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Yeah, it's not clear if a self-landing retrobooster would have been possible given the components available at the time of the space shuttle's design, not to me

Yeah, it's not clear if a self-landing retrobooster would have been possible given the components available at the time of the space shuttle's design, not to mention the vast improvements in computer modeling and simulation that we're available to SpaceX. But, of course, that's only part of the story. The space shuttle had additional political constraints, i.e. spreading the wealth to many congressional districts, that greatly increased the cost and complexity.

nine_k 8y ago
The second paragraph is the point I was trying to make. Thank you for explicating it.
jandrese 8y ago
The Shuttle also had bonkers flight profile requirements (polar launch from Vandenburg and an immediate landing) from the Air Force that severely impacted its affordability.
- howard941 8y ago
  As well as questionable payload requirements such as carrying the Centaur upper stage...
  - DuskStar 8y ago
    It may have been a rather silly idea but it wasn't on the same level of impracticality as the Air Force's "launch into a polar orbit, capture a satellite, and land in one orbit" requirement. The first Shuttle-Centaur launch was scheduled for only a few months after the Challenger disaster occurred, so it was at least something that would have been used. On the other hand, the Air Force never even finished building a Shuttle launch complex at Vandenberg, let alone use the once-around capabilities.
    - pfdietz 8y ago
      I thought the cross range requirement came from the necessity of "Abort Once Around" in polar launches. More deeply, the Air Force was blamed for adding requirements to the Shuttle, when the real problem was the Shuttle had such tenuous economic justification that it needed to pretend it had as many customers as it could. Never mind that much of the projected manifest (and projected flight rate) was an outright lie that the knew was BS as they were saying it.
      - jandrese 8y ago
        This part was NASA's fault when it cancelled the heavy launcher program. The Shuttle was supposed to just be a way to ferry people into orbit. Heavy hauling was supposed to be done with a different rocket. Cancelling the heavy hauler put all of the burden on the Shuttle and forced it to be a jack of all trades. Ironically in the name of cost savings they made the most expensive system possible.
5874-4b22-a4e0 8y ago
I doubt a better design could have been come up with even if they had a copy of kerbal space program back in the day.
- pfdietz 8y ago
  Minimum Cost Design expendable boosters would have been far better than the Shuttle. And they could have been designed in the 1960s, when Arthur Schnitt came out with the idea. One can view the (expendable) F9 as an implementation of MCD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_dumb_booster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_dumb_booster

nine_k 8y ago

The second paragraph is the point I was trying to make. Thank you for explicating it.

jandrese 8y ago

The Shuttle also had bonkers flight profile requirements (polar launch from Vandenburg and an immediate landing) from the Air Force that severely impacted its affordability.

howard941 8y ago
As well as questionable payload requirements such as carrying the Centaur upper stage...
- DuskStar 8y ago
  It may have been a rather silly idea but it wasn't on the same level of impracticality as the Air Force's "launch into a polar orbit, capture a satellite, and land in one orbit" requirement. The first Shuttle-Centaur launch was scheduled for only a few months after the Challenger disaster occurred, so it was at least something that would have been used. On the other hand, the Air Force never even finished building a Shuttle launch complex at Vandenberg, let alone use the once-around capabilities.
  - pfdietz 8y ago
    I thought the cross range requirement came from the necessity of "Abort Once Around" in polar launches. More deeply, the Air Force was blamed for adding requirements to the Shuttle, when the real problem was the Shuttle had such tenuous economic justification that it needed to pretend it had as many customers as it could. Never mind that much of the projected manifest (and projected flight rate) was an outright lie that the knew was BS as they were saying it.
    - jandrese 8y ago
      This part was NASA's fault when it cancelled the heavy launcher program. The Shuttle was supposed to just be a way to ferry people into orbit. Heavy hauling was supposed to be done with a different rocket. Cancelling the heavy hauler put all of the burden on the Shuttle and forced it to be a jack of all trades. Ironically in the name of cost savings they made the most expensive system possible.

5874-4b22-a4e0 8y ago

I doubt a better design could have been come up with even if they had a copy of kerbal space program back in the day.

pfdietz 8y ago
Minimum Cost Design expendable boosters would have been far better than the Shuttle. And they could have been designed in the 1960s, when Arthur Schnitt came out with the idea. One can view the (expendable) F9 as an implementation of MCD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_dumb_booster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_dumb_booster