Digest Number 629

Ron's prescient observation was today echoed in
Florida Today in an important new series on the
shuttle.

Highlights include:

"The decisions made in the coming months by the
Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Congress and
the White House will be crucial ones and impact the
space program for many years to come..."

"Such actions [Florida Today recommendatins] will get
the fleet airborne again. But they do not answer the
overriding question -- should the ships fly anymore,
or should they be immediately retired because they are
too old and dangerous?"

New course needed

We think the shuttles should fly again, but their day
is coming to an end much faster than NASA is willing
to admit..."

"We believe the fleet should be phased out -- as soon
as five or six years, if possible -- and replaced with
a new manned vehicle that could be launched atop an
unmanned rocket and take crews to and from the
International Space Station.

U.S. unmanned rockets also should be utilized to carry
cargo to the station, ending NASA's reliance on the
chronically underfunded Russian space program and its
manned Soyuz rockets and Progress cargo ferries that
now are the station's brittle lifeline"

The article concludes with the following
recommendation:
"
One concept that holds promise has been examined by a
team led by six-time astronaut and Apollo 16
moonwalker John Young, who commanded Columbia on the
first shuttle mission in 1981.

They say a scaled-up, highly modernized version of the
Apollo capsule could work.

Much about this concept remains to be determined,
including whether the capsule would be disposable or
reusable, how many astronauts it would carry and the
program's pricetag.

While more study obviously is needed, the potential
for an effective way to get humans into orbit without
the shuttle is there, and with it the opportunity to
utilize the spacecraft as a space station lifeboat, a
role now filled by Russian Soyuz capsules.

There also is a simple solution at hand for replacing
the shuttles as cargo carriers -- use unmanned rockets
as soon as possible.

Vehicles such as the Boeing Delta 2 could, within a
few years, carry basic supplies to the space station
as the Russian Progress ships do now. Bigger rockets,
such as the Boeing Delta 4 or Lockheed Martin Atlas 5,
could lift heavier station payloads."

Many of these ideas will probably be very familiar to
SSI-list readers, but it is refreshing to see them
receive a hearing in the mainstream press.

Read the whole thing for yourself!

Sincerely,

Sam

> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 12:22:19 -0400
>
> From space.com:
> "
> * NASA Targets Dec. 18 for Shuttle Launch Under New
> Rules
>
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_fl_030611.html