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Except that the space shuttle solid rocket boosters were recovered and reused. From Wikipediea: "Out of 270 SRBs launched over the Shuttle program, all but fou
by reddog 4y ago
Except that the space shuttle solid rocket boosters were recovered and reused.
From Wikipediea: "Out of 270 SRBs launched over the Shuttle program, all but four were recovered – those from STS-4 (due to a parachute malfunction) and STS-51-L (destroyed by range safety during the Challenger disaster).[6] Over 5,000 parts were refurbished for reuse after each flight. The final set of SRBs that launched STS-135 included parts that had flown on 59 previous missions, including STS-1.[7] Recovery also allowed post-flight examination of the boosters,[8] identification of anomalies, and incremental design improvements"
Also the rockets on the shuttle itself were landed and reused.
- ktpecot 4y agoCalling the shuttle reusable is such a massive stretch. It’s like the shuttle of Theseus they basically had to rebuild it every time and it cost something like 1.5 billion dollars. Basically could’ve built a brand new rocket every time.
- dylan604 4y agoRecovery of the first stage of SpaceX rockets is not even close to being the same thing as reuse of the shuttle. Surviving re-entry is a completely different set of specs than floating through atmosphere at a much much slower rate of descent.
- _0w8t 4y agoThe first stage of SpaceX is the most expensive part with nine engines. The second stage is just single engine. Plus SpaceX reuse fairings and the Dragon is also reusable. So re-usable parts are like 95% and expendable parts are vastly cheaper than Shuttle refurbishing.
- ktpecot 4y agoI mean from a technological point of view sure, but that just shows how bad the design was(compared to what we know now). The falcon program shows that it’s obviously way more economical to just ditch the 2nd stage and reuse the booster. F9 launches cost sub 20 million and a shuttle launch costs on the order of a billion. Squabble over whatever details you want about performance or who had to do what R&D but F9 is clearly in a different league.
- dylan604 4y ago> Squabble over whatever details you want about performance or who had to do what R&D but F9 is clearly in a different league. Falcon 9 First launch attempt 2007 [0] Shuttle First launch 1981 [1] I wonder if there's an advantage to having 26 years of watching someone else before designing yours? You also act like the rockets from the shuttle were not reused. They always (except for 2 instances) came back with the shuttle. The SRBs were also recovered, so it's not like these were wasted. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_boosters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_b... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle
- ktpecot 4y agoI’m not disputing SpaceX had the advantage of learning from peoples mistakes. And I’m not arguing that they didn’t physically get the engines and boosters back I’m just saying that calling the space shuttle and F9 both reusable may be semantically true but is really not giving an accurate representation.
- dylan604 4y agoSpaceX is also contributing to the increasing amounts of space junk. How long is the second stage just floating around after delivering payloads? Once the shuttle delivered payloads, it just left nothing but space.
- ktpecot 4y agoLol are you just making stuff up now? The second stage re enters the atmosphere and burns up.
- dylan604 4y agoNo, it was a legit question. It depends on the payload though right? For StarLink deployments at LEO, I'm sure it re-enters soon-ish. But what about for higher altitude launches of other types of satellites? How long does the second stage float around?
- mlindner 4y agoThey also lugged a large amount of extra dry mass into space because of the mass of the orbiter. The part that was least important to re-use and most expensive to re-use is the part that was re-used the most.
- dylan604 4y agomaybe, but it was the coolest part to re-use. whatever inefficiencies the shuttle had that people squabble over, it was a very inspiring program. not sure how much inspiration to a small kid a SpaceX launch is, but i know exactly how much the shuttle was.
- drusepth 4y ago>not sure how much inspiration to a small kid a SpaceX launch is, but i know exactly how much the shuttle was. From what I've seen, it sounds like many kids these days feel the same way about SpaceX launches now as you did about the shuttle (incredibly inspiring). I hope that's reassuring.
- dylan604 4y agoit is. i know that i flew my shuttle around my room much more than my apollo rockets. my fighter jets had a hard time keeping up with the shuttle in my room too. i once saw footage of the "chase" planes as the shuttle screamed past them on approach. just so much more "cool" to the shuttle than a capsule.
- Robotbeat 4y agoThis video showing kids’ reaction to the Falcon Heavy inaugural launch is pretty fun. The dual-landing is absolutely insane. Straight up science fiction. https://youtu.be/A0FZIwabctw https://youtu.be/A0FZIwabctw
- mannerheim 4y agoWhat do kids have to do with anything? The goal is to get to space affordably and reliably; the shuttle failed on both fronts SpaceX is succeeding at.
- sdifognoinio 4y agoThis number is total nonsense. It is derived from simply dividing the total cost of the program by the number of launches. This is useless. First, the R&D costs were sunk all the way back in the '70s. Second, the cost of personnel, operations, and facilities do not necessarily scale with the number of launches. NASA put the cost of a launch at about $450 million in 2011, but that is pessimistic. That is simply the years cost divided by the number of launches in that year. The marginal cost, i.e. the cost of going from N launches to N+1, will always be lower. The Shuttle was designed to fly 24 missions per year and actually flew an average of under five missions per year. The lack of demand was a substantial reason for the high cost. I find it tedious that every conversation on this topic has to start with the same tired old memes. No, the Shuttle did not cost $1.5 billion per launch. No, reusable launch vehicles are not new. No, not even reusable launch vehicles that land vertically under power are new. No, the price to LEO has not fallen by an order of magnitude. No, ULA is not dead in the water. No, neither is Ariane. Yes, the Shuttle program was badly mismanaged. Yes, the Falcon 9 is pretty cool.
- ploxiln 4y agoI didn't know the SRB components were also re-used! It's a useful clarification that the Space Shuttle program had a large amount of reuse in the design ... but it still cost over a billion dollars for each reuse, many multiples of e.g. fully expended soyuz. So until SpaceX proved that reuse could be done well, and economically, it wasn't obvious. Now it's super obvious and practically all space programs are frantically trying to catch up. (The SS could carry fairly large ISS module payloads into orbit, while cheaper rockets/spacecraft couldn't ... but couldn't get to high orbits or beyond ... details details.)
- _0w8t 4y agoThere are estimates that the production cost of Soyuz is less than 20 millions USD, https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/48592/what-is-the-cost-of-production-or-sale-of-a-soyuz-spacecraft https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/48592/what-is-the-... It is not clear if SpaceX is there per flight. They still need to spent several weeks on refurbishing of the landed booster.
- Faark 4y agoWe should keep in mind that Soyuz is the name of both a manned space capsule (like dragon / cst100), but also a rocket family (like falcon). You link seems to be specifically about Soyuz MS, a capsule. No idea how much SpaceX spends on refurbishing dragon.
- Robotbeat 4y agoSeveral weeks on-site vs years in a factory on the other side of the country. It’s a clear win. Marginal per launch cost is on the order of $15 million, including the price of a new upper stage. More full cost including GSE and amortization on the booster and fairing more like $25 million.
- justapassenger 4y agoNo outsider knows if Falcon reuse is economical. SpaceX keeps on raising money (they have a lot of going on, so that’s not surprising) and without insight into financials we don’t known if their launches are subsidized by VC money.
- allenrb 4y agoMostly the heavy steel booster cases were reused, iirc. I don’t believe the reuse process was ever cost-effective. As for the Shuttles themselves, so much inspection and refurb was required that it made reuse look unattractive. SpaceX is getting the entire first stage back in mostly flight-worthy condition. Nobody outside the company truly knows how much work is done between flights but it appears to be vastly less than Shuttle.
- bumby 4y ago>mostly flight-worthy condition. Can you expand on this? I've looked for information on how much rework they require but have never come up with a good explanation. I'm curious because spaceflight requirements are typically very stringent and refurbishing back to those requirements isn't a trivial task. A lot of the cost for Shuttle was refurbishing to meet the quality requirements.
- 93po 4y agoI could be wrong but I believe they use brand new first stages for any manned mission because the stakes are higher. And they allow customers to elect for a brand new first stage at added cost. So the standards for refurbishment may be not quite as strict for regular payload/resupply missions because worst case scenario you're blowing up tens of millions of dollars of equipment/supplies instead of 3 human beings.
- bumby 4y agoThis makes sense and falls inline with how NASA has always ratcheted up requirements as the risk increases. The highest risk level is human-rated flight, but they also gauge things like payload cost and "one-of-a-kind" nature of payloads.
- Faark 4y agoI remember this as well, generally for nasa launches, initially. But certainly isn't the case anymore for commercial crew. B1061 launched both Crew-1 & Crew-2, B1067 both Crew-3 & Crew-4 (with a commercial launch in-between). Crew-5 was new and Crew-6 seems to be planned as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_boosters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_first-stage_b...
- mlindner 4y agoThey weren't fully re-used as each shuttle booster ejected the engine nozzle right before impact with the water. Additionally, they had to be disassembled before re-filling with fuel. It was re-manufacturing versus re-use.