They should have left Shuttles in Orbit with the ISS

a reply to: crazyewok

Very nice , nuclear or go home , well said

KSP is insanely good , the learning curve hits you like a baseball bat in the face quite a few times , only made me hungry for moar

I like this idea. It was probably due to maintenance, they aren't designed to be repaired and maintained in space. Columbia had no choice but to reenter, NASA said they knew the issue with the heat shield was bad, didn't tell the astronauts it wouldn't make it, and tried anyway. Maybe in the past they had smaller issues that didn't turn catastrophic. Challenger was also a bone-head move by NASA sending a shuttle up in those cold temperatures at launch.

In a last resort scenario, they could use them for shelter, extra storage, or even a return vehicle. Probably not the safest choice however.

I think we should have sent them back up with special equipment on them, and "buried them at sea" in space. Send them off with recording equipment and see what it sees as it drifts through the universe.

a reply to: SixX18

Great idea and as a time capsule for out own future space archeaologists.

Google will build a space elevator, at the geostationary orbit level they will build cities tethered from the earth. The ISS will soon be a relic of the past.... of course this is after Fisher-Price buys out NASA's Ames Research Center.

a reply to: imitator
They say is out of commission in 2020 so whats gonna take its place? A station that no one has ever heard about and is far superior to any technology we have today. we would not decommission the ISS if we didnt have something far better.

Except that those shuttles were extremely high-maintenance.

originally posted by: TheGreazel
a reply to: crazyewok

Very nice , nuclear or go home , well said

KSP is insanely good , the learning curve hits you like a baseball bat in the face quite a few times , only made me hungry for moar

Yup but the difficulty is the fun.

Me being hard core play with deadly re entry, life support and FAR

originally posted by: ScientiaFortisDefendit
Except that those shuttles were extremely high-maintenance.

Yup there were original meant to be operated with the USAF for certain cold war missions like the SDI.

When the cold war ended most the USAF got scraped and NASA ended up being dumped with the high-maintenance.

Like giving a Ferrari to a taxi driver. Looks cool but the high-maintenance will cripple him.

oh god! what a Great Idea!
they could have gone to Mars in them.
use'd them to ship supplies back and forth.
they would have made very good deep space ships.

maybe they still can!
re fit the computers and guldens systems.
you dont put the full wait in it.
so it's easy to get in orbit.
then finish the re fit in space.
it can hold a big re entry ship that they can live in for the trip.
with two they could have a constant shipping back and forth.

I understand not wanting to waste technology and so much money, but leaving them in orbit would be extremely costly, especially over time. They would have to constantly be maintained, and the truth is that they were not designed to remain in orbit for extremely long periods of time. They would not get much use up there, and I don't know if the costs would be justified. Supplies would have to be ferried there, which means more launches that need to be paid for, costing more money. So the usefulness is outweighed by the price in my opinion. And to be honest I never trusted the shuttles. I never thought they were safe.

There are so many components that it is ridiculous. I wouldn't doubt that it is the most complex thing man has ever created, and a single failure could potentially be catastrophic. We have lost multiple shuttles with all hands, and considering how recent these were, it just shows that there is still danger. I believe the new designs, going back to rockets and capsules, is safer. You have far less things to worry about during a capsule reentry. As long as your guidance has placed you at the correct angle, and your heat shield holds up and your parachutes don't fail, you should make it back. Reentry is by far one of the most dangerous, if not the most dangerous, phase of flight. But no matter how one looks at it, the astronauts are still being propelled by tons of combustible materials. So there is always danger, and I just believe the newer designs would be safer if they were built. They would likely be cheaper as well.

The shuttles were extremely expensive to maintain, because as I said, they had so many components. We have some idea as to what is currently being developed regarding new classified spacecraft, at least one of which is an unmanned vehicle capable of entering space. I will say that it would not surprise me one bit to learn that there was another space program, a military space program, that surpassed NASA's technologies. They could have a shuttle-like craft that can fly within earth's atmosphere and outside of it. It also would not surprise me if such military crafts are responsible for some UFO sightings. There are some pictures of such craft, if they are authentic. They show aircraft that are not currently known to the public, so I assume they're classified if they're real, high up in the sky.

Good Idea on this thread.

They should have made mini individual pods for individuals returning home by now.

It baffles my mind that we have not advanced further on this yet.

I guess its all time and $$.

leolady

Why go to such an expense at refitting the shuttles and the expense of maintaining them in orbit? That really does not make financial sense.

Why not just build a cheaper version of what you want (some sort of orbital runabout) that would probably do an even better job than the shuttle could, and for less money, because it would be designed for that specific task.

originally posted by: leolady

Good Idea on this thread.

They should have made mini individual pods for individuals returning home by now.

It baffles my mind that we have not advanced further on this yet.

I guess its all time and $$.

leolady

The soyuz is quite small. Not really "individual pods", but it's pretty cramped quarters for 3.

Besides, I bet it is more cost effective to bring three home at the same time in one Soyuz rather than bringing the crew back one at a time in a personal pod -- especially considering that the Soyuz did the double duty of delivering them to the ISS in the first place.

Without being powered and maintained (which costs money, time, and resources), the Shuttle attached to the ISS would turn into a dead weight. For one thing, it would make the regular boosts of the ISS to a higher orbit consume more fuel, as well as putting more stress on the structure.

Why spend more and more money flogging the dead horse, when you can build a simpler and cheaper craft to achieve your goals?

The reason why the Soyuz is still alive and kicking is exactly because it's fairly simple, cheap, and does the job.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Certainly not cost effective... but ideal for individuals leaving at different times or for escape pods.

Maybe they should make them so they also disintegrate in space after a period of time (return home pods removed of course). Like a transformer... they utilize all the parts needed to manufacture/build the return pod for the home trip. Then they don't have to worry about a bulky chunk of a re-entry problem.

They are working on the re-entry stuff though so things aren't blindly falling back into Earths orbit.

Guess I'm thinking of a SciFi movie. lol

leolady