[Travis McGee]

Having "breath on them and they break" fragile tiles a few yards from the boosters tons of frozen insulation, which has a habit of breaking off at mach on liftoff is stupid, just a very poor design concept, a gun pointing at the head of the crew Russian roullette style. "Do you feel lucky today" is not the best we should strive for!

Whatever the insulating material, it must be PROTECTED on the way up, to ensure that it is pristine for reentry!

That is where the "Big Dumb Booster" excells. The small crew only reentry vehicle is totally protected on launch, Apollo style.

What is the point of bringing down enormous EMPTY payload bays, and trying to land like a glider? Why not use huge CHEAP boosters to get the payload to orbit, and have a purpose built capsule for the crew?

One shot boosters would be cheaper in the long run than what we are spending on shuttles...and safter too.

[_Jim]

"breath on them and they break" fragile tiles

A red herring argument.

MANY of these tiles have survived substanyially intact during a hair 'more than just a breath' while falling from +200,000 feet (NOT to mention some sort of explosion while up there at Mach 18).

I now think that is was the RCC in the left wing's leading edge -

- part of the LESS (Leading Edge Structural Subsystem) system

- that was damaged during lift-off ...

How 'bout them apples?

[hopespringseternal]

A lot of what drives the cost of the shuttle is the need for absolute reliability in so many systems run at the very edge of capability. Hence the term "rocket science." Basically, everything ever sent into space has been operated like a race car. What is needed is more akin to a panel truck.

The shuttle is not so much reuseable as salvageable. It is exhaustively inspected and many systems are rebuilt with each flight. That is why it takes so long to turn one around. This is a direct consequence of running everything at the bleeding edge of its capability and needing it to be extremely reliable.

Because it is such a large and relatively dense object, the thermal protection system has more stringent requirements. A larger area must be protected against higher temperatures than another configuration.

Repeated attempts at a shuttle successor have been stymied by politics and bureaucratic incompetence.

[Poohbah]

There should be a two-or-three-tiered system for shuttles:

Tier 1: Remote operation. Useful for routine satellite launches. Semi-expendable (if it doesn't survive reentry, buy a new one.)

Pluses for ops: doesn't need to be meat-rated. Don't need to pay flight crew.

Minuses: lot of ops need people working onsite (watching experiments, et cetera). Dull as hell.

Tier 2-Low: Manned orbiter.

Pluses: Good for jobs that need people onsite.

Minuses: EXPENSIVE

Tier 2-High: Manned orbital transfer vehicle.

Pluses: reach and fix birds in GEO, reach ISS from low orbits.

Minuses: if you can't get back to shuttle or ISS, you're hosed.