Note - "CAPE CANAVERAL, Fl (AP) -- Columbia accident investigators urged NASA on Friday to develop an inspection and emergency repair plan for astronauts in orbit before space shuttle launches resume. It was the third preliminary recommendation issued by the investigation board in advance of its final report, due out in a month. NASA Administrator Sean OÕKeefe said Thursday he hopes to resume flights by April."

Would you book a commercial flight with an airline that only flew from one airport? Probably not, unless you didn't care where you landed and weren't concerned about running out of fuel along the way.

Most of us understand that long distance travel, whether by air or by roadway, involves stopping along the way for fuel, maintenance, or just to check the air in the tires. Even for refreshment.

We learned long ago that ships are not unsinkable.

Cars, trucks, planes, locomotives, barges, tankers, bicycles, trailers, jets, airliners, cruise ships, fishing trawlers, cutters, blimps, pickups, sedans, vans, and wagons. We know what these are. They are some of the diverse elements used to support the transportation of people and products from point to point, commercially or for other purposes. Its not a one sized fits all process.

In our world of transportation we have some vehicles for one purpose and others for another. And we have a Space Shuttle.

When the Columbia was launched on its fateful last mission, it flew without a net. There were no nimble space tugs waiting at port to tow it to safety if it faltered. The ill-fated crew didn't even have onboard video cameras to inspect their own craft, no crew escape system, and after reaching orbit, there was no comprehensive system integrity check. There was however an alternate port of call, the International Space Station, but Columbia was not equipped with a docking collar. Ground crews suspected trouble but they knew themselves to be helpless to do anything because there was no provision for coping.

If you saw the liftoff of Columbia you watched the ghost of Titanic rising.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, Ron Dittemore, the Space Shuttle Program Manager, said after the doomed mission left the ground, that with respect to its fatal flaw, "there was zero we could do about it."

The accident waiting to happen.

The conventional wisdom after the disaster was that the Shuttle should be grounded until the exact cause of the fatal mishap could be determined.

As if we don't already know what it was.

This disaster in space was the inevitable outcome of the disaster on the ground that failed to foresee it. Like the architects of Titanic nearly a century ago, the architects of our space programs wanted us to think they could somehow build that one indestructible vehicle that would just slice and dice its way anywhere we wanted it to go.

Without doubt, any mechanical causes behind the Columbia's disintegration in the sky over America will be determined and fixes will be installed. But this is an experimental craft with barely one hundred flight tests of experience. Measured by that ruler its rightful status compared to other aerospace projects is R&D. It's built around technology that is over thirty years old. And when it comes to human space flight, it's all we've got.

The Titanic that was Columbia sailed in a sea without lifeboats and in waters where there was no nearby friendly port of call. There was no provision for rescue and no one tried to do so. At least in the famous tragedy at sea ships from other sea faring nations could steam to pluck survivors from the icy waters but our current plans for space travel don't give space travelers even that much hope for safety.

We have no other ships to set steam and for that reason, if not for many others, we only fool ourselves when we say we are a space faring nation.

The disaster of the Columbia was ordained by this catastrophe of central planning. Our space programs are not driven by the genius of freethinking entrepreneurs and visionaries but by corporate special industries and politics. For this reason, after nearly fifty years of space flight, we haven't developed a multipurpose fleet of practical space vehicles, large and small some for quick turn around others for heavy lifting. One at least for rescue. Some people got rich though. But our leaders, whatever their intentions, created a plan to fail and that's what happened when the Columbia exploded 16 minutes before a scheduled touchdown that never happened.

"We have commitments"

That's what they're already saying about why we should hurry and get the Shuttle back into service. We built the International Space Station around it and now were stuck.

There is nothing wrong with having a Space Shuttle anymore than there is anything inherently wrong with having a super tanker or a bus. But if it broken it shouldn't fly until it's fixed. The sudden realization that we have put all our eggs into one unproven machine and then erected a house of cards around it is more than just a wake up call.

This is not the mark of a mature space program ready for tourists or teachers.

But we don't have a mature space program.

We have a machine. One machine. And like all machines, it will fail now and again. Planes crash, trains wreck. But we still go on and we should. But failure and fatality, though never completely unavoidable, should not be accepted as a necessary equation.

Not by a space faring nation. Not even by today's America.

Should we have human space flight?

America has its plate full trying to avoid a war for oil in the Mid East, ridding the world on its dependence on petroleum, and struggling to renew democracy in a global economy ruled by a small number of wealthy elites.

Still when asked if America should continue its goals for human space flight, polls taken after the Columbia tragedy show that an overwhelming majority of Americans say, "Yes!"

Commendable. A better question though would be "Should we have the Shuttle?"

In a diverse fleet of space vehicles, there would no doubt be a place even for the aging behemoths invented by our hands in a century gone by. But we don't have a diverse fleet.

Betting the farm on the Shuttle again is asking the tail to wag our space dog.

Under Consideration

With an eye on Mars, Space.com reported that engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center "have sketched out preliminary designs for a mammoth rocket that would be capable of launching three times as much cargo as NASA space shuttles."

The new booster, Dubbed "Magnum," would rival in size the 36-story Saturn 5 moon rockets of Project Apollo.

A major innovation over the Shuttle, Magnum would use new strap-on, liquid-fueled boosters with technologies known as "liquid-flyback". Space.com reports that,

"Unlike the shuttle's current solid-fueled boosters, the new boosters would sport jet engines that would enable them to fly back to a landing strip like an airplane rather than parachuting into the Atlantic Ocean."

There are no "O-Rings" in the Magnum boosters,

"The new Reusable First Stage boosters would be safer than current models because they could be turned off in flight, allowing astronauts to abort a mission during the first two minutes after liftoff. That option is not available to shuttle crews now because once a solid-fueled booster is ignited it burns until its fuel is exhausted."

But bigger is not always better.

Today, we are already suffering because we are forced to use an eighteen-wheeler Shuttle every time we want to go to the convenience store. There are no taxis or scooters envisioned in our space transportation plans. Fortunately some effort is being made to come up with a better mousetrap. The X 40 has undergone dynamic testing in unpowered flight and could combine with the new concept of reusable liquid fueled boosters to offer a cheaper and more maneuverable alternative to what's currently available.

A new space plane and a safer Shuttle is still along way from the vision of Arthur C. Clark who foresaw the early 21st Century as the time a human crew would be traveling to Mars. Along its way though, that same crew was greeted and serviced by an impressive array of supporting vehicles and space establishments. An infrastructure. And that's exactly what we don't have and aren't even planning.

Unconstrained by central beaurocracy and the powerful clients that control it, a world of free enterprise could be building a space infrastructure based on a flexible fleet of inexpensive, special purpose vehicles. Highways have fuel stops, rest areas, food service, and police. When a vehicle breaks down we fix it and use another in the meantime. If we really have free enterprise that would already be happening in space.

Houston We Have a Space Station

For better or worse though, the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle go hand and glove.

Pity.

A better plan would have enabled many unmanned heavy lifters, not just the Russian Progress, to ferry supplies and equipment back and forth as needed. Maybe that's still possible.

Still, we made our bed with the Shuttle and we should get on with it and fix the beast. The premeditated act of folly that created the monogamous marriage of the Shuttle with our Space Station also prevents us from throwing our infantile Space Station out with the Shuttle's bathwater. And we shouldn't. But applying some high-tech rubber cement on the wings of a space plane isn't the same as creating a mature space technology that is astronaut friendly and safe.

We need an infrastructure to do that and nobody's talking about it.

After the Challenger Disaster planners did an "about face" and abandoned the idea of the day that the Shuttle should be used as the exclusive launch vehicle for America's commercial satellite industry. Out of that realization came a new generation of heavy lift vehicles like the Delta family and the Atlas 4.

A fitting legacy for the seven brave pioneers who most recently gave their lives to advance a state of the art that they knew was primitive and dangerous would be for their mission to give birth to a resilient and robust infrastructure in space.

What to do?

Young people are spurning science and space research and many think its time to inspire the next generation to whom our species is entrusting the future. The Shuttle won't go there.

A trip to Mars might galvanize the world's attention and there will certainly be no lack of science to do once we get there. But such a mission, though technologically feasible, some say even if done with off the shelf technology, may be constrained by the state of the art in space medicine. And we don't need another trophy project with no intention to follow up.

Many say building a permanent base on the moon makes sense. And it does. There is thought to be water on the moon that could be used to synthesis fuel and support life in protective enclaves. Our natural satellite could have commercial and scientific advantages and would be a port of call for spacecraft leaving or returning from more distant explorations. On the human level, the moon's natural gravity may make long term habitation more human friendly and the mass of the moon itself might provide better protection from radiation and solar flare and other space hazards than can be achieved in artificial earth orbit.

But space flight is a risky business and if we want to invest in the future we should remember that prudent persons diversify their portfolio. Private companies find the capital to maintain fleets, build their own freighters, and even buy airliners. In a culture that prides itself on its alleged system of free enterprise, where is the "Space Crafts R'Us", the "Joe's 24 hour AAA Space Tug", or the "U-Haul Your Own Space Freight"?

Space Frontier Foundation board member John Cserep put it this way,

"If NASA needs water at the space station, it's crazy to depend on the shuttle - the most expensive launch system ever made - to deliver something as mundane as that".

And Jon Bonet of MSNBC says,

"NASA officials could get really serious about turning space flight to the private sector. Rather than setting long, costly timelines for new designs or technology, the government could just bid for its more routine missions among companies looking to make a profit - and let them take the financial risks."

Finding Our Place in the Cosmos

If we can survive long enough as a civilization to look back a century or so from now, our heirs will recognize how primitive our propulsion technologies and how inefficient our fuels of today actually are. And getting to that future high ground is not an assured accomplishment.

Our own planet is already at risk from the natural forces that gave rise to its creation and from ourselves. Travel to the stars, if we can do that, may be the only way to assure our seed a place in the cosmos.

As for the shuttle, let's never ask another human to go onboard unless we are giving them our best. The Columbia was the only orbiter not to have docking capability for the Space Station and flew a "science mission" that was supposed to be the job of the Space Station in the first place. We have at least invested in some space-based resources and if we were ever sincere in doing so we need to recognize the value of what it can do. Had we thought of that before launching Columbia, seven martyrs would still be with us today.

NASA Deputy Associate Administrator Michael Kostelnik said that, "in hindsight, that is a good thought" - to include in future flight plans enough fuel and the right orbit to get a stricken shuttle to the station". That and a docking collar Mr. Kostelnik!

This disaster in space happened because someone in his or her day tried to build the perfect space transport. Somewhere along the way though, we just forgot though that no one ever built an unsinkable steamship and that we will not live long enough to see fail proof spacecraft. No space plane in our lifetime, regardless of how much money we throw at it, will be guaranteed against failure.

There will always be accidents and loss of life whether in earth orbit or on our own terrestrial highways. The pioneers that have given their lives to advance our species have enriched our souls. Thirty years ago though, America had been sold a bill of goods and wound up buying the Shuttle. And it has advanced the sticks. But what may have once looked like the unsinkable solution to all our space challenges may have outworn its welcome.

Its time for a new plan for space.

I remember once being told that if we don't care where we are going any road will do. That's true and just fixing the Shuttle won't do much to make space a friendlier place. But if it is our purpose to navigate our way through the planets, we are going to need a map and lots of help along the roadside.

We don't just need a new space transport to get us there. We need a space transportation system to make travel in space a risk we can ask our children to consider taking.

Let's put the ghost of Titanic behind us.

<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aplaceinthecosmos>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aplaceinthecosmos