OT: once upon a time...

Once upon a time there was a human civilization capable of building space shuttles... :-). This is what comes to mind when I look at the replacement options under consideration. I know many US taxpayers resent the programme but the fact is it is the only spaceship of this size & capabilities ever built in history - so I suppose my thanks are directed to the US taxpayers who made this possible. Seeing what is possible is a great source of inspiration and of great help to any tech endeavour, I mean.

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Dimiter

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Reply to
dp
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Getting NASA out of the way and letting private industry find the most economical way to get mass from ground to orbit is probably the right thing to do at this point. We don't have to put one over on the Scary Communist Monster, there's a developed space industry with a strong demand for getting birds up into orbit, and tax dollars have shown the way. Now private dollars need to do some optimization, with less interference from Unka Sam.

Whenever a politics is involved*, the meaning of "economically feasible" gets awfully warped.

  • And I don't just mean big-government politics either -- I don't think that Rushville would have a viable economy, if it ever got built.
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Reply to
Tim Wescott

The Saturn-5 and the Energia/Buran are comparable endeavours.

Speaking of the taxpayers, huh:

The cost of the entire Space Shuttle program (adjusted for inflation): ~200 Billion US$.

Just the first bailout of 2008: ~700 billion US$, not mentionning all money that followed.

Vladimir Vassilevsky DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

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Reply to
Vladimir Vassilevsky

Yes, at least of we compare what they could carry up, the shuttle was unique in its landing mode. Do they still make those large Energia rockets in Russia? Hopefully they do. Saturn-5 was von Brauns baby, but Energia was built (I think) without Korolev, could well be still buildable.

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Reply to
dp

I lament the passing of the Saturn-V era. The shuttle was "interesting". But, nothing could compare to the sight of a Saturn V close up! Standing at the base of the Vehicular Assembly Building and looking up the length (height?) of that giant door... or standing alongside the "crawler" user to move the rocket to the launchpad.

I think one of NASA's problems was that "space travel" (depending on your definition of "space") got to be too "ho, hum". It no longer was the Event that people marked on their calendar (to watch a launch or splash-down, etc.). People stopped seeing it for the marvel that it was.

Reply to
Don Y

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Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

Hmm, IMO the shuttle was a very unfortunate diversion.

The first casulty was the Skylab space station, launched in 1973!! Remember= ? It was lost because of huge Shuttle schedule overruns. http://en.wikipe= dia.org/wiki/Skylab Skylab launch:

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Look how big it was:
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Shuttle was never man-rated because during early launch stages there is no = possibility of crew escape and survival (Soyuz-TMA is man-rated).

The wings are a huge liability. They prevent launch if there is anything a= bove a light breeze (Soyuz has no trouble launching in high wind and blizza= rd conditions). Wings are a problem during the early re-entry too because = they force a thermally very sub-optimal attitude and required brittle, high= temperatute tiles. For landing a 70+ ton vehicle the wings are rather sma= ll, forcing high landing speeds.

Lack of redundancy. Single engine out can only be tolerated very late in t= he launch phase. By contrast, Saturn-5 could successfully continue the mis= sion with one engine out (happened more than once). Space-X Falcon also ha= s engine redundancy (on the first stage).

Segmented, solid strap-ons. They can't be turned off -- once ignited the s= huttle WILL leave the launchpad, even if the explosive hold-down nuts are n= ot fired! With the solids, there is no way to test correct engine operatio= n during hold-down. Segmentation required seals which could (and did) fail.

Huge external tank. Forced by a bad case of the "liquid hydrogen religion"= at NASA. First stages are better suited to LOX and kerosine - the Isp is = a little lower but the tank can be much smaller, thus making up for it.

The Shuttle Launch system can actually launch about 90t to LEO. Unfortunat= ely 70t of that is the orbiter and 20t is the max payload. So, of the 2000= t launch mass, only 1% is delivered to orbit. Cargo-only rockets typically= deliver 5%.

There is a lot to be said for separating cargo and personnel delivery. Cre= w safety is expensive, so keep it to the smallest practical vehicle. Cargo= replacement costs are lower than the extra cost of using a man-rated launc= h system would be - so an occasional loss of cargo can be tolerated.

Watch Space-X. AFAICS, they are on the right track for launch systems. Bigelow Aerospace seem to be on the right track too with their inflatable s= pace station modules.

Without NASA developing their own launch vehicles, what Space-X, Bigelow an= d other enterprises are doing now could have happened 30 years ago.

Reply to
Manfred Bartz

I don't know if you heard of this option;

It looks like it could be the replacement for Shuttle style operations.

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Paul E. Bennett...............
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Reply to
Paul E. Bennett

Any reason this would be more successful than the HOTOL or Sanger II designs ?

Reply to
upsidedown

It was lost because of huge Shuttle schedule overruns.

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Not very, by modern standards:-

Skylab: 1973-1979 77MT MIR: 1986-2001 130MT ISS: 1998-2020? 417MT

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
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Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

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