Arguments for keeping shuttle around longer

We should not forget that the shuttle is not all bad. Especially now
that we have it pretty well debugged. I think we should fly them even
knowing their problems, limitations. If we are going to have a shuttle
derived heavy lift architecture then it is not going to be an extra
cost to keep the shuttles flying indefinitely.

The shuttles provide a convenient environment for nursing satellites
before launch and they are the only thing we have if we want to bring
something back that does not have its own heat shield. The shuttles and
the SDHL complement each other.

On 2 Oct 2005 08:57:06 -0700, "zoltan" wrote, in
part:

We should not forget that the shuttle is not all bad. Especially now
that we have it pretty well debugged.

If we could make *new* ones, that would make sense.

Unfortunately, the Shuttle apparently has gone the way of the Saturn V;
we can't make them any more.

The ones we have are so worn out, that _they_ should be the lawn
ornaments. Instead of the Saturn V vehicles that have gone to waste.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html
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lid (John Savard) wrote:

Unfortunately, the Shuttle apparently has gone the way of the Saturn V;
we can't make them any more.

Oh, we could if there were demand for more Shu --

listening

listening extra hard

Never mind.

Monte Davis wrote:

Oh, we could if there were demand for more Shu --

listening

listening extra hard

Never mind.



BTW, I once did the math on what an orbiter costs in terms that are easy
to grasp:

The Queen Mary 2?

No, she's cheap by comparison -only $800,000.000- if this makes one
think that we are getting taken to the cleaners be the aerospace
industry when we have them build a Shuttle, you are not the only one.
A Virginia class attack sub costs around the same as a Shuttle orbiter
though- 2 billion each.
Now let's have some fun: Endeavour weighs 172,000 lbs. with her motors, or
2,752,000 ounces...or around 2,507,000 Troy ounces... now gold costs
around $400 per Troy ounce these days, so if we take our Shuttle and put
it on Sir Percival's scale with the duck, and start heaping gold on the
other side until it crushes the witch, we will find that the Shuttle's
weight in gold is worth around $1,002,800,000 dollars. So that a Shuttle
orbiter costs around twice its own weight in gold.
Now, a gold 1 Troy ounce coin- such as the .999 pure gold Canadian
Maple Leaf in this case- is 2.8 mm thick; so if we were to stack up the
number of them required to buy an orbiter (2,507,000) we would have a
pile of coins 7,574,000 mm; or 7,574 meters, or (to return to a more
civilized form of cyphering, untainted by the monstrous infamies
inflicted by the French on that cold and barren nation's mathematics.)
24,849 feet in height- or to put it another way- 4.7 miles high...up
where (if you were standing on top of it) you would go unconscious in
around 3-5 minutes due to lack of oxygen.
You don't want to know how high a pile of Sakakawea dollar coins would
be; at 2 mm each, you would need a pile of them 4,000,000,000 mm high to
buy a Shuttle orbiter...in other words, you would be around 2,500 miles
up, far beyond the Shuttle's reach, and enjoying the subtle delights of
the inner Van Allen Belt.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:

I once did the math on what an orbiter costs...

That's so cold. So cruel. So crass. So lacking in Vision.

So true.

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 17:12:05 GMT, lid
(John Savard) wrote:


Unfortunately, the Shuttle apparently has gone the way of the Saturn V;
we can't make them any more.

Not so. Boeing offered to build a replacement after the Columbia lost.
NASA declined.

Brian

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 14:10:48 -0500, in a place far, far away, Brian
Thorn made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
a way as to indicate that:

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 17:12:05 GMT, lid
(John Savard) wrote:


Unfortunately, the Shuttle apparently has gone the way of the Saturn V;
we can't make them any more.

Not so. Boeing offered to build a replacement after the Columbia lost.
NASA declined.

They did? What was the price tag and schedule?

Tooling is non-existent for much of it, AFAIK (e.g., I don't think
that they could build a spar or keel). In addition many of the
subcontractors don't even exist any more.

On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 22:47:36 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

Unfortunately, the Shuttle apparently has gone the way of the Saturn V;
we can't make them any more.

Not so. Boeing offered to build a replacement after the Columbia lost.
NASA declined.

They did? What was the price tag and schedule?

It was the OV-20x proposal. Same mold line as the existing Shuttles,
but essentially all-new inside (except for new 100-series equipment
like MEDS). I'm sure it died of NASA sticker shock, but the cost
quoted wasn't *that* unrealistic ($2 billion or so for the first one,
follow-ons would be cheaper.) I don't recall a schedule being reported
(AvLeak or SpaceMuse, IIRC.)

Tooling is non-existent for much of it, AFAIK (e.g., I don't think
that they could build a spar or keel).

You may be right, but I seem to recall that the airframe tooling still
exists in storage somewhere at Palmdale. I don't think any big
airframes have come out of the Shuttle plant since Endeavour rolled
out. The tooling is in the same place it was while the plant built
B-1Bs between Atlantis and Endeavour.

In addition many of the
subcontractors don't even exist any more.

Hence the 20x production numbers. I think Boeing was hoping for a nice
fat Shuttle Mk.II contract, with three or four to follow OV-201.

Brian

"Brian Thorn" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 02 Oct 2005 22:47:36 GMT, h (Rand
Simberg) wrote:

Unfortunately, the Shuttle apparently has gone the way of the Saturn V;
we can't make them any more.

Not so. Boeing offered to build a replacement after the Columbia lost.
NASA declined.

They did? What was the price tag and schedule?

It was the OV-20x proposal. Same mold line as the existing Shuttles,
but essentially all-new inside (except for new 100-series equipment
like MEDS). I'm sure it died of NASA sticker shock, but the cost
quoted wasn't *that* unrealistic ($2 billion or so for the first one,
follow-ons would be cheaper.) I don't recall a schedule being reported
(AvLeak or SpaceMuse, IIRC.)

You sure you're not thinking of post-Challenger?



Hence the 20x production numbers. I think Boeing was hoping for a nice
fat Shuttle Mk.II contract, with three or four to follow OV-201.


At this point if done right this might appeal to me more than "the stick"
and HDLV.

Done right, an OV-2xx could learn a lot from OV-1xx.


Brian

On 2005-10-02, Brian Thorn wrote:

Not so. Boeing offered to build a replacement after the Columbia lost.
NASA declined.

They did? What was the price tag and schedule?

It was the OV-20x proposal. Same mold line as the existing Shuttles,
but essentially all-new inside (except for new 100-series equipment
like MEDS). I'm sure it died of NASA sticker shock, but the cost
quoted wasn't *that* unrealistic ($2 billion or so for the first one,
follow-ons would be cheaper.) I don't recall a schedule being reported
(AvLeak or SpaceMuse, IIRC.)

As I recall... someone at Boeing said "if they want us to build a new
one, we can" [1] relatively early on. SFAIK, no actual proposal ever
appeared - the details about the cost and whether it would be OV-106 or
OV-201 came from people discussing it after the fact.

[1] no doubt the "and, boy, will they pay for it" was silent.

--
-Andrew Gray