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NASA Redesigning The Space Shuttle

Posted by timothy on from the tweaking-this-and-that dept.

ekarjala writes "To avoid wing damage from foam separation in the future, NASA is planning a redesign of the existing shuttle. Seems to me it is time to consider a new design rather than a redesign -- let's take the lessons we've learned and create a space craft for the 21st century rather than re-treading a 30-year-old design."

4 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Misleading /. title by elliotj · · Score: 4, Informative

    Um, I may be the only one to actually READ the linked article, but it really doesn't say that they're redesigning the Space Shuttle. They're considering a new design for the part that is supposedly responsible for causing the crash. To say that they're redesigning the shuttle I think is overstating things.

    1. Re:Misleading /. title by stefanlasiewski · · Score: 3, Informative

      Are those air tunnels not capable of producing the amount of friction / heat necessary to simulate re-entry?

      No. When the Columbia broke up, it was travelling at "12,500 mph (Mach 18.3) at an altitude of 207,135ft".

      It's probably possible build a wind tunnel to simulate a 12,500 MPH wind and simulate the atmosphere at 207,000 feet for an object as big as the orbiter, but it will be very expensive and difficult to build in our political climate.

      --
      "Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
  2. Re:Why is it bad? by rjh · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's a lousy design for getting into the atmosphere. One, the winged design adds absolutely nothing but weight. Sure, it makes certain polar orbits easier, but there's no scientific or military need for the Shuttle to launch into a polar orbit. Two, the winged design means that it lands like an airplane. This is great, except for the fact it lands at 220mph (a DC-3 lands at 130mph), its brakes have to bleed off three times as much kinetic energy as a DC-3's, the DC-3's brakes haven't been exposed to the blistering heat, chilling cold and annihilating vacuum of space, and if for some reason the landing gear fails to deploy the Shuttle, since it can't just punch the engines and make another pass, does a 220mph crash into the asphalt.

    Sure. Great. The Shuttle is a great idea for re-entry, if you want to put your trust in a couple of thousand interconnected, interdependent systems, the failure of any one of which will totally doom you.

    By comparison, a purely ballistic entry is easy. Do you have the right angle? The right velocity? Is your heat shield intact? Do your parachutes work? Great: go for it.

  3. Re:Why is it bad? by rjh · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, I didn't miss the point with respect to the Proton-M. It puts 48,000 pounds of cargo into orbit at a cost of $2,000 per pound. The Shuttle puts 58,000 pounds into orbit at a cost of $7,700 per pound. That just means we're spending three times as much as we need to be when we could be buying our ELVs from Russia.

    I agree that a totally different launch solution is needed. But the Proton-M is worth noting and comparing the Shuttle to, if only to show how incredibly, mind-bogglingly atrocious a launch vehicle the Shuttle is. It costs three times as much and has a one-in-fifty chance of snuffing out seven human lives? No thanks.