Thread: Was Buran better than the shuttle?
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Old June 26th 15, 01:57 PM posted to sci.space.shuttle,sci.space.history
Jeff Findley[_6_]
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Default Was Buran better than the shuttle?
In article om,
says...

Could they have made SRB-like segments that had the Saturn 5 engines and
kerosene tanks instead of the solid fuel ? This would have allowed those
segments to be ditched roughly 2 minutes into flight to reduce weight of
remaining stack (as was the case with SRBs).

SRBs were cheaper and faster to develop than liquids and NASA had a
development schedule and budget to stick to. But the bigger reason was
that politics entered the equation, so Morton Thiokol (now Orbital ATK)
in Utah got the contract for the SRBs.

Much the same reasoning remains for the SLS "design". Its design
reflects politics far more than sane engineering.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer