Word: payloads
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...unlikely any time soon, Japanese engineers are examining ways to refit the H-2A, originally designed primarily to carry satellites into orbit, for human flight. That's why a current project to turn an H-2A capsule into a cargo ferry bringing supplies to the ISS and returning a payload of garbage to Earth has become a particularly important dry run?a demonstration of the feasibility of using the H-2A system to transport humans into space and to get them home safely...
Most important, the space shuttle was designed under the highly unrealistic assumption that the fleet would fly to space once a week and that each shuttle would need to be big enough to carry 50,000 lbs. of payload. In actual use, the shuttle fleet has averaged five flights a year; this year flights were to be cut back to four. The maximum payload is almost never carried. Yet to accommodate the highly unrealistic initial goals, engineers made the shuttle huge and expensive. The Soviet space program also built a shuttle, called Buran, with almost exactly the same dimensions...
Throwaway rockets can fail too. Last month a French-built Ariane exploded on lift-off. No one cared, except the insurance companies that covered the payload, because there was no crew aboard. 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...
...same day, ironically, another display of air power sent a more chilling message to the region. For the 40th time in four months, Iraqi Mirage F1-S jets dropped a payload of bombs on Kharg Island, where Iran loads 85% of its oil onto tankers for export. The Iraqi pummeling closed Kharg for three days; on Friday, Iraq claimed that another attack had caused a fire at the facility. The assaults were part of a pattern of escalation in the five-year Iran-Iraq war that has already cost thousands of lives. By repeatedly attacking Kharg, the Iraqis hope...