Re: NASA Targets June Launch for Space Shuttle Atlantis

Monte Davis <monte.davis@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

fairwater@xxxxxxxxx (Derek Lyons) wrote:

Certainly in _developing_ a 'sensible' reusable launch vehicle, you'd
keep the tanks. But when you got around to actually _designing_ the
beast - you'd run into the same problems that caused NASA to back off
from that scheme, and which remain unsolved.

It's an open question whether they can be solved economically.

In 26 years, I've encountered hundreds of variations on "STS turned
out to be a lemon because..."

Usually followed by

1) Powerpoint handwaving about the True Design Breakthrough
2) Grumbling about short-sighted bean-counters in Congress and OMB
3) Assertions that "of course it was doomed, government screws up
everything it touches"

Agreed. It's all too often tacitly assumed that the approaches NASA
didn't take are easy and simple. It simply doesn't register to many
people that things like monolithic solids or integral tanks have
significant problems of their very own. It's arguable whether NASA
evaluated and weighted the advantages and disadvantages of the varied
approaches properly - but it's outright lunacy to pretend the
disadvantages and potholes on the roads not taken don't exist.

The possibility that a "sensible reusable LV" (sensible in economic
and operational as well as purely engineering terms) is really, really
hard -- and will take a long time, many designs, and many many
flights, no matter who pays for it -- seems too frightening for most
to contemplate.

Agreed. Which is why I ended my post the way I did.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
.

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