Rocket Science Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Rocket Science - Essay Example This name was not uncommon as Rutan had used it earlier with , `Tie One`, `Tier Two ‘and `Tier Three to designate what he termed as â€Å"fun factory â€Å"of a program. When Tier One was established, the company would bid on the other two Tiers, because they were motivational programs for the employees; this program helped him to retain his skilled employees (Clarke and Linehan 20) and this program had two vehicles. The reason behind calling the Spaceship One program Tier One was that Rutan wanted the program to be fun. When the program began to entertain, the idea was to come up with other manned spacecrafts, because it was a good breakdown and defined that if they did programs in the future to send people to Earth`s Orbit, it would be called Tier Two (20). The spaceship and carrier aircraft were therefore named; the spacecraft was Rutan Model 318 and the aircraft Model 318. The Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft is similar in design to the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. â€Å"Shenzho u is 9.3 meters long†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ and weighs about 7840 kg† (Gregersen 74). The launch of this vehicle was the Chang Zheng 2F, this version of CZ-2F was developed for Shenzhou program. The first Shenzhou mission was unmanned test flights launched over duration of three years that is between1999-2002. Shenzhou was launched on October 15, 2003 and carried the first Chinese Astronaut, Pilot Yang (Gregersen 74). China became the third country after Russia and the United States to launch a manned spacecraft. Shenzhou 6 was launched on October 12, 2005; the Shenzhou 7 was launched on September 25, 2008. The future plans for the Shenzhou program includes complex rendezvous maneuvers and the assembly of a space station in Shenzhou 8 and a laboratory module, Tiangong 1(Gregersen 74). The International Space Station is an American space program; it has expanded the human acquaintances, advanced our understanding about the universe, and the production of technological advances that have benefited all humanity. The new course of the American program has given NASA focus and vision for future exploration. According to Catchpole, NASA’s first goal was â€Å"to complete the International Space Station by 2010†¦... the second goal was to develop and test a new spacecraft†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦. and to conduct the first manned mission no later than 2014† (155). The third goal is to return to the moon by 2020, as a launching point for mission beyond NASA has established plans aimed at helping the agency sort through a number of decisions relating to retirement and transition. These aspects are focused on the NASA`s transition management structure and supplier base. According to the United States Government Accountability Office, NASA has developed an agency-level transition plan and a space shuttle program, which has demonstrated an effort to establish a strategy for managing change (NASA Supplier Base 6). Monitoring risks at different levels of the agency is a mong key issues addressed in the plan. The other issue that was addressed was the decision related to transitioning the supplier based on the space shuttle program to the constellation program. Recently, NASA approved the space shuttle program transition management plan: that defines how the space shuttle program should organize and manage its retirement that supports the