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16.885J / ESD.35J Aircraft Systems Engineering
As taught in: Fall 2005Course Highlights
This course was administrated by shuttle astronaut and MIT Professor Jeff Hoffman and Professor Aaron Cohen, who was the Space Shuttle Orbiter Project Manager. Guest speakers provide the majority of the content in video lectures, discussing topics such as system design, accident investigation, and the future of NASA's space mission.
Course Description
16.885J offers a holistic view of the aircraft as a system, covering: basic systems engineering; cost and weight estimation; basic aircraft performance; safety and reliability; lifecycle topics; aircraft subsystems; risk analysis and management; and system realization. Small student teams retrospectively analyze an existing aircraft covering: key design drivers and decisions; aircraft attributes and subsystems; and operational experience. Oral and written versions of the case study are delivered. For the Fall 2005 term, the class focuses on a systems engineering analysis of the Space Shuttle. It offers study of both design and operations of the shuttle, with frequent lectures by outside experts. Students choose specific shuttle systems for detailed analysis and develop new subsystem designs using state of the art technology.
Prof. Jeffrey Hoffman, 16.885J/ESD.35J Aircraft Systems Engineering, Fall 2005. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare), http://ocw.
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A strange thing happened while reading e-mails. A question was asked and I did some looking.
(strange because the result of the search was very rewarding and opened up a new avenue for answers.
It almost seemed like I was supposed to find this resource.)
- LRK -
[FPSPACE] FW: The decision to build the shuttle - research inquire
These plans often changed over time and if not completely aborted before even getting started, were often modified in funding, and then maybe canceled as well.
The question was asked what was involved in the decision to build the shuttle?
I think if you have the time to view some MIT classes that are about 2 hours in length and while doing so consider the present time and what is happening in Congress with JWST or earlier with the Constellation mission, you will better understand how our government works, or doesn't. Watch carefully. Try not to shake your head too hard.
- LRK -
There are 22 lectures in this series and I would start with Lecture 4: The Decision to Build the Shuttle.
You should down load the PDF files of the Lecture notes to view as you watch the videos as the camera focuses on the speaker and not the projected material.
- LrK -
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Lecture Notes
The lectures from this course are available in video and audio formats. In many cases, the lecture slides are available to follow along with the videos, and biographies provide background of the guest speakers' careers.
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Lecture 4: The Decision to Build the Shuttle
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[On the lecture note, Video page, click on the "Related Resources" tab to save the PDF Lecture Notes and the Bio for Prof. John Logsdon.
Click on the "Down Load Video" tab if you want to save the video as an iTunes U MP4 - 251MB file of an Internet Archive MP4 - 423MB] - LRK -
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If you make it through Lecture: 4, then try Lecture: 1 and Lecture: 2.
If you want more and feel like you would like to go back to school, by all means continue with the rest of the 22 Lectures. :-)
I have been wearing my ears thin with watching them and looks like I will be tied up for awhile. :-)
- LRK -
After you digest the material in the lectures from those that were there in the beginning I believe you will see the chance of getting my wish below probably won't happen.
- LRK -
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My feeling is that it would be nice if Congress would agree from the beginning on what NASA proposes and then management follow through to ensure the missions are handled properly and completed instead spending a lot of money and then folding at the last moment for lack of funds. If the mission is worth doing there needs to be enough funds to complete the goal and new technology is often unpredictable in cost.
- LRK -
At least you will have a better understanding of how our legislative system functions. Do you fell warm and fuzzy yet?
Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.
Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.
WordPress: http://lrkellogg.
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- By Matt Blum
- July 8, 2011 |
- 8:45 am |
- Why You Need to Help Save the James Webb Space Telescope
The latest U.S. House of Representatives appropriations bill seeks to cut funding for NASA by $1.6 billion, and in the process eliminate the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) project. While it is undeniable that the project has had large cost overruns and is behind schedule, it is also very clear that the project will once complete be a tool of enormous worth to the scientific community — and, through them, to the general population — not just in the U.S. but in the entire world.
JWST was supposed to be finished by June 2014 and to cost about $5.1 billion. An independent review panel, however, last fall determined it would likely cost $6.5 billion and not be finished until September 2015. This is of course not a good thing, but it’s nothing new. In fact, there was a NASA project that was supposed to launch in 1983, but didn’t make it into space until 1990, and by the time it launched it had cost triple its original budget — about $11 billion in 2011 dollars. In the 21 years since its launch it has cost many billions more in servicing missions.
I refer, of course, to the Hubble Space Telescope, whose cost overruns were outlined in a General Accounting Office (now Government Accountability Office) report in 1992 (PDF). Yes, Hubble has cost the U.S. a substantial amount of money, but its contributions to science have been of incalculable worth: the way we look at the universe has changed in ways we could never have predicted before the telescope’s launch.
And JWST will be a much, much better telescope than Hubble, and not just because it has the benefit of decades-better technology. Not only will it be in a much higher orbit than Hubble, but it will be substantially larger and thus able to collect considerably more detailed and more distant observations. Scientists have some educated guesses as to what kinds of discoveries JWST could make, but it’s very likely that, as it was with Hubble, many things it will find are so revolutionary they’re simply beyond our ability to predict.
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James Webb Space Telescope Funding to be Terminated
July 6, 2011
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, is close to losing all its funding. The fiscal year 2012 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill, being considered by the US government’s House Appropriation Committee (see the release here), is to recommend $1.6 billion dollar cuts to the total NASA budget, with about half a billion disappearing from its Science programs.
Of course, we have to remember these aren’t 100% confirmed, but why announce something so controversial if you’re not pretty sure about it? After all, part of the bill provisions include the prohibition of prisoner transfer from Guantanamo to US soil, so you’d be pretty sure about making statements of that ilk
Perhaps lobbying from the astronomy community will mellow things somewhat, but what are the alternatives? JWST is pretty ambitious (its mirror is too big to be launched fully open, and must be assembled in orbit at L2 to within millimetre accuracy). It’s also about four times over-budget, and behind schedule (note the image says 2013 – current scheduling puts it at 2018). Cuts are required all over the place (NASA’s not the only one to feel the pinch, if you read the rest of the release). As astronomers, we have to ensure that lawmakers understand the associated costs with cancelling JWST.
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James Webb Space Telescope
by Risa
Sean mentioned yesterday that the next generation space telescope JWST is at risk. In a bit more detail, JWST has been cut in the House appropriations bill:
$4.5 billion for NASA Science programs, which is $431 million below last year’s level. The bill also terminates funding for the James Webb Space Telescope, which is billions of dollars over budget and plagued by poor management.
In all, the House appropriations bill cuts 1.6 billion dollars from the NASA budget. The game is not over yet — the House Appropriations Subcommittee in charge of NASA will consider this bill today, and the full Appropriations committee will meet again to consider the final bill on Wednesday — and of course the Senate will have its own bill. But this is obviously a very ominous sign for NASA astrophysics in general.
JWST is a 6.5 meter IR-optimized telescope, which has been scheduled to launch in 2018. It is certainly true that it has suffered from numerous cost overruns, and has essentially eaten the rest of the NASA astrophysics program. However, nearly all the technical hurdles have now been overcome. And the science reach of JWST is spectacular. It is now the only observatory-class mission planned to operate once the current Great Observatories (Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra) reach their end of life. JWST has been the highest priority for NASA of the Decadal Surveys and essentially every other study commissioned by the field.
Hubble Space Telescope has given us amazing views of the Universe, back to about a billion years after the big bang. However, it has reached its limits there — JWST would allow us to see well into this first billion years, to view the formation of the first stars, galaxies, and black holes, and to study in detail how radiation from these objects reionized the Universe. There are no other planned missions that will allow us to observe this earliest stage of galaxy formation with this level of detail. JWST would also allow us to observe the chemical composition of planets outside the solar system, and to image the disks around stars as they begin planet formation.
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -
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