Scrubbed again: make it permanent

Scrubbed again: make it permanent

Via John Kelly at the Flame Trench:

NASA will work through tonight and tomorrow to try to determine whether it can launch shuttle Atlantis on Friday without repairing or replacing a suspect fuel cell system that prompted the postponement of Wednesday's launch.

I have witnessed two shuttle launches; I must admit that such events are truly impressive (but so is the takeoff of an intercontinental jumbo jet, which is readily comparable to a shuttle in terms of energy used, high-speed close-tolerance parts, etc).

HOWEVER. I must question the competence of NASA technicians and engineers, who after 25 years of operation of the shuttle still seem to just be winging it, making up excuses as they go. I must question the judgement of a succession of NASA administrators for ever approving the shuttle design in the first place, and for continuing to launch this flying kludge. And in light of these questions, I must question whether NASA should still exist at all.

Let's face it: the shuttle fleet is just another accident waiting to happen. The numbers are against them: it might not be this coming launch, it might not be the one after that, but anyone with the most rudimentary understanding of actuarial tables must know that there will be another shuttle accident ending in loss of crew and vehicle, before the scheduled retirement of the fleet in 2010.

There are only three shuttles left, and something like 16 or 18 more launches needed to complete the International Budget Buster Space Station. In the meantime, the shuttles are just getting older (Endeavor is the youngest ship in the fleet, and was delivered in 1991. Is anyone out there still driving a 1992 model year car? How's that running for ya? Discovery has been flying since 1984, and Atlantis since 1985 ... see many '85 or '86 cars on the road?) and replacement parts are just getting harder and harder to find. The loss of another shuttle will only exacerbate the schedule pressures and provide even more wear and tear on the remaining shuttles, thus driving the odds of yet another shuttle loss even higher.

NASA first started using the excuse that "the shuttles are experimental vehicles" after the Columbia disaster. It is unconscionable that NASA would commit the United States to using "experimental" vehicles in the 100 billion dollar space station program.

It is time to confess: NASA isn't about space. NASA is about U.S. government control of space access. That's why NASA has fought against every single space tourist launched by the Russians; it is why NASA fought a battle against the FAA for authority over private spacecraft and spaceport regulation; and it is why NASA is insisting on developing the CLV/"Stick" rocket (which as Jon Goff so ably points out, will be obsolete before it is complete). All of this in direct violation of the Federal law which requires NASA to "seek and encourage, to the fullest extent possible, the commercial use of outer space".

The time to end the shuttle program is now - scrub the Atlantis launch altogether, declare victory, and go on to the next project. If NASA cannot do that, then the time to end NASA itself is nigh.

Technorati Tags: Space, NASA, Space Shuttle