Start a bake sale to buy shuttles

NUKE ROCKY44 · Senior Member

Start a bake sale to buy shuttles

GoogleNaut · Guru

It's sad...but considering how many flight-hours (actually airflight hours) each has on its airframe--it's probably best...

I certainly am glad that the orbiters will go to displays rather than the scrap-yard---I was afraid that they would actually scrap the orbiters...

I once proposed that the Hubble Telescope should be returned to Earth instead of doing a final service mission...the idea being that it has provided us with so many stunning images that have literally transformed the way we see ourselves in the universe that the telescope deserves a retirement--and a place in the Smithsonian Institute...

The Shuttle has done its job pretty well. It was designed with 60's technologies in mind, built with seventies technologies, and has seen literally a whole generation of engineers and astronauts raised on the notion that it is a flying system. As a test project it has done a lot--we've learned a lot from it--but it would be wholly impractical to to keep doing so...it was my hope that another reusable system--a Shuttle 2.0 if you will--would have replaced it...

NUKE ROCKY44 · Senior Member

I still believe the Shuttles can be modernized and made safe.

The shuttles' basic moniker as 'winged orbiter' can be improved it's still the best technology for mass delivery and a flexible re-entry space vehicle that money can buy.

The problem is gov't are such jerks; they only prop-up failing auto makers by printing money they can't afford to print.

Gov't cooperation with a viable commercial space industry for human colonization, or mining in space is never considered.

Yup... gov't is truly sad !!!

GoogleNaut · Guru

The main problem with the Orbiters is that they are an 'experiment.' Their technology is based upon sixties and early seventies 'state of the art.' Everything about them soaks up man-hours of service. Just think about all of the plumbing involved with just the reaction control system: there are three (count them) complete sets of pipes for the RCS system, one for each of the hypergols, and one set of helium pressurant lines. The system can cross feed propellant from each OMS pod, and also can replenish the forward RCS propellant and pressurant supply. Not to mention all of the plumbing associated with the Primary RCS thrusters and vernier engines. Then there is plumbing associated with the hydraulic system, the APU fuel supply, and then there is the cooling system, which is in itself, the most complicated of its kind ever flown before the ISS was built....

There are thousands of mechanical tubing connections that must be regularly checked for leaks (especially the hypergol systems.) All are subjected to vibration and flexture stresses as the orbiter flies. In essence for each hour spent flying a mission something around 1000-1500 man-hours of maintenance must be performed.

And then there is the lifetime constraint: stress cracks are likely (probably) already in the airframes of the existing orbiter fleet. The orbiters are engineered to deal with them, but the basic airframe has a limited life--all aircraft do--and eventually must be 'decertified' for flight. Flying to space and back is surprisingly stressful (vibrations are mostly from launch loads.)

What I wish we had done was gone ahead and developed a second generation of Orbiter: A Shuttle II. But I'm afraid that still the costs assocated with flying these machines is going to be pretty high...

-- Edited by GoogleNaut at 22:30, 2008-12-25

-- Edited by GoogleNaut at 22:31, 2008-12-25

NUKE ROCKY44 · Senior Member

Capsule orbiter = reentry inflexibly, suited for initial cost reduction and exploratory scenarios.

Winged orbiter = reentry flexibility, increased initially but gains in cost reduction with repetitive usage. Suited for commercial scenarios.

Notice most present commercial space outfits prefer the winged orbiter concept.

concepts

GoogleNaut · Guru

The mini orbiters offer substantial gains in safety and flexability too...I tend to like the mini orbiters...

Also, mini orbiters could be placed on former ballistic missiles for an emergency "Launch on Demand" for an orbital rescue scenario: the unit could be stored in a silo until needed; launched unmanned with emergency supplies and equipment on board; and if equipped with an automated redezvous and docking system--it could be used for on orbit rescue and evacuation. If all spacefaring countries agreed to an APAS-standard (Androgynous Peripheral Attachment System,) then an APAS equipped rescue craft could dock with and remove crews from any manned spacecraft in orbit...I think that is worth developing unilarterally for the good of all!

NUKE ROCKY44 · Senior Member

I was thinking of a primary mission vehicle not an emergency rescue scenario.

But since we're on the subject of rescue.

I think ALL SPACE AGENCIES have done little to provide contingencies that include viable quick in-orbit rescue and reentry.

After all the efforts in development and testing not one Space Tug system is on station in orbit. To me it's a problem of short sightedness that plagues the space industry. Not providing a quick response safety environment for those that live and work in space.

It's sad...

[link]

The Kliper

G R L Cowan · Veteran Member

GoogleNaut wrote:

...If all spacefaring countries agreed to an APAS-standard (Androgynous Peripheral Attachment System,) then an APAS equipped rescue craft could dock with and remove crews from any manned spacecraft in orbit...I think that is worth developing unilarterally for the good of all!

I thought they did that already, and tested it in the Soyuz-Skylab hookup.

--- G.R.L. Cowan (How fire can be domesticated)

john fraz · Veteran Member

Sorry, but it's a silly idea to think of anybody reviving these old birds for work.

Not only are they old, and old technology, they're literally designed and built deliberately to be money sponges. To take as much effort and cost as possible to return them between flights.

There's no way anybody with a sense of preserving money for operations could look at the way they run and try to use them to make money. They were the "Golden Goose" of the government space agency when it was the only game in town, to keep money flowing to congressional districts to keep the budget up.

A small space plane like the HL-20 (what SpaceDev seems to be trying to build as their "Dream Chaser") is not a "Mini-Shuttle"

Trying to make such a beast is what killed the ESA "Hermes" spaceplane: trying to add as many bells & whistles as possible, making it bigger & bigger, adding cargo beyond what they handle in the crew cabin through airlocks, etc.

The "Space Shuttle" we've known was designed by the USAF to do once-around overfights of the USSR to do photo recon or drop a spread of re-entry warheads. There's a reason it has super-jock USAF officers at flight controls, and looks like an airplane with a drop tank. If that's what they wanted, they should have been told to go ahead and build their X-20, and let the civil space program build a re-usable "shuttle".

A "shuttle" doesn't stay at the destination for days or weeks running experiments.

A responsible reliable and economical crew vehicle doesn't carry cargo, and good cargo vehicle doesn't carry passengers, or conduct delicate operations building stations or fixing satellites.

The first and hopefully only crewed launch vehicle with absolutely no provision for crew escape and survival. The first (supposed) cargo vehicle with 4-5 times the dead-weight as the cargo capacity.

We should never have been saddled with it as our civil space vehicle, and it's been literally a fraud & crime of political graft that it's been so.

Good riddance to the ill-begotten "beast designed by committee".

The real shame was that the last Apollo CM was thrown away on the ASTP and the last Saturn 1 used for Skylab while the last 3 Saturn V boosters were turned into lawn ornaments and all their tooling scrapped.

-- Edited by john fraz at 00:10, 2008-12-28

GoogleNaut · Guru

This is why we have to look to the future...
I think the shuttles ought to be retired--face it, they are more dangerous to operate for their crews than an Apollo-style reentry vehicle. For crew transport, I personally feel Orion is a step in the right direction. Mini shuttles like the HL-20 and many others also are a good choice--but they are still going to be costly to operate. NASA has signed a contract for SpaceX (builder of the Falcon 1 launcer) to resupply the ISS with their Dragon spacecraft slated to be launched by their Dragon 9 LV (which is being built and will hopefully have a maiden flight next year.)

john fraz · Veteran Member

I'm entirely enthusiastic about SpaceX. They're doing eeverything in-house from building engines to the launch towers, and they have an interesting design philosophy to simplify things for lower cost (definitely not the NASA way): identical tooling and structures for different stages and nearly the same engines for all their different boosters and stages.
They're doing what NASA would have paid one of their graft contractors a hundred times the money for, and it would have been cut by congress after 15 years and not a single flight-ready piece of hardware (anybody remember the X-33?)

Disagree about the HL-20. For a government project, it was entirely different. Designed from the ground up to be cheap to operate as well as safe for crewed travel. It was a different design philosophy than anything like a "Mini-Shuttle".
Certainly a reusable plane will cost more to develop than a disposable capsule (just don't call it a "Mini Space Shuttle") but there's still a use for it if anybody builds it.

I'd like to see SpaceDev get theirs together. IMO, if SpaceX gets a line of boosters flying, and the Dragon capsule as well (meaning a man-rated booster), maybe it could carry up such a plane?

One thing that's relevant to this thread about such a thing is that the boosters for a plane like the HL-42 replace the flying cost-overrun "Shuttle" we've had. Either a safe reliable crew launcher, or a cargo lifter. Either way cheaper to operate and better at either of its tasks than the huge beast we've been paying (too much) for all these years.

I understand people are sad to see the end of the magnificent shuttles, but they're crap. They've always been crap.
A perfect example of the saying "An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications." I'd say a diplodocus is the Space Shuttle, but it's got to have 5 heads and can't take any action unless at least 3 of them agree, so usually it trips over its own feet & starves.

-- Edited by john fraz at 00:29, 2008-12-28

NUKE ROCKY44 · Senior Member

Gee...John hate to disagree with you outright.

Maybe the Shuttle was a gigantic 'elephant' suckin' public money and some engineering errors were made along the way that caused lives of astronauts but the fact remains that Shuttle/Buran demonstrated that a large winged orbiter has carved out a niche in space. The fault lie in starving and micro managing a launch system by govt.

Gov't saw it as publicity never letting commercial participation to update or engineer safety and efficiency until the damage was done.

If you expect to build a viable space venture that includes sizable human lunar habitats and in-orbit assembly staging for human Mars and beyond missions you're doomed to languish as an Apollo style retro engineering loop.

It can't be done with only flying canisters.

At some point you'll have to provide vehicles that can efficiently access space frequently caring airliner size passengers.

Investment dollars will demand it!

Any public will want to participate in the space industry whether employed or as a passenger in the industry.

No Astronaut or Cosmonaut ever in their back of there minds contemplated the risk they were taking was solely for their own benefit and experience. The hope was and still is to allow the maximum number of prepared public to develop & experience space and the solar system.

Canister type vehicle space programs tend to breed exclusivity and a regressive space politic.

-- Edited by NUKE ROCKY44 at 23:02, 2008-12-28

John · Senior Member

I seems to me that since the Orion won't be ready for some time we should continue to use the shuttle for a few more years. As far as money goes since we are just throwing it away, why not a little for space?

GoogleNaut · Guru

The only trouble with that is that conversion work must begin --right now-- on atleast one launch pad to convert it over to the Orion/Ares-1 vehicle configuration. First launch of Ares 1-X is supposed to be sometime September, 2010! A little over a year out! I kind of doubt that they will make that deadline, but that's how close their cutting it.

John · Senior Member

Are you sure that is going to be problem, i.e. that we can fly the shuttle and test the Ares-Orion concurrently? It says here that the first test will be this year.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/ares/flighttests/aresIx/aresIX_progress.html

GoogleNaut · Guru

O.K., this summer. That's even closer than I thought. I think they are currently processing Pad 39A, but the trouble is, there is one Hubble Service mission left, and NASA really wanted to have two shuttles for that one: one to fly, and the other to be a Launch On Need as a rescue platform, should the first be damaged beyond a safe return. The changes to Pad 39A will be permanent once they are complete, as this will entail removal of the payload processing/changeout room (on the huge swing arm;) removal and or relocation of several other service arms. See, they aren't just modifying pad structures to accomodate Ares 1/Orion; it's also for the Ares V vehicle. I believe both pads will eventually be made compatible with both vehicles.

There is an awful lot of prep work to do...