(Derek Lyons) writes:

Yes you are. Apollo was *intended* as a general purpose orbiter, but
it's design was hardly begun before it's mission, and design, were
shifted to being the command craft for the lunar mission.

Especially the SM. As I said, the SM is grossly oversized for the
types of LEO missions that NASA needs to perform.

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/apolocsm.htm

The SM's propellant load was 18,413 kg while its overall mass was
24,523 kg. The maneuver system delta v was 2,804 m/s. To most, this
figure may be meaningless, so for comparison, let's look at the
shuttle:

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/endavour.htm

Endeavour's delta v is listed as 700 m/s. That puts the CSM's delta v
at 4x that of the shuttle. I'm not sure what orbit insertion costs in
terms of delta v, but that's a figure one could arguably charge
against the "launch vehicle", which you won't have for a CRV/CTV if
you assume that the launch vehicle puts it completely in orbit.

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/soyuztma.htm

One more data point. The Soyuz TMA has a listed delta v of 390 m/s,
which is a bit more than 1/2 that of Endeavour and less than 1/7 that
of the Apollo CSM.

Jeff
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