From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer)
Subject: Re: One Small Step for a Space Activist... Vol 3 No 9
Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 13:15:22 GMT

In article <0s5yvq-@rpi.edu> kentm@aix.rpi.edu (Michael V. Kent) writes:

>NASA intends to use only the Shuttle for resupply ONLY until something 
>better comes along.  

As it currently stands Shuttle and Freedom together spend all the money
which could go toward a Shuttle replacement. NASA therefore intends
to use the Shuttle forever.

>The mistake here is thinking of the Shuttle as a launch vehicle.  It is not.

It isn't?

>A second mistake is thinking its sole mission is Station resupply.  That, too,
>is untrue.  

I am not suggesting that at all. What I am suggesting is that using the
outlined approach we will have a better and cheaper overall capability.

>If Station resupply is offloaded to another vehicle, you still 
>want to keep the Shuttle around for missions like EURECA, TSS, SHARE, CIRRUS,
>Hubble revisits, satellite repair, retrieving, and servicing, etc.  These
>are missions which still need to be done and that the Shuttle was designed to
>do.

Few of these missions can be cost justified using Shuttle. The ones which
can, can fly on Freedom for a fraction of the cost.

The problem with this whole arguement is that it ignores the cost of doing
anything. That mode of operation has ground us to a halt and cannot 
continue if we want to go anywhere.

If you want to continue this, please provide cost justifications for
your arguements.

>Please note two things.  NASA would like to go to a 180-day rotation about
>two years after PMC (instead of 90 days).  Also, NASA plans to expand the
>station to an eight man crew (EMCC).  Plan your vehicle accordingly.

180 day rotations with twice the crew will require the exact same number
of launches and will therefore have zero cost impact.

>I like the heavy-lift idea, but I don't think they fill the mission well.

They do the job for a lot less money. What else is there?

>It seems like you're adapting a mission to the vehicle and not the other
>way around.  

Exactly. That's why it is cheaper.

Think of it this way, the car I drove to work in today has four seats and
a trunk. Yet I only drive myself to work. I also have a lot of papers in
my car and a person's seat (where I keep them now) is not the best place.

So what your saying is that instead of adapting my car to the mission
(getting me to work) I should design and build a custom car with only
one seat and a filing cabinet for my papers.

I don't do that because I can't afford to. NASA should do the same for
the exact same reason.

>If you're going to
>build a new vehicle, build it to the mission requirements.  (If I were
>a station manager, I'd rather have 5 flights of 20,000 lbs each than one
>flight of 100,000 lbs.  It offers much more flexibility).

At several times the cost. No, a station manager living on a fixed budget
would prefer the far cheaper good enough solution.

>You want to use an Atlas?  The rocket that goes "boom" a lot?

Not that often. A launch escape rocket will make the vast majority of
those accidents survivable. Shuttle also goes boom and is far more
likely to kill crew (and $2 billion orbiter) when it does.

The bottom line is that this is a dangerous job and people will die.

   Allen

-- 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "If they can put a man on the Moon, why can't they     |
|  aws@iti.org     |  put a man on the Moon?"                               |
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Newsgroups: talk.politics.space,sci.space