🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan4.150800.14058@iti.org> aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>In article <1993Jan4.015312.6224@cerberus.ulaval.ca> yergeau@phy.ulaval.ca (Francois Yergeau) writes:
>
>>The shuttle system itself may not be considered R&D anymore, but it's
>>the manifest that tells you whether it's doing research  or mere
>>"operations."
>
>No, the Shuttle is always doing operations unless it is Shuttle
>itself which is being experimented on. When Shuttle carries spacelab,
>it is engaged in operations *IN SUPPORT OF RESEARCH* but not research.

Under that definition, spacelab is also operations, the gloveboxes and
cameras on spacelab are operations, etc. Looked at differently, spacelab 
is a research *tool* purpose built to do research, and it can only do
that with support from Shuttle which was built to carry things like
spacelab.

>When somebody flies a roll during re-entry to see what happens, that
>is research.

Well that would be *aeronautical* research, but that isn't the only
kind of research being done with Shuttle. Shuttle itself is a long
term testbed for reusable flight. It's already yielded valuable 
information on the problems and benefits of reusability in manned 
spacecraft. Purportedly, the DC program benefits from that knowledge. 
The continuing Shuttle improvement programs are development efforts. 
So R&D is ongoing with Shuttle. It would be very expensive R&D of course, 
if you were to count all of Shuttle's costs as R&D, but it's the only 
reusable manned testbed that is flying *today*.  And, in the course of 
that flight R&D, other research programs like those on spacelab get 
supported at no extra cost. Or the cost gets split among all the
Shuttle payloads, however you want to look at it. There are no ready
flying alternatives to many of the Shuttle missions today, so you
either fly Shuttle or declare a hiatus in manned space until something
new is developed and tested. We went through that once before after Apollo.
Many people think we should have kept plugging along with Saturn, Skylab,
etc until Shuttle proved itself better, or if it was unable to show itself 
better, until an entirely different approach was developed and tested.
But we didn't, and manned space efforts suffered as a result. We shouldn't
make that mistake twice.

Gary
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