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Monday, February 21, 2005
A Tug At The Hypersonic Heartstrings
Your Curmudgeon has always been a space-travel nut. The Armstrong-Aldrin moon landing in 1969 ranks as one of the most exalted moments of his life. He believes firmly that the survival of the human race depends upon accelerating its dispersal throughout the Solar System, and in the fullness of time, when the technology avails, beyond it.
So it was with an odd mixture of glee and glum that he read the following announcement:
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA has met another one of the Columbia accident investigation board's recommendations for resuming space shuttle flights: developing better methods for inspecting the wing panels between missions.The task force overseeing NASA's effort to resume launches as early as mid-May said Thursday the space agency has fulfilled that recommendation.
During Columbia's doomed flight in 2003, a piece of fuel-tank foam pierced one of those panels along the edge of the left wing, causing a gash that led to the shuttle's destruction over Texas during re-entry, and the deaths of all seven crew members.
NASA has now met eight of the investigation board's recommendations. In the next few weeks, the task force hopes to get all the details it needs to decide whether NASA has met the remaining seven.
Among the recommendations already met by NASA: setting up cameras to provide sharp photographs of the fuel tank throughout the launch, and arranging to obtain pictures of the shuttle in orbit from spy satellites.
Among the recommendations still open: eliminating dangerously big pieces of foam from coming off the fuel tank, toughening the shuttle to better withstand debris, and developing ways for astronauts to inspect and repair their shuttles in orbit.
The Shuttles will fly again. America will once more be a spacefaring nation. But wait just a moment:
- The Shuttles were designed in the Seventies, and remain dependent upon the technologies of that period.
- They're the most complex active systems ever designed by Man, with millions of parts, hundreds of thousands of which are moving parts.
- Not counting ground incidents, they've already exhibited a 2% fatal failure rate that's cost the lives of fourteen astronauts.
- They've never satisfied their original design objective: a completely reusable manned spacecraft. More, one of the chief hazards to the Shuttle is the disposable solid-fuel booster rocket system used to launch it, which cannot be quenched or controlled once it's lit.
- The pilot's ability to control the Shuttle is minimal at best. Landing, especially, is an unpowered, high speed toss of the dice in which there are no second chances.
- The design incorporates the most hazardous conceivable approach to re-entry into Earth's atmosphere: friction braking. To be fair, at the time of their design this was considered to be the only viable approach to a Shuttle that would have an adequate payload.
The Shuttle is an obsolete and badly limited system. It must be replaced by something that meets more of the design criteria and subjects its crew to fewer and milder hazards. Space itself is lethal enough; astronauts shouldn't have to challenge it with mechanical systems that imbed so many different ways to fail.
Other writers have already noted that the NASA mentality has become profoundly bureaucratic and anti-innovation. The desire to perpetuate the Shuttle as it stands is evidence of that. It's time to get the private sector involved, as deeply and freely as possible given the Shuttle's design goals.
Why not? The Navy and Air Force don't design their own warplanes -- that's your Curmudgeon's job -- so why should our federal space force utterly control the design of its low-Earth-orbit delivery and pickup trucks?
Create opportunities for private-sector participation at a healthy innovator's level of profit, and step out of the way!
Comments
Fran,
I wrote this in response to the shuttle disaster, but it’s still relevant now, and I’d like to get your take.
http://anarchangel.blogspot.com/2005/02/outside-looking-in.html
Posted by Chris Byrne on 02/21/2005 at 10:51 AMFran, another passion that we share!
In a prior incarnation I was stationed at the Eastern Test Range, and was given the fascinating task of trying to predict the liklihood that the shuttle, then in the planning stages, would fail and kill somebody on the ground. There was no consideration for the risk of killing crew members, purely a range safety issue.
The vehicle at that time was two stage with a flyback manned booster and a two engine orbiter. The flight profiles included not only easterly launches but also polar and sun-synchronous missions. To say that this was something of a challenge is to understate the question.
We had the support of the Range Safety folks at ETR, along with their IBM 360-65. Among other things, we had to quantize population densities throughout the Americas and in Africa so that we could compute the probabilities of landing on someones head if things went bad. We had to meld gross failure rate data for both aircraft and missile systems, and use that information to assess multiply redundant failure modes. Simply picking representative failure rates to use out of rather scattered data points was an intresting exercise. Defining critical failures was also fun.
As I recall, the probability of killing someone on the ground was about .003 for all of the flight paths. The most likely critical failure culprit was failure of one of the two orbiter engines to light during staging. The highest risk trajectories were a North sun-synchronous, which impacted in the Detroit area, and a South Polar which impacted in South America.
I like to think that our study was the reason that the orbiter now has three engines, and I note that only easterly launches are used. There may, however, have been other reasons for those decisions.
When I briefed Chris Craft, his question to me after it was all over was: “Is that good enough?” My answer was: “Sir they don’t pay me enough to make that decision.”
Posted by on 02/21/2005 at 04:38 PMJohn,
I was the chief security architect for the AFSCN, and the GSFC Imaging project.
I actually had a guy call me up today and ask if I was available for a gig in huntsville. I’m looking into it, but I’d need to get my now 4 years inactive clearance redone (since 9/11 the backlog is insane), which can take FOREVER.
Posted by Chris Byrne on 02/21/2005 at 05:36 PMChris,
I’ve read both your posts. Can’t say I recognize the two acronyms you worked with, but it’s been a number of years. By now, my security clearance update would probably take longer than I have left
. I did do a little bit of work on GEODS after I left Patrick, if that relates.
Prior to working on the shuttle range safety study I was assigned to the ARIA Range Instrumentation Aircraft as both a crew member and a control center controller during the Apollo missions. ARIA Control and the aircraft were an integral part of the space flight network at that time.
On your prior post, I think you have it mostly right. Where I might take a slightly different tack is that I don’t think the country, or the people, or the situation, have really changed since we left the Moon. Social problems, like the poor, are always with us. What I see as the problem is the driver.
At that time, Kennedy, for all his faults, was driving the program, and people at all levels got caught up in the romance of the effort. Once he departed, there was no focal point with sufficient charisma to drive the bureaucracy, and without a central driver a bureaucracy doesn’t even want to inspire people. Instead they want rules, and procedures, and turf protection.
Then, government sponsorship was the only game in town. Now, that may be changing with things like the X-Prize and Virgin Spaceways (or whatever it’s called). Private enterprise is beginning to smell the possibility of a profit, and maybe a chance to have some fun, to boot. That old Heinlein story about “The Man Who Sold The Moon” may be closer to fruition than most people realize.
It’s going to be hard for the UN to evict squatters on the Moon who are claiming land rights, no matter what treaties may say, if they can’t enforce their (specious) laws. I think the spirit of exploration is getting stronger, and the technology is coming up on being equal to the task in the private sector. I sure hope so, anyhow!
Posted by on 02/21/2005 at 08:01 PMOne thing that really strikes me about the need for replacing the shuttles is the news articles that were out some time ago about how NASA engineers were trolling eBay to purchase old circuit boards. Seems the technology in the birds is obsolete and buying the old junk is a cost effective solution.
Pretty sad, I’d say.
Posted by on 02/21/2005 at 09:40 PMHi, there. Your friendly neighborhood bomb-thrower, here. IMHO, the best thing that could happen for humanity’s advancement into space would be for NASA to be defunded.
OK, so that’s not a very humble opinion.
C.F.: The Man Who Sold the Moon, et seq. in the egg of RAH.
M
Posted by Mark Alger on 02/22/2005 at 01:30 AM
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