Some years ago, NASA produced a Feasibility Analysis of Cislunar Flight Using the Shuttle Orbiter—as you might infer, a study on flying a Space Shuttle (refueled in orbit), to the moon. Also, as you might infer, this was not deemed a particularly practical idea. For many different reasons.
However, my question is about something not covered in the report; namely, would you have to put the Orbiter into a “Passive Thermal Controll Roll” (aka a “Barbeque Roll”), a la the Apollo missions, to ensure even heat distribution over the surface of the spacecraft? The Shuttle obviously being a very different spacecraft from an Apollo, as is the travel time (a 5-day Hohmann transfer, at least as figured in the Feasibility Analysis).
I know for a fact there are at least two people here qualified to answer this bizarre question. Can…either of you help?
The BBQ roll was required because they were not certain that the heat shield would maintain its integrity if it was subjected to a wide thermal stress. There wasn’t time or budget to redesign the heat shield and the BBQ roll was instituted as a perfectly good way of avoiding the problem.
The SST has a totally different heat shield system, and the rationale doesn’t apply. Moreover the SST needs to face it’s heat radiators away from the sun. These form the inside faces of the cargo bay doors. This is why the SST must open the doors within a set time of reaching orbit, and why the SST orbits upside down. Thus one would expect that a journey to the moon would be flown with the vehicle oriented so the belly faced the sun, and there would be no BBQ roll.
I have nothing to add to Francis Vaughn’s correct and comprehensive response to the question (which is an entirely reasonable and cogent query) other than to point out that the ‘barbecue roll’ maneuver is done as a means to ensure that the spacecraft is at thermal equilibrium during some phase of flight (usually prior to deployment of solar panels and mechanisms) to assure that the effects of thermal stress–in particular, deformation of external skin and structure–is minimized and the function of any deployable mechanisms is assured. On solid propellant ‘kick’ motors, which are used to push a satellite from LEO to a geotransfer orbit or interplanetary transfer injection, they are typically rolled both for thermal conditioning (so one side of the propellant grain doesn’t burn faster than the other and result in a mass imbalance) and stability (for fixed nozzle systems, though this spin rate is faster than a typical thermal equilibrium roll). Once the stage is expended or the spacecraft is ready to deploy solar panels or inflatable mechanisms the roll rate is cancelled, either by a cold gas roll control system (RCS) or by deployable opposed counterweights referred to as a ‘yoyo de-spin’ system. (If observation of the nomenclature you are starting to get the notion that launch vehicle and spacecraft designers are basically a bunch of kids who never grew up, you wouldn’t be far wrong.)
Another thing to note about the Shuttle Orbiter is that Ku-band antenna used for primary communications on-orbit via the Tracking and Relay Data Satellite System (TDRSS) are located in the payload bay. At LEO there are typically at least two TRDS in line of sight of the Orbiter; however, if the Orbiter were to somehow venture beyond GEO, it would have to have the payload bay pointing back at the Earth, which would obviously be problematic if this were done during the period that the Moon is on the outward side of its orbit around the Earth. (Whether the Orbiter would have sufficient gain to receive from TDRSS on either the Ku-band or S-band channels at Lunar distance is questionable.) So you would have two conflicting requirements; the need to face the radiators away from the Sun to maintain the Orbiter temperature, and the need to face it toward the Earth for communications.
You can readily see the problems in trying to adapt a spacecraft system designed for one specific purpose to another to which it is poorly suited, and why such systems are expensive to develop and prone to unanticipated failures. Even simulating the space thermal vacuum environment in ground testing for spacecraft-sized systems is extremely challenging, and there are only a few facilities around the world that can perform this kind of testing. You can also see what a challenge thermal management is for spacecraft; unlike systems on Earth, which can use air or fluid convection cooling to dump heat to the ambient environment, spacecraft can only radiate heat away to the 3.7 K microwave background at a rate which is governed largely by the complexity of the thermal transfer system built into the spacecraft systems and the amount of space-facing radiator surface area available. (A few spacecraft do have auxiliary or emergency evaporative cooling systems, but because this produces the potential for contamination and net thrust, not to mention the fact that the lifetime of the spacecraft is limited by the amount of onboard coolant, this is not a general solution.)
Power-generating spacecraft also have to radiate away the waste heat produced by onboard systems as well as that absorbed from solar radiation. Fortunately, modern solid state avionics and communications systems can operate at much lower power levels and gains than older discrete solid state systems (albeit at a cost of greater sensitivity to radiation effects) which has allowed for both more functionality and a significantly less complex cooling system compared to older spacecraft. Many smallsats operate at power levels comparable to a handheld radio and have no active cooling systems at all, relying only on insulation and passive radiation to maintain the thermal environment. However, once you start to add more functionality to a spacecraft, like cooled optics, high power transmission, or habitable environments, you have to also add a cooling system, and since the failure of that system may result in loss of spacecraft and mission, you have to design it for highly reliable operation and/or construct redundant systems, which contributes to greater mass and complexity which has to be boosted to orbit and protected against loads and environments.
Stranger
Aha—I suspected as much, but thank both of you for confirming it, and for the fascinating and informative extra data.
I love this place. 
Yep. Ours peaks at around 8 watts (when the radio is transmitting), and is more like 1 watt on average. This is enough to keep things at something resembling room temperature. The device is a chunk of mostly aluminum and will stay pretty close to thermal equilibrium. Cube-square scaling laws are very helpful in our size range (~10 cm cube).
I suppose you could stick a dish on the end of the Canadarm.
2.7 K, but of course it makes no difference here…