[TalonDJ]

The original plan was one launch a week with a month turnaround for the 4 shuttle fleet. Congress didn't fund the upgrades necessary to support this flight schedule. Each shuttle had a one hundred flight lifetime and then a new space craft would be designed, built and to replace the "old" shuttles.

Now NASA is going to replace the fleet with Apollo era capsules. If NASA has its way in the N Aeronautical S A replacement regime the BA-747 will be replaced by the

Well they are no where near their '100 missions. Not only that but Apollo was always a safer design. The failures that killed Challenger and Columbia would have either not happened or been survivable using a 'top of booster' capsule type craft. Wings look cool but are just a huge load of useless weight you haul up to space every mission. The Shuttles design was dictated by a number of poor decisions and bad assumptions. Hopefully they can avoid some of those this time. The biggest bad decisions was 'payload return' and it dictated most of the design of the shuttle.

[Young Werther]

Freon was used as a propellant to apply the Spray On Foam Insualtion. It was replaced because of the ozone depletion treaty. The change of propellant and the elimination of the white paint lead to the foam chunks falling off the tank and stricking the shuttle tiles.

The stats are there before with freon and white paint, very little tile damage. After major damage. My best bud worked at Michoud and said that the SOFI would cure with holes and cracks where the SOFI would not cure correctly. NASA required that these scetions be cut out and the form would be filled using trowels and scopes just like a platerer would fill cracks in a wall. Roll the shuttle out to the pad and the sea air would cover the shuttle and would fill the cracks in the tanks. fill the tank with cryogenic fuel for take off and ice would form on the tank and the water in the cracks would freeze and voila ice expands and loosens the chunk. The chunk of SOFI and ice would separate and would separate and strick the shuttle.

BTW the tiles were going to be replaced by a metal tile system after about 25 flight but Congress wouldn't provide the funding.

The Venture Star and its new engine would have improve spaceflight but would have eliminated the external flight by being a single stage to orbit!