Explain: What changed in Shuttle design that made it less effecient than intended?

[RuBisCO]

I disbelief that, as a Saturn V cost around 1.2 billion in todays money. But still, it was way more expensive.

Adding to the cost was the experience with reusable engines. Before the shuttle, all liquid fuel engines were sometimes fired several times, they were still designed as disposable. Over the years NASA found out how much has to be refurbished and checked in the SSMEs. This was just not compatible with the intended recycle times during flights.

Also, the shuttle was not as appealing to commercial satellite launches, even before STS-51L. After the Challenger disaster NASA didn't want commercial operation any more, as the spacecraft was considered too risky and valuable to wager it on a tv satellite.

Again The Saturn V cost half as much per lbs of cargo to orbit. And that not some digbats on the net claim that from Mike Griffin former administrator of NASA: http://aviationweek.typepad.com/space/2007/03/human_space_exp.html

When they were building the shuttle it was claimed to cost just $118 per lbs of cargo to orbit (in 1972) or ~$1400 per lbs in today's dollars. It ended up costing ~$27,000 per lbs, or $1.5 billion per launch. The fact that it missed its cost projections by 20 times is alone an incredible failure! The Saturn V with design and infrastructure cost and only 13 launches cost $46.56 billion in today's dollars, or $3.5 billion per launch, divided by 120 tons cargo capacity equals ~$14,000 per lbs. And mind you the Saturn V could and did bring manned missions to the moon, the spaceshuttle never achieve anything like that, costing so much to operate it killed any chance of financing manned missions beyond low earth orbit. If we had stayed with the Saturn V though we could have launched ~2 manned lunar mission every year from 1972 to today, under NASA budget during that time span. We could have built a moon base by now, possibly even a self sustaining one. We could and did launch a space station with the Saturn V and could have launched more stations: just 4-5 Saturn V launches could have assembled a space station bigger than ISS. We could have even launched missions to Mars directly with the Saturn V. The Space Shuttle is the single greatest technological failure in human history and has held back human space travel by over 50 years.

[Moar Boosters]

it's a little unfair to compare the payload numbers of the Saturn V and the shuttle because the orbiter itself was the payload of the shuttle. Of course, if all you want to is put a satellite into orbit, you don't need to use what was effectively a temporary space-station to deliver it.

[cm2227]

Adding the last two post together I can agree that the cost per lb to LEO is way lower for a Saturn V launch. But that was not what I denied. I (and the post I referred to) were talking about cost per launch. And I agree that the comparison is unfair.

The fact that it missed its cost projections by 20 times is alone an incredible failure!

Nothing to argue here. But another aspect of the shuttle design history came to my mind. Through reading the book "Digital Apollo" I learned much about test pilote attitude towards piloting spacecraft. And it appears to me that the astronaut community of the Apollo era vowed for a spacecraft that can be flown, not just controlled. That ruled out all non-winged designs, at least in the opinion of the astronauts. Remember the influence people like Slayton and Shepard had on management, add the military's dogmatic requirements, grind it through the realities of politics and you get the STS, with all its flaws and wrong estimations.

I wouldn't like to find out my launch costs are increasing instead of decreasing, because I find out what had been done wrong or too careless. And always remember: A camel is a horse designed by a committee.

[randomness5555]

All of these problems showing why Skylon (should) be much better-there are no (or very few) parts that will need replacing and you dont need to constantly build new fuel tanks or refit equally huge rocket engines constantly. So in other words it will be cheap (Well, £200 million but you get 200 ish launches) and therefore, should do well.

[RuBisCO]

Skylon is a wonderful idea, unfortunately the technological and thus finiancial hurdles to bring it from idea to reality are titanic.

What can we learn from the failure that was the space shuttle though? Don't let different contractors, lobbies and senators make engineering decisions, certainly! Although we have not learn that one at all, SLS stands are proof of that. Don't drop billion of dollars of established working infrastucture to build anew just because "on paper" it will be better. We sort of learned that, sort of, if we had built a directly shuttle direved booster instead of over-reaching with the constellation program perhaps today NASA would have a SLS already in working order.

[xenomorph555]

I disbelief that, as a Saturn V cost around 1.2 billion in todays money. But still, it was way more expensive.

Adding to the cost was the experience with reusable engines. Before the shuttle, all liquid fuel engines were sometimes fired several times, they were still designed as disposable. Over the years NASA found out how much has to be refurbished and checked in the SSMEs. This was just not compatible with the intended recycle times during flights.

Also, the shuttle was not as appealing to commercial satellite launches, even before STS-51L. After the Challenger disaster NASA didn't want commercial operation any more, as the spacecraft was considered too risky and valuable to wager it on a tv satellite.

They said it cost 1.3-1.5 billion todays money to launch a shuttle, though that may be due to the ships ageing, still...

[Nibb31]

They said it cost 1.3-1.5 billion todays money to launch a shuttle, though that may be due to the ships ageing, still...

The cost was mainly due to the fixed cost of maintaining KSC, JSC, the VAB, two launch pads, two recovery ships, two 747 SCAs, three MLPs, and a standing army of technicians and engineers to run, maintain, repair, clean all that infrastructure. Then you need the administration folks to train, manage, feed, house, and support that standing army and to procure supplies and parts for all that machinery.

The most obvious way to cut the cost of the STS was to launch more often in order to share those fixed costs.

SLS will have very similar fixed costs, but for only 1 launch per year, which is going to be even more problematic.

Edited April 23, 2014 by Nibb31

[xenomorph555]

Dear god... hurry up dragon, hurry up...