Shuttle

Can the shuttle fly like a plane? I mean take off from a runway, fly around
and land again. Could you fly it, for instance, from California to Florida?
With the engines it has and onboard fuel capacity I suspect it could but
don't know why they piggy back it on a 747 to move it.

Op Thu, 11 Aug 2005 10:28:59 -0400, schreef Nog:

Can the shuttle fly like a plane?

The Orbiter you mean? No, it cannot.

I mean take off from a runway, fly around and land again. Could you fly
it, for instance, from California to Florida? With the engines it has
and onboard fuel capacity I suspect it could

The Orbiter has no fuel capacity to speak of. And it's main engines are
designed to suck a huge external tank dry in just 8.5 minutes, the time
required to reach orbit at around 30.000 km/h. It's either all or nothing
with that sort of engine.

but don't know why they piggy back it on a 747 to move it.

Now you do.

In article ,
"Nog" wrote:

Can the shuttle fly like a plane? I mean take off from a runway, fly around
and land again.

No.

Could you fly it, for instance, from California to Florida?

No.

With the engines it has and onboard fuel capacity I suspect it could but
don't know why they piggy back it on a 747 to move it.

Because your suspicion is incorrect.

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: |
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The only on-board propellant the Shuttle has is that for the
maneuvering engines, which are tiny compared to its main engines.

"nmp" wrote in message
news
Op Thu, 11 Aug 2005 10:28:59 -0400, schreef Nog:

Can the shuttle fly like a plane?

The Orbiter you mean? No, it cannot.

I mean take off from a runway, fly around and land again. Could you fly
it, for instance, from California to Florida? With the engines it has
and onboard fuel capacity I suspect it could

The Orbiter has no fuel capacity to speak of. And it's main engines are
designed to suck a huge external tank dry in just 8.5 minutes, the time
required to reach orbit at around 30.000 km/h. It's either all or nothing
with that sort of engine.

but don't know why they piggy back it on a 747 to move it.

Now you do.

Well it appears, from the external cameras, that the engines are still
running when the external tank is ejected. And they do have throttles since
you hear them going with throttle down and throttle up.

Nog wrote:

Well it appears, from the external cameras, that the engines are still
running when the external tank is ejected.

That's just some final gases bleeding out of the engine and its fuel
plumbing.

The dump of remaining fuel in the shuttle's fuel lines after tank
separation is described he

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/...f/sts-mps.html

"The external tank is jettisoned, and the orbital maneuvering system is
ignited to provide the final velocity increment for orbital insertion.
The magnitude of the velocity increment supplied by the OMS depends on
payload weight, mission trajectory and system limitations.

Coincident with the start of the OMS thrusting maneuver (which settles
the MPS propellants), the remaining liquid oxygen propellant in the
orbiter feed system and space shuttle main engines is dumped through
the nozzles of the three SSMEs. At the same time, the remaining liquid
hydrogen propellant in the orbiter feed system and SSMEs is dumped
overboard through the hydrogen fill and drain valves for six seconds."

Further, that NASA website also describes how all the fuel for the
SSMEs is in the external tank.

"The main engines are reusable, high-performance, liquid-propellant
rocket engines with variable thrust. The propellant fuel is liquid
hydrogen and the oxidizer is liquid oxygen. The propellant is carried
in separate tanks in the external tank and supplied to the main engines
under pressure."

As has been said, the US space shuttle carries no fuel for its main
engines on board the orbiter. It's all in the external tank.

And they do have throttles since
you hear them going with throttle down and throttle up.

Technically, yes, but the minimum throttle setting is 65%, and 65% of
~500,000lbs of thrust (per engine) is still vastly more than what the
shuttle could handle for atmospheric flight (assuming it had any fuel).

Basically, NMP is correct: the shuttle's engines are designed for 8
minutes of all-or-nothing operation. Besides the lack of fuel, they
aren't meant to power the shuttle for hours of aerial flight.

Mike Miller

Nog wrote:
Can the shuttle fly like a plane? I mean take off from a runway, fly around
and land again. Could you fly it, for instance, from California to Florida?
With the engines it has and onboard fuel capacity I suspect it could but
don't know why they piggy back it on a 747 to move it.


Mainly, it's because the Shuttle makes a really rotten airplane. It has
all the aerodynamic characteristics of a rock. Those wings look like
regular, every day wings like on any jet plane, but they're way too
small to do much flying.

Also, as others have pointed out, those main engines have way too much
thrust for tooling along in the atmosphere.

The original plans for the Shuttle included jet engines, so that the
craft could maneuver a bit in the atmosphere, enough to, say, go around
if the landing got botched. The notion of a dead-stick landing, in a
craft that has so little lift and must go so fast to stay up at all, was
pretty scary. The purpose of the jets was to make it fly more like a
plane. But the jets and their fuel turned out to be just too costly and
too heavy, so they were taken off.

Jack