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Our economy needs a robust space program, editorial, Houston Chronicle
"It would be prudent to keep the space shuttles flying with new missions to maintain a vital back-up contingency, until replacement spacecraft and commercial space transportation achieve reliable operations. The space shuttle's unique capability to launch heavy payloads into space, or return hardware from orbit, is the only means available of flying critical replacement components to support the $100 billion International Space Station. If the 300-ton space station is ever taken out of service, the space shuttle is the only vehicle in existence that could safely deorbit the massive structure."
Keith's note: Hmm ... "deorbit" implies that you are going to drop the ISS into the ocean. Mir, which was somewhat comparable in size - with things pointing out in all directions. Mir was deorbited with several Progress flights. Why couldn't a series of Progress, HTV, ATV missions do the same for the ISS? Or are you going to use Shuttle propulsion to deorbit the ISS? Or are you talking about taking the ISS apart and returning the pieces to Earth in a shuttle cargo bay? Given how many flights it took to assemble the ISS, that would be a rather time consuming and expensive undertaking. And then what about the Russian segment? That would have to come back too - just like Mir did.
- NASA's 1999 Plan To Splash ISS, earlier post
- Mir deorbit simulation, earlier post
- The Deorbit of Skylab, earlier post
Actually Keith, the ISS is about 4 times the mass of the completed Mir. The two are not similar in size or mass.
Any of the existing or planned propulsion systems could be used to bring ISS down; Progress, ATV, Soyuz, and VASIMR are all candidates.
The Planetary Transport Vehicle (PTV) System that Kraft brings up in this letter sounds like a Buzz Aldrin XM or perhaps the recently proposed Node 3 adaptation. This, in my view, is the most logical extension of current ISS technologies and systems. We ought to be able to do this type of a sortie vehicle with minimal additional expenditures of people and money. In fact it would make a good challenge for the existing ISS workforce.
Kraft does seem confused about the PTV being used both as an exo-atmospheric vehicle, and for moon and Mars landings. Its likely that lunar and Mars landing vehicles will be completely different from one another and completely different from the PTV.
Both the PTV and a Shuttle derived heavy lift should be doable with minimum additional expenditures and in a near term time frame (5 years or less).
Developing the landers for moon or Mars will take longer, much more money and will require many new systems.
Most of the recommendations in Kraft's letter are the right ones, but come 2 or 3 years late.
NASA, internally, should have been reassessing Constellation progress right from the start, and making decisions on how to proceed with Shuttle all along.
That the NASA leadership chose to do neither is why the program is now in serious trouble. The real question is, where has the NASA management been?