Story's Shuttle Stories

Story Musgrave is PO'd about NASA and the shuttle:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_893596.html
I note he says there is no lifeboat for the ISS, but that of course
ignores the two Soyuz spacecraft that are always docked to it.
He looks a bit too much like Lex Luthor to suit me.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:
Story Musgrave is PO'd about NASA and the shuttle:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_893596.html

I note he says there is no lifeboat for the ISS, but that of course
ignores the two Soyuz spacecraft that are always docked to it.
He looks a bit too much like Lex Luthor to suit me.

Pat

Story is not alone. I think we started going adrift in the Freedom -- ISS
transition. I think another big mistake was terminating Shuttle development
contracts after Discovery. (Wasn't Atlantis a last minute replacement?
Emergency funded only after Columbia's loss?). We could have gained a lot with
a program of slow improvement, popping out a new orbiter every 4 to 6 years.
What would that sustained development have cost us is in terms of real
dollars? Doubly so for the ET. Maybe we could have solved the foam issue if
we'd kept development on-going? (I'm asking, not telling. Hard data appreciated.)

Dave

David Spain wrote:
....
I think another big mistake was terminating Shuttle
development contracts after Discovery. (Wasn't Atlantis a last minute
replacement? Emergency funded only after Columbia's loss?).

Argh! Not Columbia, I meant Challenger....

Dave

David Spain wrote :

We could
have gained a lot with a program of slow improvement, popping out a new
orbiter every 4 to 6 years. What would that sustained development have
cost us is in terms of real dollars? Doubly so for the ET. Maybe we
could have solved the foam issue if we'd kept development on-going? (I'm
asking, not telling. Hard data appreciated.)

You end up having several one of a kind experimental spaceship. Those
things have a habit of being expensive. In the long run it might lead to
interesting evolution in technology. But in the short run it leads to
very expensive launch vehicles. Since the US congress doesn't seem all
that interested in short term pain for long term benefits...


Alain Fournier

On 7/9/2011 10:05 AM, David Spain wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote:
Story Musgrave is PO'd about NASA and the shuttle:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_893596.html

I note he says there is no lifeboat for the ISS, but that of course
ignores the two Soyuz spacecraft that are always docked to it.
He looks a bit too much like Lex Luthor to suit me.

Pat

Story is not alone. I think we started going adrift in the Freedom --
ISS transition. I think another big mistake was terminating Shuttle
development contracts after Discovery. (Wasn't Atlantis a last minute
replacement? Emergency funded only after Columbia's loss?).

Challenger was replaced with Endeavour.
The original four were Columbia, Challenger,Discovery, and Atlantis.
Atlantis was the one that was supposed to do most of the military
related missions.
It's a very clever choice of names, as not only was there an
oceanographic research vessel named "Atlantis", but in WWII the German
navy had a commerce raiding vessel disguised as a freighter with that
name also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_...uiser_Atlantis

We could
have gained a lot with a program of slow improvement, popping out a new
orbiter every 4 to 6 years. What would that sustained development have
cost us is in terms of real dollars?

Well, Endeavour cost 2.2 billion dollars IIRC.
The big problem was that there just weren't enough things to launch to
need more than four orbiters, especially after commercial satellite
launching and military missions were canceled.
Columbia's loss wasn't that big of a hit on ISS construction and
supplying, as it was too heavy to carry much weight into that orbital
inclination.
There was a proposal to turn Enterprise into a operational Shuttle also,
but it would have suffered from the same weight problems Columbia had.

Pat

On 7/9/2011 12:17 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:

You end up having several one of a kind experimental spaceship. Those
things have a habit of being expensive. In the long run it might lead to
interesting evolution in technology. But in the short run it leads to
very expensive launch vehicles. Since the US congress doesn't seem all
that interested in short term pain for long term benefits...

They did do upgrades on the Shuttles over the years, upgrading the
flight deck instrumentation and adding airlocks compatible for docking
with the ISS among other things.

Pat

On Jul 9, 4:55*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
On 7/9/2011 10:05 AM, David Spain wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote:
Story Musgrave is PO'd about NASA and the shuttle:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0...tory-musgrave-....

I note he says there is no lifeboat for the ISS, but that of course
ignores the two Soyuz spacecraft that are always docked to it.
He looks a bit too much like Lex Luthor to suit me.

Pat

Story is not alone. I think we started going adrift in the Freedom --
ISS transition. I think another big mistake was terminating Shuttle
development contracts after Discovery. (Wasn't Atlantis a last minute
replacement? Emergency funded only after Columbia's loss?).

Challenger was replaced with Endeavour.
The original four were Columbia, Challenger,Discovery, and Atlantis.
Atlantis was the one that was supposed to do most of the military
related missions.

All true, and let us not forget that Challenger was a replacement for
Enterprise, when it became clear that refurbishing the STA-099
airframe would be cheaper than tearing apart and rebuilding
Enterprise.

It's a very clever choice of names, as not only was there an
oceanographic research vessel named "Atlantis", but in WWII the German
navy had a commerce raiding vessel disguised as a freighter with that
name also:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_...uiser_Atlantis

We could
have gained a lot with a program of slow improvement, popping out a new
orbiter every 4 to 6 years. What would that sustained development have
cost us is in terms of real dollars?

Well, Endeavour cost 2.2 billion dollars IIRC.
The big problem was that there just weren't enough things to launch to
need more than four orbiters, especially after commercial satellite
launching and military missions were canceled.
Columbia's loss wasn't that big of a hit on ISS construction and
supplying, as it was too heavy to carry much weight into that orbital
inclination.
There was a proposal to turn Enterprise into a operational Shuttle also,
but it would have suffered from the same weight problems Columbia had.

Actually, Columbia had a few potential ISS missions, and was pretty
much looking for a while as being the dedicated HST repair and
refurbishment shuttle. Columbia was also slated to haul up the X-37
and the X-38 at one point, too. It's also funny you mentioned the
cancellation of commercial satellites on STS when in the late 1990's
and early 2000's, Boeing put forth a rather novel proposal to use
Columbia as part of a commercial shuttle operation that got around the
ban on carrying cryogenically fueled upperstages in the payload in a
very clever way.

As for Enterprise, there were actually several such proposals, one of
the most intriguing of which in the mid-1990's was to convert OV-101
into an unmanned heavy lift freighter for ISS construction and
ressupply. Had that gone through, Enterprise would have had at least a
15,000 lb (6,818 kg) higher payload than the manned orbiters. This
capability would have been extremely useful in speeding up ISS
construction, both before and after the Columbia accident. Especially
since an unmanned Enterprise would have been largely immune to the
grounding of the manned orbiter fleet, and could have been used to
flight test many modifications.
-Mike

On 7/9/2011 10:22 PM, Mike DiCenso wrote:

As for Enterprise, there were actually several such proposals, one of
the most intriguing of which in the mid-1990's was to convert OV-101
into an unmanned heavy lift freighter for ISS construction and
ressupply. Had that gone through, Enterprise would have had at least a
15,000 lb (6,818 kg) higher payload than the manned orbiters. This
capability would have been extremely useful in speeding up ISS
construction, both before and after the Columbia accident. Especially
since an unmanned Enterprise would have been largely immune to the
grounding of the manned orbiter fleet, and could have been used to
flight test many modifications.

The plan I got a kick out of was to take early Soviet Buran shuttles,
remove the wings and vertical tail fin, load them with nuclear warheads,
and launch them into orbit as manned or unmanned space bombers in
combination with a large military space station:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/ks.htm

Pat

On Jul 10, 4:07*am, Pat Flannery wrote:

The plan I got a kick out of was to take early Soviet Buran shuttles,
remove the wings and vertical tail fin, load them with nuclear warheads,
and launch them into orbit as manned or unmanned space bombers in
combination with a large military space station:http://www.astronautix.com/craft/ks.htm

The concept of stripping off orbiter parts to make a space station is
nothing unique there. As you may recall, the space station Option-C
heavy lift vehicle would have used Columbia's aft fuselage, while an
independent alternative concept to ISS proposed to strip an orbiter of
it's wings, wheels, fuel cells, vertical stablizer, then be outfitted
and launched with a permanent Spacelab module in the cargo bay, and a
large solar array wing very similar to the OAST-1 solar array flown on
STS-41-D to provide power.
-Mike