What if the Saturn-Shuttle was built instead of what we got?

[Bill Phil]

6 hours ago, fredinno said:

Hmm, Wikipedia lists it as 21T, but Astronautix lists it as 18.6T. Maybe the 21T number is for Saturn IB +Centaur? Who knows.

 

HG-3 was the SSME predecessor, and had similar Vaccum ISP and conditions (high pressure) to SSME. It almost cetainly would have cost almost as much as, or as much as SSME (though HG-3 was designed exclusively for Upper Stage use. So yes, they would cost a LOT.

 

The E-1 was cancelled long before 1968 anyways. 

And H-1s could be mass-produced, unlike F-1s, since you used so many on the Saturn IBs (8!) , and Delta woulend up using it (a very successful rocket line until Delta III). So yes, they would likely be cheaper overall. Conmmonality with F-1 matters little when Saturn V would never launch any more than the original block buy. Not to mention you could use a 1x H-1 upper stage for a smaller, 14-15T LV, and still carry Apollo. Space station modules can be carried up with Titan III-derived SRBs.

As I said earlier, Saturn IB was OP anyways, lowering costs is a lot more important than increasing efficiency for that rocket. 

People discussed this on NASASpaceflight forums. http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39117.0

And F-1 upgrades were considered. The F-1A would have had higher thrust. However, using F-1A instead of H-1 increased payload to almost 20T to LEO.

H-1s were also upgraded over time- aka RS-27. The final evolution of RS-27 had 10s higher ISP in vaccum, with the same ISP in surface, and 150kN more thrust.

HG-3 was the evolution of the J-2 and inevitably very similar to it. If it's expensive, so is the J-2.

The H-1s were the problem. In 1969 they were essentially legacy hardware, and were for decades. The F-1 was a newer design, and also capable of mass production ( five per Saturn V, five!)

Commonality would be important because your design here would be using F-1s, and the potential of not killing the saturn V is possible in our alternate history scenario. Less specialized parts = lower costs.

It could barely launch an Apollo, and even then it wasn't fully fueled...

[sevenperforce]

8 hours ago, fredinno said:

And that could have been done, and was later done, with an expendable vehicle.

Yes, but it would have been harder to hide from the Soviets. The NRO had a whole array of secret satellites they wanted to have deployed away from prying eyes. Their requirements may not have brought about the Space Shuttle program, but they drove the size of the payload bay and a lot of other details. 

[DerekL1963]

3 hours ago, evileye.x said:

Why they dropped totally succesful Saturn V

Two reasons.  First, it was an extremely expensive launcher.  Second, it was a heavy launcher and heavy payloads are themselves expensive.   (Note, this is the same dilemma the SLS is facing.)

Also, they didn't "suddenly" pivot to the Shuttle.   The Shuttle (or something much like it) was deeply embedded in NASA's DNA from the very start.  You'll sometimes hear it referred to as the Von Braun Vision - Shuttle, Station, Mars.  (Though the shuttle in the Vision was a passenger shuttle, cargo went up on heavy expendables.  The historical Shuttle ended up being a pickup truck for complicated reasons.)   Von Braun, and others at NASA, regarded the whole moon landing thing as something of a diversion from the Real True Path to space exploration.

Anyhow, research on shuttle technology was underway by the early sixties in parallel with the lunar program.

[tater]

^^^Exactly. The issue with any "shuttle" design is that it make some sense as long as the point is bringing up people, and perhaps pressurized cargo (food, etc, for resupply). The open "cargo bay" of the Shuttle as built pretty much wrecked it.

[evileye.x]

The shuttle design is pretty senseless, until you think about RETURNING things from space.  Or polar orbit nuclear strikes. Remember shuttle was capable of polar mission, but never flew it. 

If crazy politics and military was not involved,  shuttle could be more reasonable spacecraft... 

When soviets started buran,  they knew it's kinda senseless, but needed to show THEY CAN DO IT and even bigger and automated...  Then ditched the program.  

[Bill Phil]

24 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

Two reasons.  First, it was an extremely expensive launcher.  Second, it was a heavy launcher and heavy payloads are themselves expensive.   (Note, this is the same dilemma the SLS is facing.)

Also, they didn't "suddenly" pivot to the Shuttle.   The Shuttle (or something much like it) was deeply embedded in NASA's DNA from the very start.  You'll sometimes hear it referred to as the Von Braun Vision - Shuttle, Station, Mars.  (Though the shuttle in the Vision was a passenger shuttle, cargo went up on heavy expendables.  The historical Shuttle ended up being a pickup truck for complicated reasons.)   Von Braun, and others at NASA, regarded the whole moon landing thing as something of a diversion from the Real True Path to space exploration.

Anyhow, research on shuttle technology was underway by the early sixties in parallel with the lunar program.

Except by shuttle they meant a spacecraft that made sense... And was fueled by hydrazine.

[fredinno]

11 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

HG-3 was the evolution of the J-2 and inevitably very similar to it. If it's expensive, so is the J-2.

The H-1s were the problem. In 1969 they were essentially legacy hardware, and were for decades. The F-1 was a newer design, and also capable of mass production ( five per Saturn V, five!)

Commonality would be important because your design here would be using F-1s, and the potential of not killing the saturn V is possible in our alternate history scenario. Less specialized parts = lower costs.

It could barely launch an Apollo, and even then it wasn't fully fueled...

Yes, and the expensive SSME was an evolution of the HG3. Your arguement is invalid. An evolution can be much more expensive than its predecessor. Also, the H-1s were upgraded and modernised over time as RS-27s.

And H-1/RS-27 had commonality with Delta, which was used A LOT more than the Saturn V per year, even inn total F-1 engine usage. Stop making me repeat my points. 

[Bill Phil]

35 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Yes, and the expensive SSME was an evolution of the HG3. Your arguement is invalid. An evolution can be much more expensive than its predecessor. Also, the H-1s were upgraded and modernised over time as RS-27s.

And H-1/RS-27 had commonality with Delta, which was used A LOT more than the Saturn V per year, even inn total F-1 engine usage. Stop making me repeat my points. 

You just proved my argument. A successor can be much more expensive. That can also apply to the SSMEs evolving from the HG-3. And the most I can find on the HG-3 is that it was using a higher pressure than the J-2.

There's something that having 8 engines entails: 16 turbopumps, 8 manifold assemblies, 8 injector assemblies, and a larger manifold for all of the engines. A single engine has: 2 Turbopumps, 1 manifold assembly, and 1 injector assembly. A lot less complicated, and thus a lot less expensive. And it's more efficient to boot!

Edited February 9, 2016 by Bill Phil

[Beowolf]

On 2/7/2016 at 1:03 PM, Bill Phil said:

The Saturn IB had the same payload, and it already existed...

Have a source on this? Wikipedia's stats to LEO say 21,000 kg for Saturn 1B, and 27,500 kg for the shuttle. That's three-quarters the payload, and not enough to place 1970s spy satellites into polar orbits. That was the Air Force requirement that, thanks to our science-illiterate Congress, turned the shuttle into the flying-deathtrap compromise we all know and love/hate.

Anyway, if not for the Congressional idiocy of forcing NASA to crossbreed a cheap reusable crew transport with a heavy-lift satellite launcher, NASA would have gone for a smaller and far safer design with LEO payload of around 6,000 kg. And it would have been truly reusable and far cheaper to operate, which was supposed to have been the whole point.

 

[Bill Phil]

1 hour ago, Beowolf said:

Have a source on this? Wikipedia's stats to LEO say 21,000 kg for Saturn 1B, and 27,500 kg for the shuttle. That's three-quarters the payload, and not enough to place 1970s spy satellites into polar orbits. That was the Air Force requirement that, thanks to our science-illiterate Congress, turned the shuttle into the flying-deathtrap compromise we all know and love/hate.

Anyway, if not for the Congressional idiocy of forcing NASA to crossbreed a cheap reusable crew transport with a heavy-lift satellite launcher, NASA would have gone for a smaller and far safer design with LEO payload of around 6,000 kg. And it would have been truly reusable and far cheaper to operate, which was supposed to have been the whole point.

 

When I say the same, I don't mean exactly the same. I mean similar.

Maximum allowed shuttle payload was about 24 metric tonnes after Challenger according to Astronautix.

And there were a bunch of ideas on how to get more payload out of the Saturn IB. Titan SRBs, minuteman SRBs,  F-1 on the first stage, etc. The Saturn IB would've been evolveable to nearly 30 tonnes. For much less than the cost of developing the shuttle.

[Beowolf]

2 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

The Saturn IB would've been evolveable to nearly 30 tonnes. For much less than the cost of developing the shuttle.

Agreed, though I don't think "why didn't they use the 1B?" is a question that can have a meaningful answer. NASA wanted small and very cheap to operate. Congress are the ones who said to give the shuttle a 30 ton capacity, because the Air Force needed a new rocket too, so let's combine them! It was a 100% political decision by a bunch of dumbasses who apparently couldn't see the reasons not to build a minivan that had to drag a semi-trailer everywhere it goes, so you aren't going to find a lot of logic here. :/

 

Edited February 10, 2016 by Beowolf

[Exploro]

On 2/8/2016 at 10:43 PM, fredinno said:

Well, I can understand for a Saturn-SLS hiatus, but a hiatus of 10 years isn't really that bad. We have a hiatus of 8-9 years from Shuttle to SLS, which is very similar to Shuttle in terms of the rocket (not orbiter), but inline.

This was supposed to be built in the 70s, with a first flight in the 80s. The S-IC production lines ended in 1968- and the first Shuttle flight was in 1981- a hiatus of 13 years. I think revivals would have been possible at that point. 

Technically speaking the hiatus was much shorter. Construction of the early orbiters; Enterprise, Challenger, and Columbia began in early to mid-1970's. Specifically; construction of Enterprise and STA-099; which would later be converted into Orbiter Challenger, began in 1972. Construction of Columbia started in 1975.

[fredinno]

On 2/9/2016 at 6:06 PM, Bill Phil said:

You just proved my argument. A successor can be much more expensive. That can also apply to the SSMEs evolving from the HG-3. And the most I can find on the HG-3 is that it was using a higher pressure than the J-2.

There's something that having 8 engines entails: 16 turbopumps, 8 manifold assemblies, 8 injector assemblies, and a larger manifold for all of the engines. A single engine has: 2 Turbopumps, 1 manifold assembly, and 1 injector assembly. A lot less complicated, and thus a lot less expensive. And it's more efficient to boot!

Indeed, so they should not use HG-3 on Saturn IB.

Ok, let's look into to see how many RS-27/H-1s would have been made if we kept using the Saturn. Let's just say for 1974-1979, 5 years, there were enough Delta flights with RS-27 for 49 engines, or ~10 per year. Add onto that 3 Saturn IB flights per year (this excludes commercial and other non-manned NASA flights, so this is a low-ball number) +24 engines per year. That's a total of 34 engines per year. Assuming 6 other flights of the Saturn IB per year (probes, commercial/DOD flights, space station resupply) that increases to 72 engines. SpaceX does a similar thing with mass-producing engines, with 9 Merlins on each F9- despite the difficulties, as this reduces costs.

On 2/10/2016 at 7:02 PM, Exploro said:

Technically speaking the hiatus was much shorter. Construction of the early orbiters; Enterprise, Challenger, and Columbia began in early to mid-1970's. Specifically; construction of Enterprise and STA-099; which would later be converted into Orbiter Challenger, began in 1972. Construction of Columbia started in 1975.

Then Saturn production lines would restart much sooner, as this is supposed to replace the Shuttle in this thing.

Speaking of which-

My new version (30T payload capacity) uses a much smaller Shuttle (30T instead of 100T for the old version), with most of the stuff carried in a payload fairing at the top.

It uses 4xF-1, engines, and uses 3x J-2S as a second/sustainer stage. Only one of the J-2S are lit on the ground, to keep the rocket stable- a modifed version- the J-2SSL. This is much less efficient, but I hoped it would be cheaper than using SSMEs.

The 1st stage is reused via propulsive landing, and the ET/3rd stage is not reused.

Edited February 11, 2016 by fredinno

[Bill Phil]

27 minutes ago, fredinno said:

Indeed, so they should not use HG-3 on Saturn IB.

Ok, let's look into to see how many RS-27/H-1s would have been made if we kept using the Saturn. Let's just say for 1974-1979, 5 years, there were enough Delta flights with RS-27 for 49 engines, or ~10 per year. Add onto that 3 Saturn IB flights per year (this excludes commercial and other non-manned NASA flights, so this is a low-ball number) +24 engines per year. That's a total of 34 engines per year. Assuming 6 other flights of the Saturn IB per year (probes, commercial/DOD flights, space station resupply) that increases to 72 engines. SpaceX does a similar thing with mass-producing engines, with 9 Merlins on each F9- despite the difficulties, as this reduces costs.

Then Saturn production lines would restart much sooner, as this is supposed to replace the Shuttle in this thing.

Speaking of which-

My new version (30T payload capacity) uses a much smaller Shuttle (30T instead of 100T for the old version), with most of the stuff carried in a payload fairing at the top.

It uses 4xF-1, engines, and uses 3x J-2S as a second/sustainer stage. Only one of the J-2S are lit on the ground, to keep the rocket stable- a modifed version- the J-2SSL. This is much less efficient, but I hoped it would be cheaper than using SSMEs.

The 1st stage is reused via propulsive landing, and the ET/3rd stage is not reused.

What increases costs is the amount of time it takes. That's why the IB was so expensive for its size/payload.

Building 9 different fuel tanks takes time, putting them all together takes time, building 8 engines takes a lot of time.

A monoblock and an F-1 would have only provided benefits. Cheaper by an enormous margin.

SpaceX is reducing costs because A: they have modern tech, B: they've managed to cut overheads.

It has little to do with the number of engines they have. They only used the Merlins because they had the design already, thus saving on development costs.

We are in no position to judge whether or not they should've used the HG-3. There's very little info we have.

Having a boat load of engines only reduces costs if you can reduce the amount of man-hours to build them. This is what an assembly line does. But rocket engines are built without assembly lines. There's usually a bunch of technicians that have to spend many hours on only one component, and then they put it together.

You can't reduce costs if you still have to pay a bunch of people for their many hours of work. And for 16 turbo pumps you'll have to foot a very large bill.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Bill Phil

[Bill Phil]

Over the course of the H-1's lifetime about 150 were built. If we as the S-3D (very similar design) then we get abou 250, maybe 300, engines. That's enough to severely reduce costs, but that barely happened, if at all.

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

The 1st stage is reused via propulsive landing

AIUI, propulsive landings are really only possible with relatively modern computing and inertial technology.

Also, the effects if the Shuttle's engine plume on the first stage are going to be...  interesting.

Also, also, developing a throttleable F-1A is going to be a very, very expensive and difficult challenge.   Big motors like that have impressive amounts of response lag.

 

57 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

What increases costs is the amount of time it takes. That's why the IB was so expensive for its size/payload.

I've been meaning to say that for a couple of days now...  In all these discussions of extending the I/Ib, folks are forgetting why it was abandoned in the first place.

[Bill Phil]

31 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

AIUI, propulsive landings are really only possible with relatively modern computing and inertial technology.

Also, the effects if the Shuttle's engine plume on the first stage are going to be...  interesting.

Also, also, developing a throttleable F-1A is going to be a very, very expensive and difficult challenge.   Big motors like that have impressive amounts of response lag.

 

I've been meaning to say that for a couple of days now...  In all these discussions of extending the I/Ib, folks are forgetting why it was abandoned in the first place.

Which is exactly why cost saving measures, like a monoblock first stage, and an F-1 engine (perhaps modified?), and production streamlining were necessary to keep using it.

But they also needed payloads. Which was another reason to stop building them. Although, the shuttle program is what killed that. The Russians used protons (similar payload class) to launch a bunch of payloads. Space stations/modules, probes, and a bunch of other stuff.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Bill Phil

[Exploro]

On 2/8/2016 at 0:01 PM, evileye.x said:

The shuttle design is pretty senseless, until you think about RETURNING things from space.  Or polar orbit nuclear strikes. Remember shuttle was capable of polar mission, but never flew it. 

If crazy politics and military was not involved,  shuttle could be more reasonable spacecraft... 

When soviets started buran,  they knew it's kinda senseless, but needed to show THEY CAN DO IT and even bigger and automated...  Then ditched the program.  

We had ICBM's....why would we need a space shuttle to conduct nuclear strikes (The military never intended to use orbiters as strike platforms anyway!)

As for Buran; it's debut happened to coincide with collapse of the Soviet Union. Simply put; by that time there was no longer any funding for the Soviets to support a shuttle program on the scale of it's American counterpart.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Exploro

[WestAir]

Is it cheaper to have a reusable vehicle that weighs that much, or cheaper to send a lot more cargo into orbit in a lightweight cargo bay with a small return capsule attached? 

[Bill Phil]

2 minutes ago, WestAir said:

Is it cheaper to have a reusable vehicle that weighs that much, or cheaper to send a lot more cargo into orbit in a lightweight cargo bay with a small return capsule attached? 

It depends. Reusability may hurt the design, but it might not. And it depends on how you streamline the process. A proper design analysis is really required.

[Darnok]

IMO first question should be... why would you want this?

NASA shuttle had zero sense, just look at Orion, they have 30 years of experience in sending shuttles into space, but now they are reverting to capsules. Why?

In normal company they all would lose their jobs, and would never find any job on this planet, for spending so much money on things that are technological dead end.

[wumpus]

On 2/8/2016 at 11:53 PM, sevenperforce said:

Iirc, the only reason that they build the Space Shuttle in the first place was to smuggle one particularly sensitive spy satellite into orbit using the very, very large cargo bay.

Unfortunately,  the only way the shuttle ever made sense was to smuggle that one very large satellite back down to the ground.  We also know that neither actually happened, because such a launch had to happen at Vandenburg (which never launched a shuttle.  And there is simply no way to keep a shuttle launch secret.

This is why I don't understand your entire premise.  This threads has a bunch of holes:

1.  You assume that the shuttle's cargo bay could be smaller and cargo could use fairings like every other rocket.  At this point the biggest design failure of the shuttle disappears and of course you could build a better vehicle.  The shuttle was a remarkable craft assuming you needed to schlep 5-7 astronauts and 100Tons of orbiter every mission whether you needed them or not.  Congress, DoD, and NASA liked this idea, thus the shuttle.

2. Assuming you can vertically land a Saturn, and/or you can reuse an F-1 engine.  NASA considered engine re-use from Mercury and abandoned it every time up until the Shuttle.  The SSME engines were designed to be reusable (and used non-sooty fuel) and still were more expensive to refurbish than to launch a single use rocket (presumably without the 100T returning penalty).  You would need to redesign the entire engine to throttle (Saturn emulated "throttling" by turning off an engine) and somehow create the autonomous computers out of 1970s tech (hint, plenty of computers were built using discrete transistors at the time).

3.  If you want to go for re-use, the DC-3 appeared the way to go.  Get rid of the pointless specs that the Apollo-Shuttle needs, and the DC-3 is suddenly viable.  The only real question is why the DC-3 hauls jet engines into space while the flown shuttle didn't need them (hopefully they could have done without them and had more cargo room).

4.  If Congress/DoD/NASA are willing to ditch the cargo bay (and make the entire orbiter 30T), you open some new possibilities for the actual shuttle design.  An "regular" shuttle (as designed, but considerably scaled down to 30T launches), and a "heavy" shuttle, with two more (Buran-style) SRBs and presumably a somewhat larger fuel tank (plus another 30-50T inside a fairing).  Note that this gives you *real* re-use (wildly easier than anything made out of Apollo parts, but still limited to Shuttle-level reuse.  i.e refill the steel SRBs and rebuild the SSMEs).  I'm really liking this idea and am seriously wondering if "blocking the pilot's view" killed it , was the Spirit of St. Louis (another famous vehicle that blocked all forward visibility) on display near the capitol (the Smithsonian Air and Space museum didn't open until 6 years after the Shuttle was started.  Some of the exhibits were in the Castle, but I was extremely young when I visited then).

[magnemoe]

5 hours ago, Darnok said:

IMO first question should be... why would you want this?

NASA shuttle had zero sense, just look at Orion, they have 30 years of experience in sending shuttles into space, but now they are reverting to capsules. Why?

In normal company they all would lose their jobs, and would never find any job on this planet, for spending so much money on things that are technological dead end.

The shuttle makes sense, but not as primary launcher. It also has a lot of issues with the setup they ended up with. 
 

[Darnok]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

The shuttle makes sense, but not as primary launcher. It also has a lot of issues with the setup they ended up with. 
 

What do you mean?

[Exploro]

9 hours ago, Darnok said:

IMO first question should be... why would you want this?

NASA shuttle had zero sense, just look at Orion, they have 30 years of experience in sending shuttles into space, but now they are reverting to capsules. Why?

In normal company they all would lose their jobs, and would never find any job on this planet, for spending so much money on things that are technological dead end.

Part of the reason is that the speeds a re-entry vehicle returning from the Moon or beyond would be traveling substantially faster than one coming from LEO. With that in mind a capsule design makes more sense than a winged craft.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Exploro