2011
NTT Aerospace: New Vanguard
R. Grassi NTT Aerospace NTT Group
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22/04/2011
NTT Aerospace: New Vanguard Comments on the reasons Why there's no replacement for the Space Shuttle
By R. Grassi NASA's space shuttles are retiring this year, but America has no spaceship to replace them, leaving many to wonder: Why not? Placing the question has raised a wide interest. According Susan Rae Mackey, in charge of EEE Parts - Space Qual in California, USA, “The best way to answer that question is to look at the NASA Budget. The rationale that the Obama administration is using to reshape NASA is consistant with the life cycle of the industry. NASA's Mission is to do the R&D that nobody else can readily do. Science requires some very specific processes be performed with very expensive Fig. 1 Space Shuttle Discovery be launches on July 26, 2005. Credit equipment. Once the science is integrated NASA with robust new technology, amazing things happen. We get to fly to the Moon and send unmanned vehicles to show us what's happening beyond our immediate neighborhood. Once NASA covers the expensive research groundwork, it is time for private industry to take the technological development to the next level. That is why companies are picking up the reigns to continue the growth of commercial space travel. Whether it's to mine asteroids or just to see the Earth from space, humans are driven to explore and have fun.
SpaceX has a Falcon Heavy Lift vehicle that should cover the bussing of materials to and from the ISS without endangering personnel onboard in the near future. The competition is just starting to take off in the commercial space sector.�
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The Shuttle program served us very well. Reliability and management issues occurred, leading to some deaths. It is not surprising for any large organization to make mistakes when you are flying a craft that is the most complicated piece of machinery in history. The cockpit "dash board" now looks like something out of an aging airplane.
The extensive explanation of Susan is commented by José Luis Freitas, Space Business Development for Space with GMV-Skysoft in Portugal. Mr. Freitas is pointing out that “The Space Shuttle is 1970's technology at best. It is a product of the Cold War, a battle fought in the space exploration. SpaceTransfering objects to the ISS can be made with more efficient options, such as the ATV. Scientific missions are increasingly being done with probes that go way beyond the range of the shuttle, and the manned mission to Mars is still a couple of decades away. The Virgin Galactic is a good example of how the market for human space transportation has now become turism, for the medium term. As it has been frequently mentiomed, the space industry is a baby, as we just celebrate 50 years since a man has been put in space for the first time.” We would like to agree with this opinion, which is also strongly emphasized by Sandijs Aploks, CEO with Earth Space Agency in Latvia. Mr. Aploks explains that “The answer is in how the people organize themselves, their social organizations. Government acquisitions, business risks, making profit - it all leads to stabilization of the commercial + government system. The echo system does not need changes. Once young and crazy people are growing old, they do not take risks, they don't produce novel things, they are stuck in the routine. NASA closed that advanced propulsion lab, or how it was once correctly called. One smart person from NSS told that NASA has almost 20% of the people as management. Once upon the time, Von Braun, and some smart generals created org which rocked the world (always after the Russians, until that Moon success, of course). Since then, the cast of priests has been formed, imitations and rituals are being performed. The machinery produces a lots of wonderful results. Results, which are possible to achieve on the remnants of the past victories. We need something new, novel to happen in order to evolve further. The problem is in human organizations, that humans factor, as always.” On the intuition that the political part of the events horizon is then creating the key point of the situation, Cian Curran Master Graduate at the International Space University of Ireland writes “From Sputnik to Apollo to the ISS. Perhaps the Americans have got bigger fish to fry in ways otherwise more readily achieved than by building new space hardware.”
Luis Miguel Cunha, Professor at FMH, Lisboa, Portugal, simply says in a line the key point “Could be a good industrial and scientific Challenge for Europe!”
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Mr Aploks is therefore spotlighting the raised issue of the political aspect of big spending decisions, using terms like “stabilization, ageing, stagnation of the social organizations, stabilization and ageing of the elite”. With a view to perspective of social global awakening, which could be an idea easy to stick to, but not really feasible or viable at the time being.
The most interesting side of this discussion comes out from some thoughts of Mr. Thomas Stagliano, Senior Aerospace Engineer with ITT Advanced Engineering & Sciences, who describes the situation from an inside point of view, we all should carefully consider: “NASA's budget was constrained. NASA was in the midst of assembling and staffing the expensive Space Station. NASA was preparing for other explorations. The first A in NASA stands for Aeronautics, which means that NASA also is responsible for R&D in aviation. NASA now is very risk adverse. Two shuttle failures made them very shy. Therefore, when they started Constellation program (Moon and Beyond) they spent more money (in constant dollars) than the original NASA did in going from Nothing in 1960 to Gemini. Also, a capsule is all that NASA really needs. It was the USAF that forced NASA to go to a "space glider" like the shuttle. Originally, the USAF would have been using the Shuttle for special missions, launched from West Coast. Those missions would have been Polar Fig. 2 Space Shuttle Discovery orbiting missions, and USAF had a stands on Launch Pad 39A Credit: requirement to bring back its shuttle and NASA crew within one orbit in an emergency. The only way to do that is with a "Glider". Thus NASA was stuck with the expensive (very expensive) gliding shuttle. The concept of 10 launches per year, never came to be, and then when Challenger crashed and NASA shut down the shuttle program for 12+ months, the USAF abandoned the shuttle, built the EELVs, and NASA was stuck with the total bill for the shuttle. Now the USAF is happy with the X-37B for their space glider and NASA is left with nothing. Yet, the US leadership thinks that private industry can build space craft now.
Mr. Craig Horton, FAA Licensed Aircraft Dispatcher and Aviation Consultant with Horton Aviation Consultants, as he was a eyewitness says “All true, I lived it. However the Space Shuttle Fleet has been highly developed at the expense of those lives lost and billions of dollars… we have the safest vehicle ever… and now the US Goverment has no
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Let Company XYZ build a space craft and then NASA would buy and operate that space craft just like American Airlines buys Boeing and EADS jets… Sounds nice, but this Is Rocket Science… So, with a constrained budget, NASA will buy seats on Russian capsules… Yet, I do see the private companies scrambling: Lockheed-Martin can come forward with a stripped down Orion; Boeing has a capsule in the works; Space-X has the Dragon. And, since private companies only need FAA license (not certification) there is no one to check for human rating. It will be interesting.”
problem with throwing away billions more in lost human resources that was not able to transfer their knowledge to the next generation of space workers… that learning curve will have to be paid for once again sometime in the future… Our country (USA, edn) has lost touch with it's greatness, being happy to outsource thousands of high teck jobs to the Russian's, while saying to the news media, they want to create jobs here… It will be interesting, but for those of us who know space flight, we know it will never be as easy as the new commercial companies say it will be.. in the end, the Tax payer is paying for these companies to experiment and develope hardware we already built in the 60's… talk about reinventing the wheel… American's should be outraged…” From the American point of view the stop of progress of the NASA Shuttle program is finally felt like a failure. To this feeling does not correpond any reaction, neither politically nor industrial. Moreover the analysis developed from the inside is not leaving much space to development. Mr. Douglas Mallette, Space Shuttle Systems Engineer and Author/Public Speaker at Space Advocacy, coherently brings our attention to “A line in the article: «Total Space Shuttle Program Cost: Nearly $200 Billion» and the bankers got over 3 times that much in one fell swoop, after they screwed the people out of billions, ruined lives, destroyed homes, and got hefty bonuses. Oh how our priorities are completely screwed up, and yet no one seems to be railing against the system that produces this nonsense. Sometimes the people of this country (USA, edn) make me sick.”
Fig. 3 The astronauts of STS-133 met Robonaut at NASA's Johnson Space Center
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More optimistically Mr. Bhargav Bajjar, aerospace/robotics scientist at MIT, NASA SLSL and Space Robotics Corporation, USA, brings to our attention that “there is a replacement for space shuttle actually there are
two such technologies which will work unmanned and reliably and will not need human astronauts at least for Leo and geo missions: 1. NASA robonaut 2. Boeing x37B space plane funded by us airforce, NASA and DARPA Have you even looked at the space plane ? It's perfect replacement for aging shuttles along with teleoperated robonaut who can reliably do EVA (extra vehicular activities) perhaps even repair space planes components before rentry...” Here NTT Aerospace and NTT Group come in. Many of us, working in the industry since so long, have always expected the Shuttle program to last longer, and have developments onto what was started. We are lucky, though, because the answers we have alltogether found do explain what the situation is. Fig. 4 Boeing X 37B Space Plane rendering Shuttle is no more a valid option, neither technologically nor economically. Let me add even not environmentally. The attention of space exploration has been driven to use the new technologies introduced in these last ten years, to use carbon fiber, nanotubes, to have a low impact on the environment and on our pocket”. NTT Aerospace is working in all these fields, from the great experience with carbon fiber, to the increasing results of our R&D in nanotechnologies and carbon nano tubes, with our unique innovative low carbon footprint processes, always working to improve the ROI worth of customers’ projects. To SATISFY YOUR PROGRESS.
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Contact: NTT Aerospace http://www.gontt.com email info@gontt.com Author: R. Grassi r.grassi@gontt.com NTT Group Press Box: c.postlewaite@gontt.com