Re: What good is the Shuttle?

"Joseph S. Powell, III" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:1NVrg.4$m93.3@xxxxxxxx:

The Space Shuttle was the wrong design all along.
It was a camel - a horse (or mule) designed by a committe, which
included the Air Force (which hardly used the Shuttle).
There were other designs in the early 70's that, while more expensive
to develop, were much cheaper to maintain & launch that the current
design. Had we chosen one of those, the future may have been quite
different.

That's a common belief, and one I used to subscribe to, but no longer. The
problem with the shuttle is not any particular details of the design, but
the more fundamental fact that the design was required to be an
"operational" vehicle. That was an overreach for 1972. I think that would
have been the case for any alternative design considered at that date as
well.

The "what-if" I'd like to see is the one where NASA decides to pursue an
operational space shuttle design in the long term (read late 80s-early
90s), but building up to it gradually by flying a series of X-vehicles to
test and develop "shelf-life" on various reusable propulsion and TPS
concepts.


--
JRF

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