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Space Shuttle: Was it worth it?



 
 
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  #1  
Old July 8th 11, 06:46 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Dave U. Random
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Posts: 42
Default Space Shuttle: Was it worth it?

http://www.space.com/12166-space-shu...-promises-209-
billion.html

Interesting discussion on the accomplishments of the Space Shuttle
program and whether we could have better spent the $209 billion on
something else.

I personally believe that the Shuttle program will be remembered as one
big failure, which not only didn't live up to its promise of making
space access cheap and routine, but cost the lives of 14 astronauts
whilst keeping the U.S. circling our blue globe.

It's true that after Apollo NASA thought it would need both a space
station and a Shuttle to lay the groundwork for manned flights to Mars.
How strange than that almost all subsequent designs for a manned Mars
mission called for a Direct trajectory from Earth to Mars, with nothing
being assembled in orbit. I doubt that even now ISS could be used to
assemble anything worthwhile, it's simply not designed for that. It's
nothing more than a trailerpark in space!

NASA could've used the $209 billion to design an even bigger rocket
called Nova, already on the drawing boards at that time, using the F-1
or even larger M-1, stretching the design over a longer period of time
to cut (annual) costs. At the very least a manned Mars flyby wouldn've
been possible with Nova, if not a landing.

Almost fourty years later, the U.S. has been turned into one giant
oligipoly where Senators are simply paid representives of Corporate
America. This culiminated in the law that directed NASA to design and
build the Senate Launch System (a nickname) based on the components of
the companies those Senators represent. This means that NASA is
essentially a headless chicken, roaming wildly though the henhouse with
no goal and no purpose. Those same companies are directing Congress to
block NASA getting too involved with commercial space companies like
SpaceX, hindering cheat and affordable access to space.

In the 1970's the U.S. was so far ahead in space that no nation, let
alone China, would ever dream of surpassing it. Now, because of
Shuttle, the Chinese are not only catching up, slowly but surely, but
are quietly dreaming of overtaking the U.S. by performing either a
manned Moon landing or a Martian-flyby. Fortunately for them video
technology has improved dramatically during the last few decades and
their missions will be infinitely better recorded (and therefore
remembered) than the fuzzy Apollo Super-8 and primitive NTSC color
video captures, most of which weren't even recorded properly.

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.

So my answer to the original question would be: no, it wasn't worth it,
not by a long shot. I, for one, will be glad to see the Shuttle go, and
hoping for commercial companies like SpaceX, Orbital and Sierra Nevada
to take up the slack and to try new or at least cheaper ways of getting
people into orbit.


  #2  
Old July 8th 11, 09:16 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Val Kraut
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Posts: 329
Default Space Shuttle: Was it worth it?



It's true that after Apollo NASA thought it would need both a space
station and a Shuttle to lay the groundwork for manned flights to Mars.
How strange than that almost all subsequent designs for a manned Mars
mission called for a Direct trajectory from Earth to Mars, with nothing
being assembled in orbit. I doubt that even now ISS could be used to
assemble anything worthwhile, it's simply not designed for that. It's
nothing more than a trailerpark in space!

The space station is in the wrong orbit to support a Mars mission. Plane
change to support such a mission is essentially impossible. The ISS is a
dead end in itself.

Val Kraut


  #3  
Old July 8th 11, 10:30 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Pat Flannery
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Posts: 18,465
Default Space Shuttle: Was it worth it?

On 7/7/2011 9:46 PM, Dave U. Random wrote:
http://www.space.com/12166-space-shu...-promises-209-
billion.html

Interesting discussion on the accomplishments of the Space Shuttle
program and whether we could have better spent the $209 billion on
something else.

I personally believe that the Shuttle program will be remembered as one
big failure, which not only didn't live up to its promise of making
space access cheap and routine, but cost the lives of 14 astronauts
whilst keeping the U.S. circling our blue globe.


I think it's going to be looked back on like the Navy's rigid airship
program of the 1920's-30's and the Concorde SST.
Sure looked neat, but wasn't the anywhere near worth the amount of money
that got thrown at the concept.
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
  #4  
Old July 8th 11, 02:28 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Bob Haller
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Posts: 3,197
Default Space Shuttle: Was it worth it?

On Jul 8, 4:16*am, "Val Kraut" wrote:
It's true that after Apollo NASA thought it would need both a space
station and a Shuttle to lay the groundwork for manned flights to Mars.
How strange than that almost all subsequent designs for a manned Mars
mission called for a Direct trajectory from Earth to Mars, with nothing
being assembled in orbit. I doubt that even now ISS could be used to
assemble anything worthwhile, it's simply not designed for that. It's
nothing more than a trailerpark in space!


*The space station is in the wrong orbit to support a Mars mission. Plane
change to support *such a mission is essentially impossible. The ISS is a
dead end in itself.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Val Kraut


Wasnt the original freedom station in a better orbit for launching
outbound operations to other planets?

doesnt really matter by the time of a outbound mission ISS will be a
dim memory......
  #5  
Old July 8th 11, 03:56 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Alan Erskine[_3_]
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Posts: 1,026
Default Space Shuttle: Was it worth it?

No.
  #6  
Old July 8th 11, 06:02 PM posted to sci.space.policy
David Spain
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Posts: 2,901
Default Space Shuttle: Was it worth it?

Dave U. Random wrote:
[etc. essentially money spent on shuttle not worth the $209 billion spent]

For those of us who have been reading these groups for awhile it boils down
IMO to two points:

1) Although shuttle *could* provide routine access to space; a) it was known
that it was not going to be able to do so affordably, b) nor with a high
degree of regularity (flight rate).

a) Was known even before the first shuttle took flight, by anyone who bothered
to look 'at the numbers'. But the trick is defining what you mean by
'affordable'. A good debate I have not seen here is whether or not Shuttle was
putting people into orbit for less money than an Apollo capsule or a suitable
expendable follow-on could have done, given rates of inflation etc. Certainly
there are payload considerations that have to be taken into account when
comparing costs as well. ???

b) Was learned as we progressed, painfully, coming to a head in 1986 with the
Challenger disaster. NASA was trying to ramp up the flight rate, accepting
higher degrees of risk than were warranted until it finally caught up to them.


2) When the Space Station went from Freedom to ISS, we gave up all hope of it
serving as a construction base for flights to elsewhere, due to the high
inclination orbit it needed to be in to allow easier Russian access. IMO today
we read about 'direct access' methods simply because there are (currently) no
other viable alternatives if the goal is simply jumping from one gravity well
to another. If there were an orbital infrastructure already in place you'd
probably see different plans being put forward by the planet (read Mars)
chauvinists. None of this means that LEO and CIS-Lunar infrastructure build
out is a bad idea. More like an untried idea I'd say...

Item 1a in particular is symptomatic of large government programs. These
things (so far) have not allowed for programs to 'evolve'; i.e. the shuttle
once designed and delivered was not contracted for any follow-on revisions
that might have made it both safer and cheaper to fly. Also there was huge
impetus to 're-use' as much of the Apollo infrastructure as possible. The idea
behind that (and with SLS as well) is that it was supposed to 'save money' to
reuse existing infrastructure. What we have seen with commercial space and the
fact that they are re-using NONE of the existing shuttle infrastructure, is
that this argument is largely a canard.

There is also a big difference in 'project mentality' between big exploration
programs like Apollo and that which you will find in the airline industry.
Shuttle adopted the Apollo paradigm because that is what NASA knew (and knows)
how to do. For commercial space the paradigm is different and we are already
seeing the effects.

Could we have done something different with $209 Billion? Certainly. Could we
have done a flags and footprints mission to Mars? Maybe and even if we had
where would be today? Remarkably, pretty much in the same position we are in
now, sans the ISS. There would likely be some type of space station in orbit,
it would not be the ISS, nor Freedom, likely MIR-2 operated by the Russians.

As for the US? Had we done an Apollo style Mars program? Barring a disaster,
we'd have done it and now *still* be asking the question: "What's next?" and
those big heavy boosters we'd have built for Mars would *also* be way too
expensive for LEO / CIS-lunar ops.

So you know what? Nothing on the planning boards in the 1970's post-Apollo was
really 'worth it' IMO. But we picked something and executed a plan, such as it
was. A 1970's Mars mission plan, with what might have been feasible, would
still have us back here asking this very question today (or even sooner).

Dave
  #7  
Old July 8th 11, 06:30 PM posted to sci.space.policy
David Spain
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Posts: 2,901
Default Space Shuttle: Was it worth it?

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.

Dave
  #8  
Old July 9th 11, 04:58 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Mike DiCenso
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Posts: 150
Default Space Shuttle: Was it worth it?

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.
-Mike
  #9  
Old July 9th 11, 05:17 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Pat Flannery
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Posts: 18,465
Default Space Shuttle: Was it worth it?

On 7/8/2011 7:58 PM, Mike DiCenso wrote:
On Jul 8, 2:30 am, Pat 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.


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.

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.


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.

Pat

  #10  
Old July 9th 11, 10:19 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Dr J R Stockton[_119_]
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Posts: 4
Default Space Shuttle: Was it worth it?

In sci.space.policy message , Fri, 8
Jul 2011 04:16:11, Val Kraut posted:



It's true that after Apollo NASA thought it would need both a space
station and a Shuttle to lay the groundwork for manned flights to Mars.
How strange than that almost all subsequent designs for a manned Mars
mission called for a Direct trajectory from Earth to Mars, with nothing
being assembled in orbit. I doubt that even now ISS could be used to
assemble anything worthwhile, it's simply not designed for that. It's
nothing more than a trailerpark in space!

The space station is in the wrong orbit to support a Mars mission. Plane
change to support such a mission is essentially impossible. The ISS is a
dead end in itself.



Since the ISS orbit is at 52 degrees to the Equator, and the Equator is
23 degrees to the Ecliptic, and Mars orbits near the Ecliptic, ISTM that
twice in each orbit - more than once an hour - the ISS's velocity is
parallel to the plane of Mars' orbit.

The ISS orbit precession rate is once every 72 days, so ISTM that once
in every 36 days one of those occasions will have the velocity
approximately parallel to the Earth's velocity.

The launch window for a reasonably near-Hohmann orbit to Mars is, I
believe, over a month.

So it should be possible with chemical fuel to launch from ISS to Mars,
making good use of ISS's velocity.

Clearly, to be ready to go to Mars, we need rockets that can reliably be
started at the pre-planned moment - the Russians are already fairly good
at that.

But ISTM that chemical propulsion to Mars and back is very difficult;
propulsion with higher Isp is needed, in which case optimising the
starting conditions becomes less important.

The need, therefore, is to press on as fast as can be usefully afforded
with VASIMR and rival technologies.

--
(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.
 




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