I believe the heroic period of manned space exploration ended over thirty years ago.

I share grief about the loss of life on the Challenger and Columbia shuttles. But are those who perished best seen as heroes, or as victims of callous political hubris battening on public sentimentality. Doubt on this should be removed by noting the cleverly chosen ethnic composition of the ill fated Columbia crew. Something for everyone.

One life lost for every eight missions should force rethinking priorities. Why continue to lose good people?

I believe “manned space travel” to have become a less desirable objective the more we know about space.

In fact, I feel that promoting (and actually carrying through) manned space travel is counterproductive to our scientific understanding. Already, the unmanned program has contributed to our knowledge many times what manned flights have done. Mostly what we have learned specifically from the manned program has been human physiology, and much of that does not bode well for the extensive explorations contemplated by its enthusiasts. The original reasons for manned flight were largely political, and the Columbia crew selections (and high school science experiments onboard) fell into that category. This played well with a generation brought up on “Star Trek” and other space operas. We do enjoy these fantasies, but we should take care not to confuse them with a description or prediction of reality.

The “shuttle” in particular is a political boondoggle and pig’s-trough for well connected contractors. Aside from ball point pens that write upside down, it has produced little to justify the expense. And the joke is that Cosmonauts prefer pencils! As for the “International Space Station”, this is clearly more of an endurance contest than flagpole sitting, but differs from that mainly in the matter of scale. The presence of humans (and the life support mechanisms necessary to their survival) merely disturbs useful observational opportunities. Unmanned probes are far more stable, cheaper, and safer. And can go further and see more.

Why are manned space programs counterproductive? Because after tremendous expense with little scientific result or worse (many of the Apollo shots, those that left earth, came close to disaster), the political enthusiasm is likely to turn into its opposite and jeopardize funding for the presently superior unmanned robotic approach.

It is often suggested that manned space exploration puts us closer to world unity and peace. Unfortunately, the historical record is otherwise. The predominant world power that has done it most extensively seems to be currently moving in another direction entirely.

this sounds exactly like what happened the last shuttle disaster

Melusine, I think what was meant about losing the program if they have to use TRAD/CIPA again is that damage requiring tile repair indicates that the foam damage problem is likely unsolvable.

My recollection of Discovery’s last flight is that they solved something like 80% of the foam shedding. But foam still shed, including a piece large enough to cause catastrophic damage (which fortunately did not impact the shuttle). They tried to eliminate as much of the last 20% shedding as possible in the latest overhauls, but there’s a possibility that a similarly significant foam shed will occur, and also the possibility that it was cause damage to repair.

I guess the suggestion is that if we can’t fix the problem after spending three years and however much money on it, we probably won’t ever fix it and run the risk of catastrophic failure from foam loss on every flight. More importantly, if we do lose Discovery, even if the crew stays safely on the ISS as is the contingency plan, the program be able to complete it’s mission of finishing the ISS before 2010 without it. So a loss or even significant but repairable damage to Discovery would be akin to losing the whole shuttle program.