Griffin Contradicts White House: Making Shuttle Extension Plans

Fascinating! Griffin just "walked back the cat"! So far as his "contradicting the White House" is concerned, that's baloney! What with the letter sent to President Bush by Sens. John McCain, Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Donald Vitter, requesting stopping of any actions that would PRECLUDE extension of the Shuttle program, I doubt that Griffin's *** is in a crack with the White House. Unless the White House has the tape recorders going (and they could always use a pay phone ;) ) a call from Bush to Griffin could have conveyed the President's change in policy.

Let's hope that the next administration will continue the march of Americans toward space!

Ad Luna! Ad Ares (Mars)! Ad Astra!

Some on KSC should put on the access to Space Shuttle "Flight in own risk". Extended more the Space Shuttle flights could be a invitation for another disaster. I hope the US Congress bring enough budget to get the Orion full operational A.S.A.P

Really only a prudent action by the Administrator. Both candidates seem to favor closing the gap, at least in their rhetoric, so only natural that Griffin will prepare answers to questions that will come from a new administration.

Extending the Shuttle to 2015 strikes me as an idea with a lot of potential ways of turning into a disaster:

- This would give the Shuttle many more chances to have a third accident.

- It wouldn't do a whole lot to increase independence from Russian vehicles, since the Soyuz is needed for emergency crew return when the Shuttle isn't docked.

- The Wayne Hale post demonstrates just how expensive this would be. Think about the current enormous Shuttle costs, and then add CAIB-recommended flight recertification and restarting production for items that have already been cancelled.

- At least now the Shuttle flights are bringing up major pieces of the ISS. What would the Shuttle do through 2015? It would be a great waste to go to that expense to just fly a couple times per year.

- Related to the last point, it would also be a great waste to just fly crew. So ... would the Shuttle be used to send lots of supplies and parts to the ISS? It seems like this would compete with, and possibly kill, the commercial COTS ISS cargo efforts, as well as kill any U.S. commercial crew transport to ISS capabilities that might be forming. That would be a true policy disaster - what's the point of going to all of this effort and expense with Shuttle and ISS and Constellation if commercial suppliers don't take over eventually? Even going through the exercise of planning a 2015 extension for the Shuttle must have a chilling effect on SpaceX, Orbital, and any COTS-D efforts.

- A Shuttle extension is likely to cost a lot of money, and it's likely to have to come mainly from other parts of NASA. That would be a disaster if it came from productive parts of NASA, like Science, COTS, etc. If it came from Ares, and forced Constellation to come up with a better plan that serves U.S. interests rather than NASA interests, it might be all for the best. However, it seems like the idea is to continue Constellation while flying the Shuttle, so it seems like a bad scenario is much more likely than a good one.

If any money can be scraped together to help solve the ISS gap problem, it should be invested in some kind of incentives to get U.S. commercial vendors (perhaps using some foreign components, perhaps not) to pitch in their money and capabilities to get crew access to the ISS. The latest model of that is COTS, but generally something along those lines should be done. This would bring the benefits of technical and business competition, open the "gap" solution space to everything available (EELV, SpaceX, Orbital, Shuttle-derived ... everything), bring in additional effort in the form of commercial investment, bring in the additional incentive of potential non-NASA business, and bring the added chance of success that comes with more than 1 attempt (assuming there's more than 1 winner like in COTS-cargo).

Now ... if some compromise can be found, where the Shuttle does productive work that helps open LEO to commercial space, like bringing commercial Bigelow modules to the ISS, that might cancel at least one negative part of the plan. One part of the U.S. commercial space industry gets crushed by NASA, but another one starts, and maybe in this probably unrealistic example the Bigelow-type industry eventually becomes a customer for the commercial launchers. However, I doubt that such activity would be part of the Shuttle plan.

"red" brings up some very valid comments, as well as Wayne Hale. But trust me, as someone close to the CLV program, this new vehicle is not going to be one iota cheaper than Shuttle. We've already started down a path that deals with the thrust oscillation problem in one of the most...ahem...'unique' ways of which anyone has ever heard. You should see people's faces when we tell them what's been proposed. Their mouths fall to the floor in disbelief. The word 'monstrosity' has been used to describe the Ares I. And we're not done yet...not even close.

Even though the idea is to create a vehicle that is cheaper to fly and maintain, I'm betting (and I've got a lot of experience behind this) that when all is said and done, the same organizations as before are going to come in and put back all the infrastructure, personnel, organizations, bureaucracy, etc. that make a vehicle's cost ungodly expensive. No matter how much you want to create something that is cheap to fly, the concern for the astronauts - their safety and the fact that we want to say that 'we did all that we could' - this is going to make the Ares I...or any new vehicle for that matter, very, very expensive to fly. Face it: spaceflight is not cheap. And it probably won't be in our lifetimes. That's not to say that we shouldn't strive to bring down costs but you're not going to reduce it by orders of magnitude in one vehicle iteration.

As for Shuttle...let's face it again: the US government can fix any logistics problems that have been created by current decisions on the Shuttle program. Just ask DoD. It regularly produces 'miracles' because it has a budget that can do so. NASA's budget could do this as well...if our government chooses for it to do so.

It is interesting to note the number of people that insist flying the shuttle is going to guarantee disaster.

The CAIB gave another option: recertification. I'd really like to see how much it will cost to recertify Endeavor, taking advantage of the fact that with all the old suppliers gone, the parts upgrades would now finally be made as they should have been in the first place.

Wouldn't it be interesting if the cost of recertification proves cheaper or not much different than Ares development?

With that, however, I am not optimistic that Griffin and NASA staff will suddenly see the light. More likely they are just collecting evidence to bolster their preconcieved notions.

Why is emergency crew return from ISS required? How likely is ISS to need immediate evacuation (i.e., what are the LOC/LOM numbers for the ISS itself)? Bottom line: is ISS more dangerous than flying on the Shuttle itself? More dangerous than making a ballistic reentry in a Soyuz? Ultimately, if ISS required an emergency evacuation of the entire crew that would almost certainly be the end of ISS. And can anyone here see the Russians letting an American astronaut die of appendicitis (or whatever) rather than giving him an emergency ride down? Take the chance. There will be no shortage of volunteers.

With apologies wherever they may apply...

[Mike has just told Pres. Bush he's investigating keeping the STS program alive]

PB: That's, that's great. I'm very... happy.
Mike: Are you listenin'?
PB: Yes!
Mike: That's what I'm gonna do for you: God bless you, PB. But this is what you gonna do for me. You listenin', George?
PB: Yeah, what, what, what can I do for you, Mike? You just tell me what can I do for you?
Mike: It's a very personal, a very important thing. Hell, it's a family motto. Are you ready, George?
PB: I'm ready.
Mike: I wanna make sure you're ready, brother. Here it is: Show me the money. Oh-ho-ho! SHOW! ME! THE! MONEY! A-ha-ha! George, doesn't it make you feel good just to say that! Say it with me one time, George.
PB: Show you the money.
Mike: Oh, no, no. You can do better than that, George! I want you to say it with you, with meaning, brother! Hey, I got John McCain on the other line; I bet you he can say it!
PB: Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. Show you the money.
Mike: No! Not show you! Show me the money!
PB: Show me the money!
Mike: Yeah! Louder!
PB: Show me the money!
Mike: Yes, but, brother, you got to yell that stuff!
PB: Show me the money!
Mike: I need to feel you, George!
PB: Show me the money!
Mike: George, you got to yell!
PB: [screaming] Show me the money! Show me the money!
Mike: Do you love this preident?!!!
PB: I love being president! Show me the money!
Mike: I love space people.
PB: I love space people!
Mike: Who's your daddy, George?
PB: You're my daddy!
Mike: Whatcha gonna do, George?
PB: I'm gonna go to Congress, and say "Show me the money"!
Mike: Unh! Congratulations, you're still my agent.

"With that, however, I am not optimistic that Griffin and NASA staff will suddenly see the light. More likely they are just collecting evidence to bolster their preconcieved notions."

After spending the last 2 and a half to three years discontinuing contracts and cutting inventory I doubt that they will have any problem producing plenty of evidence.

Excuse me, but how is this NASA making extension plans?

To me it sounds like they are studying what it would take to extend the shuttle's flying time. This is likely to produce facts for use in justifying why it would be expensive to do so.

Simple political will may not be all that is needed to extend shuttle past 2010. It may not be technically feasible given the age and design of the vehicles. The Columbia accident investigation, I think mentioned an expensive re- certification process and advised against pushing the vehicles beyond 2010. However, it certainly appears that the power brokers are intent on flying it to a third accident.

Nick Bottom writes, "However, it certainly appears that the power brokers are intent on flying it to a third accident."
-----------------------------------------------------------

Here's a newsflash for everyone: The hardware is not the problem. Neither Shuttle accident wasn't anything that couldn't have been avoided if the right people had been in positions of power and/or management. In both cases, the engineers stood up and tried to stop something well before the accident. It was management that overruled them and allowed things to progress to the point where astronauts died.

You think Ares/Orion is going to be any safer if the same type of people hold positions of management in the new program? Dream on. Go back to the Jeff Finckenor letter. It's opened up a whole new conversation about how management doesn't listen to its engineers. 2 accidents. 14 lost lives. And yet today we continue to have this conversation.

Nothing has changed, people. Nothing.