If there was a Shuttle version 2...

[frodo1008]

Shuttle_guy: Like yourself I fully support using the current system as long as it takes to come up with the next system. Hopefully, with the ideas of Mike Griffin, that will not be much longer than 2010. I also hope that the current shuttle is now going to fly well until then. That is, with all the work and corrections that have gone into the current system it will now be safe until its replacement is on line. As I have stated, the current STS system has been magnificent, even with its problems. However, as we both know this wasn't NASA's first choice. If we hadn't been fighting a war in southeast Asia NASA would have been able to obtain the necessary funding to have made the STS system what it really should have been. That is, the true two-stage-to-orbit system that I have described. I really do not think that such a system would have been that much more expensive to build as the current system was. If such a system had been built from the beginning we would not have had either of the two main problems that the current STS system has had, and the operating costs of the system would have been far lower than the current system, though not anywhere as low as NASA originally thought the costs of the system would be. <br /><br />grooble: Even if congress actually gets in a budget cutting mood for the overall federal budget (a condition that they all talk about, but I really don't see any actual action taking place) is the conservative Republican congress going to deny a conservative Republican President Bush one of the only positive legacies of his administration? No, I am indeed hopeful that even with funding the "War on Terror" that they would support his space initiative. So I would hope to see NASA's budget increase by at least 5% per year over the next 3 years and possibly continue on (or about $1 billion per year increase). In designing and building any new system the lightest costs are at the beginning of the process. With this increase along with s

 

[cdr6]

I'll take your word on it, because NASA is with out peer at resolving the technical kind of problems. <br /><br />The idea for a version 2 shuttle, would be to set up the stack's configuration "conventially" and more or less avoid the ice/debries sheding issue all together... I'm very big on those things involving "safety of flight."

 

[frodo1008]

Shuttle-guy: I don't know whose post you are refering to, but I will try to answer anyway. The design of the original STS system fly back booster would have allowed for the fuel and oxidizer tanks to be internal to the booster, thus eliminating icing as an external problem, which in turn would have eliminated the problem that endangered the orbiter from icing debrie. Further, the booster was to have all liquid engines with no attendent o-ring solid booster problems. While this design would have been more expensive to build, it would have eliminated both of the problems that killed 14 good astronauts and destroyed 2 out of 5 of the orbiters. I really wonder how much was actually saved with these losses????

 

[frodo1008]

Shuttle_guy: Sorry I didn't see (or it didn't register) the re: CDR6, my fault! However, I am really glad to see that there is someone (although I should have known that someone as knowledgeable as yourself would have known) else who really knows why the current STS system has the flaws in it that it does. I, as well as yourself, both realize that even with these faults the current STS is a magnificent achievement.<br /><br /> I think that we also both do not want to see a replacement STS system that has far less capability, just to be cheap! I also hope that NASA can somehow (and even more importantly congress will allow NASA) now truly to do the job right! I think that this will in the long run bring down the cost of placing both people and materials into LEO for far less than the current system. And further, do this with far greater safety than even the rework of the current system will allow. It is indeed my hope that the reworked system will not only fly (starting this year) until such a new system is in place, but even more importantly. fly safely!!!!

 

[spacester]

I'd like to go on record as predicting nothing but success for the shuttle and ISS over the next 4+ years. Excellent post, frodo, as you say, these birds are gonna be good to go.<br /><br />All that ISS hardware sitting there ready to fly, fully checked out, paperwork reviews done, ISS assembly only has to worry about overtraining. That's a good problem to have when your biggest worry is overtraining. lol<br /><br />Go NASA, go! Make the Dragonfly's wings unfold!<br /><br />***<br /><br />As you also said, it's about capability. We need to meet or exceed shuttle's heavy lift capability for large single-piece high value payloads - Zarya on steroids, BFH's (Big Friggin Habitats) from Bigelow, etc. Make it so the next space station can go together more easily than ISS. IMO this is done with orbital tug capability. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[cdr6]

Exactly, orbiter atop the booster. I was thinking of canards on the orbiter, and fins on the booster to compensate for the change. But after thinking about it, by removing the engines the % of MAC (Mean Areodynamic Chord) gets pushed way out there, so I gave up on current shuttle size and configuration and went for the smaller HL20/40 design as the optimum design. (Boeing proposed this with the old X20 back in the mid 60's.)

 

[gofer]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p> We need to meet or exceed shuttle's heavy lift capability for large single-piece high value payloads... <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /> <br />No, we don't. Why do we need to meet or exceed shuttle's heavy lift capability?<br /><br />(ok, the shuttle tugs along the wings, the rudder , the landing gear, the 7 astronauts, the 3 SSME's, the fuel cells to support the above... why? nobody knows)<br />

 

[bobw]

(Mean Areodynamic Chord)<br /><br />What's that? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[cdr6]

Mean Aerodyanmic Chord is the position of the center of lift on an airfoil (from front to back), and is generally given in percentages. The % of MAC is linked directly to to the weight and balance of given aircraft. It effects things like take off speed, controlability and other flight characterisitcs.<br /><br />It is not too much of a concern for small aircraft, but on transport catagory (especially cargo aircraft) loading becomes an issue real fast. (It is generally considered "ungood" to run out out lift and controllability by those in the pilot community.) <br /><br />My exposure to calculating MAC was on a stretch DC 8, back in the days when this sort of thing was done with paper and pencil (small computers were nonexistant at that point in time.) <br /><br />An aquaintance of mine who flew for one of the major airlines likes to tell the story that he could always tell when the "stews" had finished serving the inflight meal, because the auto trim would begin rolling the trim wheel fore and aft as passengers go up to use the head....

 

[frodo1008]

gofer: We do not need to meet the shuttle requirements in one single vehicle. As I stated if we could have a vehicle that would take 10 people + 2 crew, but only some 10,000 lbs of cargo into high LEO, this would match the original NASA specs for the STS system. It was the military requirements that dictated both a 65,000 lbs cpability, and such a large cargo space. Also, it was the militaries' cross-landing cpabilities that generated the winged design. Neither of these requirements would be necessary for a true second shuttle design that was done the way it should have been from the start.<br /><br />The need for a larger cargo vehicle can be fulfilled by the use of either the Delta IV Heavy or the Atlas V Heavy. Either of these two vehicles is (with the current design) capable of placing some 50,000 lbs into LEO. Also, both designs are modular, in that the liquid engines could be either upgraded to higher thrust or more common booster cores could be added or even both upgrades done. With this kind of upgrade these vehicles could be easily capable of placing some 100,000 lbs into LEO. Or even eventually reaching the Saturn V class with some 250,000 lbs to LEO!!

 

[scottb50]

If you have an independent returnable first stage you could put just about anything you wanted into orbit. White Knight carried Spaceship One and even though better engines aren't being provided can still take the X-37 high enough for test drops.<br /><br />Too bad it can't take an X-37 and a second stage to an altitude it could demonstrate re-entry. Reflying what has been done already has limited applications. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[bobw]

<font color="yellow">Mean Aerodyanmic Chord is the position of the center of lift on an airfoil (from front to back)</font><br /><br />Thanks for that. All the aerodynamics I know comes from that little thrust/drag/ lift/weight diagram I always see if I look up something like "how airplaines fly" in the encyclopedia. I never thought about the center of lift changing. I'll learn more about MAC! I'm sure knowing about the percentage is going to keep me from going down a lot of blind alleys. Thanks again. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vt_hokie]

<i>Except for the Rutan's of this world and some other decade in the future, Spaceplanes and their ilk are off the menu.</i><br /><br />Unfortunately that is true, although Russia's "Kliper" may yet get off the ground. But since NASA's not going to do it, maybe I should design my own space plane and try to get it built instead of crying about the CEV on internet forums! <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> Seriously, I would love to work for one of the "little guys" like SpaceDev, should they ever have the need for more engineers! <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />I hope you don't mind me resurrecting this old thread, but I don't think anybody mentioned the VentureStar here. I would envision "STS version 2.0" as being something along the lines of a two-stage VentureStar, perhaps with the assistance of strap-on solid propellant boosters at liftoff. I often wonder if the VentureStar concept would have been more feasible had they not included the SSTO requirement. <br /><br />I suppose that Lockheed's earlier Starclipper design was sort of a two-stage VentureStar. That wrap-around tank design seems pretty crazy to me, though!