Steam rocket?

[Tuckerfan]

@slaphead

Cites? None that I can find in a minute or two before I start work, but one of the common themes mentioned in various articles as the facts came out after the Columiba explosion was that the shuttle design was never really bedded down. It was redesigned while the first ‘production’ example was being built, then three examples were built, then another one was cobbled together from spare parts and new components several years later.

Flight data recorder.

The electronic box is unique to the shuttle Columbia and was used in early shuttle missions to verify predictions on design. It records temperature readings, aerodynamic pressure, vibrations, strain, acceleration and rates of pitch, roll and yaw – the three axes of flight.

A CAIB spokesman said the board is very excited about the discovery because it contains data that was not sent down to Mission Control via telemetry.

The box will be further examined at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the rest of the debris from the shuttle has been placed on a grid in a hangar.

The shuttle has no flight data recorder, like a commercial airliner. However, the information transmitted to Mission Control via telemetry is far more than would be found in a so-called black box.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@Hyperelastic

Thin layers of wood are just as pliable as prepreg or tow when they’re steamed. That’s how they (used to) make wooden tennis rackets. The fact that wood tennis rackets are heavier, but not much heavier, than “graphite” (i.e. composite) ones suggests that a wooden motor case would be heavier, but not much heavier, than a composite one.

Er, no. Composite cases are made by continuous winding of ‘wet’ or pre-preg fiber around a mandrel and letting it cure in place. You might be able to warp steamed plywood into a cylindrical shape (although you’d still have the issue with the seam where the ends meet) but there is no way to make a continuous terminal dome shape from plywood except by taking a sheet and creating multiple cuts in it, with the resultant shape having the same number of inherent flaws. If it were possible to make motor cases out of plywood rather than expensive and process-intensive fiber wound composite we’d already be doing it.

@Hyperelastic

Engine exhaust is typically only a few psi above atmospheric, if that. A larger, fully expanded nozzle can improve performance, but only if it’s light enough. You don’t have to use one if you don’t want to. Balloon-launched rockets (“rockoons”) offered significant performance benefits; the main drawback was lack of control over launch time and location.

Exhaust pressure at the nozzle exit plane is typically only a few psi above atmospheric, and indeed, the closer you get it to ambient the more efficient your motor is. From Space Propulsion Analysis and Design (revised), Humble, Henry, et al, pg 9:
Equation (1.6) gives us the impression that we can maximize thrust by maximizing the exit pressure and velocity. But the nozzle exit pressure and velocity are very closely and adversely couple through the amount of nozzle expansion. If we increase nozzle expansion (by using a greater exit area for a given throat area), we find that exit velocity increases and exit pressure decreases by a corresponding amount. If we decrease the nozzle expansion, exit pressure increases but exit velocity decreases. We find, either through analytical proof or numerical experiments, that driving the exit pressure as close to the ambient pressure as possible (for a given combustion chamber pressure) maximizes the thrust for a given propellant flow rate.

The improvements provide by air-launched vehicles are primarily the flexibility in optimal positioning and the reduction in overall propellant mass; the performance in terms of I[sub]sp[/sub] and thrust level per unit mass of payload to orbit are essentially the same.

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Cite? They’re all [Shuttles] built to the same specification and have all received the same upgrades and refits.

Not really true. Columbia was significantly heavier than the other members of the fleet, and while the overall mold line and propulsion system of the various members of the STS fleet were essentially identical, there are a large number of differences between each flight article. Rather than a fleet of nearly-identical vehicles, they should be regarded as a number of prototypes which have been continually but somewhat erratically updates at budget and schedule allowed.

@Projammer

Looks like the propulsion system is well in hand, so I’ll address hypothetical uses for your satellite.

The first being the very first spy satellite. Outfitted with your basic clockwork camera calibrated to to snap a picture every 45° of arc traversed. Then once back over a recovery zone, eject the exposed film cannister in a re-entry vehicle and cycle the next one into the camera. Considering the very light mass of the payload I’d think a smaller return capsule would be manageable.

The earlier surveillance satellites of the Keyhole series (Corona, Argon, and Lanyard) did exactly this. However, even these primitive systems had far more sophisticated and higher resolution photography systems than existed in the 19th Century, and a means for signaling return capsules that absolutely did not exist at an earlier time.

@Tuckerfan

From what I understand the boys at NASA have had to “improvise” that little proceedure (just like they had to do with buying the old computer parts off of eBay because it was cheaper than flight certifying newer stuff).

I don’t know anything about buying parts off of eBay, but NASA certainly stuck with obsolescent computer systems on the Shuttle (specifically, the AP-101 and AP-101S avionics computers) in order to avoid the expensive and risky upgrade of tried-and-true code that would accompany a move to modern IC hardware. This is strictly a matter of practicality in a scenario where “good enough today” is far better than, “might work tomorrow.”

@Tuckerfan

I believe that its mentioned in the CAIB that Columbia was the only shuttle with a flight data recorder. Also, Columbia was a heavier bird than the others and was incapable of docking at the ISS.

Columbia no doubt had extensive test instrumentation built in for the initial validation test flights, but all of the Shuttle fleet, including the ill-fated Challenger, have some kind of flight data recorder (albeit not a standard ARL or ICAO recorder), even though primary flight data is provided by flight telemetry. With advances in electronics, FDRs are now available even for high-end hobbiest use in solid state form.

Columbia was indeed heavier and not capable (when launched from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral) of reaching the ISS, although this has more to do with making the ISS available to the Russian space program than the limits of Columbia. She also lacked the universal docking adapter to mate up to the ISS. On the other hand, she had provisions for ejector seats for the command crew (ejection system actually removed after STS-4) and a different avionics suite from the other members of the fleet. She was the last to get the ‘glass cockpit’ upgrades. All of this information can be found in Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space Transportation System by Dennis R. Jenkins.

Stranger

[Tuckerfan]

@Stranger_On_A_Train

I don’t know anything about buying parts off of eBay, but NASA certainly stuck with obsolescent computer systems on the Shuttle (specifically, the AP-101 and AP-101S avionics computers) in order to avoid the expensive and risky upgrade of tried-and-true code that would accompany a move to modern IC hardware. This is strictly a matter of practicality in a scenario where “good enough today” is far better than, “might work tomorrow.”

NPR piece on NASA buying old gear. They admit they’d like to be able to use new gear every chance they got, but economics force them to use old stuff in many cases. Nothing wrong with it, really, since it can help to add a margin of safety for very little money.