NASA to begin layoffs as shuttle retirement nears (900)

[Pale Blue Dot]

Source: Reuters

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The U.S. space agency NASA plans to eliminate 900 manufacturing jobs over the next five months as it prepares to retire its space shuttle fleet in 2010, NASA officials said on Thursday.

The first 160 layoff notices go out on Friday, primarily to contractors producing the space shuttle fuel tanks outside New Orleans and the shuttle solid rocket boosters in Utah.

The prime contractors for those components are Lockheed Martin Corp and ATK Thiokol.

"This is the first significant loss of manufacturing capability," shuttle program manager John Shannon told reporters.

The three-ship shuttle fleet is due to be retired after eight more flights to finish building and equipping the International Space Station and a final servicing call to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE54000I20090501

[CRF450]

1. So whats gonna replace the shuttles?

[Hugin]

2. They're hoping this will...

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/orion/index.html

Also, see these...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(spacecraft)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ares_I

[sakabatou]

7. So we're going back to the Saturn V designs?

[Hugin]

8. Well, we're going back to the rocket launch and passive re-entry concept.

But, the whole launcher is different from Apollo. For starters, it's first stage is solid instead of the LOX mixture.

Because of it's Apollo-like configuration, they can have a real launch failure escape mechanism. It's much safer for the crews. The passive re-entry is well understood and eliminates much of the un-necessary complexity of having a runway landing vehicle with avionics. A big plus is that instead of only landing on certain designated runways... Landings can be planned for any number of large areas, either at sea or on land.

It is a real cost savings compared to the Shuttle.

The capsule holds up to six crew!

I'm thinking it's a good thing.

Edit: Clarity.

[malti_poo]

3. The shuttles were always a compromise...

We didn't really need a reusable vehicle at big as the shuttle because cargo is cheaper to send up by un-manned rocket, not to mention the risk to human life. I read somewhere that it costs a minumum of $10,000/lb to send domething in low earth orbit via the space shuttle.

[Hugin]

4. Gee, only 12 posts?

Uh, I... I... Love the space shuttle. It wasn't a compromise. No really... :scared:

:yoiks:

[lapfog_1]

9. Actually, the better term for the shuttle was "prototype"

It was meant to be followed on by a real "space plane" (that would also be a potential commercial hypersonic passenger plane), only the plans and the technology for that project never got beyond the conceptual phase.

My program at NASA was the primary lead on the design of the space plane... only we quit working on it sometime in the early 1990s.

[Hugin]

10. Yeah, I always thought the 'space plane' idea was pretty cool.

Horizontal or in-flight launches make sense.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. No kidding. If you want to see a launch before they retire it, get to booking your vacation now.

I guess.

Dammit. I wanted to see this thing launch in person at some point. Oh well. End of an era.

[tocqueville]

5. Europe and Russia will...

this will replace :

ATV (European Space Agency)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_Transfer_Vehicle
Soyuz (Russia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_(spacecraft)

both will be launched from the Kourou space station in French Guyana and both are fully operational and already in use.

It's not probable the US will have any indepedent means to reach the ISS before 2015 (in the best case) more probably 2020.

[bloomington-lib]

6. can carry 1800 lbs of water

at 8 lbs a gallon this comes to 237 gallons of water. Doesn't seem like very much but I guess if they're recycling it, it'll go a long way.

[tocqueville]

13. there are two ships

that will alternate the European one and the Russian, which is sufficient to keep the station going. Besides a manned version of the ATV is on the way. This probably will be the standard routine round 2015.

Then in the best case the the Constellation program will start to actively run, but the current economical situation in the US is a bad omen. Besides programs scheduled on paper to go at a certain date use to be delayed several years.

The interesting part with the European/Russian modules is that those are already operative and reliable. The ATV system is automatic (laser guided) and the first launch was a complete success. Of couse this wasn't reported in US media.

After 2010 the US will have to rely on the Russians and the Europeans to send people in space, since I don't believe that eventual commercial alternatives will be then reliable.

The US is paying for poor planning, no matter what administration was in place, but the heaviest burden falls on the Bush administration. They should have foreseen that in the early 2000. In a way it ressembles the abandon of the Apollo program due to the Vietnam war. If at that time the money (a "trifle" compared to the costs of the war) had been used for space exploration, we'd already have colonies on the Moon and advanced posts on Mars.

[Greyhound]

12. Great, even being a "rocket scientist" won't save your career.

:eyes: