Science Fiction retiring

[Skybird]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7495302.stm

when I was at school, the orbiter was science fiction, an dhad not made it'S first flight. Thinking about it was magic, imagining it was fascinating and far from being routine. Now that era comes to an end. How fast time is passing by.

[mcf1]

They fly for so many years, bringing satellites, modulles e.t.c
they've done their job well.
I'm sure when the last mission is complete there's gonna be a celebration just like the one when the concorde was retired.

[UnderseaLcpl]

The use of rocket propulsion in spaceflight has always puzzled me. Why not use jet engines to obtain near-orbital flight and then switch to rockets. Surely this would be more efficient?
Of course, I am no rocket scientist, so perhaps this approach would present difficulties I have not considered.

[Raptor1]

Why would you carry both Jets and Rockets?

Besides, I think Rockets provide more thrust anyway...

When is the replacement coming into service?

[UnderseaLcpl]

Why would you carry both Jets and Rockets?

Besides, I think Rockets provide more thrust anyway...

When is the replacement coming into service?

Jets get you into near orbit levels much more efficiently, assuming they are mounted on an aerodynamic platform. Then the rocket thrust is needed only briefly to boost you into orbit at altitudes where jet engines cannot function. Compare the fuel usage of a high-altitude spyplane like the SR-71 or the U-2 with a conventional rocket propulsion system.

Keep in mind that a private entity (this is solely from memory) created a spacecraft for $1,000,000 or less. I can't even guess at what a space shuttle and attendant boosters cost, much less the fuel to power them.

[Raptor1]

Why would you carry both Jets and Rockets?

Besides, I think Rockets provide more thrust anyway...

When is the replacement coming into service?
Jets get you into near orbit levels much more efficiently, assuming they are mounted on an aerodynamic platform. Then the rocket thrust is needed only briefly to boost you into orbit at altitudes where jet engines cannot function. Compare the fuel usage of a high-altitude spyplane like the SR-71 or the U-2 with a conventional rocket propulsion system.

Keep in mind that a private entity (this is solely from memory) created a spacecraft for $1,000,000 or less. I can't even guess at what a space shuttle and attendant boosters cost, much less the fuel to power them.

But then you have to carry both Jet fuel and Rocket fuel into orbit, making the system much more complicated and adding to the weight

[Platapus]

A jet/rocket shuttle has been thought about. Back in the 1970's when the concept of the STS was being bantered about, a jet powered shuttle was conceived of that would lift the rocket based orbiter to high altitudes and then separate.

The manned jet shuttle would return back to earth and the rocket orbiter would blast off in mid air.

A complicated and expensive concept. With the budget cuts in Nasa in the late 1970's compromises had to be made with the STS.

That, unfortunately, is what happened. Technological, cost, schedule compromises were made between the initial concept and the final model.

Few of the people I work with like the STS, but given the economic and political environment as well as the technical limitations in the 1980's, the STS was the best we could get.

[Blacklight]

I'm a little sad to see the Shuttle go, but at the same time I'm a little happy. That machine is the most technologicly advanced spacecraft ever built.... but it's also the most dangerous. It has pretty much no escape mechanisms for the crew (And the one escape mechanism that does work would be impossible to implement in the event of an accident so it's useless), and they still have the problems with the foam shedding off the fuel tank which is a blatant design flaw that they knew about since the first shuttle launch (Just like they knew about the O-Ring burnthroughs before the Challenger accident).

I should hope that the next vehicle is designed safety first unlike the shuttle.
(They only put ejection seats on it's first mission for pete's sake and those would have killed the astronauts anyway.. it would have ejected the astronauts right into the plume of the rocket engines.:o )

[Respenus]

I just hope NASA will be smart enough and lisen to these (http://www.directlauncher.com/) guys. Looks like they've found a good solution to the Shuttle replacement problem.

It's too bad the Shuttle will retire. As long as I remember it has been the simbol of space flight and together with the Saturn system one of my favourite rockets to date.

[Blacklight]

Hopefully, someday, this will be the future of spaceflight.

http://www.liftport.com/