Did shuttle cost us Skylab?

[qso1]

I totally agree.<br /><br />If reboosted, we might have gotten five years tops out of it. NASA had a proposal around 1979 known as the Space Operations Center (SOC) which could have been that clean sheet station design you mentioned but politicians didn't want to hear any more about NASA wish lists.<br /><br />I'd mentioned that shuttle delays was only one of the reasons we were not able to salvage the lab but the main reason is that thing I call the cost barrier. It would have been nice to have Skylab but in the long run, we got plenty of use out of it as it was. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[drwayne]

Skylab was an experimental, proof of principle vehicle as you said, it was not designed to be a long term space station.<br /><br />I just wish they had kept the second stage attached, and tried some of the wet lab conversion techniques.<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[willpittenger]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>so that three military types could play golf on the Moon.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Actually, only 2 people at a time could play. And of all the moonwalkers, only Shepard was crazy enough to try that stunt. And, yes, the stunt probably didn't help any. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[gofer]

The slightly amusing thing is I don't disagree with the "pro shuttle" factuals here. I also liked the Spruce Goose or the Titanic. What a stunning technological achievement! <br /><br />In fact most people here agree, the shuttle was a complete and utter failure on the economic grounds. At least. I have more to add to the stupidity of the whole scheme and the rationale, but that will suffice. Then they go into rationalizing. To me, the actual costs are as much part of a launch system as ISP or thrust. Just the amount of labor required to keep the STS "up" is insane. <br /><br />Perhaps the Saturn/Apollo was as bad as well in costs, so what's the diff? That was some 30 years ago and worked. It's better to continue with an expensive but more capable system 30 years ago, polishing it incrementally, than replace it with a much less capable and AS EXPENSIVE system. <br /><br />At the least, I'd prefer making incremental X-15 improvements into a program, than the STS.<br /><br />Perhaps, my post was unclear, what I meant was that had the Saturn/Apollo/Skylab program continued instead of the shuttle, we would not only have not lost anything, but be "poking around on the Moon" and perhaps, Mars. And have much more capable space stations than the ISS. True, the Saturn was cancelled and the STS then proposed. In hindsight a silly motion costing us 30 years. They shouldn't have is 'all I'm sayin.<br /> <br />And for Christ's sake stop equating "winged reusable spaceplane" with "affordable access to space". It's just a subset of possible solutions. <br /><br />[edit] Even at its height the costs of the Saturn/Apollo/Skylab/etc... constituted no more than 1 % of the GNP. As the GNP proceeded to rise, even accounting for inflation, as it was being more polished and debugged (new technologies, procedures) it would have overtaken the STS in cost effectiveness long ago as well.<br /><br />Perhaps indicative, perhaps not, but, well, NASA has come the full circle and gone back to

 

[pathfinder_01]

"Perhaps the Saturn/Apollo was as bad as well in costs, so what's the diff? That was some 30 years ago and worked. It's better to continue with an expensive but more capable system 30 years ago, polishing it incrementally, than replace it with a much less capable and AS EXPENSIVE system.”<br /><br />The trouble is the Saturn/Apollo system was even worse in terms of cost. On average a shuttle mission might cost something like 800 million on a bad day. The moon missions cost around 1.2 to 1.5 billion each. Basically you could have two shuttle missions for the price of one moon mission.<br /><br />Now if you mean Saturn I launching a mere three guys into low earth orbit and having very little ability to return anything from space (and little work space to do anything in), then yes the shuttle is more expensive and more capable. <br /><br />In addition the shuttle works. The shuttle had already made more flights than Apollo before the challenger disaster. Apollo killed a crew before even being launched and injured it’s last crew on the way home. Not counting the explosion on Apollo 13(which could have occurred at any time), which would have killed the crew had it occurred during launch or after landing on the moon. <br /><br />The truth is congress was (and probably still is) unwilling to fund spaceflight to the level needed to support missions to the moon and mars. The wonderful Apolo program was cancelled the moment congress refused to buy any more Saturn V than was in the original allocation. <br /><br />Wither you use the Shuttle or Saturn or some antimatter power warp drive, you wont go to the moon or mars if you are unwilling to pay the cost. <br /><br />The Shuttle bears the blame for what we as a society have been unable or unwilling to do. Pay the piper. <br />

 

[gofer]

According to some sources (wiki) : "...The total cost of the (STS/shuttle) program has been $145 billion as of early 2005, and is estimated to be $174 billion when the Shuttle retires in 2010. NASA's budget for 2005 allocates 30%, or $5 billion, to Space Shuttle operations. [6]... "<br /><br />Now, I ask: had we spent this enormous sum of money on continuing ( and improving in costs and otherwise) what we had back then instead of blowing it on the STS; continuing.... such as Moon bases, LEO stations (Skylab sized), Mars missions, better capsules, etc... would our program be better off now? Heck, forget even that, if we simply spent it on more Saturns, and more Lunar payloads to realize economies of scale...<br /><br />I believe so. <br /><br />(it's in hindsight, I realize that, but all indications are that a lot of very qualified people agreed with this back then, and it was obvious even back then based on the information that they had about the proposed new system, the wings, the parallel staging, the H2, the SRBs, the lack of LES, etc... yet their opinion was brushed aside) <br /><br />They preferred politically driven revolution (and yes Apollo was also politically driven, but it could have been directed into a more mundane direction) instead of pragmatic evolution. The STS is much less capable as it drags a lot of unused fluff with it to orbit instead of payload and has no scalability to do more than expensive LEO sorties, requires exuberant amount of skilled labor, yada yada yada... I'm sure you've heard all this before. And I believe these "shortcomings" were evident at inception. <br /><br />

 

[JonClarke]

"but all indications are that a lot of very qualified people agreed with this back then, and it was obvious even back then based on the information that they had about the proposed new system, yet their opinion was brushed aside"<br /><br />So who were these people? <br /><br />Jon<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[vulture2]

Unfortunately we could easily waste another 30 years; CEV will be as expensive as Shuttle and will never make manned spaceflight practical. We should at least consider why the predictions of operating cost for the Shuttle were so wide of the mark. It is not because the vehicle is reusable, but because maintenance and reservicing costs for the thermal protection system, solid fuel boosters, and other critical systems are much higher than expected when they were designed. The reason for this is simple; there were no prototypes to test the critical technologies in flight, and analysis is not equivalent to experience.<br /><br />The X-15 was the only manned spacecraft (until SpaceShipOne) that could simply be refueled and reflown. We do not need to go back to the X-15 itself, but we need to go back to the X-plane strategy of testing new technologies in flight before we commit to using them in decade-long programs. Attempts were made to do just this with the X-33, X-34, X-37, and DC-X, vehicles that could have shown what technologies would really work for a practical, reusable spacecraft. Unfortunately there programs were all cancelled, three by Mr. O'Keefe, to eliminate a minor budget overrun in the outyears of the ISS program. Then, of course, the ISS and Shuttle were cancelled to pay for the VSE. <br /><br />We are learing the wrong lesson. To say reusable spacecraft are expensive because the shuttle is expensive is like flying nothing but the Wright Flyer for 25 years and then saying reusable aircraft are impractical. The cost of fuel for the Shuttle is insignificant; all we have to do is get the maintenance and servicing cost down. With a program of reusable suborbital technology demonstrators we could intelligently design a practical reusable spacecraft, test reusable subscale models in orbital flight, and build a vehicle that would be reusable, safe, and economical. The main change since the X-15 era is that a human pilot is not needed until we have some confidence th

 

[gofer]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p> So who were these people? <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Von Braun, Gene Krantz, Max Faget (yes, he ended up designing it, but was critical). (this is based on interviews with them)

 

[gofer]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p> "...and it would certainly be wrong to abandon reusable manned spacecraft" <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />I don't disagree! I'm just saying the shuttle was a bad reusable vehicle. From the onset. (Actually, I think the Apollo could have been made reusable incrementally) But Reusability is a function of economics, demand-side. And I never posed such a notion as quoted above. <br /><br />Actually, I said "don't equate "reusable space plane" with "affordable space access" " not because I don't want "affordable space access", but because I do! <br /><br />It's not the only scheme! And in fact, I believe it's the worst approach to reusability. Reusable capsules are also possible. Tethers. Reusable tugs. <br /><br />And as far as "space planes" (silly moniker) go I would have preferred continuation of an incremental program starting with X-15 flights (higher/longer/etc...)<br /> <br />Thanks for this thread, it doesn't seem there is a leeway in our opinions, and/or articulation, as happens often on the Internet, we have spoken our minds, that's good enough.

 

[pathfinder_01]

The trouble is we had spend like $100 billion on the moon program in less than 10 years as opposed to the amount spent by the Shuttle in 30. <br /><br />Nasa if it had it's say wanted moon bases, mars bases, and space stations. It would have developed the Shuttle and kept the Saturn V.<br /><br /><br />However the moon program was effectiveltly cancled in 1968 before the 1st landing. Congress refused to allocate money for a second round of Saturns.<br /><br />In additon the workforce needed to service the shuttle is about equal to the workforce needed for the Saturn. Spaceflight just isn't cheap.

 

[willpittenger]

Larger batches of Saturn Vs would have brought the price per unit down. When we cut back on the number of F-22s built, we are making each one more expensive. Lockheed must recover its investement somehow and they do that by charging the taxpayer more. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[willpittenger]

Did either of you see the Challenger Class Orbiter concept that I posted about six months ago? Not sure if the thread is still there or not. It might have expired. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[JonClarke]

I don't know about Kranz. But WVB was the architect of the STS system the foundation part of a much larger program, this has already been pointed out. He had been in favour of space planes since the 40's There is no way he could be considered a critic.<br /><br />The same can be said of Faget. He was a key player in the development of the system and carries a fair degree of responsibility for how it turned out. Don't confuse critical comments uttered during the design process with criticism of the whole concept.<br /><br />I can't say I am convinced. Do you have references?<br /><br />Jon<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Whether we become a multi-planet species with unlimited horizons, or are forever confined to Earth will be decided in the twenty-first century amid the vast plains, rugged canyons and lofty mountains of Mars</em>  Arthur Clarke</p> </div>

 

[willpittenger]

Shuttle_Guy, could an Apollo service module have boosted Skylab much? How about an Apollo still attached to a Saturn V third stage? (That would have required using one the Saturns that became museum pieces.) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>