WP,pg1: NASA Chief Speeds Plan For (shuttle replacement) Spacecraft

[DeepModem Mom]

NASA Chief Speeds Plan For Spacecraft
Griffin Wants to Launch Shuttle Replacement by 2010

By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 9, 2005; Page A01


Less than a month after taking the job, NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin is pushing an ambitious but risky plan to shave four years off the timetable for building a next-generation spaceship to replace the space shuttle, and wants to launch it with a crew by the end of 2010.

The shuttle has not flown since the Columbia tragedy in February 2003, and even after safety modifications are completed and flights resume, the orbiter will not be able to get beyond "low Earth orbit" and will become obsolete as soon as construction of the international space station is completed in 2010.

NASA has planned for more than a year to build a new workhorse spacecraft to carry out President Bush's long-term vision for space exploration, aimed at returning humans to the moon by 2020 and eventually sending them to Mars, but the initial strategy called for completion of the new spaceship by 2014. That would leave the United States without its own access to space for four years....

***

Griffin, as have many members of Congress, has frequently criticized a strategy that would cede U.S. preeminence in human space travel, and at his confirmation hearing last month he advocated building the new spacecraft faster to shrink the four-year gap or eliminate it altogether....

***

Several sources said Griffin's initiative has put him at odds with retired Navy Rear Adm. Craig E. Steidle, the principal architect of the original plan....The plan's clarity and Steidle's procurement expertise won plaudits from industry, but discontent has grown among some scientists and lawmakers who fret that storied NASA programs -- especially in earth science and aeronautics -- are being cut to fund the new initiative....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/08/AR2005050800834.html

[wuushew]

1. The whole shuttle concept is pointless and expensive

basically it is an over manned expensive PR machine that sucks down money like their is no tomorrow.

In Robert Zubrin's 1996 book The Case for Mars, he estimated that a new heavy lift vehicle in the 120-140 ton LEO capability could be developed for a few billion dollars and used to pioneer ongoing missions to Mars. These missions would accomplish real science unlike the shuttle and Bush's pointless lunar fantasies.

Nothing new or pioneering would be necessary for this task as the launch vehicle could for all practical purposes be identical to the 1960's era Saturn V or the current Russian Energia booster.