Shuttle Diplomacy

Most people with any decency in their bones I’m sure are delighted that the Space Shuttle Discovery made it safely into space. After the heart-breaking tragedy of the Columbia breaking up while so close to finishing their mission, NASA seemed to wander aimlessly for awhile. Here they have one of the most beautiful launch vehicles ever created and it’s mission that was so clear-cut 20 years ago, seems more like a white elephant in the 21st century. When you consider the amazing achievement of SpaceShipOne (being the first privately launched space vehicle capable of carrying humans), is the Space Shuttle even really needed anymore?

We’ve kinda put all our eggs into one basket in the earth to space heavy lift department. Darn near everything except some individual satellites goes up in the Shuttle. With the program down, we’ve had to beg for help from the Russians to keep the International Space Station (ISS) crewed and supplied. Now we have President Bush declaring that the U.S. will return to the moon by 2020 and then to Mars at some later date. Fine goals and most likely achievable but at what cost?

Maybe it’s time to put aside some national pride and really partner up with countries that have ready made solutions to some of our problems. The Russians have some great heavy lift launch vehicles. We have the capability to put people into space very cheaply (with some design help from the SS1 people). Instead of putting major resources into keeping what amounts to 30 year old tech together (the Shuttle), let’s scrap it and get the next gen people mover ready. We supply to means to get people cheaply into space, Russia puts the pieces for them to play with once they get there. Right now the ISS has only one way for people on the station to return in case of an emergency. A Soyuz era crew capsule. Not very efficient and probably pretty dangerous (not that being in space is a cakewalk). A people mover like SS1 can be ready for launch within days of it being needed. And unlike the Shuttle, EVERY single piece of it is reusable. Sounds like a greener solution that throwing away that big fuel tank like the Shuttle has to.

Once the People Space Mover (or PSM which I trademarked…as if)is ready, move to the next mission. What do you need to return to moon? Cheaply. What do you need to go to Mars? Um..not so cheaply.

None of this degrades the sacrifices that the brave men and women from around the world that have flown on the Shuttles and have died to explore our next great step. Just as the Shuttle didn’t cheapen the achievements of the Gemini, Mercury, and Apollo Astronauts. However it’s time to move to the next step and make a vehicle that really creates the Space truck vision that the Shuttle was supposed to do, but never really did.

Congratulations to the Shuttle Astronauts and the hard working people of NASA. But can we please move on now?