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I remember a common talking point for space shuttle haters (aka people who use the word "boondoggle" way too damn much) was that it's a truck and we don't need

by WWLink 2y ago

I remember a common talking point for space shuttle haters (aka people who use the word "boondoggle" way too damn much) was that it's a truck and we don't need a space truck. If it was a truck what is starship?

DiggyJohnson 2y ago
A much much much cheaper truck.
perihelions 2y ago
It's a very good point! From one perspective, you can view Starship as a challenge that SpaceX can implement the STS (Shuttle) concept much better than the original STS itself. (And doing so, become cheap enough to create a high-volume orbital launch market). It's correct to be skeptical, even with SpaceX' track record. (Was it pg or whoever on HN who kept railing on that point about YC startups, that the implementation is everything—high-level ideas and concepts come cheap). If Starship's proven a lot of things, there's still major show-stopping uncertainties remaining, like if they can execute well on the reentry heat-shield tiles. That was overwhelmingly difficult for STS. I'm not knowledgeable enough to guess if SpaceX is on a promising track with those or not—I'm looking forward to finding out what happens! (Here's an open-ended question: if the modern SpaceX were asked to build a reusable spacecraft with (broadly) the same design choices as STS, would the outcome be closer to the dismal failure of the original, or to the success of Falcon 9? That is to say: how much of SpaceX' success do they owe to smart high-level design choices, vs. effective low-level execution?)
- Yossarrian22 2y ago
  By same design choices do you mean that it is mandated that an essentially reusable cargo truck be mounted to the side(s) of booster(s)/tank? Because that was the shuttle's damning sin. Besides the collapse of the USSR there's a reason the Buran wasn't further pursued, and commercial space hasn't pursued a similar form factor.
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    It's using the same engine as the Space Shuttle (literally - it's using refurbished engines from the Space Shuttle [1]), exact same solid rock boosters with all their flaws, and so on. One difference from the Shuttle is that the SLS doesn't even have a pretext of reuse. It's a single-use only rocket. One other big difference is that it's also obsolete before it's even complete. It can lift about 50% more than a Falcon Heavy for what will be orders of magnitude greater cost, to say nothing of comparisons to Starship. So there's no viable use case for it to ever actually be used, except for corruption. So it will be used, but it's just been a monumental waste of money that could have instead been directed towards meaningful progress in space. The entire Apollo program which spanned 11 years and started from zero, only cost $180 billion in total, inflation adjusted - less than $18 billion a year. NASA's current budget is $26 billion per year. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Core_stage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Core_stage
- cryptonector 2y ago
  > if the modern SpaceX were asked to build a reusable spacecraft with (broadly) the same design choices as STS, [...] That depends on which design choices should stay the same. The boosters and the main tank were bad design choices that made reuse unattainable. With Falcon 9's and Starships reusability lessons in mind perhaps one could make the boosters just part of the main tank, all methalox burning, and have the main tank land itself. With the booster and main tank design choices disposed of, the remaining major design choice would be that the shuttle had to be a space plane that could land like a plane. That seems like a tremendous waste of weight which would keep the new program from being broadly successful at being cheap, though it might not be fatal I suppose. But at this point Falcon 9 has a better reliability record including landings since they figured out landings than the shuttle did altogether since the STS became "mature".
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    At a deeper level, the shuttle failed because technical success was secondary to political success. It wasn't started because Nixon wanted cheap launch; it was started because Nixon wanted votes in California in 1972. Legislators didn't support it for technical reasons, but because it brought funding to their constituents. If ever technical decisions had to be made they had to be filtered politically, and only if they continued to meet political constraints could they be adopted. In particular, optimizing it to reduce manpower requirements was contrary to political goals. In contrast, SpaceX is focused on technical/economic success as the first and overriding goal. As a result, they've run rings around what NASA could do. NASA is by its nature hamstrung in comparison; witness the abortion of SLS, which is showing the same pathology in even more virulent form. NASA didn't fail on the shuttle because of particular choices made, but because NASA essentially could not make good choices. Europe saw the same problem with Ariane 6.
    - cryptonector 2y ago
      > At a deeper level, the shuttle failed because technical success was secondary to political success. [...] Yes, there is also all of that. That's another thing: neither SpaceX nor any other private company would make the same design mistakes as the space shuttle program for the simple reason that private companies want to succeed. But government agencies will gladly make the same sorts of mistakes in slightly different ways (as in the SLS case) precisely because success is not actually required and none of the people making decisions have anything to lose anyways.
pfdietz 2y ago
The Space Shuttle wasn't a boondoggle because it was a truck; it was a boondoggle because it was an incredibly expensive truck. It failed utterly at the ostensible and valid reasons it was constructed, to make access to space cheap and routine.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Where the shuttle led, cyber truck has followed.
  - justinclift 2y ago
    The cyber truck is just a follower. The Roadster got there first: https://where-is-tesla-roadster.space/live https://where-is-tesla-roadster.space/live
- namaria 2y ago
  The reason it was expensive was the military specs (be able to land back home after one orbit etc). The goal of the space shuttle was also to help drive USSR to bankruptcy and it delivered. The soviet counterpart was a huge resource drain and did exactly nothing.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    The reason for military specs was the case for the Shuttle was so marginal it required fantastical projections of launch rates and launch market to make the numbers work (and all that was far too optimistic, as subsequence experience showed). This required all government launch customers to use it. NASA desperately needed the military on board; the military didn't want it and had to be strong armed into supporting it. That military requirements were then added has to be the responsibility of NASA (or of NASA's political masters) for forcing the military to be a customer.
- akira2501 2y ago
  It was designed to put classified satellites in orbit and possibly go recover them. In the long run it somewhat paid off for the repair Hubble missions. It was also a pretty cool truck. It generated 21kW of power, using Hydrogen/Oxygen fuel cells, and captured the output water for use on missions. During most of it's life it had to send the excess water overboard, but when it came to ISS, they started bagging it up and transferring it to the station. The power itself, the payload bay, the payload manipulation arm made this a pretty nice platform to build ISS with. Which was a natural consequence of the shuttle not being good for much else than building space stations and recovering spy satellites before the Russians did. In terms of a natural step in our evolution towards a space faring society it was an incredible vehicle and it inspired the imagination of everyone who watched it fly.
rkagerer 2y ago
A freighter?
1oooqooq 2y ago
ironically those people love the agencies who forced nasa to make the shuttle extremely expensive, because the secondary purpose was to bankrupt the Russians, who were beating them in all aspects of the space race. shuttle delivered even on that goal. akira2501 comment explain how it was awesome in the number one goal.

by WWLink 2y ago

DiggyJohnson 2y ago

A much much much cheaper truck.

perihelions 2y ago

It's a very good point! From one perspective, you can view Starship as a challenge that SpaceX can implement the STS (Shuttle) concept much better than the original STS itself. (And doing so, become cheap enough to create a high-volume orbital launch market). It's correct to be skeptical, even with SpaceX' track record. (Was it pg or whoever on HN who kept railing on that point about YC startups, that the implementation is everything—high-level ideas and concepts come cheap). If Starship's proven a lot of things, there's still major show-stopping uncertainties remaining, like if they can execute well on the reentry heat-shield tiles. That was overwhelmingly difficult for STS. I'm not knowledgeable enough to guess if SpaceX is on a promising track with those or not—I'm looking forward to finding out what happens! (Here's an open-ended question: if the modern SpaceX were asked to build a reusable spacecraft with (broadly) the same design choices as STS, would the outcome be closer to the dismal failure of the original, or to the success of Falcon 9? That is to say: how much of SpaceX' success do they owe to smart high-level design choices, vs. effective low-level execution?)

Yossarrian22 2y ago
By same design choices do you mean that it is mandated that an essentially reusable cargo truck be mounted to the side(s) of booster(s)/tank? Because that was the shuttle's damning sin. Besides the collapse of the USSR there's a reason the Buran wasn't further pursued, and commercial space hasn't pursued a similar form factor.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  It's using the same engine as the Space Shuttle (literally - it's using refurbished engines from the Space Shuttle [1]), exact same solid rock boosters with all their flaws, and so on. One difference from the Shuttle is that the SLS doesn't even have a pretext of reuse. It's a single-use only rocket. One other big difference is that it's also obsolete before it's even complete. It can lift about 50% more than a Falcon Heavy for what will be orders of magnitude greater cost, to say nothing of comparisons to Starship. So there's no viable use case for it to ever actually be used, except for corruption. So it will be used, but it's just been a monumental waste of money that could have instead been directed towards meaningful progress in space. The entire Apollo program which spanned 11 years and started from zero, only cost $180 billion in total, inflation adjusted - less than $18 billion a year. NASA's current budget is $26 billion per year. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Core_stage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System#Core_stage
cryptonector 2y ago
> if the modern SpaceX were asked to build a reusable spacecraft with (broadly) the same design choices as STS, [...] That depends on which design choices should stay the same. The boosters and the main tank were bad design choices that made reuse unattainable. With Falcon 9's and Starships reusability lessons in mind perhaps one could make the boosters just part of the main tank, all methalox burning, and have the main tank land itself. With the booster and main tank design choices disposed of, the remaining major design choice would be that the shuttle had to be a space plane that could land like a plane. That seems like a tremendous waste of weight which would keep the new program from being broadly successful at being cheap, though it might not be fatal I suppose. But at this point Falcon 9 has a better reliability record including landings since they figured out landings than the shuttle did altogether since the STS became "mature".
- pfdietz 2y ago
  At a deeper level, the shuttle failed because technical success was secondary to political success. It wasn't started because Nixon wanted cheap launch; it was started because Nixon wanted votes in California in 1972. Legislators didn't support it for technical reasons, but because it brought funding to their constituents. If ever technical decisions had to be made they had to be filtered politically, and only if they continued to meet political constraints could they be adopted. In particular, optimizing it to reduce manpower requirements was contrary to political goals. In contrast, SpaceX is focused on technical/economic success as the first and overriding goal. As a result, they've run rings around what NASA could do. NASA is by its nature hamstrung in comparison; witness the abortion of SLS, which is showing the same pathology in even more virulent form. NASA didn't fail on the shuttle because of particular choices made, but because NASA essentially could not make good choices. Europe saw the same problem with Ariane 6.
  - cryptonector 2y ago
    > At a deeper level, the shuttle failed because technical success was secondary to political success. [...] Yes, there is also all of that. That's another thing: neither SpaceX nor any other private company would make the same design mistakes as the space shuttle program for the simple reason that private companies want to succeed. But government agencies will gladly make the same sorts of mistakes in slightly different ways (as in the SLS case) precisely because success is not actually required and none of the people making decisions have anything to lose anyways.

pfdietz 2y ago

The Space Shuttle wasn't a boondoggle because it was a truck; it was a boondoggle because it was an incredibly expensive truck. It failed utterly at the ostensible and valid reasons it was constructed, to make access to space cheap and routine.

dylan604 2y ago
Where the shuttle led, cyber truck has followed.
- justinclift 2y ago
  The cyber truck is just a follower. The Roadster got there first: https://where-is-tesla-roadster.space/live https://where-is-tesla-roadster.space/live
namaria 2y ago
The reason it was expensive was the military specs (be able to land back home after one orbit etc). The goal of the space shuttle was also to help drive USSR to bankruptcy and it delivered. The soviet counterpart was a huge resource drain and did exactly nothing.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  The reason for military specs was the case for the Shuttle was so marginal it required fantastical projections of launch rates and launch market to make the numbers work (and all that was far too optimistic, as subsequence experience showed). This required all government launch customers to use it. NASA desperately needed the military on board; the military didn't want it and had to be strong armed into supporting it. That military requirements were then added has to be the responsibility of NASA (or of NASA's political masters) for forcing the military to be a customer.
akira2501 2y ago
It was designed to put classified satellites in orbit and possibly go recover them. In the long run it somewhat paid off for the repair Hubble missions. It was also a pretty cool truck. It generated 21kW of power, using Hydrogen/Oxygen fuel cells, and captured the output water for use on missions. During most of it's life it had to send the excess water overboard, but when it came to ISS, they started bagging it up and transferring it to the station. The power itself, the payload bay, the payload manipulation arm made this a pretty nice platform to build ISS with. Which was a natural consequence of the shuttle not being good for much else than building space stations and recovering spy satellites before the Russians did. In terms of a natural step in our evolution towards a space faring society it was an incredible vehicle and it inspired the imagination of everyone who watched it fly.

rkagerer 2y ago

A freighter?

1oooqooq 2y ago

ironically those people love the agencies who forced nasa to make the shuttle extremely expensive, because the secondary purpose was to bankrupt the Russians, who were beating them in all aspects of the space race. shuttle delivered even on that goal. akira2501 comment explain how it was awesome in the number one goal.