Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site vger.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!vger!al From: al@vger.UUCP ( Informatix) Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Re: Scuttle the Shuttle? Message-ID: <324@vger.UUCP> Date: Fri, 31-Jan-86 04:54:39 EST Article-I.D.: vger.324 Posted: Fri Jan 31 04:54:39 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 1-Feb-86 21:01:48 EST References: <8601301636.AA04800@s1-b.arpa> Organization: UC Santa Cruz, CIS Dept. Lines: 100 Summary: Defense of the shuttle. In article <8601301636.AA04800@s1-b.arpa>, dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz) writes: > > Some myths: that the shuttle is a cheap way of delivering cargo to > orbit, that manned shuttle missions are somehow bringing us closer to > real exploitation of space, that manned missions in the shuttle can > accomplish things economically that can't be done by robots. > > I addressed the first myth several months ago. The NY Times mentioned > in today's paper that the cost of shuttle cargo ($2000 to $2500/lb to > LEO) makes almost all space manufacturing uneconomical. Actual cost to a user is more like $1500/lb. Contrary to making space manufacturing uneconomical, only the shuttle makes space manufacturing POSSIBLE (except for the now defunct Salyut). No industry in the history of the world has been established without people there to set it up. The shuttle can put the people and the equipment up to do all of the the initial, necessary startup work for establishing orbital factories. No other space system in use today, with the possible exception of the Soviet system, can do that. At any price. That goes for any near terms plans that I am aware of as well. > NASA has > received almost no positive response from industry, just some companies > exploiting NASA's subsidized rates for research to do work feeding back > to ground based processes. This is not true. McDonnell Douglas and 3M are both seriously working on orbital processing. A number of smaller companies are getting to work as well. Almost every flight lately has had some kind of materials processing experiments, many of which have gone very well. Japan and Europe are extremely interested in this area. Some reports claim that a substantial fraction of the all of the semi-conductor material used by the Soviets come from Salyut. > The shuttle has also been less reliable and more expensive than unmanned > boosters for lifting satellites in orbit. Shuttle, with all of its problems, has a better record than Ariane (an unmanned European system) for lifting satellites into orbit. Until the current flight, no shuttle launched satellite had been a complete loss, although there were several partial failures. Ariane, in contrast, has deposited quite a number of its payloads into the Atlantic. Shuttle costs to the user are roughly comparable to Ariane. > have you noticed how many problems there have been with > experiments in the shuttle cargo bay? I suspect the vibrations during > shuttle launch from the SRB's are damaging the payloads. Launching satellites ALWAYS involves a lot of vibration. With the shuttle, however, you have people on board to fix problems that come up and the payload can be returned to Earth for repair and reflight as well. Try that on an expendable booster. > > The second myth: that the shuttle is somehow advancing the real > exploitation of space. Shuttle initiated satellite repair on orbit, satellite retrieval, and has given a lot of people hands on experience with the problems of working in space. Construction techniques have been verified by actual experiment. With the return of the long duration exposure facility we will get a good look at the long term effects of low earth orbit on many materials. Something we can only get if we RETURN things from space, which only the shuttle can do. All of these substantially further real exploitation of space. In addition, shuttle capabilities are critical to space station, and various commercial projects to establish industry in space. > > The third myth: that manned missions can accomplish things economically > that can't be done by robots. This is true in the long term (unless AI > really succeeds), but in the short term (read: for the rest of this > century, at least) there is little that can be done in space > economically that robots and teleoperated manipulators can't do better. I am not aware of any operation teleoperator in low earth orbit that could have repaired solar max, retrieved two communication satellites, performed experiments on live plants and animals, fixed problems with the electro- phoresis experiment, etc., etc., etc. I think you are confusing paper studies with operational hardware. If you want to do work in space in the near future, there is NO teleoperation system to do the work. Furthermore, much of the work that needs to be done cannot be accomplished by ANY existing system even on Earth much less in orbit. E.g., handle animals. The crux of the issue is that the shuttle actually works now, although there are problems. Teleoperation and robots are paper studies that won't see reality for many years. When they do become reality, they will undoubtedly have more problems and cost more than current paper studies suggest. In addition, shuttle out performs existing expendables (primarily Ariane). Again, paper studies out perform shuttle, but paper studies always perform well. Finally, since the US does not have access to Salyut, only shuttle gives us any space industrialization capabilities at all. This will be true for many years. > The other two shuttles can be adapted to > as unmanned reusable cargo vehicles. Here in the Bay area they though human pilots were unnecessary for the extremely simple problem of controlling subway cars. They were wrong, the automatic systems on BART have been the source of never ending problems. People are very good at controlling vehicles, we should use them.