I have just been to a car boot sale (I lead a high octane kind of life) and purchased a nice book about the Space Shuttle from its glory days (1984) for a few pennies.

First of all I would like to let my position on this be clear in that I am not doing this as an advocate of let's knock NASA. There is some awesome engineering in the shuttle and some brilliant minds have solved some very complicated problems. It is much easier to criticize than to do and we all know about the benefits of hindsight. Problems are not caused by willful acts of negligence, but by communication failures and the sheer difficulty of Space Travel.

Should we have not build the Shuttle at all and stuck with the BDB (big dumb boosters)? The cost per kilo to Earth orbit is apparently higher via the Shuttle than stuff like Ariane otherwise everyone would use the Shuttle for their satellites instead.

However lets just assume that we have and it has the same history we have now. What can we do to turn it into a world beater?

I read somewhere that the Space Shuttle design was compromised by its dual role of missions for the USAF. In my book there seems to be a requirement for short turn arounds on mission launches.

Certainly solid fuel rockets are generally a military requirement because of quick launch turnarounds. Liquid fuelled stuff is much safer because you can shut the engine down once it is switched on.

I think the Russian Shuttle had liquid fuel boosters but looking at the figures I'm not so sure if they could be replaceable.

The book shows: Shuttle main engine thrust = 3*200 tonnes
Solid fuel boosters = 2*1300 tonnes!

Also I think the original aerodynamic shape was compromised because of miltary requirements.
Couldn't we just keep the engines and cabin and build a new body?

Is there a future for the current Shuttle with a re-design?
Certainly there does not seem to be any Shuttle replacement on the cards.

Are there any suggestions out there for turning the Shuttle into a world beater without spending too much money on it. History abounds with projects that needed just that lift to turn and also ran in to a world beater. (The P51 was a good plane but fitting the Merlin made it the best fighter of WWII. The Avro Manchester was a death trap, but out of necessity evolved the Lancaster an excellent night bomber)

Or should we just scrap it and concentrate on something else?

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IMO, the shuttle was a great design for it's time, however due to politics, bureaucracy, and yes, national pride, it was used far beyond it's scope and negated the serious development of alternatives. There are much more efficient, cheaper ways of doing exactly what the shuttle does. I believe the Russian got it right with their Soyutz program, but In the climate of the 80's, at the height of the cold war, no one DARED suggest the damned ruskies had a better idea.

Reuseable is not good if the cost of each launch exceeds the cost of launching a non-reuseable system.

I believe with the developments coming out of the Ansari X-Prize, and what Scaled compisites has designed, along with the designs of the other teams, much more efficient crafts will be coming out within the next 20 years. NASA and it's engineers are on the verge of being shoved out of the way because they do not want to give up their dinosaur programs.

Furthermore, when the bureaucracy comprimises safety, people will be less likely to support them. the public support for the shuttle program has waned. Like a good athlete, the shuttle should have been replaced while it was stll on top.

Don't even get me started on the ISS.

Oh I do want to mention, that I am a HUGE supporter of space exploration/travel. I just think it can be done safer, cheaper and quicker if the folks in charge would quit posturing and stop defending their little territories. Any scientist or engineer that ignores or fights a good idea soley because they fell personally slighted should not be allowed to continue in the business.

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Eagle Eye Observatory

I recall some information put out about the shuttle by the media before it first went up, which I think is interesting. It’s about the insulation tiles on the bottom of the shuttle. Back in the ‘60s some electronic engineers invented a computer-controlled lathe system that allowed any odd shaped object to be designed, on the drawing board, and then the information about the shape of the object could be programmed into a computer, and a big mechanical lathe would cut a square block of stuff (wood, metal, ceramics, etc) to perfectly match the shape in the original design. So when they were designing the shuttle and trying to figure out how to insulate the bottom of it for re-entry, they made the decision to make hundreds of separate tiles, each with a slightly different shape, using this computerized lathe system to cut each individual tile to exactly the right shape, and then glue the tiles onto the bottom of the shuttle.

Some critics back in the ‘70s and ‘80s said that while the lathe system works, and while the tiles themselves work, the glue system has a big defect which allows some of the tiles to fall off. Seems that all the shaking and vibration on take-off can warp the outside metal skin of the shuttle, breaking the solid glue contact on some of the tiles. And apparently they still use the glue to hold the tiles on.

My solution is SCRAP NASA!!!

The bureaucracy of NASA was a reconstruction of the bureaucracy the builders of it used during their previous rocket program, the V2. A principal of that bureaucracy was that some of the producers of the equipment had reason to sabotage the product. To assure quality in that environment part of the bureaucracy was designed with tremendous oversight of the workers to maximize the risk that a sabtour (or even a simple mistake on production would get caught.

NASA in the push, push, push atmosphere of the cold war's space race was given a more than free hand to exersize nearly the same bureaucratic power.

Werner Von Braun got all the money, power and national pride behind him to suport him in a push, push, push to do what he really wanted to do, build a moon rocket. He built it, it worked, yahoo for our side.

But the contractors always chafed, squirmed and sometimes outright rebelled against the demands, particulary the bureaucratic oversight (chain of custody and quality assurance testing paperwork ) demands of the NASA bureaucracy. Which also increased costs enourmously.

After Apollo, NASA had to build ships that not only had to work but had to work well, with lower budgets, producing a less expensive product like any other organization that has been doing somthing for decades.

But, ask any bureaucrat, a bureaucracy is almost imposible to change. NASA did not change. Suppliers and subcontractors have complained for decades of problems with the NAZI bureaucracy.

A good bureaucracy adapts its designs to existing products and cultivates preexisting producers to maybe adapt its prduct to better suit the needs of the organization. NASA doesn't do this enough. We've long heard of the NASA tendency to have a negative "Not made here"(by NASA) attitude.

A small cadre of men can never think of everything especially not as much as the people who build the stuff and when you look at the "Is made here" (by NASA) stuff. It looks like backyard high school science projects, it works like crap and it costs like jewelery. Because there are not enough of the right people "trusted" by the "bureaucracy" to know what they are doing.

There are people (besides NASA) who build very complex machinery very reliably. Hundreds of thousands of people fling their lives through near outer space in very complex jet aircraft with a much higher success rate than NASA, or any other decendant of the NAZI V2 bureaucracy has ever had. Though to be fair, there are some that have had and are having more success than NASA. The Russians, the French, who knows, maybe someday the Chinese.

Jets are less complicated, go 200 times longer between overhauls than piston aircraft and rockets are simpler than jets.

Sure you could say "the Space Shuttle was good for its day", "But it's an old design". For the cost of one shuttle turnaround you could by 3 brand new 747s with all their modern computers, avionics, jets, airframes and all and stick 'em in the shuttle.


Of course there are benifits to upper bureaucratic NASA personel to have a lot of money to dispose of producing a crappy product with little technically capable budgetary oversight.

When Arianne launches it doesn't even make the paper, when NASA launches everyone chatches their breath.
Think about it.

I'm getting too old to wait much longer....

Let's unleash the anti-grav drives and get a REAL SPACE PROGRAM!!!



hmmm

Did somebody hide my soapbox?

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Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

- Jesus -

Why would you want to put a 747 in the Shuttle?

You do realise that 747s don't go into space, or even LEO

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I was hoping to stick to the subject of the space shuttle rather than NASA as a whole.

There are series of arguments out there on the Web basically saying that NASA is a branch of government and therefore inherently inefficient. Bureaucrats make their niches in the quiet pools away from the raging torrents of free enterprise. That same free enterprise climbs daintily into bed with the government as it is given a blank cheque on open ended contracts.

I don't think the facts show this to be the case. Ever since the space program delivered its required political result of a man on the moon before the Russkies, NASA has been considered by both parties as a drain on the nation's wealth. Budgets have been slashed and it has been under intense scrutiny to deliver value for money. It in no way represents a safe haven for bureaucrats, nor has it had the unlimited budget it once had to develop the moon program.

Coming back to the shuttle here's some figures from NASA's budget plan to upgrade the 4 shuttle orbiters they had then in 1999.

Replace hydrazine aux power units with safer electrics $224M
Monitoring system for 3 main engines $108M
Russkies to Upgrade engine nozzles with less welds $400M

Source

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3006nasa.html

Now here are some real figures. I'm not an aerospace engineer, but I would appreciate someone in 'the know' who could tell me if NASA is paying through the nose for this or not.

__________________
But wait... There's more!

Adopt Energiya/Buran.
www.k26.com/buran

I used to idolize NASA. These days I think there are some very good people there and there are certain things they should continue to do, but I have absolutely no expectation that they will develop manned space in any useful fashion. After X-33, especially - which was so obviously wrong in so many ways - it is clear that system just isn't going to do it.

So if you want to see an improvement on the shuttle, look into developing laws that promote private space efforts.

The shuttle was a useful prototype, but it is time to move on.

with the developments over the last year, Private enterprise is going to hose NASA and the Shuttle Program. Corporations aren't beholden to porkbarrel contracts and therefore will do what it takes to do it fast, safe, and cheap. I would look for an fast turn around orbiter in the next 5 years. Once that happens, it's just a matter of time before we get a LEO stepping stone to the moon. IMO, the moon is the stepping stone to mars. Sure there will be deaths and tragedies, but they won't be as "Shocking" as our sweetheart shuttles coming apart.

I am not belittling the deaths, they are shocking, but we need a little perspective. I would think that in peace time, the military loses 7 people a month in accidents. I bet we lose 7 cops or 7 firefighters a week. Why does a (NASA) astronaut get elevated to hero status and no one else does?

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The More I learn, The More Ignorant I Become

Eagle Eye Observatory

NASA will be better under Griffin--if the politico's aren't misled by the empty promises of the "privatize space" frauds who have nought but toys for their efforts.

Nice flamebait there, publiusr. We'll just have to wait and see where private space development goes in the next couple of decades. Meanwhile, we have plenty of experience with "business" as usual when it comes to the NASA manned space program. A change of director is not going to change the system.

err WHAT? 'splain please

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Eagle Eye Observatory

My concern is another successful Shuttle mission...not no mission. A successful mission will mean more of the same floundering for another 5 years. Time to cut bait and put resources into a fresh option.

We know the Shuttle works. It just doesn't accomplish the most important variable: efficient, practical and economic access to space. The Shuttle is incredible technology and the quicker that technology is used in new designs the better.

The current numbers success/failure run about even - an on/off switch is rarely the main determinate in mission safety. Burt's ship used a hybrid (liqued solid) engine. It is even possible to make throttle-able totally solid systems.

This demonstrates the advantage of solid boosters: compare the size of the space shuttle fuel tank, generating 20% of the thrust, compared to the two booster crayons on either side. An entirely liquid shuttle would require at least triple the launch pad foot print. This is because liquid hydrogen and oxygen, in spite of the higher specific impulse, have very low density.

NASA has announced the Shuttle will not fly after 2010 - and they do not plan to let the scheduled retirement slip - in other words, if they get behind, they will cancel missions. Certain shuttle manufacturing lines, such as the metal used to fabricate the main fuel tanks, have already been told no more contracts will be awarded.

As far as replacements go, without the shuttle there is NO current man-flight rated system, so something needs to be developed for American manned flight to continue.

Whatever, we need a decision soon.

Day in and Day out there is not a bigger critic of NASA on this board than your's personnally, and I think scrapping NASA is a BAD idea.

There are within NASA specialists in navigation, oceanography, space communications, aerodynamics, and on and on and on that without a critical mass of experts, the science could be compromised or lost.

The shuttle used primarily 1960's technology, much of it developed in the Apollo and Minuteman programs. So comparison with the Ariannne system
is unfairly weighted. There is also the issue of manned verses robotic flight.

The space ship one drew a lot of press, but it was afterall, a few sub-orbital fights in a system that didn't sound much more stable than an X-15 flight fifty years ago. Is this a step forward or backward?

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

Jerry,
I think you may have missed the point of my post.

Though I suspect that even if NAZA was scraped, the non bureaucratic personel, contractors and subcontractors would rebuild some parts of the NAZI bureaucratic structures out of simple conditioning and that a completely new launch strategy like lighter than air lofted maglev rail launch techniques would have to be developed seperately from NAZA just to get suppliers out of the habit of reflexive NAZA bureaucratic technique.

I totally agree with those that say Nasa is an inefficient bureaucracy that is actually preventing space exploration, especially since I read Lost in Space - The Fall of NASA and the dream of a New Space Age by Greg Klerkx.

And those who say that Space Ship One is a 'toy", tell me please, with 25 million budget, what would NASA do? Rutan is helping people dream of space again, and soon people will be routinely doing suborbital. When a profiatable industry is established, then there is no stopping it. If the world depends on government space agencies, we'll be earthbound for centuries.

"tell me please, with 25 million budget, what would NASA do?

NASA would do pretty much 'nothing'....not a lot less than it does with the billions spent o manned space flight.

Who has put a man in space in the last 2 years? Russia, China and a private company. NASA...ZIP!

I still maintain that NASA is going to fade into obscurity. It will take some time, but once Private Enterprise starts gaining ground, I's going to be much more difficult for NASA to justify a budget. The only way for NASA to stay afloat will be to move to a purely military agency, OR lobby for there to be restriction on private launch. However if they attempt the Latter, it wouldn't be too tough for a company to move to some island like Tahiti, outside the reach of US laws governing launch licensing.

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The More I learn, The More Ignorant I Become

Eagle Eye Observatory

The last time I checked, NASA had a pretty full scientific platter: Two Mars robots and two Mars orbiter, Cassini, Deep Impact, The Mercury Messinger, Hubble, Gravity Probe B, New Horizons, Pluto mission, scheduled to launch in January 2006, Wild 2, The Webb telescope - and others. (If we can only talk them into sharing the data.)

Check the numbers, as a bureaucracy, NASA is thin.

For 25M, Rutan didn't do anything NASA couldn't do in 1955, and returned zero scientific data. The composite materials and rocket technology he used were primarily developed for NASA or military applications.

It is nice to have people dreaming again, but don't forget Ronald Reagen gas-bagged about growing commercial space applications two decades ago. Aside from communications, nothing has matured.

If we want space to be anything more than a place for gas-guzzling joy rides for the rich-and-famous, governments are needed to set and finance scientific priorities.

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

Thank you. the space-libretarians talk smack but all they have is an ME 163 Komet dropped from under a learjet.

Big f'ing whoop.

Actually, there were at least two big innovations in Rutan's design. The "feathered" wing configuration and rockets based on hybrid "safe" fuel are major steps forward as far as commercialization is concerned.

Comparing SpaceShipOne to a Komet is like comparing a modern 787 to a de Havilland Comet. They look vaguely similar and have the same general design features-- but I think I'd rather fly in the 787.

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

Hybrid fuel advances came from SpaceDev--that has a better orbital design for Dream Chaser--which is just X-34. The shuttlecock design is doubtfull to say the least at orbital speeds--and is something else to break.

SS1 was like Lindbergh's Deathtrap--X-34 would be more like the 707--the plane that really revolutionized transatlantic flight--not lucky lindy's contraption.

Rocket technology has evolved considerably over the last 30 years, but NASA is extremely reluctant to slap a 'Man-rated' label on anything that has not flown in prior 'man-rated' flights - so it is a Catch-22 proposition: we want an updated system using proven, man-rated hardware.

Rutan's first manned use of hybrid technology should give NASA something to think about.

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

Cool as Dream Chaser is, SS1 has actually flown. That Rutan was able to incorporate a rocket engine basically built by a competitor shows the resourcefulness and dexterity of small businesses--and their real advantage over NASA.

I'll grant that the shuttlecock probably won't work (without a two stage descent design) at orbital speeds, but that wasn't SS1's goal anyway. I'm sure Rutan has something else in mind for LEO, and in the meantime he has a suborbital craft with designed-in safety.

I do wonder if hybrid engines have the energy density to be scaled up to orbital flight economically, but the higher intrinsic safety might actually make the system cheaper to operate.

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

Actually, biggest obstacle is FAA regs. If you want commercial flight, it has to have a safety rating way better than one fatal crash every thirty-five flights or so (that being roughly the STS record up to Columbia). And so far, the Rutan rocket has - one? Two? Plus, how are these to be regulated with regards to takeoff and landing, flight plans, and so on. Tracking? Black boxes? EPA environmental impact of multiple rocket flights and downwind tracking of pollutants? Health effects of storage and potential discharge of this rocket fuel around commercial airports?

This is new territory, with no really commercial rocket-powered vehicles as a precedent.

Consider the difference between a suborbital flight and orbital flight to 100km

For a suborbital flight we can consider that the kinetic energy is zero at the apex of the flight - it's gone as high as it can go. Thus the energy cost is purely potential energy.

(This is a simplification in that the vehicle will tend to have the trajectory of a projectile and the horizontal component of the velocity will not necessarily be 0 but the vertical will. But you could offer suborbital flight to 100km to paying customers by going straight up and then straight down which is the case I illustrate. The point is that space travel is not just about getting to a certain height)

Potential energy in earth's gravitational field at sea level −62.6 MJ/kg
At 100km, the potential energy is −61.6 MJ/kg

Cost to travel to 100km 1 MJ/kg

Now consider the speed required for orbit at 100km. This is 7.8 Km/s.
Using 0.5*v^2 we obtain kinetic energy = 30.4 MJ/kg.

now if we have the best case of an equator launch the initial speed is 460 m/s and the ke saved is 0.1 MJ/kg

Cost to orbit at 100km = Potential + Kinetic cost
= 1 + 30.3 = 31.3 MJ/kg

THIS IS 30 TIMES THE SUBORBITAL COST!

Now look here we have a full one and a half orders of magnitude of a difference of engineering problem. As well as supplying the energy there is the problem of getting rid of the energy in re-entry.

Thats why it took so long for NASA to emulate the Russkies with Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin and why their achievement was so astonishing.

The achievements of Ratan are fantastic, but he will not tell you these facts because it makes NASA and the rest seem so far ahead.

This is why we are stuck with the shuttle or big dumb boosters for a long time and hence my thread to come up with ideas to sort the old girl out.

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Hello!
I am not a big fan of NASA simply because they are a government agenmcy and because the let Von Braun down once he had done his job (take a look at his last Mars mission design, sooo cool). Well they were not able to pull anything useful off by themselves once he was gone.
Thats just my personal opinion though.
They made a lot of mistakes in the past that has slowed down RLV- development signifficantly.

1. The Shuttle never was a great design. It tried to be too many things at once. Heavy lifter, lab, crew transport, EVA- platform, etc. In addition to this it had to have a large crossrange, since the airforce needed that for military missions (so the shuttle could always reach a friendly territory during the cold war).
To get all this they had to make a lot of compromises in the design, which lead to the problems we see now.

2. They are always handing money to the big corporations and rarely get something for it (other than way overrun budgets). I would like to see them to fund an orbital RLV- contest simillar to the Xprice but with more money involved. I think the return would be much better...

3. That was the fault of the Airforce as much as NASAs:
They dropped the development of the DC-X in favour of that completely overambitious Lockmart design for the X33.
Then once Lockmart had overrun the budget multiple times, people at NASA came to the weird conclusion that RLVs are not doable with current technology. Well the X33 was not doable, but the DC- X (or many other designs) would have worked, I am sure!

4. The CEV is not the best idea IMHO. The designs from Lockmart and Boeing are nothing but ridiculous and I am predicting vast budget and time overruns on their side already. Who wants to hold the bet?

5. To answer the question of the threadstarter: I think that an orbital RLV has to be fully reusable and needs to have a fast turnarround time. It should be a VTVL and not a VTHL.
No wings please!

6. I agree that Suborbital is far from Orbital, but it is a first step and something the guys at NASA thought to be impossible too (for a private company without a huuuge budget given to them by the government) until Burt Rutan proved them wrong. I had the pleasure of seeing him speak in Austin and he sure has a vision. Part of this vision is private, manned, orbital spaceflight within his lifetime. I think that he can actually do it.

CU
Skipjack

Now that I have looked into potential verus potential and kinetic energy I want someone to explain to me how the space elevator is going to provide the kinetic energy because it has always been explained as a device to slowly raise things higher.

Using an aircraft to launch a bit like using a ramp on a pyramid will get the Pe there by climbing slowly but will not get the ke. Infact the higher it goes the less time it will have to accelerate to 7km/s forcing it to go through even higher accelerations.

On entirely a different note I watched Uk channel 5 about the faking of the moon landings and it entirely dismissed all of the arguments.

Someone on that show described the consprators theorists of being jealous of the fantastic achievement of landing a man on the moon.

I think they are right. God bless the people that did it!

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The differences between suborbital and orbital flight is hardly a secret. The problem is that you are focusing on the engineering and not looking at the rest of the picture. Because of the X-Prize and SpaceShipOne, we now have law set in place for private space development and private interest has increased greatly. Space is now seen as a real possibility, not pure pie in the sky. Suborbital flight provides an incremental development path towards orbital flight and will hopefully make money along the way. I think private space will put people in orbit in a decade, 15 years at the outside.