Space Shuttle Goes Back to Work

dalewj writes "The Discovery rolled over from the Orbiter Processing Facility to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center this morning. May 15th is the scheduled launch for STS-114. I was at NASA last month and got to see the payload for the space station thru lots of glass and I have to wonder, how far behind is the space station at this point?"

Comments

About time.

[heauxmeaux]

I don't pay the space shuttle to sit around all day waiting for the phone to ring. Goddamn lazy space shuttle.

The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Steven Edwards]

Compare the cost to launch per pound via a rocket vs the Shuttle. The Shuttle has turned in to one of the most wasteful pork projects the US has undertaken. I am all for porkbarrel spending in space such as a moon base or mars mission but this project has got to be killed.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Rei]

Shuttle payload: 27,500 kg to LEO
Shuttle launch costs: Varied; generally believed to be 350-450m$
Price per kg: ~15k$/kg
Price per kg for Pegasus: ~25k$/kg
Price per kg for Saturn-V: ~20k$/kg (modern dollars)
Price per kg for Ariane-V: ~10k$/kg
Price per kg for Proton: ~7k$/kg (modern dollars)

Honestly, for when it was designed in the US, it's only so-so in terms of cost effectiveness. It doesn't beat Russian costs by a long shot, and European costs are cheaper too (although they benefit from modern rocket design, unlike the old Protons).

Now, lets mention the shuttle's orbital maneuvering capabilities and cargo return capability (something that has really been problematic for ISS - Soyuz has been unable to take its trash back as fast as it builds up), and the fact that it's man rated.

Then, lets mention how shuttle launch costs are calculated. They take the shuttle's annual launch budget and divide by the average number of launches per year. However, there's a problem with that: a sizable chunk of the shuttle's budget goes toward research on improvements (which will have benefits to its successors); in short, part of the shuttle's ongoing costs are really just R&D.

Most importantly, however, is to look at the history of the shuttle. Its budget was almost halved during development; it's pretty impressive that they came out with anything at all. The reduced capital costs led to most of the problems they've had so far: instead of a titanium frame, they used aluminum, which gives a ~40% worse payload ratio and requires an elaborate, espensive to maintain, and damage-risky TPS. They used SRBs because they pretty much already existed. They used a nonflyback main tank because it was cheaper to develop. Etc.

A next gen reusable, if given proper capital costs, should be an incredibly impressive vehicle. You get a greater payload, almost no fatigue wear, a very simple (and cheap to maintain) TPS, greater resistance to debris damage, and many other benefits that will hugely reduce cost per kilogram. Combined with a reusable main tank, next-generation engines (there have been a lot of advancements in reduced maintenance and performance since the SSMEs were designed), etc, we're looking at cost per launch being a small fraction of what it is presently.

The shuttle should be seen as a test bed; they've done a lot of great research in the shuttle program (especially concerning engines - a lot of the modern, low-cost US rockets have really benefitted from SSME research), and now it's time to move on to a next gen reusable craft. Some people argue that disposables are the only answer; however, even if you can justify mass production of a single rocket line, there's only so far you can go with disposables. There are too many parts to be machined, too much labor, too much material, etc. Fuel is incredibly cheap by comparison, and there is no reason why the maintenance costs on reusables can't being lowered greatly.

Re:The Space Shuttle is such a waste

[Rei]

First off, the CEV is still in the design phase. However, in general, the concepts have been a capsule on top of a Delta-IV heavy or an Atlas-V. Atlas's lower stage's oxidizer turbopump and its upper stage's LH and LOX turbopumps directly benefit from SSME turbopump research. All of the Delta's engines benefit heavily from SSME research. Both Atlas's upper stage and all of Delta benefit heavily from shuttle research on tanks and insulation.

Guess who provides and services the SSME high pressure turbopumps. If you answered "Pratt & Whitney", you're correct. Now, guess who developed the RL-10B-2 used by the Delta-IV heavy. If you guessed "Pratt & Whitney", you're right again. Now, guess who developed the RL-10A-4-2 used by Atlas V's upper stage. If you guessed "Pratt & Whitney", you're right once more.

Lets keep going with this angle, shall we? What method did they develop for the shuttle to keep insulation from peeling off? Laser shearography. What technique does Delta-IV heavy use? Same. What about the centaur? Same. What type of insulation do they use on their tanks? SOFI (Spray-On-Foam-Insulation). What alloy does the shuttle use for most structural components, and the Delta-IV and Altas-V are considering? An aluminum-lithium alloy. Etc. I could keep going for hours; the shuttle is the core of a lot of modern US rocketry technology.

> No, that's what you _want_.

Ok, praytell, explain how a titanium-alloy frame would not:

* Produce a ~40% increase in payload for a shuttle-sized craft
* Allow for a much simpler TPS (as titanium alloys allow for a "hot frame", eliminating the need for tiles altogether, although you still need some leading edge insulation and internal thermal blanket insulation)
* Reduced fatigue (and thus longer lifespan and simpler inspection)
* Greater resistance to frame damage

You're basically arguing against the fundamental property of titanium and majority-titanium alloys there. It's not what I "_want_"; we're talking about basic properties of the metal. Argue against physics all you want.

As for wings, if you want to try and make a fully reusable capsule, go for it. I'm not enthusiasic, to say the least, for such prospects. Just ignoring that issue, you (like most other people here) seem completely unaware that wings are for a lot more than landing. They make reentry of large craft, and craft with return payloads, a lot easier, because you can skim the upper atmosphere for a longer period of time by using lift from the wings. They're also a larger radiating surface area. Lastly, the space in the wings isn't wasted; it is used. The only "waste" is control surfaces and associated mechanics, plus some loss due to having a less geometrically optimal shape for internal storage (although it is a benefit, not a drawback, when it comes to reentry, as discussed earlier).

BTW, NASA builds few of their craft. It's all the Boeings, the Lockheeds, the Orbital Sciences, etc, that do the construction. Blame them if you want to blame someone. Of course, I'm sure you're ready to start citing companies who have been widely successful with orbital craft in the US (i.e., US labor costs, part costs, etc) for comparison to those funded by NASA. Right?

Feynmann predicted 1/50 rate of failure

[PxM]

when he was part of the Challenger investigation team. Hopefully, this means that the chance of another accident is improbable given NASA's desire to phase out the Shuttle and replace it with something more 21st century. Hopefully the winds won't change and the Shuttle will be replaced with something better before the next accident. NASA should really start pushing for more private groups to do this rather than just handing out paltry prizes. Or maybe the Chinese will end up giving NASA the drive it needs to get a working space program. China's economy isn't on the rocks like the USSR during the space race so they would actually be able to compete with us.

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ISS Schedule

[caryw]

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/assembly/
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Missed watching the launches

[LiNKz]

To be honest, I look forward to this launch. In the past five years we have had terrorist attacks, wasted wars, and sad accidents.. and I really miss watching the launches too. I'm going to enjoy this launch.. and you know, it is good that we're still going up, instead of becoming too scared to tinker and explore.

Didn't count?

[StratoChief66]

From the NASA site: The last shuttle mission to visit the ISS during 2002 was STS-113, which delivered the Expedition 6 crew and the P1 (P-One) Truss. The STS-113 crew performed three spacewalks to activate and outfit the P1 after it was attached to the port side of the S0 Truss. Expedition Five returned to Earth on Endeavour, wrapping up a six-month stay in space. Following the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle fleet was grounded. Four crew exchanges have occurred since then using Soyuz spacecraft instead of Shuttles. NASA is targeting no earlier than Spring 2005 for Shuttle's Return to Flight with Discovery flying for STS-114. Ok, STS-113 in 2002, crash in 2003, now the next one is STS-114? What is the designation for the one that crashed? Is it only counted if it lands? Not Flamebait, just curious. Did the other crash not count?

Re:Didn't count?

[nbehary]

I think it's more because that mission, STS-107, had been delayed several times. If you look back, a lot of the missions were flown out of order. And 107 was always purely scientific, so Columbia was a "good" choice, since the mission didn't need to go to ISS.

Re:Didn't count?

[B747SP]

The Challenger incident (you Americans like to call it 'disaster' apparently!) was mission STS-51-L. The Columbia incident was mission STS-107.

AFAICS, NASA assigns a new mission number pretty much every time someone gets it in his head that it would be a good idea to fly a mission to achive "x". In practice, not all missions that are assigned numbers actually fly - some get canned for various reasons. Missions don't necessarily fly in numerical order. Various reasons - delays, political expediency, changing degrees of importance, readiness of payload, crew, shuttle to fly, etc, etc, cause missions to occur out of sequence sometimes.

Re:How far behind?

[ari_j]

And when I was in high school we learned about what a lazy bunch of bastards everyone was in the 80s. ;)

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The Payload's Names

[camusflage]

From TFA: There are three MPLMs (Multi-Purpose Logistics Module), named Raffaello, Leonardo and Donatello.

What, Michaelangelo didn't deserve top billing? I'll bet it was the orange bandanna.. What about Krang? I'm just glad to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the air again!

Core Complete

[J05H]

This Station has two theoretical "finishes": Core Complete and a more nebulous Assembly Complete. Originally, the station (Reagan's Freedom) was to be finished in 1994, then 1998, then it got redesigned. It has only gotten more complicated since then. It may be like Fusion power and Commodore's release schedules - station will always be finished 10 years from now.

At this point, it really depends on what you define "Core Complete" as.

There are some potential roadblocks toward getting the European Columbus, Japanese Kibo and the US Centrifuge flown. NASA is already looking at mothballing the first two (finished) modules and not building the Centrifuge. The Shuttle has been having groundings for various reasons since the late 90s (maintenance, fuel line cracks and Columbia RIP) - there is no guarantee that the fleet can fly through 2010.

It's time to stop talking about "The Space Station" and start talking about space stations. Bigelow Aerospace is about to one-up the X-Prize with the America's Space Prize and their Nautilus inflatable stations. They want to sell the final modules to any party that can afford one, all backed up by a billionaire with some Vision. The idea of the One True Space Dock is so Cold War. We are quickly approaching a new age of exploration and human frontiers, companies like Scaled, Bigelow, SpaceDev and SpaceX are going to enable this. NASA needs to stop doing operations and get on with exploring, or their going to get swept aside -- lead, follow or get out of the way.

Re:Core Complete

[tmortn]

Very very good points. Almost wish I hadn't been posting so I could mod you up.

Also can't say I disagree with the mothballing. Without the already scrapped Crew Hab, if we launch COF and JEM we will have one lab per Crew. And if the Russians actually built their facility we would have more labs than crew. Considering that as is it takes about 2.5 crew to run maintenence we might have more maintence hours than crew time available unless they don't sleep.

If they want to do this I think NASA should be all over those inflatable habs. Hell it is their idea to begin with and this guy has gone and built them. Try one out. If it works BAM, crew hab or if nothing else it might provide a space for tourists and solve the probelm of NASA getting its panties in a wad whenever the Russians sell a seat on a Soyuz flight.

Re:About time. Not really a joke

[rapidweather]

A prespective from someone born before WWII:

The idea that we could go to the moon was considered by some as being too much of a technical challenge, that just too many things could go wrong. I then watched on tv as the first moon landing was made. After that, I assumed that the government would always have enough money to explore space, put up a space station. In the 40's and 50's, the space shuttle in it's present form was not expected, or put forth in the ideas of what the future of space travel would be like. Buck Rogers had a spaceship that looked like a real space ship. I had expected the first powered space ship would go beyond Earth, to at least the Moon. The Apollo craft were shot into space, and guided themselves into place around the moon, using small rockets, with no comparison to the power of the Space Shuttle rocket motors. One would think that the Space Shuttle could go out far beyond the Moon, just for the fun of it, but with nothing there to see or do, then no mission.

Even so, the Space Shuttle is an amazing vehicle, and has had a long and dangerous history, now to continue for a while longer. Fixing the Hubble telescope was one of the good moments, how cool that was. Concerning the Shuttle accidents, I suppose we did always expect space ships to be destroyed, but by enemy alien spacecraft, death rays, or something. The idea of a space ship that would have design flaws, or push the limits of their design, was not commonly entertained. Most of what we kids knew came from comic books, so the idea of orbiting satellites was not even there, or the lumbering space truck that the Space Shuttle seems to resemble, wasn't in comic books either.

Too bad that there is so little of the national budget spend on space exploration, we all wanted "men on mars" by now.

No one needs to take the Shuttle Program for granted, it is one of a kind, and one wonders if funding will be available for something to take it's place.

May 15th?

[Dirtside]

It's no coincidence that they're taking off four days before Episode III premieres. They don't want to risk being killed in the Nerd Riots of '05 should Lucas screw the pooch once again.

Re:Not far behind

[tmortn]

Not very far behind ? Not quite sure how you arrive at that notion. We were supposed to be about 20-24 some odd launches along by now and I think either just have or just about to deliver the last bit of core complete construction payloads. At a launch rate of 10 a year that is almost 2 and half years behind if we start launching at the same rate we were before columbia which was the heavist launch schedule in the entire history of the Shuttle program.

Soyuz kept Station manned.... barely. We had to cut to two crew because they could not have supplied 3. Science upmass is all but nothing. 50kg or some such silly pathetic amount. Not knocking it but the program has not advanced in the interim. It has survived on a minimal existence.

Station is VERY behind. To the point where it is a very real possibility that its usefull completed life will be less than half of its planned life. It quite possibly will never house its inteded full crew complement of 7 for any longer than shuttle docking events. You want to know something crazy about that? If the Russians build and deliver their lab (doubtful at this point) and the COF and JEM get delivered, we will have more Labs (4) on Station than Crew (3).

Re:How far behind

[lostchicken]

Russia's "old-tech" rockets are far more reliable/effective/economical than the shuttle could ever hope to be. The shuttle was supposed to drop launch to LEO/GTO from $150mil to $10mil. Instead, it costs $500mil to fly the thing, and you don't get nearly the payload of a heavy-lift booster, nor the reliability. The shuttle hasn't been used for commercial or military launch in quite some time. That's because of one simple fact.

It's really hard to get shit out of space. We've got the launch thing down (light a big fire at the top of a cone, and go up for a while, then go over really fast), but it's really hard to get things back. Both shuttle failures have been as a direct result of their reusuable nature. If you didn't need to reuse the SRBs, you wouldn't need the field-joint O-rings to come on and off, and STS-51L would have flown safely to orbit. If you didn't need to bring back the same vehicle you launched with, you wouldn't need the giant delta wings, nor the overly complex thermal protection system, and then no amount of falling foam would have done jack to STS-114, and they'd be fine.

People like SpaceX have the right idea. Keep it simple, keep it cheap, reuse what you can, but what goes to orbit stays in orbit except for what you absolutely have to get back (i.e. crew). Yes, a reusuable spacecraft would be nice. However, right now, it's just not the way to go.