Space Shuttle or Buran

[tater]

There is no way at all to extrapolate Buran safety. It flew once. It might have exploded the next time killing the crew and everyone at the pad---who knows.

Skylon is infinitely safer than Buran. It's modern tech, and it's never failed!

[klesh]

Guys, statistical significance and sample size indeed.  1 out of 1 does not make for a decent hypothesis.

[Mjp1050]

Can I just point out that this is KSP, and thus the actual safety of the two designs is irrelevant?

Anyways, in terms of playability, I think that a Buran-based model would be easier to make and fly. You plunk a plane on top a rocket, and that seems to be that. An STS-based model will be far more difficult to build than the Buran will, but I think will be more rewarding.

Spoiler

Or you could cheat like I did and slap some boosters on the side of a plane. 

 

[TheRag]

Shuttles are pieces of Corporate propaganda! Strike down the Bourgeosie Capitalist Death Trap! 

 

Use the Worker's Shuttle!

 

 

 

 

Edited September 21, 2016 by TheRag

[tater]

That era's version of the Tu-4. 

[KerikBalm]

7 hours ago, Firemetal said:

Did you read what I said? The shuttle blew up twice killing 14 people in total. The SRB O-rings caused the challenger accident and the foam tiles on the bottom of the shuttle caused the Columbia accident. The Buran/Energia had neither foam tiles nor O-rings or even SRBs for that matter. Therefore if the Buran flew both of those failed missions instead of the shuttle, neither would have failed.

Don't get me wrong. I love the shuttle. I am just saying that the Buran was an upgraded shuttle. I am also not saying the Buran is completely flawless. It just improved on the issues where the shuttle struggled.

The Buran was missing some flaws of the shuttle - Yes. However, it may have had entirely new flaws that were worse than the shuttle. We can't say it was safer, we can't say it would have succeeded on a mission where the shuttle failed because we don't know what potential flaws the Buran had. The energia booster flew a total of two times one with with and one without the Buran. For all we know the Buran was as dangerous as the N-1, and they just got lucky.

Let me remind you, the N-1 had neither of those flaws that you mentioned - it certainly was not safer.

We cannot make any meaningful comparison or say that one was better than the other.

Now stop comparing and got to the science and spaceflight forum for the nth thread on the real life versions.

Discuss KSP versions only.

Personallly I think the STS style would be easier because of the ability to throttle the SSMEs to balance thrust with the SRBs. If the orbiter had no engines, I'd just be relying on a lot of gimbal... but maybe the vectors can supply them now. I started making shuttles when the KR-2L had the most gimbal of the powerful inline engines.

[Speeding Mullet]

3 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Personallly I think the STS style would be easier because of the ability to throttle the SSMEs to balance thrust with the SRBs. If the orbiter had no engines, I'd just be relying on a lot of gimbal

This is largely true the STS is easier to fly to orbit, although with some clever ET tank routing you can really help with the balance a lot on a Buran, minimizing the amount of gimbal you require, particularly at late stage flight.  Vectors still largely required though....

SM

[Firemetal]

12 hours ago, tater said:

There is no way at all to extrapolate Buran safety. It flew once. It might have exploded the next time killing the crew and everyone at the pad---who knows.

Skylon is infinitely safer than Buran. It's modern tech, and it's never failed!

 

5 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

The Buran was missing some flaws of the shuttle - Yes. However, it may have had entirely new flaws that were worse than the shuttle. We can't say it was safer, we can't say it would have succeeded on a mission where the shuttle failed because we don't know what potential flaws the Buran had. The energia booster flew a total of two times one with with and one without the Buran. For all we know the Buran was as dangerous as the N-1, and they just got lucky.

Let me remind you, the N-1 had neither of those flaws that you mentioned - it certainly was not safer.

We cannot make any meaningful comparison or say that one was better than the other.

Now stop comparing and got to the science and spaceflight forum for the nth thread on the real life versions.

Discuss KSP versions only.

Personallly I think the STS style would be easier because of the ability to throttle the SSMEs to balance thrust with the SRBs. If the orbiter had no engines, I'd just be relying on a lot of gimbal... but maybe the vectors can supply them now. I started making shuttles when the KR-2L had the most gimbal of the powerful inline engines.

Yup you are right. The Buran could of been the least safest thing there is. We have no way of knowing. But we've gone off topic.

@SpaceTrashCan. You bought this game two weeks ago. You landed on Minimus and the Mun. You are now building a space station. You now want to build a shuttle anti- humanity machine. Here are the steps you must go through. First you must learn simple aerodynamics instead of just slapping a bunch of wings onto a cool-looking shuttle body. Then you must put the wings on, test it to make sure it doesn't stall in or after re-entry by using the new debug menu (alt-f12) or hyperedit, to get yourself into orbit then de-orbit and re-enter. Keep in mind shuttle re-entries aren't the easiest thing in the world.

Then you have to land it. If you choose to go with an STS style shuttle, you are going to have to glide onto your landing spot and pull up at the last second (flair) and land. When I did this, I was knew to planes and I was terrible at landing. It took me so many tries to land it. Landing may look easy but it is hard as hell.

Once you have tested your shuttle for re-entry and landing, then you take it to the VAB and put an external tank on it. I'd suggest a 3.75m one. Then add two or four strap on boosters. I'd suggest liquid fuel ones even if you are going with an STS style shuttle. The stock SRBs are not big enough. Then you have to strut the whole thing, (If you are in 1.2, just use auto-strut. It is much easier) add seperatrons/flea boosters to push away strap-on boosters and add launch clamps.

Then you have to fly it, Even if you chose a Buran style shuttle, it is still going to fly like a cow. You can never get a perfect COM/COT alignment. It is always going to want to flip over one way. Then you have to fly it into orbit.  Once in orbit, celebrate. Then de-orbit, re-enter and land.

This is not an easy thing to do, especially for a beginner. In fact I'd recommend waiting until you can build air-planes, SSTO spaceplanes and have had a little more experience with the game.

Hope this helped!

[SpaceTrashCan]

Thanks for all those responses. didn't expect to get that much support so thank you

I'm building it in sandbox mode, so there are no budget problems.

As i expected i had major struggles getting the Thrust Vectors right. So for the first Orbital and reentry test i did put the Vehicle on top of a large rocket and lifetd sort of like it was the payload of a rocket (I'm stil planning on doing it the actual way, but this was so i could the my aerodynamics during reentry )

 

Unfortunatly the Shuttle exploded during reentry. it always flips forward so it nose is in the flying directon, and than is all explodes. I don't know how to keep it lined up during reentry

[NISSKEPCSIM]

@SpaceTrashCan If you want your shuttle to not flip, when designing it, you must have the CoL behind the CoM. And add RCS. Lots of RCS. And lots of control surfaces. Because, as much as they may look cool, those Big S Delta wings are not big enough. You should probably use the modular wings. Then you should be good to go. 

EDIT:

You also need to have a good AoA. I normally orient my shuttles 15-20 degrees above the horizon on the navball during re-entry. Also, when designing your shuttle, make sure you CoL is behind your CoM with varying fuel levels by draining fuel in the editor!

Edited May 11, 2017 by NISSKEPCSIM

[Enorats]

I'm fairly certain the shuttle has had the worst safety record of any manned craft ever built. They killed 14 people, far more than any other craft, and ultimately 2 of the 4 ever flown failed.

Buran may have had flaws, that is true. We don't know. What we do know is that Buran didn't have the problems that ultimately killed the Shuttle. That, and Russia was smart enough to realize that the design for both STS and Buran was utterly stupid and killed the program after proving they could get a shuttle design flying.

To the OP - as others have said, a true SSTO spaceplane is easier to build, cheaper to use, and more reliable. I'd go that route rather than repeat the mistakes of the past. If you absolutely need to have a vertical takeoff / horizontal landing spaceplane go for an X-37b design. At least then you have an easier time dealing with the center of mass/thrust problems.

Edited May 11, 2017 by Enorats

[tater]

9 minutes ago, Enorats said:

I'm fairly certain the shuttle has had the worst safety record of any manned craft ever built. They killed 14 people, far more than any other craft, and ultimately 2 of the 4 ever flown failed.

Buran may have had flaws, that is true. We don't know. What we do know is that Buran didn't have the problems that ultimately killed the Shuttle. That, and Russia was smart enough to realize that the design for both STS and Buran was utterly stupid and killed the program after proving they could get a shuttle design flying.

Buran has no human safety record whatsoever. For all we know, it's worse. There is no data, and will never be any data. Shuttle was about as safe as Soyuz.

Quote

To the OP - as others have said, a true SSTO spaceplane is easier to build, cheaper to use, and more reliable. I'd go that route rather than repeat the mistakes of the past. If you absolutely need to have a vertical takeoff / horizontal landing spaceplane go for an X-37b design. At least then you have an easier time dealing with the center of mass/thrust problems.

A true SSTO spaceplane is not easier to build, else we'd have them. Precisely zero have ever been built, and none are even close to being built. Cheaper to use? No data, and the notional launch costs of the entirely imaginary "Skylon" are little better than Falcon 9 at this point. Reliability? Where is your data on that, with an n of zero?

Edited May 11, 2017 by tater

[Enorats]

That latter part was in regards to KSP, where they are easier and cheaper for certain.

As for the first part.. it doesn't get much worse than the shuttle on safety. Buran might be worse, but it's unlikely. It has no launch abort system at all, used solid boosters, and had lots of debris raining down on all the important bits. The longer it was used the less safe it became.

Soyuz on the other hand has a slightly better death to person to orbit ratio (far fewer deaths, 4.. but also fewer people to orbit), but more importantly it hasn't had a fatality in nearly four decades. While the STS got more and more dangerous as they grew older, Soyuz only became safer.

[tater]

@Enorats, I don't disagree that Soyuz is fundamentally safer, I'd take any capsule system over shuttle both for entry options, and of course a LES.

[Snark]

A couple of points worth noting:

• This thread is from 8 months ago.  Presumably any questions the OP had have long since been answered.
• Discussions of the merits, safety record, etc. of IRL spacecraft are off-topic here, because 1. that's not what the OP was asking about, and 2. this is the wrong sub-forum anyway.  If you want to talk about IRL spacecraft, there's another sub-forum for that.

Locking the thread to prevent further confusion.  If someone would like to discuss the topic of building shuttles in KSP, feel free to spin up another thread here.  If you'd like to talk about IRL spacecraft, please take it over to Science & Spaceflight.

Thank you for your understanding.