When they fly the last space shuttle mission - why would they not just leave it at the ISS, with the pilot and reduced crew leaving the ISS on a Soyuz?
It would seem to me they could modify the shuttle to be more useful long term for the ISS, and they have already paid to get all the weight up into space. If it stayed surely a crew of 3 could get done as much as a crew of 6-7 given more time.
In addition to having more space to do their work, they would presumably have more spare parts and potentially an additional escape vehicle.
Other than the cost of an additional Soyuz trip (and maybe a reentry Soyuz module could even fit into the Shuttle’s cargo bay) - what would be the disadvantages of this?
Do the Shuttle and the Soyuz use the same docking point on the ISS? If so, it wouldn’t work. If they dock in different places then it could be considered.
I’m guessing the long term maintenance requirements of a Shuttle preclude it from being used as a long term escape option. Without ground maintenance to keep it in flying condition, it soon becomes an unusable vehicle. And if the ISS wasn’t designed to support a Shuttle long term, then what the heck do you do with it up there? Can’t fly it home, can’t keep it attached.
The space shuttle is just one component in a massive space program. Without constant maintenance and an army of engineers and other experts it’s a pretty useless paperweight. I dont think it would be economical to keep it anywhere outside of a museum.
It would quickly become a liability (another big thing to avoid in LEO, and another thing being hit by garbage), and I doubt the parts are usable in anything else but another space shuttle.
LEO is also not a perfect vacuum. Even though the amount of drag is very low, it is nevertheless present, and it does cost energy to keep something from falling out of orbit. I don’t know if the ISS is capable of sustaining the extra mass from the shuttle in orbit in the long term.
Mleh to the other posters. The OP sounds like a good idea to me.
The biggest downside, is that if it were to ever break away and its orbit begun to degrade, with all of those heat shields on that baby, it probably wouldn’t burn up on re-entry and just crash into some shopping mall in Dallas.
A Soyuz-TMA spacecraft could fit in the payload bay of the STS/Orbiter Vehicle (OV, colloqually known as “The Shuttle”) with plenty of space and capacity left over for restraint and deployment systems, but that is about the only thing workable about this scheme.
First of all, the Orbiter has a maximum operational mission length of about 16 days with the Extended Duration Orbiter (EDO) modifications. If powered down and sealed off so that batteries, fuel cells, and CO2 converters aren’t being consumed it could no doubt last longer, but it isn’t designed to remain on station indefinitely. If astronauts are inhabiting the Orbiter, then you’re using those consumables.
Second, there would be little point in having the Orbiter around for “spare parts”; there is virtually nothing on it that would be useful in making repairs or maintenance to the ISS.
Third, as a “space tug” the Orbiter is an abysmal vehicle, even if there were a reason for using it. The massive dead weight of the wings and enclosed payload bay use ridiculous amounts of fuel for small orbital changes. Several studies were conducted during the early 'Nineties when NASA was looking for a mission to replace the then seemingly canceled Space Station Freedom, and all concluded that the Orbiter and STS system was ineffective and undesirable for missions above LEO. (One of its original intended roles, to recover and return with satellites for repair and refurbishment, ended up not being cost effective.) Again, the Orbiter is not designed to remain on-orbit for extended periods of time (more than a couple of weeks) and will not be operational after a long storage period.
As an emergency crew return vehicle, the Soyuz capsule actually makes a lot more sense; save for the limitation of a paltry crew complement of 3, it is capable of landing on land or sea, and the blunt-arsed return mode is highly robust even for undesirable return vectors, whereas the Orbiter can only land on a handful of airstrips and has very limited available return vectors.
True but they could always bail out of the STS, you cannot bail out of a Soyuz capsule right? I know the fact of it just being attached costs thousands if not millions of dollars even though it can only land on a handful of runways, that “handfull” is more then one might think.
“Bail out” how, exactly? There is no ejection system in the Orbiter. (There were ejection seats in Columbia for the pilot and copilot, but these were removed after STS-4.) There is the Inflight Crew Escape System, but this is intended to be used in a contingency bailout abort mode, when the STS is going about 160 MPH; it would be of use upon re-entry only for the last couple (and least hazardous) minutes of flight. There is no bailing out before that time. And quite frankly, the ICES is window-dressing as a response to actions given in the Challenger accident investigation (even though such a system would have been of no use to the astronauts on that mission). No knowledgeable person has any faith in this system working even within the narrow regime for which it was designed.
Fly it up, offload everything, then detach it and via remote control, move it away from the ISS, then fire the motors to put it on a crash course with the moon.
The Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS)–the Orbiter Vehicle’s only on-orbit main propulsion system–doesn’t have nearly enough impulse to achieve a Trans-Lunar Injection trajectory.
When I replaced my car I thought it would be good to hold on to the old one, as it still ran. Also it would look like someone was home as there was a car in the driveway, so sort of a security system. I kept it for a few years, and ran it a few times just to keep it lubricated and all, but in the end it was just becoming a useless, though still drivable. hunk of metal. If in a emergency, like say I needed to drive to the hospital, it would have been safer to stay home or walk then risk driving that car.
The shuttle is only designed to be in space for a limited time, then requires a massive overhaul. Doesn’t sound like it would last nearly as long as my car if left up there unmaintained.
Also the shuttle seems like a difficult bird to fly, while the Soyuz seem more like get in, press the big red button labeled ‘return to earth’ (though probably labeled ‘Возвращение на Землю’ )and your done (Ok maybe not that easy).
to the other posters. The OP sounds like a good idea to me.