That tired old space bus.......

[JohnD]

All,
The national UK Sunday newspaper, associated with the Guardian, the Observer, has an article today about the history of the Shuttle, that contains a number of statements that surprise me. I'll let you read it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...covery-mission
and I'll look forward to comments from the informed.
JOhn

PS I misquoted the article in the title. Should be, "an old space bus that long ago served its purpose."

[The Jim]

list the statements that surprised you

[NEOWatcher]

I agree, I'd like to know what the surprising statements are.
Sure; it's a negative article, and I'm not thrilled with the presentation, but it's true. Especially from the point of view of a non-citizen who doesn't have national pride of the accomplishments to factor into the equation.
The only comment I have though is the intro:

Why, 30 years after the reusable rocket launcher threatened to make travel beyond Earth commonplace

Threatened?

[djellison]

I don't see any surprising statements either. Seems like a good account of events.

[Garrison]

I think it was a very cogent piece and right on the money when it says that the shuttle should have been treated as an experimental vehicle, in those terms it was a success in that it provided a lot of lessons that could be learned from for future projects, whether they have been is another matter.

[Van Rijn]

I think it was a very cogent piece and right on the money when it says that the shuttle should have been treated as an experimental vehicle, in those terms it was a success in that it provided a lot of lessons that could be learned from for future projects, whether they have been is another matter.

In the early '80s, I fully expected there would be a second generation Space Shuttle by 2010, and a third generation at least be in the planning phase by now. Also, I expected that there would have been private Shuttles, or some similar reusable, privately flown, spacecraft now.

I don't think the Shuttle was a failure, it's just that we didn't follow up, build something that was more reliable, more reusable than rebuildable, something that could be flown often and safely.

And, yes, the article doesn't surprise me.

[Garrison]

In the early '80s, I fully expected there would be a second generation Space Shuttle by 2010, and a third generation at least be in the planning phase by now. Also, I expected that there would have been private Shuttles, or some similar reusable, privately flown, spacecraft now.

I don't think the Shuttle was a failure, it's just that we didn't follow up, build something that was more reliable, more reusable than rebuildable, something that could be flown often and safely.

Yeah if only someone was working on something like that; oh wait!:

Skylon

[Van Rijn]

Yeah if only someone was working on something like that; oh wait!:

Skylon

I have serious doubts about Skylon, but I would be very happy if they succeed.

[JohnD]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be coy. I suppose I just don't kniow my Shuttle history well enough, if it there were things that you guys all knew about:
EGs
- NASA's "original idea of launching the shuttle, piggyback-style, on a specially designed, manned jet plane"
- "The Pentagon insisted that the shuttle be capable of flying ... over the poles ..... This requirement meant the shuttle would have to re-enter the atmosphere on courses that needed far more robust, far heavier thermal insulation."
- "the Pentagon simply abandoned the shuttle; it closed down its special $3bn launch facility in California " When that was there, not as an alternate in bad wetaher etc. but to take the never-happened polar flights.

John

[djellison]

In the context of this community - I'd have considered all of those to be common knowledge?

[Damburger]

The article seems fairly typical of this sort of thing.

I have the feeling people at the inception had expectations that space systems would advance at a similar pace and in a similar manner to aviation system, ignoring orders of magnitudes of complexity. They figured that if the Saturn V was their Wright Flyer, then by 1980 then spacecraft should be where aircraft were in WW1: cheaper, more reliable, mass produced.

[kamaz]

if it there were things that you guys all knew about:
EGs
- NASA's "original idea of launching the shuttle, piggyback-style, on a specially designed, manned jet plane"

Yes. Learned that from a text on the development of STS, published ca. 1985 on my side of the Iron Curtain.

If you have a few hours, here is a series of MIT lectures about STS. They are very informative: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronauti...lecture-notes/

[kamaz]

The article seems fairly typical of this sort of thing.

I have the feeling people at the inception had expectations that space systems would advance at a similar pace and in a similar manner to aviation system, ignoring orders of magnitudes of complexity. They figured that if the Saturn V was their Wright Flyer, then by 1980 then spacecraft should be where aircraft were in WW1: cheaper, more reliable, mass produced.

Well, if you look at EELV, they are cheaper, mass produced and reliable. The only problem is that NASA somehow does not want to use them for ferrying people.

In one of these MIT lectures I have linked above the lecturer says that the shuttle has met all of the parameters requested back in 1970s except for turnaround time (which, in turn, has driven up price per flight). That statement has pretty much shocked me.

[djellison]

The only problem is that NASA somehow does not want to use them for ferrying people. .

Untrue - it is politicians who don't want that to occur. Clearly, the orig form of the new budget had a lot of cash for commercial crew which could very well have been Atlas / Delta / Falcon etc.

[Damburger]

Well, if you look at EELV, they are cheaper, mass produced and reliable. The only problem is that NASA somehow does not want to use them for ferrying people.

Hardly comparable: they are not produced anywhere near the scale aircraft were at the equivalent time after the first flight (1903/1957) - also, you may have noticed how aircraft aren't tossed away after every use.

In one of these MIT lectures I have linked above the lecturer says that the shuttle has met all of the parameters requested back in 1970s except for turnaround time (which, in turn, has driven up price per flight). That statement has pretty much shocked me.

Its not saying much, seeing as the turnaround time was going to be the killer feature which justified completely halting development of conventional rockets in favour of creating the shuttle

[kamaz]

Hardly comparable: they are not produced anywhere near the scale aircraft were at the equivalent time after the first flight (1903/1957) - also, you may have noticed how aircraft aren't tossed away after every use.

Well, if reusing ended up costing more then tossing away...

Its not saying much, seeing as the turnaround time was going to be the killer feature which justified completely halting development of conventional rockets in favour of creating the shuttle

That's the point. This statement means: "We have met all the objectives... except for the most important one!" That basically means that STS should have been killed after Challenger, and a new vehicle developed, because it became obvious that THE goal would never be reached.

[Van Rijn]

That's the point. This statement means: "We have met all the objectives... except for the most important one!" That basically means that STS should have been killed after Challenger, and a new vehicle developed, because it became obvious that THE goal would never be reached.

Unfortunately, the money and the will weren't available for a second generation design.

[Jens]

list the statements that surprised you

Actually, there was one that I found pretty surprising. "launch costs soared from Nasa's estimate of $7m a mission to almost $1bn..." I know cost overruns are pretty common in that area, but that's pretty radical. That's more than 100x.

[kamaz]

I know cost overruns are pretty common in that area, but that's pretty radical. That's more than 100x.

Not really. Keep in mind that the original plans were to launch once a week -- from two sites, that means 100 flights per year. Since most of the costs related to STS are fixed costs, and the average number of flights over the lifetime of the program works out to less then 5 per year -- you now have 20x overrun caused only by not maintaining the intended flight rate.

[joema]

Not really. Keep in mind that the original plans were to launch once a week -- from two sites, that means 100 flights per year...

In 1971 -- before the shuttle program was even approved -- Mathematica, Inc. did a hypothetical study which included weekly flights. That was just a study.

The shuttle program was not approved until 1972, and significant design changes were made through 1974. E.g, whether the orbiter would have air breathing engines. Such design changes obviously affect the achievable flight rate. You can't authoritatively project flight rate until the vehicle design and entire program infrastructure is frozen.

Also each shuttle flight requires an external tank (ET). Early on, NASA designed the production capacity of the Michoud ET facility to support the absolute maximum flight rate that might be achievable in the most optimistic real world case.

You build the infrastructure to support the maximum flight rate you actually might need.

That production capacity was 24 tanks per year. Michoud never achieved that much, but given extra work shifts in theory it was possible.

Given that manufacturing capacity and the original plan of two launch sites, that would have been about one flight per site per month on average -- at the maximum ET production rate.

Before the Challenger disaster in 1986, NASA thought they might eventually achieve 20 flights per year using both launch sites.

[Garrison]

In 1971 -- before the shuttle program was even approved -- Mathematica, Inc. did a hypothetical study which included weekly flights. That was just a study.

The shuttle program was not approved until 1972, and significant design changes were made through 1974. E.g, whether the orbiter would have air breathing engines. Such design changes obviously affect the achievable flight rate. You can't authoritatively project flight rate until the vehicle design and entire program infrastructure is frozen.

Also each shuttle flight requires an external tank (ET). Early on, NASA designed the production capacity of the Michoud ET facility to support the absolute maximum flight rate that might be achievable in the most optimistic real world case.

You build the infrastructure to support the maximum flight rate you actually might need.

That production capacity was 24 tanks per year. Michoud never achieved that much, but given extra work shifts in theory it was possible.

Given that manufacturing capacity and the original plan of two launch sites, that would have been about one flight per site per month on average -- at the maximum ET production rate.

Before the Challenger disaster in 1986, NASA thought they might eventually achieve 20 flights per year using both launch sites.

But it wouldn't be surprising to find that some unrealistic assumptions were built into the shuttle costings. After all if NASA had quoted $70 million per launch instead of $7million the shuttle might have been cancelled before it flew and if they had said $700million...

[Van Rijn]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be coy. I suppose I just don't kniow my Shuttle history well enough, if it there were things that you guys all knew about:
EGs
- NASA's "original idea of launching the shuttle, piggyback-style, on a specially designed, manned jet plane"
- "The Pentagon insisted that the shuttle be capable of flying ... over the poles ..... This requirement meant the shuttle would have to re-enter the atmosphere on courses that needed far more robust, far heavier thermal insulation."
- "the Pentagon simply abandoned the shuttle; it closed down its special $3bn launch facility in California " When that was there, not as an alternate in bad wetaher etc. but to take the never-happened polar flights.

John

Here are my personal memories about those points (I'm not looking anything up, and I might not be fully up on this subject either):

- There were a lot of early concepts where the shuttle was to have a fully reusable booster, manned and flying back on its own. I remember the jet option, but I don't recall it being the only one. The fully reusable/flyback bit, though, was important. The ET and solid fuel boosters were definitely a later development (at one time too, there were to be liquid fuel boosters).

- The Pentagon had a lot of input on the design because this was supposed to be the spacetruck for everybody. This affected a lot of aspects of Shuttle design (cargo bay size, for instance). At one time there was even talk of a separate "blue shuttle" fleet.

- I believe the Pentagon backed out after the Challenger accident. Before that, there had been an ongoing issue of not enough flights for what everyone wanted to do. That was part of the reason for the accident (launching under questionable conditions to try to keep the flight rate up). I don't know if I would call it abandoning, since there were at least a couple of issues (there were only so many flights available and nobody wanted to use the Shuttle just for classified flights, but it was also obvious you didn't want to depend on the Shuttle for national security).

[The Jim]

In one of these MIT lectures I have linked above the lecturer says that the shuttle has met all of the parameters requested back in 1970s except for turnaround time (which, in turn, has driven up price per flight). That statement has pretty much shocked me.

that is wrong. It never achieved the mass to orbit requirements and many others.

[MaDeR]

AFAIK VIPs in space shuttle bussines knew from beginning that quoted numbers (turnaround time, cost of flight etc) are blatant lies.

[Hop_David]

AFAIK VIPs in space shuttle bussines knew from beginning that quoted numbers (turnaround time, cost of flight etc) are blatant lies.

This article on Robert F. Thompson (shuttle program manager 1970-1981) seems pretty damning:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/shuttle-03p1.html

[danscope]

Some of you act like STS accomplished nothing. You know, it wasn't designed to go to mars. Gripe, grumble.
But if you did have a craft which went to and retuyrned from mars,.... you'd need the shuttle to return the men and samples.
Probably close to the truth.

[kamaz]

Some of you act like STS accomplished nothing.

I strongly disagree. STS has accomplished a lot. The problem is that at one point it has turned into an economical disaster, directly endangering the future of the U.S. space program. In fact, with the incoming development of shuttle-based HLV, it's legacy will linger for another few decades.

[djellison]

Some of you act like STS accomplished nothing.

Who has acted like that in this thread?

[Garrison]

Some of you act like STS accomplished nothing. You know, it wasn't designed to go to mars. Gripe, grumble.

No, it was supposed to have been designed to make manned spaceflights cheap and frequent, that it didn't had a lot to do with political interference and poor management. The grumbling on the thread is to do with what it should have been, and what it might have led to with greater vision and determination. Sadly the legacy of the shuttle seems to be throwing away all the lessons learned about reusable spacecraft and keeping some 30 year old parts in service.

But if you did have a craft which went to and retuyrned from mars,.... you'd need the shuttle to return the men and samples.
Probably close to the truth.

Actually a bit of a reach. A mars mission could use whatever happened to be available for a return vehicle, nothing to stop it having it's own Apollo style capsule, you wouldn't need the shuttle.

[danscope]

Well it "Proved" that a large launch vehicle could go to leo, perform many different missions, and return to base after re-entry.
I think it did pretty well. Could it have been scaled down and economised? Yes. But the space plane concept worked quite well.
And we learned much from the two failures, both having to do with ice. Our problem now is budgets and the will to find important work to do
in space and justify the expense of manned missions. That is going to be a terrifying test by fire.
But the orbiter itself does it's job . It remains for engineers and not politicians and generals to build the next one , and do it well .