4 ms·

>often printing thousands of lines per flight >with a Shuttle flight costing $27,000 per pound, putting the 59-pound teleprinter in space cost over $1.5 millio

by dTal 2y ago

>often printing thousands of lines per flight >with a Shuttle flight costing $27,000 per pound, putting the 59-pound teleprinter in space cost over $1.5 million per flight. That budget calculation is just the weight of the printer itself. I am curious how much blank paper was flown to feed it, and how this was decided? From the font size shown in photo we can assume it was at least several more pounds of paper for "thousands of lines" to be true.

kens 2y ago
The printer took a big roll of paper, maybe 5 inches in diameter (although I don't have it here to check). I was a bit surprised that they didn't trim the roll down to the minimum size necessary, but just used a full roll. I guess they didn't want to waste paper :-) Also, I'm surprised that they used cheap-looking yellow paper rather than white paper, but maybe there's a reason teletypes used yellow paper. (The paper hasn't yellowed due to age; it's yellow in contemporary photos.)
- Stratoscope 2y ago
  Most or all Teletype paper was yellow in the 1970s when I learned to program on Teletypes. Apparently white paper is more common today. (It looks like you used white in one of your photos.)
  - kens 2y ago
    The photo with white paper is the Thermal Impulse Printer System, a different printer from the Interim Teleprinter. As far as I can tell, the teleprinter always used yellow paper. (This helps to figure out which printer is being used on the Shuttle in a photo, since the captions are usually wrong.)
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    I remember the yellowish teletype paper rolls from when I was a kid. I always assumed it was just inexpensive paper that was not bleached to pure white. I have never heard of a reason it was that particular color. Some quick searching indicates that yellow is easier on the eyes than pure white (that is given as the reason legal pads are yellow). Or that different wire services would use different color paper. E.g. news wires used white paper, weather services used yellow. So news editors would know the source by the color of the paper.
  - noisy_boy 2y ago
    Maybe in the space shuttle surroundings, white/black/grey are more common than yellow so a printout in yellow could be spotted more easily. May not be the main reason but a useful side effect of the color.
neaanopri 2y ago
I'm curious what the actual marginal cost of an additional pound on the shuttle is - surely you can't just divide?
- kens 2y ago
  According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle..., the incremental cost was $6,435 per pound and the complete cost was $27,000 per pound. I thought a lot about this, and there are arguments for using either number.
  - The_Colonel 2y ago
    The incremental cost refers to one shuttle flight divided by pounds. I think what OP was asking is - given shuttle already had a mission with some spare payload capacity, how much did it cost to bring one more pound into space? I think this question has a relevancy to the fact the printer was surprisingly heavy and came with a lot of paper. I'm not sure if there's a good way to calculate this though.
    - rwmj 2y ago
      Its a bit of a nonsense calculation anyway. Fundamentally the shuttle's engines had a maximum thrust they could generate, and there's no amount of money that could easily change that. That dictates the maximum shuttle + crew + payload weight and it's just a question of how you parcel that out. Include a heavy printer, and you constrain the maximum crew and/or payload. (There was one flight, recently covered on HN - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-93 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-93 - where they flew with fewer crewmembers because the payload was so heavy).
      - johannes1234321 2y ago
        There are reasons for not using maximum load: Fuel. And the fuel to carry the fuel. Thus even if there is capacity limits there may be reasons for loading less mass to reduce cost of a mission.

by dTal 2y ago

kens 2y ago

The printer took a big roll of paper, maybe 5 inches in diameter (although I don't have it here to check). I was a bit surprised that they didn't trim the roll down to the minimum size necessary, but just used a full roll. I guess they didn't want to waste paper :-) Also, I'm surprised that they used cheap-looking yellow paper rather than white paper, but maybe there's a reason teletypes used yellow paper. (The paper hasn't yellowed due to age; it's yellow in contemporary photos.)

Stratoscope 2y ago
Most or all Teletype paper was yellow in the 1970s when I learned to program on Teletypes. Apparently white paper is more common today. (It looks like you used white in one of your photos.)
- kens 2y ago
  The photo with white paper is the Thermal Impulse Printer System, a different printer from the Interim Teleprinter. As far as I can tell, the teleprinter always used yellow paper. (This helps to figure out which printer is being used on the Shuttle in a photo, since the captions are usually wrong.)
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  I remember the yellowish teletype paper rolls from when I was a kid. I always assumed it was just inexpensive paper that was not bleached to pure white. I have never heard of a reason it was that particular color. Some quick searching indicates that yellow is easier on the eyes than pure white (that is given as the reason legal pads are yellow). Or that different wire services would use different color paper. E.g. news wires used white paper, weather services used yellow. So news editors would know the source by the color of the paper.
- noisy_boy 2y ago
  Maybe in the space shuttle surroundings, white/black/grey are more common than yellow so a printout in yellow could be spotted more easily. May not be the main reason but a useful side effect of the color.

neaanopri 2y ago

I'm curious what the actual marginal cost of an additional pound on the shuttle is - surely you can't just divide?

kens 2y ago
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle..., the incremental cost was $6,435 per pound and the complete cost was $27,000 per pound. I thought a lot about this, and there are arguments for using either number.
- The_Colonel 2y ago
  The incremental cost refers to one shuttle flight divided by pounds. I think what OP was asking is - given shuttle already had a mission with some spare payload capacity, how much did it cost to bring one more pound into space? I think this question has a relevancy to the fact the printer was surprisingly heavy and came with a lot of paper. I'm not sure if there's a good way to calculate this though.
  - rwmj 2y ago
    Its a bit of a nonsense calculation anyway. Fundamentally the shuttle's engines had a maximum thrust they could generate, and there's no amount of money that could easily change that. That dictates the maximum shuttle + crew + payload weight and it's just a question of how you parcel that out. Include a heavy printer, and you constrain the maximum crew and/or payload. (There was one flight, recently covered on HN - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-93 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-93 - where they flew with fewer crewmembers because the payload was so heavy).
    - johannes1234321 2y ago
      There are reasons for not using maximum load: Fuel. And the fuel to carry the fuel. Thus even if there is capacity limits there may be reasons for loading less mass to reduce cost of a mission.