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It's not too expensive for governments to do it, and it doesn't have to be private enterprise. Neither of those things are true. Nor is it even clear that it wo
by lordlic 6y ago
It's not too expensive for governments to do it, and it doesn't have to be private enterprise. Neither of those things are true. Nor is it even clear that it would be cheaper to contract with some private provider to boost the ISS than for the space agencies to figure it out themselves with the launch vehicles they have. How do you think NASA, ESA, etc build rockets anyway? They contract with Lockheed, Boeing, Airbus, Northrop, and others to build them. Having the whole operation be under the auspices of SpaceX doesn't do much other than make other governments more reluctant to help fund it.
- WalterBright 6y agoGovernment contracting is not at all indicative of how the free market works. Also, the free market would never have built a design like the space shuttle. Pushing very heavy wings and landing gear into space doesn't make sense and never did.
- NewLogic 6y agoIt was actually the side-mount design that made the least sense. It left the heatshield completely exposed to ice and insulation strikes.
- WalterBright 6y agoTo be fair, the magnitude of that risk was not realized in the design phase. Though one could hardly miss the giant, heavy wings & landing gear and the heavy structure to support it. That was obvious to me at the time, and I often wondered why no article about the shuttle ever mentioned it. Musk figured out a far better way to make a reusable rocket. All it needs is a bit of extra fuel that is burned at the last second. (Playing the Lunar Lander game in college, I soon realized that the minimum fuel burn to land it was to fall ballistically and go to full power as late as possible, hitting 0 fps just as one touched down.)
- blackrock 6y agoCould they have mounted 2 space shuttles, bottom to bottom, instead? Where the 2nd space shuttle was the fuel tank, and it lands somewhere down range, and is then transported back to the launch center by barge.
- krallja 6y agoYes, a crewed fuel tank was one of the designs considered, as was three shuttles (2 crewed tanks + 1 ship) in a triangle. Visit the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum Annex in Virginia if you ever get a chance, there’s an exhibit on all the proposed designs. We got the worst possible one.
- WalterBright 6y agoAnother set of heavy wings and landing gear to push up.