MTO Cancelled Options

[djellison]

Just listening to the MRO conference. Highlights included...

1) 5.4 Mbits is the highest MRO data rate (not the 4 I thought)
2) An extra 50-ish KG of fuel puts it's low-altitude orbit life thru to the next decade.
3) MTO HAS BEEN CANCELLED

What the HELL!

They say that MSL can still do its mission with just MRO as it's relay capacity will suffice.

But that means less science data during an MRO extension

Seems a bit short sighted.

Doug

[dvandorn]

I disagree with the postulate that the ISS is entirely useless.

ISS is not all that useful (especially in its present configuration) for scientific research. Most of the research that can be done on the ISS can be done better and more cheaply on science STS flights such as Columbia's last flight. Or on unmanned satellites.

But, in my humble opinion, the ISS is absolutely required *experience* for anyone who wants to travel beyond the Earth/Moon system and out into the greater solar system.

ISS is a learning laboratory on how to mount multi-year missions. Once you have figured out how to keep a crew alive and well on the ISS for a good fraction of a year, you've figured out how to send people to other planets on trips that will last from months to years.

NASA engineers had a belief about the Russian space station program -- that the Russians used crude and unreliable technology that constantly exposed their crews to needless danger. That the Russian stations broke down because Russian engineering was inherently inferior to American engineering.

ISS is proving the NASA engineers wrong -- equipment breaks down, be it in space or on the ground. Even bulkheads and other structural elements that are given a full reliability factor of 1.0 (never, ever expected to fail) can indeed fail given extraordinary circumstances.

The Russians found this out early on, and developed systems that can be serviced on-orbit. They even came up with techniques for servicing equipment that was never meant to be serviced. But us Americans, we wouldn't allow ourselves to learn those lessons, because it was *easier* to believe that the Russians were simply semi-competent entrants into the space game.

It is my belief that if the U.S. had decided to mount a manned Mars expedition without going through the learning curve of operating an ISS-style station for several years, the expedition would end in abort at best, and loss of vehicle and crew at worst. That this would have been inherent in the engineering mindset that believed you can design and build each and every system on such a complex spacecraft with *no* potential for disastrous failure.

Granted, such a station doesn't serve many other purposes beyond teaching us how to keep people alive and well, and keeping their spacecraft working properly, over months and years of flight time. Which is why the ISS *seems* to be such a waste. But unless we want to give up on the idea of manned solar system exploration, we *have* to gain this kind of experience before we can move on.

So, give the ISS a break. Everyone needs to spend some time in grade school before we can think about graduating into high school, much less attending university...

-the other Doug