Perhaps we could have gotten money for the Shuttle by not actually launching the later lunar missions, and filming them on a soundstage instead, like the conspiracy theorists think we did anyway.
No, apparently not seriously. I'm looking at the Jenkins book, and although it's proven somewhat frustrating to actually get information on the development of the Shuttle TPS (there's no entry for TPS in the index...) it doesn't appear that there was serious interest in transpiration cooling (or the similar film cooling) by the time that the shuttle was being developed. The focus was largely on passive systems since those appeared to be a route to create something that was lighter, simpler, and easier to maintain than an actively-cooled heat shield.Maybe not the best thread to ask this, but anyone ever investigate whether transpiration cooling (I am thinking of using water) enabling a metal TPS Shuttle pretty much otherwise as OTL could enable the Shuttle to evade the whole tiles/Carbon-Carbon debacle?
I found that as well, but Voyager '67 was a very different beast from Viking '76. It was in every respect vastly more expansive and expensive, so it wouldn't be especially surprising to find Proxmire opposing the one and favoring, or at least not really opposing the other.
Perhaps we could have gotten money for the Shuttle by not actually launching the later lunar missions, and filming them on a soundstage instead, like the conspiracy theorists think we did anyway.
This reminds me of Stanely Kubrick's quip, which may be apocryphal, that he had told NASA he would be delighted to film the Moon missions, but only if he could do it on location.
P.S. In all seriousness, the cancellation of Apollo 15 and 19 likely saved NASA only $40 million - the hardware was virtually all built, and all paid for. NASA ended up buying itself the world's most expensive lawn ornaments. Of course, saving money wasn't the sole motivation for cancelling these missions...
What was the main motivation, then? Also, don't you mean Apollo 18?
Maybe not the best thread to ask this, but anyone ever investigate whether transpiration cooling (I am thinking of using water) enabling a metal TPS Shuttle pretty much otherwise as OTL could enable the Shuttle to evade the whole tiles/Carbon-Carbon debacle?
No, apparently not seriously. I'm looking at the Jenkins book, and although it's proven somewhat frustrating to actually get information on the development of the Shuttle TPS (there's no entry for TPS in the index...) it doesn't appear that there was serious interest in transpiration cooling (or the similar film cooling) by the time that the shuttle was being developed. The focus was largely on passive systems since those appeared to be a route to create something that was lighter, simpler, and easier to maintain than an actively-cooled heat shield.
Being able to fly in a single ship from the Surface of Earth to the Surface of Mars and back in a single ship is nice, but it’s far from essential unless your whole architecture is designed from the start that way. Mars Direct was as is Musk’s plans which are based on it and for certain levels of operations it makes some sense but it’s not going to be anywhere near as effective or economic as mature discreet transportation system would be.
It's hard to say how accurate this is until we see the final form of the Starship architecture...and that is, as we all know, still in a state of evolution.
But given that Elon Musk has always been quite clear that he's undertaken all of SpaceX with the objective of putting people on Mars in a serious way, and that he is in complete control of the company, I think you simply have to take that as a non-negotiable. Seizing control of a big chunk of the global competitive launch market has always been a means to an end, just as Starlink is a means to an end. It's the entire reason he founded the company.
And given all this - and SPaceX's limited resources - going with an architecture like this makes sense. They only have so much development money to go around. I think this is something Bob Zubrin really does not get. Maybe it won't work - that's not impossible - but we can understand why Musk has decided to go this direction with BFR.
Even so, however, it's certainly not impossible that SpaceX could achieve a pretty high cadence with Starship/SuperHeavy, if indeed it turns out to be anything close to a) as cheap as they claim, and b) as rapidly reusable as they hope.
I completely agree with your assessment of why NASA passed on transpirational cooling for Shuttle. TPS tiles were from NASA's perspective a safer bet at the time, given the reentry profile and shape of the vehicle.
That's just playing with margins. The Shuttle's biggest expense came from the maintenance of those ceramic tiles.Could the space shuttle have succeeded, yes.
The shuttle was too large satellite launch would have been more efficiently performed by standard boosters. A smaller shuttle would have been more efficient for delivering crew and small specialty payloads into Orbit , not to mention cheaper.
As you say it's Musk's show and his money so his rules... (Black Adder line: "It's my Army and those are my conditions!" ) And you certainly can't argue the near-term results it's just that I'd hate to see everything riding on one vehicle and one method of getting the job done that ALSO has to do numerous other jobs if they have the time. And as you also say and I noted there's that whole 'seizing control of a big chunk of the global launch market' thing but it being subordinate to Mars at some point. As I noted up-thread the Falcon 9 with some tweaks and Dragon II could give you early and often LEO access for both personnel and cargo for a rather cheap price. Go for a Falcon Heavy and expendable upper stage and you've got some decent throw mass to Mars (and the rest of the Solar System) and combine that with a good space-based, high efficiency propulsion tug/stage and you really open up both Cis-Lunar and Interplanetary Space. But again as you say there's only so much Musk can pay for and nobody else is really looking to capitalize on what he's done so far.
I’m just bemoaning tossing away an obvious and know architecture that can reach LEO on a fairly regular basis and that could be modified to do more over time at a good price for something more focused on being a lot “more” than we currently need in the hopes that it will grow to encompass the launch market to justify its economic and operational planning… Oh wait a second, I think I’ve heard this one before J
Smaller shuttle, fewer tiles, less expense.That's just playing with margins. The Shuttle's biggest expense came from the maintenance of those ceramic tiles.
"might" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.But it might take longer, have more detours, and more costs and limitations than SpaceX is presently declaiming.
Smaller shuttle, fewer tiles, less expense.
And even less payload. When you increase the size of a 3d shape, its volume rises faster than its surface area. So a smaller shuttle might have 10% less surface area and 20% less interior volume.Smaller shuttle, fewer tiles, less expense.
"might" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
Not really that I'm aware of. Most of the technology Shuttle needed as far as TPS and the like it had to develop itself and very little of it saw outside development beyond that that I'm aware of. Meanwhile, there was a certain "use it or lose it" about the budget for Shuttle. If they put it off, I don't know how long it would take for conditions to align to resume it--Shuttle being apporved had some pretty near-run aspects IOTL.What if NASA had put off the shuttle for the 80s instead of the 70s? Would new technology be of any significant assistance?