Beam Me Out Of This Death Trap, Scotty (1980)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/8004.easterbrook-fulltext.html

by acqq • 12 years ago

84 74 12 years ago

fennecfoxen3• 12 years ago

This is why we can't have nice space-things.

acqq5• 12 years ago

The most interesting discovery for me was to compare: "cost projections: The analysts assumed that the shuttle fleet would stage at least 50 flights a year" with now known 135 launches in 30 years total which gives less than 5 per year.

The article is fantastically well researched and written.

craftsman• 12 years ago

It's interesting that nearly everything that was wrong with the Space Shuttle was accurately predicted in this article. Both catastrophic breakups were essentially predicted (a booster failing and tile damage from falling fuel tank ice), as well as the huge cost overruns and performance shortfalls. I wonder what author Gregg Easterbrook thinks as he looks back on the Shuttle era? Having a quick glance at his article on Wikipedia, it seems he's written or said a bit more about space policy since the shuttle; I'll have to read up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_Easterbrook

acqq5• 12 years ago

Even more impressive to me is that he wasn't an engineer but still made impressively technically well-informed article. I have no doubts one or more very smart and technically trained people helped him, still, it's amazing how much quality information is in one single article.

hudibras• 12 years ago

Unfortunately, Easterbrook is coasting on the reputation he built up from this one magazine piece from 34 years ago. It's basically impossible to read anything he writes nowadays without finding something either wrong or infuriatingly contrary-for-the-sake-of-contrariness.

acqq5• 12 years ago

The article I'd really like to read is about the "whistleblower" (or more of them) who gave Easterbrook all the info for that 1980 article. It would be very fitting to today's world.

RachelF• 12 years ago

The problem was that NASA administrators would lose their jobs if they admitted the shuttle project was in such trouble in 1980.

leoc4• 12 years ago

Even after the Challenger disaster people were afraid. Feynmann didn't discover the O-ring problem so much as learn about it through tip-offs from NASA insiders (something he freely acknowledged later). They'd got him onto the investigation panel because he was someone with the public stature, and of course the personality, to stick his head up and report it.

lafar6502• 12 years ago

Great read. I wonder if the author realized the madness will continue for 30 more years before someone makes a rational decision.

throwaway_yy2Di• 12 years ago

For reference, the amortized cost of a shuttle launch ended up being $1.45 billion ($196 billion / 135), with the recurring (per-launch) cost as $450 million of that (?). For comparing with the article's figures, $1.00 (1975) = $1.53 (1980) = $4.18 (2011). (So you could compare, e.g. the $22.4 million 1975 estimate with either $108 M or $347 M).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Budget

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt

fennecfoxen3• 12 years ago

You're linking to the BLS's CPI data, but you really don't want to deflate currency figures for the Space Shuttle using the CPI. Use something like the percentage of GDP: http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/

"Putting a man on the moon: [...] How much would that be today? If we used the CPI, it would be $160 billion, but this would not be a very good measure since the CPI does not reflect the cost of rockets and launch pads. ... [as] a way to consider the "opportunity cost" to society, the best measure might be the cost as a percent of GDP, and that number would be $453 billion. "

wtallis• 12 years ago

Using percent of GDP as an answer to the question of "How much would that be today?" is absurd, because our economy today is not only larger but more efficient at converting raw materials and manpower into working spacecraft. The question it really answers is something like "How daunting of an investment was that, in terms of today's economy?", though even that doesn't properly convey that such an investment made today would accomplish far more.

Spooky233• 12 years ago

To be fair, the late 70s inflation made it impossible to predict the price of anything well. My dad had some state GO bonds that paid something like 22% from 1980 or so.

Also remember that a big part of the shuttle program was to keep the engineers at NASA and the various contractors from Apollo in business. It was seen as as strategic need, just like how we build submarines and tanks even when we don't need them

WalterBright7• 12 years ago

I hadn't known the Spruce Goose was damaged by its flight. That explains a lot.

WalterBright7• 12 years ago

I've thought for 30 years that the shuttle design was terribly misguided.

The terrible problem with space flight is weight. Weight, weight, weight. It takes an enormous amount of fuel and rocket to push any kind of weight into orbit.

But the shuttle is not optimized for getting useful weight into orbit (i.e. payload, with the emphasis on pay). It's optimized for returning the rocket to earth. I.e. it has landing gear, wings, rudder, etc. All this is heavy, and therefore terribly expensive.

Step back a moment, and look at what we really need to bring back from orbit - it's the astronauts. Nothing else. All we actually need is a tiny capsule to bring the astronauts back, i.e. a heat shield and parachute. The rest can just be left in orbit.

Getting rid of all that weight then means the rocket can either be far cheaper, or it can launch much bigger PAY loads.

As for reliability, likely the most cost effective solution is to build a smaller, highly reliable rocket just for pushing astronauts up into orbit. Use another rocket, a big, heavy, unmanned one, and one that needn't be so reliable, to push up the stuff the astronauts need to do their mission.

WalterBright7• 12 years ago

BTW, weight is also the enemy of airplanes, which is why you don't see airliners ever flying around without a full load of passengers or freight (i.e. PAYload) on them. Only governments can afford to fly them empty.

But it's a hundred, a thousand times worse with rockets.

dingaling2• 12 years ago

Hello again! There are actually many, many airliner positioning flights that move around empty. It's a wonder airlines make any money when you see how inefficient they can be.

If you're watching FR24 or similar keep an eye out for callsigns ending in "P" for positioning.

patio112• 12 years ago

The deeper problem with the shuttle is that we need to bring the astronauts back because we sent them to space, and we sent them to space to do a mission, and that mission is to go to space. There is absolutely nothing a human can do in space that a machine can't do better, except die.

waterlesscloud9• 12 years ago

This is trivially untrue.

Perhaps someday machines will be able to perform comparably with humans across a range of general actions, but it certainly not the case today.

objclxt• 12 years ago

There is absolutely nothing a human can do in space that a machine can't do better, except die

I would love to hear you explain how to perform, for example, research on the effects of long-term zero-gravity on humans using only machines.

Or to take another example: I suppose it would have been possible to develop robots to repair the Hubble, but the cost of developing said robots to a point at which they can perform without failure is going to be equal - if not greater - than the cost of actually sending someone up to do the repair work in the first place.

rbanffy• 12 years ago

There is absolutely nothing a human can do in space that a machine can't do better

I don't think a machine can be inspiring like this:

http://ubuntuone.com/5LLIgal8tHKtHpFuDc3ZYl

We send machines to pave the way for humans, to see if it's safe and what precautions should we take.

If you said that only to humans in LEO, then I'd agree. There is no reason for a manned space station right now or humans riding along the satellites they launch. Maybe someday one would be useful as a buffer between long haul traffic and a new generation of shuttlecraft ferrying people and cargo to and from LEO for other ships to carry to deeper space, but that day only exists in our dreams of today.

Dylan168074• 12 years ago

I'm not so sure. Machines can die pretty efficiently.

timsally• 12 years ago

There is absolutely nothing a human can do in space that a machine can't do better, except die.

I can think of two things.

The first is a bit morbid, but consider what happens if some country ever decides to weaponize space. Being able to have people up there who can use the weapons available to them and exercise their independent judgement even in the face of an earth-to-space communication failure is important. It's the same doctrine that's behind ballistic missile submarines equipped with nuclear warheads.

The second is less morbid-- the colonization of other planets. This is necessary to protect the human species from an extinction event. Maybe even one that resulted from the aforementioned submarines. Naturally in order to colonize other planets we need to study the effects of space on humans. In order to do that we need to send them into space.

All of that said, I also believe most of our current missions can be done much more cost effectively by changing them to unmanned missions. But you can't take your eye of the long game, which just like the rest of history, is manned and involves militarization and colonization.

dingaling2• 12 years ago

"Step back a moment, and look at what we really need to bring back from orbit - it's the astronauts. Nothing else."

By saying that you're wilfully ignoring the key reason the Shuttle was designed the way it was; not to bring astronauts back but to return DoD satellites to Earth for servicing. That was only done a few times in practice, but drove the whole design process ( including the cross-range manoeuvring capability that led to wings being added).

WalterBright7• 12 years ago

The article pretty much destroys the concept of bringing back satellites. The only other thing we actually need to bring back is information - and telemetry does that just fine.

hammock• 12 years ago

To take your idea one step further: because it's so costly to get stuff into space, the less we come back with the better. The astronauts can come back, but once they launch a bunch of infrastructure, tools, etc into space those should stay there and remain usable. The ISS is a good example of this concept

WalterBright7• 12 years ago

I've also thought heck, design the empty rocket to be attachable as part of the space station.

omilu• 12 years ago

where were you when they were designing the JSF??

Spooky233• 12 years ago

Google around for the military mission requirements that drove many of the key design decisions.

Basically, the Air Force needed a manned platform capable of launching from Vandenberg AFB and doing something over the Soviet Union (presumably recon). They later pulled out of the program, probably because spy satellites and recon aircraft got a lot better and rendered the mission obsolete.

patio112• 12 years ago

It's great realizing, when reading a 35 year old polemic, that the chief issue with its criticisms was that it allocated WAY too little probability space to the outcome "worse than even we think it will be." For example, the debate in the article is between optimists who think the shuttle will hit 70 flights a year and pessimists who said 20. Nobody had their money on "four."

The article also describes Challenger and Columbia in chilling detail in advance. Quote: "The plan is, you die."

zachbeane• 12 years ago

http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm is a nice overview as well.

FD3SA• 12 years ago

Required watching [1], straight from Dale D. Myers (Deputy NASA administrator 86-89) himself. An extremely fascinating tale regarding the importance of engineering constraints in mission critical designs.

1. http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-astronautics/16-8...

sien• 12 years ago

It's curious how little is written about the X-37B that seems to be a successful reusable space vehicle.

It's unmanned, very much smaller than the Shuttle but seems to be of use for the US Air Force for something. It also stays in orbit for over a year at a time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37

samplonius• 12 years ago

I don't get it. The Shuttle project included a lot of things that had never been done before. So things didn't quite go to plan and some people died? But in the mean time, it performed useful tasks.

Predicting failure is easy, because something will always go wrong. There hasn't been a perfect anything built yet.

What is also surprising about these dredged up past articles, is that they all invariable criticize the engine (SSMB/SSME), even though the engine was never a major issue. Yes, the rebuilds between flights took longer than expected, but it was the first ever re-usable engine and is still an amazing achievement.

gus_massa2• 12 years ago

Feynman explains the problems with the main engines in the report about the Challenger disaster. They were a good candidate for the 3rd deadly accident if the shuttle program had continued.

Current discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7201645 (125 points, 1 day ago, 79 comments)

codex• 12 years ago

The shuttle is representative of a class of problems that occur in almost every software project: uncontrolled complexity. It's easier to fix the symptoms in software than in other fields, so this issue runs rampant throughout all of IT.

Beam Me Out Of This Death Trap, Scotty (1980)

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