Inspired, or ignited, by this NY Times story, have we been wasting our time?
“Colossal Failure” and “Wasting our time” is harsh and I think overstates the situation a little - but not wildly.
I am no fan of the Shuttle and one of the best things Bush has done as President is retiring the Shuttle and putting a realistic “finish/declare victory and get out” date for the ISS… which was nmainly built to give the Shuttle something to do.
In fact, and having said that though, some of the Shuttle technology is being absorbed and incorporated into the CEV and the Moon initiative.
At the point in the decision tree** to go with the Shuttle did we make a bad mistake? Oh yes - a very bad one.
Was every single dollar spent on the Shuttle and its missions wasted and of no use e.g. is it a museum piece like the Spruce Goose with no value add to the Human Solar System Manifest Destiny? No that goes too far.
**Nixon’s Space Task Group in '69 recommended a vigorous human space program that included continuing lunar exploration. The vision was a couple of Apollo missions per year leading to a full-fledged lunar base - probably sometime in the 80’s. Nixon went with developing a reusable shuttle instead
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: It’s all Nixon’s fault.
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The main issue has been cost. In most ways it has succeeded quite well. It has just cost a lot of money. It has in no way been a waste.
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A very large part of the initial extra cost was due to Congressional delays. Congress kept slicing away some money each year during development, which of course just made things more expensive in the end. (A very common problem.) So the shuttle system didn’t get going when predicted (which meant the loss of Skylab, which has set back space station building a long ways, …) This also means that the “lifetime” of the shuttle system has been extended way beyond the tech era it was originally planned for. We should be using Shuttle System Mark 2.0 now.
(And cost pressures lead directly to poor management decisions which leads to Bad Things.)
- Going back to the Moon is an even greater expenditure of $ for even less benefit. Forget the Moon. The next President will kill that program immediately.
Forgive my naivety, but I thought the great thing about the Space Shuttle is that it is a (semi) resuable means to get into orbit.
Also, wouldn’t abandoning the Shuttle fleet just waste more money? What would the point of building all those Space Shuttles be in the first place?
That’s not quite right. The folks at NASA knew the shuttle wasn’t the best idea, but Nixon told them it was that or nothing at all (the Saturn V would have hit economies of scale if it had been continued), so NASA fudged numbers and launch dates in order to sway Congress. Mind you, the folks at NASA didn’t have any choice in the matter, since if they gave up, it would have spelled the end of the manned and unmanned programs, in all likelihood. I don’t think that there were ever any serious prospects of NASA being able to design a decent successor to the current shuttles, since the “cost overruns” and “program delays” shot NASA’s cred with Congress. If Reagan had had any balls, he’d have pushed through a replacement program in the wake of Challenger.
Not necessarily. There were moves in Congress which would have made it very hard for the next President to cancel the lunar missions. However, that was before Katrina, so they may have gone by the wayside (certainly it looks like the missions to Mars have). The Russians are going to be offering trips around the Moon in the next couple of years for a “mere” $100 million, and the Chinese are pushing into space, so the next President may not be as quick to kill the program as you think.
Incubus, the shuttle is “reusable” only in the broadest of definitions. Each shuttle has to be heavily reworked between flights, and equipment swapped out. (It should be noted that the same thing happens with high performance military aircraft, it’s the price you pay for bleeding edge technology.) The shuttles are really only prototypes, which have been pushed well beyond their design life. What should have happened, if we were going to abandon the Saturn V and go to the shuttles, was that the current crop would have flown a handful of times, before being replaced by second generation shuttles which would have fixed the flaws in the original design (some of which could only be discovered after the shuttles had flown).
Ditching the shuttle program now actually makes sense, because they can be replaced with something much better, and the costs of keeping the current fleet flying are only going to escalate, and certain problems with them (namely the RCC and falling foam) can’t be fixed, so it’s only a matter of time before another gets a fatal hole in the wing.
The question remains if NASA’s CEV, which is supposed to replace the shuttle, will be a more cost effective solution.
That should be an eventual goal, but I agree not immediate. The best way to do it is to firmly establish ourselves in earth orbit, then plan and build a ship that leaves from orbit. A moon mission could be done a lot cheaper when you don’t have to fight the gravity well.
The benefit? To the stars, and beyond! We’re an explorative, curious race, and we should stay that way.
In case you hadn’t noticed, two have been destroyed, and they’ve exceeded their life span.
I was fortunate enough to see Apollo 13 mission commander James A. Lovell give a speech and narrate the congressional video made of the mission. It was really awesome.
Anyhoo, James Lovell said the saturn 5 was a great rocket. He was certainly of the opinion the space program should have stayed with it. He also said that the expertise and technology to build the saturn 5 has been lost.
I seem to remember that a few features that would have made the shuttle notably more cost-effective were originally planned, but trimmed out in the years before it was built. (Yeah, no details, and pretty much what everyone else has already said, but marginally more succinct. Great, Ran. :smack: )
Well, even if the program didn’t live up to all it’s expectations, it’s not like it was a COMPLETE failure—we did manage to get a bit of work and research out of it. Could it have been done better, cheaper, and more effectively? Probably. But it’s not like they all just blew up, or helped bankrupt the republic.
Ibelieve it is a prototype. Quite useful in its success and gleaned knowledge. It sets us up with a rugged “Jeepism”. A truly utilitarian craft…undeniably a valuable advancement.
This is silliness. There’s a Saturn V on display at the Kennedy Space Center*. While we might not be able to replicate the exact plans of the original, there is no reason to think we could not build a rocket just as good, or better, with that basic design.
I think the shuttle was a mistake, we’ve burned a lot of fuel to get a big vehicle up into space, only to let it come back down again, empty, or nearly empty. That rocket power could have been used to put stuff up there permanently. Or, just use less power to get satellites up in the first place. The shuttle has been very costly for what we get out of it.
Having the re-entry vehicle completely exposed during launch is dangerous. The heat shield is fragile and 100% critical to the safety of re-entry. In a standard rocket, it is protected inside, only exposed while in space. I’m glad we’re going back to a more standard rocket.
*Impressive does not begin to describe the Saturn V. It’s displayed horizontally, about 10-20ft in the air inside a warehouse like building. Each section is separated so you can see the engines of each stage. The Mrs. and I walked out from the souveneir shop and looked up at the rocket displayed overhead. Wow! It’s HUUUUUGE! Oh wait, that’s the second stage, the first stage is over there. :eek: :eek:
Maybe I paraphrased him poorly. But long story short, there are no plans. The contractors and sub contractors that build the Saturn 5 are in the dustbin of history. No doubt, it could be re-engineered and all parts retooled, but it would start over basically from scratch rather than be a continuous unbroken production process.
That’s fair, though anything 30 years old is pretty much going to have to be retooled completely anyway. I’ve heard urban legend style claims that we lost the plans and therefore would never be able to rebuild the Saturn V, as if the original plans were sent down from the heavens. Even if we followed the Saturn path, the VI or VII would likely be very different than the V.
Unless you’re planning to find all the parts and material for a moon mission in orbit, all Moon missions will have to fight the gravity well.
But it’s not fully reusable - it requires an extensive overhaul after each flight. So it’s not much cheaper to launch than a non-reusable spacecraft. In fact, I think the per-launch cost is higher than any other rocket in the world. (Although that’s not a very fair comparison, since no other rocket can carry 7 astronauts and a 15-ton payload into orbit. It’s also the only spacecraft that can bring back any significant payload.)
The Shuttle will most likely be replaced by a Shuttle-derived vehicle. That might mean a non-reusable rocket built around Shuttle engines, but even then the Shuttle program wouldn’t have been a waste.
The plans for the Saturn V are in the Marshall Space Flight Center.
Eventually, yeah, I am planning on it. Still, even now, it would be cheaper. Not as many parts or as much material would be required for a launch from orbit.
The Shuttle program is not a complete success. At one point I remember serious articles being written talking about civilian passengers, a launch every two weeks, and similar goals or achievements.
Having said that, it’s not a complete failure, either. I’m very much of the opinion that the shuttle fleet should be replaced by something else. I won’t say ASAP, but certainly in the near future.
Thanks. Interesting link. 2,900 cubic feet of Saturn documents :eek:
Some choice quotes from two “experts”: “The problem in recreating the Saturn 5 is not finding the drawings, it is finding vendors who can supply mid-1960’s vintage hardware,” he wrote, "and the fact that the launch pads and vehicle assembly buildings have been converted to space shuttle use, so you have no place to launch from.
“By the time you redesign to accommodate available hardware and re-modify the launch pads, you may as well have started from scratch with a clean sheet design,”
"Having a complete set of Saturn 5 blueprints would do us no good whatsoever. True, we would still be able to bend the big pieces of metal fairly easily. But they are not the problem.
“The real problem is the hundreds of thousands of other parts, some as apparently insignificant as a bolt or a washer, that are simply not manufactured any more. Everything would have to be redone. So a simple rebuild would be impossible. The only real answer would be to start from scratch and build anew using modern parts and processes. Yet another immense challenge!”