mission?
We have to accept a greater risk for deep space exploration. That's a
given. Without warp drive, you can't get back to Earth in a reasonable
amount of time or expect a rescue ship in a reasonable amount of time.
ISS has no such excuse. There are no fundamental physics that prevent
a lifeboat for all ISS crew, it is simply a matter of cost. If an ISS
crew dies because they have no lifeboat, the press, critics, and the
crew's survivors will universally, and loudly, proclaim that the crew
died because the government was too cheap to pay for a lifeboat when
the technology was essentially off-the-shelf. And the government knows
this, which is why, as I said, it is a political non-starter.
Brian
Rand Simberg
Thorn <btho...@suddenlink.net> made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:
>On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:04:01 GMT, simberg.i...@org.trash (Rand
>Simberg) wrote:
>
>>>So did the Titanic. Now we have lifeboats for everyone.
>>
>>But we don't insist that they be able to deliver ship's complement all
>>the way back to Southampton. NASA demands a lot more than a
>>"lifeboat."
>
>They have to. The sea lanes are relatively crowded, while LEO has
>exactly one human-capable "ship".
Then that's the problem to be solved, not developing a "lifeboat" that
comes all the way to earth and idiotically abandons a
hundred-billion-dollar space station.
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
> On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:04:01 GMT, simberg.i...@org.trash (Rand
> Simberg) wrote:
>
>>>So did the Titanic. Now we have lifeboats for everyone.
>>
>>But we don't insist that they be able to deliver ship's complement all
>>the way back to Southampton. NASA demands a lot more than a
>>"lifeboat."
>
> They have to.
Define "have to". Question that assumption. At some point one has to make
the choice to not spend the money.
>The sea lanes are relatively crowded, while LEO has
> exactly one human-capable "ship". The Titanic's lifeboats were only
> needed to await the next ship to come along. ISS's lifeboats don't
> have that luxury.
>
> Titanic had many ships within hours' travel of rescue The Californian
> was within sight (her radioman had gone to sleep and distress rockets
> were ignored by her captain, another change after Titanic was that all
> large ships have their radios manned 24 hours a day) and the Carpathia
> arrived on scene just after sunrise. ISS cannot expect to have other
> ships available to rescue the crew within a reasonable amount of time.
Then either that has to change, or the assumption that it's a requirement
has to change.
As I pointed out, there are already scenarios where lifeboats won't do you
much good.
The government already sends hundreds of employees out on craft which have
rescue capabilities that are far more feel good than actually useful. One
of our own here served on one such craft.
>
> Being able to "deliver all the way back to Southampton" is a lot
> cheaper for NASA than having a Carpathia on standby for launch 24/7.
Or is it? Seriously. I do wonder if anyone has looked at the cost of
either developing a rescue craft for the next 4-5 years, paying the Russians
or simply doing what is being done for Hubble. A hassle, sure, but workable
if one really wants to do it.
Heck I'd argue it might open up more options than what we have now.
>
> Brian
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
> On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:53:06 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
> <jeff.f...@ugs.nojunk.com> wrote:
>
>>> So did the Titanic. Now we have lifeboats for everyone.
>>
>>Tell that to the guys at the South Pole research station. Where's their
>>lifeboats?
>
> Last I checked, dry-land facilities don't require lifeboats, no matter
> how remote. Ships universally do.
Really? Can you find a diagram of Los Angeles class submarines and tell me
where the lifeboats are?
And in any case, why should dry-land facilities be any different? When deep
night hints the Antartic, that's it. You're basically there until things
improve. The dramatic rescue of Dr. Nielson was just that because of the
winter issues.
>
>>On top of that, evac from there in the middle of the winter is
>>extremely dangerous at best.
>
> But not impossible. It has been done. Without a lifeboat on ISS,
> you're dead when the O2, the scrubbers, or the power die.
No, not really. There was an extremely dangerous airdrop done in July, an
attempt at evacuating here didn't occur until mid-October, several months
later.
>
>>At some point, your station grows so big you
>>simply can't supply lifeboats for everyone.
>
> That's ridiculous. Why not?
>
>>What do you do for a Mars mission?
>
> We have to accept a greater risk for deep space exploration. That's a
> given. Without warp drive, you can't get back to Earth in a reasonable
> amount of time or expect a rescue ship in a reasonable amount of time.
> ISS has no such excuse. There are no fundamental physics that prevent
> a lifeboat for all ISS crew, it is simply a matter of cost. If an ISS
> crew dies because they have no lifeboat, the press, critics, and the
> crew's survivors will universally, and loudly, proclaim that the crew
> died because the government was too cheap to pay for a lifeboat when
> the technology was essentially off-the-shelf. And the government knows
> this, which is why, as I said, it is a political non-starter.
>
And that's an attitude that needs to be changed. Again, we already have
scenarios where the current lifeboat won't do much good. Witness the fire
on Mir, had it been much worse we might have seen an astronaut die.
> Brian
Brian Thorn
<mooregr_d...@greenms.com> wrote:
>Remember, most Titantic boats didn't even carry a full complement of
>passengers. So having even more lifeboats wouldn't have helped all that
>much.
It would have helped enormously. Many hundreds died on deck for lack
of lifeboats. Yes, a few lifeboats were launched half full, but that
was made up for later by overloading the remaining boats after it was
clear that seas were calm enough to safely do so and that the
Carpathia (and the mystery ship which turned out to be the
Californian) was only hours away. Even more could have been saved if
all of the lifeboats had been overloaded, but the Titanic crew was
slow to that realization.
Brian
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
> On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:01:33 -0400, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
> <mooregr_d...@greenms.com> wrote:
>
>>Remember, most Titantic boats didn't even carry a full complement of
>>passengers. So having even more lifeboats wouldn't have helped all that
>>much.
>
> It would have helped enormously. Many hundreds died on deck for lack
> of lifeboats. Yes, a few lifeboats were launched half full, but that
> was made up for later by overloading the remaining boats after it was
> clear that seas were calm enough to safely do so
Cite on that? My understanding is that pretty much ALL lifeboats,
regardless of the time were pretty much underloaded.
Pat Flannery
Brian Thorn wrote:
>> Tell that to the guys at the South Pole research station. Where's their
>> lifeboats?
>>
>
> Last I checked, dry-land facilities don't require lifeboats, no matter
> how remote. Ships universally do.
>
There was a case several years back where a female member of a antarctic
research station's crew came down with a severe and fast-advancing type
of cancer, and they had a hell of a hard time landing a aircraft to
evacuate her in mid antarctic winter.
Pat
Pat Flannery
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
> Really? Can you find a diagram of Los Angeles class submarines and tell me
> where the lifeboats are?
>
The Russians actually put escape spheres for the crew on theirs.
The only time it ever got used operationally was then the "Mike" class
sub K-278 "Komsomolets*" sank and some of the crew separated the escape
sphere from the sail... only a few of the crew survived the ascent, but
without it the whole crew would have been dead:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-278_Komsomolets
* Strange name... it refers to the Soviet youth organization the
"Komsomol" - picture a communist version of the Boy Scouts.or Hitler Youth.
I actually got drunk enough at a party in Russia to call a young member
of the Russian Army's tactical missile forces a great Komsomol member.
Then I got punched out, although thanks to the vodka I didn't even feel
it. :-D
Pat
Reunite Gondwanaland (Mary Shafer)
<mooregr_d...@greenms.com> wrote:
> "Brian Thorn" <btho...@suddenlink.net> wrote in message
> news:4ek0d454135bjs6fj...@4ax.com...
> > On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 10:53:06 -0400, "Jeff Findley"
> > <jeff.f...@ugs.nojunk.com> wrote:
> >
> >>> So did the Titanic. Now we have lifeboats for everyone.
> >>
> >>Tell that to the guys at the South Pole research station. Where's their
> >>lifeboats?
> >
> > Last I checked, dry-land facilities don't require lifeboats, no matter
> > how remote. Ships universally do.
>
> Really? Can you find a diagram of Los Angeles class submarines and tell me
> where the lifeboats are?
Submarines aren't ships, they're boats. Boats don't have lifeboats.
Mary "It's only the targets that have them"
--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer
We didn't just do weird stuff at Dryden, we wrote reports about it.
reunite....@gmail.com or mil...@qnet.com
Visit my blog at http://thedigitalknitter.blogspot.com/
bob haller safety advocate
wrote:
> "Brian Thorn" <bthor...@suddenlink.net> wrote in message
>
> news:n0soc498kjr11enla...@4ax.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:03:56 -0400, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
>
> >>"J Waggoner" <jwag...@alltel.net> wrote in message
> >>news:gdioc41ll8t2tq08q...@4ax.com...
> >>> Excellent point on the lifeboat... Thanks for cancelling it Mr.
> >>> Goldin. �You dick.
>
> >>And how did you expect him to pay for it when Congress of course the one
> >>writing the checks?
>
> >>That said, Rand does bring up a good point I had overlooked. �While
> >>continuing the shuttle reduces the requirement for us paying for rides,
> >>rescue seats home are still required.
>
> >>(Though one could argue that at some point one may want to simply accept
> >>that lifeboats aren't required for 100% of the crew.)
>
> > Never gonna happen. That's a political non-starter.
>
> It's a political non-starter, but it's a bit silly.
>
> ISS currently had many redundant systems and modules. �With the US and
> Russian segments, you have completely separate systems for life support.
> Even if something catastrophic happened, it's not very likely to take out
> both sets of life support systems.
>
> If safe haven wasn't such a political non-starter it would actually be a
> viable way to run the program without the US relying on the Russian Soyuz.
>
> Jeff
> --
> A clever person solves a problem.
>
> - Show quoted text -
as apollo 13 proved incompatible designs can have issues. remember the
incompatilble air ducts? it sounds good but 2 complete different
designs isnt all good
bob haller safety advocate
> On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:01:33 -0400, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
>
there are those space balls to rescue crew stuck in difficult
situations.
Neil Gerace
> Last I checked, dry-land facilities don't require lifeboats, no matter
> how remote. Ships universally do.
The word can also be used figuratively ...
charlie...@yahoo.com
wrote:
>
> there are those space balls to rescue crew stuck in difficult
> situations.
They were never developed
Rand Simberg
Thorn <btho...@suddenlink.net> made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:
>On Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:04:01 GMT, simberg.i...@org.trash (Rand
There are other alternatives. Such as having a Carpathia already in a
co-orbit...
Brian Thorn
<mooregr_d...@greenms.com> wrote:
>> Last I checked, dry-land facilities don't require lifeboats, no matter
>> how remote. Ships universally do.
>
>Really? Can you find a diagram of Los Angeles class submarines and tell me
>where the lifeboats are?
They're inflatables. I'm sure Derek has all the details.
Brian
Jeff Findley
"Pat Flannery" <fla...@daktel.com> wrote in message
news:VeCdnY5yi4XXs03V...@posted.northdakotatelephone...
>
>
> Jeff Findley wrote:
>>
>> ISS currently had many redundant systems and modules. With the US and
>> Russian segments, you have completely separate systems for life support.
>> Even if something catastrophic happened, it's not very likely to take out
>> both sets of life support systems.
>>
>
> Unless they close airtight hatches as they move from one module to the
> next, one meter hit that blew a foot-wide hole in the thing is going to
> vacuumate it in short order.
In a situation like that, Soyuz isn't likely to save you anyway. The
discussion is about the lunacy of requiring a "lifeboat" which takes the ISS
astronauts all the way back to "port" on the ground as opposed to a
"lifeboat" which would allow the astronauts to survive until rescued by a
shuttle.
> Even if you were in a sealed-off module, it had better have spacesuits in
> it if you want to get to the escape Soyuz.
> Even a rescue Shuttle EVA would be a real problem...you'd have to
> repressurize the station before you opened the door to the module they
> were trapped in, or detach the module with them in it and return it to
> Earth.
If a safe haven were a politically acceptable option, it would be relatively
inexpensive to provide suits (or maybe a couple of suits and several of the
old rescue balls) inside the safe haven module to handle this sort of
evacuation once the shuttle arrives. Developing what amounts to a US Soyuz
is extremely expensive by comparison.