Manned flight speculation

I was wondering if anyone would happen to have any rumors, speculation or better yet any direct quotes from NASA regarding manned flight. I know since the accident manned space flight has been grounded indefinately but if anyone has any idea on when they will resume manned space exploration flights let me know...

 

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Any help here ??? Someone must have an idea of when there may be potential manned launch dates....

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Never?

 

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Re. Shuttle flights, which is what I believe you are referring to,
... No flights scheduled at present.

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Manned Space Flight is too important to America's sense of self-identity to let other countries like China and Russia be the ones up their. Trust me, you will rarely find a politician in power in America who will let space flight stop. If NASA falls down on the job, the Air Force just might be on it again, or who knows, mayhaps another organization would be created.

American Politics depends on manned space flight as a symbol of America's prestige and technological capacity.

 

ISS won't need the shuttle tell next year.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/extend/progress_resupply.html

 

Prestige and technological capacity? You must be kidding, Xevious!

Shuttle powered due to our not having had the necessary lift
capacity for a Soviet Buran/Proton like combination;

Automatic docking with ISS still not possible with Shuttle;

Atlas III and V now powered by two Russian RD-180 rocket
engines which replaced the nine previous engines;

1) 10,000 fewer parts;
2) Uses kerosene;
3) Can be 'throttled'!

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Maybe the Buran is more capable (NO arguments there) but Russia never could make it routine. The Shuttle making spaceflight routine was the big statement, and all the useful things we have done WITH the shuttle mean far more than just the capabilities of the Orbiter. The shuttle PROGRAM is the big picture... think of the Hubble, the ISS, LDEF, launching Galileo, ect.

 

Imagine how much of a symbol of American technology and superiority in science Hubble is... and we need the Shuttle to maintain it. Imagine what the ISS means... and the shuttle which builds it. That is truly the point I was comming to.

 

Other than the construction and supplying of ISS, and the maintenance
of Hubble, everything else to date, except for a satellite recovery, could
have been performed by unmanned missions.

Remember, NASA was touting the Shuttle as a multi-mission, quick
turn-around, space-taxi that would be flying a couple of missions per
month ... Yeah!

The 'big picture' is pretty expensive, money and life-wise, when the
accomplishments to date are considered.

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Mayhaps so, but compare those accomplishments to what was done no more than 30 years or 50 years ago. In the days of Mercury / Apollo, something like the ISS was only a dream, and don't tell me Skylab was around... Skylab wasn't JACK compared to The ISS. I should also point out the tons of Life and Earth sciences experiements done by the Shuttle which can't be done with robots.

Now, put spinoffs of space technology into perspective. Their are lots of items in your household which were developed for NASA first. Put that into account...

 

First off, the ISS, to date, isn't jack compared to what Mir was, and what
it accomplished.

Secondly, I seriously doubt that the ISS, lovingly referred to as 'old wiggly',
could survive the impact that Mir took. Hell, they're even afraid to mothball
it until the Shuttles are flying again. Yet Mir was placed in a shutdown mode
for six months (Aug.'99 to Feb.'00) and re-activated without a problem.

Third, consider how many more 'household' items would be around if the
money spent on the space program would have been invested in Earth-side
research ... And we'd still have money left over for a national health care
system.

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Necessity is the mother of all inventiveness. Just about anything we developed for the space program wouldn't have even been THOUGHT about in Earth-side research.

 

Name something that we created based on space research that is used, and we wouldn't have invented otherwise.

 

well thats hard to say since we wouild develop them just at a much slower pace.

 

A solution to the problem of growing global population and the diminishing per capita level of life-essential resources (like water, food, agricultural land, energy).

It's time for us to move out, boys -- we've been living under mama's roof for too long.

 

we will never be able to move enough people off the planet to solve over pop. we have to get people to stop breeding like rabits first!

 

Arguing over what could have been invented otherwise is pointless, because you will say "We had the capability for that already," while I will say "You didn't THINK about it until Spaceflight made it happen." So, their is really no room to argue over wether or not spaceflight has had an impact on technology. It was the mechanism which caused a lot of the following inventiveness:

Velcro (used in cars and on shoes) Fuel cells (in newer cars)... paro-wings (hangliders), aluminum foil (wrap your hot-dog), graphite (in all your pencils), ergonomics furnuture (the ENTIRE field of research of furniture to alieve / prevent muscle tention was started by NASA for long-duration Space Flight), luminescent and flourescent lighting (in greenhouses and in your very home), instant beverages like instant Tea, Tang (most famous example), ect., Titanium Alloys (many used in Submarines were developed by NASA),

Granted, NASA did not invent every single thing on the list, but in many cases they had to improve or modify the product for spaceflight in a way which made it far better, and sometimes even cheaper! The point is that Spaceflight pushes technology in a way that flat out cannot be done on Earth. The enviornment of space is simply that differnt.

NASA has a whole website on the spinoff technology...
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/

 

Xevious,

Checked out the NASA site ... Most of the what they are touting as
'spin-offs' are developments of already existent technology. Just like
most of what you mentioned. (for example: Velcro, aluminum foil,
graphite, etc.)

Have to agree with WellCookedFetus whose question you really
didn't bother to address.

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Yes, well overpopulation is a separate issue... and really has nothing to do with your original question, so it is not one I am required to answer in this post. Considering too the point of this post is manned space flight and technology, it does not belong here unless one presents a context for it in the current discussion.

As far as these being developments on existing technologies, that is somewhat but only partially true. Some things, like fuel cells and ergonomic furniture, wern't around PERIOD until NASA came along. The point is that by exploring a totally new enviornment you open up a whole new path of inventiveness. Humans developed clothing as a response to moving into colder climates. Airplanes were born from mankind's desire to fly like birds, and it quickly became apparent the innovation had very practical merits. Space flight has the same place, and role in human innovation.