Build a better Shuttle

[tater]

Today's launch left stage 2 in orbit for about 3 hours... 2 orbits.

Apollo orbited twice before TMI, coincidence?

I agree on the tug, and even with a capsule dragging up a fuel tank (which would require a refueling module, this isn't KSP, lol), plane changes would be pretty impossible, you are right. Honestly, though, what would possibly be serviced? HST? Anything else made to be worked on?

[Capt. Hunt]

4 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Why put construction crew in the same vehicle with payload rather than separate launches? Because coordinating two simultaneous launches is more complex than one; double the infrastructure and ground staff to monitor everything, plus dealing with all the dependencies between the launches (if we need to use that wonderful pod LES, what happens to the other rocket? vice versa?).

That's what the shuttle was designed for as part of STS, and in that purpose it worked well, both for satellite maintenance and ISS construction.  What wasn't in the original design was using it as a glorified delivery truck.

[wumpus]

12 hours ago, Capt. Hunt said:

That's what the shuttle was designed for as part of STS, and in that purpose it worked well, both for satellite maintenance and ISS construction.  What wasn't in the original design was using it as a glorified delivery truck.

I suspect that was in the fine print, because it was the only crewed launch system that NASA was developing and they were canceling everything else.  Perhaps with a manned space station they wouldn't be so obsessed with using any [unmanned] exploration mission as an excuse to tie 7 astronauts to the launch system.

[tater]

Question: Minus shuttle, the only down mass we have right now is Dragon. Is this a problem? Has NASA been wringing their hands over the inability to haul 10 tons back to earth lately?

 

Edited May 2, 2017 by tater

[sevenperforce]

11 minutes ago, tater said:

Question: Minus shuttle, the only downs we have right now is Dragon. Is this a problem? Has NASA been wringing their hands over the inability to haul 10 tons back to earth lately?

No, I really don't think it's much of a problem. Dragon and Soyuz can do all the pressurized downmass the ISS needs; nobody really seems to need unpressurized downmass a la Shuttle. Honestly, there's very little reason you'd need unpressurized downmass. I could see wanting to bring a large ISS system down for a failure investigation, maybe.

[magnemoe]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

Question: Minus shuttle, the only downs we have right now is Dragon. Is this a problem? Has NASA been wringing their hands over the inability to haul 10 tons back to earth lately?

 

They was happy with the dragons ability to bring more stuff down from ISS, an issue with Soyuz is that its very limited room in the cramped return capsule. 

[tater]

(autocorrect doesn't like downmass, lol)

[HebaruSan]

3 hours ago, tater said:

Question: Minus shuttle, the only down mass we have right now is Dragon. Is this a problem? Has NASA been wringing their hands over the inability to haul 10 tons back to earth lately?

3 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

nobody really seems to need unpressurized downmass a la Shuttle. Honestly, there's very little reason you'd need unpressurized downmass.

I wonder if the spooks miss it. If they used the capability back then, or if they complained now, we wouldn't hear about it.

[tater]

I wonder how late they had any assets with real film...

[Capt. Hunt]

On 5/2/2017 at 4:38 AM, wumpus said:

I suspect that was in the fine print, because it was the only crewed launch system that NASA was developing and they were canceling everything else.  Perhaps with a manned space station they wouldn't be so obsessed with using any [unmanned] exploration mission as an excuse to tie 7 astronauts to the launch system.

Well, maybe as a side benefit of the program originally, but the actual usage was the result of a budgetary compromise.  Congress wouldn't fund the shuttle program unless NASA and the USAF agreed to launch all their medium payloads on it instead of expendables.

Edited May 7, 2017 by Capt. Hunt

[Frozen_Heart]

The Venture Star was an interesting concept. Essentially a SSTO unmanned shuttle. 

 

[G'th]

Okay:

 

Granted its KSP, so not necessarily 100% RL feasible, but the way mine flew was very reliable. Realistically speaking the biggest hurdle (aside from the obvious non-water recovery of the boosters) would be perfecting the separation, not just for when its up in orbit but also in an emergency, and building the Orbiter so that it in said emergency it can right itself and then come down to a runway (as I don't think the real shuttle could have done it like mine was able to).

 

Generally speaking, recoverable liquid boosters would automatically make a much much better shuttle. You'd get the same lifting capabilities, if not more. It'd be a lot safer, and if you do the Space X thing and have them land themselves back at the launch site then they're cheaper to boot.

 

Beyond that, the orbiter itself would be better off being redesigned to accommodate what it actually does. Why still fly something that can do polar orbits if you never use it for that purpose? Do you need 18m of payload space? If we can do what my shuttle did with its boosters, why bother with the throwaway external tank and heavy SSMEs on the orbiter? Etc etc.

 

[magnemoe]

12 hours ago, Frozen_Heart said:

The Venture Star was an interesting concept. Essentially a SSTO unmanned shuttle. 

 

But an SSTO and therefor fantasy, if it worked it would be more of an hangar queen than the shuttle. 
Now using something like venture star as second stage would make sense, benefit is vacum optimized engine and less TWR demands in addition to you just need an fraction of the fuel. 

[RCgothic]

Which is then basically ITS.

[DDE]

On ‎02‎.‎05‎.‎2017 at 0:57 AM, _Augustus_ said:

Dragon is every bit as suitable for deep space as Apollo was. Apollo didn't have any of the things you mention.

Logically, if we're adding an airlock, we could probably expand that into a "mission module" with extra supplies and a toilet.

Do I smell a Dragon-Soyuz?

[magnemoe]

50 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

Which is then basically ITS.

An smaller and more useful version. Its also an shuttle as in it land on an runway and have cross range something who might be nice then you return after some orbits.
 

[magnemoe]

31 minutes ago, DDE said:

Do I smell a Dragon-Soyuz?

Return module looks a bit like an dragon 1 but it has an orion style smaller diameter service module and an larger than Soyuz orbital module. 
Only thing who don't make sense is the orion style service module, Orion has it as the module is inside an interstage. below the capsule, this would need to be wrapped in an fairing and you could just as well use an full width service module. 

Orion support an orbital module but it would be below the service module and you have to do an Apollo style 180 degree and dock to use it and also dock to upper stage. 
Dragon2 could support something similar but it would require an interstage with module behind the trunk. 
In that case I guess you would stuff the interstage with fuel and give it an vacuum engine, let it share fuel with the dragon abort system as dragon would not need it in orbit. 
 

[DDE]

@magnemoe, chill, it's just the PPTK Federatsiya in the PPTK-Z variant, which stores a very familiar-looking OM in the aft interstage, requiring an even more familiar transposition, docking, and extraction.

Edited May 9, 2017 by DDE

[magnemoe]

35 minutes ago, DDE said:

@magnemoe, chill, it's just the PPTK Federatsiya in the PPTK-Z variant, which stores a very familiar-looking OM in the aft interstage, requiring an even more familiar transposition, docking, and extraction.

Yes then it makes sense including the Orion service module. 

[sevenperforce]

On 5/7/2017 at 8:57 PM, G'th said:

Granted its KSP, so not necessarily 100% RL feasible, but the way mine flew was very reliable. Realistically speaking the biggest hurdle (aside from the obvious non-water recovery of the boosters) would be perfecting the separation, not just for when its up in orbit but also in an emergency, and building the Orbiter so that it in said emergency it can right itself and then come down to a runway (as I don't think the real shuttle could have done it like mine was able to).

Generally speaking, recoverable liquid boosters would automatically make a much much better shuttle. You'd get the same lifting capabilities, if not more. It'd be a lot safer, and if you do the Space X thing and have them land themselves back at the launch site then they're cheaper to boot.

Beyond that, the orbiter itself would be better off being redesigned to accommodate what it actually does. Why still fly something that can do polar orbits if you never use it for that purpose? Do you need 18m of payload space? If we can do what my shuttle did with its boosters, why bother with the throwaway external tank and heavy SSMEs on the orbiter? Etc etc.

The boosters have to essentially be SSTOs, though, which is problematic. With a smaller payload bay, an internal tank, and crossfeed, you could really get some good performance.

Even better if you use methalox and make the wings wet.

[Zeiss Ikon]

On 5/8/2017 at 10:06 AM, magnemoe said:

But an SSTO and therefor fantasy, if it worked it would be more of an hangar queen than the shuttle. 
Now using something like venture star as second stage would make sense, benefit is vacum optimized engine and less TWR demands in addition to you just need an fraction of the fuel. 

Venture Star was to have a linear aerospike main engine, so wouldn't need vacuum optimization.  And there were a bunch of smart people who thought they could make it fly to orbit on its own, though they admitted it wouldn't have much in the way of payload fraction.

[Rakaydos]

I'd actually like to see something like the ARCA linear aerospike smallsat launcher design, but as a 1.5 stage with disposable solids.

[Bill Phil]

28 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

I'd actually like to see something like the ARCA linear aerospike smallsat launcher design, but as a 1.5 stage with disposable solids.

What if, instead of solids, we used a rocket sled? Either that or an EM sled? The launcher is already too small to send people anyways, and that small oomph could increase payload mass fraction substantially, as the tyranny of the rocket equation works differently in reverse... A few hundred meters per second might be all that we need, and we've sent rocket sleds to high Mach numbers. Did it decades ago.

[Capt. Hunt]

On 5/7/2017 at 5:57 PM, G'th said:

 

Beyond that, the orbiter itself would be better off being redesigned to accommodate what it actually does. Why still fly something that can do polar orbits if you never use it for that purpose? Do you need 18m of payload space? If we can do what my shuttle did with its boosters, why bother with the throwaway external tank and heavy SSMEs on the orbiter? Etc etc.

 

My understanding is the extra large payload bay was more or less a side effect of the fuselage being stretched to accommodate larger wings to increase the crossrange capability. 

I suspect that the boosters on your design are more expensive then the entire orbiter, in which case it does become economical to recover them.  The real shuttle SRBs were just made "reusable" so that NASA could claim that "most" of the craft was reusable, in reality, since they were basically stacked steel tubes filled with solid fuel, they were one of the cheaper components.  The SSMEs on the other hand, were among the most expensive components.

Edited May 10, 2017 by Capt. Hunt

[kerbiloid]

Or this way.

Spoiler

 

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