Space Shuttle: Was it worth it?

On Jul 9, 9:17*am, Pat Flannery wrote:

They keep coming up with replacement ideas, but anything new needs both
a new spacecraft and a more powerful booster, and there just isn't
funding to do both at once. The Soyuz spacecraft and booster work great
as a economical launch system that they have squeezed just about maximum
performance out of, and although it would be nice to have a more capable
space craft, it's the bird in the hand that's worth two in the bush.


Exactly, thank you for reiterating my point. The Soyuz, both booster
and spacecraft are at their viable limits. Oh, they might squeeze a
bit more out here and there. But the limits of the spacecraft are
becoming painfully obvious now. If the Russians had the funding,
they'd be building and flying Klipper now instead. But they couldn't
convince the Europeans to throw in funding, so that project is now
pretty much dead for the time being. Which is unfortunate, since it is
a very viable concept for a human carrying spacecraft.


They are thinking about replacing the engines in the R-7 booster with
new engines and the upper stage engine with the engine from the old N-1
rocket:http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz2_3_lv.html
But again, no funding yet.

Yes, funding is the issue, as I pointed out, and I don't think the
Russians would dare risk a new spacecraft on the highly unsafe and
unreliable Zenit booster at this point, which is the only mid-range
former Soviet rocket out there.
-Mike

"David Spain" wrote in message
news
Dave U. Random wrote:
It's only natural to try and make space travel more routine by making
it more airliner-like, resulting in some sort of winged-vehicle,
which
should be spacious and have a proper toilet. But we now know that
this
simply isn't feasible since winged vehicles are too fragile for the
rigors of space travel. The energies involved in going orbital are
simply too great and since weight is crucial there will be too many
dangerous compromises made. Any wing or tailplane will easily be
ripped
off during an explosion of the launch vehicle or carrier rocket
rendering the craft uncontrollable.


BTW, I completely disagree with this. The X-37B is the simple refutation of
your blanket generalization. Now if I assume you are talking about a 'crewed'
vehicle, maybe. I think again you are drawing overly broad assertions on
future technology, which remains largely untested, based solely on the design
trade-offs chosen for the shuttle. I would not draw this inference based on
the lack of test data.

Why would the X-37B a refutation of my assumptions? The thing is canned
up inside a fairing during launch and would probably have its wings and
tail ripped off it were to launch without it.

Secondly, no manufacturer of a winged space vehicle would respond if
they were quizzed whether their vehicle could survive an explosion of
the carrier rocket. I'm pretty sure the people at Rockwell never
seriously researched whether Shuttle could survive such an explosion
because they knew right off the bat that it couldn't.

Unless someone proves me wrong I'm going to postulate and assume that
NO winged space vehicle can survive the explosion of its carrier rocket
AND make it down safely.

On 7/9/2011 9:53 PM, Mike DiCenso wrote:
On Jul 9, 9:17 am, Pat wrote:

They keep coming up with replacement ideas, but anything new needs both
a new spacecraft and a more powerful booster, and there just isn't
funding to do both at once. The Soyuz spacecraft and booster work great
as a economical launch system that they have squeezed just about maximum
performance out of, and although it would be nice to have a more capable
space craft, it's the bird in the hand that's worth two in the bush.


Exactly, thank you for reiterating my point. The Soyuz, both booster
and spacecraft are at their viable limits. Oh, they might squeeze a
bit more out here and there. But the limits of the spacecraft are
becoming painfully obvious now. If the Russians had the funding,
they'd be building and flying Klipper now instead. But they couldn't
convince the Europeans to throw in funding, so that project is now
pretty much dead for the time being. Which is unfortunate, since it is
a very viable concept for a human carrying spacecraft.

Soyuz and Progress are sufficient for ISS; once ISS is gone there are no
firm plans for anyone to build a successor other than China, and theirs
is basically a Mir clone, which Shenzhou will meet all the needs of crew
delivery for, and the prototype module they are going to launch this
fall, something like a Progress but with a living area aboard, filling
its cargo needs.
In fact, if they cancel the Chinese one there may be no more manned
flight into LEO for any reason for quite a time after the ISS is retired.

They are thinking about replacing the engines in the R-7 booster with
new engines and the upper stage engine with the engine from the old N-1
rocket:http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz2_3_lv.html
But again, no funding yet.

Yes, funding is the issue, as I pointed out, and I don't think the
Russians would dare risk a new spacecraft on the highly unsafe and
unreliable Zenit booster at this point, which is the only mid-range
former Soviet rocket out there.

They've still got the Proton (although they want to get rid of it
because of residual propellant toxicity issues when the first and second
stages fall back to Earth), and had plans to use Zenit for manned
launches when it was designed.
That plan got screwed up when Ukraine declared independence when the
Soviet union broke up.

Pat

On Jul 10, 3:43*am, Pat Flannery wrote:
On 7/9/2011 9:53 PM, Mike DiCenso wrote:





On Jul 9, 9:17 am, Pat *wrote:

Soyuz and Progress are sufficient for ISS; once ISS is gone there are no
firm plans for anyone to build a successor other than China, and theirs
is basically a Mir clone, which Shenzhou will meet all the needs of crew
delivery for, and the prototype module they are going to launch this
fall, something like a Progress but with a living area aboard, filling
its cargo needs.

This makes no sense at all. If Progess and Soyuz were all that ISS or
any similar, large-scale space station needed, then ESA and JAXA could
cancel ATV and HTV, and NASA would not need to fly STS-135 to buy
Space X and OSC another year's worth of time.

In fact, if they cancel the Chinese one there may be no more manned
flight into LEO for any reason for quite a time after the ISS is retired.

This pretty much ignores Bigelow Aerospace and the potential for
future large space stations to be built using relatively cheap, large-
volume inflatable modules.

They've still got the Proton (although they want to get rid of it
because of residual propellant toxicity issues when the first and second
stages fall back to Earth), and had plans to use Zenit for manned
launches when it was designed.
That plan got screwed up when Ukraine declared independence when the
Soviet union broke up.

Proton is way oversized for a modest-sized Soyuz successor. By mid-
range booster, I mean something in the 30 k lb lift range like Zenit
or Commerical Titan. Proton's reliablilty isn't all that great, either
these days as well you know. Angara is probably never going to yeild
anything useful anytime soon, especially with the much publized
failures of the South Korean Naro rocket, which used an Angara first
stage.
-Mike

In sci.space.policy message a90abe9e-6636-4e5f-b56a-c73ed49962cd@m10g20
00yqd.googlegroups.com, Fri, 8 Jul 2011 20:58:46, Mike DiCenso
posted:

On Jul 8, 2:30*am, Pat Flannery wrote:
What is amusing is that the little, simple, Soyuz is going to keep right
on going, having outlived both the Apollo and Shuttle programs.
Italian sports cars were great; but the Volkswagen beetle had a lot
going for it also. ;-)

Pat

Except that as you well know, if the Russians could dump the dinky
little Soyuz for something a little bit bigger and better, they would.
The only thing holding them back from developing and flying something
new, like Klipper, is money. At nearly 60 million USD per seat, Space
X's Dragon will eat Soyuz's lunch, when it finally starts carrying
people in 3-5 years. Not to mention, Dragon will probably also eat
some of Progress' lunch since it will actually be able to haul *back*
experiments, up to three or four full ISPR racks at a time as well as
carry them up.

So Soyuz is a dinosaur only being kept going because there well and
truly is nothing coming out to replace it in the pipeline as far as
the Russians are concerned.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rus-M.

--
(c) John Stockton, nr London, UK. Turnpike v6.05 MIME.
Web http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ - FAQqish topics, acronyms and links;
Astro stuff via astron-1.htm, gravity0.htm ; quotings.htm, pascal.htm, etc.
No Encoding. Quotes before replies. Snip well. Write clearly. Don't Mail News.

On 7/10/2011 11:17 AM, Mike DiCenso wrote:

This makes no sense at all. If Progess and Soyuz were all that ISS or
any similar, large-scale space station needed, then ESA and JAXA could
cancel ATV and HTV, and NASA would not need to fly STS-135 to buy
Space X and OSC another year's worth of time.

They weren't all that ISS needed, they were all Russia needed to use for
it once it was built.
There is a sketchy Russian plan for a small space station to follow ISS:
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/opsek.html
But it's nothing major, and smaller than Mir.

In fact, if they cancel the Chinese one there may be no more manned
flight into LEO for any reason for quite a time after the ISS is retired.

This pretty much ignores Bigelow Aerospace and the potential for
future large space stations to be built using relatively cheap, large-
volume inflatable modules.

I'll believe them when I see them in orbit, and not before.
There's a lot of talk about orbital space tourism, but I have serious
doubts about it being an economically viable proposition.
I don't see any great drive for any of the nations involved in ISS
wanting to build a succesor, either together or individually.
At the end of the ISS's lifetime I think all the participants are going
to look back at how much the whole program cost them in monetary terms,
how much useful information their investment bought them, and say:
"Never again".

They've still got the Proton (although they want to get rid of it
because of residual propellant toxicity issues when the first and second
stages fall back to Earth), and had plans to use Zenit for manned
launches when it was designed.
That plan got screwed up when Ukraine declared independence when the
Soviet union broke up.

Proton is way oversized for a modest-sized Soyuz successor. By mid-
range booster, I mean something in the 30 k lb lift range like Zenit
or Commerical Titan. Proton's reliablilty isn't all that great, either
these days as well you know. Angara is probably never going to yeild
anything useful anytime soon, especially with the much publized
failures of the South Korean Naro rocket, which used an Angara first
stage.

In the absence of Angara, Russia probably won't develop anything else
along the line of a booster with those capabilities soon; they could
make make an argument for something like that if they had a firm program
for future space stations, or could sell commercial launch space on it
profitably, but neither of those things looks very likely at the moment.

Pat

On 7/10/2011 11:34 AM, Dr J R Stockton wrote:
So Soyuz is a dinosaur only being kept going because there well and
truly is nothing coming out to replace it in the pipeline as far as
the Russians are concerned.

Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rus-M.

Sounds great, now let's see if they build it, rather than just designing it:
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/ppts_lv.html

Pat

Nomen Nescio wrote:
"David Spain" wrote in message
BTW, I completely disagree with this. The X-37B is the simple refutation of
your blanket generalization. Now if I assume you are talking about a 'crewed'
vehicle, maybe. I think again you are drawing overly broad assertions on
future technology, which remains largely untested, based solely on the design
trade-offs chosen for the shuttle. I would not draw this inference based on
the lack of test data.

Why would the X-37B a refutation of my assumptions? The thing is canned
up inside a fairing during launch and would probably have its wings and
tail ripped off it were to launch without it.


Well your original post stated 'space travel'. The X-37B returns from 'space'
in its generally accepted form of above 50 miles in altitude, and endures all
the mechanical and thermal stress of return from orbit. It is true it rides
the rocket up in a fairing.

Secondly, no manufacturer of a winged space vehicle would respond if
they were quizzed whether their vehicle could survive an explosion of
the carrier rocket. I'm pretty sure the people at Rockwell never
seriously researched whether Shuttle could survive such an explosion
because they knew right off the bat that it couldn't.

Unless someone proves me wrong I'm going to postulate and assume that
NO winged space vehicle can survive the explosion of its carrier rocket
AND make it down safely.

Well looking backwards there is some history of winged vehicles proposed to be
launched from rockets. The most notable was the canceled X-20 DynaSoar. It was
primarily canceled for budget reasons not technical ones from what I have read.

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/dynasoar.htm

It would be interesting to read about the abort modes proposed for this rocket
powered glider. Since it was to be crewed, I have to believe there was serious
consideration given to that.

I think the issues of winged vs a conic section have more to do with cost than
technical feasibility, but I have not studied the issue in depth.

Dave

On 7/11/2011 6:28 AM, David Spain wrote:
Nomen Nescio wrote:
"David Spain" wrote in message
BTW, I completely disagree with this. The X-37B is the simple
refutation of
your blanket generalization. Now if I assume you are talking about a
'crewed'
vehicle, maybe. I think again you are drawing overly broad assertions on
future technology, which remains largely untested, based solely on
the design
trade-offs chosen for the shuttle. I would not draw this inference
based on
the lack of test data.

Why would the X-37B a refutation of my assumptions? The thing is
canned up inside a fairing during launch and would probably have its
wings and tail ripped off it were to launch without it.


Well your original post stated 'space travel'. The X-37B returns from
'space' in its generally accepted form of above 50 miles in altitude,
and endures all the mechanical and thermal stress of return from orbit.
It is true it rides the rocket up in a fairing.

Secondly, no manufacturer of a winged space vehicle would respond if
they were quizzed whether their vehicle could survive an explosion of
the carrier rocket. I'm pretty sure the people at Rockwell never
seriously researched whether Shuttle could survive such an explosion
because they knew right off the bat that it couldn't.

Unless someone proves me wrong I'm going to postulate and assume that
NO winged space vehicle can survive the explosion of its carrier
rocket AND make it down safely.

Well looking backwards there is some history of winged vehicles proposed
to be launched from rockets. The most notable was the canceled X-20
DynaSoar. It was primarily canceled for budget reasons not technical
ones from what I have read.

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/dynasoar.htm

It would be interesting to read about the abort modes proposed for this
rocket powered glider. Since it was to be crewed, I have to believe
there was serious consideration given to that.

It was going to use a Thiokol XM-92 solid-fuel rocket on its tail to
boost it away from the Titan IIIC if something went wrong during ascent.
It's shown here separating the vehicle from the second stage of a Titan
I: http://www.aero.org/publications/cro...ages/01_06.jpg
The pilot also had an ejection seat.
Both the abort/separation engine and ejection seat can be seen in this
video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drfcr...yer_detailpage
There was also an idea to put a Mercury-like capsule in its nose to
bring the pilot back from orbit if he were stranded there for some reason:
http://up-ship.com/blog/wp-content/u...07/image2a.jpg

Pat

[Cross posting to sci.space.history because I am asking Pat about the history
between the X-20 DynaSoar project and any possible contributions it may have
provided to the Space Shuttle. The OP should have also been cross posted to
sci.space.shuttle, but at this point two newsgroups are enough...]

Pat Flannery wrote:
Both the abort/separation engine and ejection seat can be seen in this
video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drfcr...yer_detailpage

I've only seen part 1 of this video so far and I'm impressed with the level of
detail. It watches almost like a how-to.

It's difficult for me, as a taxpayer and an engineer, to have seen so much
development effort go into this vehicle for it never to have reached fruition,
even as just a full-up prototype with only one or two launches under its belt.

How much of the technology was able to transfer to Shuttle? I picked up on the
incorporation of the speed brake in the rudder, just as shuttle does (or soon
to be did).

Was there enough transfer that it would be fair to lump X-20 development costs
in with the Shuttle?

Dave