Very cool stuff!
The Shuttle should be in a museum.
This Launch Vehicle may be the next step ahead for manned spaceflight.
I was walking through a parking lot a few years ago and happened go look down toward MacDill AFB and lo and behold there was the 747 with the shuttle on its back on final approach to MacDill. Turns out the Cape had been hit with some afternoon thundershowers and they decided to spend the night in Tampa and finish the flight the next day.
I can't begin to tell you what a tremendous sight that was! Wow is the only word I can think of to use and it's way too mellow.
That experience set me to thinking how neat it would be to put one of them on the back of the 747 and fly it around the country for a year or so, stopping at anyplace that had a runway that could accommodate it. And for other areas they could make some low altitude, low speed passes to give people a chance to say they had seen it.
It would cost a fortune, but I can't think of a better way to spend some of my tax money than letting the people who have funded this fantastic program for all these years get a chance to stand near it and take in the thrill.
It might even be possible to pay the cost through private donations, especially if the project were taken on by a national organization like the American Legion or VFW.
With all that's going on these days in our country it's getting harder and harder to find something that can lift our spirits. Seeing one of those magnificent machines sitting on the tarmac at 100 or more airports across the country certainly couldn't hurt!
“The Shuttle should be in a museum.”
The Shuttle still does something that no other launch vehicle can do — bring tens of thousands of pounds of payload back to earth. Constellation, the EELVs and even the Side-mount Shuttle/Shuttle-C cannot do that. And yet space flight is still in its adolescence until we both have downweight capability — and a need for downweight.
“This Launch Vehicle may be the next step ahead for manned spaceflight.”
The Delta IV Heavy could easily carry an Orion capsule. It is not being considered for that purpose for reasons similar to those seen in the 1950s when the country insisted on using the Vanguard to launch our first satellite instead of the Redstone/Juno. Only this time it is not that we want to put satellites into orbit with civilian rather than military missiles. It is that NASA feels that you cannot use a a commercial vehicle to launch manned vehicles rather than a NASA-developed vehicle because grubby “for-profit” commercial corporations lack the right stuff.