Could the Space Shuttle have succeeded?

[Athelstane]

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.

Yeah, putting it off until the 80's probably means there's less budget available for it. NASA might only be able to manage it as an experimental development program. DoD would have moved on to other expendable launch capabilities, and the Reagan Administration seems less likely to have been willing to fund an ambitious clean-sheet program like Shuttle turned out to be. Assuming NASA is just operating some retread or modest evolution of Saturn Apollo hardware (like your ETS timeline) then the Gipper would be a hard sell on that. I always thought even your Saturn Heavy would have been a push (though I thinkyou were right that Soviet heavy lift developments were the only real way to put a thumb on the scale).

If by some miracle it happened, I suspect the only real advances over OTL would be in avionics, and they'd be rather modest.

 

[RanulfC]

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.

That's just playing with margins. The Shuttle's biggest expense came from the maintenance of those ceramic tiles.

No, the tiles were the biggest single-item expense due to the labor needed to apply and then check them. Initially the engines were the biggest expense and near-the end of the program they finally got those costs under control. And again there really wasn't another choice to meet the weight requirements without reducing the Orbiter's size or general mass.

Smaller shuttle, fewer tiles, less expense.

It has been obvious for a while now that combining cargo and crew in the same vehicle was a wrong turn for the program.

Well lets keep in mind the assumption that every flight had to be manned which was the start of it all. And once you pile on 'bring-the-engines-back' you have a minimum size, and then 'required' cargo capacity because you know you're not going to be an HLV you want for Space Station modules... The list goes on and on.

A smaller shuttle would have needed a booster/launch vehicle and initialy making THAT something that didn't HAVE to launch a crew every flight violates one of the above "requirements" so... Yes combining crew and cargo in one vehicle in hind-sight is wrong but not so clear when you're looking at aircraft, trucks/busses, cars, and ships all carrying passengers and 'cargo' on every trip.

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.

Who cares about the payload it carries since it's ONLY supposed to ferry crew and a small amount of supplies to an orbiting space station See it's how you look at it, using the assumptions and bias' of the day it's clear the Shuttle was going to be IT for the imediate future. Given how hostile Congress was to the NASA budget too many changes or delays meant a very real and great danger of the programg being pushed to the tomorrow that never comes or worse having no money to continue manned space flight! (Priorities you remember) Get it now, get a design that meets the "requirements" and get it flying and the future will take care of itself...

Now had anyone had some expriance with booster recovery and reuse, well that would have fed into the process of defining a "shuttle" that may have had more of a chance of working out better. (Now someone sit on JSC and the Astronaut Corps about their obsessoin with manned flights) See the Flax Committee among others had noted the utility and economics of a 'small' shuttle but the conundrum was it was assumed it would have to be launched on an existing expendable launcher such as Titan or Saturn 1B and the expense of those boosters would likely wipe out an possible cost savings of a "manned" reusable vehicle. And once again, if Congress sees you building a "reusable" booster then why pay lots of money more to build ANOTHER reusable vehicle just to carry people into orbit? People in space are expensive and besides you've got no place to go...

In fact they were aware, (just as we've had to relearn) that there are problems with "small" reentry vehicles, especially ones that mass a lot compared to their L/D at entry. On the other hand there were a number of concepts and test models of some pretty inovative metallic reentry TPS systems that might have worked on a smaller scale that would be vastly too heavy for OTL's Orbiter. So the question becomes what are your priorities and requirments and how do you design a vehicle/system to meet them with the budget given?

"might" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Yup. The future is hazy, shake ball again and again.

We may know a little more at the end of the month when Musk makes his big presentation, but haziness will remain until SpaceX actually starts sending it up to orbit in some form.

I don't see any reasonable prospect that Musk will land humans on the Moon in 2024, but then again, I don't see NASA doing it, either.

What he said

And haven't you every heard the phrase "Might" makes "Right"?

Randy

 

[Emote Control]

1. I don't know about "main" motivation - it's hard to say just exactly how the matrix of concerns played out in Paine's mind.

There were senior NASA managers who were deeply concerned about the safety risks of continuing to fly lunar missions. I think if it had been up to Bob Gilruth, NASA would have stopped after Apollo 11:

Even before the Apollo 13 accident, some senior NASA managers had wondered how long they could get away with the grave risks posed by going to the Moon. Given all of the different aspects of a lunar flight—from the Saturn V launch vehicle, to the Command and Service Modules, and finally the Lunar Modules—an awful lot of very complicated components had to work just right for mission success.

At the outset of the program, NASA had formally established the target probability of overall success for each Apollo mission—a landing and return—at 90 percent. Overall crew safety was estimated at 99.9 percent. But a 1965 assessment of these risks had found that, based upon the current plans and technology, the probability of mission success for each flight was only around 73 percent, while rated per-mission crew safety sat at 96 percent.

Few people lived day-to-day with these risks and concerns more than Robert Gilruth. His fame may have receded in recent decades, but Gilruth stood above all others in America’s efforts to send humans to the Moon and back. After NASA’s creation, the fledgling agency had turned to Gilruth to lead the Space Task Group to put a human into space before the Soviet Union. Later, after President John F. Kennedy called for Moon landings, that task fell to the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, which Gilruth directed.

...Gilruth had no illusions about the challenge of reaching the Moon. Moreover, once Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the Moon before a global television audience, NASA had achieved Kennedy’s mandate. If each mission had a one-quarter chance of not landing on the Moon and a non-negligible chance of losing a crew, why keep at it? That feeling only grew within Gilruth as NASA accomplished more Moon landings.

“I put up my back and said, ‘We must stop,’” Gilruth said. “There are so many chances for us losing a crew. We just know that we’re going to do that if we keep going.”​

And Gilruth was certainly not alone in this fear.

(I'm not saying I agree, just noting what we know about how managers like Gilruth were thinking.)

All that said, I think budgets were a very big motivation for Paine. I think he was aware that the hardware was all paid for; but it seems he was looking for some sacrificial lambs for the Nixon Administration, to improve his positioning in the fight for the post-Apollo HSF architecture for NASA.

2. The numbering of cancelled missions can be a little confusing!

There was enough hardware to execute Apollo flights to the Moon up to Apollo 20, as things stood in 1969.

In January 1970, Paine cancelled Apollo 20, because he needed a Saturn V to launch Skylab, and he was not in a position to order (or terribly interested in ordering) any additional Saturn V's beyond the batch of 15 launchers already in the pipeline.

In September 1970, he decided to cancel two more Apollo lunar missions. The ones he actually cancelled were Apollo 15 and Apollo 19. Apollo 15 was at that point an H class mission (like Apollo 12, 13, and 14); Apollo 19 was slated to be a J class mission, with the improved LM that could sustain stays of up to three days and included the lunar roving vehicle. Of course, he still wanted Apollo 15's crew (commanded by David Scott) to be next in the queue, but they'd have to have their mission profile changed. This meant changing Apollo 15 as it stood into the first J class mission (originally meant to be Apollo 16), and renumbering the remaining missions (17 and 18) to 16 and 17. Which meant there would be no Apollo 18, since its hardware and slot were now taken over by Apollo 17. This made David Scott's crew pretty happy, but was obviously bad news for the crews of Dick Gordon and Fred Haise...

As it turned out, of course, the Saturn V's, CSM's and LM's for those two cancelled flights ended up never being used, save for the original Apollo 15 CSM (CSM-111), which ended up being used for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975. On the other hand, though there were other CSM's in the pipeline which ended upnever being used. There was, in short, no lo lack of hardware which was completed or at least in prospect of being completed with which to fly two more Apollo lunar missions, had NASA really wanted to do so.

Thank you. Very informative!

 

[Athelstane]

Well lets keep in mind the assumption that every flight had to be manned which was the start of it all. And once you pile on 'bring-the-engines-back' you have a minimum size, and then 'required' cargo capacity because you know you're not going to be an HLV you want for Space Station modules... The list goes on and on.

A smaller shuttle would have needed a booster/launch vehicle and initialy making THAT something that didn't HAVE to launch a crew every flight violates one of the above "requirements" so... Yes combining crew and cargo in one vehicle in hind-sight is wrong but not so clear when you're looking at aircraft, trucks/busses, cars, and ships all carrying passengers and 'cargo' on every trip.

No, it's a valid point. The assumptions you make going into it are going to shape the architecture (and clearly did here).

That said, a Flax-like Shuttle like you see in the Right Side Up timeline could have accomplished all of these objectives in a safer, and probably modestly less expensive manner - the first stage *is* manned, and does bring those mighty F-1 engines back intact (though likely needing lots of refurbishment). Obviously the tricky part is that large payloads would not be crewed all the way to orbit, though...

 

[RanulfC]

Well, as you may know, this is has been Jonathan Goff's line all along. Delighted as he is with the idea of pursuing a *completely* reusable launch vehicle, he thinks Superheavy/Starship in all of its incarnations is still much too ambitious, still too big. But his interest is in very low cost heavy lift access to orbit which might also have some value for BEO destinations, rather than a heavy lift vehicle intended for a quite specific BEO destination which happens to have value for very low cost heavy lift access to orbit.

Yep, I need to it up his blog again as I've been missing out for several months... SEVERAL months, like about a year or so of them

It's that last part that's key as I don't neccessarily dislike "heavy lift" launch vehicles but really it's a balancing act and I'd rather have reusablity and utlility that contribute to economics and flight rate than payload if it comes down to it but I'm flexible. My main issue is when you use the ability to deploiy a heavy payload to bypass things like orbital and interplanetary infrastructure to 'save money' (it doesn't really, not in an long term sense) instead of building up an equally reusable orbital and interplanetary transporation infrastructure. Hence my problem with Bob Zubrin and Mars Direct as well as Musk's plans because they're advocating doing just that and then in the latter case claiming that 'reusability' makes it all right.

Worse come to worst though, let us say Starship is a huge failure. That still leaves SpaceX operating a very cheap, high cadence family of heavy lift launch vehicles (enough to remain in business), and you have another one coming online from Blue Origin in a couple years. And none of it (unlike the Shuttle) involving any appreciable outlay of tax dollars, save in the form of launch contracts. That's far from the worse place to be, and filled with more promise for a bright future of low cost access to space - and even BEO destinations - than we have seen at any point in the past - certainly far more than the Space Shuttle ever delivered! And if Starship starts turning into a bust, we also know that Elon Musk is is as far removed from a believer in sunk cost fallacy as it is possible to be.

Er, that first part assumes certain timing and other effects work out eve if Starship is a "huge failure" and I'd question that but probably not here See if Starship and BFR get flying then Falcon-9 goes away. This is Musk's plan and he actually HAS to do this to induce the industry to use Starship/BFR. Once that begins we're in the same place we were with the Shuttle as all other US launch capacity was shut down. In this case though there is the assumption that Starship/BFR is eating everyone elses lunch and therefore unlike the Shutte where it was clear from early on that it would not likely support non-government launch with anywhere near the needed capacity or convincence so that national and commercial launch operators see and sieze the opening provided. Pardon the pun but OTL Ariene would not have flown if all US launch manufacturers hadn't been told and shown that no one OTHER than the Shuttle would get goverment money or support anymore and fully believed it and cut back or planned to shut down production. In this context Starship/BFR need to ensure they are 'sucessful' enough to grab a major portion of the launch market as a bare minimum and the simple truth is that Falcon 9 from the start cuts into that possible segment so the sooner it's shut down the better in those circumstances. Every Falcon 9 flight is a stolen payload from a Starship/BFR flight and is actually helping any competition to take market share from Starship/BFR.

So the question is really at what point can Starship/BFR "fail" and still leave a "cheap, high cadence familiy of heavy lift launch vehicles" and why would one assume that another company like Blue Origin would follow the same path despite what they've publically said? Keep in mind Blue Origin has yet to build it's Falcon 9 equivilent New Glenn and New Armstrong is still years away (if ever) after that. And yes New Glenn IS aimed at the Falcon 9 market not Starship/BFr's with "only" 45MT to LEO, (compared to 22MT for Falcon 9 or 100MT for BFR/Starship) or 13MT to GEO-transfer (compard to 8.3MT for Falcon 9 and around 50MT for BFR/Starship) and this is "only" a "single-barrel" design. It can in theory be 'boosted' just like the Falcon Heavy with all that implies. The main difference is Bezos is specifically aiming at reducing the cost and increasing the access to Earth orbit with all THAT implies. He can service lesser payload requirements by either off-loading propellant from the upper stage or making smaller upper stages whichever is more economic.

While the economics DO avoid direct tax money they also don't contribute to the (to Congress) important areas of aerospace spending and support which is going to be a problem for politicians from those areas. Not to mention the loss of "control" over space flight which has been see-sawing back and forth since the late 80s.

The problem I have is that Starshp/BFR, (and if I'm honest New Armstrong which seems to me BO just "me too"-ing on the entire BFR/MTS band-wagon) IS a "heavy payload" system that by it's nature requires that each flight be as "heavy" payload as possible and one thing we've seen is that any payload that is empty is wasted space and lost revenue. The government can afford that but commercial can't and the nature of the space launch market is there have always been a lot less satellites that can use the same launch vehicle economically. And that's the main danger.

I do think Starship *will* become a reality. But it might take longer, have more detours, and more costs and limitations than SpaceX is presently declaiming.

Can't really argue but my point is that in context SpaceX has already dropped all current efforts to squeze more performance out of the Falcon 9 series beyond some "simple" tweaks which is really short-changing the Falcion 9 system. They are dabbling with fairing recover but have dropped all work on upper stage recovery. Granted that continuing work on upper stage recovery was going to cost more and be more effort than trying to get a fairing back since they have been found to actualy survive most of the return trip anyway but the former has more long term applicabilty to overall economics and sustainabilty than the latter does so it's a clear indication that SpaceX will likely drop the Falcon 9 as soon as possible when Starship and/or BFR fly. Meanwhile Blue Origin IS making it a priority to make the New Glenn a "Falcon 9" replacment TSTO from the start in an obvous effort to be available when the market needs the capacity of that very vehicle. Musk's money and therefor his timeline but...

Randy

 

[GTStinger]

Never looked at reentry physics personally.

Would the thermal tile demands for a smaller, lighter shuttle be more linearly reduced or is there some mechanic where half the mass is a third the heat generated, for instance?

 

[Athelstane]

My main issue is when you use the ability to deploiy a heavy payload to bypass things like orbital and interplanetary infrastructure to 'save money' (it doesn't really, not in an long term sense) instead of building up an equally reusable orbital and interplanetary transporation infrastructure. Hence my problem with Bob Zubrin and Mars Direct as well as Musk's plans because they're advocating doing just that and then in the latter case claiming that 'reusability' makes it all right.

Well, you see the problem in your first three words: "My main issue."

Like Goff, your interest is in building up an effective and sustainable space economy, particularly in Earth orbit.

Musk wants to colonize Mars. On a deadline. (His natural lifespan.)

Part of the problem is that, thanks to the tireless efforts of the senior senator from Alabama, there's been very limited research or development done with regards to fuel depots. So if SpaceX really wanted to pursue an architecture that featured depots, it would have to do most of the development work itself. And pay for it itself. On top of whatever new launch system it was pursuing. As is, it's going to have to do more development work on in-orbit refueling than anyone else has done before.

I think, in short, that much of the blame for the lack of fuel depots has to go to Congress and NASA.

Pardon the pun but OTL Ariene would not have flown if all US launch manufacturers hadn't been told and shown that no one OTHER than the Shuttle would get goverment money or support anymore and fully believed it and cut back or planned to shut down production. In this context Starship/BFR need to ensure they are 'sucessful' enough to grab a major portion of the launch market as a bare minimum and the simple truth is that Falcon 9 from the start cuts into that possible segment so the sooner it's shut down the better in those circumstances. Every Falcon 9 flight is a stolen payload from a Starship/BFR flight and is actually helping any competition to take market share from Starship/BFR.

It's a fair point about market size, though I think talking about Ariane in the 1980's has limited applicability because the commercial satellite market is so much larger than it was 30-40 years ago. It can sustain more launchers than was the case back then, and that will only increase as more developing countries get into the game.

The other point I would make is that the Falcons have a certain persistance required by certification requirements and politics on the part of NASA and the Defense Department. Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are certified or about to be certified for the full range of payloads by both agencies. It took years (and lawsuits!) for them to get to that point. Starship's clock can only start ticking in that regard once the entire system is mking full operational flights to orbit (with high success). And for a while, the Falcons are going to have the advantage of a very long and successful launch record which federal planners are going to instinctively prefer to rely on. In fact, it's going to be required for the Phase II Air Force contract, once SpaceX gets its award for it - because all SpaceX has bid for Phase 2 has been Falcons, not Starship - and those launches go through 2027.

Likewise with Commercial Crew: So long as ISS is in orbit (2028? 2030?), it seems pretty certain SpaceX will keep getting its contract extended for Crew Dragon. That will require continued operation of Falcon 9.

In short, I don't think there's any quick on-ramp for Starship to take over the full Falcon manifest, at least where government payloads are concerned. And Musk and Shotwell have been adamant that the Falcons will keep flying so long as their customers (read: best customers) want them to keep flying. And the Air Force's Phase II contract is going to require Falcons to keep flying through 2027, regardless of what Elon Musk would like to do.

Can't really argue but my point is that in context SpaceX has already dropped all current efforts to squeze more performance out of the Falcon 9 series beyond some "simple" tweaks which is really short-changing the Falcion 9 system. They are dabbling with fairing recover but have dropped all work on upper stage recovery.

Well, in large part that's been dictated by the government: A design freeze was basically dictated by NASA, for example, as a requirement of using Block 5 Falcon 9 for Commercial Crew launches.

That said, Musk has also stated repeatedly that SpaceX has pretty close to maxed out performance of the Merlin and first stage. (EDIT: last year, Musk claimed there might be as much as 10% more thrust potential in the Merlin. Not sure trying to pursue that would really be worth the cost, though, even if NASA allowed it for Commercial Crew launches.) Obviously there's room for possibilities with the second stage...but that also would not be cheap.

But again, I think the real problem is that your main objectives for launcher development are not those that Elon Musk has. The guy wants to go to Mars. As quickly as possible. In that light, these decisions make a lot of sense, even if they may not pay out as easily or cheaply as Elon Musk hopes they will.

 

[Workable Goblin]

That said, Musk has also stated repeatedly that SpaceX has pretty close to maxed out performance of the Merlin and first stage. Obviously there's room for possibilities with the second stage...but that also would not be cheap.

I'm also not sure that Falcon 9 has the performance envelope to have a reusable second stage with a useful GTO payload (i.e. covering the most lucrative market segment), either. Kerolox ISP along with the weight of TPS, control surfaces, and the other requirements to recover successfully...it makes things rather marginal.

I generally have the same viewpoint as @RanulfC or Jon Goff re: Mars versus building up something in Earth orbit, so I would have rather SpaceX have followed up Falcon with some kind of "SFR" that was targeted towards a similar payload capacity as Falcon 9 Block 5 but designed from the outset to be fully reusable and incorporating "lessons learned" from Falcon operations...but, as you say, that obviously isn't what Musk wants, so there you go.

 

[e of pi]

I'm also not sure that Falcon 9 has the performance envelope to have a reusable second stage with a useful GTO payload (i.e. covering the most lucrative market segment), either. Kerolox ISP along with the weight of TPS, control surfaces, and the other requirements to recover successfully...it makes things rather marginal.

I ran the numbers a while back, and adding reusability hardware to the F9 upper stage would eat about 3.5 metric tons of payload, basically regardless of if you're returning it from LEO or GTO. It'd effectively mean you could only operate F9R to LEO, or at least only to GTO for the lightest of payloads, but it'd make fully-reusable FH to GTO possible, and FH has payload to spare.

 

[Athelstane]

I'm also not sure that Falcon 9 has the performance envelope to have a reusable second stage with a useful GTO payload (i.e. covering the most lucrative market segment), either. Kerolox ISP along with the weight of TPS, control surfaces, and the other requirements to recover successfully...it makes things rather marginal.

Great point.

 

[kernals12]

Galaxy Brain Take:
The Apollo program should've been cancelled and all efforts diverted to the X-20 Dyna Soar.

 

[Athelstane]

Galaxy Brain Take:
The Apollo program should've been cancelled and all efforts diverted to the X-20 Dyna Soar.

Do you want a Red Moon?

Because that's how you get a Red Moon.

 

[kernals12]

Do you want a Red Moon?

Because that's how you get a Red Moon.

I don't care. The Apollo mission was unpopular anyway and there's a reason nobody has felt a reason to send anyone to the moon since 1972.

 

[Athelstane]

I don't care. The Apollo mission was unpopular anyway and there's a reason nobody has felt a reason to send anyone to the moon since 1972.

Well, Apollo was popular for a short spell in mid-1969...

But this is where alt-history is helpful to engage. If Apollo's popular support was always limited, a Soviet landing on the Moon first would have generated public outrage you could measure with spectrometers from Ganymede: it's always easier to generate anger than joy. And we know this, because we can see the purple public response in America to every other big Soviet "first" in space from 1957 to 1965. I really can't fault Kennedy and Johnson for being desperate to avoid that outcome on their watch.

Probably the only reasonable way you can avert something like Apollo is to have the Soviets abandon the Space Race early on.

 

[kernals12]

Well, Apollo was popular for a short spell in mid-1969...

But this is where alt-history is helpful to engage. If Apollo's popular support was always limited, a Soviet landing on the Moon first would have generated public outrage you could measure with spectrometers from Ganymede: it's always easier to generate anger than joy. And we know this, because we can see the purple public response in America to every other big Soviet "first" in space from 1957 to 1965. I really can't fault Kennedy and Johnson for being desperate to avoid that outcome on their watch.

Probably the only reasonable way you can avert something like Apollo is to have the Soviets abandon the Space Race early on.

Or have Alan Shepard beat out Yuri Gagarin into space, giving Americans an achievement they can be content with.

 

[Athelstane]

Or have Alan Shepard beat out Yuri Gagarin into space, giving Americans an achievement they can be content with.

Yeah. That might do it, too.

Unless the Soviets respond with a formal public commitment to a Moon landing to one up the Americans. I tend to think Khrushchev would not, but it can't be ruled out.

 

[kernals12]

Yeah. That might do it, too.

Unless the Soviets respond with a formal public commitment to a Moon landing to one up the Americans. I tend to think Khrushchev would not, but it can't be ruled out.

I can't think of any scenario where the Russians would avoid a space race. They're going to want ballistic missiles and satellites.

 

[kernals12]

It's obvious that NASA is only going to have one blank check project so we might as well have it be the one that's the most useful.

 

[DougM]

You say Applo should have been cancelled outright... Based on What?

You do realize that the reason NASA got the huge spending in the 60s was because of the “race to the moon”. How is Dyna Soar going to help get to the moon?

The problem is NASA dumped EVERYTHING else in favor of Applo and that is where the problem is. If NASA had kept its original budget for non Applo then they could have been developing tech that would be useful post Moon Race.

 

[Athelstane]

How is Dyna Soar going to help get to the moon?

It wouldn't.