perfidy

Several interesting space tidbits:

• MSNBC is reporting that the shuttle will be grounded until at least 2005. This is both bad news and a potential opportunity. First, it means that space station personnel will need to use the Russian Soyuz to get to and from the station; and there will be no manned missions to do things like save the Hubble, or for anything else. The opportunity, which will almost certainly be passed up, is for NASA to move past the shuttle entirely, and begin a crash program to develop an efficient means of manned space flight, along several tracks:

  One, a stop gap, cheap but reliable capsule to be launched atop a disposable launcher like the Atlas - along the lines of OSP ideas. Two, restart the DCX program with exactly the same management philosophy as the original program. Build early, build often is the surest way to success. This could result in a real SSTO in a few years. And three, long range research into propulsion materials, and other technologies for new launchers in the future. Shuttle technology should be immediately converted to unmanned cargo uses, along the lines of the shuttle-c or other ideas outlined here. In my dreams.

• Also on MSNBC, this report that there's lots of debris floating around the ISS. And a good chunk of that debris might be parts of the space station. Who'd they get to build that thing anyway, Ryan homes?
• And finally, space.com informs us that the Russians are considering building a Soyuz 2.0. The new version would have twice the passenger capacity of the current, decades old design; and the crew section would be reusable. The Russian rocket company Energiya would need to design a new launcher, as the current Soyuz rocket would be insufficient to put the twice as heavy capsule into orbit. But hey, at least somebody's thinking ahead.