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> 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 shou

> 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 3y 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 3y 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.
pseudosavant 3y ago
And even once it was "mature" the number of near loss of craft events that happened was far too high. There were many times they landed missing too many tiles, more tiles than they thought.
- Intralexical 3y ago
  > One report describes the crew as "infuriated" that Mission Control Center seemed unconcerned. When Gibson saw the damage he thought to himself, "We are going to die"; he and others did not believe that the shuttle would survive reentry. Gibson advised the crew to relax because "No use dying all tensed-up", he said, but if instruments indicated that the shuttle was disintegrating, Gibson planned to "tell mission control what I thought of their analysis" in the remaining seconds before his death. > Mullane recalled that while filming the reentry through the upper deck's overhead windows, "I had visions of molten aluminum being smeared backwards, like rain on a windshield". Although the shuttle landed safely, "The damage was much worse than any of us had expected", he wrote. Upon landing, the magnitude of the damage to the shuttle astonished NASA; over 700 damaged tiles were noted, and one tile was missing altogether. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-27#Tile_damage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-27#Tile_damage

pfdietz 3y 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 3y 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.

pseudosavant 3y ago

And even once it was "mature" the number of near loss of craft events that happened was far too high. There were many times they landed missing too many tiles, more tiles than they thought.

Intralexical 3y ago
> One report describes the crew as "infuriated" that Mission Control Center seemed unconcerned. When Gibson saw the damage he thought to himself, "We are going to die"; he and others did not believe that the shuttle would survive reentry. Gibson advised the crew to relax because "No use dying all tensed-up", he said, but if instruments indicated that the shuttle was disintegrating, Gibson planned to "tell mission control what I thought of their analysis" in the remaining seconds before his death. > Mullane recalled that while filming the reentry through the upper deck's overhead windows, "I had visions of molten aluminum being smeared backwards, like rain on a windshield". Although the shuttle landed safely, "The damage was much worse than any of us had expected", he wrote. Upon landing, the magnitude of the damage to the shuttle astonished NASA; over 700 damaged tiles were noted, and one tile was missing altogether. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-27#Tile_damage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-27#Tile_damage