Just as I feared he might, Joe Barton just went and blew away my short-lived renewal of goodwill.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas told NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe that he believed the shuttle was so unsafe that it should never again fly with people on board.
“We are putting American men and women at great risk to their lives to fly an orbiter that is 30 years old and cannot be made safe,” said Barton at a hearing of the House Science Committee.
He pledged to “do everything I can” to prevent astronauts from going up in the shuttle, which he called “inherently unsafe.”
“We’ve lost 14 men and women and if we keep flying we’ll lose 21 others in the next 10 to 15 years,” he said.
We know it’s a risk to fly the Shuttles, but it’s a known risk (at least when the right people pay attention to the risks and know how to analyze them).
But let’s take a look at the options:
- Kill Shuttle Now — Scuttling the fleet now, with no further flights, means ISS never gets completed. NASA entirely eliminates the small, known risks from further manned flights, but at the expense of a warehouse full of costly station modules which will never be deployed, and the goodwill of the international partners we’d be abandoning. The public is unlikely to go for that, given the enormous price tag of the project. (Whether abandoning ISS is a good idea, or whether there should have been international partners in the first place are topics for another rant on another day). ISS as it exists need not be abandoned under this scenario, but keeping it occupied without the Shuttle makes us completely dependent on the Russians for access and resupply for several years until we can come up with alternatives.
- Fly Shuttle Unmanned — This is remotely possible, the only major obstacles being the current lack of an automated docking system, and the excessive sphincter-tightening NASA would feel concerning a suitably-automated Orbiter performing “proximity operations” without a human aboard (this was a serious comfort-level issue concerning VentureStar). The public might accept it, but NASA is unlikely to be comfortable with the risk, for one, and would balk at the lack of opportunities for the astronaut corps and the attendant public support astronauts-as-heroes garner the agency. And like abandoning Shuttle altogether, flying it unmanned means we are entirely dependent on the Russians for crew transfer until an alternative becomes available. The biggest question regarding this scenario, however, is: “Why bother?”
- Flying Modified Shuttles — This is the scenario currently being carried out. Shuttle will fly again, as early as next spring, once a number of critical modifications are made to the elements of the system and to the organization behind it. Further modifications are planned beyond the resumption of flights, but are not “must-haves” prior to the resumption. All future flights will be to ISS, eliminating most of the risk for a repeat of Columbia (the station crew can visually inspect the Orbiter before it departs; the Orbiter crew has a safe haven if something is damaged; more time and resources can be available for attempting repairs; the Orbiter can be returned with a minimal or no crew in case repairs are not fully trusted; etc.). This has the advantages of making the system safer in certain specific areas, allowing ISS to be completed and occupied without total reliance on the Russians, and keeping the industrial base intact until NASA can straighten out its affairs. One big problem with this scenario is that NASA will be spending several billion dollars on Shuttle modifications and long-term upgrades and life-extension programs, rather than on OSP or other, more worthy ends like R&D for manned Mars missions or even the infrastructure repairs and maintenance backlog.
- Flying Shuttle (Almost) As-Is — Possible, given that the foam strike really was a freak accident, and one for which a preventative modification is already being implented. Everyone talks about “aircraft-like operations” for space vehicles — this path would resemble what happens after a mass-fatality air disaster, when the fleet of related planes is briefly grounded for inspections and in some cases retrofits of suspect parts or systems, and then is allowed to fly again. We don’t talk of permanently grounding whole classes of airliner after such a disaster, nor do we consider flying them unmanned. This scenario is probably not politically viable, but it would get Shuttle back in service as quickly as possible, allow OSP to be accelerated, and wouldn’t blow scarce funding on improving a vehicle which is due to be retired in the near term.
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So, Joe, which of these alternatives can you afford to support? Which ones will your constituents accept you supporting? Much as I would like to see Shuttle retired in favor of something better, we don’t at present have anything better, nor will anything better be available for several more years thanks to the bungling of previous Shuttle-successor programs by both NASA and Congress. Like them or not, we are stuck with Shuttle and ISS for the time being, so we might as well continue using them until we can come up with something better — and make sure that we come up with something better as quickly as possible.
Yeah. I felt the same way when I read it. Do you think he really believes we should never put humans in the shuttle ever again, or does he have another motivation? Could he just be playing it heavy handedly to force NASA to prove the shuttle is safe before flying again? Or maybe he just wants to be the “I told you so” guy if we have another disaster.
I don’t know the guy’s views other than by the few comments I’ve linked to here over the past several months, so I really couldn’t guess. Generically, though, what would a Representative have to gain from such a demand, especially if the affected program has roots in or near his own district? Might he be angling for a whole-hog effort at Shuttle replacement, in order to bring jobs and pork back home? That would seem short-sighted, if it means all those people currently working Shuttle are put out of work in the meantime.
However, note that his district is up around Ft. Worth, where Shuttle is a pork nonentity (though LM-Vought may be within the 6th District, and they produce the Shuttle tiles and RCC panels). He may not gain from OSP (unless LM wins it and it is run from Ft. Worth instead of Denver, which verges on the impossible), but neither does he have anything to lose from permanently grounding Shuttle. Hmm. But Grand Prairie is within his district too, and there are rocket test facilities there which are used by small/startup companies. Doesn’t seem big enough, though, in terms of constituent jobs or economic impact, to motivate a Representative to get a huge program like Shuttle cancelled.
Strange and improbable as it may sound, he may see himself in the representative role laid out by the Federalists, namely making decisions which seem to him to serve the best interests of the nation even when they may go against the momentary passions of the citizenry. Perhaps, in his view as a Representative rather than as a politician, killing Shuttle is the best thing for our national space efforts.
Again, I have no idea what his views really are, I’m only speculating on the interests generic to any Congressional Representative.
There is one technical alternative to getting new modules to ISS without the Shuttle. Use an EELV to lift them to an ISS orbit, then use a remotely piloted tug to grab it, rendezvous with ISS, and dock. This is would provide an alternative to the manned Shuttle with RMS, or self assembling system used by Russia. How big would such a tug have to be? Say the tug used the same grappler as the RMS or SSRMS, but on a fixed mount (no arm). It would use manoeuvring thrusters (equivalent to RCS but smaller) and one larger main thruster (equivalent to OMS but smaller). It would also require video cameras and navigational radar, as well as communications with an operator either on ISS or at mission control. Could such a tug be kept down to 3 tonnes including propellant? The tug would have to be designed to be refuelled by a cargo spacecraft sent to ISS.
This is an interesting technology I think we need to develop, but it isn’t even a goal of the OSP program. Currently we have no way to complete ISS without Shuttle, so Shuttle will have to return to service.
Carl Carlsson,
The Saturn V was much safer than the Shuttle! Reviving it may be too expensive, but NASA should mothball the Shuttles and go ahead with an all new HLLV that is safer the both the Shuttle and the Saturn V! If the Saturn V wasn’t mothballed in the first place, the ISS would have been completed at least two years ago at a much reduced cost!
Robert — that is a good idea, and one which has been batted around on many occasions over the past twenty-plus years. Here, though, I find myself reverting by reflex to my cynicism about NASA’s ability to carry out such a project — sure, you and I know it could be put together inexpensively from existing NASA or Soyuz/Progress hardware, but would NASA actually be able to DO that, without turning what should be a utilitarian vehicle into a Big Project?
Note that I am not being hypocritcal here, complaining about NASA’s tendency to balloon programs while elsewhere asking for NASA to be tasked with manned Mars missions. The latter would have a goal against which to evaluate progress and choose from among alternatives.
Dominic — ISS could have been pretty well complete in a single launch, had NASA chosen to build it from ET components (a la Skylab) and launch it on a modified Shuttle stack. One launch would have delivered to orbit a fully-assembled, integrated, and checked-out station with the equivalent useable volume of seventeen average-sized ISS modules, with a Shuttle flight or three required only to add miscellaneous equipment and open the thing up for service.
NASA’s history is littered with missed opportunities — why obsess on Saturn V when there are so many others to choose from?
Well, maybe Barton is correct here. I don’t see how the current ISS or the shuttles were further manned space exploration except perhaps to provide business for Russian companies. Why send good money after bad?
Well, I wouldn’t cry too much if ISS and Shuttle were packed away, and only really over the money spent on ISS modules never launched. IF — if they were terminated in favor of a goal or solid R&D that actually *would* get humans into space on an open-ended basis.