The Space Shuttle: A Remarkable Flying Machine

[sp1989]

The Space Shuttle for all it’s faults, really was a Remarkable Flying Machine 

https://youtu.be/Q7PyaMBsPVw

[Bill Phil]

Yes it was remarkable. The vehicle itself was a marvel of engineering, and considering that it was basically a super heavy launcher the launch rates were actually pretty amazing.

The main issue I think it had was crew safety, jeopardized both by the fragility of critical components and the inability to escape a launch.

Of course it never met its design criteria in the sense of being capable of launching very often, though that has to do with many factors such as USAF design requirements and lack of infrastructure among many others.

[55delta]

Yes, it was.

Once all was said and done, it was a super heavy launcher that also like a space-station except it could return to Earth. It also did a lot of good work (as you know), like SolarMax repair, Hubble Telescope launch and repair, a number of probe launches, contributing to building the ISS, and uncountable small science experiments. 

There are, and might be vehicles better than it in any one or more regards. But I doubt there will be anything quite like it ever again.

[Nuke]

the remarkable thing is that it flew at all. its main issue boils down to too many cooks in the kitchen. in trying to please too many organizations within the us government you ended up with a jack of all trades master of none type scenario.

[wumpus]

22 hours ago, 55delta said:

Yes, it was.

Once all was said and done, it was a super heavy launcher that also like a space-station except it could return to Earth. It also did a lot of good work (as you know), like SolarMax repair, Hubble Telescope launch and repair, a number of probe launches, contributing to building the ISS, and uncountable small science experiments. 

There are, and might be vehicles better than it in any one or more regards. But I doubt there will be anything quite like it ever again.

Superheavy is a misnomer, unless you include the mass of the orbiter itself.  I'd only rate it heavy, considering that Saturn V already existed.

I wouldn't be so sure about seeing "something like it again".  There seems to be a strong desire among NASA and space committee Congressmen to see things like "spaceplanes" and "SSTO" without understanding that the present infrastructure simply isn't capable of efficiently building such things.  So expect to see things like Dream Chaser well funded, regardless of how much it costs to boost those wings into orbit.

I still maintain that it was exquisitely successful in managing Congress to fund it for 135 missions.  Good luck getting that kind of funding again.  Let's hear it for the sunk cost fallacy!

[SRB]

I love how this film: 

 claims that each orbiter could be flown 100 times when the total program flew 135 missions.  IDR where, but I also read/watched somewhere that the SSMEs were supposed to be used 50 times without major overhauls, and that the shuttle could’ve launched up to 24 times in a year, though a nominal flight rate would be 16/year.

Still, it’s hard to believe that some of these early deigns could supposedly launch 50 times/year-nearly a launch a week!

http://www.pmview.com/spaceodysseytwo/spacelvs/index.htm

 

[natsirt721]

STS was a horrid program.  Once congress started making design decisions, the program was doomed.

Over-budget on production, but that's to be expected from a gov't program.

Over-budget on refurbishments, by a lot.

135 launches and two catastrophic failures, 13 people killed, the most deadly space vehicle of all time.

Sure, the orbiter was pretty, and had some pretty sweet tech by 1980s standards, but for a vehicle of their complexity the hardware was outdated by the time the program was killed.  The only thing that should have kept it alive was the death of Constellation, and even that would be a questionable motive for extending the program further.

Edited June 18, 2019 by natsirt721

[Geonovast]

12 hours ago, natsirt721 said:

13 people killed

Fourteen.  There were 7 on each of the disasters.

[sp1989]

16 hours ago, natsirt721 said:

STS was a horrid program.  Once congress started making design decisions, the program was doomed.

Over-budget on production, but that's to be expected from a gov't program.

Over-budget on refurbishments, by a lot.

135 launches and two catastrophic failures, 13 people killed, the most deadly space vehicle of all time.

Sure, the orbiter was pretty, and had some pretty sweet tech by 1980s standards, but for a vehicle of their complexity the hardware was outdated by the time the program was killed.  The only thing that should have kept it alive was the death of Constellation, and even that would be a questionable motive for extending the program further.

booooooooooooo

[natsirt721]

6 hours ago, Geonovast said:

Fourteen.  There were 7 on each of the disasters.

Right you are, thought there were only 6 on Challenger.

3 hours ago, sp1989 said:

booooooooooooo

[SRB]

7 + 7 = 14

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster

For comparison: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents

[Mr. Peabody]

On 6/17/2019 at 10:39 PM, natsirt721 said:

two catastrophic failures, 13 people killed, the most deadly space vehicle of all time.

I would argue that in both cases, the main fault lay with the controllers on the ground. Challenger was launched in extreme conditions against the warnings of engineers, and flight control noticed the foam strike on Columbia, but decided to disregard it.

[razark]

2 hours ago, The Dunatian said:

flight control noticed the foam strike on Columbia, but decided to disregard it.

It was too late to do anything about it at that point.

The problem was earlier, when they accepted foam shedding as a normal thing.

[Geonovast]

The foam strike was before booster separation, so if I'm not mistaken, they still had abort options before ATO.  If you watch shuttle launches, they're constantly talking about sites that the shuttle could land at in the event of an SSME failure... well after the boosters are jettisoned.  Even gliding the thing into the ocean would have been a better chance for them than letting it go to orbit.

But as @razark said, foam smacking the orbiter was "normal" so they didn't realize how bad it was until after the shuttle got to orbit.  Which, at that point, it was basically doomed.

Now that we've had 16 years to think about it, there may have been situations where it could have been possible to at least give them a chance... But I think it just wasn't an option for the time frame they had.

I read this a few months ago, and found it pretty interesting.  https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/the-audacious-rescue-plan-that-might-have-saved-space-shuttle-columbia/

Back around when it happened, I was still in high school, and literally everything I knew about space came from Star Trek, so naturally I was confused as to why they didn't just hang out at the space station.  Now I know better.

 

At least after 2003, if an orbiter wasn't going to the ISS, they did have another one ready that could do a rescue.

https://www.space.com/6597-rare-sight-twin-shuttles-launch-pad-time.html

I love this image.

[Nikolai]

2 hours ago, Geonovast said:

The foam strike was before booster separation, so if I'm not mistaken, they still had abort options before ATO.

Yeah, but they didn't know that there had been a foam strike until much later.  (They didn't realize it until they reviewed higher-resolution video of the launch the following day.  Even then, exactly where the foam had struck was unclear; that wasn't known for several months.)

Edited June 20, 2019 by Nikolai

[razark]

17 minutes ago, Nikolai said:

Yeah, but they didn't know that there had been a foam strike until much later.

And even if they had known about the strike at the time, there was no evidence of damage and widespread belief that the foam would be unable to cause significant damage.

[Mr. Peabody]

4 hours ago, razark said:

And even if they had known about the strike at the time, there was no evidence of damage and widespread belief that the foam would be unable to cause significant damage.

There was evidence of damage. The orbiter emitted a plume. And even so, astronaut's lives shouldn't be gambled with based on a "widespread belief." The fact that nobody tested to make sure until afterward is incredible. Later missions at least conducted fly-byes of the ISS to inspect for damage.

[razark]

49 minutes ago, The Dunatian said:

There was evidence of damage. The orbiter emitted a plume. And even so, astronaut's lives shouldn't be gambled with based on a "widespread belief." The fact that nobody tested to make sure until afterward is incredible. Later missions at least conducted fly-byes of the ISS to inspect for damage.

My comment was in regards to an abort during launch, with knowledge of the foam strike.  At that time they would not have had any evidence of serious damage, beyond what they believed was within the realm of what they had experienced on previous flights.

[SRB]

22 hours ago, Geonovast said:

The foam strike was before booster separation, so if I'm not mistaken, they still had abort options before ATO.  If you watch shuttle launches, they're constantly talking about sites that the shuttle could land at in the event of an SSME failure... well after the boosters are jettisoned.  Even gliding the thing into the ocean would have been a better chance for them than letting it go to orbit.

But as @razark said, foam smacking the orbiter was "normal" so they didn't realize how bad it was until after the shuttle got to orbit.  Which, at that point, it was basically doomed.

Now that we've had 16 years to think about it, there may have been situations where it could have been possible to at least give them a chance... But I think it just wasn't an option for the time frame they had.

I read this a few months ago, and found it pretty interesting.  https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/the-audacious-rescue-plan-that-might-have-saved-space-shuttle-columbia/

Back around when it happened, I was still in high school, and literally everything I knew about space came from Star Trek, so naturally I was confused as to why they didn't just hang out at the space station.  Now I know better.

 

At least after 2003, if an orbiter wasn't going to the ISS, they did have another one ready that could do a rescue.

https://www.space.com/6597-rare-sight-twin-shuttles-launch-pad-time.html

I love this image.

 

I don’t think that abort modes would have helped in either case, as I read somewhere that trying to separate the orbiter from the tank+booster would let to the orbiter tumbling and breaking up.  The abort modes were really focused on SSME failure(s).

I also remember reading that Werner Von Braun didn’t think solid-fuel rockets belonged on crewed spacecraft.

[Geonovast]

Just now, SRB said:

I don’t think that abort modes would have helped in either case, as I read somewhere that trying to separate the orbiter from the tank+booster would let to the orbiter tumbling and breaking up.  The abort modes were really focused on SSME failure(s).

They were, which was why there was no abort mode before booster separation.  They wouldn't have aborted until after the boosters were kicked away.

I was referring to them using an abort mode for an SSME failure without actually having one.

[StrandedonEarth]

IIRC any (E: Shuttle) abort while still in the atmosphere fell into the “wing and a prayer” category 

While the Shuttle did not meet the goals of cheap re-use and fast turnaround, it was beautiful machine, a technological tour de force, and the most capable (for LEO ops) vehicle ever put into space. The disasters were more of a human failing than the machine’s fault. 

Edited June 21, 2019 by StrandedonEarth

[wumpus]

3 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

IIRC any abort while still in the atmosphere fell into the “wing and a prayer” category 

From what I've heard, successful abort simulations were the exception, and plenty of abort scenarios had zero successes in the simulator.

Soyuz had two atmospheric* faults requiring aborts, and two successful recovery of cosmonauts.  Aborts that don't rely on using nearly the entire spacecraft to return to Earth appear superior (which might be an issue for Starship).

* IRC the first was needed before launch (and was an issue getting the signal from ground control to the spacecraft to abort), but that was still "in atmosphere" and "needed an abort before the rocket exploded".

[SRB]

20 hours ago, wumpus said:

From what I've heard, successful abort simulations were the exception, and plenty of abort scenarios had zero successes in the simulator.

Soyuz had two atmospheric* faults requiring aborts, and two successful recovery of cosmonauts.  Aborts that don't rely on using nearly the entire spacecraft to return to Earth appear superior (which might be an issue for Starship).

* IRC the first was needed before launch (and was an issue getting the signal from ground control to the spacecraft to abort), but that was still "in atmosphere" and "needed an abort before the rocket exploded".

I know that RTLS was considered by some to be nothing more than than a way to keep the astronauts from thinking about death too much. [Snip]

IDK what was thought of the other modes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_abort_modes

Edited June 22, 2019 by James Kerman
redacted by a moderator

[KerikBalm]

On 6/14/2019 at 5:09 AM, Bill Phil said:

The main issue I think it had was crew safety, jeopardized both by the fragility of critical components and the inability to escape a launch.

I think the main issue it had is that every time you wanted to put a payload into orbit (up to 24.4 tons to LEO, or 12.5 tons to the ISS), you had to haul 68.5 tons of dry mass to orbit as well.

The thing was too darn big and heavy. Going to the ISS bringing 12.5 tons of modules and supplies, and over 68.5 tons of just engine, cargobay, wings, and thermal protection? That's not a good ratio.

The original proposals with a much smaller cross range capability would have had much better ratios. When the thing is that heavy, its no wonder you lose half your payload just going from low orbit to the ISS (which is still relatively low orbit).

Taking the SSMEs all the way to orbit was inefficient too. I really like the earlier concept of 2 planes, with the orbiter piggybacking on the larger one. The SRBs didn't get the thing going fast enough, so it needed those 3 heavy engines. It would work much better if the orbiter carrier... lets say just 1 of those engines, and was on top of a reusable craft with more. Although, granted, the SSMEs combined only accounted for about 10.6 tons, out of those 68.5 tons or non-payload taken to orbit.

 

Edited June 24, 2019 by KerikBalm

[Starstruck69]

You know what despite its obvious flaws it was a great piece of engineering for the time, quite remarkable for sure. Now iconic. I for one will miss it...