Are lives of 5 astronauts worth this?

Originally posted by zurvan
Why loose life when it is not necessary? Those people you talk about with fake wings had no other option, they wanted to fly and that was the only way they knew! i don't consider their action/death unnecessary.

and the shuttle is all we have...do you prefer they suit up and tr to fly into our atmosphere and pull a parachute.

They cant use the soyuz...becauses that the "lifeboat" for the ISS. So it nasa put a few of there people in it and then the rest use the Shuttle, then what if there is a major problem with the ISS that they would need to leave or one gets really sick...they would be screwed.

Autopilot would actually be a good idea to test if re-entry works.. I don't think there's much manual necessity for the re-entry procedure..
As I know it.. It goes a bit like this..

1.Shuttle pivots 180 so that its behind ( ) is facing the direction of re-entry..

2.Then pitch thrusters fire so that shuttle comes around at appropriate re-entry angle..

3. And then the shuttle re-enters while its performs a series of S-turns to slow itself down..


All this is quite computable..

The Only problem is the landing.. which i think needs to be done manually.. but remote piloting is a good option..

This brings me to another wonderful aspect of jet a/c..
The awesome "S-turn".. This manuever has saved many a lives and solved many aeronautical dilemmas..
Wonder when it actually came up..or how it came about..

It is not for us to judge if their lives are worth the risks taken by riding the shuttle. All of them know the situation and chose to go. Heck there are people standing in line to go up on the shuttle. If NASA would call me tomorrow and offer me a ride my answer would be "Hell yes! I am on my way!". There are people who are in far riskier jobs than being an astronaut. Look at the statistics for Firemen, Policemen and structural steel workers to name a few. There are thousands of people who assume more risk than astronauts just to have fun. BASE jumpers, skydivers, SCUBA divers and stock car drivers. The real shame in this is the way that the International Space Station has been cut back from a scientific reaserch platform to a campsite. The main purpose in keeping the Shuttle fleet going is to support the ISS. The ISS really isn't doing anything which means the Shuttle astronauts are assuming this risk for almost nothing.

the astronauts know the risk, and took it voluntarily.

They did a space walk to repair the questionable tiles.

Itf they did a national lottery to draft people for this, you have a point, but people fall all over themselves to get on these missions, and they are volunteers

cheers

Thanks for the replies. Once again the thread successfully answered/predicted the future. How do I know? well I am there now!

Originally posted by Daedalus3

This brings me to another wonderful aspect of jet a/c..
The awesome "S-turn".. This manuever has saved many a lives and solved many aeronautical dilemmas..

Wonder when it actually came up..or how it came about..

I would guess some pilot some time in the past was a down hill skier

No really ...I mean it

Hutch

Many more people die fishing for crabs then ever died at NASA. They knew the risk as well going into it. Is it really worth it so some people can eat some crab meat? Nobody forced them to do that either and it was a free choice.

The lowly fisherman gets no national ceremonies for their death either.

The world is full of jobs that have risks involved its a personal choice if those risked are worth it for each person that decides to work in that field.

[edit on 27-1-2006 by ShadowXIX]

There have been innumerable proposals for rescue capsules and variations of this sort from the inception of the shuttle. They range from individual rentry shells, to crew escape capsules like those on the B-1B A and apollo command capsules augmented for 7+ people in the cargo bay. In every case, risk fails to justify cost and payload penalties. Why is everyone here so fixated on autopilot? Most everything is already automated, excepting the glide to the landing strip, which is relatively easy and safe anyhow. Handsdown, the most dangerous part of the shuttle flight profile is during lift off, especially in the window with NO survivable abort modes! We are not flying the shuttle for its own sake.
One, we have obligations towards international partners on the ISS. They have invested BILLIONs in modules that can only be launched and serviced by the space shuttle.
Two, the CEV, the space shuttle replacement will not be flying until 2012. The CEV is heavily derived from space shuttle components. For this reason, the gap between shuttle retirement and productive CEV flights must be minimized; retraining and retooling is cost prohibitive.

Lastly, we cannot afford to develop a new spaceplane in the current political and economic situation.

The soviet space shuttle Buran has already validated autopilot....

If space tarvel is to ever become routine/mundane and a thing for everybody,then IMO re-entry MUST be automated.

Originally posted by Daedalus3
If space tarvel is to ever become routine/mundane and a thing for everybody,then IMO re-entry MUST be automated.

Not only do soyuz, apollo and CEV reentries NOT require human control; they don't even have to be automated! After deorbiting, capsules INHERENTLY assume stable descent profiles. This is not the case for CEV reentry to earth from lunar orbit, in which especially high velocity necessatate a controlled skip or two. The shuttle certainly requires a controlled reentry, but automation of it wil not make space travel routine. Reducing the infrastructure and the 25,000 strong standing army required for a space shuttle launch would.

January 28 th. Just another day. Things go on as usual. I have two special days in my life. They are December 12th and January 28th. On December 12th for 4 years in a row friends of mine were killed. Every year I honor that day. On January 28th 1986, my squadron flew as many people from our squadron as we could down to Patrick AFB to watch the shuttle launch. We all know what happened to Challenger, just as we know what happened to Columbia and Apollo 1.

May we all forget politics for a bit. May we remember the people who thought enough of these missions to risk their lives and eventually lose those lives in search of a dream.

Originally posted by SkyBlueTwo

Originally posted by Daedalus3
If space tarvel is to ever become routine/mundane and a thing for everybody,then IMO re-entry MUST be automated.

Not only do soyuz, apollo and CEV reentries NOT require human control; they don't even have to be automated! After deorbiting, capsules INHERENTLY assume stable descent profiles. This is not the case for CEV reentry to earth from lunar orbit, in which especially high velocity necessatate a controlled skip or two. The shuttle certainly requires a controlled reentry, but automation of it wil not make space travel routine. Reducing the infrastructure and the 25,000 strong standing army required for a space shuttle launch would.

Actually I wasn't talking about the shuttle in specific.
Any winged/future design which requires re-entry manuevering needs to be automated.

Originally posted by Daedalus3

Originally posted by SkyBlueTwo

Originally posted by Daedalus3
If space tarvel is to ever become routine/mundane and a thing for everybody,then IMO re-entry MUST be automated.

Not only do soyuz, apollo and CEV reentries NOT require human control; they don't even have to be automated! After deorbiting, capsules INHERENTLY assume stable descent profiles. This is not the case for CEV reentry to earth from lunar orbit, in which especially high velocity necessatate a controlled skip or two. The shuttle certainly requires a controlled reentry, but automation of it wil not make space travel routine. Reducing the infrastructure and the 25,000 strong standing army required for a space shuttle launch would.

Actually I wasn't talking about the shuttle in specific.
Any winged/future design which requires re-entry manuevering needs to be automated.

Automating reentry is a trivial technology. Really really trivial. In fact, Yuri Gagarin's flight was entirely automated, reentry included!
All current reentries on manned spacecrafts are automated (with manual overrides built in). I think its a given that future ones will too.

not on the shuttle.. the pivoting manuevers are not.. Don't know about the S-turns..