WI: Space Shuttle is actually very good.

[Michel Van]

Had NASA only got little more money in early 1970s
They could have build Space Shuttle based on Saturn V hardware
Using a Wing First stage of Saturn V as booster !
It would drop considerable the Launch cost and increased launch schedule.
Using F-1A and J-2S would not so bad for NASA
also had Flax Shuttle also to potential to be good shuttle

But the USAF ended that fast
They order higher cross range for reentry and glide to Base as NASA wanted
This ruled the Flax design out and needed the Delta wing
Next to that the Payload bay size was also arrange by USAF
and demand for high pressure Hyrolox engine for Orbiter

And since USAF providing the money needed NASA accepted the changes...

 

[e of pi]

But the USAF ended that fast
They order higher cross range for reentry and glide to Base as NASA wanted
This ruled the Flax design out and needed the Delta wing
Next to that the Payload bay size was also arrange by USAF
and demand for high pressure Hyrolox engine for Orbiter

And since USAF providing the money needed NASA accepted the changes...

As I understand it, NASA wanted the high cross-range and large payload bay as much as the USAF did or more, and was happy to use them as an excuse...and then to blame them for it later.

 

[DougM]

NASA had the budget and technology/knowledge to build a Model T but des used to attempt to built a modern SUV.

 

[EnzoLux]

The disadvantages of the delta wing are often exaggerated. Straight wings are better at subsonic speeds but suck at supersonic speeds (the speeds the orbiter spends the most time at). They make landing easier but complicate re-entry, gliding, and even ascent.

Straight wings are traditionally lighter than delta wings (because they are smaller), but the requirements on a space plane are different. Straight wings have a high aspect ratio, so they must be more reinforced to resist hypersonic reentry aerodynamic loads than a delta wing. They also increase the thermal insulation requirements for the spaceplane as a whole, as they don't protect the fuselage above them as much as delta wings, resulting in more thermal tiles.

Straight wings also produce more drag at supersonic speeds (sharp changes in cross-sectional area = more drag), which means more drag during launch. OTL orbiter was mostly protected by the external tank, but the longer straight wings would have extended further and would be exposed to higher dynamic pressure during max q. During the transition from nose-up reentry to level flight, the straight wings would stall and the shuttle would lose approximately 15,000 feet of altitude before regaining some level of control. The delta wings keep the orbiter's flight characteristics changing more gradually as it transitions from re-entry to supersonic and subsonic flight.

As for landing, the main advantage of straight wings, all attempts have been successful with deltas.

Remember it was the 70's. Our understanding of aerodynamics has improved a lot. AFAIK, all newer shuttle concepts and prototypes feature delta wings for a reason.

 

[Workable Goblin]

Also, the aerothermal characteristics of the junction between the wing structure and the fuselage were very complex, and not in a way favorable to the straight-winged option. It would have been very challenging to build a TPS capable of adequately shielding that area against reentry heat without excessive weight or other operability issues.

 

[TimothyC]

The shuttle is a perfect example of jack of all trades master of non or Design by committee.
The technology and budget of the 70s was not even close to being up to doing ALL the things asked of the shuttle. So expaand the budget, wait several decades or cut back what it can do,

A very good case could be made (and has been made in various places) that the space shuttle as we got it was the result of a lot of very highly optimized decisions that were completely justifiable given the knowledge, technology, and budgetary/political constraints of the time. I strongly suggest reading Heppenheimer's second volume in his history of the space shuttle (the volume that the Smithsonian, not NASA published and as a result, is not free from NASA). It really digs into the budget fights in the early 1970s, and the degree to which the Shuttle was tied to the future of American manned/crewed spaceflight. In 1972/3 as the design of the orbiter is being finalized, NASA had three major programs ongoing: The Skylab, Viking, & the Shuttle. Skylab already had most of the money spent, so cutting it would result in little budgetary gain for a huge capability cost. Viking was needed to keep the science teams going, and again, substantive sums had already been spent. On the contrary, the shuttle was early in development, and as a result got forced into not only a total program budget cap, but a year-over-year cap of about one billion USD. This meant that the total budget couldn't always be spent in the most effective way. While this is going on, the entire program gets pushed back a year, moving the first launch from 1978 to 1979 at the earliest in an effort to cut costs. While technical issues resulted in further delays, the impact of the budget process is notable.

 

[jsb]

Remember it was the 70's. Our understanding of aerodynamics has improved a lot. AFAIK, all newer shuttle concepts and prototypes feature delta wings for a reason.

Was the straight wing design not more like SpaceX starship, ie it fell down belly first for reentry and then only started flying low down subsonic?

 

[DougM]

The choices made at the time may have been logical. Looking back on it. Not so much. This is like many military weapon systems they start off looking good but they try for too much and implode.
The HUGE cargo bay, The solid rocket booster issue, the lack of escape system, the ability to divert/land farther away. Etc. Nasa would have been better off going smaller. This was the first attempt (and still the only equivalent that carried a crew) at this reusable winged spacecraft to actually fly into space.
And like many NASA projects including the SSTO replacement attempt was overly ambitious for what the budget allowed for. The budget was tight from almost day 1, and is in part the reason we got the solid rockets and the issue with the tank being in front and able to drop frozen chunks on the delicate and important tiles. So in hind site the money spent to get the bigger bay and such could have been better spent. Add in that the budget NEVER accounted for an improved 2nd edition. That could be updated with improvement s from lessons learned. Very seldom is the first of a new radical design perfect. We get B and C models we get second generations of cars we do clean sheet replacements. Heck look at the orginal B-17 vs the late war models. They were radically different. And those changes happend as a war was raging in Europe.
Basicly NASA had to cut the budget to buy it and didnt have a preyer of affording to replace/upgrade it.
Look how the situation came down with the computer upgrade.
Then when it was time to replace it they go for another HUGE technology leap and this one blows up in their face and we get noything and fall back on a capsule. Then that one blows up and gets overhauled and the resulting craft STILL hasn't flown.
This is indicitive of two major issues in NASA. 1) A tendency to reach for the stars… (sorry couldn't resist) and over reach technology and or its budget. and 2) Bad planing and budget/project management.

And as i said some of this may be hind sight. But the budget shortfalls were easily predictable as NASA had been seeing its budget cut and anyone could have predicted the cuts were coming once the moon landed happend as that was why the budget got so blown out of the water. The truth is the 1960s /appolo/moon landing/space race budget was so over blown that NASA never developed the ability to control its budgets on any project. And they should have easily predicted those huge budgets were going to go away once the race to the moon was over. But NASA worked very much like the Manhattan Project and the WW2 Super Bomber project in that it tossed money at the problem until it went away. That is great when you are more wortied about time and results then money but that is not the way to run a railroad long term.

So yes if different decisions had been made and if budgets had been predicted and controlled better it is entirly possible that the Shuttle System would have worked out better in the real world.

 

[Michel Van]

As I understand it, NASA wanted the high cross-range and large payload bay as much as the USAF did or more, and was happy to use them as an excuse...and then to blame them for it later.

So far i know wanted NASA in 1969 lower Cross-range of 430 km~370 km like Faget DC-3 design
As USAF join program they started demands a Cross-range of 2000 km
For this mission profile: launch, one orbit, landing at Launch site.
What for ? Don't know, still classified information...

Later in Shuttle Program with choice of Heat-shield NASA realised that higher Cross-range is better
for radiate more heat from Shuttle before landing.

Oh by the way, the never flew that one orbit mission profile with Shuttle...

 

[DougM]

This gets into the range of sheer speculation and rumor. But there was a LOT of talk back in the day that this one orbit and land is why the USSR viewed the shuttle as a military program. As that profile can supposedly be used to turn the Shuttle into a weapon system.
Never made a lot of sense to me as what can a single shuttle do on a single orbit that it can’t do on orbit 12? Then promptly land? Or is the ability to drop out of orbit and land in less then one pass the key?
Because I could understand that if you just did something war like (dropped a bomb, launched a missile blew up a satellite or whatever) that you would obviously not want to have to fly over your enemies territory on another pass.

Also many years ago when I was researching a paper about the shuttle for Uni. I ran across a lot of sources that stated that the size of the bay and the a punt of weight the shuttle could bring back we’re determined by AirForce required based on spy satellites. Not by NASA requirements and that while NASA would ultimately take advantage of the size of the bay it didn’t need to and I don’t think it ever did use the return weight.

Personally I think the shuttle would have been better suited for NASAs use and budget and the tech of the day if it had been much much smaller. Perhaps only a crew ship. And some built in escape system would be nice.

Not sure if it is possible but try this design.
Shrink the shuttle down until it holds a crew of two or three in the front. Build a bay that is modular. One module could haul cargo, one could be a space lab kind of thing and one could have its own escape system and carry crew.
Drsign the whole thing to be as easy to upgrade/rebuild as possible knowing you will need to update it over its lifetime. Then sit the thing ON TOP of the rocket so it doesn’t destroy itself..

Edited to add. The ability to send up a “rescue” Craft would also be a huge benefit. As it stands now (and as it has been) the problem is if something goes wrong you either fix it yourself or you are doomed. The ability to send a rescue mission would be huge. Picture the difference we would view NASA if instead of burning up on reentry the problem could have been detected then an emergency rescue mission launched in a couple days and the crew brought safely back. Maybe a follow up mission can try and fix the wonded bird and a automatic landing system can fly the crippled bird down. Now we go from tragedy to the makings of a heroic movie. With the entire world watching as the ”Heros” at NASA put in a crash run prepping the rescue craft, the TV showing the The shuttle being rolled out to the launch pad interspersed with interviews with the crew members of the wounded bird and their family a camera lingering on the faces of Little Timmy and Tammy as their Mama talks to them from orbit and assures them that she will be home safe in a few days.
Then the whole world waits and watches as the brave crew of the rescue mission board, as the countdown approach zero the President give a heart warming speech (as only Presidents can). Maybe ending in the immortal words “god spead”
The new programs show all the leaders of the world giving best wishes for the mission. In Rome the Pope leads a prayer for the success of the mission and the safe return of the stranded crew.
Then with a roar they are off. Once in orbit we see the crew transfer from one shuttle to the next maybe by means of a MMU. The the return home and the cheers as the Orbiter slows to a stop on the runway, The Crew if the wounded bird de ends first to the cheering of the crowd and rush to meet their family. Then the “heroic” crew descend to the applause of all for a job well done.
Later the crew of the rescue Shuttle ate a dinner in the White House are presented with awards by the President.

And shortly after a movie is made (or course). It becomes one of the three most famous stories in NASA history right up their with the Moon Landing and Apollo 13.

Oh what could habe been if only the system had lived up to the hype.

 

[DougM]

I normally don’t like to follow myself in a thread but something dawned on me after posting my last post.
Are we looking at this all wrong?
We keep discussing ”the Shuttle “. But mostly we are discussing the orbiter itself. Which is I suppose the interesting “sexy” bit. But the reality is that it was its Launch system that sucked and destroyed both Orbiters. Not the orbiter itself.
Without the Solid Rocket booster issue we don’t lose the first one. (Watched that live in school. It was shocking to say the least) and the ice falling off caused the second and that is also not really the Orbiter fault,

So I would say the biggest problem with the Shuttle System was the launch system sucked. Yes the orbiter was expensive to mage ready for a second flight but over all it was the launch system that was the big problem.

 

[EnzoLux]

The orbiter never ended up using the USAF requirements because after the Challenger disaster the Air Force decided to switch to expendable rockets for its missions. So the orbiter became kind of overkill for what NASA needed. That also meant that the Shuttle has a lot less missions to do, so the average price of each flight increased. Also the cargo bay, which was made bigger than NASA needed to accommodate DoD satellites, was oversized (IIRC the only mission to fill the bay was the Hubble)

 

[EnzoLux]

I normally don’t like to follow myself in a thread but something dawned on me after posting my last post.
Are we looking at this all wrong?
We keep discussing ”the Shuttle “. But mostly we are discussing the orbiter itself. Which is I suppose the interesting “sexy” bit. But the reality is that it was its Launch system that sucked and destroyed both Orbiters. Not the orbiter itself.
Without the Solid Rocket booster issue we don’t lose the first one. (Watched that live in school. It was shocking to say the least) and the ice falling off caused the second and that is also not really the Orbiter fault,

So I would say the biggest problem with the Shuttle System was the launch system sucked. Yes the orbiter was expensive to mage ready for a second flight but over all it was the launch system that was the big problem.

I assumed both could be improved, but yes, the launch system is the most flawed thing. The Saturn Shuttle with flyback booster is my favorite approach given the circumstances. If we were to wank the project, besides the flyback first stage, incorporating the external tank into the orbiter would have made it 100% reusable/refurbishable, but it would have meant an enormous spacecraft.

Still, one can dream.

 

[e of pi]

The orbiter never ended up using the USAF requirements because after the Challenger disaster the Air Force decided to switch to expendable rockets for its missions. So the orbiter became kind of overkill for what NASA needed. That also meant that the Shuttle has a lot less missions to do, so the average price of each flight increased. Also the cargo bay, which was made bigger than NASA needed to accommodate DoD satellites, was oversized (IIRC the only mission to fill the bay was the Hubble)

Well...it kind of did. Because the USAF requirements were also NASA requirements, and every NASA station mission from Spacelab to ISS assembly used the diameter, and Chandra, Galileo, and other NASA science missions used every foot they could find of the length:

 

[RanulfC]

Had NASA only got little more money in early 1970s
They could have build Space Shuttle based on Saturn V hardware
Using a Wing First stage of Saturn V as booster !
It would drop considerable the Launch cost and increased launch schedule.
Using F-1A and J-2S would not so bad for NASA
also had Flax Shuttle also to potential to be good shuttle

But the USAF ended that fast
They order higher cross range for reentry and glide to Base as NASA wanted
This ruled the Flax design out and needed the Delta wing
Next to that the Payload bay size was also arrange by USAF
and demand for high pressure Hyrolox engine for Orbiter

And since USAF providing the money needed NASA accepted the changes...

So far i know wanted NASA in 1969 lower Cross-range of 430 km~370 km like Faget DC-3 design
As USAF join program they started demands a Cross-range of 2000 km
For this mission profile: launch, one orbit, landing at Launch site.
What for ? Don't know, still classified information...

Later in Shuttle Program with choice of Heat-shield NASA realized that higher Cross-range is better
for radiate more heat from Shuttle before landing.

Oh by the way, the never flew that one orbit mission profile with Shuttle...

Actually not what the histories say about it though it's often obscured

NASA wanted a large cargo bay for large Space Station modules from the start. The entire 'reason' for the Shuttle was to use it to build a huge space station so big modules were a must. Every flight had to carry a crew because without people on every flight what was a need for an enlarged Astronaut Corps? And more than just the flight crew because, (again ) the Shuttle is going to be building and supporting a huge Space Station so you need to carry crew and supplies to support that station. NASA didn't like Faget's "DC-3" design as it had less down-mass than the delta wings and one of their points in 'selling' the Shuttle was satellite servicing and repair including bringing whole satellites back down to Earth for repair and then taking them back up again. (Which btw would have required a dedicated "Space Tug" design which itself was only dropped late in the design process) The high pressure hydrolox engines were a mixture in that NASA didn't really initially want a new engine development program but the engine manufactures were telling anyone who'd listen that without a big, new engine contract they were going under. On the other hand NASA was aiming for the TAOS Shuttle to be an interim thing with a fully reusable booster to be built sometime in the future and that booster was going to need those high-pressure hydrolox engines anyway so...

Lastly the "land anywhere" and "once around back to Launch Site" profiles were NASA abort options not DoD requirements and the Air Force only provided "political support" (and even there they never expected to actually be forced to USE the Shuttle) not money so they didn't 'pay' for anything. NASA went to them and told them what the Shuttle was going to be able to do and asked if they would be compatible with "Air Force" (NRO actually) requirements and the Air Force simply said 'yes' to those requirements. Later the actual head of the NRO talked to NASA (who were not cleared to know who he actually was btw) and told them the Air Force 'requirements' might be over-stated and that a "lesser" capability would likely be acceptable. NASA ignored this since they WANTED the higher requirements anyway and besides the person speaking was "only" a "Deputy Secretary of the Air Force" and no one important after all

NASA had the budget and technology/knowledge to build a Model T but des used to attempt to built a modern SUV.

NASA had just gone from a 15 minute sub-orbital flight to the surface of the Moon in under a decade, building a reusable Shuttle should have been child's play no?
They were also used to essentially an unlimited budget and resource support and to this day there are those in NASA who fully expect things to get "back to normal" any day now without regard to fiscal reality.

The choices made at the time may have been logical.

And this right here is actually the 'problem' because no one at the time could actually argue against the 'logic' of those choices given what they knew and expected

Looking back on it. Not so much. This is like many military weapon systems they start off looking good but they try for too much and implode.

The problem is looking back we see this through the lens of hindsight, (even if we try not to) and all that entails. Again there were "good", "logical" "reasons the choices were made and then it followed that fiscal and technical reality piled on-top and the pride and hubris get in the way... A very painful but fully supported set of reasons that in the end led to a lot of compromise and mismanaged expectations. NASA simply wasn't going to allow 'failure' to be an option even though it was baked into the system and how it was managed.

The HUGE cargo bay, The solid rocket booster issue, the lack of escape system, the ability to divert/land farther away. Etc. Nasa would have been better off going smaller. This was the first attempt (and still the only equivalent that carried a crew) at this reusable winged spacecraft to actually fly into space.

Agreed but coming off Apollo's success do you really think NASA was going to see things that way? Heck the fact that it was an actual "system" (as in Space Transportation System) was something lost on NASA from the start. Because of the internal optics and external issues NASA could never fully exploit the system they had let alone what they thought they wanted.

And like many NASA projects including the SSTO replacement attempt was overly ambitious for what the budget allowed for. The budget was tight from almost day 1, and is in part the reason we got the solid rockets and the issue with the tank being in front and able to drop frozen chunks on the delicate and important tiles. So in hind site the money spent to get the bigger bay and such could have been better spent. Add in that the budget NEVER accounted for an improved 2nd edition. That could be updated with improvement s from lessons learned. Very seldom is the first of a new radical design perfect. We get B and C models we get second generations of cars we do clean sheet replacements. Heck look at the original B-17 vs the late war models. They were radically different. And those changes happened as a war was raging in Europe.
Basically NASA had to cut the budget to buy it and didn't have a prayer of affording to replace/upgrade it.

Again those 'raised' in the Apollo era simply could not accept that it was over or that it was an aberration rather than the norm. (Not to fault the as even today there are far to many who think all it would take is "another Kennedy" or "another Space Race" fully failing to realize those circumstances were so situational as to be almost impossible to replicate) It did not help that more often than not when things got really 'tight' then someone would usually step in and 'save' the program thereby "proving" the boundless optimism "right"... Even when nothing really changed. (Aka Carter "saving" the Space Shuttle when it ran out of budget)

Upgrades were vaguely "planned" but lets face it that was always up to Congress which never had incentive or reason to really pursue the more expensive options and NASA could never really justify a major investment in a 'new' model as long as the current one was doing the job.

Then when it was time to replace it they go for another HUGE technology leap and this one blows up in their face and we get nothing and fall back on a capsule. Then that one blows up and gets overhauled and the resulting craft STILL hasn't flown.

Actually the reason we fell back to a capsule was the result of the "Orbital Space Plane" program. NASA asked the contractors for small space plane designs and Boeing took a look at the actual requirements and (rightly) pointed out that while NASA 'wanted' a space plane what they were 'requiring' (specifically BLEO operations) was better met with a capsule. And the other contractors agreed. Eventually so did NASA.

SSTO was always going to be a step to far but in fairness it was also a 'big' deal outside NASA which meant that once advocates got the ear of Congress it was always going to be something that NASA was going to have to try. And NASA being NASA adding more bells and whistles was going to be something the contractors tried to do no matter what and most likely (as happened) the most cutting edge proposal would win the day rather than one that might work.

This is indicative of two major issues in NASA. 1) A tendency to reach for the stars… (sorry couldn't resist) and over reach technology and or its budget. and 2) Bad planning and budget/project management.

"Waste anything but time" is a thing and if it's how you were 'raised' you tend to default to that mode when push comes to shove. Part of the reason we've been 'stuck' for almost half a century is because NASA has had to un-learn the underlying "lessons" of Apollo and learn how things work all over again. Unfortunately there are a lot of fundamental layers of NASA that can't be significantly changed short of a total tear-down and rebuild and like the Shuttle there's a very high chance that any 'tear-down' will not be built back up due to political and other factors.
NASA underwent a pretty jarring 'shift' to get Commercial Cargo and Crew up and running as it was essentially growing your own opposition but there was and is literally not other way to do it since if NASA (or another government entity) doesn't pay for it it does not happen.

And as i said some of this may be hind sight. But the budget shortfalls were easily predictable as NASA had been seeing its budget cut and anyone could have predicted the cuts were coming once the moon landed happened as that was why the budget got so blown out of the water. The truth is the 1960s /Apollo/moon landing/space race budget was so over blown that NASA never developed the ability to control its budgets on any project. And they should have easily predicted those huge budgets were going to go away once the race to the moon was over. But NASA worked very much like the Manhattan Project and the WW2 Super Bomber project in that it tossed money at the problem until it went away. That is great when you are more worried about time and results then money but that is not the way to run a railroad long term.

There were some (WVB being a major one) that WERE aware that Apollo levels of budget and support were temporary but the majority of NASA had been seeing those levels as 'normal' for so long they simply could not conceive the US not maintaining them. And the IPP proposal (que Michal Van's cartoon here ) was the result. The exact OPPOSITE of what Congress and the President were looking for and another source of backlash towards NASA. NASA as an agency was not willing to compromise and neither were the politicians and in that fight it's not the politicians that are going to lose.
I often argue that while Apollo was NASA's finest hour, it also ruined them as "just another agency of the US government" because they had expectations that were no longer valid 'baked-into' their structure due to that program.

So yes if different decisions had been made and if budgets had been predicted and controlled better it is entirely possible that the Shuttle System would have worked out better in the real world.

Agreed but that takes a functionally different NASA for one and a serious dose of hindsight that it questionable at best. Asking the post-Apollo NASA OTL to accept limits when they just did the 'impossible' is going to be a very hard sell and as we know from OTL it's a LOT easier to just keep thinking big.

Randy

 

[RanulfC]

This gets into the range of sheer speculation and rumor.

Hello? Have you read an alt-history thread? We're all about speculation and rumor after all

But there was a LOT of talk back in the day that this one orbit and land is why the USSR viewed the shuttle as a military program. As that profile can supposedly be used to turn the Shuttle into a weapon system.
Never made a lot of sense to me as what can a single shuttle do on a single orbit that it can’t do on orbit 12? Then promptly land? Or is the ability to drop out of orbit and land in less then one pass the key?
Because I could understand that if you just did something war like (dropped a bomb, launched a missile blew up a satellite or whatever) that you would obviously not want to have to fly over your enemies territory on another pass.

Again the 'once-around' was an abort option and I'm not sure who or why it got tagged as a 'military' requirement. NASA did point out to the Air Force that this was a possible way of 'snatching' a Russian satellite which was something the Air Force had been looking at under the "SAINT" program during the 60s. (Spoiler: it wasn't very viable and worse if OUR satellites had self-destruct systems, and they did, then it's pretty sure the Soviet ones do to so even LESS viable) And it did not help you had 'popular' articles (I remember the one in Analog and how crazy it sounded... How is snatching a Salyut, which is what the article 'advocated' as a viable mission, NOT an act of war?) were touting such missions out-loud for the Soviets to read.

In the end those speculations were a lot less convincing in the West but coupled with the illogical and non-viable economics the Soviets were understandably concerned.

Also many years ago when I was researching a paper about the shuttle for Uni. I ran across a lot of sources that stated that the size of the bay and the a punt of weight the shuttle could bring back we’re determined by Air Force required based on spy satellites. Not by NASA requirements and that while NASA would ultimately take advantage of the size of the bay it didn’t need to and I don’t think it ever did use the return weight.

The book "After Apollo" points out that the Air Force never gave 'requirements' to NASA per-se but simply agreed with the requirements that NASA proposed and when the 'actual' users (the NRO) begged to differ and offered that the "requirements" were probably more than needed they were ignored. NASA wanted a big Shuttle with a big cargo bay, delta wings and long on-orbit (relatively) endurance because they had plans for a big Space Station and for the Orbiter to fill in as an interim space lab till that happened among other requirements. Part of the issues with the Shuttle both for satellite deployment as well as the planned repair, resupply and refurbishment concepts was they were predicated on the development of an associated "Space Tug" to transport satellites to and from the Shuttle orbit. Once that development was dropped the Shuttle still retained the CAPABILITY to do those jobs but not the ABILITY to do them.

Personally I think the shuttle would have been better suited for NASAs use and budget and the tech of the day if it had been much much smaller. Perhaps only a crew ship. And some built in escape system would be nice.

It would have been a great 'first step' program but since NASA required heavy lift (for those big Space Station modules) then whatever lifted the "shuttle" would also have to lift the modules and then you got back to the 'every flight has to be manned' aspect which brought you right back to needing a bigger Shuttle to bring back those engines, crew and cargo so why NOT build it big to start with?

I normally don’t like to follow myself in a thread but something dawned on me after posting my last post.
Are we looking at this all wrong?
We keep discussing ”the Shuttle “. But mostly we are discussing the orbiter itself. Which is I suppose the interesting “sexy” bit. But the reality is that it was its Launch system that sucked and destroyed both Orbiters. Not the orbiter itself.
Without the Solid Rocket booster issue we don’t lose the first one. (Watched that live in school. It was shocking to say the least) and the ice falling off caused the second and that is also not really the Orbiter fault,

So I would say the biggest problem with the Shuttle System was the launch system sucked. Yes the orbiter was expensive to mage ready for a second flight but over all it was the launch system that was the big problem.

The TAOS system was a compromise and once they went with the external tank propellant the Orbiter was going to be 'limited' in it's ability to upgrade to fully reusable but the "plan" was always to do so. Not that the funding or support was ever there to actually carry out the 'plan' mind you

As EnzoLux points out making a fully reusable launch system while possible ("Right Side Up" after all ) meant a very large airframe which itself meant a larger up-front cost due to the scaling issues in aerospace. And cost was always going to be the biggest problem considering everything NASA wanted the Shuttle to do. So much flows from the decision to go with expendable external tankage that it's hard to over-state how much that effected the entire design.

The internal propellant Orbiter would have been lighter on re-entry and actually needed a lesser TPS system due to that but look again at the picture he posted. That orbiter is about half again if not twice the size of a Boeing 747 and despite it being mostly 'empty space' all that costs a lot to design and build, even if it likely costs less to service. And the Booster is even bigger and just about as complex. And all that's before you get into the politics and policies behind the Shuttle program. More than likely even if they had gone with an internal propellant Orbiter you still needed a 'cheap' way of getting it into flight and more than likely you still end up with something OTHER than a fully reusable Booster and more like the compromised SRB's for launch because costs have to be cut somewhere.

Randy

 

[DougM]

The reality is the administration of NASA was hideously incompetent when the Shuttle was put forward, and by the time it was being built the levels of fiscal incompetence starts approaching criminal negligence. When the system was being designed the budgets were already being reduced buy the design was finalized budgets had been slashed,
The people that green lit the Shuttle already knew the budget wasn’t there for upgrading it much less building a huge station,
And being as the first model for the space station didn’t fly until 18 or so years after the Shuttle did I think we can safely skip worrying about what happens to the station if we don’t have a heavy lift shuttle.
And the fact that NASA new it couldn’t afford a better launch configuration if it when for the big shuttle just shows that NASA was aware of the budget situation. It is not like they ran out of money after the orbiter was built and had to find a new way to lift it. They designed the big orbiter specifically to be lifted by the crappy system that would ultimately destroy the program, two shuttles and a lot of life’s.
So it was obvious from pretty early on in the design that in order to get the big cargo bay they would have to give up having A) a reusable launch system B) a safer configuration. C) an abort/escape system
In short this was a bad design caused by lack of budget and lack of better technology and this was known when it was designed.

I wonder if at some point we may find “smoking gun” papers indicating that NASA new about these issues long long ago and just said oh well. Or even worse if NASA suspected the damage that lead to the reentry burn up. I mean really what would NASA have done if the DID know the damage was catastrophic? Think about it, as bad as the accident was for the people involved the families and friends NASA itself and the nation. Would it have been better to know ahead of time? What could they have done about it? Would you prefer to leave them die in orbit?
And no I am not suggesting this is a conspiracy. I am saying it should have been a forceable problem. If not the ice issue (which had been happening so was known, just not believed to be that dangerous) then the possibility that something would fail while in orbit. Leaving crew alive but impossible to recover. And I distinctly remember in the run up to the first launch, that this was discussed and someone (an author a speaking head, a NASA type or whomever ) talked about the ability to launch a rescue if needed with another shuttle because they were supposed to be able to be launch if push comes to shove, that fast.
But sadly.. it was never even close to that level.

So this was a mess that was easily predicted durring the time it was still on the drawing board. And just because we can see why NASA was out of control does not justify it being so. I can expla how “one thing led to another” on the boarder of Kentucky/West Virginia and resulted in perhaps the most famous family feud ever, or how we got “exploding” Pintos. Or many other things, but just because we understand why people mad bad bad calls does not mean that they shouldn’t have made better decisions at the time. NASA had the info.

 

[BlueTrousers]

This gets into the range of sheer speculation and rumor. But there was a LOT of talk back in the day that this one orbit and land is why the USSR viewed the shuttle as a military program. As that profile can supposedly be used to turn the Shuttle into a weapon system.
Never made a lot of sense to me as what can a single shuttle do on a single orbit that it can’t do on orbit 12? Then promptly land? Or is the ability to drop out of orbit and land in less then one pass the key?

The Soviets worked out a profile for the Shuttle that would, theoretically, see it deliver a nuclear weapon to Moscow with significantly less warning time than a submarine-launched ballistic missile. Given the softness of any feasible Shuttle launch facility, and the long turnaround time - even the unrealistically fast turnaround hoped for at the start of the programme would be too long for nuclear war - such a capability would only be useful for a first-strike weapon.

Of course, that does just amount to using the Shuttle as a reusable FOBS vehicle. If the US wanted that capability, there were plenty of Titan IIs that could have been used, and been harder targets too.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I assumed both could be improved, but yes, the launch system is the most flawed thing. The Saturn Shuttle with flyback booster is my favorite approach given the circumstances. If we were to wank the project, besides the flyback first stage, incorporating the external tank into the orbiter would have made it 100% reusable/refurbishable, but it would have meant an enormous spacecraft.

Still, one can dream.

As EnzoLux points out making a fully reusable launch system while possible ("Right Side Up" after all ) meant a very large airframe which itself meant a larger up-front cost due to the scaling issues in aerospace. And cost was always going to be the biggest problem considering everything NASA wanted the Shuttle to do. So much flows from the decision to go with expendable external tankage that it's hard to over-state how much that effected the entire design.

The internal propellant Orbiter would have been lighter on re-entry and actually needed a lesser TPS system due to that but look again at the picture he posted. That orbiter is about half again if not twice the size of a Boeing 747 and despite it being mostly 'empty space' all that costs a lot to design and build, even if it likely costs less to service. And the Booster is even bigger and just about as complex. And all that's before you get into the politics and policies behind the Shuttle program. More than likely even if they had gone with an internal propellant Orbiter you still needed a 'cheap' way of getting it into flight and more than likely you still end up with something OTHER than a fully reusable Booster and more like the compromised SRB's for launch because costs have to be cut somewhere.

FWIW

I thought the picture in @EnzoLux's post was an artist's impression of the Rockwell International Phase B shuttle. However, when I looked it up in my copy of Rockets & Missiles by Kenneth Gatland (First published 1975 by Blandford Press, London) the drawing on Page 239 was of a delta winged orbiter and a delta winged booster.

The text says the orbiter was about the size of medium-range airliner and the booster would be the size of a jumbo-jet.

These are the characteristics of the booster and orbiter from pages 237 and 238.

Booster

Powered by 12 Rocketdyne high-pressure, staged combustion cycle, liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen rocked engines - total thrust 6,480,000 lb (2,939,388 kg).
Fly-back engines: 11 x Pratt & Whitney JTF-22 B-2 turbofans.

Length: 276 ft (84.1 m) (However, the drawing on Page 239 says 267 ft so one of them must be a typo.)​

Maximum Diameter: 34 ft (10.4 m)​

Wing Span: 151 ft (46 m)​

Empty Weight: 621,400 lb (281,867 kg)​

Propellants: 3,114,000 lb (141,251 kg)​

Total Weight: 3,735,400 lb (423,118 kg) [Note: not in the book, I added this.]​

Speed at Separation: Mach 10​

Mission Duration: 90 minutes​

Orbiter

Powered by 2 Rocketdyne high-pressure, staged combustion cycle, liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen rocked engines - total thrust 1,240,000 lb (562,464 kg).
Fly-back engines: 4 x Pratt & Whitney JTF-22 low-bypass turbofans.

Length: 210ft (64 m)​

Wing Span: 124 ft (37.8 m)​

Cargo Bay: 15 ft x 60 ft (4.6 m x 18.3 m)​

Payload: 65,000 lb (29,484 kg) maximum​

Empty Weight: 243,900 lb (110,633 kg)​

Propellants: 604,500 lb (274,201 kg)​

Total Weight with Maximum Payload: 913,400 lb (414,318 kg) [Note: not in the book, I added this.]​

Mission Duration: 7 days​

The total launch weight was around 3,500,000 lb (1,587,600 kg) according to the book, but my calculation (empty weight + propellants + fuel) was 4,648,800 lb (837,436 kg).

The booster is actually somewhat larger than a jumbo-jet. According to the Wikipedia entry on the Boeing 747-400 its dimensions are.

Overall Length: 231 ft 10 in (70.66 m)​

Wing Span: 211 ft 5 in (64.44 m)​

Overall Height: 63 ft 8 in (19.41 m)​

And the booster was a lot heavier. The booster's total weight was about 4 times the all-up weight of a Boeing 747-400.

My memory was that the estimated cost of the Rockwell International Phase B was 10 to 15 Billion Dollars, but the text says...

Preliminary estimates looked towards a 1977-78 operational date and a development budget of $6,000,000,000 spread over six years.

Which made me think "WTF!" as the estimated R&D cost of the Space Shuttle that was actually built was $5.2B "only" eight hundred million Dollars less. But the next paragraph said.

By any standards this was a formidable project and recognition that research and development costs could easily reach $10,000 to $14,000 million led NASA, in the face of a declining space budget, to re-examine the whole concept of the space shuttle.

The estimated cost of the OTL shuttle comes from The Observer's Book of Manned Space Flight by Reginald Turnhill, Third Edition, 1978. His exact words were...

...the Shuttle research, development, test and evaluation programme had risen in cost from $5.2B in 1971 dollars to $7.2B in 1978 dollars, largely as a result of inflation. This included 2 flight test vehicles. Originally estimated costs of $250M for each of the 3 additional orbiters with additional boosters at $50M each, were likely to rise proportionately.

It's also got a list of provisional shuttle missions to January 1982 (which was a few months before the Shuttle's actual first flight) that shows 23 launches with the first launch in June 1979 which include:

• Taking a TRS to Skylab on its second mission in July 1979;
• 5 Spacelab missions between December 1980 and November 1981, and:
• Launching a Jupiter Orbiter/Probe (with IUS) on the 23rd mission in January 1982. I assume that this is Galileo which was eventually launched in October 1989.

It also has a table of the projected shuttle missions for 1980 to 1992 which I think refers to US fiscal years commencing on 1st October 1979 and ending on 30th September 1992 which shows 358 launches from Cape Canaveral and 129 launches from Vandenberg for a Grand Total of 487 missions. However, the number of missions for 1980 doesn't match the number in the other list (which is on the same page) and in the Mission Planning section on Page 84 it says that 725 flights were originally planned for 1980-91 but this had been reduced to 570 because the US Defence Dept had reduced its 224 flights to 106.

 

[Juumanistra]

The reality is the administration of NASA was hideously incompetent when the Shuttle was put forward, and by the time it was being built the levels of fiscal incompetence starts approaching criminal negligence. When the system was being designed the budgets were already being reduced buy the design was finalized budgets had been slashed,
The people that green lit the Shuttle already knew the budget wasn’t there for upgrading it much less building a huge station,
And being as the first model for the space station didn’t fly until 18 or so years after the Shuttle did I think we can safely skip worrying about what happens to the station if we don’t have a heavy lift shuttle.
And the fact that NASA new it couldn’t afford a better launch configuration if it when for the big shuttle just shows that NASA was aware of the budget situation. It is not like they ran out of money after the orbiter was built and had to find a new way to lift it. They designed the big orbiter specifically to be lifted by the crappy system that would ultimately destroy the program, two shuttles and a lot of life’s.
So it was obvious from pretty early on in the design that in order to get the big cargo bay they would have to give up having A) a reusable launch system B) a safer configuration. C) an abort/escape system
In short this was a bad design caused by lack of budget and lack of better technology and this was known when it was designed.

NASA wasn't being fiscally incompetent. At least not in the traditional sense. It was, rather, partaking in fiscal brinksmanship. In the design of the Shuttle, NASA was attempting to setup a fait accompli for Congress. While the money was not currently available today for the missions NASA wanted a big Shuttle for, Congress might be persuaded tomorrow to appropriate the money for them, especially if the alternative was the cancellation of the program and with it the loss of all of those well-paying jobs in your district and having wasted all that money getting here to boot. So the only logical thing for Congress to do, by then, would be to build the big space station and reboot the IPP, because the alternatives would be disastrous for some of the most politically active of their constituents. Especially if the Shuttle should be, by chance, designed to spread out as much of its work as possible to guarantee that as many Congresscritters as possible have "skin in the game" from their own voters being direct beneficiaries of the Shuttle's flying.

That it didn't work doesn't mean it couldn't have worked: That the Shuttle flew for twenty-five years despite its many flaws and the many, many times it might have reasonably been cancelled over budgetary or safety concerns attests to there being some benefits from that kind of political insulation. (That the F-35 has done the same thing and taken it to the next level also attests to that.) The downside was that if the Shuttle didn't serve to prime the funding pump, then the thing would be a nightmare to operate even if it never developed any problems that required engineering compromises due to every NASA center having a finger in the pie. Which was the non-flying story of the Shuttle, where not-insubstantial portions of its absurd costs were because of it supporting a titanic bureaucratic footprint for it was actually was.