4 ms·

All true, however, (splitting hairs, yes), the reason FH9 can best the shuttle boosters is because they had to carry the shuttle itself, which was around 50 ton

All true, however, (splitting hairs, yes), the reason FH9 can best the shuttle boosters is because they had to carry the shuttle itself, which was around 50 tons.

bane 6y ago
I wonder, as a percentage of launch vehicle, how much mass the shuttle program managed to reuse after a mission vs. the F9Heavy? It turns out not having to "shuttle" half a dozen humans up to orbit every time you want to get something up there is a good idea.
- yellowapple 6y ago
  Was the full crew necessarily just to put things in orbit? My impression was that most of the crew was doing other sorts of science and such because they might as well do so while the Shuttle's out in space (and later to get as many people into the ISS as possible per trip, which the Crew Falcon should now be able to do - maybe not to the same degree as the Shuttle, but certainly to a better degree than Soyuz).
  - bkanber 6y ago
    Most shuttle missions had 5-7 crew members. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Shuttle_crews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Shuttle_crews At minimum, each mission had a commander and pilot. Then there were missions specialists and payload specialists, which depended on the specific mission the shuttle was carrying out. There's always a lot of work to do, so it makes sense that they'd maximize for productivity.
- VLM 6y ago
  Its cheap light and easy to haul a half dozen humans home in a capsule, but its complicated and heavy to haul down immensely heavy satellites with a decent cross range such that you could land next orbit on friendly territory at all times. Remember the shuttle "had to" be all things to all people, and the military demands ended up being VERY heavy and expensive. At this time AFAIK nobody has the technical ability to snatch a Soviet spy sat and take it home, or haul strange and heavy (many ton) electronic warfare payloads over a target and land next orbit on NATO turf. Now, WHY you'd want to, or SHOULD you want to, are outside the bounds of this discussion, but the shuttle certainly had that kind of military stuff as a very expensive and very heavy design req.
calaphos 6y ago
Turns out it is a lot more useful to (potentially) reuse the first stage than to carry a lot of additional weight to reuse the last stage.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  Well, but the Shuttle SRBs were reusable. The only non-reusable part was the external fuel tank. But yeah, sending something as big as a bus up and down was probably the bane of it.
  - avmich 6y ago
    > Well, but the Shuttle SRBs were reusable. But to use them again a lot of efforts had to be spent, comparing to what's possible with first stages of F9. That's why Shuttle boosters are called refurbishable.
  - cdash 6y ago
    If you call rebuilding an engine every time reusable. SRBs and reusable do not go together at all.

All true, however, (splitting hairs, yes), the reason FH9 can best the shuttle boosters is because they had to carry the shuttle itself, which was around 50 tons.

bane 6y ago

I wonder, as a percentage of launch vehicle, how much mass the shuttle program managed to reuse after a mission vs. the F9Heavy? It turns out not having to "shuttle" half a dozen humans up to orbit every time you want to get something up there is a good idea.

yellowapple 6y ago
Was the full crew necessarily just to put things in orbit? My impression was that most of the crew was doing other sorts of science and such because they might as well do so while the Shuttle's out in space (and later to get as many people into the ISS as possible per trip, which the Crew Falcon should now be able to do - maybe not to the same degree as the Shuttle, but certainly to a better degree than Soyuz).
- bkanber 6y ago
  Most shuttle missions had 5-7 crew members. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Shuttle_crews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Shuttle_crews At minimum, each mission had a commander and pilot. Then there were missions specialists and payload specialists, which depended on the specific mission the shuttle was carrying out. There's always a lot of work to do, so it makes sense that they'd maximize for productivity.
VLM 6y ago
Its cheap light and easy to haul a half dozen humans home in a capsule, but its complicated and heavy to haul down immensely heavy satellites with a decent cross range such that you could land next orbit on friendly territory at all times. Remember the shuttle "had to" be all things to all people, and the military demands ended up being VERY heavy and expensive. At this time AFAIK nobody has the technical ability to snatch a Soviet spy sat and take it home, or haul strange and heavy (many ton) electronic warfare payloads over a target and land next orbit on NATO turf. Now, WHY you'd want to, or SHOULD you want to, are outside the bounds of this discussion, but the shuttle certainly had that kind of military stuff as a very expensive and very heavy design req.

calaphos 6y ago

Turns out it is a lot more useful to (potentially) reuse the first stage than to carry a lot of additional weight to reuse the last stage.

raverbashing 6y ago
Well, but the Shuttle SRBs were reusable. The only non-reusable part was the external fuel tank. But yeah, sending something as big as a bus up and down was probably the bane of it.
- avmich 6y ago
  > Well, but the Shuttle SRBs were reusable. But to use them again a lot of efforts had to be spent, comparing to what's possible with first stages of F9. That's why Shuttle boosters are called refurbishable.
- cdash 6y ago
  If you call rebuilding an engine every time reusable. SRBs and reusable do not go together at all.