Thanks, it’s kind of fun to write them, too (at least, moreso than generating PowerPoint slides).
The aerospike concept may be decades old (actually the Germans looked at it during WWII for jet engines but determined it to be too complex and costly for the technology of the time), but it has never been flown on any man-rated or orbital launch grade booster. There are both significant advantages and disadvantages to the aerospike; needless to say, it would have been an extensive development project and a schedule risk to the STS development program (and would have been utterly necessary to get the propulsion performance for an SSTO like the SERV) at a time when NASA preferred a guarenteed single on base to a possible home run. There has been subsequent development on the aerospike in the past three decades, and it is definitely a technology that should be considered for future orbital booster development.
In looking through the previously cited Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space Transportation System, I’m not really seeing any conclusive numbers regarding STS operating costs; just a few items comparing Shuttle-deployed satellite payloads to those launched by commercial boosters and a noteworthy blurb on satellite capture and return costs (at which the Shuttle performed well, but at a cost that made it unviable). Again, it’s a fascinating book for anyone interested in Shuttle and space booster development, fully of pictures and information on various Shuttle concepts, operating details and problems, and proposed enhancements including fly-back liquid booster rockets, safety upgrades, the five segment booster now being used for the Ares I rocket, and Shuttle-derived vehicles such as the Magnum superheavy lift rocket and Shuttle-C and Shuttle-Z concepts. There’s also an appendix on the Sudden Ranch Space Launch Complex Six (SLC-6 or “Slick Six”) at VAFB which is one of the single largest boondoggles in USAF history (which is no mean feat).
The Cochrane thing was a Star Trek joke. And I was talking about NASA’s whole next generation manned space program which I mistakenly called Orion (that’s just the crew vehicle). I guess the launch vehicles are named Ares and the whole program is called Constellation.
My point was just that the whole Shuttle concept, with its non-stacked strap-on design and silly glider-landing mode, has been abandoned in favor of the original, more practical Apollo style. And that the shuttle will be little more than an historical footnote…
I saw Alan Lowell, captain of apollo 13, speak last summer. He was great. During the talk, he did lament the fact that the Saturn 5 was taken out of production. something along the lines of “it was a great mistake, the blueprints have disappeared and the contractors out of business. that was a great rocket.”
Although the Saturn V was effective (and to date, the most powerful rocket booster ever launched, and the second most powerful ever to see detail design) it was an expensive vehicle to build and integrate. High production would have resulted in lower costs due to economies of scale and amoritzation of initial development and tooling costs, but it’s unlikely it ever would have been a cost-effective vehicle; launch costs would still have been around $10,000/lb with a smaller crew complement than the STS. The Apollo Plus concept, which would have used a lengthened Saturn II second stage, an uprated IVB or possibly nuclear thermal motor for the third stage, and a somewhat larger capsule allowing a crew of six, conceptually identical to the current Orion CEV, would have allowed comperable crew complement and possibly higher payload, but would have required extensive propulsion development.
Von Braun’s Nova rocket, originally a competitor to and later a derivative of the Saturn family (depending on configuration) would have had more capacity yet but would have required an almost completely blank sheet development program and all new tooling. The Saturn was a hideously complex vehicle and suffered from a number problems (including the famous pogoing) that were never really resolved. No manned launch vehicle to date, save perhaps for the Soyuz booster, can really be considered a production-ready design in the sense of “your basic mature technology” like even advanced fighter aircraft.
Killing Saturn was a mistake in terms of eliminating manned access to space for the United States for nearly a decade (and thereby throwing, or at least accelerating, the manned space program into a slump from which it has never returned) but it was inevitably going to be replaced anyway, though in retrospect the winged STS was not the best choice to do this.