Discovery News: Space Diary

No Rest for the Myth-Makers

This is probably a bad thing for a Discovery Channel columnist to admit but I don’t watch TV much. I was curious, however, to see how the guys on Mythbusters were going to tackle a rather irritating contention that the United States never landed on the moon.

Parts of the show are pretty goofy, but I enjoyed watching a chop-chop version of the scientific process in action. I hope I’m not ruining the ending for anyone who missed it last night and wants to catch a re-run, but Mythbusters says the only hoax going on is the one put forth by people who say the moon landings are a hoax.

Unfortunately, this probably won’t make a whit of difference to anyone who doesn’t ascribe to rationality and logic -- the foundations of science, even science-lite like Mythbusters -- and it’s concerning that these attributes have waned faster than the bull market.

Leaving aside the really big issues like creationism/intelligent design vs. evolution (Hey, Mythbusters: will you take THAT on??), let’s ponder for a moment the renewed call to keep the space shuttles flying so we don’t have to depend on those pesky Georgia-stomping Ruskies for rides to the space station.

Although it’s nice to see presidential candidates caring enough about space exploration to squeeze it into their busy days, the latest volley by John McCain seems a bit like a soft-boiled egg.

His call to President Bush to suspend plans to retire the shuttle (at least until after the election, says my sardonic side) because we just don’t know if we can trust our Russian partners pretty much misses the fact that we’re already beyond wedded. We’ve merged. Whether Russia flies our astronauts or not really doesn’t matter since that house in space can’t be divided.

For example, we can go on flying the shuttle to the station until the next accident, but it won’t change the fact that the spaceships standing by to transport crewmembers home in case of an emergency are Russian-made, Russian-operated, Russian-owned. The United States made the decision years ago to leave lifeboats to the Russians.

The new ships being developed to replace the shuttle CAN be used as lifeboats too, though the primary design driver is to get them to the moon.

These decisions were not made lightly. They stemmed from the highly acclaimed work of the board that investigated the 2003 Columbia disaster, which went above and beyond the call of duty by not only proving the equipment breakdowns that triggered the accident and the blind spots in managers’ mindsets that nurtured false assumptions, but also recommendations on what to do next. Topping the list? Retire or recertify the shuttle. The board determined NASA had been flying the ships without keeping up on how real-world conditions, as opposed to engineering models and simulations, were affecting them.

Like most of us individually, NASA learned the hard way. Being of sound mind and limited budget (recertification was estimated to be about as expensive as creating new ships), NASA pushed for the shuttles retirement so it could use the funds for a new endeavor.

Rational, logical --- and, unfortunately, becoming passé.

(Photos: NASA)

Reality Check

The United States’ first chance to cut some time off a planned five-year hiatus in launching people into orbit is over.

NASA told us yesterday it’s giving up on flying a crew aboard the new Orion capsules until September 2014 at the earliest. With the shuttle program shutting down in two years, the agency had hoped Orion would be able to fly crews to the International Space Station as early as 2013.

But the agency needed more money and fewer technical problems to make that happen. In a conference call with reporters on Monday, program managers said the accelerated development scheduled was officially off and that contractors on the program will be notified to slow their pace to match available funds.

"The window of opportunity for us to accelerate (the program) is closing. In fact, this summer with the re-alignment of our schedule, it's closed," said Jeff Hanley, the program manager for NASA’s new exploration program called Constellation.

Uncle Sam will be counting on its good friend (except for this week) Russia to ferry crews to and from the space station until Orion is ready to fly. Course, Congress hasn’t given its official blessing to that plan by lifting a trade embargo slapped against Russia to protest trade practices with Iran that presumably helped Iran develop nuclear weapons technology.

Seems like a good time for China to make a pitch to be our space taxi service. Judging from all the sky-walking and zero-g simulations during the stunning Olympics opener, they’re definitely in the market.

Caption: Not so fast. NASA rendering of Ares rocket leaving the launch pad.

NASA's Plan B -- NOT

I noted a news story this weekend, first reported in a Japanese newspaper, that NASA was looking at Japan’s new H-2 Transfer Vehicle to haul cargo to the space station. Nothing new … NASA has said repeatedly that after the shuttle is retired the U.S. will have to depend on its partners to ferry crew and supplies to the outpost -- until and unless a commercial company was able to provide the service.

But the issue became blog-worthy, IMHO, when NASA put out a denial, which includes the following:

“NASA is committed to domestic commercial cargo resupply to the space station and does not plan to procure cargo delivery services from Japan … NASA has chosen to depend on commercial resupply of cargo
delivery to the station.”

Sounds like a plan, no? 'Course the agency’s press office failed to mention that it’s wishful thinking at this point: Currently there are no companies in the U.S. with cargo transport services to the space station. So what’s the harm in exploring other options in case the market fails to materialize? Hello, NASA? Who rocked your boat this morning?

No Shuttle Left Behind

Some folks have been wondering about the prospect of leaving a space shuttle behind at the International Space Station in a sort of semi-retirement. Here's the skinny from Wayne Hale, the former program manager now helping to transition NASA into a new era of human space exploration:

"There are a couple of reasons why this basically wouldn't work," Hale writes in his blog. "First of all the shuttle is primarily water cooled. That is, we use water evaporated (sublimated really) into space to cool the electronics. Water is a precious commodity on the ISS and is mostly recycled. If we can't use the electronics on the shuttle then it is basically a dark cave that is going to get cold in a hurry after the lights go out.

"Secondly, the weight of the shuttle will cause attitude control problems for the ISS over the long term. It's OK for a short term docked mission, but over the long term the control system would have a hard time compensating for it. But the biggest reason is this: how do we get the guys that flew up on the shuttle back? Sending more Soyuzes just to do that is probably cost prohibitive. So, look for a Space Shuttle Orbiter at a museum near you after they retire in 2010."

Metaphysically Speaking

I’d like to know about dark matter as much as anyone. And it sure would be swell if the United States made good on its word to fly the particle detector known as the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, or AMS, to the International Space Station, especially after it got 16 countries to foot most of the $1.5 billion construction bill.

With great fanfare -- press conferences with the Nobel Prize winner behind the project, etc. -- NASA flew a prototype on the shuttle 10 years ago. The agency agreed to send another AMS to the space station in 2002 or 2003 for a three-year study. Then came the Columbia accident, the decision to retire the shuttles and ultimately a cancellation of AMS’ ride to orbit.

Except that Samuel Ting, the Nobel-holding lead scientist for AMS, wouldn’t take no for an answer. He lobbied Congress. He got his international partners involved. He literally turned it into a federal case. And now, Ting's relentlessness may be about to pay off.

Last week, the House passed a NASA funding bill adding one more flight of the shuttle to deliver AMS to the space station. This week, it's the Senate's turn. On Monday, NASA chief Michael Griffin told a Senate oversight committee it’d run a few hundred million dollars for the extra flight, with one huge caveat: That figure presumes there is no extension of any shuttle equipment contracts. Griffin wouldn’t come straight out and say it, but what he means is that if the AMS flight is added on, there won’t be a shuttle available to mount a rescue mission. Since Columbia, NASA routinely adds the contingency mission to every flight.

That’s not to say that a crew tapped to deliver AMS to the station would be abandoned should the shuttle be too damaged to return to Earth. They could all use the station as a temporary shelter until folks figured out how to get enough Soyuz capsules to the outpost to fly them all back home. Or something along those lines. (At this part of the hearing it was NASA space operations chief Bill Gerstenmaier’s turn at obtuse.)

Griffin came back after the morning proceedings ended to clarify that maintaining the shuttle contracts past their cut-off dates would be prohibitively expensive -- something on the order of $3 billion to $4 billion, which “we don’t need to do to fly the final flight.”

No, all NASA needs to do is tell it straight: If AMS is the last flight, it’ll go without the safety net provided to all previous missions since Columbia. After listening to all the circumfusion, I think I have a clearer picture of dark matter, metaphysically speaking.