Orbital Space Plane Program - Pros and Cons

[drag]

Greetings !

What do you think of the Orbital Space Plane program ?
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=870
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rlv-03a.html

I realize the articles already express opinions on
the subject so you can search other sources for more
info of course. But, they were the quickest for me to find
and I have to say I agree with the spaceref article and all the reasons. I mean, investing billions of dollars that are so
much for current NASA budgets just to build something
that can already be done and is done by the Soyuz spacecraft
sounds totally crazy to me. Or at least, if they still wan'na
build something like that they could just take some older
plans replace everything with new technology and spare
lots of money and time on designing and testing it - in
the spirit of Goldin's old approach. It seems right now
that at a time when NASA has to start doing its best and
be at its most efficient by getting us back in space
with more massive research using the ISS and a boost
to its capabilities, new ambitious interplanetary probes
a start of the initial preparations for the manned Mars
mission and a new down-to-Earth program for the next gen.
space shuttle, instead it's policies are causing us to
sink even deeper into the dirt (pun certainly intended).
The SS economical failure, the X-33 program failure,
the X-34 that was supposed to do the same thing as this
"plane", and they couldn't even build the ISS as it
was supposed to be. Don't get me wrong but in my opinion
these guys are really astronauts... in the sometimes negative
meaning of the word.

Live long and prosper.

 

[Fullhawking]

At first, it seemed to me that the development of a space plane would serve as a useful addition to space exploration. The OSP would have some advantages over the shuttle, mainly the added abort options and probably the cost of launch would be lower. But after reading the new links, I am not so sure. I think think NASA should be seeking somthing else besides the OSP or maybe a modified OSP. Currently, the OSP does not have the capacity or vercitiliy that exists with the shuttle. I don't know the numbers, but it is unlikly that the OSP can makeup the difference in payload with additional cheeper trips. The new plane should be able to replace the shuttle and not suplement it. After all, the shuttles arn't getting any younger and space exploration will be extreamly limited if there is not a replacement when the shuttles are retired.

 

[drag]

Well, that's the whole point - instead of finally replacing
the shuttle with something cheaper, safer and generally
more effective, they wan'na waste much of their relativly
low funding on a small crew taxy. I'd understand it if they
really needed it - but even that is not the case.

Live long and prosper.

 

[Smart Guy]

Space Planes

Well First off we already have an orbital space plane with great payload capacity. The question is not do we need one, because that answer is yes. The question is should we commercialize it. The answer is not yet. When I read this post the first thing came to mind was unnecessary risk. Let's keep the cost and risk of space travel to a minimum, leave space for the astronauts and scientists for now, but give them the best tools to work with. If that mean redesigning the orbitor for a larger crew so be it.

 

[Smart Guy]

Space Planes

Well First off we already have an orbital space plane with great payload capacity. The question is not do we need one, because that answer is yes. The question is should we commercialize it. The answer is not yet. When I read this post the first thing came to mind was unnecessary risk. Let's keep the cost and risk of space travel to a minimum, leave space for the astronauts and scientists for now, but give them the best tools to work with. If that mean redesigning the orbitor for a larger crew so be it.

 

[drag]

Good to know someone's thinking :
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/osp-03e.html