How would you improve the Shuttle design?

[Nibb31]

1. folding wings

What for? This would add at least 5 tons to the airframe structure.

2. Make it ride centered on the top of a rocket( or piggy back only flights)

3. replace orbital engines with air-breathers and temporary retractable H/O fuel engines.

Why do you need air-breathing engines if you're putting it on top of a rocket? Retractable engines would add complexity and mass. Again, at least 5 more tons.

4. static docking node, no retractable CBMs.

What? The Shuttle used APAS, not CBM and it wasn't retractable.

5. stretch to 50% longer length to accommodate more powerful boosters or more fuel. Or both.

What for? Just to carry the extra mass you have just added?

6. Change heat tiles material with Aerogel(keep external heat coating)

7. thinner wings

Gain 5 tons. Your thin folding wings fall off during reentry. Game Over.

8. remove the vertical control surf.

9. reduce cost by use of less rare materials and reduction of used materials.

10. re-use any wastes from assembly

What used materials? What rare materials? What waste?

11. make the cockpit section gyroscopic(stays on the horizon[Think of the Star Wars B-Wing])

What for? Add 15 tons of extra mass.

12. Make the cockpit section jettison capable, to make for fast escapes

Add 20 tons of extra mass.

13. line the entire thing with lead(optional)

Add 100 tons of extra mass.

Your redesigned orbiter now weighs 250 tons with no payload and can't take off. Thanks for playing.

[Rune]

Sorry, but when I read this, I sort of did take it the wrong way. I borrowed some lines from a Middle School Speech, which is where I bet you get this "propaganda" feeling. Do you mind telling me what made you feel like there was propaganda? I absolutely DON'T agree with the majority of politicians when it comes to the NASA budget. What "lie" do you think I'm selling when I say that the future of spacecraft lies with commercial companies? Charles Bolden agrees with me on that.

Well, you gave the impression that all was well and good, that the bad days are over, and the glorious "public-private enterprise partnerships" and "leveraging of resources in these though financial times" (those are the current buzzwords in budget discussions) were taking care of everything and getting us a perfect space program for change while NASA keeps on boldly doing what nobody else can. The problem is, the reality is that NASA's budget is being gutted slowly, and has been for a long time. The commercial initiatives are being starved into oblivion, and the majority of the budget keeps on going to pork in rocket states. And nobody is showing real support for NASA in any significant or meaningful way (other than the public, but no one listens to them ). Yeah, Bolden says things. And then he does what Congress funds. And the poor guys at Planetary science, well a minute of silence for them, I guess their fault was being the only non-dysfunctional part of NASA.

Other than that, I guess we could agree on our wishes for the future. But I thought your vision of the present was a bit... naive, perhaps? I really don't want to seem rude, but I often get carried away.

Except... both of the things you claim are obvious, are neither. We have no idea what a seat costs the Russians, period. And subsidized seats aren't exactly unheard of. (We provided them on the Shuttle.) Russian era accounting is no clearer than that of the Soviet era and they show no interest in clarifying the situation. As to the second, the current mark of Soyuz is not only largely new (and thus cannot be said to be "best understood" at the systems level), it also hasn't flown sufficient times to make any accurate statement as to it's safety. (Though I will note in passing, it's landed off-target due to failure of it's main computer on something like roughly one third of it's flights to date.)

Just one quick note, or two, because this shuttle-soyuz comparison is quite off-topic. Neither of us can provide hard numbers, but I'd say at a time when NASA was practically subsidizing Roscosmos so the russian ICBM engineers wouldn't loose their jobs (ISS modules and such, the 90's), which is around the time Tito bought the first seat to ISS for about $50 million, I don't think the russians really had the money to subsidize anyone. In fact I suspect that money paid for considerably more than the single seat and allowed them to keep flying the Soyuz at a sustainable rate. And the monetary situation hasn't really improved since then, only the demand for Soyuz has risen. So file that under "supposition", but I think I have a point when I say that the prestige USSR cooperation flights may have been subsidized, but NASA and the tourists pay more than what the seat costs.

As to safety, well... we'll agree to disagree, ok? At least we can agree the comparison is difficult. Though I would add in passing that there's this thing called launch escape system that lowers the loss of crew probability one or two decimal places...

At current prices it's not entirely clear that this is any cheaper, not at current safety rates is it clear that it's any safer or reliable. (Mostly due to the fact that you now require many more launches but haven't reduced their cost or added any nines to the reliability of the individual launchers and payloads.)

At current prices, there are no SHLV in service, the biggest rocket is still the Delta IV heavy. If we go into hypotheticals, you are the first to point out the marginal cost of a shuttle flight (which, incidentally, would have made it a cost-effective vehicle... if you could launch 50-100 in a year). Since anything worth doing in space other than business as usual requires more upmass/year, I posit it's more economical to spread that upmass into a number of launches that creates adequate economies of scale while maintaining low overheads and keeping space assembly to a reasonable level. Individual failures may become more common, but there is less riding on each flight and more frequent flight opportunities, so backups can cover those easier, and in most flights no human life is at risk, and in those that there is human life at risk, there are additional safety measures. I think that's sensible.

Rune. What an interesting argument

[drewbdoo2]

Well, you gave the impression that all was well and good, that the bad days are over, and the glorious "public-private enterprise partnerships" and "leveraging of resources in these though financial times"

Other than that, I guess we could agree on our wishes for the future. But I thought your vision of the present was a bit... naive, perhaps? I really don't want to seem rude, but I often get carried away.

I think I understand where you're coming from a lot better now! I totally agree that all is NOT well. The bad days are just beginning... But I meant to say that with all this Budget Shortening going on, NASA won't be able to do everything that they want to do. Commercial Companies, specifically SpaceX, are going to need to take over launches to the ISS (Unless we won't to keep on hitching a ride with the Russians) if NASA wants to TRY and focus on the Moon and beyond. No politics here, just my thoughts.

[Rune]

I think I understand where you're coming from a lot better now! I totally agree that all is NOT well. The bad days are just beginning... But I meant to say that with all this Budget Shortening going on, NASA won't be able to do everything that they want to do. Commercial Companies, specifically SpaceX, are going to need to take over launches to the ISS (Unless we won't to keep on hitching a ride with the Russians) if NASA wants to TRY and focus on the Moon and beyond. No politics here, just my thoughts.

Well, I keep on holding on to the old phrase by Churchill: "you can trust the americans to always do the right thing... after they have tried everything else". So we can still hope when SLS is finally canceled commercial crew is still alive and miraculously the money is put towards worthwhile space hardware and NASA finally gets out of the launch business and starts doing again the really cool manned stuff.

Rune. Perhaps this time will be the charm for beyond LEO manned flight, right?

[NASAFanboy]

I would have never made the shuttle in the first place. It was a expensive, over-bloated, useless piece of crap that could barely get into orbit. Had we stuck with the good ol' Saturn V's, we could have resumed going to the moon and built a lunar outpost, and we could have assembled the ISS with much fewer launches. And we could be on Mars by now. But the cruttle drained all our $$$, which cut human exploration for 50 years.

I would have never brought it into existence.

Our progress in manned flight since 1980 is a damned disgrace. I think the SLS has hope, but I fear for the CCDP once Obama leaves office.

Edited May 24, 2013 by NASAFanboy

[rkman]

I'd have replaced a big chunk of NASA upper management with technicians and engineering security personnel that NASA had laid off.

At least that would have prevented the two catastrophic mission failures.

[qwertyx2y]

Ejector seats, if you're in trouble I would want a quick way out of the shuttle, the bail out wasn't quick enough.

Edited May 25, 2013 by qwertyx2y
Spelling error

[Nibb31]

An ejector seat could only be used above a certain altitude and below Mach 2, which the shuttle reaches in only a couple of minute. If you ejected at any other point, you would be instantly killed, but even within that small window where you could eject, you would probably be fried by the exhaust. Also, it would only work for the crew on the upper deck. Crew on the mid deck could not eject.

Columbia actually was equipped with ejector seats for its first flight, but they were removed afterwards because they were pretty useless.

[sgtscuba]

An ejector seat could only be used above a certain altitude and below Mach 2, which the shuttle reaches in only a couple of minute. If you ejected at any other point, you would be instantly killed, but even within that small window where you could eject, you would probably be fried by the exhaust. Also, it would only work for the crew on the upper deck. Crew on the mid deck could not eject.

Columbia actually was equipped with ejector seats for its first flight, but they were removed afterwards because they were pretty useless.

But what about an escape pod (the cockpit being it), something similar was planned for the F111 Ardvark as I recall. I guess that could be used above mach 2 I guess?

[Canopus]

But what about an escape pod (the cockpit being it), something similar was planned for the F111 Ardvark as I recall. I guess that could be used above mach 2 I guess?

too heavy probably.

[drakesdoom]

On the discussion of escape systems I think a little background on escape systems that have been used might be in order.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_crew_capsule

I think the B-58 pods are the best of those for simplicity in use. In addition they had controls inside their shell leading to the possibility having them closed during launch so even in an instantaneous breakup crew would survive.

The SR-71 used semi sealed pressure suits and a more traditional ejection chair. I believe it used straps that pulled in the limbs but I do not have a source for that. I think a shuttle launch would exceed the capability of such a system though as a space launch failure would be an immediately more hostile environment, you know the whole riding a slow bomb bit.

[architeuthis]

The missions galvanized the entire nation. We doubled the amount of science graduates. The space program started to think further, bolder, and better. We got started dreaming. The people's support ramped up.

Now, after 50 years of doing no manned explorations beyond LEO, NASA is a joke. We got politicians squandering money, little public interest, few who want to go into the Agency, rendering the program an inefficient, idiotic jobs program.

Manned exploration needs a devoted long-term effort. From everyone.

Politicians tend to squander money by their very nature. I agree with your sentiment that a long term sustainable architecture for manned space exploration requires a strong public interest. This is one reason why things like KSP make me so excited, they are great at informing people and popularizing science. Perhaps people influence by games like this will go on to someday become a politically influential nucleus of support for an expanded space program. On the other hand, I would tend to disagree that the Apollo Program 'galvanized the nation'. I think it is a bit of a fallacy to suppose that NASA had strong popular support during the 1960's but somehow 'lost its way' with the public since then. People are certainly sentimental about that era, but the unfortunate truth is that even in 1969, on the eve of the moon landing, most Americans wanted to spend less money on space exploration, not more. Close to half of the surveyed American public thought the expense was wasteful and the resources would be better directed towards more earthly concerns. Only 15% percent of American though that funding for space exploration should be increased. It turns out that support for manned space exploration beyond LEO peaked in 1994, but even then there was never a majority of Americans in support for say a manned mission to Mars.

I think this is why NASA's modus operandi has been to try to fly under the radar while progressively building up a platform for expanded exploration. The problem is that even though NASA's budget is small compared to many things in government, it retains a high political profile because, well... its space! How can it keep a low profile? This is what I think the Space Shuttle and the ISS were meant to be by NASA, gradual rungs up a ladder to Mars (or the moon), but it turns out that operating these systems was so expensive that they never had the resources to devote to taking the next big steps. I think this also explains the current predilection for talking up 'game-changing' technology; they hope this will make big missions more affordable. But I wonder though, if they make it more affordable, will not their budget just be further cut to the current equilibrium? I wonder if NASA's manned program is for political purposes (and thus practically speaking, for funding purposes) a vestigial organ of the cold-war slowly shrinking until it is done away with entirely? I certainly hope not, but being nigh-inhumanly cynical is generally part of the politician's job description.

Wow... that ended up being a little dark. Actually, believe it or not, I really do remain optimistic about the future of NASA's manned program.

Edited May 25, 2013 by architeuthis

[architeuthis]

The space shuttle had a number of problems. Its primary missions did not materialize fast enough (or at all). The space shuttle was originally designed to ship up propellant for cis-lunar space tugs, and to service a large LEO space station, something on which construction didn't start until over 17 years of the space shuttle flights. After Challenger, NASA didn't dare to fly propellant modules as cargo on the space shuttle. The initial development actually came in basically on budget and on time. Payload to orbit was theoretically 65,000 lbs, but in practice it never managed this because of onerous payload bay dimensions, essentially designed for military payloads. The main reason the Space Shuttle was so much more expensive that planned was that they planned to amortize costs through, 'airline-like' flight rates. NASA initially planned an ambitious flight rate-60 flights per year, but the reality was more like 6 flights per year. They thought that they would have less-than 30 day turn-arounds, between each orbiter flight with a cost on the order of a few tens of millions of dollars. We should make fair comparisons though. If the Saturn-V had flow 135 times it is likely that they would have had fatal accidents. Also the Apollo program had cost-overrun similar in rate to the Shuttle program; if Apollo had been continued it would have become more expensive as well.

That said they had some cool ideas for upgrades, such as these reusable liquid fly-back boosters. It was thought that such boosters would save up to $400 million per year on operations (assuming 7-8 flights per year). They would be more environmentally friendly, they would roughly double the maximum payload mass to the ISS's orbit, and allow polar orbit missions from KSC (since in addition to the increased delta-v you don't have to worry about spent stages impacting New York). Also Challenger type accidents would no longer be possible.

[chrischambers]

I would go down the path of the The X-38 Crew Return Vehicle (CRV)

[luinux]

What about this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(spacecraft)

[rpayne88]

This is just an oversized Dyna-Soar, which had significant problems with it's launcher. Since the lifting body is aerodynamic and thus produces lift, it tends to pitch the launcher. This means you need either huge fins on your first stage or you have to continuously gimbal your engines to counteract that pitch... either solution robs you of considerable performance. That this produces huge stresses on the launcher body, and that you'll have a narrow margin between balancing the forces just right and tearing the stack apart can be taken as a given I suspect. (Thus Shuttle at least pushed all it's parts together.)

I'd just make a folding or swing wing shuttle. Fold the wings during ascent to avoid the lift issue.

Edit: never mind, it was already mentioned on another page.

Edited December 12, 2013 by rpayne88

[Skyler4856]

Buy Skylon... Nuff said

[Halsfury]

How about using the fancy new solid rocket boosters which are coming out with the 105t to LEO SLS Block II configuration?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Boosters

That ought to kick performance up a heap.

[NASAFanboy]

My opinion?

Safety upgrades, and remove all the pesky heat-tiles in favor of one big shield. Shorten the paylaod bay, jam in more fuel for the shuttle (Every single m/s of dV counts!), then build a Launch Escape System that would fully eject the crew pod with small boosters, and release the emergency parachutes onboard.

Then proceed to use the shuttle to build craft for missions beyond LEO.

[SFJackBauer]

As if things in reality were so simple...

I recommend to anyone interested in the Space Shuttle and its history, and why it ended up looking like it did, to read this book from T.A. Heppenheimer. Which, incidentally, is available for free online in the National Space Society website.

[KASASpace]

I would replace as much metal supports with composites as soon as possible. Use composite tanks on the ET, and make more reliable systems. Instead of that tile system, I would use a sector style heat shield setup. Also add LH2 tank onto orbiter and O2 tank for use on the RL-10s to replace OMS engines.

[SFJackBauer]

I would replace as much metal supports with composites as soon as possible. Use composite tanks on the ET, and make more reliable systems. Instead of that tile system, I would use a sector style heat shield setup. Also add LH2 tank onto orbiter and O2 tank for use on the RL-10s to replace OMS engines.

By my calculations, the 21 tons of OMS fuel being MMH/NTO required 16 cubic meters of storage. To achieve the same deltaV it provided, but using LH2/LOX, due to the higher Isp of the RL10, 13 tons of LOX and 2 tons of LH2 would be needed. However it would require 41 cubic meters of storage, due to the low density of the cryogenic fuels.

Thus the OMS pods would need to be 3 times bigger to house the fuel tanks.

[Holo]

I'd give the engineers a more clear view on what the shuttle was actually meant to do. From what I understand, the design for the shuttle was being pulled in too many directions at once and that means that it was good at nothing.

[Deathsoul097]

I would change the shuttle so that it only had OMS engines, and was launched by a main rocket core with four liquid fuelled boosters, which would give it a max payload to orbit of 50 Tonnes, over the Shuttles original 30. (Yes. I know I have just exactly described the Buran. That was kind of the point.)

[Nibb31]

Skylon is effectively 4 old geezers working in their shed for the past 20 years.

I applaud folks who can think out of the box, but Skylon is such a radical design that basically 90% of it unproven technology. The design could only achieve SSTO if the optimistic theoretical margins are met, and as everybody knows in the aerospace industry, budgetary and performance criteria are rarely met at 100%. Any slight reduction in performance or extra weight in the actual flight article will render the whole thing useless.

And of course, it also implies that the whole thing makes sense financially, which it doesn't. It's orders of magnitude more complex than something like the A380 or the B787 to design, with unproven manufacturing techniques, a whole new engine technology and an entire infrastructure to develop, yet they expect it to cost half the price. They also expect to build dozens of them, which implies that there is a market for hundreds of flights per year, which there simply isn't.

Let's see a working model of their engine reach hypersonic speed on a scale model or on a testbed aircraft and then we'll start talking.