Shuttle redux, a simple plan [KISS principle]

Self

[det dweller too]

As the information unfolds on the causes of the shuttle disaster, it is becoming likely that the left wing may have been damaged by ice/foam/whatever falling off the main tank at liftoff.

[boris]

"I had the very same thought about an hour ago...I also replied on one thread that a thin, strong lightweight netting over the upper half or so of the tank would help minimize "shedding"."

A sort of fishnet bra, eh?

--Boris

[sixmil]

Get rid of the tile. Huge manufacturing costs, maintenance costs, and doesn't look too safe any more. Go back to a thick coat of paint like the Apollo program, now that's KISS.

[Paleo Conservative]

"So you have a detachable engine pod in some kind of re-entry survivable form?"

Dunking SSMEs into salt water voids the warranty. You'd have to seal them somehow in a water-tight way.

Why would they have to land in the ocean? If the engines were not detached till after the payload module acheives orbit, one could choose just about anywhere in the world to land them by parachute just by waiting for a suitable orbit to fire some retro rockets. Probably the ideal place to recover the engines would be in a desert like Death Valley, Callifornia where Edwards Airforce base is located. Also, considering there would be no live passengers aboard, it would not be necessary to worry as much about limiting the g forces it is subjected to during a re-entry and parachute landing.

[ErnBatavia]

Someone added up all the weight of the seat-arm ash trays and calculated how much fuel would be used by the entire fleet to carry around the ash trays. It was some seemingly insignificant amount, but added up fleet-wide over the course of a year. So they had the cabin crew yank and discard all the ashtrays.

...and then it all went for naught when Hillary Rodman Clinton lugged her voluminous hindquarters on board for just one flight.

[Anteater_4]

I think your unmanned disposable orbiter idea is excellent. The major advantage of the current shuttle platform is that it is the world's only system for launching unusually large and heavy satellites. Since the manned orbiters are laid-up indefinitely, in order to keep the shuttle contractors in business, the unmanned orbiter should be looked into by NASA.

The MAJOR operating cost the manned orbiter is the fact that it has to support human life. By building a substitute disposable system that's inexpensive enough, NASA (or preferably someone else) can remain the business of launching very heavy payloads for communication companies, etc...

[Lurking2Long]

Maybe a "manzerre" or a "bro"...

[Brett66]

Here's another shuttle variant HLV proposed in the 80's I believe.

[boris]

"Why would they have to land in the ocean? If the engines were not detached till after the payload module acheives orbit, one could choose just about anywhere in the world to land them by parachute just by waiting for a suitable orbit to fire some retro rockets. Probably the ideal place to recover the engines would be in a desert like Death Valley, Callifornia where Edwards Airforce base is located. Also, considering there would be no live passengers aboard, it would not be necessary to worry as much about limiting the g forces it is subjected to during a re-entry and parachute landing."

Rocket engines are pretty delicate and if you bumped one hard you'd probably need to tear it to bitsy pieces and re-assemble. Also, we will paint a big "X" in Death Valley and let you go stand on it to watch as the package comes in. Deal?

--Boris

[ARA]

Not a bad idea, but it could be possible to replace the underbelly of aluminium skin with a skin of Titanium which has a melting point much higher (over 3000 F -- Al is 1300F) Leave the tiles as a saftey feature... While Titanium weighs more than Aluminium, the safety factor would be huge... just a thoughts...

[chimera]

Rocket engines are pretty delicate and if you bumped one hard you'd probably need to tear it to bitsy pieces and re-assemble.

I'm with you on this one. My guess is that after a couple of good hard bumps the main engines would be in for a tough time. The SRBs are recoverable because they're very simple. Essentially a long, hollow tube stuffed with solid propellant. The liquid H2-burning main engines are like jeweled watches by comparison. They've got high speed cryo-turbo pumps, thrust throttle controls, gimbaling mounts, and a host of other precision gear that doesn't lend itself well to high-stress impacts. They do okay now because their ride back to Earth is relatively gentle. I'm not sure slamming them around in a high g-force landing will be all that good for them.

[chimera]

That looks almost like a Proton ripoff. Are we into copying the Russians now? I guess turnabout is fair play since they built that Buran-US shuttle knock-off.

[section9]

One of the things you could do to solve the problem is to put the Shuttle on top of the Saturn I-B. The thing is a monster and you'd have all the gunk down by the engines, instead of right next to the Shuttle where the tiles can get slammed around like china in a shop full of bulls.

We could build the Saturns, again, but you'd spend a year getting the production line going. Remember, we started from scratch and built them.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Centurion2000]

Another thing that could be done is to put that big fuel tank into orbit .... you could outfit a few of those and string them together ... move in some insulation and consumables and you have an instant space station with plenty of room.

How hard can this stuff be ??

[Cold Heat]

It would turn into a roman candle until the combustables burned off. What if it lit up while still hooked to the fuel tank?

Lots of heat on launch as well.

[Centurion2000]

Another idea for that might be to mount a tiny dyna-soar type module for the crew so that a baby shuttle comes back. Maybe something like a 50,000 pound craft and 250,000 module for cargo.It doesn't have to go, but for missions with a human construction requirement it could be added.

[Cold Heat]

And my theory, which I'm trying to get out, is that the doors were damaged where the attachments to the External Tank are made. There are several of these, and they MUST be closed after the ET is released.

I agree that the insuation theory is a red herring. The cause has yet to be found. My theory is like yours or perhaps space debris that was struck on initial re-entry or at any time during the 16 day flight.

[chimera]

Another thing that could be done is to put that big fuel tank into orbit .... you could outfit a few of those and string them together ... move in some insulation and consumables and you have an instant space station with plenty of room.

How hard can this stuff be ??

A lot harder than that. Empty fuel tanks do not a space habitat make. You need insulation, vacuum integrity, an accessway, electrical power generation and distribution, water, oxygen, CO2 scrubbers, heat, lighting, food storage, sleeping quarters, things to do to make it worthwhile being up there (i.e., research equipment), attitude controls, computers, gyros, communications gear, telemetry, antennas, sun shields, and a host of other things I've forgotten.

The original idea for Skylab was a converted SIVB stage. They ended up using the basic frame, but had to add a lot more systems than initially thought. That made it the most complex vehicle in its time ever assembled and sent aloft.

[chimera]

One of the things you could do to solve the problem is to put the Shuttle on top of the Saturn I-B. The thing is a monster and you'd have all the gunk down by the engines, instead of right next to the Shuttle where the tiles can get slammed around like china in a shop full of bulls.

It'd have to be an orbiter only without main engines. You don't want the current orbiter sitting on top of something. The main engine exhaust sluicing down the sides of a rocket would be ungood. The current design blows the exhaust out the bottom of the stack along with the SRB exhaust gases.

As I recall the S1B thrust was in the range if 1.5 million pounds. That would make for a much smaller orbiter with limited payload capacity. The S1B was sufficient to lift the Apollo command and service modules into low orbit, but when you added the lunar module you needed the Saturn V even for Earth orbit missions, like Apollo 9 did. My guess is the Saturn V would have to be resurrected if you want to fly anything like the current orbiter but without main engines. Then you're back into big, expendable boosters again and have gone back to the future, with the bean counters complaining about the cost of those one-shot big boys.

[Brett66]

Here's a picture of one of the proposed Orbital Space Plane concepts:

[chimera]

OK, so that looks like the old DynaSoar vehicle attached to the tip of some kind of Saturn-class booster. Basically the flying bathtub concept (lifting body). The reusability of the different parts would have to be determined.

Remember the original selling point of the shuttle was the concept that essentially everything could be re-used and thereby saving the costs of fabricating a new vehicle for each mission. Can the proposed systems do that? If not, they'll come in for the same criticism as the launch systems of the mid 1960s. The bean counters will hammer them to death.