The strangest space vehicle

[TG626]

The sts big accomplishments were convincing the soviets to waste money on Buran, and getting Nixon votes in socal.

Imagine where we might be if we had moved forward with Apollo...

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by TG626

Imagine where we might be if we had moved forward with Apollo...

Some more guys would have their names in the history books, and we'd have a bigger rock collection.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Wolferz]

Originally Posted by TG626

The sts big accomplishments were convincing the soviets to waste money on Buran, and getting Nixon votes in socal.

Imagine where we might be if we had moved forward with Apollo...

The whole reason for the space program in the first place has been revealed in a Transformers movie.

Has anyone else noticed that Ted looks a lot like a certain Mythbuster?

[NeonSamurai]

Originally Posted by Platapus

I have a different opinion. The STS was nice while it lasted but needed to be killed. The design had too many political, economic, and technical compromises. Some of which prevented any real major improvements.

The re-useability was mostly in name only as we were never able to turn the orbiter around for another flight without major repairs and inspections. It is unfortunate that the concept of re-useability added a lot of the cost and did not really garner that much of a benefit. The cost in the terms of pounds to low earth orbit were much higher in this "re-usable" system.

In 1995, when I wrote my paper, using the STS cost $6,000 per pound into LEO. Using the 100% expendable S1B (one of the more expensive systems we had), it cost $2,000 per pound in LEO.

Umm I think there is something is a little off with your math (or maybe it's my sources).

According to NASA, each launch with the SST in today's dollars cost an average of about $470 million, and could lift 53,600 lbs to LEO.

The Saturn 1B cost $310 million in today's dollars, but could only lift 46,000 lbs to LEO

The shuttle cost $8770 per pound of payload to LEO, while the Saturn 1B cost $6740 per pound of payload to LEO.

For fun the Saturn V cost $1.19 billion in today's dollars per launch and could lift 260,000 lbs to LEO. So it would cost $4580 per pound of payload to LEO.


So amazingly the massive Saturn V's were the most cost effective platform of the three. The only problem with them was their capacity was way to high for most missions (even if you stacked a whole raft of satellites together, it still is not cost effective for those purposes). But I believe the Russian launchers are even more cost effective. Of course it helps that those rockets were massed produced unlike any of the Saturn rockets.

Anyhow the shuttle had its uses and could do things no other craft could as easily. Such as satellite repair or recapture to be brought back down, running many experiments, carrying a large crew compliment, and I believe it was rather useful in building the ISS. But as for its intended purpose to lower costs while acting as a lifting platform, that it clearly failed in.

[Platapus]

I was just using the numbers I got from NASA sources back in 94.

[eddie]

John Young, who flew on the first shuttle flight, has quite a history with NASA. Flew in Project Gemini, made 2 flights to the moon, drove the lunar rover on the lunar surface, and had 2 flights on the shuttle! What a career he had!

[Tango589]

Apropos absolutely nothing apart from idle wondering: now the Shuttle has gone the way of all things, what are they using to ping stuff into space? 1/2 mile of industrial strength knicker elastic and a troop of Boy Scout to pull it back?

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Tango589

Apropos absolutely nothing apart from idle wondering: now the Shuttle has gone the way of all things, what are they using to ping stuff into space? 1/2 mile of industrial strength knicker elastic and a troop of Boy Scout to pull it back?

Even with the STS the military still used Atlas/Delta rockets. For missions to the ISS we are still using Russia. The ISS was put in an orbit to make it easier for the Russians to get to it

[razark]

Originally Posted by eddie

What a career he had!

He flew everything except Mercury. And he only retired in 2004.

Originally Posted by Wolferz

I feel that NASA has accomplished the purpose for which it was created and can now turn things over to the private sector for all future slingshots.

I'd love to see NASA move on to exploration missions, such as a return to the Moon and trips to Mars, which aren't going to be profitable for a private company. Leave the LEO missions, ISS supply, and satellite launching to the private industry.

[Wolferz]

Nice synopsis there Neon.

Still, what have we got to show for all those dollars spent, other than an assembled space station? Many shuttle missions carried secret payloads of which we the folks who signed the credit card receipts know zip about.
Once the shuttles were finished with catching foreign satellites and installing the NSA *upgrades* their mission was over.

I feel that NASA has accomplished the purpose for which it was created and can now turn things over to the private sector for all future slingshots. The secret stuff can still be launched by the Air Force much cheaper.