What if...the Challenger disaster had never occurred?

[Jackball74]

Prior to the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger, the Reagan administration had proposed launching shuttles from Vandenberg AFB on the west coast of the U.S. as well as from Cape Canaveral and planned to turn over the fleet to the air force when the second generation of shuttles became operational.

If mission STS-51-L had not ended in a CATO, how would the American space program have evolved? What type of weapons would have been developed given an increased military presence in space? And what would the Soviet response have looked like?

 

[Mike Stearns]

ASB. A catastrophic accident was (probably) inevitable given the way the Space Shuttle was designed, and when it does happen, it won't just kill seven astronauts, it'll potentially kill a politician or a movie star as well. At the time that Challenger happened NASA was in negotiations to fly John Denver, the idea being that he would write a song in space, and NASA almost flew Big Bird on Challenger's last mission.

 

[mr.bernham]

ASB. A catastrophic accident was (probably) inevitable given the way the Space Shuttle was designed, and when it does happen, it won't just kill seven astronauts, it'll potentially kill a politician or a movie star as well. At the time that Challenger happened NASA was in negotiations to fly John Denver, the idea being that he would write a song in space, and NASA almost flew Big Bird on Challenger's last mission.

"My fellow Americans, let us remember when Big Bird touched the sky and reached the face of God."

 

[Somedevil]

ASB. A catastrophic accident was (probably) inevitable given the way the Space Shuttle was designed, and when it does happen, it won't just kill seven astronauts, it'll potentially kill a politician or a movie star as well. At the time that Challenger happened NASA was in negotiations to fly John Denver, the idea being that he would write a song in space, and NASA almost flew Big Bird on Challenger's last mission.

As it a whole generation of kindergartners and up were traumatized by the Challenger disaster Big Bird being on it makes way worst. (was in 1st grade every class in my school had a TV rolled in the classroom for the launch)

 

[Admiral Halsey]

ASB. A catastrophic accident was (probably) inevitable given the way the Space Shuttle was designed, and when it does happen, it won't just kill seven astronauts, it'll potentially kill a politician or a movie star as well. At the time that Challenger happened NASA was in negotiations to fly John Denver, the idea being that he would write a song in space, and NASA almost flew Big Bird on Challenger's last mission.

Oh god that would be horrific. How the show would handle that...(especially if it was doing a special live episode)

 

[BlueTrousers]

It says something about me that my objection to flying Big Bird was that a launch out of KSC can't reach a useful orbit for a KH-9...

Vandenberg kept getting pushed back, they were finding new problems with SLC-6 right up to the point where WTR launches for the Shuttle were abandoned. Some things might run to time, but the time pressure means they probably won't work as well - Galileo is the big exception, but that depends on Shuttle/Centaur which made NASA very nervous.

Eventually, something was going to go catastrophically wrong. The second post-Challenger flight was a classified DoD mission, recovering into Edwards AFB - and was very nearly lost in exactly the same way as Columbia. The difference being, the wreckage would have been on the Pacific abyssal plain instead of the West Texas plains. It's hard to see the program recovering from that.

 

[MattII]

ASB. A catastrophic accident was (probably) inevitable given the way the Space Shuttle was designed...

Inevitable, yes, but that's no fault of the design, it's the fault of the management at NASA who would keep pushing and pushing until something eventually did give (they were regularly running engines over the rated limits, missing non-essential bits, etc).

 

[Delta Force]

Inevitable, yes, but that's no fault of the design, it's the fault of the management at NASA who would keep pushing and pushing until something eventually did give (they were regularly running engines over the rated limits, missing non-essential bits, etc).

The engines were operated above 100% because it was discovered the engines could safely run above their original rating. It was easier to just cite power in reference to the old values than to change everything to have the new maximum rating.

 

[MattII]

And it's just that sort of thing that led to the Challenger incident, the 'let's see just how far we can push it' syndrome. They were going to come a cropper sooner or later, if not with Challenger then with some later mission.

 

[Michel Van]

Let face it had Challenger incident not happened in 1986, another shuttle would be hit later in the STS program during winter time.
off curse had Solid Rocket Booster be build correctly with fail save Joins this would happen not in first place.

1986 would be busy year for shuttle:

January, orbital launch of TDRS-B,SPARTAN.
March, Astro-1 shuttle mission.
May, orbital launch of Ulysses spacecraft
June, orbital launch of commercial communications satellites.
July, Department of Defense shuttle mission, first launch from Vandenberg AFB
August, deployment of Hubble space telescope and discovery it optic is fuzzy
September, Department of Defense shuttle mission. Vandenberg AFB ?
September. LDEF (Long Duration Exposure Facility) recovery mission.
October, EOM-1 shuttle mission.
November, orbital launch of commercial communications satellites.
December, Planned shuttle mission.

with No Challenger incident, from 1986, from there launch 11-12 shuttle per year.
one of them would have catastrophic failure of heat shield like orbiter Columbia...

 

[MattII]

Chances are, they don't even make it that far, If Challenger survived it would only be by luck, which is bad, because they'd already had significant burn-throughs of previous missions and hadn't done anything about it.

 

[Kevin Renner]

The SRBs that were flown were the cheapest design option of the three designs submitted to NASA. Part of the blame for Challenger should lie squarely on Congress for requiring the low bidder. Both of the other two designs submitted had joints similiar to the post Challenger design. Plus IMO SRB fueling should of been done at KSC. The original contractor for the SRB casings was Ladish Corporation in Milwaukee. They lost the contract earlier in the program. Post Challenger they got it back. Quality costs a certain amount of money and from what guys who worked at Ladish told me the SRB casing were a real PITA to manufacture.

 

[Mike Stearns]

Inevitable, yes, but that's no fault of the design, it's the fault of the management at NASA who would keep pushing and pushing until something eventually did give (they were regularly running engines over the rated limits, missing non-essential bits, etc).

Well, not it sort of its actually, what NASA wanted to build and what they actually building aren't exactly the same thing. Some of the early proposals actually called for the Space Shuttle to be launched on a manned booster and it had always been NASA's intention to use liquid fueled rockets as secondary boosters, until they running to problems and realized the Congress wasn't going to give them any money to iron out the design issues.

 

[Jackball74]

The SRBs that were flown were the cheapest design option of the three designs submitted to NASA. Part of the blame for Challenger should lie squarely on Congress for requiring the low bidder. Both of the other two designs submitted had joints similiar to the post Challenger design. Plus IMO SRB fueling should of been done at KSC. The original contractor for the SRB casings was Ladish Corporation in Milwaukee. They lost the contract earlier in the program. Post Challenger they got it back. Quality costs a certain amount of money and from what guys who worked at Ladish told me the SRB casing were a real PITA to manufacture.

An evolution chart they have up in the Atlantis display hall at KSC. Can't figure why they don't have copies for sale in the gift shop.

 

[Perkeo]

ASB. A catastrophic accident was (probably) inevitable given the way the Space Shuttle was designed

Maybe a successful failure like Apollo 13. i.e. large enough to be a wake-up call, but no tragic accident, could make the difference. OTOH the Challenger disaster was tragic and still didn't prevent the Columbia accident.

 

[BlueTrousers]

Maybe a successful failure like Apollo 13. i.e. large enough to be a wake-up call, but no tragic accident, could make the difference. OTOH the Challenger disaster was tragic and still didn't prevent the Columbia accident.

The trouble with the Shuttle is that it was an inherently dangerous system. There are so many things that can go wrong with catastrophic consequences that can't be protected against that it's basically a Heath Robinson contraption for killing astronauts.

I actually have a harder time imagining a 'successful failure' than an unbroken run of successes with the Shuttle. The best I can come up with is something like Columbia, except that the insulation manages to hit the upper side of the orbiter in a low temperature region. Damage is beyond economical repair, but it gets the crew home.

 

[Workable Goblin]

The engines were operated above 100% because it was discovered the engines could safely run above their original rating. It was easier to just cite power in reference to the old values than to change everything to have the new maximum rating.

True, but NASA was going to keep pushing and pushing them. The Shuttle-Centaur missions were going to require them to run at 109% rated power, which was really too far. That kind of power level would have really put significant loads on the orbiter and caused severely increased engine wear. There's a reason it was later restricted to contingency situations and only with the much improved Block II and Block III engines was it even considered to make it a normal part of launches again.

 

[MattII]

The trouble with the Shuttle is that it was an inherently dangerous system. There are so many things that can go wrong with catastrophic consequences that can't be protected against that it's basically a Heath Robinson contraption for killing astronauts.

And since you get the entire thing back anyway there's not much that's expendable. Apollo 13 had an issue with the SM, a shuttle blowing out a major component doesn't have that same ability to adapt.

 

[Workable Goblin]

The trouble with the Shuttle is that it was an inherently dangerous system. There are so many things that can go wrong with catastrophic consequences that can't be protected against that it's basically a Heath Robinson contraption for killing astronauts.

I actually have a harder time imagining a 'successful failure' than an unbroken run of successes with the Shuttle. The best I can come up with is something like Columbia, except that the insulation manages to hit the upper side of the orbiter in a low temperature region. Damage is beyond economical repair, but it gets the crew home.

I can; there was actually one OTL, the Abort to Orbit on STS-51-F, where sensor failures led to one of the engines shutting down during ascent. It got very close to having another failure and dropping to TAL or RTLS. In general, the SSME at that time was comparatively (but only comparatively) unreliable, so there was plenty of scope for other failures that could have been similarly survivable. Of course, STS-51-F obviously didn't prompt a rethink of the program.

 

[Delta Force]

The trouble with the Shuttle is that it was an inherently dangerous system. There are so many things that can go wrong with catastrophic consequences that can't be protected against that it's basically a Heath Robinson contraption for killing astronauts.

I actually have a harder time imagining a 'successful failure' than an unbroken run of successes with the Shuttle. The best I can come up with is something like Columbia, except that the insulation manages to hit the upper side of the orbiter in a low temperature region. Damage is beyond economical repair, but it gets the crew home.

What about a Challenger type incident during a Space Shuttle test flight (STS-1 to STS-4)? That could result in the loss of an orbiter but has the potential for the survival of one or both crews members.