On 2005-04-27, Jorge R. Frank wrote:
"Jeff Findley" wrote in
:

Actually, this is easier to do than you think. The ET is very nearly
in orbit when the shuttle releases it. If you redesign the system so
that the ET and orbiter are one vehicle, then you get a *far* less
dense vehicle for reentry, which reduces heating loads *considerably*.
This also eliminates the shedding foam problem.

It does introduce other problems, of course. With stubby wings and a
fuselage mostly consisting of empty tanks, such a vehicle would be much
more difficult to land in any kind of crosswind. That in turn greatly
restricts landing opportunities. That was considered a much more serious
problem in the 70s due to lack of maturity of fly-by-wire control, but even
today it's not a clear tradeoff.

The Shuttle is also small enough to be shipped by air; anything which
was significantly larger would pose greater problems as far as shipping
from alternate landing sites to the launch site goes. Not really a
killer, but a logistical headache if you want to keep up a good flight
rate.

A rough guess says a week or two shipment time for an orbiter too large
to be flown. Of course, such a beast would be more likely to have been
designed to have flight capacity under its own power, which renders this
a bit moot...

--
-Andrew Gray