“It’s a bit of stretch to expect Shuttle to continue the program it was doing, past 2020. One thing to argue it could flown a few more years, quite another to argue it could flown more than a decade longer.”

Just to clarify … I did not mean that the Space Shuttle should have kept flying through or past 2020, although the airframes probably would have been good for it. What I was suggesting, as were people like Chris Kraft, Neil Armstrong and others, was that the Space Shuttle should have flown one or two resupply missions per year until a replacement vehicle (Orion, Dragon or ???) came online. The suggestion was to fill the gap between STS-135 and the new spacecraft. That way, we would not have been dependent on Russia to send crews and supplies to and from the ISS. Also, it might have been possible to extend the life of the Hubble Space Telescope with one more servicing mission.

The Space Shuttle retirement date was based upon the Constellation Program going forward. President Obama cancelled Constellation. Once Constellation was gone, the Shuttle program could have been extended for a few more years. I’m told by a gentleman who worked on the Orbiters at the Cape that they were all performing quite well at the time of their retirement. Which is why so many people were so saddened to see those valuable national assets being sent to museums while they still had useful service life.

Could be? Without the maintenance monstrosity of the orbiter it will cost far less without a doubt and be capable of a much higher launch rate.

Its Vladimir Putin.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/02/us-russia-space-idUSKBN0GX1AV20140902

http://rt.com/news/184560-russia-rocket-super-heavy/

Good grief! The first ISS module (Zarya) was launched in 1998 (16 years ago). ….. And Mir taught us that machines don’t last forever — especially in space.

How long do you think the ISS will function before its crews spend most of their time repairing failing systems?–

Well I believe that currently with a crew of 6 they spend
most of their time [of working hours] related to station maintenance. And if it was a smaller crew than 6, even more of their time during things related to keeping ISS flying, safely.
And it is part of the reason that 7 crew should be better than crew of 6.

As general note, I think in order to open the space frontier, one has to have orbital stations with capability of longer life times and with minimum maintenance.
It’s my guess, that ISS was designed to have a longer timeline and lower amount of maintence needed and such a goal was made more feasible
by examination and incorporation of lesson learned from Mir.
But can’t say I read any studies try to establish any quantitive analysis which could determine the degree
of success that was actually achieved in this regards to ISS. I suppose it’s possible that ISS was failure in this regard.

Also as general note, it seems the stations which are on the Moon or Mars should have longer lifetimes than orbital station stations apparently have. If this is a false assumption, then seems we have very significant problem in terms of the potential of opening the space frontier.

-Even if SpaceX manages to get their manned Dragon (“Soyuz on Steroids”) to the ISS by 2016 or 2017, the station could very well be nearing the end of its useful life by then. And without the Space Shuttle, replacing large modules and major components on the ISS could be next to impossible.-

Well it’s planned to operate to 2020 [it used to be planned only up to 2015- and one might hope it’s extended beyond 2020]. As far as shuttle cargo lift capacity, we have launcher which can lift as much as the Shuttle, and of course SLS is suppose to fly by 2018 [bumped from 2017]. And if SLS is flying it could lift more than twice the payload of the Shuttle.

In terms of lifeboat- wiki has pretty good general write up on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_Return_Vehicle

–That is why so many space professionals tried to convince President Obama to keep the Shuttles flying if he was serious about extending the life of the ISS to 2020 (or beyond)-*

It’s a bit of stretch to expect Shuttle to continue the program it was doing, past 2020. One thing to argue it could flown a few more years, quite another to argue it could flown more than a decade longer.

Well, the dumb idiots in the soviet union built the T-34, the best all around tank of the war. Everyone agrees on this GB. It was the Koshkin design bureau that built the best tank. Not a business. Not a government. A group of engineers working together on a project.

An “airframe rep” (the civilians who temporarily help the military bring new airplanes into service in the field) once told me it is up to the people who are writing the original specifications. Aerospace companies are paid to make these specs reality. Anything the government wants, business will happily try and build….for a profit.

The conversation started when I was complaining about the bizarre flight control system on the Blackhawk helicopter. The awesome General Electric T-700 engines more than made up for the aircraft’s shortcomings, but the fly by wire tail stabilator and other features seemed ridiculous. The rep told me it was because the group writing the specs wanted the Blackhawk to fit into a C-130 transport with a minimum amount of disassembling of the helicopter. The length and height of the airframe had to be reduced and that was where the problematic design features came from. It fits with inches to spare but is so much trouble it is rarely done. Uh-huh.

So all this wailing and gnashing of teeth about Obama does not sit well with me. I do not believe this administration has been served well by “the people who are writing the original specifications.” The Byzantine scheming that took place will probably never be known but whoever was delegated the say about space exploration, I would assume that would be the science adviser, dropped the ball. I suspect it will require a two part solution; we need a president with advisers that can explain all this basic rocket stuff we advocates understand so the right path can be chosen.

And we need the people to vote for it and over-rule aerospace industry influence. Industry will never switch from defense profits to the hard money of space without being forced to.

Good grief! The first ISS module (Zarya) was launched in 1998 (16 years ago). The core module (Zvezda) was launched in 2000 (14 years ago). Both were to have been part of the Mir-2 space station. Mir survived for 15 years. During its final years, the crews spent most of their time making repairs, not doing experiments. Mir became “fully operational” (i.e., fully assembled) with the arrival of the Priroda module less than five years before the station was de-orbited in 2001. The Spektr module, which had been launched in 1995, became useless when it was damaged by a wayward Progress ship in 1997. Accidents happen. Equipment fails. And Mir taught us that machines don’t last forever — especially in space.

How long do you think the ISS will function before its crews spend most of their time repairing failing systems?

Even if SpaceX manages to get their manned Dragon (“Soyuz on Steroids”) to the ISS by 2016 or 2017, the station could very well be nearing the end of its useful life by then. And without the Space Shuttle, replacing large modules and major components on the ISS could be next to impossible.

That is why so many space professionals tried to convince President Obama to keep the Shuttles flying if he was serious about extending the life of the ISS to 2020 (or beyond).

I say have NASA be a branch of the Air Force.

We have to get over such objections of military in space.

Accelerate once and be done.