From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: Stupid Shut Cost arguements (was Re: Terminal Velocity
Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 14:53:12 GMT

In article <4JAN199322375651@judy.uh.edu> wingo%cspara.decnet@Fedex.Msfc.Nasa.Gov writes:

>Allen I put a question to you. Do you think that if we grounded the Shuttle
>permanently tomorrow, laid off all personell involved in the Shuttle's overhead
>and began work on the DC series that the rest of the money would be available 
>for other uses in space? 

If a worthwhile plan for the money where put forth, we would keep 80% to
90% of it. At this level money in Congress tends to come top down, not
bottom up. NASA gets $15B a year because that is how much clout it and its
supporters have. That money went up under Reagan and bush mostly because
both where strong supporters of space which gave NASA more clout.

>  [model deleted]

This model fails the test put to it in 89. According to your model, when
Bush proposed SEI in 89 it should have triggered another increase in
NASA funds (like Shuttle and station did). It didn't.

>Again, I support the DC program, it should be funded. 

Funding a NASA SSTO to compete with the Air Force SSTO is only one of
the things we could do. We would still have an additional couple of billion
$$ for other projects.

>You are not considering
>political reality if you think that the sacrifice of the billions spent on
>shuttle would gain the DC program a dime however. 

Of course not. DC is funded under a different bucket of $$. It has nothing
to do with NASA. However, a competing NASA program would be a good idea.

>>Send them to an industrial space facility....

>You always toss of the problems of systems that you think are theoretically
>superior to the Shuttle. 

So you say...

>As an engineer that will be installing a payload
>in the spacehab module in 72 hours let me tell you that what you are saying
>is far from reality. 

So your an expert on the subject.

>All Spacehab is is a pressure vessel. To maintain its
>structural integrity for holdin air, it relys on its structural supports
>connected to the shuttle. This is just for beginners. It totally depends on
>power from the Shuttle. This goes also for thermal control, atmosphere and
>control of the experiments via either direct astronaut intervention or
>control from the middeck. 

Sounds about right. OK Dennis, as an expert, just how much would this
cost:

>IT would cost several hundred million just to make it into a free flyer. 

In other words, for the cost of a single Shuttle flight we could have
a free flyer available 365 days a year for autonomous and human-tended
experiments. Looks to me like we can get a lot more work done this way
for a lot less money.

>Then you would have all of the problems relating to the fact that
>none of the experiments are designed to be removed on orbit.

But the Freedom experiments are. Besides, the Russians do this
sort of thing all the time. Surely NASA isn't that far behind?

   Allen

-- 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  aws@iti.org     |  nothing undone"                                       |
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