They should have left Shuttles in Orbit with the ISS

They should have left the shuttles in Orbit with the ISS. They could have installed remote controls like we do our drones, filled the cargo bay with fuel, water, etc... They then could use the shuttles to slowly go out and recover expensive but broken satellites, telescopes etc. Then slowly return them to ISS for repair and refuel. Would be much cheaper than launching replacements especially for some of the expensive Military satellites. The Shuttles could also have been used as a place to escape to in case of emergency. No not a landing platform but a place to go if all hell breaks lose on the ISS. Since they would be permanently in space there cost would be minimal as they would never be landed or launched again.

Shuttles could be fitted with ION engines to continue as space tugs along with the Robotic Arms they could recover and deorbit useless old space parts. Could be used to rescue Astronauts that get in trouble on future spacecraft that encounter issues.

Could have put some very large Nuclear Generators in them to power Vasimr engines to make them capable of being tugs from Earth to Moon.
Might have outfitted one of them with super safe area for solar flares for the ISS crews. Could have converted one of their cargobays into additional science lab or other modules.
NASA should really design everything they send up to be modular and capable of being refitted, refueled easily and possibly used in other ways than the original designs instead of just deorbiting them since it cost so much to put stuff up there. If nothing else landing all that refined metal on the moon might be useful to future humans on the moon to melt and use for other things.

Such a waste to let them rot away after spending so much on them. Waste to not have multiple uses for everything we send up there at very high costs.

And how were the Astronauts supposed to get home?

a reply to: Soloprotocol

And how were the Astronauts supposed to get home?

Free fall.

To OP: Good idea, except for…

Could have put some very large Nuclear Generators in them…

Large nuclear reactors in orbit? What goes up must come down.

a reply to: Soloprotocol

On the Soyuz, same way they have been since the STS were retired.

Good idea, Xeven!

I'm sure you'd fancy the ruski's having access to shuttles and the ability to retrieve prized US military satellites and repairing them since its a shared environment you can't sort of say to everyone else to leave just so we can fix a satellite that officially doesn't exist, it would probably be better to design a new space vehicle for recovery than trying to do some redneck engineering to get something designed in the 1970's back up there

plus don't the us military have that new drone shuttle (forgotten its designation) that can do a lot of what you are after aka pick up and drop off stuff

i think its a good idea but, its a not thought out idea, considering we can only launch anything today by paying the Russians. Last i heard it was 1 billion each way to send our astronauts to the ISS and 1 billion to take them home! So if America wants to do something like this we need a revamp of funds and/or public companies taking us up, because NASA has not the funds or resources to send a single rocket up let alone multiple to get the job done.

The shuttles were far to expensive to maintain and complex to operate for such tasks.

a reply to: Xeven

NASA should have developed a cheap Soyuz like capsule craft in conjunction with the shuttle.

Shuttle was overkill for most missions.

originally posted by: MrSpad
The shuttles were far to expensive to maintain and complex to operate for such tasks.

Exactly.

NASA should have like a mentioned above developed a cheap taxi capsule or kept the Gemini going for simple crew transport tasks and left the shuttle for the more complex mission.s

We know that Bigalow Aerospace is building its own private space station, so why shouldn't we use them and spacex(who is building a bigger rocket and has an engine that puts out a million ft lbs of torch). The future is private space companies because they can pay physicists and engineers triple the pay while keeping their costs down. While paying 5 dollar a bolt(privately) instead of govt contracts which pay 500 for the same bolt.

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: Xeven

NASA should have developed a cheap Soyuz like capsule craft in conjunction with the shuttle.

Shuttle was overkill for most missions.

Should have, indeed!
They should have spent the wasted money on manned missions to Mars.

Hell, we could have a manned station there by now... if we would have pushed after the Apollo program was finished.

a reply to: butcherguy
Russia was going to do exatly that.

When they coped the shuttle with the Buran they knew the risks and planned to keep the Soyuz going with a capability of its to dock with the Buran in case of a emergency to evacuate the crew.

a reply to: Maxatoria

The "ruskies" have that ability. As do we. No one wants to show all of their cards. It's a game of Texas hold 'em. We have that X-38 that we KNOW about...what does the US or Russia for that matter have that we DON'T know about? Trillions of black budget dollars...over thirty years and all we have is an air force rocket launched unmanned shuttle? Yeah, sure. And I'm a white guy (I'm not).

originally posted by: Maxatoria
plus don't the us military have that new drone shuttle (forgotten its designation) that can do a lot of what you are after aka pick up and drop off stuff

Yes this smaller shuttle seems much more suited to a repair task than the larger ones which took too much fuel to move around in comparison. Getting fuel into orbit is very expensive.

Secret Military Mini-Shuttle Marks 500 Days in Orbit

SpaceX is building a reusable rocket , but with fossile fuel engine type systems i dont see anyone get far in actual manned flights to other planets or objects besides the moon. i like the idea however but very fuel consuming

www.youtube.com... ( cant seem to insert it , it wont play it then )

Because we use these resources to power our rockets we have no choice other then building these stage ejection rockets because once the fuel tanks have been depleted you want to ditch them for weight reduction and to lower atmospheric drag.

But on the other hand this is an expensive business , with almost no "profit" to be made so removing money from your expenses bill by re designing and building your space vehicles so that they are highly reusable even in orbit for me does make some sense.

TheGreazel

a reply to: Xeven

I have been trying to post for a good twenty minutes but every time I tried the page locked up?.
In the 1980's the soviet's unveiled there clone of the US shuttle called the Buran, that means blizzard but all I can think of a nice tasty tortia anyway here is the new scientist page.
www.newscientist.com...
and a SU page www.buran.su...

Now the boeing X_37C, X-37B and the earlier X-37A though probably now superceded was basically a miniature drone technology based shuttle clone.
en.wikipedia.org...
www.spacesafetymagazine.com...

The idea of leaving one in orbit is great and adapting it as a platform or space station hub in it's own right is also great with the one down side, it is a re entry vehicle and there is not absolute burnup tragectory so some part's would still fall back to earth and that is a liability which would come back to haunt NASA if they had done so, especially if those parts hit populated areas.

Still the wing's would serve as ready made solar scaffolding and it could have been left with fuel as a low prority satellite repair platform using adapted remote technology's but the fine work alway's need's an astronaut at the moment, still medical robot's could have been adapted to bridge the gap there so a very good point S+F.

originally posted by: TheGreazel
SpaceX is building a reusable rocket , but with fossile fuel engine type systems i dont see anyone get far in actual manned flights to other planets or objects besides the moon. i like the idea however but very fuel consuming

www.youtube.com... ( cant seem to insert it , it wont play it then )

Because we use these resources to power our rockets we have no choice other then building these stage ejection rockets because once the fuel tanks have been depleted you want to ditch them for weight reduction and to lower atmospheric drag.

But on the other hand this is an expensive business , with almost no "profit" to be made so removing money from your expenses bill by re designing and building your space vehicles so that they are highly reusable even in orbit for me does make some sense.

TheGreazel

Some one been playing KSP


I agree chem rockets wont get man kind anywhere beyond the moon.

I say its a case of go nuclear or go home. Some sort of Nuclear engine is the only option for long distance space travel. Nuclear reaction engines like NERVA will do for inner solar system travel but for outer solar system travel and any hope of interstellar then you looking at fission or fusion pulse propulsion or maybe latter anti matter.

Here was one of our inventions, it was eventually sold to Japan but under sharing agreement's you can bet the Aurora was probably one of these.
www.flightglobal.com...
news.bbc.co.uk...
en.wikipedia.org...

You can regard it as the fore runner of the hypersonic aircraft we where supposed to be flying from london to Sydney or New York and the concept is common sense if you read it, this if married with next generation shuttle technology may be a hint at what the US air force really has and why they let the world see the X-37 as there is nothing like using the older model to distract from the newer one.

There are many reasons why that would never work. The shuttle was not designed to remain in orbit indefinitely, especially docked to ISS. Although power could be transferred to the shuttle from ISS, eventually the fuel cells would run out and she would be dead. Additionally, there would be no way to refill her RCS, so performing tasks away from ISS and then re-docking is right out. Besides, the limited delta-V available means that you could not significantly change planes to match orbits with anything not in the plane of ISS' orbit. Most damning of all though is the conflicting thermal requirements at high beta angles. The shuttle cannot stay docked to ISS year round. There are times of the year where ISS is in nearly constant sunlight. Because of how they are designed, ISS and the shuttle have conflicting attitudes that each wants to maintain to maximize heat dissipation during high beta angles, so they simply cannot be docked during those times.
spaceflight.nasa.gov...