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Cheaper launch system means you can afford more missions, or do the same missions for less money. A smaller budget probably means less risk of Congress cutting
by metabagel 2y ago
Cheaper launch system means you can afford more missions, or do the same missions for less money. A smaller budget probably means less risk of Congress cutting your funding.
On the other hand, the space shuttle was the coolest thing imaginable in the 80s. It was crazy that it could launch like a rocket and land like an airplane.
My opinion now is that it was an unnecessarily complex, highly inefficient launch system.
The issue that I have is that there should have been no requirement to carry cargo on the shuttle. Launch cargo on big dumb rockets, and launch and return people using a fancy space plane. The space plane would be smaller and likely not need booster rockets.
- encoderer 2y agoJust imagined some historical fiction where the real reason the shuttle was built was to retrieve nuclear armed satellites we put into space in the 1960s. They always said the thing about being able to retrieve satellites with it but never really did… that they talked about.
- badcppdev 2y agoAre you sure? https://www.space.com/34522-secret-shuttle-missions.html https://www.space.com/34522-secret-shuttle-missions.html
- PopePompus 2y agoYes, Hubble was supposed to be brought back to the Earth periodically for upgrades, but of course that never happened. Shuttle fans like to point to the Hubble servicing missions as proof of the spaceplane's value, but those servicing missions were probably more expensive than just launching a new space telescope to replace Hubble.