Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site allegra.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!ulysses!gamma!exodus!mhtsa!mh3bs!eagle!allegra!karn From: karn@allegra.UUCP Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Re: Shuttle Snafu Message-ID: <2275@allegra.UUCP> Date: Fri, 10-Feb-84 22:18:07 EST Article-I.D.: allegra.2275 Posted: Fri Feb 10 22:18:07 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 15-Feb-84 00:55:25 EST References: <2505@rabbit.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 50 The big problem with the Westar/Palapa failures is that they were launched on the shuttle, for better or worse the only part of the space program ever seen by the public. Nobody hears much about the failures of expendable rockets - launches of those things are so commonplace that the journalists hardly show up any more. Plenty of unmanned launchers haven't even made it to orbit, much less a wrong one, and barely rate a paragraph on the back page regardless of what happens. Note also the public pronouncements made by certain competitors to the shuttle (outside of the USA) in which they claim that their brand of launcher is obviously more reliable because they've only had "two" failures when the shuttle has "three". Of course, they don't point out that their two failures were LAUNCHER failures each carrying two payloads which ended up in the ocean, while the problems with Westar, Palapa and TDRS were the fault of the payload subcontractors and not the launching agency. You can also argue, of course, whether TDRS should be called a failure. If you want to fault NASA for something here, it is that they've been forced by limited budgets to oversell the shuttle and cut off the expendable option. Soon the shuttle will have to be used for just about any and all US launches, regardless of its appropriateness or cost-effectiveness. Like all space freaks, I'm all in favor of developing new space capabilities, but I wonder if the "Solar Max" type of repair mission really justifies the cost and delay when there's the alternative of just building and launching a replacement spacecraft. I'm sure I'm not the only one struck by the irony in this mission which had as its major objective the demonstration of repair capabilities. The problem is that the much larger cost of a shuttle orbiter over an expendable launcher, combined with the need for man-rated safety procedures, makes NASA so conservative that it greatly diminishes the extra versatility provided by the system. There is a not-so-humorous rule of thumb that the weight of the paperwork required by NASA for safety certification of any "hazardous" (e.g., propellant) system on a shuttle flight is equal to or greater than the weight of the payload, and this kind of red tape works against the savings provided by reusability. The space shuttle can do many things, particularly when men are needed in space, but I fear that it was developed more as a political means of attracting public attention (i.e, funding) to the space program than as the most efficient means of providing a service. NASA is the only organization I know which can take a working, reasonably reliable automated system, replace it with a manual one, and call the result progress. On the other hand, if it DOES attract more funding to the space program (such as a space station), then it will have been worth it, even if it isn't THE best technical solution to the problem. Phil