Next Generation Space Shuttles

zymano writes "Popular Science has an article about the next generation space shuttles. If you're wondering about what happened to all those cool ideas for a new shuttle and what happened to them then this story will explain it. Mentions the politics, design, costs and time for a new shuttle." There's some neat images of mockups as well.

Comments

HOTOL - the unrealised 1980s alternative

[WIAKywbfatw]

A viable alternative to the shuttle was on the drawing board as far back as the late 1980s. HOTOL (Horizontal Take-Off and Landing), similar in appearance to current generation supersonic aircraft was designed by British rocket veteran Alan Bond.

Unfortunately, as soon as Bond had designed the revolutionary air-breathing engine that the project was based on, it was classified by the British government. Score one for stupid politics. So, perhaps the best rocketry engine designed never got built.

Later, HOTOL variants and derivatives were proposed, including an Anglo-Russian project called Interim HOTOL.

Here are a few related links to check out, most of which contain illustrations of what the orbiter would have looked like:

HOTOL
HOTOL and Interim HOTOL
Wikipedia entry for HOTOL

Google search for "HOTOL"

Of course, HOTOL and HOTOL-derived orbiters are still a viable alternative today. Air-breathing engines seem to be the logical next step.

Hmm

[B3ryllium]

I wouldn't exactly call the existing space shuttles "disaster prone".

They've flown for 22 years. Imagine what the mileage is? Somewhere in the millions, maybe even billions.

Only two out of five have failed.

I would only concede the disaster-prone point when considering that the astronauts lives were lost; that's certainly a little more impactful than a bunch of drunken teenagers totalling a car, right? But even then, the shuttles themselves are not disaster-prone; it's just that any slight mishap is instantly promoted to National Disaster and Mourning Period status.

The person's point above, that the shuttle's computers are outdated, is partially true - but they are entirely adequate for running the onboard software. When you're developing a system like the shuttle, you simply cannot use the latest technology. It has to be military-certified for mission critical systems, and it has to go through about two years of testing to acheive that status. That point was made in the article, that once you "freeze" development, that's what you're stuck with.

The shuttles work as they were designed.

The problem is that NASA made them too high-maintenance.

I fully agree with the article's point, that an automated human escape mechanism is required in reusable space flight vehicles. Heck, even Star Trek has escape pods.

Re:Hmm

[Wyatt Earp]

I know it's bad to reply to one's self, but here I go.

I came to my conclusions about the STS problems from reading Dennis R. Jenkins's Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space Transportation System: The First 100 Missions and T. A. Heppenheimer's two volume History of the Space Shuttle - Space Shuttle Decision and Development of the Space Shuttle.

If you read one book on the Shuttle's history, read Jenkin's book.

Re:Hmm

[Dinosaur Neil]

Only two out of five have failed.

Not quite. Yes, only two out of five have failed (that's 20% of the fleet) in 22 years. But thats two out of 107 flights. That's slightly less than a 2% catastrophic failure rate. If commercial airlines failed at that rate, we'd have to have a couple dedicated news channels just to handle the crash coverage for the dozen per day per major airport.

The sad truth that is starting to bubble to the surface is that the shuttle was simumtaneously the only way NASA could survive the budget cutbacks of the 70's and an unbreakable hobble on efforts to actually exploit outer space. The whole re-usable scam meant that the NASA budget could only be cut so far before killing a very visible and popular program. But it also meant that we (as a nation and/or planet) have been constrained to Low-Earth orbit for twenty fscking years. The shuttle was designed by committee to do a little bit of everything, but unfortunately, engineering limitations left it doing everything poorly. The shuttle is another example of the classic dollar auction spinning wildly out of control. It is disaster prone, and it's time to look at it honestly before it kills the space program entirely.

Re:nasa should focus more on next generation

[Elderly Isaac]

More accurately, NASA itself decided to give up on the project. In September 2000, the NASA Advisory Council recommended that X-33 be mothballed, with good reason. Upon its cancellation, the Space Access Society rejoiced, saying "the project was mis-specified, mis-selected, misdesigned, misdeveloped, and mismanaged, and its demise is long overdue." NASA decided to push the decision back to March 2001 on the remote hope that a new administration would give the project some new funding, because NASA itself didn't want to use any of the billions from the Space Launch Initiative (which was precisely designed to pay for such projects) on the doomed, bloated project.

Re:Reusable vehicles

[Fastolfe]

I don't know. The most recent one was the GALEX mission launched on a Pegasus XL on April 28th. The next disposable launch (the first of the new Mars rovers) atop a Delta II is scheduled for June 5th. They're not infrequent, and NASA certainly isn't ignoring the value of non-reusable launch systems.

Re:Hey hey,

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't want "modern computers" if you have proven, reliable, working older technology.

In all likelyhood, the newest computer system with deep-space certification (radiation hardening, etc) would be a 386 or 486.

Most shuttle flights in the last ten years have taken "modern" laptops for scientific uses. The flight computers have worked perfectly well for over twenty years. The only reason to even think about replacing them is the availability of replacement parts--and it may very well be cheaper to reproduce parts than to spaceflight certify a new computer system.

JD

Re:Something must be wrong...

[Thing 1]

Yes, rocket propulsion is efficient in a chemical-kinetic energy transfer way, but not efficient if all other costs are taken into account. Use geo-thermal energy to power such a mag-lev launcher thing... I find that preferable.

While I was reading about the Space Elevator , I came across a neat article about something very similar to what you want.

It was a horizontal platform, very tall (kilometers?), looking like a series of "A"s, with a track running from the top of each "A" to the next. It would use electromagnets to generate thrust down the track, and the payload would achieve escape velocity by the time it reached the end.

After several minutes of Googling I couldn't find the link. Sorry 'bout that. Perhaps someone else recalls it?

Re:modern computers

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the new space shuttles have some modern computers on board

I was under the impression that the computers were older technology because they had to be hardened against the electromagnetic radiation. Granted, they could be better, but they couldn't put P4s on it.

Japanese and technology

[John Bayko]

Actually, large scale Japanese aerospace and military projects tend to go badly, as far a cost and schedule in particular. As an example, look at the H-2 rocket, which is both more expensive and less capable than similar U.S, European, Russian, or even Chinese rockets. Plus a longer development time.

Also check out their current indiginous fighter project - even given the basic F-16 design to copy, it's still not finished (it's not an exact copy, but it's taken longer than some of from-scratch designs).

Japanese companies are very good at using mature technology, and at making technology mature. They are fairly bad at using immature technology for end products. Rocket technology is still a long way from being mature.

Although a lot can be done with the technology that is mature. An example was the McDonnel Douglass Delta Clipper X, which was almost all off-the-shelf technology on a small budget. The rocket engines weren't reusable, but they were just driven at a much lower thrust, eliminating most of the wear allowing them to be reused anyway.

Sadly, after being sold to NASA, the DC-X fell victim to its budget - it was so cheap to operate, it was run mostly in a seat-of-the-pants fashion. During its last flight, a technician forgot to plug in the hydrolic hose to extend one landing gear (it had four), so when it landed, it simply toppled over.

Still, when NASA was looking for its last "replace the shuttle" program, it (or the larger Delta Clipper Y version) was one of three proposals - the other two were the Lockheed VentuStar, and a re-worked Space Shuttle. Although the two that lost were based on working technology, the main goal at NASA was for new technology development, not product development, so the riskiest project was funded (Lockheed's).

It didn't fail, in NASA's view - the innovative engines were developed, and aerodynamic studies performed. They just ran out of money and decided to stop it (the composite fuel tank technology was not completed). An end product wasn't really the goal for them - in the end of the program, Lockheed would have been responsible for building the actual vehicle, operating it, and marketing launch services - NASA would just be another customer. It was Lockheed's choice not to without the NASA funded prototype complete to show investors.

In my opinion, the DC-Y was the best choice - no new technology, just build the prototype and go. But it the program had succeeded, I would have been wrong, so blame doesn't work unless you know the future ahead of time.

Re:Do they think out of the box?

[oh2]

I agree. Or maybe the Shuttle-C technology could be used ? Massively efficient and proven and relatively cheap since there is no big orbiter. If you want people up there, stick an apollo capsule on top.