New vehicle from old plans?

What would be the cost of building another shuttle from the current
plans?

Do the jigs and such still exist?

Would it be "relatively simple" to make it a safer vehicle? (without a
drastic redesign)

Probably lying around somewhere gathering dust. However, the next logical
question would be do you have a few billion dollars in your piggy bank(not
intending to inquire into your personal life but this group is getting
sensitive)?





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On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 20:23:18 +0100, "Brian Gaff"
wrote:
Two thoughts here.

Firstly, someone is going to have to make some kind of jigs foe rcc panels,
it appears.

Also, as has been said before. The Shuttle is/was an experimental vehicle,
and has been successful enough that other imperatives were entered into
(ISS service missions, Spacehab etc) on the premise that such a vehicle
would always be there.

The shuttle was over hyped by NASA ( flying every couple weeks,
reducing the cost per lb. to take stuff to space, space
truck..etc.etc.)


Its rather like the UK railways, everyone wants it to work right, but nobody
puts money in it, and a lot of people need it to work to survive.

So we have a space station and various bits of hardware that only ever exist
in that form because of the Shuttle.

Now the cost of it is truly huge, it was a first, it was a good first step,
but trying to make a one size fits all has resulted in the old problem of
the one size is not exactly fitting anything!

So, do you spend your money on more of the same, or use the knowledge
gained and spend the money differently. In the interim though, someone has
to finance the Shuttle until that is ready. This is surely why we have not
got that something now. The bean counters will not spend the money. Full
stop.




So, do we ground people, cut our losses, and go robot? If cost is the only
concern, you bet.

However, I personally think that spaceflight for humans is needed. I'm just
not sure why!


Everything should be grounded, including the space station, everyone
get together and decide exactly what they want to do. Do we want to
build a real station and not an ever shrinking version of one? A real
successor to the shuttle, not one that will be canceled in a year or
two?
Once the projects are decided on, go to congress with real designs and
capabilities, a real dollar amount to build it and a realistic time
frame to do it in. Something NASA has never done, not over hyping
projects.
If the congress won't fund the projects at the needed level, don't
scale back the projects, cancel them all together. Force the country
to decide if they want a real space program or not.


Botch
YOU think I'm "sick"?! Well the only disease I've got is "Modern Life," a
schnutbusting gauntlet of inefficiency and misery that's one long parade
of let-downs, put-downs, trickle downs, shutouts, freezeouts, sell-outs,
numnuts, nincompoops and nimrods, all making every day as much fun as
waxing a flaming Pontiac with your tongue.
"Duckman"

In article , gene wrote:
What would be the cost of building another shuttle from the current
plans?

Boeing offered to build one for ~$2bn, I think, just after Columbia was
lost; can't remember the details, though. It would require a significant
amount of new plant.

--
-Andrew Gray

What did Columbia cost when built?

--
Gareth Slee

http://www.garethslee.com
http://www.lapie.com

In article ,
gene wrote:
What would be the cost of building another shuttle from the current
plans?

Has NASA done any basic analysis (back of the envelope stuff, which
from reading the CAIB report, is how they do much of their engineering ...
:-)

What would be the cost and timeframe of 1 or 2 new orbiters (minimal
design changes), verus 1 or 2 next generation orbiters, versus
making OV-101 (Enterprise) flight-worthy.

Nick

"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" wrote in message
...
|
| "Lynndel Humphreys" wrote in message
| ...
| Probably lying around somewhere gathering dust. However, the next
logical
| question would be do you have a few billion dollars in your piggy
bank(not
| intending to inquire into your personal life but this group is getting
| sensitive)?
|
|
| Unfortunately not. Tooling was destroyed. It costs money to store stuff
| like that. Besides, much of the expertise has moved on or retired.
|
| It would not be cheap to do.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
| http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
| -----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----
|
|
Two thoughts here.

Firstly, someone is going to have to make some kind of jigs foe rcc panels,
it appears.

Also, as has been said before. The Shuttle is/was an experimental vehicle,
and has been successful enough that other imperatives were entered into
(ISS service missions, Spacehab etc) on the premise that such a vehicle
would always be there.

Its rather like the UK railways, everyone wants it to work right, but nobody
puts money in it, and a lot of people need it to work to survive.

So we have a space station and various bits of hardware that only ever exist
in that form because of the Shuttle.

Now the cost of it is truly huge, it was a first, it was a good first step,
but trying to make a one size fits all has resulted in the old problem of
the one size is not exactly fitting anything!

So, do you spend your money on more of the same, or use the knowledge
gained and spend the money differently. In the interim though, someone has
to finance the Shuttle until that is ready. This is surely why we have not
got that something now. The bean counters will not spend the money. Full
stop.

So, do we ground people, cut our losses, and go robot? If cost is the only
concern, you bet.

However, I personally think that spaceflight for humans is needed. I'm just
not sure why!

Brian

--
Brian Gaff....
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
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gene wrote:
Would it be "relatively simple" to make it a safer vehicle? (without a
drastic redesign)

Let's see how much safer the three existing Shuttles become after
they're reworked to incorporate the recommendations from the CAIB
report. And how big an effort is required to do it.

That should answer your question.


--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email:

Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.

In article , Greg D. Moore
(Strider) wrote:

Boeing offered to build one for ~$2bn, I think, just after Columbia was
lost; can't remember the details, though. It would require a significant
amount of new plant.

$2B sounds awfully low.

http://www.you.com.au/news/1707.htm seems to give it by analogy with
Endeavour ($1.8b) - it mentions "a starting price of $2 billion", but
then comments "...no estimates yet on the cost or schedule demands".

The usenet discussion seemed to be spurred by this article (well, a very
similar one); they don't seem to have provided other figures.

--
-Andrew Gray

In article , Andrew Gray wrote:
In article , Greg D. Moore
(Strider) wrote:

Boeing offered to build one for ~$2bn, I think, just after Columbia was
lost; can't remember the details, though. It would require a significant
amount of new plant.

$2B sounds awfully low.

http://www.you.com.au/news/1707.htm seems to give it by analogy with
Endeavour ($1.8b) - it mentions "a starting price of $2 billion", but
then comments "...no estimates yet on the cost or schedule demands".

Well... I'm not sure whom exactly came up with the "starting at $2 billion"
idea but it seems to possibly be between four to six times too low.

Endeavour was a different case -- most of the parts already existed (about
70% if I recall) due to the spares-stocking program, and more importantly,
the production line was still in existence along with the personnel.

To do a new one from scratch... well, one'd have to build the whole
infrastructure from scratch -- jigs, factories, train personnel, etc. And
then to certify everything, incrementally and together as a whole.

Certainly not an insurmountable problem, but an expensive and particularly
time-consuming one to do so from scratch. I believe it's generally thought
that it almost matches the expense and to an extent, time, of a totally new
R&D program.

However, maybe Boeing really did have innovative techniques in mind that
greatly shaves off the cost of assembly+certification. Who knows? (Seems
unlikely they'd have gone into any details as that'd be giving away
potential trade secrets to competitors.)

-Dan