Newsgroups: sci.space.policy
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: ISSA justification (Was Re: Moscow: ISS May Be Built Around Old 
	Mir
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 20:18:27 GMT
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 26

In article <4an8ef$qnn@brtph500.bnr.ca> cathy@zorac.cary.nc.us writes:
>> A quick survey of some biggies: shuttle, Hubble, Station, Apollo, Galileo,
>> all took many years from conception to orbit.
>
>  Hubble and Galileo are hardly fair examples.  They were given no
>choice about flying on Shuttle, so how can you blame them for not planning
>on Shuttle downtime?  Blame Shuttle for that.  To some extent, you have
>to treat projects as independent.

Yes, and that means you don't automatically blame one project's woes on
problems with another...  You have to look at when Hubble and Galileo
would *actually have flown*, not when they were *theoretically slated
to fly*, had there been no shuttle downtime.  It is not at all clear that
Hubble would have been ready on schedule; work on it continued well into
the shuttle downtime, well beyond its pre-Challenger launch date in fact.
I think Galileo was closer to its final state... but remember that both
were years behind schedule already.

Also, if you're going to blame Shuttle for Galileo delays, in fairness you
should also credit Shuttle with saving Galileo from disaster.  There were
a couple of nasty design flaws in Galileo's thruster system, which weren't
known until some of TVSat 2's thrusters exploded, well after Galileo's
pre-Challenger launch date. 
-- 
Look, look, see Windows 95.  Buy, lemmings, buy!   |       Henry Spencer
Pay no attention to that cliff ahead...            |   henry@zoo.toronto.edu

Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
From: Henry Spencer <henry@zoo.toronto.edu>
Subject: Re: The Shuttle Era - 1979 & Now
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1996 16:57:45 GMT

In article <4cchne$4i1@shiva.usa.net> bthorn@usa.net writes:
>>-SPACE TELESCOPE (About the _only_ major project that made it,
>> although the Challenger disaster delayed it for some seven 
>> years.
>
> The Shuttle is to blame for most of the delay, but the Challenger
> accident itself was only about four years...

In fairness, one should say that while the shuttle officially got most
of the blame for the delays, this is like blaming the Apollo fire for
the fact that the US didn't put men on the Moon in early 1968.  The
shuttle delays gave the Hubble side of the project time to catch up;
Hubble would not have been ready for an early-1980s launch.  If memory
serves, even the final pre-Challenger launch date -- mid-1986 -- was
considered a bit doubtful.  Of those seven years, only about two were
spent with Hubble in storage waiting for launch.

Also of note is that Hubble was originally supposed to be NASA's big
astronomy project for the *1970s*.
-- 
Look, look, see Windows 95.  Buy, lemmings, buy!   |       Henry Spencer
Pay no attention to that cliff ahead...            |   henry@zoo.toronto.edu