Re: Space Shuttle Grounding....depressing....

Josh Hill wrote:

On Mon, 1 Aug 2005 15:16:23 +0000 (UTC), Matt Ion
<soundy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Josh Hill wrote:


I always thought the shuttle's configuration was a kludge anyway.

Well sure, but its primary design goal was to be a REUSABLE craft - something that could be flown home, landed like a normal plane, and prepared for use again in a relatively short time. Actually getting it into space was almost a secondary goal... after all, there's no point getting it there if you won't be able to bring it back again.


But couldn't they have accomplished that without this particular
design compromise?

That was the original idea, as I recall, but even a Saturn V wouldn't have the power to lift the Orbiter all the way on its own - the thing is a LOT larger that the CM/LEM machines it lifted for Apollo. The only way you could use the Orbiter's engines for the launch would be to strap it to the side of the booster, similar to the current configuration, and you end up in a similar situation to what you've got now, except you're now using a very expensive non-reusable booster.

I think that was the plan for the space plane --
put the flyable crew vehicle atop a conventional booster, reusable or
not. And the original plan for the shuttle was apparently fully
reusable:

"What the shuttle's creators didn't realize, unfortunately, was that
there is nothing harmonious about the realm in which the spacecraft
flies today: that murky sphere where technology, budgets and politics
all meet. Money was never a problem during the Apollo program, but by
the time of the shuttle, there was never a time when money was not a
problem. 

" 'Very early in our discussions with the Office of Management and
Budget [OMB],' Kraft remembers, 'we found out that we couldn't build
what we wanted to build. And we had to compromise greatly in order to
get the program to fit into the budget that people were allowing us to
have. We estimated $15 billion to build a totally reusable machine and
they said, 'You can have five.' And we ended up compromising at a
fixed-price contract of about six and a half, with a $1billion overrun
possibility'."

And

"The original idea for the STS programme was for it to be fully
reusable, so that all the parts used during lift-off could be used
again for the next launch. This would have meant that the Orbiter
would be split in two. The first part would power the Orbiter up into
the atmosphere at lift-off, break off, and then would glide back down
to Earth. The second part would then continue up into space and was
intended to carry up to ten people. This idea was discarded after the
Budget Bureau wouldn't give NASA the $10 billion for it to work.
Instead, NASA bought the cost down to a much more acceptable $6
billion by re-designing it so that the external tank is jettisoned
once it has been emptied and the solid rocket boosters are recovered
from the ocean after they have broken off two minutes and eight
seconds after lift-off. The Orbiter then continues into space."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A970878 

It always comes down to money.

The ideal spacecraft, of course, is a fully reusable, heavy-lift vehicle that can reach orbit entirely under its own power, and return under its own power (gliding is efficient but limiting). The shuttle was only ever intended to be a stepping stone to that end.


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