Was the Shuttle really worth it?

reply to post by Wolfenz


I alway love buzz. He got a ton of vision. Wish he was heading NASA.

crazyewok
reply to post by Wolfenz

 

I alway love buzz. He got a ton of vision. Wish he was heading NASA.

I agree.

I wonder if he ever would want to? He strikes me as a guy who wouldn't want to be an administrator. He seems too "hands-on" for that role. But that is exactly what might be necessary.

If we could just build one large Aldrin Cycler I'd be very happy. Talk about infrastructure!

NoRulesAllowed
The shuttle was the first, real manned "space craft" which actually deserved this name.

For me it was worth it. Shooting a permanent explosion (what a rocket basically is) into orbit cannot be compared, IMO.

I wish we would live in a time (again) where people are excited about stuff and where costs are looked at AFTERWARDS respective won't play a fundamental role as they have today.

Once there was a time where a president went public announcing a promise to send people to the moon and everything got excited.
Today....such things don't exist anymore. It's all about money, obamacare, terrorism etc., the usual crap which dominates our news every day.

True. People in many ways are just as excited, perhaps even more excited about space. The huge popularity of the rovers landing on Mars illustrates that.

However I think one knock on from the Shuttle and to some degree the ISS is that they made low earth orbit space travel seem routine.

Which it should be at this stage, to be honest.

However that also had the side effect of cooling a lot of enthusiasm since in the public mind we weren't really exploring anything (when in reality we were, but in a different way).

We need our hope back.

There have be no less than 4 Presidential decrees similar to Kennedy's "Moon Speech" since Kennedy.

Regan's "New Orient Express" next generation spaceplane development speech.

Bush's "Mars Mission in the first decade of the 21st century" speech.

Clinton's "Mars Meteorite and Future Mars Exploration" speech.

Bush Jr.s "Humans Are Going Into the Cosmos / New Vision for Space Exploration" speech.

Obama's "Astronauts to an Asteroid" speech.

None of them resonate like Kennedy's.

Perhaps Kennedy's really only resonated because of the Cold War?

Would people have been as excited about going to the moon if it was not seen as part of a conflict against a sworn enemy?

JadeStar


I agree.

I wonder if he ever would want to? He strikes me as a guy who wouldn't want to be an administrator. He seems too "hands-on" for that role. But that is exactly what might be necessary.

If we could just build one large Aldrin Cycler I'd be very happy. Talk about infrastructure!

Yeah but I think the best leaders are not those that seek but have it come to them. Less petty ambition that way. And he non BS attitude would be a fresh change

Yeah Aldrin Cycler do seem a logical step if a colony on mars was set up.

The shuttle wasn't practical for one main reason. It seems like it was never or rarely used for the job which it was best suited. (At least publicly.) That job would be taking heavy things out of orbit and back down to earth in one piece. It's the only reason to go through the trouble and expense with such a design. Otherwise, what's the point?

Now if you happen to be taking things down as much as putting them up, then money spent on a shuttle is definitely worth the investment.

As was already mentioned despite science fiction movies the Shuttles were made for low earth orbit, It was NOT built for deep space and it's operating altitude was between 120 to 600 miles which isn't very high when you consider our communication satellites are 22,000 miles out!
if you read my post above you will see I had the chance to work with JPL and made various shuttle parts, I already mentioned the 'turning vanes' I built and the guy I built some of the tile molds for was a great guy. He was very talkative and I asked him how well did these flimsy looking tile hold up and he grabbed my arm and said "Come here" he pulled me over to our welding area and asked me to fire up an acetylene torch, he placed a tile on the edge of the welding table and asked me to heat it up, when it was glowing re/white he put his hand about 8 inches under it and said "knock it into my hand!" I refused so he picked up a slag-pick and while I still had the torch on it dropped it into his bare hand! It had shed heat so quickly it was simply warm as soon as the heat was removed! His invention made the space shuttles possible, he was proud of the fact that NASA invited him to the launches as a VIP but he was never really given the credit he deserved (in my opinion)
Someone mentioned USSR's space shuttle, like everything else they copied the shape nearly exact, it never flew though, the reason? The heat shield tiles they had no idea how to make them, and their shuttle became part of a kids playground!

reply to post by wulff


The rusian one did fly though. It did one unmanned mission before the ussr went under and funding dryed up.

crazyewok
reply to post by wulff

 

The rusian one did fly though. It did one unmanned mission before the ussr went under and funding dryed up.

You are right, I do remember it indeed made an unmanned flight.

reply to post by Wolfenz


Thanks for the reply. Sorry to star that so late, I've been space traveling…

I think the Space Shuttle was a good idea, but poorly used by NASA. A reusable vehicle for entering LEO is neat and all, but the design never evolved and instead NASA used the original shuttles like a crutch until they literally fell apart - something which they clearly didn't anticipate by not having another vehicle in the works to replace them. And by limiting themselves to LEO for thirty years I consider them thirty years behind, which would place them right back to where they left off with Apollo in '72.

They really, really dropped the ball.

What do we have now?

209 billion$ ......why even worry about that when we are spending a trillion $ a year on defense.

Expensive-yes

Lets face it. There were two accidents that NASA LET HAPPEN. They were not accidents, they were a complete failure of proper operating procedures allowed from the highest authority.

How much have we spent on the JSF F-35.

At least we could be proud as a nation when the shuttle was flying.

Now we are paying the Ruskies crazy money to ferry us.

I bet they are laughing all the way to the bank.

Worth it, hell yes. The pride alone was worth the cost of admission.

Happened to come across a comment by Commander Hadfield yesterday. He pointed out that three quarters of all the people who have been into space went on the Shuttle.