Shuttle and the new space plane

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Fallingstar1971

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What is the maximum distance the shuttle can go from Earth?

Is the cargo bay of the shuttle air tight? Can it be pressurized if the doors are closed?

I was thinking NASA could take a page out of "somebody" elses book and refitt the shuttle cargo bay with windows and seats and make the doors air tight if they are not already.

Could be a funding boost..........tourism.......

And on the plus side, we will always have one shuttle in operational condition *just in case

The air forces new unmanned space plane looks exciting, but its remotely flown, meaning a delay of a second or two before commands can be followed. This *small* delay could be the difference between a successful mission and an expensive failure.

I just wish that people would set a goal and stick with it, and not cancel projects without viable replacements. It is a tactical mistake to scrap our only *accessible* reusable space plane. If anything, these super "USVs" should be launched with the shuttle, along with a representative of the military, and have them remotely controlled from orbit. This will reduce the time lag when issuing commands, thereby increasing the chances of a successful mission.

Star
 
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bdewoody

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The cargo bay doors have to be open during space flight for cooling reasons, but a passenger module could be built to hold a number of passengers inside the cargo bay in addition to the space in the crew compartment. I started a thread in space business and technology that suggested that the shuttles could be leased out for such a venture.

The shuttle can get as high as the Hubble Space telescope which is a little higher than the ISS, but it cannot break orbit.
 
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Gravity_Ray

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The shuttle must be retired. Its is the best option. Certainly you dont want to make it a tourist option. Once the shuttle flies its manifest (if all goes well), it will have a 1.5% fatal failure rate, compare that to a commercial liner that has a 0.0004% fatal failure rate.

You dont want to spend a bunch of money to fly tourists in the shuttle and the first time something bad happens everything will shut down, and you will have a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacks from the Congress trying to lay the blame on everybody in the space business.

Trust me. The shuttles did what they were supposed to and now its time to retire this awesome (but 40 year old) technology.

I dont however, have any problems with developing a "new" shuttle that is much smaller and uses the same Thermal Protection System (TPS) and flys on top of a rocket (not on its side). That shuttle could be small and just take say 7-12 people up and down LEO.
 
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CalliArcale

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I think the cost of operating a commercial Shuttle would be prohibitive. The other factor is that we don't know what will become of the LC-39 facilities. NASA is preparing to dismantle what's left of the Shuttle facilities at pad B; pad A will remain until the end of the Shuttle program, but would they keep it past that point, or modify it as well for traditional boosters? Original plan was to mod pad A for Ares V and pad B for Ares I. Time will tell what becomes of them, but odds are low that they could be made available for a commercial Shuttle program unless that program was profitable enough to keep the complex funded. And it's a hell of an expensive complex.
 
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bdewoody

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Gravity_Ray":2lsjstd8 said:
The shuttle must be retired. Its is the best option. Certainly you dont want to make it a tourist option. Once the shuttle flies its manifest (if all goes well), it will have a 1.5% fatal failure rate, compare that to a commercial liner that has a 0.0004% fatal failure rate.

You dont want to spend a bunch of money to fly tourists in the shuttle and the first time something bad happens everything will shut down, and you will have a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacks from the Congress trying to lay the blame on everybody in the space business.

Trust me. The shuttles did what they were supposed to and now its time to retire this awesome (but 40 year old) technology.

I dont however, have any problems with developing a "new" shuttle that is much smaller and uses the same Thermal Protection System (TPS) and flys on top of a rocket (not on its side). That shuttle could be small and just take say 7-12 people up and down LEO.

No matter who builds it or when it is launched a commercial space craft carrying passengers will eventually have an accident and lives will be lost. It is inevitable if the time comes when everyday people have access to space. A privately built commercial space vehicle will likely have a higher probability of having a serious accident than the space shuttle. No vehicle is perfect, ask the President of Poland, ooops you can't.
 
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Gravity_Ray

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bdewoody":83nq5se3 said:
No matter who builds it or when it is launched a commercial spacecraft carrying passengers will eventually have an accident and lives will be lost. It is inevitable if the time comes when everyday people have access to space.


True that. It is also true that it is inevitable that we all die. The question is what is safer, my answer is commercial.

bdewoody":83nq5se3 said:
A privately built commercial space vehicle will likely have a higher probability of having a serious accident than the space shuttle.

I am not sure what you are basing your statement on. There are currently no commercial orbital craft. However, the life blood of a commercial company is its customers. So they are more likely to make safety a priority. Public endeavors are not dependant on their customers. For example, just compare a public hospital to a private one? In my experience the private ones are better.

bdewoody":83nq5se3 said:
No vehicle is perfect, ask the President of Poland, ooops you can't.
Well I didn’t say the probability is zero that you wont have a fatal accident. However, here is some statistics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_safety#Statistics

The shuttle has flown 797 people so far, from them 14 have lost their lives. That is 1.76% chance you will lose your life. Compare that with a commercial airline that has a safety record of 117 deaths per billion journeys and that is a 0.000012% chance you will lose your life (again it is not zero) but better wouldn’t you say?
 
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MeteorWayne

Guest
Yes, but it's a much different environment traveling at 400 mph in a nice friendly atmosphere, compared to 17-25,000 mph to get to and return from the vacuum of space.
 
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Gravity_Ray

Guest
MeteorWayne":1kndsz0g said:
Yes, but it's a much different environment traveling at 400 mph in a nice friendly atmosphere, compared to 17-25,000 mph to get to and return from the vacuum of space.

I agree MW.

Again my point simply for the OP is that using the shuttle as is, for tourists is not feasible. It’s too expensive and not very safe. But the shuttle systems are very good, so redesigning a smaller people shuttle that has its TPS and maneuverability, but is top mounted is perfectly OK.

I just want to say side mounting this monster truck was a bad idea that was forced on the engineers when it was designed and it’s still a bad idea. The fact that more people have not died on the shuttle shows what a tremendous team the shuttle people are, but it doesn’t make the design a good design.
 
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holmec

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At this point take the lessons learned from Shuttle and other missions, and make a new space plane with new materials.

Personally I love the airlaunch concept.

Part of lessons learned is to separate cargo from crew. AKA Constellations two rockets.
 
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rdeaver

Guest
Constellation was a myopic approach foisted on NASA by a shoot-from-the-hip Administration, with an irrational timeline and no budget. A significant segment of NASA engineers was against it from the beginning, even going so far as to develop an alternate proposal and lobby for it against the express wishes of the then Administrator. The "Apollo on steroids" approach was never a good idea, and with the funding problems on top of that it could only end in tears; we would never make it back to the Moon, much less Mars, because Constellation was doomed to collapse under the weight of its own inadequacies.

Get the commercial launchers doing the delivery truck stuff, free up NASA to innovate and explore, spend money on heavy lift and drives that make Mars 6 weeks away instead of a year+. That is a plan that will actually work.
 
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MeteorWayne

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This thread is more appropriate for Space Business and Technology along with the other half dozen shuttle of the future threads. Expect a move soon.
 
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