Re: Here We Go Again!


"Fred J. McCall" <fmccall@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:asni63h1t0bim3sff1ap24rrjd2r3j2ibb@xxxxxxxxxx
"Jeff Findley" <jeff.findley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

:
:"Fred J. McCall" <fmccall@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
:news:oidh63t0j46fecfpkk612qiceqglu7ibtm@xxxxxxxxxx
:> simberg.interglobal@xxxxxxxxx (Rand Simberg) wrote:
:>
:> :On Thu, 07 Jun 2007 10:02:18 -0700, in a place far, far away, surfduke
:> :<surfduke2001@xxxxxxxxx> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such
:> :a way as to indicate that:
:> :
:> :>What I was getting at is:
:> :>
:> :>The Shuttle design, & construction got all criss-crossed, when the
Air
:> :>Force started helping with funding.
:> :
:> :The Air Force never helped with funding the Shuttle.
:> :
:> :>That is when the escape rockets,
:> :>(and burn cord), got thrown out, (as well as many other items that
got
:> :>in the way of the lbs. to orbit target)).
:> :
:> :No, that happened when the requirements (some of which were driven by
:> :the Air Force) grew to exceed the available development funding.
:> :
:>
:> You're being just slightly disingenuous here, don't you think? Just
:> why did the Shuttle *have* any requirements driven by the Air Force,
:> Rand?
:
:More than anything else, to gain political support for the program. With
:the Air Force backing the project, it was far more likely that NASA would
:get the funding it needed to actually build and fly the thing. It
doesn't
:mean that the Air Force spent its money actually developing the shuttle.
It
:did, however, spend money on programs which planned to use the shuttle,
once
:its development was completed.
:

Still disingenuous. What it meant was that money that would otherwise
have been put in the USAF budget for development of launch capability
went into Shuttle instead, which is why Shuttle had USAF requirements
all of a sudden.

I don't think that directly follows.

The Air Force wanted to develop bigger payloads and wanted a bigger launch
vehicle. They also wanted to start flying manned space missions with an all
Air Force crew. This is something they wanted to do since the beginning of
manned spaceflight. Unfortunately, all prior programs to put a man in blue
in orbit failed (e.g. X-20, Blue Gemini, Mol, etc.). The funding (and
political support for that funding) was never there to fully complete
development and actually fly someone.

The shuttle had the potential to give the Air Force a manned spaceflight
capability. After all, the Air Force requirement for large crossrange
doesn't make sense for an ELV, yet they levied this requirement on the
shuttle. Also, the development of SLC-6 was paid for by the Air Force
because they really wanted to be able to launch large payloads into polar
orbits.

I believe that backing the shuttle got the Air Force more capabilities than
they could have gotten by trying to fund their own next generation launch
vehicle.

Unfortunately for the Air Force, the shuttle turned out to be a real hangar
queen. The flight rate was too low and the costs were too high. Even
before the Challenger disaster they started to turn back to ELV's.

Jeff
--
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a
little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety"
- B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919)


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Here We Go Again!
    ... :The Air Force never helped with funding the Shuttle. ... :the Air Force) grew to exceed the available development funding. ... why did the Shuttle *have* any requirements driven by the Air Force, ... Discounting the DoD's expenditures on payloads, the IUS, and SLC-6 (all of which they did for their own, not for shuttle development), they did cover some overhead charges related to NASA's use of DoD facilities during shuttle development. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Here We Go Again!
    ... money that was budgeted into Shuttle would have gone to USAF to build ... on helping private industry develop better, cheaper launch vehicles. ... had not supported the shuttle. ... Air Force manned spaceflight. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Here We Go Again!
    ... :The Air Force never helped with funding the Shuttle. ... :the Air Force) grew to exceed the available development funding. ... why did the Shuttle *have* any requirements driven by the Air Force, ... the Air Force backing the project, it was far more likely that NASA would ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Here We Go Again!
    ... :mean that the Air Force spent its money actually developing the shuttle. ... The Air Force wanted to develop bigger payloads and wanted a bigger launch ... NASA to the Air Force displays a profound lack of understanding of the ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Here We Go Again!
    ... :> simberg.interglobal@xxxxxxxxx (Rand Simberg) wrote: ... :>:the Air Force) grew to exceed the available development funding. ... :mean that the Air Force spent its money actually developing the shuttle. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
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