Once in a while I hear some old guy complain about the space shuttle.

[shortylickens]

Frequently they claim the one-use pods were much better. They can never explain WHY they believe that.
Anyone have some ideas?

 

[pete6032]

Frequently they claim the one-use pods were much better. They can never explain WHY they believe that.
Anyone have some ideas?

Who are you talking to and how does this topic come up exactly?

 

[shortylickens]

Who are you talking to and how does this topic come up exactly?

Nope. Not answering any questions until i get some answered.

You fuckers go off on tangents like Donald Trump goes off at Democrats.

 

[Muse]

TBH, the 4 amateur astronaut thing 2 weeks ago bored me to tears. They are not MY heroes. Those two multi-billionaires going to space for the ride of their lifetime a month ago in competing separate launches strikes me as juvenile. Again, no admiration... and no envy. Got no problem with the SS. But I really don't care to follow that stuff. I have moderate interest in the Mars rovers. I don't figure colonizing Mars is a terrific idea.

 

[IronWing]

The space shuttles costed more, were oversized for reasonable missions, and killed more astronauts at a time. They were monuments to hubris.

 

[shortylickens]

TBH, the 4 amateur astronaut thing 2 weeks ago bored me to tears. They are not MY heroes. Those two multi-billionaires going to space for the ride of their lifetime a month ago in competing separate launches strikes me as juvenile. Again, no admiration... and no envy. Got no problem with the SS. But I really don't care to follow that stuff. I have moderate interest in the Mars rovers. I don't figure colonizing Mars is a terrific idea.

NO no no no no no no no, thats nto waht I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the old pod missions of the 70's versus the space shuttle of the 80's.
Sometimes I hear people saying they like one over the other but they never explain why.

 

[sdifox]

Frequently they claim the one-use pods were much better. They can never explain WHY they believe that.
Anyone have some ideas?

You don't have to retest everything to recertify.

 

[shortylickens]

You don't have to retest everything to recertify.

OK, that'll do.

THANKS EVERYONE!

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

I kinda wish it had all never happened.

Just seems like a huuuugggeeee waste.

 

[Muse]

NO no no no no no no no, thats nto waht I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the old pod missions of the 70's versus the space shuttle of the 80's.
Sometimes I hear people saying they like one over the other but they never explain why.

Who GAF about what was going on in the 70's and 80's? Arguing what they should have been doing then is going into the future facing ass backwards. Anyway, the Shuttle's history.

 

[Muse]

I kinda wish it had all never happened.

Just seems like a huuuugggeeee waste.

When Sputnik happened and the space race was born I was, WTF are they doing? A ball going around the planet, SFW. But it turned out I didn't have the imagination/technical-know-how to realize that SATELITTE TECHNOLOGY would be a HUGE PART OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION OF THE NEXT 50 PLUS YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pods, shuttles, they are just a subset of that.

 

[Captante]

Unless and until we have the technology to safely "fly" into space and re-enter routinely without BS like giant tanks of high-explosive rocket fuel along for the ride or heat insulation-tiles that fail if so much as tapped, single-use is FAR safer and (believe it or not) usually cheaper as well.

We're getting close now but back when they built the shuttle not so much.... that thing was so overly complex and fragile its a wonder we only lost two of them.

 

[shortylickens]

Unless and until we have the technology to safely "fly" into space and re-enter routinely without BS like giant tanks of high-explosive rocket fuel along for the ride or heat insulation-tiles that fail if so much as tapped, single-use is FAR safer and (believe it or not) usually cheaper as well.

We're getting close now but back when they built the shuttle not so much.... that thing was so overly complex and fragile its a wonder we only lost two of them.

When I was stationed in China Lake they told us we were a tertiary backup for the shuttle landing, cuz we had 3 runways each well over a mile long and different angles. The guys in the tower said if it ever actually happened those people were doomed, cuz in reality its a bitch to land at and it also means multiple things have gone wrong already.

 

[BUTCH1]

You don't have to retest everything to recertify.

Yea, the shuttle main engines needed an overhaul after each flight, about the same cost as new ones so the "cheap access to space" never materialized.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I suppose one argument against reusable pods is that it can be hard to detect things like metal fatigue etc so each time you fly it, there is more risk. Things like insulation can slowly deteriorate over time. I don't know if that's a valid argument though as I'm sure they have ways to test for all that and they probably do rebuild them after so many flights, right?

 

[Ken g6]

The space shuttle ostensibly had two main advantages over previous rockets:

1. It could haul up chunks of hardware and put them together for a space station.
2. It could return satellites from space, so they could be refurbished on the ground.

But they were rarely used for either mission. Space station design and construction was delayed a long time, and shuttle performance wasn't good enough to return large satellites safely.

The other problem with the shuttle was ice from the cryogenic fuel tank could fall off, accelerate, and hit the shuttle on the way up. That's what happened to Columbia. So, some people thought they should have just removed the shuttle, put shuttle engines under the tank, and put a pod on top of the tank. But then somebody decided that design should go to the Moon, instead of launching to low orbit and using some other system to go to the Moon. So they did a near-complete redesign to add more reinforcing structure and length to support more stages and a super-sized pod, waited too long so new shuttle engines weren't readily available, and wound up with the Space Launch System.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I can't recall where I read this... maybe it was even here, but someone had described the moon mission as basically being a VW bus strapped on top of a ICBM. It's kind of funny when you think about it, because that's basically what a rocket is lol.

 

[shortylickens]

I suppose one argument against reusable pods is that it can be hard to detect things like metal fatigue etc so each time you fly it, there is more risk. Things like insulation can slowly deteriorate over time. I don't know if that's a valid argument though as I'm sure they have ways to test for all that and they probably do rebuild them after so many flights, right?

no they have giant MRI's too look for tiny little problems in the body.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Frequently they claim the one-use pods were much better. They can never explain WHY they believe that.
Anyone have some ideas?

Lets see ... no American astronaut died on a pod launch or re-entry. Apollo 1 was a on the pad and fire broke out during a test, not a launch. Now compare that to the deaths of the space shuttle which had plenty of deaths both on launch and re-entry.

 

[BUTCH1]

Lets see ... no American astronaut died on a pod launch or re-entry. Apollo 1 was a on the pad and fire broke out during a test, not a launch. Now compare that to the deaths of the space shuttle which had plenty of deaths both on launch and re-entry.

We lost two shuttles and it's complexity and expense meant it never lived up to expectations BUT both of those losses were 100% preventable. When the solid booster engineers are begging to not launch in those frigid temps and you ignore that sound advise a disaster happens. I live about 50 miles north of KSC and it was so cold that AM that we had frozen puddles all around the parking lot at work, this is not normal for central FL at all. The second was also ignorance, it was known chunks of foam were falling off the tank and hitting the shuttle and it ignore it disaster happens again.

 

[Captante]

We lost two shuttles and it's complexity and expense meant it never lived up to expectations BUT both of those losses were 100% preventable. When the solid booster engineers are begging to not launch in those frigid temps and you ignore that sound advise a disaster happens. I live about 50 miles north of KSC and it was so cold that AM that we had frozen puddles all around the parking lot at work, this is not normal for central FL at all. The second was also ignorance, it was known chunks of foam were falling off the tank and hitting the shuttle and it ignore it disaster happens again.

Yep .... BOTH actual accidents were caused by a combination of incompetence and hubris. (especially Challenger)

However the sheer complexity of the shuttle as a system was what set the stage.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

We lost two shuttles and it's complexity and expense meant it never lived up to expectations BUT both of those losses were 100% preventable. When the solid booster engineers are begging to not launch in those frigid temps and you ignore that sound advise a disaster happens. I live about 50 miles north of KSC and it was so cold that AM that we had frozen puddles all around the parking lot at work, this is not normal for central FL at all. The second was also ignorance, it was known chunks of foam were falling off the tank and hitting the shuttle and it ignore it disaster happens again.

I understand and agree with everything you have said. But that doesn't change the fact of what I said was plain truth. I'm actually for rockets. I grew up in that era and watched the TV as Apollo 11 launched, landed on the moon, and returned.

 

[ultimatebob]

Almost everything on a SpaceX launch is reusable now, so we're basically back to where we were with the space shuttle when you think about it.

 

[Captante]

Almost everything on a SpaceX launch is reusable now, so we're basically back to where we were with the space shuttle when you think about it.

Except for the level (and size!) of the technology.

 

[Micrornd]

Frequently they claim the one-use pods were much better. They can never explain WHY they believe that.
Anyone have some ideas?

I would assume that they mean the single use rockets could put more into low earth orbit that the shuttle.
As an example a single Saturn V could boost over 141,000KG in to low earth orbit (ISS height) while shuttles were limited to less than 25,000kg each trip.