Low-Cost Space Shuttle Replacement Proposed 283
FleaPlus writes "The Washington Times and Space.com has an article on a plan for a low-cost shuttle replacement by t/Space, an organization whose team includes AirLaunch LLC and Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites. Instead of a one-size-fits-all craft, t/Space's plan is to build an air-launched four-person capsule termed the Crew Transfer Vehicle (CXV), specialized for carrying people to and from low-Earth orbit. Once in orbit the CXV would dock with a separately-launched Crew Exploration Vehicle (likely built by Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman), which could be optimized for traveling between Earth orbit and the Moon. The CXV would also be able to dock with a space station or serve as a crew lifeboat. The group, which has already received some NASA funding, calculates that it can have the system ready by 2008 for $400 million, with a per-launch cost of $20 million (compared to ~$500 million per shuttle launch). Development would be done under a competitive fixed-price (instead of cost-plus) contract."
Shuttle Mod Editor (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Shuttle Mod Editor (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Shuttle Mod Editor (Score:2, Funny)
He keeps building the Nav controls and the window too far apart, you can either fly the ship, or see where your going, but not at the same time
Re:Shuttle Mod Editor (Score:3, Interesting)
He seems to be taking a more mature design approach of late, however - regeneratively cooled, LOX as an oxidizer, gimballing instead of vanes, etc. It still won't be easy, and his design still isn't orbital-scalable, but he should be a
Re:Shuttle Mod Editor (Score:4, Informative)
As to deep throttlable engines, most of Carmack's engines seem to have had serious problems with chugging when run at any measurable amount of thrust. I.e., he still hasn't had throttlable range. When he can make an engine that has even a mere 300 ISP that can reach its max power, have a significant amount of power for its mass, and *then* be throttled down, then he'll have something at least somewhat relevant.
Getting There, and Costs (Score:5, Informative)
A much smaller Shuttle-like orbiter, which can be mated atop a Delta, Titan III or other medium-lift vehicle, is needed. It may look like the Crew Return Vehicle concept that's being rehashed into a shuttle replacement. I think it would have more merit to the old military DynaSoar [astronautix.com] project. Such a vehicle, unlike the Shuttle Orbiters we have, is not a truck...it would be a human taxi, with a small bay for some replacement consumables. For larger payloads and refurbs, use the old Orbiters--unmanned, remote controlled. If we can run robots from millions of miles away, we can surely do the same from low Earth orbit. In fact, the Russians showed it can be done with their own mortibund Shuttle--it's first and only flight was completely unmanned, from launch to landing. [astronautix.com] The old Orbiters would also double as rescue vehicles, along with having additional new Shuttle Taxis ready to go on other pads when a flight is in progress. We can't use single-use rockets for ISS refurbs since the pressurized cargo modules (like the special ones used by Orbiters during an ISS crew and experiment transition) has equipment that must come back. Only our Orbiters have the ability to return large equipment modules safely to Earth.
We should be able to adapt single-use rockets to send new ISS components for assembly. The ISS will need more arms, and a new Orbiter replacement might need something like the current Canadian remote arm.
The main thing I would recommend is (1) just make a reusable human taxi that (1) has an abort mode like the old Apollo spacecraft, where the new Orbiter can rocket away from the booster, as well as (2) a durable crew compartment that, in the case of normal reentry failure, could be separated from the larger body and land by parachute.
Baby steps, please. A Shuttle replacement need not be all things as our current ones tried to be. For LEO, a simple crew vehicle will work. Later, the ISS or a moonbase should be used to create new, true spacecraft that ferry and from the Moon, and can use lunar material to build a Mars vehicle.
When someone says that the cost to go to space is too expensive, I have to emphasize where the money goes to build the spacecraft. It's not like we take millions of dollar bills, smelt them into vehicles or stuff bills in the fuel tanks and set them afire. That money goes to WORKERS who build the space vehicles and COMPANIES that make jobs. That's economically a Good Thing.
Re:Getting There, and Costs (Score:2, Insightful)
Here, here! Build the pieces needed to do each part of the job right, and stop trying for a one-size-fits-none solution.
Re:Getting There, and Costs (Score:2, Funny)
I'm so sick of people who think that space travel isn't affordable to the average person.
Re:Getting There, and Costs (Score:5, Informative)
see more here [astronautix.com]
here is more on the dynasoar:
and something about that Buran shuttle your rip mentions is here:
As for the cost argument: yes it is true that if you contract all out in your own country, the nett cost for the state is lower than the expended amount. But those are still unproductive workers. If you have your doubts about a third world country doing space research, why use a different standard for first world countries. All those people (working on hyperexpensive spaceprojects) could also develop more and cleaner technologies that might avert the greenhouse runaway that the US seems to want so bad. (In that perspective it is completely logical that the US develops a new space shuttle at twice the cost).
nuff said...
WRONG!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:WRONG!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
A large solar collector stationed at 30 km up would be above the weather, and while it would still have day and night, and least day would be a few percent longer, and by allowing the collector to follow the sun, you could have noon-like light for most of the day.
You would want the lift gas to be hydrogen rather than helium. Reason 1 is that it's cheaper, but reason 2 is that the
Re:Getting There, and Costs (Score:3, Insightful)
Most likely, people who say this are arguing that the benefit is not worth the price.
Er, yes. But the real argument is not ab
Re:Getting There, and Costs (Score:2)
This is the Broken Window Fallacy [wikipedia.org]. Sloppy thinking.
No, it isn't. (Score:2, Insightful)
But investing in spacecraft isn't like investing in a broken window. (Or at least, it isn't any more *necessarily* that wa
home vs travel (Score:2, Funny)
Hmm (Score:4, Funny)
Alright guys, this means we will have it around 2015 for about $750 million.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
They're using an outmodded reentry design (the bell-shaped reentry design wasn't chosen by the US, Russia, and China for no particular reason - they did extensive testing, and it proved to be the most efficient, most reliable shape), and they plan to make reusable capsules out of it when capsules have seldom proven realistic to refurbish for a second flight in the past. Furthermore, they plan to do this on their very first space attempt. Quite doubtful, to be honest.
High recurrant prices, companies with no background in orbital launch and only a background in unscalable suborbital (i.e., "high risk", and an implication of higher costs than predicted), questionable reusability (which generally implies higher costs than predicted), and high capital costs. I would be quite surprised if NASA ends up accepting this.
And before people start up the Rutan hero-worship ("he can do anything!"), Rutan did almost nothing compared to real spaceflight. He built an aircraft around an unscalable purchased rocket engine and a nitrous tank. He made it out of the same sort of materials that he builds all of his aircraft out of (which aren't even close to what you need for reentry, the biggest spaceflight difficulty, and where most of the actual engineering problems lie), and his purchased low-ISP high-tank mass engine isn't going anywhere close to orbit, no matter how it gets tweaked.
The only really major accomplishment that he did was to create the world's first fully-private supersonic aircraft, without supersonic windtunnel testing - an impressive feat, mind you, and one that is quite a testament to the power of modern CFD software. Also, stably dropping a powered craft from another isn't a typical engineering problem for a private builder to address, and while they had stability problems on engine start, they did pull it off successfully.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody was out there demanding stacks of paper and testing from the Wright brothers when they experimented. In retrospect their contraption was highly unstable and unsafe. Same should apply for launch system developments. Sure, stuff will blow up, and people will die. People who understood the risks and knew exactly what they were doing. If they run out of people who are willing to hop onboard, they know they must spend time and money on the safety. Today, I doubt they'll have many issues as long as the (test)pilots are involved in the process and know how the tincan they are hopping into ticks.
No need to bog it all down with 100M$s of paperwork and extra safety tests and checks that really won't improve safety. The law of diminishing returns applies - sure, you want to test and make sure the damn thing works, but beyond certain point extra testing and checking is not going to change the safety much - only the pricetag will go up, see NASA
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Cute. It isn't that we can't find people who will take the risks, it's our safety obsessive culture that cannot tolerate your suggestion. Sure the money would be far better spent on foreign aid, in terms of lives per dollar, but public sentiment isn't rational. And NASA depends on public sentiment for it's cash, not the delivery of a product.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Business, hiring qualified test pilots to do stuff they are supposed to be doing. Everyone doing it can compare their paycheck to their job description and choose if the want to ride the experimental thingy.
Yes, I can imagine congressional hearings and 'oversight' destroying the whole thing after a crew exits stage left in a fireball. That means US has a problem, and such business should relocate elsewhere...
Odd that nobody seems to raise holy hell over dead military test pilots who have over the years died while testing military hardware. Nobody ever hears of them. People also seem to shrug off accidents during pilot training and military exercises. How is this any different from space exploration? It isn't. Space = risky business, where people can die. Live with it.
I know I'd love to go up there like just about everyone else. I also know that today's hardware for doing so is somewhat unreliable and 'prototype' in many ways, so I'd currently choose not to take the ride. I could take a zero-g ride on a vomit comet (airplanes are petty mature), but betatesting a rocket is not my idea of a fun occupation. At the same time I'm quite sure you'd find immensely qualified takers for the job...
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
Surely there is no way the present 'pro life' US government is going to fund a thinly veiled assisted suicide scheme, unless it can be argued that it is going to bring 'freedom and democracy' to space.
The law of diminishing returns applies - sure, you want to test and make sur
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, considering what Scaled Composites has done so far
Scaled has done almost nothing [64.233.167.104] in terms of sending a craft to orbit.
Of course it would not include funds for running a huge NASA paperpusher army
NASA's "paperpushing" regulations are largely due to the private companies trying to take advantage of them. Trust me, I used to work for one company that did - Rockwell-Collins. They had a Space Shuttle contract, and started charging all of their other projects that were low on budget to the shuttle contract, then simply claimed that the project was running overbudget. Eventually they were caught and smacked down with fines and regulatory penalties, but far down the line.
The regulations are designed to make sure that the net result is A) what they asked for, B) safety corners haven't been cut, and C) . Can they be improved? You bet. Have they been improved already? You bet (as much as O'Keefe has done wrong, most will agree that he made NASA regulations a lot easier to deal with).
Every astronaut can themselves consider the risks and decide if they are happy with the launch vehicle.
I'll agree with that one.
Nobody was out there demanding stacks of paper and testing from the Wright brothers when they experimented.
Experimented on themselves. When they wanted to sell their airplane to the military, the military put it through the works.
In retrospect their contraption was highly unstable and unsafe.
Unstable? Yes. Unsafe? Hardly. Early airplanes flew so low and so slow that even when you crashed, it was rarely a fatal event. The first fatality wasn't until 1908, despite several hundred (yes, hundred) teams around the world building their own airplanes in that time, many with dubious methods. If I recall the number correctly, the first cross-country flight attempt in order to win a cup involved about three dozen crashes *by the same contender*, who each time patched his airplane up and took off again. Even with all of the advances in speed (and increases in flying altitude), and with far more rugged terrain, of the dozen crashes in the first attempt to fly around the world in 1924, none were fatal. The first fatal commercial flight wasn't until two planes in (late 1920s, early 1930s? Don't recall the exact date) collided over the English Channel. I could keep going, but I think you get the picture. Early amateur airplanes were nothing like amateur rockets - their failure modes were far, far more gentle.
No need to bog it all down with 100M$s of paperwork and extra safety tests and checks that really won't improve safety.
You better believe that all of those "extra safety tests" increase safety. Take a look at the history of any rocket development program's tests. Often, you won't find burnthrough fuel/oxidizer leak, or other potentially fatal complication until you've mounted everything on the launch pad to each other and are doing your 20th or so static firing of the engines.
The law of diminishing returns applies - sure, you want to test and make sure the damn thing works, but beyond certain point extra testing and checking is not going to change the safety much
Quite true. But look at all of the public outcry (and even outcry on Slashdot) when a manned spacecraft fails. They have reasons other than pure logic to take into account: public reaction. If t-space wants to step into the public limelight as such, they better be prepared to take that on as well.
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
That is still cheap compared to STS.
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
And not for a fixed price contract.
(-: Many places I could have written the same. Lots of people at Boeing etc posting here? :-)
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
Hmmm (Score:4, Informative)
Come to think of it, wasn't the Space Shuttle itself a low-cost replacement for what came before that, once they started to build them, turned into high-cost engineering boondoggles that were never totally finished?
I mean... just checking.
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
This will go on-and-on until everyone has a little piece. By time time its done it'll be a few billion for development and of course all these "special" items will need to be replaced for each launch so it'll be back to hundreds of millions for each launch as well.
Based on Scaled Composites history, I have full confidence they could do the job well. However, I have no doubt "pork politics" will drive up the price drastically. Of course, that assumes the congressmen with Boeing, Northrup Grumman, etc in thier districts would ever allow this to go forward which I wouldn't call a given.
Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Why not? (Score:2)
Can someone explain to me... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Can someone explain to me... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Can someone explain to me... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Can someone explain to me... (Score:4, Informative)
Separation (Score:4, Interesting)
ALL STATIONS: Prepare for saucer separation sequence!
According to star trek producers, this sequence was so expensive in special-effects, that it was hardly performed during the seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next generation... Funny that in real-life it might be cheaper...
Re:Separation (Score:2)
Cost (Score:5, Insightful)
This is cheap.
If we can get back into space for 400 million, call it a bargain and GO!
Re:Cost (Score:5, Funny)
Otherwise, they will say "Going into space? What a waste of money! That's almost 1/5 of a stealth bomber! No way!"
Re:Cost (Score:2)
Certainly not the US, with its huge arsenal of cruise missiles at its disposal.
Re:Cost (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Cost (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of what Iraq could have done, their army just didn't do. I think 10 years of blowing the hell out of anything that even thought of irradiating an allied aircraft would hav
Re:Cost (Score:5, Informative)
Assuming you're referring to the stealth bomber:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-2_Spirit [wikipedia.org]
The B-2 is the most expensive plane built to date, costing approximately $2.2 billion USD per plane. [1] (http://www.fas.org/man/gao/gao94217.htm [fas.org]) Some writers have suggested that the huge program cost may actually include costs for other black projects that remain classified. The high per-unit cost may also be partially explained by the small number of planes produced coupled with a large research overhead in the B-2 program (see below).
Re:Cost (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Cost (Score:2)
This situation may not get better soon. 80 billion in spending was just approved for Iraq. We're currently spending about 1 billion a week, and there's no telling how much longer we're going to be there: historically, insurgencies have taken 5-10 years to defeat. At some point the Iraqi government will presumably begin to take up more of the burden, but it's still going to require a substantial
Space Exploration (Score:5, Interesting)
The times when a whole country like the US started a program to put a man on the moon are long since past, now, it's up to the corporations to take over, but they have nothing to gain from this except for the publicity and the somewhat useless benefits of zero-gravity research (don't get me wrong, i think z-g research is important, but the benefits are seldom).
What would happen if there was a legislation that allowed a company to claim a part of another planet, provided that (1) they can get there first and (2), they actively use it for a purpose (like mining, among many others). Such legislation would surely have to have many different conditions and establish a common ground for all corporations in the world, and i cannot see the entire universe of implications, but i can't stop thinking that this would push space exploration projects and would put us on other planets.
Now, whether we should be destroying other planets aside from "ours", that's an entirely different matter...
Re:Space Exploration (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Space Exploration (Score:3, Interesting)
You also have to consider the possibility that we will find some radical new material out there that will completely revolutionize technology, or at the very least make something that is prohibitively expensive today cheap tomarrow.
No diamond, but plenty of precious metals... (Score:3, Informative)
What there *is* known to be in great quantity is platinum group metals, mixed in with a bunch of other metals which are commercially useful but probably not viable to ship back to Earth on their own. Platinum, however, is very expensive stuff because it's
Re:Space Exploration (Score:2)
Re:Space Exploration (Score:2)
and you're in business.
... With all these instruments and robots
This could be a great international camp site, one could just land machine after machine over there. Gas chromatograph, solar furnace, melting pots,
Re:Space Exploration (Score:2)
If we lived on them, then they would be "ours" too then wouldnt they. Besides that, there isnt really a whole lot to destroy. The surface of most of the celestial bodies in the solar system look like they were strip mined for the last billion years or so. There is no "environment" there to destroy, in fact we would be bringing an environment with us, and creating one where there was noe before, w
Good Old Boys (Score:4, Insightful)
The future (Score:5, Funny)
Neo: estes rockets. lots of estes rockets. and big rubber bands.
Trinity: nobody has ever tried anything like this before.
Neo: that's why it's going to work.
Cheap space travel... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cheap space travel... (Score:3, Informative)
According to these guys [discovery.com] it's more likely that he had third degree burns rather than prior art.
Reading TFA (semi OT) (Score:2)
Space.com = a trustworthy news source
Washington Times = put that in your litter box and your cat won't shit there.
50-50 split. My time is limited as it is. Pass.
Use for space tourism? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmm... I wonder if this would be able to dock with a Bigelow inflatable habitat [popsci.com].
Re:Use for space tourism? (Score:2)
Russia's Kliper makes this project meaningless (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/kliper.html [russianspaceweb.com]
By the way, air launch is one of the most dangerous methods. In-flight collision is invariably fatal. Remember the drone that killed the SR-71 motherplane? The idea is silly.
Re:Russia's Kliper makes this project meaningless (Score:2)
Is the US supposed to rely on Russia for getting into space now?
Re:Russia's Kliper makes this project meaningless (Score:3, Insightful)
Why develop the same thing twice and compete, when you can cooperate? I don't know the costs of the russian development, but if it's comparable, why should both parties separately pay $400M for a new design from scratch, each, if you can share the costs and pay $300M each to have a common design and two identical shuttles built.
Is the word "cooperation" so dead? Cold war rages on?
Re:Russia's Kliper makes this project meaningless (Score:3, Insightful)
News flash: It already does for manned space flights.
Re:Russia's Kliper makes this project meaningless (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Aerial launch ideas (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/maxokb2.jpg [buran.ru]
http://www.buran.ru/htm/molniya6.htm [buran.ru]
Re:Russia's Kliper makes this project meaningless (Score:2)
Yes. They were seperating while flying _AT MACH 3_. Air-dropping a rocket at more conventional speeds is trivial in comparison, and has been done many times before.
Re:Russia's Kliper makes this project meaningless (Score:3, Interesting)
Precisely. Our legion of subsidized aerospace contractors would never tolerate NASA's purchase of a fully-functioning design from a foreign manufacturer. Rest assured that NASA's new vehicle will be a gold-plated turkey of the sort the Pentagon favors, not a simple, robust vehicle like Soyuz or Klipper.
Re:Russia's Kliper makes this project meaningless (Score:2)
No, really you are.
Accepting Investments/Donations? (Score:2, Interesting)
Are they accepting investments/donations?
What I wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)
$400mln to develop, probably below $100mln to build next, once first one has been built, ground infrastructure of some $50mln required... I guess there would be quite a few companies willing to invest some $200mln to provide orbital tours, maybe later build "orbital hotel" etc. The investment would probably pay back in 20 or so flights, maybe a year...
Meh. Time to end rockets (Score:2, Funny)
We need to switch to trebuchets.
what about blimps? (Score:2)
Re:Meh. Time to end rockets (Score:2, Funny)
I say cargo instead of crew because I think they would be more of a paste if accelerated by a trebuchet to this speed in the small time they would be in c
Re:Meh. Time to end rockets (Score:2)
Seriously though (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Seriously though (Score:3, Informative)
D=(at^2)/2, a=100f/s, t=255s, so d=3125000f
Your gauss gun would be about 600 miles long. Just something to keep in mind.
try 40G acceleration (Score:3, Interesting)
While it's a ride an astronaut wouldn't be happy about taking, most items we'd want to put into orbit can either handle the trip or can be disassembled into chunks that can.
to really make space industrialization go... (Score:3, Interesting)
Rockets aren't good enough.
That leaves rail/coilguns, JP Aerospace (BTW, I've heard there are other blimp-to-orbit projects), and the Space Elevator.
Modular design (Score:2, Interesting)
Low-Cost (Score:3, Funny)
I keep reading Lost-Cow Space Shuttle Replacement
Whoa . . . (Score:4, Funny)
Why does the shuttle not have a fuel line? (Score:3, Interesting)
I read somewhere (no ref. to hand) that 1/3 of the fuel is used just to clear the tower. Wouldn't it be much more efficient to pump fuel from the tower until the shuttle is at least a few meters off the ground?
Re:Why does the shuttle not have a fuel line? (Score:3, Insightful)
2) 1/3 of the fuel is A LOT. Actually, 1/3 of the solid state fuel in the helper rockets. Not pumpable and even if it was, way too much to be pumped in such a short time.
3) They are disconnected really fast after, so that's not much of the problem anyway.
The suggested solution is much more radical: get the shuttle some 10 miles up by a jet plane and then launch it from there.
Re:Why does the shuttle not have a fuel line? (Score:2)
The Space Shuttle uses solid rocket boosters to get started moving.
Your idea for a 30 meter "snorkel" is too dangerous. Most rocket fuel is cryogenic, i.e. WAY cold, and under extreme pressure. You can't use flexible piping with that. Rubber and plastic would shatter. A steel or copper tub
Re:Why does the shuttle not have a fuel line? (Score:3, Informative)
Getting back to basics... (Score:4, Insightful)
Flying the MoonBus (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the sensible way to travel between the Earth and the Moon is to set up a space station, we'll call it the MoonBus, that flies a figure-eight orbit between the Earth and Moon. (It could use ion-engines and solar panels to keep it on the unstable orbit.)
By building a stable platform in the Earth-Moon orbit, we could provide safe and comfortable transportation. Once the station is in place, it would require only a minimal amount of fuel to get people to the station and from the station to the Moon. Over time, we could continue to add to the station itself, building our capabilities.
I got this idea from a book that Buzz Aldrin published a number of years ago. In his book, he proposed a somewhat similar scheme for moving people between Earth and Mars. Once the fixed assets are in place, the cost for moving additional people goes way down.
The main point is that we need to be building our capabilities for doing things in space, not reducing them. We need to establish goals that help us develop a space industry that might help reignite our economy. We shouldn't be giving over the exploration of space to the Chinese or anyone else.
Since we face some unknown risk of extinction from asteroids, perhaps we should have a set of prizes designed to develop an ability to move asteroids. Why not set up prizes for things like building structures in space? For establishing a mining base for water on the Moon? For creating a simple habitat that makes a figure-eight path around the Earth and Moon?
Not a shuttle replacement (Score:4, Informative)
The submitter should RTFA. tSpace is not proposing a shuttle replacement. They have apparently ceeded that to Boeing or Lockmart. They are proposing a lunar transfer vehicle. They are trying to get in on the CEV bidding without going through the formal review process. These earth LEO rendezvous achitectures are dumb. It is all because bidders seem to believe that the only booster vehicles are EELV's (Delta 4, Atlas V), which are too small for the job. This is foolish. A shuttle derived unmanned launcher could be easily developed from existing hardware and deliver 250,000 lbs to LEO. The manned CEV might then launch on an EELV.
Spending money on space is a *BAD* idea (Score:3, Funny)
If we start buying this kind of crap, we may have to pull out of Iraq a day early. Then where would we be?
return to moon by 2020? (Score:2)
More money for contractors who will never deliver (Score:3, Insightful)
NASA Engineer: Hey do you think we should do something original this decade?
NASA Boss: Well, we haven't done anything original since the Viking Lander. Why spoil a good thing?
NASA Engineer: Good point. Doing something new might require actual work.
NASA Boss: Yeah. Hey, let's throw some money at Lockeed, Boeing, or Northrop. They'll give us cool animations and huge promises
NASA Engineer: Will they actually deliver the product?
NASA Boss: No, but the public will have forgotten about all our original promises long before realizing they never delivered. And we'll have a whole new batch of cool animations and promises to distract them by then.
NASA Engineer: Sounds like a plan. I'm going to go take a nap. Wake me up when our funding is renewed
NASA Boss: You got it!
-Eric
Re:Why not? (Score:2, Insightful)
I wouldn't be too concerned (Score:3, Insightful)
Because they are still useful (Score:2)
What is needed is to re-use the shuttle as a remote control cargo carrier. By removing the cockpit and increasing the size of the cargo
Re:Because they are still useful (Score:2)
2) You need very little to haul cargo into space, and most of it is so cheap that it simply doesn't pay to care about its safe return to Earth - let it burn in the atmosphere.
3) There's still one advantage a shuttle has over any other solutions - it's able to haul bigger things not designed for reentry back to earth. But one hardly ever needs that.
Back on topic. (Score:3, Informative)
Won't fly.
Re:CXV? (Score:2)
Have you heard of localization (l10n)? Internationalization (i18n)? Whereas we geeks often use numbers to shorten words, in aviation, the letter X is the shortcut.
It seems to have started with the "ics" words, likely because of the "ix" sound. Mechanics became MX, logistics became LX, avionics became AX. It branched out from there; maintenance is now often abbreviated to MX (and is somewhat interchangeable with mechanics), and weather is WX. Not positive whether
Yep, this would be (conservative/fascist) moonies (Score:2)
The FAIR site has a nice quote from "Former top UC official Steve Hassan" to the effect that the paper's a Trojan Horse -- "Conservative politics is
Re:Passing from one Era to another. (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you could pretty convincingly make the point a vertical stack is much safer than the STS design. A vertical stack would definitely have prevented the Columbia's destruction and would have given Challenger a fighting chance.