I don't know if it's true, but I heard that if NASA had actually put up the number of satellites it was originally planning on, then the economics would have been in favor of reusability. For a number of reasons, the satellite number was too low.
Ah Challenge: Improve the Shuttle
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I don't know if it's true, but I heard that if NASA had actually put up the number of satellites it was originally planning on, then the economics would have been in favor of reusability. For a number of reasons, the satellite number was too low.
Hm, the X15 was literally dropped from a B-52 and carried Liquid OX for oxidizer, while the SR71 was an airbreather capable of cruising at Mach 3.2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR71
There have various discussions of using these systems in an upgraded Pegasus program
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(rocket)
However from the above source:
"By weight, Pegasus is one of the most expensive "launch-to-orbit" vehicles,[citation needed] however, for many small satellites it is desirable to be the primary payload and be placed into the orbit desired, as opposed to being a secondary payload placed in a compromise orbit. For example, Pegasus launches from equatorial launch sites can put spacecraft in orbits avoiding the South Atlantic Anomaly (a high radiation region over the South Atlantic ocean) which is desirable for many scientific spacecraft."
Hm, if you could get ram and scram jets to work reliably...
Think of something like the big US SST proposals or the XB70 made of X15 Iconel X alloy and a bunch of rockets in the tail. The jets would get the plane up to mach 3.5 or so at 100,000' and the rockets would take over, up in the too-thin atmosphere where rockets work better, taking the 1st stage up to mach 6 or 7 and 60 or so miles, where it would launch the orbiter. The orbiter would use its rockets to get that extra 60 miles altitude and most of the speed needed for orbit.
For start no segmented boosters instead use monolithic solid rocket boosters followed by liquid flyback boosters when they become available. Nasa considered rebuilding the shuttles in the late 80's and early 90's to boost performance and extend life expectancy. Oh and if Skylab B isn't possible then use the external tank (that is normally thrown away) and build a couple of huge ring stations.
They were going to do that with a new Apollo anyways, since it had a drastically oversized SM (due to TEI propulsion requirements) for Earth-orbit missions. You could delete most of the lunar-related stuff and compress it into 1 or 2 bays and have a lot of room left over for supplies (it was mooted as a logistics vehicle, although it would have been really awkward--I'm talking about needing EVAs to move any solid material from the SM to the station).
They didn't know it was going to cost a hell of a lot more until they actually did it. They figured there were a number of things they could do which would make it relatively cheap and simple to reuse as opposed to just using throwaway boosters each flight. Plus it's nearly common sense to say that reusing is going to be cheaper than building new ones for each flight since building new vehicles tends to cost a hell of a lot (which is why most cheap spaceflight proposals still use reusable craft for at least part of the flight). I'll let T.A. Heppenheimer explain.
baldy46 said:
I mentioned that. They needed at least 39 flights/year to break even on the Mathematica analysis (which was generous towards NASA in several points). However, when they adopted the partially reusable design, their flight rate was capped at 24/year by the rate at which Michoud could build ETs (that's why '86 was scheduled to have 24 flights--they literally could not have anymore, that was their planned operational rate).
Given the limitations of technology at the time, I'd say the best bet for a low-cost American launcher would be a varient of the S-IC stage. Make a Saturn V-C (I believe that was its designation), 1.5 stages, which can lift 22.6 tonnes to LEO, and refurbish those F-1 engines after every use. For heavier lift, use variants of the INT-20, with either 3 or 4 F-1s for 40 or 60 tonnes to LEO. When you need crew, take your modified CSM and put it on top of the V-C. This way, you have a reasonably low-cost launch system with the same components throughout, which can launch a reasonably big fuel tank for Wet Workshop stations (S-IC in LEO!), and that keeps the F-1 and J-2 in production. F-1 becomes F-1A, perhaps even the Fluorine-oxygen/kerosene variant I heard was proposed, J-2 becomes J-2S, and you can bring some form of the old Saturn V design back when you return to the Moon, and then go on to Mars and Venus.
I've been reading that Heppenheimer I posted, and apparently there were issues with wet workshop stations that might make them impractical.
(Specifically with getting enough equipment and such up to make it a useful concept, as opposed to launching a smaller but still useful dry workshop, and with configuring everything on-orbit)
No, no, not just no but hell no.
Well, I know the stuff is nasty to handle, but is it really that much worse than the hypergollics the French and Russians use?
As much as I'd like some examples of its effects (so far, I've heard nothing more than "it's really, really, really nasty to handle), I'll just have to live with the F-1A as the best F-1 development at least until TTL 1975.
Here you go. Now, there are a lot of non-fluorine compounds there, but an alarming number of rather nasty things include fluorine, despite that chemical lacking the versatility of many others. Not to mention certain very nasty compounds (FOOF, anyone?) that you might reasonably expect to show up in rocket exhaust...
North American were actively considering modifying a B-70, had the B-70 programme not been scrapped, to act as a X-15 launch vehicle, & accordingly their P.R department, produced promotional artwork of the above launching a X-15...
Had the programme gone ahead, the X-15 would have been launched from the back of the B-70, travelling at Mach 2.5 at approximately 60,000 feet...
In addition, there were proposals to produce a stretched version of the X-15, with a delta wing platform, rather than the Stub wings of the X-15A...
Well, even if it hadn't been canceled there were two aircraft actually built...much like the two B-52s that actually served as NASA launch aircraft for some time, they could have, if NASA had wanted to (and they actually operated both aircraft as research vehicles for a while). A stretched and improved X-15 isn't anywhere close to the intent of the OP, though.
Texan Space Yokel Chiming In
The big problem that the Shuttle had in the 1970's was it's a system in search of a purpose, instead of having a purpose everyone in DC would support.
Lobbing sats into orbit you could do much cheaper with a Delta or Ariane, chucking people up into orbit was doable with other systems, where it shone was repairing satellites and ferrying crews to/from the ISS but it was the 90's and 00's 25 yrs+ after they drew up the plans for it.
The hope was that once the first-generation Shuttles proved their worth, next-generation Shuttles would be less costly to buy, operate and maintain, bringing the cost-per-mission down to competitive rates with disposable launch systems.
An article referenced earlier about the changes in NASA also discuss the problems NASA had with the paradigm they wanted to push for space travel.
America had gone from a nation that traveled by railroad up through WW 2 to one that traveled by car and jet aircraft in twenty years, because we built the Interstate Highway system and jet technology made air travel incredibly cheap compared to before WW2.
There was almost a blind faith that government subsidies, technical know-how and commercial enterprise would yield as impressive results in space travel once they got the kinks worked out as they did with the above transport systems from 1945-1965.
The problem was that politically there was a tremendous loss of will and a rather empty pocketbook after 1973, which nobody seemed willing to deal with until Ray Gun Ronnie decided SDI sounded like a great idea in the 1980's. Then all of a sudden, we had a reason to ferry people and satellites into orbit a lot more often and a more open pocketbook to make more Shuttles and fund the support network.
Then the Soviets inconveniently collapsed, and we found ourselves with all these resources needing a new assignment.
My point is that you have to butterfly away several key issues IOTL for a better Shuttle.
One, make NASA a national priority executing a long-range plan to explore and exploit near-earth resources for the benefit of mankind. IMNSHO, the military's input had a lot of distorting effects both on mission and perception.
Two, make NASA a bit like Japan's MITI in collaborating with American and friendly nations' companies to find and pursue opportunities in space. The more civilian involvement/feedback, the more pressure on the Pres and Congress to spur things along. The more competition America has in getting into space and exploiting it, the better for how quickly and effectively we do so.
Three, don't ask the Shuttle to do it all as the first-generation reusable spacecraft. Always think about the next-generation spacecraft to do specific aspects cheaper and better. Corporations would do that themselves, once they had interests making them money and wanted to cut bottlenecks and excessive overhead, but government bridging the gap would take a bit.
Fourth, William Proxmire and other NASA critics in the 70's would have to be convinced that the national and humanity's long-term interests would be better served by NASA than some pork-barrel project.
Solve those problems, and the Shuttle would be the least of your issues.
I'm not saying we'd be living in a jetpack future if we did with a Hilton space hotel and a Pan Am shuttle getting us there, asteroid and lunar mining with manned missions to Titan , Europa, and so forth, but we'd be a lot further on the way to making those happen.
The big problem that the Shuttle had in the 1970's was it's a system in search of a purpose, instead of having a purpose everyone in DC would support.
Lobbing sats into orbit you could do much cheaper with a Delta or Ariane, chucking people up into orbit was doable with other systems, where it shone was repairing satellites and ferrying crews to/from the ISS but it was the 90's and 00's 25 yrs+ after they drew up the plans for it.
The hope was that once the first-generation Shuttles proved their worth, next-generation Shuttles would be less costly to buy, operate and maintain, bringing the cost-per-mission down to competitive rates with disposable launch systems.
An article referenced earlier about the changes in NASA also discuss the problems NASA had with the paradigm they wanted to push for space travel.
America had gone from a nation that traveled by railroad up through WW 2 to one that traveled by car and jet aircraft in twenty years, because we built the Interstate Highway system and jet technology made air travel incredibly cheap compared to before WW2.
There was almost a blind faith that government subsidies, technical know-how and commercial enterprise would yield as impressive results in space travel once they got the kinks worked out as they did with the above transport systems from 1945-1965.
The problem was that politically there was a tremendous loss of will and a rather empty pocketbook after 1973, which nobody seemed willing to deal with until Ray Gun Ronnie decided SDI sounded like a great idea in the 1980's. Then all of a sudden, we had a reason to ferry people and satellites into orbit a lot more often and a more open pocketbook to make more Shuttles and fund the support network.
Then the Soviets inconveniently collapsed, and we found ourselves with all these resources needing a new assignment.
My point is that you have to butterfly away several key issues IOTL for a better Shuttle.
One, make NASA a national priority executing a long-range plan to explore and exploit near-earth resources for the benefit of mankind. IMNSHO, the military's input had a lot of distorting effects both on mission and perception.
Two, make NASA a bit like Japan's MITI in collaborating with American and friendly nations' companies to find and pursue opportunities in space. The more civilian involvement/feedback, the more pressure on the Pres and Congress to spur things along. The more competition America has in getting into space and exploiting it, the better for how quickly and effectively we do so.
Three, don't ask the Shuttle to do it all as the first-generation reusable spacecraft. Always think about the next-generation spacecraft to do specific aspects cheaper and better. Corporations would do that themselves, once they had interests making them money and wanted to cut bottlenecks and excessive overhead, but government bridging the gap would take a bit.
Fourth, William Proxmire and other NASA critics in the 70's would have to be convinced that the national and humanity's long-term interests would be better served by NASA than some pork-barrel project.
Solve those problems, and the Shuttle would be the least of your issues.
I'm not saying we'd be living in a jetpack future if we did with a Hilton space hotel and a Pan Am shuttle getting us there, asteroid and lunar mining with manned missions to Titan , Europa, and so forth, but we'd be a lot further on the way to making those happen.
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This I think is true - "If you build it they will come" makes a good fiction story, doesn't work so well with multi-billion dollar aerospace projects.
Umm... NASA's figures CLAIMED that the shuttle was going to be cheaper at launching satellites than an Ariane or Delta. They CLAIMED their first version was going to be a huge success. Some of the cost figures they submitted to Congress were ... 'creative', shall we say, but some of it I suspect they really believed.
And that's part of the problem. Like the Japanese in WWII, they fixated on their desired outcome, and lived a fantasy - with horrible outcomes in both cases. IMO
By not trying to save money by compromising on everything during its development.
Yes the initial development costs would be higher, but the operational costs would be lower.
Yes, that would be nice. But, as I said, you have to pass the gateway of the OMB and Congress. So I'm pretty sure that won't work out unless you stretch out Shuttle development even longer than IOTL, simply because no one wants to pay for awesome Shuttle, just mediocre Shuttle (but they want awesome Shuttle performance).