Ytterligare diskussion om skytteltekniken kommer upp efter Columbias förlisning. Tröghet i sociotekniska system, korporativism, nationell prestige är komponenter som kan belysa den amerikanska rymdpraktiken. Gregg Easterbrook i Time:
“NASA’s insistence on sending a crew on every shuttle flight means risking precious human life for mindless tasks that automated devices can easily carry out. Did Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon really have to be there to push a couple of buttons on the Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment, the payload package he died to accompany to space?
Switching to unmanned rockets for payload launching and a small space plane for those rare times humans are really needed would cut costs, which is why aerospace contractors have lobbied against such reform. Boeing and Lockheed Martin split roughly half the shuttle business through an Orwellian-named consortium called the United Space Alliance. It’s a source of significant profit for both companies; United Space Alliance employs 6,400 contractor personnel for shuttle launches alone. Many other aerospace contractors also benefit from the space-shuttle program.
Any new space system that reduced costs would be, to the contractors, killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Just a few weeks ago, NASA canceled a program called the Space Launch Initiative, whose goal was to design a much cheaper and more reliable replacement for the shuttle.”
Och varför bloggar inte James Oberg? Bara en sällan uppdaterad, närmast statisk, hemsida möter en när man kommer till denne rymdanalytikers domän på nätet.
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