Imagine money is not the problem...
AF
maintenance . With a secure 4 month turnaround per ship it should be
possible a flight every 2 weeks ( I think the original plans ): the
question is: Are there enough qualified engineers and technitians in the US
to handle that work. :-)).
Mike Miller
Part of affording a 10-shuttle fleet would involve securing an
adequate work force one way or another. This is especially true
when money is no object.
Thinking about it, if the USAF and USN can find enough technicians to
maintain thousands of hangar-queen fighters while airlines can maintain
hundreds of airliners, I suspect NASA could dig up 10-20 thousand
workers to maintain 10 shuttles.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Graham Nelson
Wouldn't it be easier to imagine that escape velocity is, say, 300 mph,
and that the Moon has oceans and breathable air and lots of archaelogical
remains left by obliging aliens? Since we're fantasising, that is.
--
Graham Nelson Oxford, UK
Tracy
More then likely. If not, all it would take is money. Thing is, I don't
think there is enough Pads to handle a launch every 2 weeks. (On top of
all other "issues")
Tracy
John Bean
Erricson and other laid off employees would be glad to fill some of
those positions even if it meant crosstraining.
> I suspect NASA could dig up 10-20 thousand
> workers to maintain 10 shuttles.
>
> Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
--
John R. Bean
Ex Lucent Employee: Will work for food!
Andy P. Jung
If money was limitless, they would have designed the shuttle with liquid boosters instead of SRBs.
And the Buran Shuttles would be flying carrying payload 5 times the weight of the US Shuttles!
--
Andy P. Jung
Metairie, Louisiana U.S.A.
http://www.jungworld.com/
To reply via e-mail, please visit my web site
or delete both REMOVECAPS and
replace INVALID with com
Graham Nelson
> More then likely. If not, all it would take is money. Thing is, I don't
> think there is enough Pads to handle a launch every 2 weeks. (On top of
> all other "issues")
26 flights per year means devising 26 missions per year, and
low Earth orbit just isn't that interesting. As it is, the station
assembly sequence is being slowed down by delays on the station side,
not the Shuttle flight rate. NASA simply doesn't have a use for more
than 8 or so flights per year, unless it gets back into the massively
subsidised commercial launch biz. And it can manage happily enough
on 5 to 6 per year.
Also, the catastrophic failure probability of the Shuttle (about 1
in 500) means that at 26 tests per year the probability of a disaster
in the next decade would be about 4 in 10. And in any case the chances
are probably worse than the estimate. If the true reliability of the
Shuttle is only 1 in 100, the observed statistic, then the chance of
a disaster by 2010 would be about 90%.
Greg D. Moore (Strider)
"Graham Nelson" <gra...@gnelson.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:3B4E0B89...@gnelson.demon.co.uk...
> Tracy wrote:
> > More then likely. If not, all it would take is money. Thing is, I
don't
> > think there is enough Pads to handle a launch every 2 weeks. (On top of
> > all other "issues")
>
> 26 flights per year means devising 26 missions per year, and
> low Earth orbit just isn't that interesting. As it is, the station
> assembly sequence is being slowed down by delays on the station side,
> not the Shuttle flight rate. NASA simply doesn't have a use for more
> than 8 or so flights per year, unless it gets back into the massively
> subsidised commercial launch biz. And it can manage happily enough
> on 5 to 6 per year.
>
Well, at 26 missions a year, presumably with a much lower cost, things start
to change. You can realistically start talking about LEO service and repair
missions. Real materials processing. Tourism, etc.
> Also, the catastrophic failure probability of the Shuttle (about 1
> in 500) means that at 26 tests per year the probability of a disaster
> in the next decade would be about 4 in 10. And in any case the chances
> are probably worse than the estimate. If the true reliability of the
> Shuttle is only 1 in 100, the observed statistic, then the chance of
> a disaster by 2010 would be about 90%.
True, but a) this is constantly improving and b) with 26 missions a year
I'm sure there would be a concerted effort to improve it even further. One
real benefit of say 400 missions by now is a wonderful database to draw upon
for failure knowledge.
Henry Spencer
Graham Nelson <gra...@gnelson.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>26 flights per year means devising 26 missions per year, and
>low Earth orbit just isn't that interesting. As it is, the station
>assembly sequence is being slowed down by delays on the station side,
>not the Shuttle flight rate. NASA simply doesn't have a use for more
>than 8 or so flights per year, unless it gets back into the massively
If "money is not the problem", NASA has lots of other things it would
*like* to do in LEO and beyond, which would benefit from more shuttle
launches. Remember that Spacelab, for example, was closed down mostly
because there weren't going to be any more flight opportunities for it.
--
When failure is not an option, success | Henry Spencer he...@spsystems.net
can get expensive. -- Peter Stibrany | (aka he...@zoo.toronto.edu)
Jorge R. Frank
news:eGn37.494606$oc7.82...@news2.rdc2.tx.home.com:
> "AF" <ant...@arquired.es> wrote in message
> news:qAc37.2047$4h4....@newsr01.ono.com...
>> Imagine NASA has a 10 orbiters fleet, suppose 8 in flight status and 2
>> on maintenance . With a secure 4 month turnaround per ship it should
>> be possible a flight every 2 weeks ( I think the original plans ):
>> the question is: Are there enough qualified engineers and technitians
>> in the US to handle that work. :-)).
>>
>
> If money was limitless, they would have designed the shuttle with
> liquid boosters instead of SRBs. And the Buran Shuttles would be flying
> carrying payload 5 times the weight of the US Shuttles!
Umm, how's that? Buran was designed to carry 30 tons, barely more than the
US shuttle. Have you confused Buran with Energia?
--
JRF
Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.
Tracy
On Thu, 12 Jul 2001, Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
<snip>
> > Also, the catastrophic failure probability of the Shuttle (about 1
> > in 500) means that at 26 tests per year the probability of a disaster
> > in the next decade would be about 4 in 10. And in any case the chances
> > are probably worse than the estimate. If the true reliability of the
> > Shuttle is only 1 in 100, the observed statistic, then the chance of
> > a disaster by 2010 would be about 90%.
>
> True, but a) this is constantly improving and b) with 26 missions a year
> I'm sure there would be a concerted effort to improve it even further. One
> real benefit of say 400 missions by now is a wonderful database to draw upon
> for failure knowledge.
>
True, it is improving. You think that if they did increase the flight
rate that much, they would approve LFBBs, EAPUs, and other nice
things...or look into developing an SSTO sooner.
Tracy
Kim E. Keller
news:Xns90DCC19C...@204.52.135.10...
> Umm, how's that? Buran was designed to carry 30 tons, barely more than
the
> US shuttle. Have you confused Buran with Energia?
I'd guess he's mocking that propoganda-laden press release Energiya spat out
about two or three weeks ago.
--
Kim Keller
Forward Shop, Orbiter Flight Systems
Fraternal Order of the Pad Rat
http://www.geocities.com/kimekeller
Mike Dicenso
On Thu, 12 Jul 2001, Andy P. Jung wrote:
> "AF" <ant...@arquired.es> wrote in message news:qAc37.2047$4h4....@newsr01.ono.com...
> > Imagine NASA has a 10 orbiters fleet, suppose 8 in flight status and 2 on
> > maintenance . With a secure 4 month turnaround per ship it should be
> > possible a flight every 2 weeks ( I think the original plans ): the
> > question is: Are there enough qualified engineers and technitians in the US
> > to handle that work. :-)).
> >
>
> If money was limitless, they would have designed the shuttle with liquid boosters instead of SRBs.
More likely NASA would hav gone with the one of the numerous concepts for
TSTO shuttle with a single, large flyback liquid upperstage. Or the
Lockheed Clipper Star 1.5 stage lifting body concept.
> And the Buran Shuttles would be flying carrying payload 5 times the
> weight of the US Shuttles!
No. You are confusing badly the Buran orbiters with the stand alone
version of Energia. Buran was designed to carry a payload of 66,000 lbs
(30,000 kg) to a 51.6 degree inclination orbit. It was supposed to be
designed to return payloads of up to 45,000 lbs (20,454 kg) back. However
this is only somewhat better than than their U.S. counterparts which can
now manage up to 63,500 lbs to a due east, 28.5 degree inclination orbit,
and bring back 32,000 to 35,000 lbs (14,545 to 15,909 kg) of payload.
-Mike
Duncan Young
they ordered Endenvor, but turned it down because they couldnt think
of anything to do with it....
Dunc
Mike Miller
> 26 flights per year means devising 26 missions per year, and
> low Earth orbit just isn't that interesting. As it is, the station
> assembly sequence is being slowed down by delays on the station side,
> not the Shuttle flight rate. NASA simply doesn't have a use for more
> than 8 or so flights per year, unless it gets back into the massively
> subsidised commercial launch biz. And it can manage happily enough
> on 5 to 6 per year.
Are you sure this isn't a case of the market/industry conforming to the
availability of launches?
At 26 flights per year, wouldn't the shuttle be considerably more
economical than our shuttle? All those enormous fixed operating
costs would be spread out over more launches. The US might retain
a larger share of the launch market and still use the shuttles.
Heck, the USAF might be using the shuttles for those intended one-
orbit, moment's notice launches. Universities might be buying seats
for a few days in space. "First grad student in orbit."
Hmm. I wonder how much fully transparent aerogel you could manufacture
in a week's orbit. First the communications industry made money in
space, then the window industry. :)
> Also, the catastrophic failure probability of the Shuttle (about 1
> in 500) means that at 26 tests per year the probability of a disaster
> in the next decade would be about 4 in 10.
Well, yes, there is that problem.
Mike Miller, MatE
Henry Spencer
Not quite. They had an offer from Rockwell to build two or three orbiters
for the price of one, *if* NASA let them redesign internal subsystems with
updated technology. The reason for this was that re-creating exactly the
old subsystems looked costly, given the time that had elapsed since the
production of the original orbiters.
But it wasn't just a question of whether NASA had a use for more orbiters.
(If nothing else, you could mothball the extras against the possibility of
losing operational orbiters in, say, landing accidents.) It would also
have meant maintaining two different versions of the orbiter. That made
the deal much less attractive, and so it was rejected.
Duncan Young
> Not quite. They had an offer from Rockwell to build two or three orbiters
> for the price of one, *if* NASA let them redesign internal subsystems...<snip>
I stand corrected... was the systems changed on a "don't make em like
they used to" basis or "new and improved" basis...if the later, maybe
they should have retired ALL the pre-Challenger shuttles as structural
spares and gone with a new generation of shuttle - although that might
have delayed reflight until the early '90's...
> But it wasn't just a question of whether NASA had a use for more orbiters.
> (If nothing else, you could mothball the extras against the possibility of
> losing operational orbiters in, say, landing accidents.) It would also
> have meant maintaining two different versions of the orbiter. That made
> the deal much less attractive, and so it was rejected.
Cheers,
Duncan
Henry Spencer
Duncan Young <smu...@mac.com> wrote:
>> Not quite. They had an offer from Rockwell to build two or three orbiters
>> for the price of one, *if* NASA let them redesign internal subsystems...
>
>they used to" basis or "new and improved" basis...
Mostly the former -- parts were out of production, subcontractors were
gone, and it was generally quite difficult to duplicate the old systems
exactly.
Mind you, in some cases a redesign would have ended up making improvements
anyway, just because the state of the art had improved dramatically.
Graham Nelson
> Mind you, in some cases a redesign would have ended up making improvements
> anyway, just because the state of the art had improved dramatically.
Was it a controversial decision, at NASA, to turn down Rockwell's offer?
Christopher M. Jones
I'd rather not. I'd rather imagine NASA spending its extra circa
10 gigabucks per year on more robotic missions and developing and
validating new technology for spaceflight and space exploration.
--
Here come the Jets
Little world, step aside
Better go underground
Better run, better hide
Henry Spencer
Graham Nelson <gra...@gnelson.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> Mind you, in some cases a redesign would have ended up making improvements
>> anyway, just because the state of the art had improved dramatically.
>
>Was it a controversial decision, at NASA, to turn down Rockwell's offer?
I don't think so. It would have meant some sticky negotiating with
Congress -- that's not what the funding was supposed to be for -- and with
that and the maintenance issues and the sheer effrontery of the proposal
(NASA thinks of itself as being in charge, not as responding to industry
initiatives), I think it was a non-starter.