Are the space shuttles worth it?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Now I’m all for space explorizartion, colonization and exploitation. I figure we have to get off this rock before we use up all the resources needed to get us off.

But

The space shuttle system may be an inefficent way of doing it. It is very cool to have a reuseabe space plane (or a fleet of them) but can we do what we are doing with disposable rockets cheaper, better, faster?

When we build the SS’s, we knew that we were building a craft that should be able to do 100 flights, we expected many more launches, perhaps 12 a year was a conserative number, with 4 SS’s that would mean that they each should have lasted 25 years.

So on the safe side we were counting on the initial cost of the SS’s and ongoing costs to be cheaper then the costs of disposable rocket construction over the next 25 years. Taking into account advances in tech that disposable rockets could take advantage of to lower costs. Further taking into account the chance of one or more blowing up sometime before reaching the 100 flight number.

On the plus side having the SS system kind of insures that we will continue to have space exploration during lean years and during space unfriendly administrations since the initial costs were paid, we have the ships.

Also just to add I want MANNED (and WOMANED) missions not robots, damit.

2

Disposable? How much resource do you think there’s on earth, anyway?

3

yes like the early Mercury, Gemni, Apollo rockets or the titan rockets sometimes used.

starting at current usage rates, allowing for growth as humanity grows, I would wag about 500 to 2000 years before we’re hurting for some materials.

4

Not to mention that cheap spaceflight means that we can mine the Moon, Mars, and the asteroids for materials. For some things, say satellite launches, I’d WAG that one shot deals will always be cheaper than a reusable vehicle, but for manned flights, a space craft that’s at least partially reusable will eventually become cheaper than a one shot affair.