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Just wondering how much it would cost to build a shuttle for say 5-10 people.
"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony
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How long is a piece of string? The space shuttle is expensive largely because is packed full of unneccesary technology and is based on the false assumption that a space vehicle should look like an aeroplane. It uses over complicated engine technology, unsuitable liquid hydrogen propellant and was basically a public works project.
Using a 2 stage low-carbon-steel oxygen/kerosene 'firework', with simple ablative lined pressure fed engines, it could all be done relatively cheaply. The lower stage could be made reusable, by splashing it down in the ocean following use.
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And how cheap is 'relatively'? And would the entire thing be reusable? That's an important question.
Just asking because if an unmanned HLV (like Energia) was used to launch Space Station parts,we still need to get up there.
It would look similar to an aeroplane though anyway, in order to use the 'feathered shuttlecock' method of reentry stability.
"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony
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And how cheap is 'relatively'? And would the entire thing be reusable? That's an important question.
Just asking because if an unmanned HLV (like Energia) was used to launch Space Station parts,we still need to get up there.
It would look similar to an aeroplane though anyway, in order to use the 'feathered shuttlecock' method of reentry stability.
I suggest you look into some of the Big Dumb Booster scenario work for some rough estimates of cost. You could probably get a factor of 10 drop in cost/kg compared to conventional turbo-pump weight optimised high technology.
Reusability is not neccesarily a prerequisite for low cost access to space. A steel coke can is not reusable, but can be produced for a pittence because its engineering is simple, it is produced from simple materials and they are produced by the million.
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Ah, but steel coke cans can be melted down and used to make more for cheaper than it does to make them fom scratch.
If spaceflight is to become cheap, we need to revert to the old two levers and a stick method of flying, without costly flight computers.
"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony
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I think it makes sense to think of a crew vehicle as re-usable. If we're moving beyond a ballistic capsule, a thing like a spaceplane makes sense, just don't call it a "mini-Shuttle" or "Shuttle-2" in the sense that the Shuttle was designed with so many extra bells & whistles. We're talking about a safe economical crew plane.
It doesn't make too much sense to ignore the old NASA Langley work on the HL-20 and HL-42.
(linkys below)
If you do it the NASA way, it'll try to be 15 times this size and cost as much as the NASA budget for 5 years to decide that it's getting too big & expensive to be feasible... They say that an elephant is a mouse built to government specifications. I'd say that a diplodocus is the NASA version, but it's got to have 5 heads, and can't take any action unless at least 3 of them agree on it, so usually it starves.
Zubrin wrote that there's no good engineering reason why a Titan rocket booster costs more than a 747. It's the governmenet way to make projects cost as much at possible, to spread the tax dollars around as many congressional districts as possible.
K.I.S.S. should apply, even if we're adding every possible extra we can to make it excel at its primary purpose of moving crews from the ground to space and back.
First of all, is that it doesn't launch cargo, beyond removing seats and strapping stuff in, and it doesn't stay for a long time in space, running experiments or repairing satellites. Just enough supplies to do its purpose, and maybe stay locked onto a station dormant, waiting to be needed for a trip down.
Uragan Space Interceptor; competitor to the X-20 DynaSoar
www.astronautix.com/craft/uraeptor.htm
www.astronautix.com/lvs/spil5050.htm
www.astronautix.com/craft/mig10511.htm
BOR-4 test article (Soviet unmanned sub-scale shuttle test plane)
www.astronautix.com/craft/bor4.htm
and the HL-20 (see especially the text about the hypersonic tests of the lifting body, how it seems superior to other types of spaceplane. It's still being investigated, in recent pre-"Columbia" OSP designs from Grumman/Orbital Sciences, and in the SpaceDev "Dreamchaser" spaceplane.
www.astronautix.com/craft/hl20.htm
and finally the HL-42
www.astronautix.com/craft/hl42.htm
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The HL-20 was a NASA Langley design for a manned spaceplane as a backup to the space shuttle (in case it was abandoned or grounded)
Then why don't they restart it? There's going to be a, what was it, five year gap betwen the shuttle retiring and the CEV introduction? If they had one of these they'd still have a manned spaceflight program during that time.
Assured manned access to space. In that era of Space Station Freedom and subsequent missions of the Space Exploration Initiative, it was felt to be imperative that the United States have an alternate means of getting people and valuable small cargo to low-Earth orbit and back should the Space Shuttle be unavailable.
Enhanced crew safety. Unlike the Space Shuttle, the PLS would not have main propulsion engines or a large payload bay. By removing large payload-carrying requirements from personnel delivery missions, the PLS would be a small, compact vehicle. It was then more feasible to design an abort capability to safely recover the crew during critical phases of the launch and return from orbit.
Affordable costs. As a small vehicle designed with available technologies, the PLS was forecast to have a low development cost. Subsystem simplification and an aircraft approach to PLS ground and flight operations would also greatly lower the costs of operating PLS.
NASA should get building. The Shuttle will be unavailable for five years, so they need something to take crew into space. I'll check how much it would have cost and will be annoyed if it could be done on a year of NASAs budget. Safety, they wouldn't be getting a negative image from the public, and more importantly Congess, about crew safety.
"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony
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