Redesign Is Seen for Next Craft, NASA Aides Say

[davemania]

For its next generation of space vehicles, NASA has decided to abandon the design principles that went into the aging space shuttle, agency officials and private experts say.

With so much riding on the Discovery launching, critical changes have been made to the shuttle. Also, a look back at the history of the shuttle program.

Instead, they say, the new vehicles will rearrange the shuttle's components into a safer, more powerful family of traditional rockets.

The plan would separate the jobs of hauling people and cargo into orbit and would put the payloads on top of the rockets - as far as possible from the dangers of firing engines and falling debris, which were responsible for the accidents that destroyed the shuttle Challenger in 1986 and the Columbia in 2003.

By making the rockets from shuttle parts, the new plan would draw on the shuttle's existing network of thousands of contractors and technologies, in theory speeding its completion and lowering its price.

"The existing components offer us huge cost advantages as opposed to starting from a clean sheet of paper," the new administrator of NASA, Michael D. Griffin, told reporters on Friday.

The plan, whose origins go back two and a half years, is emerging at a time when it may help deflect attention from the current troubles of the shuttle fleet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/02/science/...=rssnyt&emc=rss

A very interesting article, the new design will use many shuttle components but at the same time increase its payload by as many as 5 times.

[Paul]

Awesome

[Koolslacker]

cool

[GhostShell]

Pretty interesting article.

[nvme]

is it just me or does this concept image look like they're going backwards in design.

[MrStoo]

very interesting

[Dick Montage]

NVME: Looks can be very deceiving. It depends what their design goals are. The current shuttle is shaped that way for atmospheric flight (landing). That was a design goal - so that the craft could be re-used.

Maybe this design goal has been lost, and so a more functional shape suits.

[nvme]

yeah i guess that's what i really meant. the reusability of it seems to have gone. fuel tank design looks the same, but the new top peice seems like it will have a lot of waste.. unless they plan to recover that somehow also. i suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

[emo]

nice!

[walters17]

So they went from Apollo type craft to reusable ones, back to Apollo type craft. I understand we need new ships. I thought they were designing a new reusable one. I think NASA's time is over. We have all these independet companies building space craft that will surely surpass NASA in a couple years. They have greater funding, tourism. If NASA decided to send tourists into space their budget would explode, and they wouldn't have to hurry up and break the Apollo era designs out of the closet.

[davemania]

So they went from Apollo type craft to reusable ones, back to Apollo type craft. I understand we need new ships. I thought they were designing a new reusable one. I think NASA's time is over. We have all these independet companies building space craft that will surely surpass NASA in a couple years. They have greater funding, tourism. If NASA decided to send tourists into space their budget would explode, and they wouldn't have to hurry up and break the Apollo era designs out of the closet.

586313143[/snapback]

What is so important about resuable vehicles ? They're not necessarily cheaper and safer. Furthermore, I doubt those independent companies will ever catch up to NASA, putting a plane 100 miles up in the sky and putting a shuttle in orbit around earth is completely different.

[ToneKnee]

I think its about advancing our use of resources, i agree with walters, this is a backward deisng compared to out Space Shuttles. Shame really, but safety comes first.

[Bobster]

It's about time they designed the starship Enterprise.

[DaveLegg Developer]

It's about time they designed the starship Enterprise.

586314109[/snapback]

Warp drive won't be invented until 2063, after the end of World War 3, haven't you watched First Contact?

[bdsams Veteran]

they have gone back to the theory of

"lets strap ourselves to this and see what happens"

[12Iceman]

Personally, i think they should be working on creating an updated version of the space shuttle that does not use thirty year old technology. You can just keep retrofitting something over and over again and still exect it to hold together like it used too. But that doesn't necessarily mean scrap all the old design principles. The problem is that despite Presidents Bush's claims of supporting space exploration, NASA does not have the budget that it needs. So all it can afford to do is to reuse the current shuttle peices in the old but proven rocket design. They need to invest the money into designing a fully reusable spacecraft and to build it from the ground up using brand new parts. Old technology eventually degrades, its time to upgrade.

[strekship]

Somtimes, the simpler the design, the safer it is.

[Boffa Jones Veteran]

This is really the problem. Like everyone says "yaaaay it will be safer" and "booo this isn't what we need". What needs to happen is NASA needs a cash injection. Bush throws money at Iraq but does little for NASA. This is like hand me downs plans for a new rocket. They need the money so they can design a whole new system. We need to be abled to move away from the type of fuel we use.

I recently saw on discovery a guy who has a ufo style ship that is propelled by lasers shot at it from a sattelite. If something like that gets done then I will be happy.

[ShadowPHP]

I think kids would prefer to have a model of the current form of space ship (nice aeroplane kind of shape!) hanging from there ceilings instead of this new silly design which looks silly.