CNN: Space shuttle replacement won't fly until 2014

[Toe Jam]

First flight of Orion is delayed

(CNN) -- NASA has put off the planned launch of its next-generation Orion spacecraft for a year, a setback to efforts to fly a successor to its aging space shuttles, the space agency announced Monday.

"September 2014 is when we are saying we will launch the first crew on the Orion," program manager Jeff Hanley told reporters in a conference call Monday. NASA officials plan to wrap up assembly of the International Space Station and retire the space shuttle fleet in 2010, freeing up money to build and fly the new spacecraft. Cost concerns are at the root of the delay, but NASA is also giving itself wiggle room to deal with the unforeseen technical problems that will inevitably crop up, Hanley said.

"It's the unknown unknowns that we have to hedge against," he said. "Having some number of months of schedule flexibility to meet our commitment, in addition to having some number of months of cost -- dollars -- flexibility, is key to keeping ourselves in a healthy posture."

Sometimes called "Apollo on steroids," Orion is designed to ferry astronauts to and from the space station and eventually back to the moon. Unlike the space shuttles, which land like an airplane, Orion is a capsule that will parachute to a landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

The new goal of September 2014 is a year later than NASA had planned to launch the first Orion, but still six months short of the March 2015 commitment date set by Congress.

Program managers were hoping to fly the new vehicle much sooner than that to keep the gap between the last shuttle flight and the first Orion flight to a minimum. "As we looked at the plan we had for September 2013 against the available dollars, it became clear to us that we needed to adjust our schedules," said Hanley.

[Henry]

Well, space-flight is an exact science, which is why setting launch dates is not.

[mjah]

Sucks. But delays come with the territory.

The crummy Flash Gordon movie was on the other night, and in that movie it was pretty simple for a lone scientist with a dopey assistant to build a rocket that could blast into orbit with several people aboard.

Why don't they just hire that guy?

[Rumrunner6900]

Call me crazy, but is this a forward-to-the-past kinda thing?

I mean....damn. This is the 21st century. We were supposed to have flying cars by now and the best we can come up with for a "replacement" for the space shuttle is another capsule?

Perhaps that is the best way for man to fly in space, but I expected something a little different than that.

[Toe Jam]

Call me crazy, but is this a forward-to-the-past kinda thing?

I mean....damn. This is the 21st century. We were supposed to have flying cars by now and the best we can come up with for a "replacement" for the space shuttle is another capsule?

Perhaps that is the best way for man to fly in space, but I expected something a little different than that.

Something like.....

[Rumrunner6900]

Something like.....

Not necessarily. Just something more like the space shuttle is what I had in mind.

In doing some reading about Orion though, it looks as if there will be a day when the Orion will be used to shuttle people to a "dry dock" in low earth orbit where they will build craft to get us to Mars.

Now that sounds more like the aforementioned Star Trek....just seems like it is gonna take an awful long damn time!

[Larry]

As a confirmed Space Freak, my feelings on the issue of reusable vs throwaway is a decision based on cost and reliability. It's essentially a business decision. I'm happy with whatever gets the job done.

Now, part of me says that it's got to be cheaper is you use your spaceship more than once. (As far as I know, for example, there isn't a single airline that disposes of their aircraft after a single flight.)

OTOH, look at the Space Shuttle, then ask yourself: How much weight does the ability to land add to the weight of the spacecraft? (Where I really think about this is when I see proposals calling for a spacecraft that lands on it's engines.)

(I also think the same thoughts when I say we should be developing robot piloted spacecraft. How much weight could they shave off of the Space Shuttle if they eliminated the entire crew module and all of the equipment that supports it? If your mission is to deliver a three-month supply of MREs and water to the Space Station or the Moon, then why do you need a crew?)

And how many of the Shuttle's problems have been because of those fragile, exposed, custom-made tiles?

[mjah]

There's a lot of room between the way we've done disposable spacecraft and the way we've done reusable spacecraft.

I think the ideal reusable craft would have been a crew-only vehicle based on the cancelled Dyna-Soar project. Pair it with a separate disposable system for launching payloads; scrap the stupid Air Force requirement that coupled an apparent need for payloads in polar orbits with the requirement that such payloads be returnable instead of ditchable; and cut the maximum crew size to perhaps five.

The result would be a very capable, less expensive, reusable craft with a better achievable safety record (by virtue of superior heat shielding options and a MUCH better launch stack configuration). But until there's a Space Station that does interesting work, there would be no real reason for such a crew-only craft. The Shuttle at least was able to do crazy things like satellite deployment and rescue; Hubble updates; etc. to generate cool PR and justify-your-existence opportunities for itself.

On the other hand, launching payloads separately instead of cramming them into the Shuttle would have allowed us to build a space station with far fewer launches. And maybe earlier, too.

But anyway, that's just a partial picture... and I think robotic exploration is the future, as far as launched missions go. We use robots to explore all kinds of human-unfriendly things on Earth, and I think the day will come when we can do almost everything we need to do on, say, Mars robotically. Humans are the ideal, but for 1/1000 the cost, robots will do just fine.

[Henry]

If the thing gets us to the moon and then to Mars I don't care what it looks like. It's about time we started moving outward again.

[Larry]

If the thing gets us to the moon and then to Mars I don't care what it looks like. It's about time we started moving outward again.

I halfway agree with you.

Colonize the Moon and Space, first. IMO, it's cheaper, there's a lot more economic opportunity there, and once it's done, things like Mars become a lot cheaper.

Although I think a case could be made that the Asteroids are both "closer" than Mars (a lot less energy required to get there and back) and a lot more economically desirable (lots more things we want there).