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The Story of Baikonur, Russia's Space City
eldavojohn writes "There's an article up on Physorg about Russian space launch city Baikonur, rented by Russia from Kazakhstan. Although it is essentially the same as it was in the 60's and 70's, it is amazingly efficient and still operational. 'Even the technology hasn't changed much. The Soyuz spacecraft designed in the mid-1960s is still in service, somewhat modified. It can only be used once, but costs just $25 million. The newest Endeavor space shuttle cost $2 billion, but is reusable. Life and work in Baikonur and its cosmodrome are also pretty much what they were in the Soviet era. The town of 70,000 - unbearably hot in summer, freezing cold in winter and dusty year round - is isolated by hundreds of miles of scrubland.'" We last discussed Baikonur back in 2005.
This Nasa space shuttle faq lists endeavour's cost at 1.7 billion. Maybe they just rounded off, but a third of a billion seems significant to me.
It also lists the launch costs for a shuttle at about $450 million. I don't know if that's just the launch itself or if that includes the turn around costs. Of course - the article doesn't list similar numbers for the Soyuz - but it seems that while reusable - the shuttle still is exponentially more expensive. Although - I don't know of anything else that can get as much weight to orbit as the shuttle.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
It's just the sticker price. Then they hit you with the optional features like power steering and oxygen.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
I know this may be a little controversial, but can we just skip all the "In Soviet Russia..." jokes? Regulars don't find them funny. They're only modded up by people who've just got mod points for the first time and want to fit in. Come on, be original!
"The Soyuz spacecraft designed in the mid-1960s is still in service, somewhat modified. It can only be used once, but costs just $25 million. The newest Endeavor space shuttle cost $2 billion, but is reusable"
Each shuttle mission costs a half-billion to launch. So many systems have to be rebuilt and retested that it would be cheaper to make them throw-away.
For example, by the time the shuttle engines are on the launch pad, they've been rebuilt pretty much from scratch and retested, which takes up almost 90% of their rated lifetime. Like a race car engine that has to be rebuilt every 750 miles, but is test for 675 miles before the race ...
Saying the shuttle is re-usable without looking at the real costs is ignoring reality.
I mentioned the same above and have been doing some more digging. This popular mechanics interview with Greg Olsen was interesting. Here is the part that got it to pop up in my search:
...
PM: Soyuz costs $50 million a mission--the space shuttle costs more than $2.5 billion to get back up, and under the best conditions it costs $500 million
GO: That's tough. Remember, we could not have built the ISS without the shuttle. The shuttle has a huge cargo-carrying capacity. The Soyuz cannot do that, as reliable as it is. The shuttle has had its drawbacks, but it is the workhorse, and it was necessary in order to do the ISS.
They give more about cost - and he gives one view about the shuttle's capacity that adds a different perspective.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I dare, nay, double dare you to fit Hubble into a Soyuz capsule:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Space_Shuttle_vs_Soyuz_TM_-_to_scale_drawing.png
The Shuttle is probably a stupid way to put people in orbit, but that isn't all it is used for.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Of course, that argument requires the assumption that we couldn't possibly make something with similar carrying capacity to the shuttle for cheaper than $500 million to $2.5 billion per launch.
The Saturn V had the ability to lift 118,000 kg to low earth orbit, to the Space Shuttle's 24,400 kg - and that at a similar cost per launch.
The Delta IV can lift up to about the Space Shuttle's capacity at $250 million a launch. The Russian Proton-M can lift a little less than the Shuttle at $100 million a launch. There are plenty of alternatives to the Shuttle for launching large payloads.
It seems rather fashionable to knock the Space Shuttle - it's expensive, it was overhyped, putting the thing on the side of the tank is a design mistake, and the tiles are a maintenance nightmare. It's easy to knock the Shuttle and demand a retreat to older style systems, and I've done it. But the more and more I think about it, the more I think, junking the shuttle and the approach of the orbital space plane is a huge mistake.
We are all aware of the negatives of the shuttle, but let's look at some of the positives of this system. First and foremost, the interior of the space shuttle is -huge- compared to the interior of a Soyuz, or for that matter, any other manned space craft. The Soyuz can bring up 2 or 3 astronauts, while shuttle missions with 6 or 7 are not uncommon. The Soyuz, the Apollo and the nascent Orion are essentially ballistic nosecones with people stuffed in it. The space shuttle has a habital volume, for its crew compartment alone, of over 70 cubic meters. The soyuz, on the other hand, has a habital volume of just 7 cubic meters. Astronauts in these capsules basically sit in their chairs, but in the shuttle they can get up, move around, and do things. The space shuttle is practically a space station in its own right.
The space shuttle has a cargo bay, and, thanks to the Canadians, has a really cool mechanical arm. The cargo bay can be pressurized for even more space, or it can contain additional research facilities. Have we forgotten that the European Space Agency has flown a science station in the space shuttle cargo bay already? Have we forgotten about the repairs made to Hubble? The Space Shuttle can and has repaired other satellites, and right now, is the ONLY SYSTEM that can bring them back a largish cargo from space to earth.
Everyone seems to like knocking NASA, cheering on the likes of Burt Rutan and the X-Prize in hopes for some private sector miracle, but I've not seen any private sector initiative, from scratch, put so much as a suitcase into orbit, certainly not a man, and nothing like the space shuttle. Those fancy suborbital flights are a joke - 3000mph requires a fraction of the total kinetic energy to attain the orbital velocity of over 17000mph. Let me know when anyone, really, anyone builds something as cool as the shuttle...and the thing is, when we're back to tiny capsules for manned space flight, when the naysayers win and the shuttles are tossed off to museums, everyone is going to compare the capsule to the shuttle and say geez, by far, the shuttle was the cooler thing, and the capsule is a step backwards, not forward, and that our next space ship should have been a newer version of the shuttle, not a rehashed capsule.
This is my sig.
It would seem a lot of the logic behind the shuttle was to get the gear and the people there on one transport. While I personally think the shuttles design was most about getting the funding not building the most efficient/safe unit.
In any event it seems like the saturn v's could have gotten the IIS up in aprox 4 lifts, this would seem more efficient as there would be less hardware joining sections together.
No sir I dont like it.
Remember the MAIN design goal of the shuttle wasn't JUST to bring "stuff" to orbit, but to be able to bring sats DOWN from orbit - in fact, part of the design criteria was launch from Vandenburg, grab a sat, and LAND in ONE orbit (Military wanted to be able to snach Sats)
They did bring 2 or 3 Sats down from orbit in the early days
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