Last Shuttle Mission

[johnrm]

I've been thinking that since they are going to retire the Shuttle fleet that they should retire at least two of the orbiters in orbit, with one mothballed in a trailing orbit to the space station, only around 50 miles higher and one permanently attached as a lifeboat. You could modify the last orbiter to load in fuel tanks in its payload bay for trips to the moon. You could use it as a shuttle... for real... extend the crew cabin as well to take more people.

 

[willpittenger]

1. All three remaining orbiters are slated to be given (or loaned) to museums.<br />2. Prior to the retirement of the last orbiter, the retired orbiters will be cannibalized for spare parts.<br />3. Even if you completely filled the cargo bay with fuel (far less than the ET holds) for the OMS engines, you would never reach the Moon.<br />4. As an emergency reentry vehicle, it might have problems. We currently have to check for damage from orbital debris before reentry. <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>

 

[tadpoletriker]

Seems to me that there will be an ET and everything to spare from the last manned mission backup which could fly one last unmanned autonomous mission. It would be a shame to waste it.

 

[qso1]

Welcome to SDC, nice posting but using the shuttle to go to the moon has been discussed extensivelly here before. Its just not practical to bring a winged vehicle all the way to the moon. If shuttle were not retiring, it could have been utilized for the upcoming Constellation program rather than build the Ares LVs.<br /><br />Keep in mind it took the Apollo third stage to move the 45 ton mass of the Apollo CSM/LM to the moon. The shuttle mass is 125 tons plus or minus a few and as mentioned here earlier, it would take more than a payload bay full of propellant to get it to the moon, and you'd need to bring it back to earth. The shuttle could not land on the moon without a runway or additional rockets for vertical descent. Once all this is factored in, the impracticality of it becomes apparent. <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>