No Space Shuttle

I was wondering, what is the alternative for NASA, if they do not go for Space Shuttle in the post-Apollo era? The STS seems like a good idea on paper, but with the benefit of hindsight many of its flaws are obvious, and could NASA instead go with more "classical" expendable rockets and capsules, which would perhaps be both cheaper to develop and use then Shuttle?

Apollo program, for all that it managed to put a man on a Moon, seems to have left a wasteland behind itself, as it seems to me that none of the technologies developed for the Moon landing have lasted longer then a decade after the first Moon landing. Considering the amount of money and effort expended, would keeping at least some Apollo infrastructure in place allow NASA to have a much cheaper (and perhaps safer) program without resorting to Shuttle?

Even if only parts of Apollo are kept in service, perhaps some savings could still be made, like modifying Apollo Capsule for primarily LEO operations? Also, instead of bothering with Saturn rockets, why not combine it with Titan III rocket, which was man-rated, and cheaper to produce then Saturn?
 
The big proble with STS was A) the technology was nor ready, resulting in B) a lot higher cost because C) the amount of work between launches was a lot higher the expect (because of A)
Add in that the whole point of STS was to go someplace such as a station or to take you up to a long distance craft such as a ship to the moon or mars and that the budget didn’t allow for it and you get a mess. Also we should have had about twice as many shuttles as we did. And that to make it work we should have seen a slow production of shuttles with new shuttles of an slightly improved design every so often.
I know as a kid in school when the original launch happened that the education programs that went with it said that this was the first design and that they already were working on a new design that would be better and that we would see this design while some of us were still in school so say within 10 years. That obviously did not happen and we ended up using a 1860s technology shuttle in the 21st century. Something that I highly doubt anyone involved with the original design would ever have dreamed of happening.

The reality is the STS was not a bad first design. It had issues in it tried to do to much (at least in part because of the AirForce who was then allowed to back out) but it did work. The problem was it’s budget. The budget was at least partly responsible for the long ltime to get it up and running and the budget was responsible for it not having anywhere to go. The budget was responsible for not having another shuttle around when problems happened. Remember part of the original idea was to have multiple shuttles in orbit at the same time or to have one in the bad ready to launch while one was in orbit.
Think of it like a bus. Busses break down but you just get on the replacement you don’t die because your bus had a flat tire. If the shuttle was going to a station it could have been inspected and if a replacement was ready it could have been left in orbit until fixed.
Add in a budget to find a way to A) repair the tiles. B) remote pilot/land the shuttle C) prevent the ice problem and D) built a stronger /better replacement for the tiles and you could easily mitigate the worse issues with the shuttle.

The problem is NASA didn’t have the budget for ANY of that but built a system based on the assumption the WOULD have a budget for most if not all of this. Basically in 10 years time (give or ta’e) we went from no space vehicle to Applo. And designing the shuttle then we spent 10 years getting the shuttle up and working. Then we used it for almost 30 years. No one expect that.

Technology has to be used and lived with to be improved. The first laser printer I ever used was huge, and slow and broke down often. It cost as much as a mid level car and was in a box to keep out dust in a room that was cooled by special air conditioning and has filtered electricity. Today you buy one for $50 bucks put it into a hot dusty crappy location and ignore it for years at a time. Why because the budget was there to develop it. We are not judging it by its first attempt.

Think of the improvement from 1976 (prototype roll out) until 2011 (last flight). In Aircraft, computers, meterials, cars, and pretty much everything else.

if we built a new shuttle in 2011 we would expect modular electronics that allow complete remote control as well as full monitoring. We would use a lot better meterials. Now assume we spent those 35 years researching new heat shields? And if this was our 4th design so we had three designs under our belt? Remember we not only would have learned what works and what does not but also what we really use the shuttle for AND we would have people that spent their whole working live socializing in space shuttles and who trained the next designers so you don’t have to invent/learn your profession as you go.

I think the shuttle gets an unfortunate bad reputation because it was never update/replaced and stayed around to long. The B-29 would have had a bad reputation if it was making bombing runs over Hanoi.

Basically you have a 4th generation spacecraft with 49 year old technology and they are not exactly new. Having been built about 81, 83,84,85 and 92. (Iirc) so the are about 27 years old on average at time of retirement.

If your 27 year old car that started design 40 pulse years ago) is not dependable, not as safe, not as fuel efficient takes to much maintenance and does not gave the features of new cars who’s fault is that? Add in that you bought a truck but NEVER use it as a truck and would be better off with an SUV and then you sit around and curse the designer of your 30 year old truck or you for not replacing it with something new/better?

Do you really want a 1979 fiord truck or a 2017 SUV?

But to answer the OP with no shuttle we would have (assume we designed a new rocket/capsule) probably could designed a generation 4 capsule. And we probably see the ISS a bit sooner as the budget would allow for it. We probably also see a generation 5 crew model at some point. Most likely a lifting body of some sort, That gives you controlled landing ability, and right about now we are probably speculating about a true shuttle.

And I am not sure the privatization of the launch vehicle is a thing as we probably don’t have as obvious a mess as NASA showed with two destroyed shuttles and two completely botched attempts to replace it. I personally think that NASA lost how to control hardware development when it did the shuttle in part because it was so long between shuttle development and the replacement project that everyone experienced in manned vehicle programs development had retired or gone to work elsewhere so the lost the institutional knowledge that we paid for them to learn in the lat 50s through the 60s.

As a closing thought, was the Space shuttle a victim of the same dumb idea that resulted in the F111 then saw the creation of the F14/F15? By this I mean the attempt to make one system/vehicle work for different groups with different needs because someone with just enough knowledge to be dangerous thinks by combining the designs you can save money?
 
Quite a nice sum up above.
Without STS their best bet might just be continuing evolution of the apollo type. Look at Soyuz. Pretty basic, very old in its design but outlived the shuttle and has a much better safety rate.
Leave the shuttle till later, if at all. Allow the design to be perfected but also simplified. It was made overly complex as requirements were thrown at it until it became far more expensive than the rockets it was meant to replace and be more efficient than.
Simplicity really is the key here.
Another problem was replacement to the space shuttles were always cut short, some almost completed. So instead of seeing a perfected more efficient shuttle successor we were stuck with a design far less efficient than originally designed and with nothing to succeed it.
Even looking at the Russians with Buran and Energia shows a few small changes to the concept can make a huge difference.
 
STS nearly not made it true Capitol Hill in 1970-72
but what next ?
Apollo was dead, production stop, now using remains of program.
no STS means a mission of second Skylab in 1976 were last Saturn V/IB and Apollo capsule are used.

follow by worst case scenario, that USA abandon Manned space flight in 1977,
and Johnson and Marshal space Centers are Closed.

Alternative ?
NASA could push for new manned system despite hostile Capitol Hill with for more budget cuts

one way would be that NASA take MOL from USAF and use it as minimum space station
other way would develop a Mini shuttle based on Lifting Body program, launch by Titan IIIM
 

marathag

Banned
even though I think it bugs e of pi, I'll post my normal response for a Rockwell Shuttle free NASA, looking for reusable booster

Behold....
serv.jpg

serv-murp.jpg

ChryslerSERV_1.jpg
 
I was wondering, what is the alternative for NASA, if they do not go for Space Shuttle in the post-Apollo era? The STS seems like a good idea on paper, but with the benefit of hindsight many of its flaws are obvious, and could NASA instead go with more "classical" expendable rockets and capsules, which would perhaps be both cheaper to develop and use then Shuttle?

Apollo program, for all that it managed to put a man on a Moon, seems to have left a wasteland behind itself, as it seems to me that none of the technologies developed for the Moon landing have lasted longer then a decade after the first Moon landing. Considering the amount of money and effort expended, would keeping at least some Apollo infrastructure in place allow NASA to have a much cheaper (and perhaps safer) program without resorting to Shuttle?

Even if only parts of Apollo are kept in service, perhaps some savings could still be made, like modifying Apollo Capsule for primarily LEO operations? Also, instead of bothering with Saturn rockets, why not combine it with Titan III rocket, which was man-rated, and cheaper to produce then Saturn?
Hmmm, sounds familiar...

Anyway, though. If NASA doesn't do Space Shuttle as we know it, then the only really realistic option, based on what they were thinking around 1970 (when the critical decisions were being made) was some kind of space station program, probably initially based on Skylab and then moving towards custom-designed modules. Crew transport is a bit sticky and might accommodate a new program, especially if NASA wants to phase out use of the Saturn IB and replace it with a Titan-based vehicle for lower costs (fairly likely). This would most likely be some kind of mini-shuttle (something that was proposed IOTL at multiple points anyway) or, less probably, Big Gemini. Most likely any of those options would continue serving up to the present day, although there might be occasional attempts at replacing them.
 
Anyway, though. If NASA doesn't do Space Shuttle as we know it, then the only really realistic option, based on what they were thinking around 1970 (when the critical decisions were being made) was some kind of space station program, probably initially based on Skylab and then moving towards custom-designed modules. Crew transport is a bit sticky and might accommodate a new program, especially if NASA wants to phase out use of the Saturn IB and replace it with a Titan-based vehicle for lower costs (fairly likely). This would most likely be some kind of mini-shuttle (something that was proposed IOTL at multiple points anyway) or, less probably, Big Gemini. Most likely any of those options would continue serving up to the present day, although there might be occasional attempts at replacing them.

the Saturn IB production was stop in 1967, rebuild them in would too be expensive for Capitol Hill.
It realistic that USAF and NASA look into option Titan III variant cheapest would be "Titan 34M/F"
a Titan 34 with 5 or 7 segment booster modified for manned launch "M" and unmanned "F" with various upper stage like Agena or Centaur.

i forgot Big Gemini, it could itself a proper mini space station like soviet TKS.
by the way McDonnell had proposed many version of Gemini space station derivates in 1960
Also modular one, build by MOL like Gemini spacecraft
 
I assume that the decision would be made to not go with the Shuttle and thus the time and money for Shuttle would go to a replacement for Applo. I expect we would see a new rocket development and a new capsule. The capsule would not be that big an issue back then as we had people around that were part of designing capsules already so they know what to do and what not to do and don’t need to reinvent the wheel, Also the bureaucracy was not as out of control nor was the insistence on extreme safety what it is today so you shouldn’t see the long drawn out mess that modern attempts tend to be at NASA. So I think you will see a new capsule pretty much on schedule and available as needed. I think you will see it replaced with a baby lifting body that is basically a pen areodynamic capes probably sometime in the l80s. And we may see something closer to a shuttle being worked on about 2000. This may get shoved back 10 years or so if they do a major overhaul of the capsule in the 80s and do the lifting body around 2000.
But with NASAs budget as it was and with access to people that had worked on closely designs they are much more likely to get it write and thus keep upgrading then to keep botching the design and starting over
Add in that without the two disasters they don’t feel the pressure for radical change at all costs and don’t have the expense of the investigation and fix.
It is true that success breads success. So if you design a capsule shortly after the last successful design you are building on that success and probably have a core team both in the design company and in NASA that learnt what to do in the last project. This can not be exaggerated how much that helps
 
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