4 ms·

The shuttle might as well have been disposable for all the inefficiencies in its design. If it was really reusable and cost effective we'd still be using it.

by EricE 3y ago

The shuttle might as well have been disposable for all the inefficiencies in its design. If it was really reusable and cost effective we'd still be using it. Guess what - we aren't.

mulmen 3y ago
That’s a strange conclusion. A 1978 Ford Fairmont does everything the common person needs in a car. But there was room for improvement in terms of features, reliability, and efficiency. So we continued to develop cars. Expecting any vehicle to be perfect is unrealistic. Even the Falcon 9 has evolved. SpaceX is working on another vehicle that is even more efficient. The shuttle had flaws but it was reusable.
- mcv 3y ago
  But the Shuttle was retired well before the US had a replacement ready. For quite some time, the US was dependent on the Russian Soyuz. It was technically reusable, but at a pretty steep cost. It was not very efficient.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    With respect to the missions the US government cares the most about, the US did have replacements for the Shuttles. Namely Atlas V and Delta IV. After ISS construction was finished, there was little point in keeping the shuttle around just to ferry people around unsafely. Launching people into space is more of a side gig to keep a steady stream of young idealistic recruits coming in. Letting that lapse for a few years was demoralizing (less demoralizing than losing a third shuttle would have been) but not a real problem for the US government otherwise. Incidentally, Atlas V used/uses Russian engines. Pretty bad idea in retrospect but at the time a lot of people thought it seemed reasonable.
  - mulmen 3y ago
    Nobody claimed the Shuttle was efficient. The claim is that Musk gave us reusable rockets. NASA did that.
mcpackieh 3y ago
It was a hell of a lot cheaper to refurbish and reuse a shuttle than to build a new one each time. That's why 135 shuttle missions were flown with 5 shuttles instead of 135 shuttles. It's true that refurbishment between use was far more expensive and time consuming than had been planned, however it was a hell of a lot cheaper than building a new shuttle each time. Refurbishing a shuttle took months but building Endeavour to replace Challenger took several years and cost several orders of magnitude more. There can be no serious question that the shuttle orbiters were mostly reusable. > cost effective That's another matter entirely. It would have been cheaper to use conventional disposable rockets. Even better than that is reusable conventional rockets; the economic sense of which has now been demonstrated by Falcon 9.
- mulmen 3y ago
  Falcon 9 and STS do not have the same capabilities. F9 can match STS on payload but only if the booster is expended. With booster recovery F9 payload to LEO is ~25% less than STS. Falcon 9 has no capability to recover payload from space like STS [1]. They're different vehicles with different missions. We didn't need the shuttle anymore so we reallocated resources. All the F9 ISS missions are only happening because we had STS to build the ISS in the first place. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-A

by EricE 3y ago

The shuttle might as well have been disposable for all the inefficiencies in its design. If it was really reusable and cost effective we'd still be using it. Guess what - we aren't.

mulmen 3y ago

That’s a strange conclusion. A 1978 Ford Fairmont does everything the common person needs in a car. But there was room for improvement in terms of features, reliability, and efficiency. So we continued to develop cars. Expecting any vehicle to be perfect is unrealistic. Even the Falcon 9 has evolved. SpaceX is working on another vehicle that is even more efficient. The shuttle had flaws but it was reusable.

mcv 3y ago
But the Shuttle was retired well before the US had a replacement ready. For quite some time, the US was dependent on the Russian Soyuz. It was technically reusable, but at a pretty steep cost. It was not very efficient.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  With respect to the missions the US government cares the most about, the US did have replacements for the Shuttles. Namely Atlas V and Delta IV. After ISS construction was finished, there was little point in keeping the shuttle around just to ferry people around unsafely. Launching people into space is more of a side gig to keep a steady stream of young idealistic recruits coming in. Letting that lapse for a few years was demoralizing (less demoralizing than losing a third shuttle would have been) but not a real problem for the US government otherwise. Incidentally, Atlas V used/uses Russian engines. Pretty bad idea in retrospect but at the time a lot of people thought it seemed reasonable.
- mulmen 3y ago
  Nobody claimed the Shuttle was efficient. The claim is that Musk gave us reusable rockets. NASA did that.

mcpackieh 3y ago

It was a hell of a lot cheaper to refurbish and reuse a shuttle than to build a new one each time. That's why 135 shuttle missions were flown with 5 shuttles instead of 135 shuttles. It's true that refurbishment between use was far more expensive and time consuming than had been planned, however it was a hell of a lot cheaper than building a new shuttle each time. Refurbishing a shuttle took months but building Endeavour to replace Challenger took several years and cost several orders of magnitude more. There can be no serious question that the shuttle orbiters were mostly reusable. > cost effective That's another matter entirely. It would have been cheaper to use conventional disposable rockets. Even better than that is reusable conventional rockets; the economic sense of which has now been demonstrated by Falcon 9.

mulmen 3y ago
Falcon 9 and STS do not have the same capabilities. F9 can match STS on payload but only if the booster is expended. With booster recovery F9 payload to LEO is ~25% less than STS. Falcon 9 has no capability to recover payload from space like STS [1]. They're different vehicles with different missions. We didn't need the shuttle anymore so we reallocated resources. All the F9 ISS missions are only happening because we had STS to build the ISS in the first place. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-51-A