Could the Space Shuttle have succeeded?

A frankly better scenario would have been to restart Apollo CSM production. Use Saturn 1B as a launcher. Skylab had provisions for two or three long duration mission, or half a dozen short ones. A backup also existed.

That could have been used till the early 1980’s when a better and more realistic shuttle comes on line.

This does butterfly away female astronauts until the mid 80’s.

Restarting ANY production lines for Apollo, including the Saturn 1B and CM, was going to be massively expensive. Doable mind you but probably more than Congress was willing to pony up and NASA, rightly or wrongly had already hung it's hat on the Integrated Program Plan/Space Transportation System (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Transportation_System) of which the Shuttle was the only survivor. And once the restart was done the operating costs were going to be high using legacy Apollo hardware as well. It's not really likely that Congress would have authorized the funds needed to launch Skylab II and somewhere around my forums I just saw a NASA report on the last Saturn V which basically said if they didn't use it by about 1975 or so nothing short of a complete rebuild was going to getting it flying. And if you thought the cost for restarting things for Saturn 1B were crazy...
(And maybe not on the women astronauts since the same social pressures are there and even if the CM never seats more than three one can still be made available)

And then there's the idea of a "better and more realistic shuttle' itself since if you've seen how the Shuttle became what it was you should be very aware that the overall goal wasn't likely to aim that low even if forced to do so :) The Flax committee was seriously questioning ALL the assumptions behind NASA's design for the Shuttle but even they had to agree that IF NASA was at all right and in the ballpark the benefits would end up being very positive versus almost any alternative. The problem of course was that NASA wasn't right and the need to spread the design work, the development and then the construction amped up the costs and difficulty even more. Worse it was clear early on the proposed flight rate was unrealistic even assuming the Shuttle flew every single US space mission planned for any reason. And it probably couldn't since many missions required delta-v and support any upper stage it could carry would not have. (Legacy of planning missions which depend on a "space tug" and high energy upper stages either launched on a 'big' launcher or assembled in orbit when none of the above is going to happen)

The Space Transportation System, (note this being the official "program name" of the Shuttle for a reason) was always going to be the 'foot-in-the-door' to a future IPP if NASA had anything to say about it. And in that same mindset a return to "normal" with Apollo level funding and support was just around the corner, any day now once everyone comes to their senses and restores NASA and manned spaceflight to the highest priority level. Not. Going. To. Happen.

Most of my alt-TL notes avoid this by avoiding the Lunar goal by various means the only one that does has someone going back in time with enough evidence to convince NASA management that YES they mean to cut your budget and make you JUST a regular part of the government to get ready or suffer. (And in most cases of the latter I examine the personalities in general and it's not a pretty ending)

Now lets actually assume they get this and manage to fund Skylab II into space. Note I'm not mocking or disparaging the concept I just want to make sure we're all on the same page from the get-go.

Why would we assume that a "better and more realistic shuttle" would ever come about? The Soviets only built Buran because the US was building the Shuttle. Originally they, and the US wanted something smaller that could launch on an existing ELV. (Both were essentially more like the Dynasoar than our Shuttle)

While cheaper to develop and deploy than a 'full-size' shuttle the problem was it didn't really allow much else having somewhat less 'capability' than Soyuz or Apollo and costing far more to put into and use in service. (Seriously, the costs for making the Apollo CM both reusable and refurbishment costs were pretty well defined and further making it capable of hauling up to 5 astronauts was pretty straight forward while recovery costs would come down as the needed sea support was actually lower than Apollo used by quite a bit. Soyuz on the other hand was pretty much at its limits so going with a mini-shuttle might have been a better option, but again the costs were a big issue for all involved) And the "big" deal to the Powers-That-Be was that neither option would save that much money or give that much more capability than just continuing to use Apollo/Soyuz into the future since there was not very much PLANNED or SUPPORTED to do in space. Really bigger space stations through the 80s and 90s is about it and in the case of the US there is active opposition to going back to the Moon or on to Mars and the Soviets simply can't afford to do so.

Keep in mind that despite using 'known' technology there's no budget or support for expanded activities because Congress if it wants, (and most wanted to, especially in manned space) they now can cut MORE rather than less. NASA had plans of course, (so did the Soviet rocket program) but not the funding and support to carry them through. Also keep in mind the production line was shut down in 1968 if nothing changes and by 1972 they were mostly scrapped. Note that the DECSION to stop production was being discussed as early as 1965 but the actual shutdown and aim more for a 'shuttle' came just before Apollo 11 landed. (Some documents here: https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4407/vol4/cover.pdf, specifically I-46, interesting discussions here; https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=43467.0, and here; https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26667.0 among others) The only legacy item of Apollo to continue through 1972 was standby production of the J2 as it was considered a possible space shuttle engine until the mid-70s.

So what we'd have in most cases is the US still flying "Apollo-like" CM's launched on upgraded, (modernized not really more capable but things like electronic and materials upgrades and the H1 going to the RS-27 and such) Saturn-1Bs and the Russians flying upgraded Soyuz's on R7's. Arguably you could get things to where we are now pretty easy over the same period. ISS segments go up on Saturn-1B's and Proton's instead of the Shuttle but now you have to have dedicated US crew flights added in. Ok. Having the Saturn-1B available for some missions might help somewhat as it would be unlikely that NASA would be using any Titan's and there would be no Titan-IV but possibly some different models of the Titan-IIIE/M so you might see some allowed 'growth' in both Viking and Voyager. (Bill, like most in Congress were more favorable towards unmanned missions as they cost less but pretty much all of them IIRC had "issues" with the original "Grand Tour" and Voyager Mars plans due to cost)

In general I like the idea if you can get it to fly past the NASA-that-was and Congress. The former is actually harder than the latter since you have to get them to admit and face the fact that "Apollo" was a one-of and is not coming back which to my mind would have been a VERY valuable lesson for them to learn 40 years ago. Von Braun IIRC correctly remarked (paraphrasing) that working on a shoe string was actually more conducive to innovation and out-of-the-box thinking than having unlimited support and funding because you really had to prioritize and plan your work around what you had not necessarily what you really wanted.

But NASA was an organization and culture that had gone from less than 15 minutes of "space" experience when it got the call to the surface of the Moon in less than 8 years and any "lesser" challenge was seen as an insult. On the gripping hand that 'miracle' came from a heavy national commitment and support that really started to fade almost as soon as it was begun and a big problem was that organization and culture couldn't transition well if at all to the lesser challenges and frankly no one wanted to really try at the time. (Hence why I see "here's proof of the future" turning out badly)

Randy
 
Best POD would have been to delay the shuttle program for a decade and keep Apollo a little longer. By then the shuttle could be designed with better tech and without the design requirement to launch/service huge spy satellites in orbit.

It was probably less the 'tech" because most of it worked fine but the design and mission all piled on a single vehicle. Some of the early designs where keeping the Saturn-V payload to LEO capability or near as possible wasn't a main driver or where the design embraces both manned and unmanned flights, (again such as RSU) the whole thing looks and feels more viable than what we got. But from all I've read "settling" for that is highly unlikely without a LOT of changes in the people involved. Even during the "Mk1/Mk2" Orbiter phase NASA wasn't really interested in actually building a Mk1 with lesser capablity, (and most people outside the OMB agreed as it was clearly a dead end with little ability to actually be changed into the Mk2) they wanted the full-up, do-anything Orbiter and nothing less. And as it became clear the fully reusable booster was going to be huge, (something bigger and heavier than an S1C on launch and "light" and fragile on return and did I mention huge?) and building both the booster and orbiter were cleary not going to clear OMB's budget let alone what NASA was actually getting the Orbiter became the main focus. Shame really but no one really thought having a reusable heavy booster would end up having the cost savings that a reusable Orbiter showed. Especaily when you use the assumptions of the day which to be frank everyone agreed were resonably valid assumptions. (Economic, operations, and development costs were a whole different matter but if you included the uses and mission the actual outcomes were anything but clear)

The idea was that the Shuttle could not only deliver satellites to orbit but bring them back for servicing as well and this "mission" remained a stated goal even after it began flying. The problem was that whole "mission" depended on a space tug that was never developed let alone deployed and without it the Shuttle could barely launch the satellites and had no way to retriveve or service them. OTL what was done with Hubble was supposed to be one of the Shuttles MAIN jobs! Funny thing about the payload bay and spy satellites, it was never actually designed to carry them. The 'numbers' given to NASA by the Air Force had, at the time, nothing to do with the actual spy satellites being developed because the people NASA talked to in the Air Force only launched them for the super-secret NRO and they only knew what they were currenlty launching. When the Secretary in charge of the NRO arranged a meeting with NASA and explained that the numbers they'd been given were likely too big and not applicable to planned future spy satellites NASA listened closely and then ignored what it heard for two reasons:
1- The guy telling them this was "only" an Under-Secretary and their prevous data had come from the Secretary of the Air Force straight from AF Systems Command. (They couldn't and didn't know this "Under-Secretary" was actually in charge of the NRO or that the NRO even existed :) )

2- The previous figures merged well with thier own requirements for planned future space station modules and orbital assembly parts so why go with anything less than what they needed/wanted anyway?

To the Air Force they threw some figures at NASA assuming that particular mission would never actually fall to NASA but boy were THEY surprised when it came down that ALL launches in the future would on the Shuttle and they went from lukewarm support, (we might get to fly some astronauts) to hot-n-heavy (re-design EVERYTHING to fly on the Shuttle and then some, which BTW pissed the NRO off to no end) support including proposing and building the Vandenburg launch site. (Ok that was actually in the hopes that Reagan would give them a couple of Shuttle of their very own but still...)

Seriously, if you delay the Shuttle you might as well kill it AND keep in mind that NASA had no backup plan because they fully belived that any cost-overruns and or shortfalls would be covered because who would let America lose i'ts manned spaceflight capability? They were ALMOST very, very wrong and were surprised when the saving budget influx came from Cater/Mondale.

If the Space Shuttle had worked as well as they said it would, imagine how much further NASA's budget would go and how many more probes they could launch.

If wishes were fishes, we'd all be vegitarians or some such pithy saying :) In context you first have to define, design and build the right Shuttle which as we can see wasn't what was going on. RSU gets it pretty right IMO, (one or two might agree with me :) ) in that by focusing on the Booster despite what the majority of NASA and others said you actually get a much better ROI than OTL's Shuttle because it has more utiilty than our Shuttle. Further it's a bit, (not greatly but a bit) easier to 'upgrade' to a reusable orbiter from the expendable boosters and during all that you can still, if you want, fly manned orbital missions of some type. The main problem of course as I noted is no one actually made a good case for doing so and most people could clearly show that JUST a booster was never going to meet any of the required goals. I think the case could have been made successfully with the right person being straight forward and calling out the massive assumptions in the main Shuttle argument but that didn't happne OTL and getting it to runs into some pretty serious head butting contests with serious consequences.

So a reusable Orbiter checked almost all the boxes needed, (with the idea that the SRBs could be replaced with something more effiecent at some tomorrow that never comes, ok I'll try and stop) with always needing a crew to fly, bringing the engines back to a runway landing and carrying large payloads into space. Cost? Heh, once everything is flying on the Shuttle and we're flying more often... Eh, ok that ones out the window so no. Probably the nearest outcome you could have gotten with this option is they don't get the funding gift TTL to complete the Shuttle as planned on time and have to make radical changes and have the support of Congress and the Administration to do so. (Iffy at best but still possible, more on that here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-carter-lets-the-space-shuttle-die.396883/) In which case you may get a "transport" glider Shuttle more like Buran than what the US had OTL and possibly an early Shuttle-C heavy lifter OR you get a Shuttle stack sans Orbiter deivering a big payload and with an "Apollo-like" capsule on top. Clearly not going to get even a sliver of the 'jobs' done we're promised by the Shuttle but NASA can keep flying in somewhat of a fashion. Most likely you get NASA manned spaceflight set on the back burner till the mid-80s and they end up flying an Apollo-like capsule on Titan's into orbit ala "Apollo-Titan" and 'someday' a Shuttle which is quietly cancled and buried.

Other ideas like the SERV or some of the other SSTO's suffer from needing even more bleeding edge tech than the Shuttle, Now you can turn them into reusable boosters which could loft a "shuttle-like" orbiter but again they need to be huge in order to do the job with all the costs and risks that entails or you need to ramp down the Shuttle size and split cargo and crew for most flights which NASA manned spaceflight is going to hate with passion of a thousand suns but hey... In most cases the hardest part is selling the 'recovery and reuse' aspect because "wings-and-wheels" was the most obvious and well known way of getting the important bits back and despite insitutionally knowning better, (NASA tested recovery and reuse extensivly in the late 50s and early 60s and ocean recovery was very possible and economic) it was 'assumed' that getting the stage back onto dry land somehow was the best option. We really didn't "know" better till SpaceX came along and arguably even then it's not as clear as one might think. Back when the Shuttle decion was made? Not even close.

Of course this being AH "what if" is the biggest question you can ask so...

The main point of the idea would be balanced between which "worked as well as they said" you go for not that they are mutally exclusive but it's highly unlikely you'd get both.

1) Lower cost to orbit

This one really doesn't do that much for an unmanned program other than maybe allowing more mass for a probe per dollar spent. See you still need a high power upper stage that works with the Shuttle and frankly as there was some major safety and opeations issues with putting one IN the Shuttle the factors don't change all that much. (What's this mean? High power propulsion such as LH2/LOX stages have to vent to keep from bursting unless activly cooled and that's expensive and heavy. So vent the stage you say.... INSIDE the Shuttle Cargo Bay with no way for the gas to escape and a high chance of mixing? Ya there was a reason Shuttle Centaur went bye-bye pretty quickly) So you're still stuck using some sort of solid stage which doesn't give you all that much impulse to play with.

2) More frequent flights to orbit

Now a highly reusable Shuttle that flys often despite likley costing more operationally means you can actually put more probes into space over time and if you can rendezvous with a fueled and ready booster in orbit and attach the probe that's all in the good. But it begs the obvious question of why not just launch the probe on the rocket that shot the booster into space and save time and trouble?

The real question is does the Shuttle in any incarnation actually operate for less on a per mission basis and also cost less up-front to allow NASA's budget to stretch further and keep in mind that the only reason this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA#/media/File:NASA-Budget-Federal.svg

wasn't worse is because you had an ongoing development program and active support from the right places at the right times.Note the budget is consistanlty dropping during the development of the Shuttle and barely bumps a bit after it starts flying only to dip again quickly. Probes also have to come from that budget and be approved by Congress and frankly they were normally pretty unsupporting historically.

Randy
 
This one really doesn't do that much for an unmanned program other than maybe allowing more mass for a probe per dollar spent. See you still need a high power upper stage that works with the Shuttle and frankly as there was some major safety and operations issues with putting one IN the Shuttle the factors don't change all that much. (What's this mean? High power propulsion such as LH2/LOX stages have to vent to keep from bursting unless actively cooled and that's expensive and heavy. So vent the stage you say.... INSIDE the Shuttle Cargo Bay with no way for the gas to escape and a high chance of mixing? Ya there was a reason Shuttle Centaur went bye-bye pretty quickly) So you're still stuck using some sort of solid stage which doesn't give you all that much impulse to play with.
Randy
There is another non-cryogenic option on the table. In the months prior to STS-107, NASA had funded a study on a high energy stage for the shuttle with performance baselined around delivering the Space Interferometry Mission (5.0 metric tons to a C3 of +0.4km²/sec²) and the James Webb Space Telescope (5.4 metric tons to a C3 -0.69 km²/sec²) of to their target orbits using Columbia. The stage would have been 165 inches long, and massed slightly over 14 metric tons loaded. The engine was to be a single RS-72 providing 55kN of thrust at 338.5s from NTO/MMH at 895 psia through a 1:300 area ratio bell. Significant time was dedicated to studying gelled prop for this stage as well. In the end, Columbia had been selected as the baseline because she retained her internal airlock, allowing the full 60 foot payload bay to be used. Following the conclusion of the HEUS study in late January 2003, additional work was done on validating the possibilities of using HEUS with the remaining orbiter fleet (and external airlocks). It was determined that because all future missions would likely carry the robot arm, the aerospace support equipment could be shortened, and with some minor changes in the stage length and layout, HEUS could be used to complete the two targeted missions.
 
Al Bean when he suddenly quit remarked about the Shuttle in essence that he had walked on the moon, he had commanded a space station....the Shuttle was a big come down. Fred Haise left when the Shuttle-Skylab mission was cancelled due to delays and the whole Shuttle-Salyut proposal ended due to the restart of the Superpower tensions.

Until Hubble and Shuttle-MIR, the STS was cart with no horse. You are right of course that it was since all the other stuff that was **supposed** to have come got cancelled.
A POD in the late 60's or by 1970, to continue making Apollos and Saturn 1B is IMO possible and realistically, the only real system which can see a realistic continued US manned flight programme.

(On the women, all tye early lady-astronauts were mission specialists, no pilots till the mid 1990's. Apollo and Gemini were both spacecrafts which required some serious piloting.)
 
There is another non-cryogenic option on the table. In the months prior to STS-107, NASA had funded a study on a high energy stage for the shuttle with performance baselined around delivering the Space Interferometry Mission (5.0 metric tons to a C3 of +0.4km²/sec²) and the James Webb Space Telescope (5.4 metric tons to a C3 -0.69 km²/sec²) of to their target orbits using Columbia. The stage would have been 165 inches long, and massed slightly over 14 metric tons loaded. The engine was to be a single RS-72 providing 55kN of thrust at 338.5s from NTO/MMH at 895 psia through a 1:300 area ratio bell. Significant time was dedicated to studying gelled prop for this stage as well. In the end, Columbia had been selected as the baseline because she retained her internal airlock, allowing the full 60 foot payload bay to be used. Following the conclusion of the HEUS study in late January 2003, additional work was done on validating the possibilities of using HEUS with the remaining orbiter fleet (and external airlocks). It was determined that because all future missions would likely carry the robot arm, the aerospace support equipment could be shortened, and with some minor changes in the stage length and layout, HEUS could be used to complete the two targeted missions.

Thanks actually as I recall seeing that one but couldn't find it again :) (Kept getting gelled-metal-added work for the Air Force instead) In the end the issues with just about any liquid fuel vis-a-vis crew safety weren't there. I recall another study which was based on using 'green' propellants per-se, (H2O2/kerosene, yes it's considered 'green' and I'm not sure exactly why but what the hey) which despite the report noting that H2O2 when kept at temperatures around 40F/5C does not decompose at all, the narrative insisted that due to peroxides "natural decomposition" would not be considered for a Shuttle upper stage.

I kinda wonder about the "what if's" had the Shuttle actually been better able to carry out the missions originally planned for it because these things should have actually come up sooner than they seemed to.

Randy
 
(H2O2/kerosene, yes it's considered 'green' and I'm not sure exactly why but what the hey)


Randy
Because they won't poison you or give you cancer, and neither will the combustion products. If spilled, neither one is a large environmental risk either.
 
Al Bean when he suddenly quit remarked about the Shuttle in essence that he had walked on the moon, he had commanded a space station....the Shuttle was a big come down. Fred Haise left when the Shuttle-Skylab mission was cancelled due to delays and the whole Shuttle-Salyut proposal ended due to the restart of the Superpower tensions.

Until Hubble and Shuttle-MIR, the STS was cart with no horse. You are right of course that it was since all the other stuff that was **supposed** to have come got cancelled.
A POD in the late 60's or by 1970, to continue making Apollos and Saturn 1B is IMO possible and realistically, the only real system which can see a realistic continued US manned flight programme.

(On the women, all the early lady-astronauts were mission specialists, no pilots till the mid 1990's. Apollo and Gemini were both spacecrafts which required some serious piloting.)

Last first, the Mercury 13 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_13) were a thing and when NASA finally broadened the astronaut selection criteria DURING Apollo it was rightly pointed out that this no longer barred women from being astronauts and there were already qualified woman pilots willing to volunteer. NASA delayed things with the way they selected the Apollo expansion pilots but in essence they were one public challenge away from having to include women astronauts and knew it. They hemmed and hawed but since the Shuttle was delayed they had an excuse not to greatly expand the Astronaut Corps but that went away quickly.

I can't find my notes on it but IIRC Nixon made some noises about not seeing someone as a woman being a bar to being an astronaut but he'd deferred to Ike's desc ion on the parameters at the time. He seemed to be at least receptive to considering the idea when he was President but I could be full of crap of course :)

The Shuttle WAS a come down for the Apollo astronauts in general but that was expected as they would go from "test pilots" to "taxi drivers" and that was actually how it should be because SOMEONE had to be eventually. (While fictional the book "Island in the Clouds: The Great 1972 Venus Flyby" (https://www.amazon.com/Island-Clouds-Great-Venus-Altered-ebook/dp/B01NH9HONF) actually got something Buzz Aldrin noted correct when he "said" that there had to be a change between the daredevil "test pilot" astronaut and the guy who hauled the mail and vittles for there to be any significant shift in the Space Program.
(Semi-related: https://space.nss.org/brothers-unde...clouds-and-the-myth-of-the-astronaut-as-hero/)

In essence there was and had to be a shift from the cutting edge, edge of the seat, fly-or-die mentality and culture of Apollo to the more sedate and actually more useful Shuttle or AAP programs because the people/astronauts who thrived on the former would die of boredom in the latter but the latter was the only way forward. The most basic problem was that this was far from only an 'astronaut' thing and changing the basic culture and attitudes of those in running NASA and the Astronaut Corps was a long and painful process that currently seems to be looking to be reversed. (No more current topical I promise :) )

You would always need a few of the "test pilots" but you would need more taxi drivers and since there were so few Shuttles and so few flights the chances to actually fly were few enough and to do the cutting edge stuff was going to be almost unheard of very rapidly. Of course most of the Apollo astronauts retired they no longer had a place or opportunity really.

I agree, (no surprise :) ) that continuing the fly the Saturn 1B and Apollo in an AAP future would be a good thing relatively speaking but again there's the number of personalities that have to be 'adjusted' or removed to get that to happen and a cultural shift that has to take place to make that acceptable to NASA in general. AAP was always a bid to keep at least some of Apollo going after the official Lunar missions ended and NASA made no secret of that fact and Congress for it's part made no secret that was why AAP was de-funded. The key battle was that as far as NASA was concerned if they had to choose they would go with something that used the Saturn V rather than re-start the Saturn 1B, For example the Saturn V-B/S1D concept (http://www.astronautix.com/s/saturnv-b.html, http://lostinthisspace.blogspot.com/2013/01/s-1d-first-stage.html) which would be wildly over-capable as well as affordable was more likely to be pushed if they'd stuck with Apollo hardware than re-starting the Saturn 1B. In addition you had the Air Force making a good point that "Apollo-Titan" (dang it can't find any of the usual links but this one https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=35996.0) would be cheaper and easier to do than restarting the Saturn 1B production, (While technically correct there were in fact a number of things the Titan-IIIE/M could not in fact do and cost wasn't clear given a higher flight rate for Saturn 1B and more streamlined production which wasn't the case OTL) which is going to get attention.

Again not un-possible but really, really difficult to get to.

Something to consider, (and a plausible 'reason' to offer for going with Saturn 1B instead of the Titan) is the ability to utilize the "SLA" space station designs even with the 'lesser' performance of the Saturn 1B versus the Saturn V.
http://nassp.sourceforge.net/wiki/File:SLAWorkshop.png

It has more "pressurized space" than MOL would have as well
https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4011/p70.htm

And an added advantage of being pretty modular as well
https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4011/p135.htm

And if you play your cards right you can get more capable Saturn 1B's eventually, a 10ft tank "stretch" was always in the plans and adding SRBs was actually pretty straight forward as the thing was significantly over-engineered from the start...
https://history.nasa.gov/MHR-5/Images/fig354.jpg

Maybe some advances on the S-IVB J2 as well but we might want to keep in mind the damn S-IVB was a significant chunk of the cost of the whole LV and the 'plan' (with future Saturn V or Saturn 1Bs) was to maybe go with a "cheap Chinese knock off" version to get the cost down. (https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-a-better-saturn-ib.389300/) And just to overload the mix a summery of possible "cheap" Intermediate Launch Vehicles proposed for post-Apollo use :)
https://www.rocketryforum.com/threa...-launch-vehicles-low-cost-s-ivb-stages.67828/

Enjoy

Randy
 
Because they won't poison you or give you cancer, and neither will the combustion products. If spilled, neither one is a large environmental risk either.

Eh, health and safety are over rated, just ask the Air Force (Titan II can you guess who "I" worked/work for :) )

Seriously I'm actually a peroxide fan and have been told by people who should know better that it's "far safer to wash your hair with NTO/MMH than to spill H2O2 on your hand"...

Note that the people I work with that actually deal with the stuff on a daily basis vehemently disagree, even though they don't like peroxide much either :)

Randy
 
I think the biggest problem with the SHuttle was the lack of unique mission for it; satellite launch is cheaper with disposable rockets and repair by Shuttle would be as expensive as a new satellite.

I think the best bet would have been to launch Skylab B, either as part of the ASTP or after it. This would have been a target for the Shuttle that no other platform could supplant, and something suitable to a launch schedule every month or so could utilise.
 
Skylab 1 remains the heaviest payload ever launched into LEO (about 78 tonnes IIRC). Unless you see a US Salyut project, or a surviving Saturn V laucnhed in 1975, no way.
The Skylab still had 400 days plus of oxygen and food left when it reentered.
 
Skylab 1 remains the heaviest payload ever launched into LEO (about 78 tonnes IIRC). Unless you see a US Salyut project, or a surviving Saturn V laucnhed in 1975, no way.
The Skylab still had 400 days plus of oxygen and food left when it reentered.

Skylab B and its associated Saturn V launcher, as well as 2 Apollo spacecraft and enough Saturn IBs were available after ATSP, but were not used.

Skylab's orbit decayed due to the suns cycle increasingly expanding the atmosphere, Skylab B would be launched later so would not have this issue as the cycle would be making the atmosphere contract. Besides Skylab had a lot of accumulated defects, only 1 of its stabilising gyros was working for example, not to mention an entire solar wing missing.
 
I think the biggest problem with the Shuttle was the lack of unique mission for it; satellite launch is cheaper with disposable rockets and repair by Shuttle would be as expensive as a new satellite.

Actually it DID have a 'unique' mission as I noted it was designed around the idea that it required a crew, ("manned" spaceflight after all) every flight so... Win-win right? More seriously it was specifically designed and operated to do more in one vehicle rather than needing more than one. Heavy(ish) lift launch vehicle, crew access vehicle, and mini-space station all in one. Somewhere in there it was also supposed to fly often enough, (keep in mind a top-down directive that ALL US space launch would transfer to using the Shuttle ONLY in the 'near-future') to lower the overall cost of space access while only having four examples that never came anywhere near the required flights to see any cost reduction. And in the end it actually DID show that repair flights could be cheaper than a replacement (Hubble) satellite, but really the limited number and amount of flights pretty much killed that idea pretty early on.

What the Shuttle was supposed to be and what it was were two different things and while part of that was short-sighted budget crunching a large amount was very basic and fundamentally false assumptions and expectations that went into the design and development process.

I think the best bet would have been to launch Skylab B, either as part of the ASTP or after it. This would have been a target for the Shuttle that no other platform could supplant, and something suitable to a launch schedule every month or so could utilize.

Skylab 1 remains the heaviest payload ever launched into LEO (about 78 tonnes IIRC). Unless you see a US Salyut project, or a surviving Saturn V launched in 1975, no way.
The Skylab still had 400 days plus of oxygen and food left when it reentered.

Close, 75 tonnes :) (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Skylab) Shuttle-C (http://www.astronautix.com/s/shuttlec.html) could have put Skylab-B into orbit in the 80s but ya, the left over Saturn v from Apollo was scheduled to do the job but there was no funding or approval for it from Congress. The "plan" was to visit Skylab at least a couple time with the Shuttle but the delay in getting it flying and the unanticipated atmospheric drag caused it to reenter much earlier than planned. (And again funding was not forthcoming from Congress for any of the proposed 'rescue' plans, some of which were actually pretty 'cheap'. NASA was basically told they could always pull money from the Shuttle development program but that was obviously just bait :) )

Skylab B and its associated Saturn V launcher, as well as 2 Apollo spacecraft and enough Saturn IBs were available after ATSP, but were not used.

Uhm, while the two Apollo CMs were available their associated SM's and most of the actual equipment had not been finished as the contracts were canceled prior to acceptance. The Saturn V was available, it's S-IVB having been what was converted into Skylab-B, but only 14 Saturn 1B's were ever built, 10 of which were flown. Two of those remaining were only first stages which were not actually complete and no associated S-IVB's available. One had it's S-IVB converted into Skylab, so only one Saturn 1B was actually available for use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_IB

Skylab's orbit decayed due to the suns cycle increasingly expanding the atmosphere, Skylab B would be launched later so would not have this issue as the cycle would be making the atmosphere contract.

Wasn't quite that clear as they'd be using the same Saturn V set up to launch B as they did the original and once you add in the fact that they were likely going to actually add mass due to upgrades and requirements found during the original missions the orbit may have actually been lower without some sort of 'booster' added and THAT would have delayed things and added even more costs.

Besides Skylab had a lot of accumulated defects, only 1 of its stabilizing gyros was working for example, not to mention an entire solar wing missing.

The idea was to use the Shuttles much greater cargo capacity and crew size to, in theory repair most of those defects to help 'prove' it's mission capability. (https://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2015/11/reviving-reusing-skylab-in-shuttle-era.html) THE big issue no one tends to talk about such a mission though is they'd have to actually RETRACT, (likely remotely) two of the quad panels to clear the docking hub to dock the Shuttle. In 'theory' it could work but there were a LOT of questions on if the mechanisms would actually still work when needed. Sending up Skylab-B would have been better all around but again...

You'd think that it would have made sense for the Shuttle to carry up parts to build a station which it could service but there was active opposition from Congress on that idea, (part of the reason it took the ESA to build Spacelab, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacelab, https://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2017/03/nasa-seeks-to-pep-up-shuttlespacelab.html) but the idea of doing any "evolutionary" versus "revolutionary" work towards a space station for the Shuttle to support was a battle that NASA had already internally fought and "evolution" lost. (https://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2015/08/evolution-vs-revolution-1970s-battle.html)

While I'm not going to call them the 'evil' twin, (not on THIS thread at any rate :) ) in fact I feel that Johnson Space Center the aptly named "Manned Spaceflight Center" was a focus of the Apollo-paradigm culture whereas the Marshall Space Flight Center, (hereby JSC and MSFC to avoid confusion ah, I see, to late :) ) which had grown out of the chronically underfunded and supported Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) which was mostly due to Air Force influence, (and note that a large percentage of JSC personnel and culture came directly from the Air Force ballistic missile programs) understood that large scale 'support' of space flight was likely transient and that Apollo-like levels were an aberration rather than a given. They'd learned to make the best of what they had and what funding they could get. The Saturn 1 was the fruits of that ideology, while the Saturn V was literally the child of the Lunar goal at any cost path. The Shuttle was pretty much a whole NASA program but the last vestiges of building on Apollo seems to have been nurtured by MSFC in the Saturn-Shuttle backup plan.
(http://www.astronautix.com/s/saturnshuttle.html, it's in essence keeping the most expensive part of Apollo to use with the Shuttle but...)
I've suggested a "shuttle" evolving from the Saturn 1B, (I wasn't the first either but didn't know it, see: https://yarchive.net/space/shuttle/shuttle_alternatives.html) but I could also see a smaller more affordable "shuttle/ET" combo launched on an up-rated Saturn 1B booster. This would allow the shuttle to be swapped out with a heavier payload section when needed and would be likely cheaper to both develop and operate. Follow that up with a "buy-it-by-the-yard' space station program as above and ...

Randy
 
Of course, one thing the shuttle was very successful at was scaring the Soviets into making their own shuttle and diverting considerable resources to that project for little gain.
 
Of course, one thing the shuttle was very successful at was scaring the Soviets into making their own shuttle and diverting considerable resources to that project for little gain.

Yes and the fact that came about the way it did showed how deep the Soviet paranoia was of being 'sneak attacked' again. (I've commented elsewhere Barbarossa and Pearl Harbor drove more of the shaping of the Cold War that just about any other factors) The Soviet Engineers were in fact pretty advanced in the design of a "post-Soyuz" small shuttle to be launched on the Proton when they were essentially ordered to slavishly copy the American Shuttle design. They argued to no avail that such a vehicle could not meet any of the stated goals, (which only made Soviet leadership MORE paranoid about why America was building it) and were essentially correct in their analysis because they didn't start from the American basic assumptions. (Given the Soviet space program was essentially run BY the military FOR military and had accepted that manned operations were only a side-line in that process long before the US Air Force did so, and which NASA has never done, this is understandable)

They pointed out, (and note this was not unknown to the American's it was just different priorities and assumptions) that the Proton launched small shuttle would be cheaper than Soyuz since it was designed to fulfill the exact function required which was a reusable crew ferry to orbit and back and while the Proton was still expensive it was in fact 'cheaper' than the American Saturn V but still capable of meeting the heavy payload to orbit needs since it could do either job. Needless to say the argument didn't work and they then designs Energia and Buran which can be argued to have actually been a 'better' design given it also could be used in either role.

See one of the main assumptions behind the Space Transportation System, (as a whole, not just the Shuttle) was "don't throw away expensive engines" so the Shuttle was designed around finding a way to bring those expensive engines back to Earth intact. The Soviets on the other hand assumed and aimed for "don't throw away expensive engines BY MAKING THE ENGINES LESS EXPENSIVE AND STILL THROWING THEM AWAY" which made for a lighter Orbiter which made building it easier. And Glushko while more than a bit of A-hole and stuffing and mounting grudges as trophies could, when motivated which is a key issue, design and build some damn fine rocket engines, built like tanks and costing less than similar American engines to produce. But he'd always had his mind made up on WHAT kind of engines to produce and neither Korolev not the Soviet government could change that mind short of direct threats. So the N1 'suffered', (and being honest the engine builder had only built jet engines prior to this task and didn't really do a bad job but taken in total it was a mistake the should not have happened) from less than perfect engines using Kerosene and LOX because Glushko refused to build kerolox engines. Similarly he'd been insistent that the Soviets couldn't build reliable, affordable hydrolox engines until he was told to do so "or else" and pulled together and built the RD-0120, arguably the equal of the SSME. In the end he was actually still right as the RD-0120 was NOT 'cheap' enough to be sustainable expendable and neither was most of the Energia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energia) stack. But it was probably a lot closer than the US Shuttle design. (The main issue for Energia was even with a recoverable engine pod the engines would be so far down range from Soviet territory that recovery would be a major operation and likely to expensive to consider) We should also note that unlike the US Shuttle the Buran was designed from the ground up to fly with or WITHOUT a crew on-board which again shows what a main American 'requirement' was.

That Energia only flew twice, (and Buran only once) wasn't a design or construction issue but a political and financial one. Energia could put put a whopping 220,000lbs into LEO with an appropriate upper stage, (using the STS in a similar manner ala-Shuttle-C a similar payload of around 169,000lbs could be lofted and using an upper stage ala-Shuttle-Z you could get around 200,000lbs into LEO) but the engineers knew that the side-mounted design was self limiting and that a more efficient "in-line" design could eventually loft even more. (NASA was aware of this too which is one reason such Shuttle Derived Heavy Launch Vehicles have not been pursued despite the rather obvious evolutionary advantages) But there was no actual 'need' for Energia/Buran let alone even more payload to orbit.

The Soviets had shown they could still match American technical capability and by the time Energia flew the 'danger' of a Vandenberg launched polar orbit Shuttle first strike was clearly not going to be an issue so Energia/Buran was retired and left to rot as the USSR had more important things to worry about. And here of course it the conundrum of space flight because Apollo will always serious skew the viewpoint of people about space and the actual reality is that space isn't and pretty much has never been a long term priority for anyone.

This is perfectly understandable and historically supportable in example for any past exploration, colonization and/or exploitation effort. The Shuttle was supposed to transition the US Space Program from 'exploration' to the stage of exploitation and colonization which didn't happen. (And as has been pointed out a lot of NASA and they US Astronauts weren't really thrilled about such a different goal :) ) The problem is we still haven't really moved out of the exploration phase and our space launch goals and capability reflect this.

Randy
 
I thought I recall Proxmire objecting to Viking all the way to the bitter end. But I'd have to do some digging to confirm that, look at his roll call votes, etc.

I haven't come across Proxmire's votes on Voyager and Viking in their final forms, but I did come across this Congressional Quarterly article on final passage of the FY 1968 budget, for which no commentary is necessary:

Cutbacks Rejected

Before passage, amendments by Sens. William Proxmire (D Wis.) and by John J. Williams (R Del.) making cutbacks in NASA funds of $100.5 million and $26 million, respectively, were rejected by roll-call votes.

Proxmire's amendment, rejected by a 30–36 roll-call vote, would have cut $81 million from research and development (R&D) funds and $19.5 million from funds for construction of facilities. (See vote 218, p. 49-S.)

Although he did not specify in his amendment which projects in the space program were to be affected by his cuts, Proxmire did indicate during floor debate that his amendment was designed, with but one exception, to cut funds “added to the bill by the Senate Appropriations Committee over and above the amount approved by the House.” Proxmire said his amendment was intended to cut $35 million from Apollo Applications, $36 million from the Voyager project (thereby eliminating funds for it) and $29.5 million from the nuclear rocket development program. The last cut included a reduction of $19.5 million in construction funds for a nuclear rocket test site in Nevada. The only increase over House-approved funds which Proxmire wanted to retain, he said, was the additional $15 million provided by the Senate Appropriations Committee for tracking and data acquisition. Proxmire said he agreed with the Committee that these additional funds were necessary “to operate the (tracking) system efficiently and to assure maximum safety for the astronauts.”

Proxmire said his amendment provided “a chance to support the President's effort to cut spending….” He said the President had “gone on record in favor of the cuts made by the House…in the space budget.” These were the very cuts, Proxmire said, that his amendment would preserve.

Proxmire asserted that we “must not try to escape from the deeply serious problems we face in the United States by pointing to the stars.” Referring to the Voyager project, Proxmire argued, “We can wait to land on Mars for a few months while we take care of the needs of our great cities which are literally under siege by…the ghetto dwellers who have so little stake in society that they are prepared to destroy it.”

Warren G. Magnuson (D Wash.), floor manager of the bill, said he did not think he was “in general disagreement” with Proxmire, but he added: “We have to keep some of these (NASA) programs going to keep the economy moving so we can collect some taxes to put in the Treasury to pay for urban and social programs.” Magnuson said that approximately 92 percent of all NASA work was subcontracted to private industry and “they are profitmaking taxpayers.”
@Matt Wiser will especially appreciate this one.
 
That Energia only flew twice, (and Buran only once) wasn't a design or construction issue but a political and financial one. Energia could put put a whopping 220,000lbs into LEO with an appropriate upper stage, (using the STS in a similar manner ala-Shuttle-C a similar payload of around 169,000lbs could be lofted and using an upper stage ala-Shuttle-Z you could get around 200,000lbs into LEO) but the engineers knew that the side-mounted design was self limiting and that a more efficient "in-line" design could eventually loft even more. (NASA was aware of this too which is one reason such Shuttle Derived Heavy Launch Vehicles have not been pursued despite the rather obvious evolutionary advantages) But there was no actual 'need' for Energia/Buran let alone even more payload to orbit.

Energia was a really remarkable launcher.

I want to say, "Imagine what the Soviets could have done with it if they hadn't sunk all that money into Buran." But if they don't pursue Buran, why...

The Soviets had shown they could still match American technical capability and by the time Energia flew the 'danger' of a Vandenberg launched polar orbit Shuttle first strike was clearly not going to be an issue so Energia/Buran was retired and left to rot as the USSR had more important things to worry about. And here of course it the conundrum of space flight because Apollo will always serious skew the viewpoint of people about space and the actual reality is that space isn't and pretty much has never been a long term priority for anyone.

True enough.
 
Would a different design for the space shuttle, using technology available in the 1970s, have allowed the dream of low cost access to space come true?

In technical terms, it is very possible. In political and economic terms, I think it is highly implausible. There's just not the demand for a serious space infrastructure in the 70s and there's not the political interest in paying the rather large sums to encourage such a demand much faster than OTL.

To make a system like the shuttle worthwhile, you need serious space militarization, with orbital laser cannons and all (something obscenely dangerous and obscenely fragile), a serious commitment to building a SPS network (which would be something given that we're not sure how well the concept could work even today, so it would be a little daft to make a big commitment to such a project in the 70s) or a serious effort to colonize the moon or land men on Mars with a chemical rocket.

Could NASA cancel some of its other projects? If they cut back their ambitions in the 70s to spend more on a better shuttle. They'd find their budget going much further in the 80s.

Already in OTL just about everything was sacrificed at the altar of the space shuttle. The other things NASA did during the 70s were either so cheap as to not be worth cutting or were opportunities that would not come again for a lifetime.

I really do wonder what things might have looked like had Kennedy not been assassinated, assuming the rumours that he wanted to turn the Space Race into a collaborative effort were true. Or hell, even if Korolev had lived long enough to work out the flaws on the N1. A combined US-Soviet space program though...depressing to think what we could have accomplished.

Well, most likely any close cooperation would have foundered on paranoia on both sides.

It is hard to see the US Congress backing Kennedy internationalizing the Lunar program and it's hard to see the Soviet decision makers being willing to let Americans get close enough to get a good look at their hardware, since then the Americans would realize just how far ahead of the Soviets they were.

The reason it wasn't used enough was because of the unexpected amount of maintenance it required.

Lack of demand was a far bigger issue I'd say.

Even with the unexpectedly long maintenance cycles the Shuttle required, the shuttle fleet could launch far more stuff than the US actually needed launched.

The Shuttle was built to serve a projected demand that was based on faulty assumptions that were suspect even in the 60s, but very quickly got lost in the debate about other things.

Had their been the demand to build even one more shuttle, let alone enough to build up to 8 or even 12, economies of scale in things like ground crew operations would have meant a quite substantial fall in per-launch costs. There wasn't really a need for an efficiently sized shuttle fleet though.

One of the shuttle's selling points was that it was going to use off-the-shelf technology to keep costs down.

It was the exact opposite in fact.

The choice for the US was (realistically) Apollo derived hardware somewhat upgraded, Titan derived hardware somewhat upgraded and mated with a basic mini-shuttle or just launching Apollo capsules or something ambitious and new.

Nixon chose the ambitious and new. Everything except the solid boosters was chosen at the outset for pushing the envelope of the US technology base, and even the solids would turn out to be more tricky than originally anticipated. A major reason why OTL's shuttle was chosen is because US aerospace was suffering a bad recession and desperately needed something to perk the sector up and because there were a whole bunch of big aerospace companies in key states Nixon needed to get re-elected. Had Nixon chosen a shuttle based on components that required little additional R&D spending to produce the variants required for the ambitions of the 70s, it would mean Federal dollars would be going into NASA actually launching things and factories bending metal to be launched.

fasquardon
 

kernals12

Banned
Lack of demand was a far bigger issue I'd say.

Even with the unexpectedly long maintenance cycles the Shuttle required, the shuttle fleet could launch far more stuff than the US actually needed launched.

The Shuttle was built to serve a projected demand that was based on faulty assumptions that were suspect even in the 60s, but very quickly got lost in the debate about other things.

Had their been the demand to build even one more shuttle, let alone enough to build up to 8 or even 12, economies of scale in things like ground crew operations would have meant a quite substantial fall in per-launch costs. There wasn't really a need for an efficiently sized shuttle fleet though.
The whole idea was that the low cost would bring in demand from the private sector for communications satellites, for manufacturing crystals and pharmaceuticals, and solar power satellites.
 
I haven't come across Proxmire's votes on Voyager and Viking in their final forms, but I did come across this Congressional Quarterly article on final passage of the FY 1968 budget, for which no commentary is necessary:
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.

And, after all, I specifically said that Proxmire probably didn't oppose them too much after NASA had cut them back...which hadn't happened yet in 1967.

In technical terms, it is very possible. In political and economic terms, I think it is highly implausible. There's just not the demand for a serious space infrastructure in the 70s and there's not the political interest in paying the rather large sums to encourage such a demand much faster than OTL.
I suppose it depends on what you consider "low cost access to space". I would agree that it would be very implausible to reach the really low numbers people were discussing, even on technical grounds, but achieving some level of cheaper than either period costs or OTL Shuttle costs was very possible technically and should have been possible politically and economically, except that NASA was wedded to its idea of Shuttle and the idea of Apollo 2, and blind to the impossibility of the latter and the difficulties of the former.
 
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 ask this lately in part because for a time SpaceX seemed to be flirting with using nothing but transpiration cooling to enable a bare-metal (steel of course) "Starship" to reenter, and the masses of water that allegedly would be required, were I to believe a Teslarati article, were claimed to be amazingly low. So I have to wonder, if the Shuttle were designed with a high temperature steel lower wing and leading edge and other critical zones, and perforated with water evaporation pores and a suitable water storage and delivery substrate, could evaporating water with the reentry heat serve well enough to keep the steel from heating above melting point (and enough below it to retain adequate strength of course). The steels Musk was touting have melting points above 1100K. So keeping the hull down to say 600-700 K by flushing the inner surface with water and letting blast out the pores, how much water would be needed for a delta-style Shuttle?

Can any higher weight due to needing to store the necessary water (recall, in a mission it would be necessary to boost this water into space, do all orbital maneuvering with its mass, up to and including deorbit--though after the dangerously hot parts of reentry braking are past and the last of the water needed boils away, the Orbiter would be that much lighter in its glide and landing) be made up somewhere?

The other shortcut to a working shuttle is to take the J-2S engine and modify it to burn well at sea level, or design the Shuttle around the proven vacuum J-2S and double up on the SRB thrust so no thrust on the Orbiter is needed at liftoff. With 5 or 6 J-2S essentially the same thrust as 3 SSMEs can be attained with considerable reduction in engine installation weight. The trick would then be to make the J engines reusable.

So might it be possible, if tight budgets made it necessary for NASA to trim their ambitions back a bit, for the design of the Mark 1 Orbiter to feature a water-cooled high temperature steel TPS and a suite of 5 or 6 J-2S engines being incrementally developed toward reusability?
 
Top