What do you think about Space Shuttles both the US ones and the unflown Soviets one

[Pawelk198604]

What do you think about Space Shuttles both the US ones and the unflown Soviets one? in comparison to more traditional approach? 

 

Soviet did only unmanned flight, on their Shuttle the BURAN 

 

Some people consider Space Shuttles to be a poor investment of money that could be invested elsewhere, something more practical, some consider it to be one of the best inventions in human history, so where is the truth? 

Edited April 6, 2018 by Pawelk198604

[Thor Wotansen]

The American space shuttle is a perfect example of what happens when committees and budgets design a spacecraft.  The Russian space shuttle was designed to have similar capabilities to the US shuttle, and consequently lacked the peculiar requirements of its muse.

[NSEP]

When it comes to cost, Buran wouldn't be that different from the shuttle, i think.

But if i had enough money, and i had to choose between the Buran and the Shuttle, i'd use the Buran. Buran is automated, and has a bit more payload capacity. Buran also is not powered by unsafe and concerning SRB's.

[YNM]

Wasn't much difference in flinging a 737 into space.

 

Just one did it hundreds of times with a fleet of 5 and the other only one.

[Bill Phil]

Shuttle was the result of NASA being stuck between a rock and a hard place. The Shuttle could've been a vehicle that was far better optimized for its purpose. The USAF, however, who's support was needed to fund it, had different requirements in mind. In the end, those requirements changed the Shuttle significantly. Not only did they want a vehicle that was cheap to fly, they wanted a vehicle that was cheap to develop as well. And to an extent, the Shuttle was. But where they saved on development they eventually repaid during flight operations, and then some. Not only that, but the Shuttle was supposed to be a means to an end, not the end itself, by acting as a part of the integrated plan. Ultimately it only ever serviced two space stations, one of its key purposes for being built, while the Soyuz and Progress series of spacecraft serviced so many more.

[Nibb31]

How many threads does there need to be for talking about the Space Shuttle and Buran ?

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, Bill Phil said:

Ultimately it only ever serviced two space stations, one of its key purposes for being built, while the Soyuz and Progress series of spacecraft serviced so many more.

 

Which sure sounds impressive taken as a sound bite.  The reality - very different.  Soyuz and Progress served so many more because the majority of the ones they served had fairly short operational lives.

[Bill Phil]

11 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

Which sure sounds impressive taken as a sound bite.  The reality - very different.  Soyuz and Progress served so many more because the majority of the ones they served had fairly short operational lives.

Sure. But that doesn't really change anything. Soyuz has been servicing space stations since 1971. The Shuttle didn't service a space station until halfway through the program, and even then that space station was primarily serviced by Soyuz/Progress. 

The bottom line is that, back when the Shuttle was conceived, they viewed it as necessary for station programs. This proved to be false, since the Salyut and Mir programs did so much with only capsules. Even now, capsules are effectively servicing the ISS. The two space stations the Shuttle serviced were and are also serviced by Soyuz and Progress. Ultimately, the capsule proved to be an effective means of servicing space stations.  

[DerekL1963]

2 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Sure. But that doesn't really change anything.

Not after you move the goalposts specifically to make sure of that, no.
 

3 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Ultimately, the capsule proved to be an effective means of servicing space stations.

Sure.  So long as you define "effective" to mean "within the limits of capsules".  Or, once again, you're relying on soundbites rather than actually addressing the difference in capabilities.

[DDE]

18 hours ago, Thor Wotansen said:

The Russian space shuttle was designed to have similar capabilities to the US shuttle, and consequently lacked the peculiar requirements of its muse.

Quite the opposite, the Soviets imposed the same peculiar requirements onto their own craft - namely, crossrange - without even being sure where those requirements came from.

Glushko had no desire to build a winged spaceplane. He even tried to weasel out with this compromise:

@Pawelk198604, the best thing about the Buran is that it was not a requisite for Energia operations. Glushko managed to sneak a Space Launch System-style superheavy booster into the program's ginormous budget. He didn't build her for the Buran.

He built her for Mars.

[Delay]

(I'm talking about the American Space Shuttle here)

In short: Good idea, terrible execution.

It was supposed to be a cheap, regular and safe way to access space. In the end, it was expensive, flew 4-5 times a year on average (hardly regular) and it killed 14 people. Not really that safe, is it?

That doesn't mean that I don't like the shuttle, quite the opposite. It's just that it was a failure when you consider what it was supposed to do.

[Nibb31]

Actually, IMO, it was quite the opposite: Terrible idea, impressive execution.

And I wouldn't call it a failure either. It flew for 30 years and accomplished most of its goals.

Remember that we are talking about 1970's technology. Most of the Space Shuttle was still designed with a slide rule. There was very little CAD engineering in those days. Crippen and Young had balls of steel to climb into that thing for its first flight. It was the most complex machine ever designed and yet it flew. When it did fail, it was more because of bad decisions and cutting corners than poor engineering.

Yes, it had flaws, but the flaws were mainly due to the fundamental concept than the execution of that concept.

 

Edited April 7, 2018 by Nibb31

[Delay]

@Nibb31 I absolutely agree with you on all points. The Space Shuttle was and still is an engineering masterpiece. And 98.52% of all missions were successful, which is great. The fact that they were able to reuse just a handful of orbiters to fly 135 missions (while losing two, no less!) is impressive indeed!

But it didn't succeed at all goals. Some, like the regularity and frequency of the launches just wasn't possible.

That's what I meant with "terrible execution": Turns out that reusability is difficult to pull off such that you can reuse the orbiter more than just a few times a year! The goals just were to high for their time.

[Capt. Hunt]

22 hours ago, Pawelk198604 said:

Soviet did only unmanned flight, on their Shuttle the BURAN

People bring that up a lot, but I'm not sure if that really means anything.  Most of our Space Shuttle's flight profile was highly automated, it didn't require the Pilot and Commander to fly seat of the pants the whole way up.  We just didn't do an unmanned test flight (it's debatable whether or not we should have ).  It's almost certain that if the Burans ever went into actual service they would have been flown manned, just like our Space Shuttles.

[DDE]

1 hour ago, Capt. Hunt said:

It's almost certain that if the Burans ever went into actual service they would have been flown manned, just like our Space Shuttles.

There was no sense in it otherwise.

That said, the larger system was even more flexible: not only could it make do without humans, it could do without the shuttle.

[Capt. Hunt]

2 minutes ago, DDE said:

There was no sense in it otherwise.

That said, the larger system was even more flexible: not only could it make do without humans, it could do without the shuttle.

Theoretically, so could STS, we just never developed the Shuttle-C or any of the other design concepts past the drawing board.  Energia didn't do much better, it only launched one payload other then Buran, and it failed to reach orbit.

[DDE]

Just now, Capt. Hunt said:

one payload other then Buran, and it failed to reach orbit.

Blame the payload (it failed its pitchover and thus the orbital insertion burn), not the rocket.

Just now, Capt. Hunt said:

Energia didn't do much better, it only launched one payload

Blame the nation, not the rocket.

[Capt. Hunt]

Just now, DDE said:

Blame the payload (it failed its pitchover and thus the orbital insertion burn), not the rocket.

Blame the nation, not the rocket.

the same could be said about Shuttle-C

[DDE]

1 minute ago, Capt. Hunt said:

the same could be said about Shuttle-C

Not in the slightest. One system was complete and existed, just never found use, the other never left the drawing board. That's like comparing historical steam-powered cars to the Ford Nucleon.

[Nibb31]

3 hours ago, Delay said:

@Nibb31 I absolutely agree with you on all points. The Space Shuttle was and still is an engineering masterpiece. And 98.52% of all missions were successful, which is great. The fact that they were able to reuse just a handful of orbiters to fly 135 missions (while losing two, no less!) is impressive indeed!

But it didn't succeed at all goals. Some, like the regularity and frequency of the launches just wasn't possible.

That's because the goals were stupid.

Which is why I claim that it was a bad idea. A winged spacecraft is a bad idea. Sidemount launch is a bad idea. Cargo and crew on the same vehicle is a bad idea. Building a 100-ton launcher that can only launch 20-tons is a bad idea. Focusing on the LEO instead of going back to the Moon was a bad idea. And even reusability was a bad idea at that point.

The whole concept was flawed from the start. NASA did the best they could with what they were given.

 

 

[YNM]

56 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

A winged spacecraft is a bad idea.

In the same sense as a 2km tall building.

Yet they are here.

 

It all looks bad because they didn't do the rest of the dream as well.

[DAL59]

19 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

A winged spacecraft is a bad idea.

Lower gees during descent than capsule.  They're actually considering using the military X37 shuttle as an ambulance for that reason.

Edited April 8, 2018 by DAL59

[Nibb31]

2 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Lower gees during descent than capsule.  They're actually considering using the military X1 shuttle as an ambulance for that reason.

That's not very useful compared to the penalties in mass, cost, and complexity.

What's a "military X1 shuttle" ?

[Canopus]

2 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Lower gees during descent than capsule.  They're actually considering using the military X1 shuttle as an ambulance for that reason.

If you are talking about the XS-1, how would that work, given that the Spaceplane is just the first stage of the Launch vehicle and never reaches orbit itself?

[DAL59]

11 hours ago, Canopus said:

If you are talking about the XS-1, how would that work, given that the Spaceplane is just the first stage of the Launch vehicle and never reaches orbit itself?

No, the X-37b