What could the shuttle have been?

Things like LFBB, launch boost escape, and a cargo variant?

what did we miss out on by saving devlopment costs at the begining?

In article 8c495b82-cf33-4fbb-95f2-b3d00a69f9f9
@i33g2000yqm.googlegroups.com, says...

Things like LFBB, launch boost escape, and a cargo variant?

what did we miss out on by saving devlopment costs at the begining?

This is an unaffordable "what-if" and is therefore pointless.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker

On Oct 10, 11:02*am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article 8c495b82-cf33-4fbb-95f2-b3d00a69f9f9
@i33g2000yqm.googlegroups.com, says...



Things like LFBB, launch boost escape, and a cargo variant?

what did we miss out on by saving devlopment costs at the begining?

This is an unaffordable "what-if" and is therefore pointless.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
* up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
* *- tinker

this discussion would be far better than leaving this group to
spammers......

In article 732faa34-3c10-435c-8ac3-
, says...

On Oct 10, 11:02*am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article 8c495b82-cf33-4fbb-95f2-b3d00a69f9f9
@i33g2000yqm.googlegroups.com, says...



Things like LFBB, launch boost escape, and a cargo variant?

what did we miss out on by saving devlopment costs at the begining?

This is an unaffordable "what-if" and is therefore pointless.

this discussion would be far better than leaving this group to
spammers......

I disagree. I'm too old for starry eyed daydreaming and don't have much
tolerance for "what could have been" musings. I'm more interested in
moving forward. That said, a working knowledge of past history is
required to prevent ourselves from repeating past failures.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker

Not sure what you are getting at here. The whole snag for Shuttle was that
apart from proving it could be done and spending lots of money doing it, it
came in handy for the space station no matter how useful you think that
actually is, its certainly taught us a lot about what works and what does
not work in space. This is how research works. If you had future vision,
then you would have maybe done stuff differently. You need to realise also
the political issues, the job issues and the image issues at the time in
history.

Personally I feel unless we can find a very cheap way to go very fast then
whatever you mike will be very expensive.
Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!
"bob haller" wrote in message
...
Things like LFBB, launch boost escape, and a cargo variant?

what did we miss out on by saving devlopment costs at the begining?

On Oct 10, 1:23*pm, "Brian Gaff" wrote:
Not sure what you are getting at here. The whole snag for Shuttle was that
apart from proving it could be done and spending lots of money doing it, it
came in handy for the space station no matter how useful you think that
actually is, its certainly taught *us a lot about what works and what does
not work in space. This is how research works. If you had *future vision,
then you would have maybe done stuff differently. You need to realise also
the political issues, the job issues and the image issues at the time in
history.

*Personally I feel unless we can find a very cheap way to go very fast then
whatever you mike will be very *expensive.
*Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!"bob haller" wrote in message

...



Things like LFBB, launch boost escape, and a cargo variant?

what did we miss out on by saving devlopment costs at the begining?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

well heres just one issue.

if they had gone with the LFBB, cut to save development
costs...operating expenses would of been less and challenger wouldnt
of occured.

In article d46ee275-677d-42e9-8073-bb2b92f043d5
@m5g2000vbe.googlegroups.com, says...

On Oct 10, 1:23*pm, "Brian Gaff" wrote:
Not sure what you are getting at here. The whole snag for Shuttle was that
apart from proving it could be done and spending lots of money doing it, it
came in handy for the space station no matter how useful you think that
actually is, its certainly taught *us a lot about what works and what does
not work in space. This is how research works. If you had *future vision,
then you would have maybe done stuff differently. You need to realise also
the political issues, the job issues and the image issues at the time in
history.

*Personally I feel unless we can find a very cheap way to go very fast then
whatever you mike will be very *expensive.
*Brian

--
Brian Gaff -
Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name may be lost.
Blind user, so no pictures please!"bob haller" wrote in message

...



Things like LFBB, launch boost escape, and a cargo variant?

what did we miss out on by saving devlopment costs at the begining?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

well heres just one issue.

if they had gone with the LFBB, cut to save development
costs...operating expenses would of been less and challenger wouldnt
of occured.

Predictable.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker

Things like LFBB, launch boost escape, and a cargo variant?

what did we miss out on by saving devlopment costs at the begining?



Unlike Jeff, I think this exercise has some merit.

But only if one walks away from it with "lessons learned".

Basically, when one looked at the incremental costs of the shuttle program
only, it actually had pretty decent costs and while I haven't calculated the
numbers in awhile, I do recall that based on incremental costs, its cost per
pound was actually fairly low.

What of course killed it was the fixed costs.

Shuttle suffered from the fact that the cost was in a weird valley. Had it
cost a lot more, Congress probably would have shut it down much earlier and
saved money. Had it cost a lot less, they probably would have invested in
it more.

In a perfect world, NASA would have had a few billion early on to focus on
strictly reusability and serviceability. LFBB of some sort is high on that
list. Had they been able to basically "gas and go" the SRBs, they could
have flown more often. Flying more often (to a point) spreads your fixed
costs across more flights, making them cheaper.

A "clean" OMS/RCS system that didn't require the safety precautions the
actual system did. (At one point when I looked at the workflow, I believe it
was several days spent on these where no other work could be done in the SPF
because of the safety issues.)

Instead of focusing on mass to orbit, focus on turn-around. If this meant
heavier but easier to service, so be it.

Ultimately though, you start to hit some real roadblocks. You only had 2
launchpads and 3 MLPs. This means you can only process things so quickly.

Again though, if you could go from "stacking to launch" in say 4 weeks, you
could in theory use each MLP 12 times a year. Put in some slack time for
repairs to the MLPs, etc. and you're down to maybe 10 flights a year max, or
30 total using all 3 MLPs. (this assumes of course they don't spend nearly
as much time at the pad as they did.)

At this point, you're probably limited by a large number of factors. Even
at this point though you're still probably talking all told say $200-$300
million a flight (i.e. maybe 1/2 of what lifetime costs were, note these are
SWAG numbers.) So for about 2x the yearly costs we had, you could have had
3x as many flights.

That does change some possibilities, but ultimately, it's probably not
enough.

I'd say the lessons learned come down to,
"focus aggressively on reusability, even if it cuts into payload."
"get your fixed costs as low as possible"
"fly often"

None of these are, pardon the expression, "rocket science".

I think a less obvious lesson (which I don't really touch upon above) is
commonality of parts.

All of these are areas where I think SpaceX is successfully working on.

We'll see in 10 years how well it works out.





--

Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:

But only if one walks away from it with "lessons learned".

And there are many to be learned.

from a political point of view, consider if the shuttles had been rated
for 7 years max. This would have meant that the assembly facility would
have remained opened so it could build a new shuttle to be delivered
every 6 to 7 years. Thu would have allowed NASA to evolve the systems
and design and greatly improve the usability and perhaps re-usability of
the shuttle.

Flying more often probably would have naturally led to retiring orbiters.
Certainly lessons learned could have been applied over time.

One thing the shuttle program did build was a fairly decent database on
usage. One of the advantages of recovering the SRBs for example wasn't
necessarily cost-savings, but being able to build a database from which one
could extrapolate wear and tear (and had better management been in place,
probably avoided Challenger. W/o SRB recovery you'd have had a lot less
data.)

snipped

From a processing point of view, I never quite understood the rotating
service structure. That work should have been done in the VAB before the
MLP was rolled to the pad. They already have the controlled environment,
platforms, hoists, tools etc there.

Because there were time sensitive payloads in theory where you want to wait
until as late as possible to transfer them to the payload bay. Especially
when shuttles could spend a month or more on the pad. Had they ever
achieved "roll-out/check-out/launch" in say under 72 hours, they probably
could have worked around this limitation in most cases.



Perhaps they might have needed to expand the VAB to allow for
stacking/processing of cargo of more shuttles.

Not really. They had, if they really wanted 4 vertical bays. I don't
believe they ever used more than 2 plus a third as a storm shelter. Again,
if you can improve stacking, you don't need more bays.


The one advantage of the RSS on the pad is that if something bad is
detected during final countdown, they can get access to the shuttle faster.

Exactly.



But by leaving shuttle outdorrs for so long IN FLORIDA, it is affected
by weather and salty air (corrosion). Hurricanes can be bad for shuttles.

I don't think we'll see a vehicle such as the shuttle in NASA's
facilities in our lifetime. But we might see Virgin Galactic succeed
with an orbital vehicle and space hotel. But it won't use NASA facilities.


And that alone should cut down fixed costs greatly.





--

On Oct 10, 11:11*pm, "Greg \(Strider\) Moore"
wrote:
Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:

But only if one walks away from it with "lessons learned".

And there are many to be learned.

from a political point of view, consider if the shuttles had been rated
for 7 years max. This would have meant that the assembly facility would
have remained opened so it could build a new shuttle to be delivered
every 6 to 7 years. Thu would have allowed NASA to evolve the systems
and design and greatly improve the usability and perhaps re-usability of
the shuttle.

Flying more often probably would have naturally led to retiring orbiters.
Certainly lessons learned could have been applied over time.

One thing the shuttle program did build was a fairly decent database on
usage. * One of the advantages of recovering the SRBs for example wasn't
necessarily cost-savings, but being able to build a database from which one
could extrapolate wear and tear (and had better management been in place,
probably avoided Challenger. *W/o SRB recovery you'd have had a lot less
data.)

snipped

From a processing point of view, I never quite understood the rotating
service structure. That work should have been done in the VAB before the
MLP was rolled to the pad. They already have the controlled environment,
platforms, hoists, tools etc there.

Because there were time sensitive payloads in theory where you want to wait
until as late as possible to transfer them to the payload bay. *Especially
when shuttles could spend a month or more on the pad. *Had they ever
achieved "roll-out/check-out/launch" in say under 72 hours, they probably
could have worked around this limitation in most cases.



Perhaps they might have needed to expand the VAB to allow for
stacking/processing of cargo of more shuttles.

Not really. *They had, if they really wanted 4 vertical bays. I don't
believe they ever used more than 2 plus a third as a storm shelter. *Again,
if you can improve stacking, you don't need more bays.



The one advantage of the RSS on the pad is that if something bad is
detected during final countdown, they can get access to the shuttle faster.

Exactly.



But by leaving shuttle outdorrs for so long IN FLORIDA, it is affected
by weather and salty air (corrosion). Hurricanes can be bad for shuttles..

I don't think we'll see a vehicle such as the shuttle in NASA's
facilities in our lifetime. *But we might see Virgin Galactic succeed
with an orbital vehicle and space hotel. But it won't use NASA facilities.

And that alone should cut down fixed costs greatly.



-- *


a roll back protective building would be another upgrade. safer and
more comfy for orbiter and pad workers........

pads should be replaced perodically on a long term plan. 39A ansd 39B
have been around since apollo, photos showed structural failures from
launch vibration. a 3rd pad could of helped too.....