"NASA to Unveil New Space Transport Plan"

[nebularain]

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20030217/spaceplane.html

Let's hope all goes well.

[Irishman]

Ironic that this was already in works.

[Moose]

Ironic, perhaps, but hardly unexpected.

The shuttles have/had an expected shelf-life that isn't all that far in the future.

Since a replacement would require a fair bit of lead-time to design and impliment, it stands to reason that they would be working on a replacement.

It makes political sense to release information on the new project at this point.

[The Rusty Lander]

Yes, and they need something to get those poor astronauts down who are currently trapped up on that spacestation without a way to get home.

Didn't they think to bring parachutes?

[Sleepy]

On 2003-02-24 04:11, The Rusty Lander wrote:
Yes, and they need something to get those poor astronauts down who are currently trapped up on that spacestation without a way to get home.

Didn't they think to bring parachutes?err Yes, a Soyez capsule is permamently docked to the ISS for use as an escape vehicle in the event of a catastrophic incident.

[Irishman]

I need to elaborate. In the aftermath of Columbia, many people are yelling and screaming about all sorts of things, one of them being a way to rescue the astronauts. Since another Shuttle would not be a workable solution, it has been suggested of having a special rescue craft on standby, purely for crew.

Also, people have suggested that the solution to NASA's launch situation is to develop a separate crew launcher from payload launcher. So it's ironic because that is, in fact, in works. It was part of the budget plan last September.

[Glom]

Isn't that like the way things would have worked in AAP? One rocket lifts the payload, another lifts the crew.