Re: Hubble Marching orders
From: Jorge R. Frank (jrfrank_at_ibm-pc.borg)
Date: 02/02/05
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Date: 02 Feb 2005 05:06:22 GMT
greg@see-web-page.edu (Greg Kuperberg) wrote in
news:ctoapf$npi$1@conifold.math.ucdavis.edu:
> In article <Xns95EFE19FB616jrfrank@204.52.135.8>,
> Jorge R. Frank <jrfrank@ibm-pc.borg> wrote:
>>greg@see-web-page.edu (Greg Kuperberg) wrote in
>>news:ctls5f$of5$1@conifold.math.ucdavis.edu:
>>> The budget chart makes clear that Bush is committing the 44th
>>> president to a great deal and committing himself to very little:
>>>
>>> http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/54873main_budget_chart_14jan04.pdf
>>>
>>> All of the hard stuff begins in FY 2010 or FY 2011. By an amazing
>>> coincidence, FY 2009 is the last budget that Bush himself will
>>> propose or sign.
>>That chart is somewhat misleading because it's expressed in
>>current-year dollars. In constant-year dollars (i.e. adjusted for
>>inflation), *all* the budget increases are during the Bush
>>administration...
> ...
>>You're focusing too strongly on the 2010 retirement date. NASA is not.
>>ISS assembly will be driven by a certain number of flights (currently
>>28), not a certain calendar date.
>
> These comments miss the point. 4% budget increases are not all that
> difficult politically.
It is, when all other departments other than DoD and DoHS are being cut. In
case you weren't reading the news last fall, it took a (rare) veto threat
from Bush plus strongarm tactics by DeLay to get that 4% passed. So no, I
don't agree that it's "not all that difficult politically" at all. The
evidence of last fall does not support your statement.
> The really hard part is to retire the space
> shuttle and the space station.
As has already been pointed out to you repeatedly, Bush can easily make
that a fait accompli by the time he leaves office, regardless of his
successor's wishes and/or the number of actual flights remaining in the
shuttle program at that point. Without the ability to manufacture new ETs
(or any of a number of other critical items in the supply chain - have you
no concept of logistics?), the shuttle program cannot be sustained past a
certain point, period.
> The 28-flight space station
> construction plan is colossal and risky. Politically it is almost as
> good as infinitely many more flights.
>
> I have every reason to believe you that NASA isn't serious about
> retiring the shuttle in 2010. With a realistic flight schedule it
> might be more like 2013.
Did you actually bother to compare the proposed manifest with historical
flight data before making those statements? The proposed manifest calls for
no more than five flights per calendar year. That is quite achievable for a
three-orbiter fleet; indeed, it is an operational tempo the shuttle program
has proven is sustainable for a multi-year period.
Nevertheless, I will agree that 2010 is unlikely, if only because of delays
to RTF and the niggling little week-by-week delays that will accumulate
thereafter.
> But Bush himself did focus on it; he
> repeated that precise year in his speech.
The year is both meaningful and meaningless. It is meaningful because it is
the date beyond which the CAIB recommended (9.2-1) that the shuttle fleet
must be re-certified if it is to continue flying. It is meaningless because
the CAIB had no strong engineering rationale to justify that particular
date; they basically pulled it out of their asses because they knew it was
important to keep NASA from flying the shuttle to 2020 and beyond without a
re-cert, and 2010 was a nice, round number.
So the new "vision" set the date of shuttle retirement to 2010 to avoid the
expense of a re-cert. However, the CAIB also noted that schedule pressure
was a contributing cause of both the Challenger and Columbia accidents, so
NASA is keen to avoid that as well. So if the 28-flight manifest bumps up
against the end of 2010, well, that's too bad - the last flights will slop
over into 2011, because that's cheaper than standing down for a re-cert,
and safer than allowing schedule pressure to rear its ugly head again.
The other possibility is the deletion of flights. Not all of those 28
flights are for station assembly; some are logistics flights intended to
"pre-position" critical supplies and spares so that the station can survive
the post-shuttle era. If it becomes possible to resupply the station by
alternative means, those supplies can be remanifested, and some of those
shuttle flights (by my reckoning, up to five of the last seven) can be
lopped off the end of the manifest.
> (By the way I was calling it the "astronaut program" just because that
> is simpler than "human spaceflight program".)
That is what I figured.
-- JRF Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail, check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and think one step ahead of IBM.
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