ASTROTIP
THE FAILURE OF NASA AND A WAY OUT
Opinion by Philip K. Chapman
I was in Mission Control when Neil Armstrong announced that the Eagle
had landed. The applause was unexpectedly muted as we were all overwhelmed
by the significance of the moment. Nobody had any doubt that Tranquility
Base was the first step in an expansion into space that would drive
human progress for centuries to come.
We had of course all seen the 1968 Kubrick/Clarke movie 2001: A Space
Odyssey, and the facilities depicted there seemed entirely reasonable.
In our lifetimes, we expected to see hotels in orbit, translunar shuttles
operated by commercial airlines, and settlements on the Moon. Only the
alien monolith was questionable.
None of this has happened.
Despite cutbacks, NASA has spent a total of $450 billion since Apollo
11 (adjusted for inflation to 2003 dollars). That very large sum was
more than enough to fund the developments that Wernher von Braun predicted
for the end of the 20th Century, but we have not even started on any
of them.
If it had been spent wisely, as seed money to stimulate commercial
development, we could have established a growing, self-sustaining extraterrestrial
enterprise, offering opportunities for thousands of people to live and
work off Earth - but the sad truth is that we have less capability in
human spaceflight now than in 1970.
In 1969, we landed on the Moon, but now we cannot leave low Earth orbit
(LEO). NASA claimed that the shuttle would be fifteen times cheaper
to fly (per pound of payload) than the Saturn vehicles used in Apollo,
but it is actually three times more expensive.
The average cost of each flight is a staggering $760 million. After
a mission, the time required to prepare a shuttle for the next flight
was supposed to be less than two weeks, but in practice tens of thousands
of technicians spend three to six months rebuilding each "reusable"
shuttle after every flight. Worst of all, the shuttle is a needlessly
complex, fragile and dangerous vehicle, which has killed fourteen astronauts
so far.
In 1973, we had a space station called Skylab, with berths for three
astronauts. NASA let it reenter and break up over Western Australia.
A second Skylab was built, which could have become the Earth terminal
of a lunar transportation system.
It is now a tourist attraction at the Air and Space Museum in Washington,
and the Saturn V to launch it is nothing more than a monstrous lawn
ornament, moldering on its side at Johnson Space Center (JSC).
Now we are building the International Space Station (ISS), which is
still incomplete after twenty years of effort. Its orbital inclination,
chosen for political reasons, makes it useless as a base for future
missions beyond Earth.
The cutbacks gutted the research program, by eliminating much of the
scientific equipment aboard the station, reducing the scheduled shuttle
flights in support from six to four per year, and leaving the small
crew with very little time to spare from housekeeping tasks.
The life-cycle cost of the ISS, including development expenses and
shuttle flights, amounts to at least $8 billion per year (2003 dollars).
This is 60% more than the entire budget of the National Science Foundation,
which supports thousands of earthbound scientists.
Until the Columbia accident, NASA had expected 4 shuttle flights per
year to the ISS, and one more for missions unrelated to the station
(e.g., to lower inclination). Now the shuttle may be restricted to orbits
in the same plane as the ISS, so that the shuttle can go dock there
if it is damaged during launch. In any case, present plans call for
operation of the ISS until at least 2016, so there will be at least
65 more shuttle flights (5 per year).
Based on experience to date (two shuttles lost in 113 missions), the
accident probability is a little less than 2% on each flight. Astronauts
may accept this risk because there is no other way to fly in space,
but they would of course prefer a safer system. As a matter of public
policy, however, only a compelling national interest can justify so
hazardous a venture. The ISS presents no such necessity.
We would not need the shuttle missions if we did not have the station,
and we would not need the station if we did not need something for the
shuttles to do. The entire human spaceflight program has thus become
an exercise in futility.
Read the full article online at Space Daily:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-03zn1.html
MARS VIEWING TIPS
Mars appears unusually bright throughout August. It looks like a brilliant
orange star in the constellation Aquarius. It outshines all the other
planets and stars visible in the night sky. It rises a couple of hours
after sunset early in the month, but around the time of sunset by the
end of the month.
Mars is now easy to find. The planet usually appears red or orangish,
though sometimes -- depending conditions in Earth's atmosphere -- it
can look yellowish.
Whatever, it is the unmistakable beacon of the pre-dawn southern sky
and is now visible before midnight, too, for observers with a clear
view of the horizon. Try looking after about 9:15 p.m., (or start earlier
and watch Mars rise in the southeast). If your horizon is obstructed,
it might be 10 p.m. or later before you can find it.
How bright is Mars now? Mars began August shining at magnitude -2.3.
On this astronomers’ scale, larger numbers mean dimmer objects.
Negative numbers are reserved for the brightest objects.
Except for Venus (which can be magnitude -4.0 and brighter) no other
planet or star can be brighter than Mars is now. Come late August, Mars
will glimmer at magnitude -2.9.
Mars' disk in a telescope expands during August-- affording an ever-better
view to observers who have been trying to discern its surface features.
Pre-dawn observations are best for this purpose, because Mars gains
altitude steadily until dawn, and so then its light cuts through less
atmosphere and arrives less distorted.
MARS MAPS:
http://www.space.com/spacewatch/where_is_mars.html
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