"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...


Eh, I don't mind a bit of "what-if" or "alt.history" from time to time.
Comments within.


In article dcdf2f03-ac1c-4cd5-ad69-
, says...

On January 28, 1986, challenger was lost after the O ring failure.

Now lets consider a different NASA path. it became all too clear the
shuttle had no launch boost escape.


Umm, that was clear BEFORE hand. It wasn't like folks suddenly woke up one
day and said, "Oh gee, we didn't realize this."

So nasa still resumed flying but did a general shuttle redesign.

They moved away from the solids, and designed a compatible liquid
flyback booster with more power.

There are some economic and huge safety reasons for this. I have no idea
how well they'd have managed to argue this one. I suspect the politics alone
would have prevented it.


One of the uses of more power was a
jettisonable crew compartment.

Never would have happened. Huge expense. Huge additional safety concerns
(NASA rightly hate pyros, especially that many around the crew compartment.)

And would have provided limited value over a very small part of the flight
envelope.

giving the shuttle what it should of
never flown without, launch boost escape. Other redesigns would of
included elminating the APUs that used hydrazine.

This was I believe planned and cancelled, once if not twice. Certainly
would have helped with the processing flow.

All those would be
great to have, and saved big bucks on processing. Eventually upgraded
TPS, going to blankets rather than individual tiles.

Not possible. Where they could, they did this. However, for the
underside especially, you need the tiles. And you can't replace them with
monolithic pieces. Keep in mind the airframe flexes. So the tiles were far
from a terrible solution. However, there was work done on tougher tiles
that might have been of some value.

Plus changes to
extend the shuttles life in orbit. Upgrading tires etc. Shuttle C
cargo would of been a natural outgrowth of the upgrades and a larger
more powerful flyback booster could of covered heavy lift

Eh. No real need.


The costs of operation could of been cut enough to pay for the
upgrades.

"Maybe"

The problem is, NASA's not operated as a business. It's funded by a Board
of 535+1 people. They often don't look at spending that way.

Plus perhaps additional new orbiters could be built slowly
over time. Keeping the design fresh. Older orbiters could of been
retired to museums as they were replaced.

Very unlikely to happen. The flight rate just never came close to justifying
it.


The big mistake was freezing the basic design after challenger.


No. The big mistake was continuing to treat the system as an operational
design when it was clearly still an experimental system.

For example one thing the CAIB recommended was embedding recording systems
in ALL the shuttles, much like what Columbia had since it helped them
determine the cause of the accident. (R3.6-1)

Given the progress of technology, live camera feeds from the SRBs and/or
tank should have been adopted as early as possible to monitor things like
foam loss.

And overall, a very different management structure.

And changing the management structure really was the key part and basically
would have cost $0. (In reality, it wouldn't because it might mean hiring
different people, spending more money as a result of management decisions,
etc.)

Compare the history of the X-15 program (pick up Hypersonic by Jenkins) to
that of the Shuttle program. The X-15 flew more flights, but was always
considered an experimental system. Now granted, there are vast differences
in the vehicles (you could test the X-15 in an incremental fashion, you
couldn't do that with the shuttle). But also the attitudes simply were
different.

Again, I'd read the CAIB Bob. With the fixes YOU propose, we'd still have
lost Columbia.

The hardware was far from perfect, and there's good arguments for where it
could have and should have been improved.

However, the real problem was a structure that treated the system as
operational and allowed things like foam loss to continue. The original
specs required NO foam loss.

Even how foam strikes hitting the orbiter were considered changed over time
to the point where it was by STS-107 considered simply a post-landing
processing issue.

And worse, NASA wasn't even aware of some of the bipod ramp strikes until
AFTER the CAIB looked at them.

This isn't a matter where simply tossing more money at the program,
especially for the upgrades you mentioned would have made a difference.

A cultural change was what was needed.

The shuttle could of been a safer much more capable vehicle if it
wasnt starved for cash......

NASA didn't have the tens of billions it would have required for the
"redesign" that you propose for an alternate history. Your premise is
invalid, so your alternate history is fantasy.

Jeff

--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net