Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

TJohn · 2003-08-19 19:44:49

Since the shuttle will not be used that much further into the future, why can't the external tanks (ET) be used as a spacecraft? I found a website Space Island Group awhile back that proposes using the external tanks to create a space station. It even has a picture of a tank being used as a spacecraft. It seems to me that alot of the items that will be needed for Mars Direct could be placed inside one of these and taken along. Call me crazy but I think this would be a great way for travel to Mars and within the solar system.

Tyr · 2003-09-16 17:09:46

I'm a space shuttle external tank advocate. You can find more at http://www.moonminer.com Another good website is http://www.orbit6.com Zubrin has advocated using the ET and boosters to build the Ares.

I'm all in favor of nuclear power in space, but I don't think it's so good down here on Earth. see: http://www.indiancountry.com/article/1063728085

Tyr · 2003-09-16 17:12:14

this is good: http://www.moonminer.com/external-tank-ships.html

TJohn · 2003-09-17 06:36:14

These are good websites, Tyr. Thanks! Again, I don't understand why this idea is not be developed. About 80-90% of the hardware is already present. NASA has already studied this extensively. I like the idea of using NPR engines on these too. Heck, I would be happy to see the ETs used with chemical engines. Does anyone know of any books on this subject? Reading webpages are fun but I don't want to be stuck at my computer all the time either.

Tyr · 2003-09-25 16:33:15

I think we are accumulating all kinds of good hardware and throwing it in the trash because of bean counting politicians who don't have any vision for leadership into space. The Saturn V is in the trash, so is the Gemini and Big Gemini, the Apollo capsule, the X33 and Venturestar, linear aerospike engines, some big cheap solid rockets about 20 feet in diam. Numerous other X planes have been trashed and over 100 external tanks have been discarded only to burn up over the Indian Ocean. They spend billions, then cancel programs before they finish them. They spent billions on the X33 and then slashed it! They built a shuttle launch base in southern California and trashed it after blowing billions on it. Can't these guys make up their minds and stick with something!

What can we do besides saying 'ain't it awful' all the time? I guess we have to write up our ideas and mail them to Congress critters, NASA officials, etc. Maybe somebody can inspire those bums. Heck, I'd elect Arnold Schwarzenegger if he was willing to commit this country to the exploration of the new ocean of space the way JFK did.

TJohn · 2003-09-26 06:32:27

I hear ya, Tyr! I wrote a letter to the Space and Science Committee in Congress once. Of course I didn't receive a reply. It may be tedious but I do believe that letter writing can help. I know that there have been numerous petitions for this or that that have been available but I never found out what happened to them. If I was computer literate and internet savy enough, I would develop a webpage that specifically dedicated to getting attention of NASA and governement. Probably sounds crazy but you never know!

Tyr · 2003-09-26 08:33:20

You can get an ad free website on yahoo pretty cheap. Maybe mail the URL to officials and some will look at it.

sethmckiness · 2003-09-26 08:42:49

They built a shuttle launch base in southern California and trashed it after blowing billions on it. Can't these guys make up their minds and stick with something!

Hmm, If I remember correctly, Vandenburg AFB was around before the shuttle, and is still in very good shape, and the STS launches would have only been a small part of the mission there.

Mark Friedenbach · 2003-09-26 14:28:46

They built a shuttle launch base in southern California and trashed it after blowing billions on it. Can't these guys make up their minds and stick with something!
Hmm, If I remember correctly, Vandenburg AFB was around before the shuttle, and is still in very good shape, and the STS launches would have only been a small part of the mission there.

I think most of the facilities they built are still there, but Vandenburg was meant for military flights, not civilian flights (for a higher polar orbit). Since the Air Force doesn't want the shuttle anymore, there's no need to launch from Vandenburg.

Vandenburg would be useless for anything other than polor orbit launches, for safety reasons. If there was an accident like Challenger, toxic substances would be sprayed all over California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and I'm sure a few other states. A polar launch would take it along the coast line and over the ocean, however. In addition, I remember there being some safty issues with the launch itself (like sound waves bouncing off the near-by hills, and stuff like that).

Tyr · 2003-09-26 17:07:20

I'm not talking about Vandenberg AFB, I am talking about the SLC-6 shuttle launch complex that was added to Vandenberg about 20 years ago. Initially, they were going to spend $17 billion. By the time they gave up on it, partly because of the Challenger accident, $4 billion was spent. In my opinion, this is another example of bad NASA management and Congressional politics.

TJohn · 2003-11-07 07:56:28

Skylab was launched over 30 yrs ago using parts from Saturn and Apollo equipment. Too bad that we didn't use a shuttle ET for the next station instead of ISS.

Using the ET and converting it to a space station can be done!

Here's a link about Skylab: Our First Space Station
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/history/skylab/skylab.html

Rxke · 2003-11-08 03:55:51

The Air Force research branch did research about the feasability of recycling the ET into raw feedstock for on-orbit manufacturing. Long story short: it's fairly simple, thus economically interesting, to cut up an ET for its raw materials, using those to build other stuff (trusses etc.) in orbit. Of course, you can also keep the ET's as they are, and inhabit them etc. But the paper describes how it could be used as a source of processed metal, calculating the worth of the mass of the ET in orbit...

Rxke · 2003-11-23 06:13:09

Looks like Space Island Group has updated their plans...

The 'new' shutlle they envisionaged(sp?) seems on the way out, instead they are thinking about using a Delta Clipper kind of reusable vehicule. Their plans are BIG, but something like this is exactly what Mars Direct could use: a Heavy launcher system, capable of launching really big modules...
Dual ET-Launcher
When (or if... Their plans are not small-scale...) they get into the business of launching these things, costs of development are bound to plummet, and the future'll be wide open...
Ahhhh.... Dreams....

Hazer · 2003-11-23 16:50:34

The problem with the Space Island Group is that they are visionaries. They speak of spending a billion dollars here, a couple billion there. The entire budget of NASA is around 3 Billion. That sort of money is hard to come by these days.
Unless Space Island Group has around 4 billion dollars, I think they might be building castles in the air.

Martinkh · 2004-01-21 08:38:52

Ive thought of saving the tanks too (by leaving them, boosting them just a little bit more) in LEO, to then serve as outer hulls for space workspace/habitat. But imagine some poof with OSHA getting his panites in a twist over the leftover chemicals inside.

publiusr · 2005-04-08 14:03:50

Website has been updated:
http://www.spaceislandgroup.com]http://www.spaceislandgroup.com
http://www.moonminer.com/external-tank- … ships.html

Martian Republic · 2005-08-20 11:23:05

I don't like throwing those external tanks out either and it a terrible waist of resources. But, considering the alternative, I personally see no other choice. If it was just spending a little more and every thing else would pretty much stay the same, then I would be all for saving those tanks, but unfortunately it not that simple. You generate a whole host of other problem that you have to deal with if you save those tanks which you have no way to use. If you re-engineer those tanks to make them user friendly after they been use for fuel tank, then you have another whole host of problems to deal with.

Some of the problem with the tank in it present form are:

1. The insulation falling off in space and causing hazards to other space hardware.
2. Those tanks are useless to us for building a space station without being modified and re-informed and without any radiation shielding. To solve this problem, we would have to encase those tanks in several layers of material and just have a converted shuttle with it insulation in tact only.
3. If we want to cut up and use the material or recycle it, we have play to do it and we have no way to recycle it.
4. If you try and space ships out of it, you will have same problem that you have with building space stations, but you can add metal fatigue with the constant excelerating and decelerating.
5. Since we have no way to redeem those tank right now, let save them and put them in a higher orbit. But, we can't do that, because they will deteriorate over time and generate space junk in that orbit.
6. So let throw those tanks on the Moon and deal with them when we get them there. We need the transportation system to get those tanks to the Moon and that be a big effort all by itself that make the Apollo Project look like dinky project. Then we would either have to choose to land it or crash land it on the Moon. But, these tanks still are not in a useable form for us to use them without modifying them.
7. We still have to take those tanks into orbit. Those tanks are dumped just before they achieve orbit and are dumped back onto the Earth. To finish taking those tanks into orbit, you would have to maybe sacrifice 10 to 20 percent of shuttle carrying capacity in the cargo bay to get those tanks all the way into orbit.

Now if you want a modified tank idea to salvage your idea of using those tanks for the purpose that you say you want to use it for, you have these problem:

1. You have most of the same problems that you will have in the unmodified shuttle tanks and using the for other uses.
2. You have to re-engineer the shuttle stack which will cost billions of dollars.
3. You will have a heavier shuttle tank by two to three or even four times heavier, which would make it useless to use for use as a shuttle tank.

This was the primary reason that using the shuttle tank idea was dropped. They basically had not way to use them or redeem them without spending two or three as much as NASA has to spend in space or possibly even have in there NASA budget. In other words, it would be very expensive to save those tanks and then not have a use for them.

In the present system and with no serious vision or national goals and even with a national goal, there may be not reason to save those Shuttle tanks. Because, it would cost more to redeem those thanks than there actually worth within the present system.

Larry,

Martian Republic · 2005-08-20 11:31:24

I don't like throwing those external tanks out either and it a terrible waist of resources. But, considering the alternative, I personally see no other choice. If it was just spending a little more and every thing else would pretty much stay the same, then I would be all for saving those tanks, but unfortunately it not that simple. You generate a whole host of other problem that you have to deal with if you save those tanks which you have no way to use. If you re-engineer those tanks to make them user friendly after they been use for fuel tank, then you have another whole host of problems to deal with.

Some of the problem with the tank in it present form are:

1. The insulation falling off in space and causing hazards to other space hardware.
2. Those tanks are useless to us for building a space station without being modified and re-informed and without any radiation shielding. To solve this problem, we would have to encase those tanks in several layers of material and just have a converted shuttle with it insulation in tact only.
3. If we want to cut up and use the material or recycle it, we have play to do it and we have no way to recycle it.
4. If you try and space ships out of it, you will have same problem that you have with building space stations, but you can add metal fatigue with the constant excelerating and decelerating.
5. Since we have no way to redeem those tank right now, let save them and put them in a higher orbit. But, we can't do that, because they will deteriorate over time and generate space junk in that orbit.
6. So let throw those tanks on the Moon and deal with them when we get them there. We need the transportation system to get those tanks to the Moon and that be a big effort all by itself that make the Apollo Project look like dinky project. Then we would either have to choose to land it or crash land it on the Moon. But, these tanks still are not in a useable form for us to use them without modifying them.
7. We still have to take those tanks into orbit. Those tanks are dumped just before they achieve orbit and are dumped back onto the Earth. To finish taking those tanks into orbit, you would have to maybe sacrifice 10 to 20 percent of shuttle carrying capacity in the cargo bay to get those tanks all the way into orbit.

Now if you want a modified tank idea to salvage your idea of using those tanks for the purpose that you say you want to use it for, you have these problem:

1. You have most of the same problems that you will have in the unmodified shuttle tanks and using the for other uses.
2. You have to re-engineer the shuttle stack which will cost billions of dollars.
3. You will have a heavier shuttle tank by two to three or even four times heavier, which would make it useless to use for use as a shuttle tank.

This was the primary reason that using the shuttle tank idea was dropped. They basically had not way to use them or redeem them without spending two or three as much as NASA has to spend in space or possibly even have in there NASA budget. In other words, it would be very expensive to save those tanks and then not have a use for them.

In the present system and with no serious vision or national goals and even with a national goal, there may be not reason to save those Shuttle tanks. Because, it would cost more to redeem those thanks than there actually worth within the present system.

Larry,

GCNRevenger · 2005-08-20 15:20:20

Yeah pretty much...

-The tank is a thin, poorly insulated, and poorly armored aluminum balloon. It lacks either the thickness or the appropriate space debries armor to protect it as a space station, and lacks the radiation shielding to make it a practical beyond-Earth spacecraft. Adding these, plus hatches and hull connections, would severely impact its weight and cost. Oh, and it may have been weakend by the supercold fuel during launch.

-Hauling it all the way to orbit is impractical because doing so requires a circulization burn. If Shuttle were to do this, it couldn't carry enough payload. Shuttle-C's payload would suffer badly too, and the Magnum-style inline boosters don't have restartable engines on the first stage (you must make the burn 45min after main engine cutoff).

-Nothing stays in a useful orbit just sitting there. To stay in low-earth orbit, you have to burn fuel now and then because of the slight drag. In any Earth orbit, the gravitational force from the Moon will cause objects to spin, which makes them too dangerous to dock with, thus requiring you to burn or spin gyros. And, to reach this higher orbit, you have to burn considerable fuel to put the tank up there, and burn more fuel to go up and reach them later.

-You can't really reuse the materials, the foam insulation can't be disolved since it is reactively (and perminantly) hardening foam, getting the foam off the tank would be almost impossible, and recycling only a few tonnes of base alumuminum metal isn't worth the trouble of saving or cutting/smelting the tanks.

Saving the big tanks doesn't make any sense

publiusr · 2005-08-25 11:43:29

That is where we disagree. The big tanks make perfect sense due to volume. The infatable designs cannot resist thrust and are good only when stationary--this ET hulls can--if done in the orginal wet-stage Skylab style--make for better exploration platform. Just One ET would give astronauts a lot of living area--and the ET could be surrounded in an inflatable structure--therefore any astronaut that would go to the outside of the tank would still be under the blanket if you will--eliminating the hazard of his floating away.

This way--if budgets are reduced even more--we still have one good sized cycler segment--even if ferry craft sent to service them are cramped EELV-launched craft.

I like a sturdy Sea Dragon hull even more--but that is another thread.

Commodore · 2005-09-06 14:14:05

A heavily modified inline based ET could be launched with all its furnishings as cargo. Even if the modified tank can only loft 50tons, thats still plenty. If you want to launch more weight you could in theory add a 3rd or 4th SRB.

publiusr · 2005-09-08 14:39:21

Speaking of extra SRBs

http://images.spaceref.com/news/2005/il … go.med.jpg
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums … mentid=860
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums … 1&posts=20

MAF damaged
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums … 9&posts=53
www.nasawatch.com

neilzero · 2006-06-28 11:11:38

Hi commador: I don't know the math, but I think you are about right, however, the 50 tons shrinks rapidly, if we jutson the external tanks at a higher altiude. Perhaps best is a one ton motor which could assist in the shuttle lift off and slow the deceleration of the tank after it is released from the shuttle. NASA is reluctant, because even minor design changes can adversely affect the shuttle in unexpected ways, so good engineering is to insist on extensive and expensive testing even for minor changes. Neil

GCNRevenger · 2006-06-29 07:24:38

Such a motor would need its own fuel supply, or else it would cut the Shuttle's already tight payload margin to below acceptable limits.

The USAF breifly considerd slapping a first-stage engine from Titan-IV under the Shuttle tank paided with half a dozen sphereical tanks for its fairly dense fuel when it became clear that Shuttle wouldn't have the lifting capacity that the air force needed.

Such a design change would easily be much more difficult then simply launching a big inflatable TransHAB the same size as the Shuttle tank.

publiusr · 2006-06-30 12:40:26

Such a tank can be used to handle liquids in space--and is good for firm attachment points.

A 100 ton dry stage station in orbit around the Earth could be one payload for CaLV--with a 20 ton lunar station atop a wet stage that can be opened up for living area would be about the same size. It would need re-boosting--but if it were in the same orbit as CEV--it might make a nice shelter if things go wrong. This is one reason I have no problems with cyclers coming at a later point as a supply point--as long as stand-alone missions are headed in the same direction should problems arise.

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#1 2003-08-19 19:44:49

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#2 2003-09-16 17:09:46

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#3 2003-09-16 17:12:14

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#4 2003-09-17 06:36:14

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#5 2003-09-25 16:33:15

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#6 2003-09-26 06:32:27

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#7 2003-09-26 08:33:20

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#8 2003-09-26 08:42:49

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#9 2003-09-26 14:28:46

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#10 2003-09-26 17:07:20

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#11 2003-11-07 07:56:28

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#12 2003-11-08 03:55:51

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#13 2003-11-23 06:13:09

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#14 2003-11-23 16:50:34

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#15 2004-01-21 08:38:52

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#16 2005-04-08 14:03:50

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#17 2005-08-20 11:23:05

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#18 2005-08-20 11:31:24

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#19 2005-08-20 15:20:20

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#20 2005-08-25 11:43:29

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#21 2005-09-06 14:14:05

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#22 2005-09-08 14:39:21

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#23 2006-06-28 11:11:38

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#24 2006-06-29 07:24:38

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

#25 2006-06-30 12:40:26

Re: Using the shuttle's external tanks as spacecraft

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