US shuttle Atlantis won't fly on January 10: NASA

I didn't even know we still had a shuttle program. I hope they've got something new in the queue for spaceflight.

I remember reading, where I can't recall, that the difference in cost between a shuttle program and a multistage rocket program was so marginally that NASA 'massaged' the figures in the belief that a 're-usable' spaceship would be more acceptable.

Anybody know if theres any truth in that?

I also remember my boss (a real old school engineer), at the time the shuttle program was announced, saying he fully expected a major disaster to befall the program, due to NASA's methods of cost benefit analyses. He reckoned that would work for a one shot rockets, but when you wanted to repeat the forces of a launch and re-entry time and time again, they would be overtaken by events long before they expected it.

He retired a while ago, but when the footage of the foam insulation easily penetrating the skin of the shuttle was released, the cause of Columbia's loss, he rang me to say that was exactly what he had feared. Not that it would happen, but that the engineers where shocked by the results. His mantra was, if you've done the math, nothing comes as a surprise. I mentioned the Challenger disaster, but again he shot me down, saying that was caused by a politically decision, when the engineers where ignored.

Yeah, he sounds like a smart guy. I'm glad corporations are getting into the mix (I can't believe I just typed that). The truth is, they will be able to do a much better job motivated by profit. It's just the way it is.

He's one clever dude, very practical as well....of course we jumped all over him at the time...He didn't say a thing when it all went wrong. Didn't need to...

I think the truth about the relative cost of the shuttle vs expendables is more along the lines of underestimating the requirements than fudging the numbers. After the first shuttle flight it became obvious that much much more refurbishment was going to be required than was originally thought. That drove up the the time between launches, which drove down the number of launches, which drove up the cost of each launch. No one really understood at the time just how difficult flying a reusable space craft would be.

'No one really understood at the time just how difficult flying a reusable space craft would be.'

That was the entire point, I think my old boss had been involved in some sort of speed record effort, and always said that stuff just wears out quicker then the calculations show as soon as you go just a bit faster then you were!

He was also quite insistent that the guys at NASA knew what they were doing, but as the accelerated rate of entropy could not be demonstrated, and the first few launches would be OK, then standards would drop.

As to the cost, do you mean that a disintegrating candle would be cheaper?

Yes - expendables are always cheaper. A lot of the expense of the shuttle is due to its having to return to earth. That's why it has wings, for example, and all those incredibly expensive ceramic tiles.

Look at the Russians with their Progress and Soyuz space craft. I guarantee you that they don't spend nearly what we spend for the same number of missions each year.

Cheap(-ish) is what we did on Apollo, and that's what we're going back to.

Yes, it's called Constellation. I'm working on it now.

Or I should be, if I wasn't blogging.

Better a sure launch than sorry later.

Errors in those launch procedures or hardware are quickly going to be permanent....

Maybe they're just waiting until January 31st when I'll be down there on vacation! I've always wanted to see a launch and now maybe I'll get to.

There's a certain amount of superstition about launching in January - given that the last two accidents happened in January.

Okay, so how about they launch Feb 1st or 2nd? I'll still be there and hopefully it will be beach weather. I know its highly unlikely that I'll hit the window but I'm an optimist.

It looks like the new shuttle launch date is February 7th.

Yep - I spoke with one of the astronauts last night - one of my neighbors, walking his dogs. He is glad they waited so that they could find that pesky connector problem. Hopefully all will go relatively smoothly from now on.