Why is the space shuttle still here?

[hawkeye4640]

Hey, I'm a Junior in Aerospace Engineering/Computer Science. I noticed most people here are very knowledgeable about the space shuttle. I am just wondering. . . Why is the space shuttle still around? We have wasted such an incredible amount of time (2.5 years) that could have been developing an incredibly more advanced vehicle? <br /><br />Additionally why has so much money been wasted into a product that is already past it's life expectancy? A real company would never do this, why would NASA? Are any of their engineers thinking the same thing? <br /><br />Am I missing something, and am I the only one who thinks this is another disaster waiting to happen? The space shuttle is overly complex and can be greatly simplified with newer technology. I for one vow to never send a resume, apply for internship, co-op, or work with anything dealing with NASA and hope to work with a private company that knows to not work on something that is too old to use. <br /><br />If someone can explain to me why the space shuttle is still being used and give me a good reason. Then I could be wrong but it is very fustrating to see good money and time being wasted into Space Flight, where much more could have been done by now than trying to fix something that is antiquated when you think about what these shuttles go through each flight and the computer and technology boost since it's development.<br /><br />That's all I just wish NASA would get back on track.

 

[gunsandrockets]

"Why is the space shuttle still around? "<br /><br />Because the International Space Station is in the middle of construction and only the Shuttle is available to complete it.

 

[rocketwatcher2001]

<font color="yellow"> I for one vow to never send a resume, apply for internship, co-op, or work with anything dealing with NASA and hope to work with a private company that knows to not work on something that is too old to use.</font><br /><br />I'd wait until you actually start working outside of the classroom before you make bold, but never the less, un-informed, statements like that. My airline was listed by Aviation Week magazine last month as the most successful small freight airline for the last year and we fly 727's, all of which were built before you were born. It's not how old your equipment is, it's how you use it. <br /><br />The Shuttle performs missions that no other spacecraft could possibly do. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[vt_hokie]

<font color="yellow">"Because the International Space Station is in the middle of construction and only the Shuttle is available to complete it."</font><br /><br />Indeed, that is probably the only reason the shuttle is still operational. The existing completed station hardware that's waiting for launch was designed specifically for the shuttle's payload bay, and I'm sure it would be difficult and cost prohibitive, if not impossible, to adapt the attachment points for any other launch vehicle. Not to mention, they require use of the shuttle's remote manipulator system for installation, as well as crew EVA's. <br /><br />Also, the shuttle is the only vehicle capable of returning significant mass to Earth from the station. And it is the only vehicle capable of delivering large replacement components such as control moment gyros. I have not yet seen NASA address how it will handle things like CMG replacement after the shuttle is retired.

 

[radarredux]

> <i><font color="yellow"> A real company would never do this, why would NASA?</font>/i><br /><br />NASA isn't a company, it is a government organization.<br /><br /><br /> /> <i><font color="yellow">If someone can explain to me why the space shuttle is still being used and give me a good reason.</font>/i><br /><br />Because the Space Shuttle System supports important jobs in important congressional districts. During the Moon2Mars commission hearings, many people came out and said NASA needs to close many of its facilities, but many influential congress people came out and said there was no way that was going to happen. And when Moon2Mars report was delivered, Pete Aldridge specifically said closing a NASA facility was off the table because the report would have been immediately dead on arrival.<br /><br />As a more recent example, the NASA Authorization bill from the Senate, sponsored by Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX -- (Johnson Space Center)) and Bill Nelson (D-FL -- Kennedy Space Center)) requires NASA to keep flying the shuttle until the next manned vehicle (e.g., CEV) is in place, which could be well after 2010.</i></i>

 

[hawkeye4640]

What about the Apollo system? wasn't that pretty much all NASA was working on at the time? Were they not able to convert those systems and facilities for use for the Space Shuttle, how can stuff not be converted to Shuttle use? If a facility must close another one would be needed for the purpose of the new spacecraft that would be developed.<br /><br />Certainly NASA has the funding to not only finish the ISS with the shuttle but also heavily be able to work on new designs?<br /><br />I admit I do not know much, but I am a pilot and I know flying a 727 and also flying a space shuttle have nothing in common. Comparing what a 727 goes through in one flight is a minute comparison to what the space shuttle has to deal with.<br /><br />I understand your reasoning behind needing the space shuttle to finish the ISS and that is a very good reason I never read about or heard of so thank you for letting me know that.<br /><br />I'm not making a bold statement about my non-interest in a NASA related job as many of my schoolmates . . . including PHD students, masters students, and a couple professors frequently discuss their dissapointment in the space system and what NASA is doing. They also are trying to avoid NASA unless the pay justifies it. I'm sorry if you think I am being ignorant, but I am going by what I've read and what I've seen.<br /><br />

 

[shuttle_rtf]

>I understand your reasoning behind needing the space shuttle to finish the ISS and that is a very good reason I never read about or heard of so thank you for letting me know that. <<br /><br />Leaves me wondering what sites you are reading! The wrong ones, maybe <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[robotical]

Even if the space station did not exist the NASA would need to launch the shuttle at least once. The public and congress have to have confidence in NASA if the agency wants to go beyond the shuttle. The only way it can gain that confidence is if it shows that it does not shy from failure and displays a can do attitude. Failing to launch the shuttle again would be a fatal mistake for NASA. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[paleo]

No it wouldn't. Especially, as the poster points out, it was done 2 and a half years ago. The public today is largely the Sesame Street generation...the attention span of an amoeba.<br /><br />2 and a half years!!!! Think of the the technology and advances the Americans made from Pearl Harbor to D-Day. Many of those same engineers put man on the Moon. Today's Shuttle engineers in comparison?

 

[hawkeye4640]

>The Apollo facilities were converted for the Shuttle.<br /><br />Exactly my point <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />So basically there are publicity reasons for keeping the shuttle as well as to finish the ISS?<br /><br />What ever happend to the X-33 and such designs that were out before 2000? Are they still on the table or scraped? They seemed like great designs. <br /><br />I hope the shuttles goes up once again it's an amazing sight, it just seems like so much more could have been done by now. <br /><br />I am pretty sure if they worked as hard during the Apollo days as they do now the space shuttle have only been a stepping stone.

 

[robotical]

Yes, the last two and a half years could have been spent creating a new vehicle, but would the American people have supported it? The shuttle for all its flaws is a source of pride to most Americans. To abandon it after an accident would be a sharp blow to that pride and support for any future vehicle is unlikely to be very high. After all, why should American citizens fund a new program if it appears NASA simply gives up after one failure?<br /><br />Never underestimate the power of symbolism. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[pathfinder_01]

The greater question is could a new vechile be made/tested in 2 years? How long would it take to do it(probably closer to five-ten years). From scrath, I don’t think so. And what capabilities should this new vehicle have? Also where would the funding come to make the new vehicle? It would take Nasa a year to hash out the details(remember we no longer have the rusiains as the bad guys to compete with)<br /><br />Governments operate very differently from corporations. Governments tend to operate old equipment much longer because unlike cooperation they would not increase profits by bringing in the new. Government organizations are also not quite as driven to reduce waste because reducing costs would only result in reduced funding. <br /><br />Also while government organizations can have there problems they can have there advantages. NASA does quite a lot of research and development that companies would never fund because any profit to be gained from the research would be too far in the future. I would also expect that their R/D budget would be much larger than what any corperation could hope to spend and make a profit. <br /><br />The shuttle’s systems have been upgraded over the years as much as possible. (i.e. Glass cockpit, 3 SSME redesigns,4 ET redesigns, thermal blankets instead of all tiles) True the shuttle needs replacement but the economics of replacement along with the political realities of the pre-columbia era would not have favored replacement before the accident. <br />

 

[halman]

hawkeye4640,<br /><br />There are a few things which I think that you should be aware of. For one thing, NASA is a government agency, which means that its funding is decided upon by Congress. As much as I am certain many engineers at NASA would like to build a new rocket, or spaceplane, or whatever, the money has to be approved by people who generally do not have much background in science, especially spaceflight related subjects. Over and over again, NASA has asked for money to do important projects, such as building a space station in the 1980's, and been turned down by a Congress that views space exploration as scientific research only, with no immediate practical benefits.<br /><br />Also, the age of a vehicle has little to do with its effectiveness. There are still DC-3's in operation in some parts of the world, because they get the job done, often better than a newer aircraft could. There are B-52's flying right now with over 1,000,000 airframe hours, and they are going to be flying for a while yet, because they are better at what they do than any other aircraft that has been designed to replace them. The space shuttles were originally conceived as a prototype, to demonstrate that a winged lifting body could be returned from space. Their life expectancy has been increased several times, when NASA had no options but to keep flying the shuttle. What life expectancy they were designed for was based on the belief that funding for a second generation shuttle would be forthcoming once the vehicle had proven itself.<br /><br />Something which I consider very important to remember is that both the Challenger and the Columbia were lost because management was not looking at vehicle safety first. Challenger was launched during very cold conditions, which it was known would compromise the effectiveness of the O-rings sealing the Solid Rocket Booster segments together. Columbia was launched when it was known that foam strikes had caused significant damage to other orbi <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[shuttle_rtf]

>What ever happend to the X-33 and such designs that were out before 2000? Are they still on the table or scraped? They seemed like great designs.<<br /><br />X-33/VentureStar was lovely with a captial L. They had problems with the tanks and the program was halted...............but not totally dead forever, I keep hearing.<br /><br />She was before her time, when LockMart were building the X-33. <br /><br />The other rumour is Cheney didn't want Al Gore's associated baby getting off the ground.

 

[grooble]

Could they pull it off now, with the several years worth of advances that have happened in science + tech?<br /><br />

 

[shuttle_rtf]

From asking around, yes. The material used for the internal tanks has advanced to a solution. Hopefully going to be interviewing one of the main engineers who worked on the X-33 about it soon.

 

[nacnud]

Am I right in thinking they solved the problem by coating the inside of the tank in foil to prevent LH2 getting into the composite, warming up expanding and delaminating the tank?

 

[shuttle_rtf]

Well this is prelim chats with the guy I want to interview over this.....<br /><br />....One of the big stinks with the tanks was microcracking (and the general feeling the tanks were crap - they weren't built by Michoud for example). Aluminum tanks is the ticket....which they wanted to build at the time, not the compost (yes, they called them compost tanks! <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> Gives you an idea of what they thought.<br /><br />The XRS-2200 linear aerospike also had much long test fires than documented too....performed real well.<br /><br />This all spouted from what I think was a slip of the tounge months ago when I was asking a Lockmart person about the CEV. Just chatting about the X-33 (which I've always loved the look of) and the word back was to check with the USAF as they are sniffing around it again.

 

[nacnud]

Given the CAV concept the X-33 could be a useful vehicle to have.

 

[le3119]

The space shuttle airframe design is just one year older than me, BTW. But it still performs valuable operations that those Russian bowling balls cannot do. Now, the US really botched it when we decided we had won the race to the Moon, and turned to launch interim stations composed of Saturn's spare parts. We should have established a lunar transit platform, and set up shop in the Tycho crater. We could have learned about life in space while prospecting on the Moon, and in the transit time to and from Earth orbit. There was no reason to start all over as if living in space 200 miles above the Earth is remarkabley more educational than doing it back and forth to the Moon and building a ore refinery and telescopes on the mare. That's where we screwed up. We dumped the tradition of Lewis & Clark for a space program mirroring the Manhattan Project, and our success in the Cold War came back as a curse. Just my view.

 

[paleo]

"The space shuttle airframe design is just one year older than me, BTW. But it still performs valuable operations that those Russian bowling balls cannot do."<br /><br /> Like what in the last 30 months and counting?<br /><br /> A lady comes into the Butcher's shop. The hamburger meat is $1/ pound. She tells the butcher 'My god. why so expensive. It's only 50 cents/pound at the butcher shop next door. The butcher asks why she doesn't go next door to buy her hamburger meat.. The lady says because he is sold out . The butcher looks her in the eye and says 'if all my hamburger was sold out I'd only charge 25 cents/ pound'.<br /><br /> It doesn't matter an iota what the Shuttle 'could' do. All that matters is what it is actually accomplishing. NASA could put a Grande Piano on board and claim the Shuttle can play a Tchaikovsky piano concerto in space and the Russians can't. It means nothing unless the Shuttle actually is launched and goes into space..

 

[hawkeye4640]

^ <br /><br />Excellent Point!!

 

[luciusverus]

ditto.....