There may be alternative ways around this problem too, though. One possibility suggested to this reporter is to have some of the Station's crew fly one of the attached Soyuz over the hundred meters or so to the Shuttle hovering nearby, dock with and enter it, and then manually dock the Shuttle with the Station -- after which the Soyuz would be detached and returned to its original docking port on the Station.

While there is a certain Robin Hood's Barn quality to this technique, it would be perfectly feasible and use very little in the way of additional supplies.

Moreover, the Canadarm 2 robot crane installed on the Station is designed to handle masses of as much as 115 metric tons -- a good deal more than the Shuttle -- and indeed it was planned from the start to have the ability to assist the Shuttle in docking.

As such the Canadarm could grasp one of the Soyuz with docking crew onboard and swing it over to the nearby Shuttle after the docking crew disembarks the arm could return the Soyuz to the Station with no need at any time in the maneuver to fire up the Soyuz at any stage.

Another possibility is to have an unmanned Shuttle automatically maneuver itself to within 15 meters of the Station's docking port, where upon the Canadarm manipulator would actually grab it and bring it in for the final docking.

At any rate, flying the Shuttle unmanned from now on -- starting immediately -- is perfectly feasible. In fact, it would remove any need to try to develop any kind of crew escape system -- and might even allow some reduction in the very high current maintenance costs of the Shuttle, since the vehicle would no longer have to be "man-rated".

NASA spends an incredible amount of the Shuttle's funds just trying to keep it reliable and safe enough to carry humans - a need further compounded by the lack of a launch escape system.

An unmanned Shuttle would not require as much care -- although of course it would still require considerable care beyond that usually given to unmanned vehicles in order to avoid losing another $2 billion-dollar Shuttle Orbiter, and to keep the danger of a shuttle falling on a Texas interstate during landing to a minimum.

NASA is already considering landing all future Shuttles at Edward Air Force Base in California, rather than landing them directly at Cape Canaveral, to minimize the impact of any future Shuttle crashing.

Although this will increase its operating costs still further. It is considered to be a minor miracle that no one in Texas was injured by any of falling debris

The one remaining question is whether the danger of Shuttles crashing during fully automatic (or tele-controlled) landings would be sufficiently higher than their current crash risk while manned to outweigh the fact that any future dangers to Shuttle crew would be totally eliminated.

But clearly turning the Shuttle entirely robotic -- not just in 9 years, as suggested by O'Keefe, but IMMEDIATELY -- needs to be given very serious consideration by NASA. Not only may it be far safer than the current plan to resume manned Shuttle flights to the Station; it may well be far less expensive; freeing up existing funds for an entirely new approach to space transportation engineering and economics.

This leaves the only other function still currently scheduled for the Shuttle: maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope. Two more visits are currently scheduled to the Telescope. One final servicing mission was scheduled for 2004 before Columbia's accident -- during which two new scientific instruments would be installed, along with whatever other repair or renovation work is needed.

And the Shuttle was scheduled to make one final visit to Hubble around 2010 -- or whenever the Telescope had at last deteriorated beyond being able to do additional useful work -- just to return it to Earth.

However, NASA -- on Congress' orders -- is now studying the possibility of replacing that last mission with one more servicing mission in 2007, during which a specially built retro-module might also be attached to it so that it could finally be de-orbited over the ocean in a controlled way without the need to retrieve it by Shuttle.

While the latter strategy would mean that the Telescope wouldn't be returned intact to repose in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, it would also prolong its operating lifetime by years more.

Hubble's orbit, however, has an inclination of only 28.5 degrees, as opposed to the Station's 51.6 deg -- which means that on such a mission, if it was discovered in orbit that the Shuttle had suffered launch damage preventing it from reentering safely, it would not be able to make an emergency pilgrimage to the Station so that part of its crew could return immediately to Earth on the Station's crew rescue vehicle (or vehicles) with the remainder waiting on the Station for more rescue vehicles to be launched to the Station from Earth. NASA, according to "Space.com", is considering canceling all future Hubble servicing missions just for this reason.

It was a cruel twist of fate that Columbia's accident occurred on one of the rare remaining Shuttle flights not targeted to the Station.

Otherwise the fatal flaw in its wing's edge would likely have been discovered after its rendezvous with the Station -- or even before then, using the cameras on its own mechanical arm -- and in that case three of the 10 people on the Station could have returned immediately on the Soyuz rescue boat, while extensive juggling of later Russian Soyuz and Progress launches would probably have been able to keep the remaining seven alive until they could be returned on later Soyuz flights, with only the Shuttle itself stuck in orbit.

The Shuttle's unique ability to service Hubble is being used as a propagandistic selling point in favor of retaining it by people ranging from O'Keefe (in Congressional testimony) to Cape Canaveral's Congressman David Weldon - who, needless to say, has a local constituency to support.

But even here, the argument is false -- for the economy of repairing it in orbit with the Shuttle, which at first seems clear, is actually nonexistent. According to the Rand Corporation, every Shuttle launch costs fully $760 million.

For the cost of any two Shuttle servicing missions (and perhaps less), an entirely new Hubble Telescope could be built -- with its cost greatly reduced by making it a near-copy of the earlier one except for new instruments and minor engineering improvements, thus eliminating that huge share of the original Hubble's cost that came from having to design it in the first place -- and launched on a Titan 4 when the previous Hubble wore out completely.

This is precisely why NASA has long ago abandoned the idea of using the Shuttle to repair any other satellites whatsoever in orbit -- given the huge expense of manned Shuttle flights, it is even less economical to do so for other satellites than for Hubble. If NASA decides to run the relatively small risk of having Hubble make an uncontrolled reentry somewhere over Earth (as Skylab did), it could build and launch a slightly improved Hubble replacement instead for the cost of those last two Hubble-Shuttle missions.

Alternatively -- since the 2004 servicing mission will have to be delayed by a year or two in any case -- NASA might decide to delay it a little longer, build that Hubble retro-module and add its installation to the original plans for the 2004 servicing mission, so that the agency would only need to risk one more manned Shuttle flight to Hubble instead of two.

In any case -- despite O'Keefe's and Richard Blomberg's murky references to the possibility of continuing to fly the Shuttle even after the Orbital Space Plane or some other new manned vehicle has been developed -- the number of people who favor flying it at all after the construction of the Station has been completed is dropping rapidly, even though this may require the US to then humble itself and rely for years on other countries to support the Station.

And, as I say, a strong argument can be made that the Shuttle doesn't need to be flown anymore at all in its manned form even to finish building the Station, and that -- if we are determined to go ahead with the silly and appallingly wasteful Space Station then it is even sillier not to fly the Shuttle in an unmanned mode from now on in order to finish and maintain the Station.

Whether we do so or not, however, the next questions arise: how often should we fly manned spacecraft after the Station program finally does end, and what should such a spacecraft be like?

Related Links
SpaceDaily
Search SpaceDaily
Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only