dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz) (11/25/85)
I just read Discover magazine's November 1985 issue. It has a series of three articles on the space shuttle. The cover is a picture of the shuttle floating in orbit, with the quote: "The shuttle is a superb technological achievement, and it's flown by brave, immensely competent men and women... But what is it good for?" Lest you think the issue was put together by anti-space Luddites, that quote is from the third article, by Gerard O'Neill. (O'Neill's Geostar company is going to launch its satellites using Ariane.) The first article was on the history and economics of the shuttle. I was appalled. The shuttle is an economic failure to dwarf the Concorde. First of all, it hasn't reached its design payload capacity (ever wondered why the payload bay is so empty?) of 65000 pounds. That's going to require increasing the thrust on the SSME's to 109% of rated capacity, and that has proved difficult to achieve (it's going to cost around a billion dollars more to do it). Current maximum payload is around 47000 pounds. Second, it's expensive. The average full cost minus development cost of a shuttle launch is $108 million. That's $2298 per pound at present or, when the engines are improved, $1662 per pound. Throwing in development cost raises the cost another $42 million. In contrast, former NASA administrator James Fletcher estimated in 1972 that a Saturn-V costs $1677 (in 1985 dollars) to put a pound into orbit. Incredibly, NASA has spent $14 billion and ten years and has no improvement in launch costs to show for it. Third, it can't recoup operating expenses, much less development costs, because of foreign competition. NASA can only charge $71 million for a fully dedicated flight, and doesn't even get that much for most flights. This situation can only get worse as new, more efficient, versions of foreign rockets are developed. What NASA should do is learn from the shuttle experience and design an improved shuttle with better economics. But no, they're going to build a space station. I can take solace in the fact that the europeans are working on shuttle-like vehicles (Hermes and HOTOL) and you can bet they will learn from NASA's mistakes. For the shuttle, things could become grim in a few years if fiber optics really depresses the market for communications satellites, and if DOD decides to build a new expendable booster as backup for the shuttle.
broehl@watdcsu.UUCP (Bernie Roehl) (11/28/85)
In article <8511251341.AA17196@s1-b.arpa> dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz) writes: >I just read Discover magazine's November 1985 issue... >"The shuttle is a superb >technological achievement, and it's flown by brave, immensely competent >men and women... But what is it good for?" Sound like the sort of cover quote designed to sell magazines... (and it worked -- you bought one, didn't you?) >What NASA should do is learn from the shuttle experience and design an >improved shuttle with better economics. Why? They've already spent a lot of money developing something that works. You're suggesting they spend even more money doing it again? This makes very little sense. >But no, they're going to build >a space station. ... which is precisely what they need. What's more useful, a station or more shuttles? >I can take solace in the fact that the europeans are >working on shuttle-like vehicles (Hermes and HOTOL) and you can bet >they will learn from NASA's mistakes. ... and from the countless things NASA's done right. After NASA's done the R & D, it's easy for the Europeans (and the Soviets) to simply use that technology to build their own. Improving on someone else's design is a lot easier than designing from scratch yourself (which is why so many countries are poor innovators but strong industrial nations nevertheless). >For the shuttle, things could become grim in a few years if fiber >optics really depresses the market for communications satellites... Unlikely. >if DOD decides to build a new expendable booster as backup for the >shuttle. Possible, but also unlikely. Whatever the economics, the shuttle has made space more accessible. It has also allowed the integration of the manned and unmanned aspects of space flight, and made it possible to do things like satellite recovery and on-orbit repair. It's proven that you can build a reusable manned spacecraft. It's allowed non-astronauts to travel into space to do useful work. Even if other countries jump on the bandwagon, and even if they manage to do it cheaper (by using NASA-developed technology) and better (by improving on the basic design) the fact remains that they are depending on the innovation of the engineers who built the shuttle. It's really unfair to criticize the shuttle program solely on the basis of cost/pound.
dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz) (11/30/85)
>>What NASA should do is learn from the shuttle experience and design an >>improved shuttle with better economics. >Why? They've already spent a lot of money developing something that works. >You're suggesting they spend even more money doing it again? This makes very >little sense. I said why -- because the shuttle loses money. In the long run, NASA can't keep susidizing shuttle launches. In an economic sense the shuttle *doesn't* work. Spending money to do it again -- and do it *right* -- makes more sense than pouring money down the current rathole. >>But no, they're going to build >>a space station. >... which is precisely what they need. What's more useful, a station or >more shuttles? NASA is having a hard time saying what the space station will be used for, and the space station's utility is going to be limited by how often NASA can send up shuttles (the Europeans are complaining that NASA will limit it to 14 launches a year; they want 20, but that would cost NASA too much money). Agreed, we don't need more shuttles of the current design, but real exploitation of space needs cheaper launchers. According to AWST, the National Advisory Council on Space (or whatever it is called; the thing Paine & O'Neill are on) is going to say that the number one priority for opening up space is reducing the cost of putting payload in orbit by a factor of 10, and by another factor of ten in the long term -- NOT building a space station. >Whatever the economics, the shuttle has made space more accessible. It has >also allowed the integration of the manned and unmanned aspects of space >flight, and made it possible to do things like satellite recovery and on-orbit >repair. It's proven that you can build a reusable manned spacecraft. It's >allowed non-astronauts to travel into space to do useful work. >Even if other countries jump on the bandwagon, and even if they manage to >do it cheaper (by using NASA-developed technology) and better (by improving >on the basic design) the fact remains that they are depending on the >innovation of the engineers who built the shuttle. It's really unfair to >criticize the shuttle program solely on the basis of cost/pound. But why should one want to integrate manned and unmanned space travel? Being forced to lift people into orbit just to launch satellites is silly and costly. The shuttle can only do on-orbit repair and recovery of satellites in low orbit, a pretty small market (and it would be smaller still if the PAM motors weren't needed, as they aren't if an expendable launcher is used). The shuttle is reusable, yes, but not nearly to the extent needed for economical operation. Non-astronauts could be launched in other vehicles (and I don't consider the ability to orbit congress-critters to be a benefit, unless you leave them there). The fact that other countries are developing reusable vehicles in no way redeems NASA's failure; indeed, if the other countries are using lots of NASA's technology then NASA's failure to develop a better follow-on is even more damning. It is eminently fair to criticize the shuttle on the basis of cost/pound to orbit. Reducing this cost was the primary justification of the shuttle program! Even if a later design works, the current shuttle is, by this criterion, a failure.
broehl%watdcsu%waterloo.CSNET@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA (Bernie Roehl) (12/02/85)
>>>What NASA should do is learn from the shuttle experience and design an >>>improved shuttle with better economics. >>Why? >I said why -- because the shuttle loses money. In the long run, NASA >can't keep susidizing shuttle launches. In an economic sense the >shuttle *doesn't* work. Spending money to do it again -- and do it >*right* -- makes more sense than pouring money down the current rathole. Only if the savings (i.e. the difference in operating expenses) is greater than the development cost, which is unlikely. >shuttles of the current design, but real exploitation of space needs >cheaper launchers. Agreed, in the long term cheaper launchers are important. >...the National Advisory Council on Space (or whatever >it is called; the thing Paine & O'Neill are on) is going to say that >the number one priority for opening up space is reducing the cost >of putting payload in orbit by a factor of 10, and by another factor >of ten in the long term. Again, I agree. *However*, this is not likely to happen for some time (unfortunatly) simply because funding for a new series of shuttles is unlikely. We've barely started using the ones we have, coming up with a new fleet that may have slightly better economics would not go over well it this point. In any case, you won't get a factor of 10 reduction with an improved shuttle design; we're talking a totally different kind of vehicle. Probably single stage to orbit, quite possibly vertical launch/ vertical landing, low maintenance, 48 hour turnaround. >But why should one want to integrate manned and unmanned space travel? For the same reason we don't have unmanned cargo planes (or trains, or ships). It makes good sense to have people there in case something goes wrong (which is, if anything, *more* likely in a complex activity like spaceflight than in rail transport). >...then NASA's failure to develop >a better follow-on is even more damning. Spending billions of dollars to develop that follow-on after just a few years of using the first-generation shuttle would be a silly waste of hard-to-get funding.
rjnoe@riccb.UUCP (Roger J. Noe) (12/02/85)
> The fact that other countries are developing reusable vehicles in > no way redeems NASA's failure; indeed, if the other countries are > using lots of NASA's technology then NASA's failure to develop > a better follow-on is even more damning. Just a minute, here. Where do you get off calling it NASA's failure? They have done remarkably well considering the miniscule budget Congress has given them. Are you a U.S. citizen and were you able to vote back in the very early 1970's? If so, any "failure" that can be assessed is yours, not NASA's and not even your congressional representatives'. If you can vote in the U.S. now, then any future "failure" will also be your responsibility. If you never have been extended the privilege of voting for this country's legislative and executive positions and never will, then you have no basis whatsoever to criticize this country's space program. I'm all for a more economical shuttle AND a permanently manned station AND a lunar base AND a manned mission to Mars, etc. I'd be happy to allocate ten per cent of my yearly income for these projects if it would help bring them to fruition. But until such an atmosphere of public opinion prevails I think NASA is correct in pursuing the station and keeping the current shuttle. > It is eminently fair to criticize the shuttle on the basis of > cost/pound to orbit. Reducing this cost was the primary justification > of the shuttle program! Even if a later design works, the current > shuttle is, by this criterion, a failure. That's entirely incorrect. Reducing the cost of reaching Earth orbit was a primary MOTIVATION for the Space Transportation System program. It was never a justification, nor was it ever meant to be. Had the original design concepts (fully reusable) been adopted AND FUNDED we'd be much closer to this goal than we are now. Calling the present shuttle a failure even though a future design will work better is like standing in front of the SR-71 and saying that Orville and Wilbur Wright were incompetent boobs. When it comes to research and development, it can only be done in small steps unless you have someone else's design to learn from. The quantum leap from V-2 to space transportation system could probably not have been achieved in anything less than twenty years and that presumes one moves directly and consistently toward STS during the entire two decades AND that there be sufficient funding for such efforts. Ground-breaking engineering is a very capital-intensive undertaking. It happens all too frequently that a project is made more expensive rather than the reverse when engineers are denied the resources to achieve what they have planned and are forced to scale it down. I am not suggesting for a moment that all engineering problems can be solved merely by throwing enough money at them, but I do think it makes sense to commit resources to R&D if one really wants to achieve something significant. -- "It's only by NOT taking the human race seriously that I retain what fragments of my once considerable mental powers I still possess!" Roger Noe ihnp4!riccb!rjnoe
dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz) (12/03/85)
>> In the long run, NASA >>can't keep susidizing shuttle launches. In an economic sense the >>shuttle *doesn't* work. Spending money to do it again -- and do it >>*right* -- makes more sense than pouring money down the current rathole. >Only if the savings (i.e. the difference in operating expenses) is >greater than the development cost, which is unlikely. NASA is going to spend $1.3 billion next year on shuttle launches (that's after commercial fees have been paid). In the long run, wouldn't we be better off if NASA had spent that money on R&D? As more shuttle flights are scheduled and the competition improves these numbers may well get worse. > We've barely started using the ones we have, coming up with >a new fleet that may have slightly better economics would not go over >well it this point. In any case, you won't get a factor of 10 reduction >with an improved shuttle design; we're talking a totally different kind >of vehicle. Probably single stage to orbit, quite possibly vertical launch/ >vertical landing, low maintenance, 48 hour turnaround. Recall, though, that the shuttle originally promised a to-orbit cost of $100/lb which (taking into account inflation) is around 10x cheaper than what it currently costs. By "doing it right" I mean living up to these original promises. Your argument points out a drawback of reusable spacecraft: once you build one, you're stuck with it. NASA was expecting much heavier traffic than they've been able to sustain, and, as a result, is stuck with the shuttle for years to come. Developing a better launcher with slightly improved economics will not go over well with NASA. But what about the europeans? They'll be grabbing NASA's market share, so they'll be quite willing to invest the money. >>But why should one want to integrate manned and unmanned space travel? >For the same reason we don't have unmanned cargo planes (or trains, or ships). >It makes good sense to have people there in case something goes wrong (which >is, if anything, *more* likely in a complex activity like spaceflight than >in rail transport). The cargo plane analogy is bogus. The economics of air & sea transport are completely different from that of space transport, where reducing mass is the primary concern. At least in the satellite launch business, it makes little sense to lift people into orbit along with the cargo. The proper response is to make the hardware sufficiently reliable that it doesn't need costly human supervision. >>...then NASA's failure to develop >>a better follow-on is even more damning. >Spending billions of dollars to develop that follow-on after just a few >years of using the first-generation shuttle would be a silly waste of >hard-to-get funding. Developing the current shuttle was a silly waste of hard-to-get funding. (I'll be charitable; it was a learning experience.) Pouring billions of dollars into subsidizing it would be even more tragic. Developing a better follow-on would at least bring us closer to the day space can be economically exploited. Note that I'm not suggesting mothballing the shuttles immediately. They're all we've got now, given that we can't make Saturns anymore. But fear of congressional retribution should not serve to stifle criticism of NASA's mistakes (Congress will find out anyway).
dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz) (12/04/85)
I see no evidence that launching people with a satellite increases the launch reliability. If anything, it decreases reliability, because we've inserted another stage (the low-orbit to high orbit transfer) into the launch process. It is at this stage that three failures have occured (the two PAM failures and the IUS failure with the TDRS satellite). The Ariane launches directly to geosynchronous altitude (admittedly, the Ariane has more stages than the shuttle, and can be criticized on that count). Note also that no shuttle flight has managed to repair or recover a broken satellite that was launched on the same mission. >>At least in the satellite launch business, it makes little sense to >>lift people into orbit along with the cargo. The proper response is >>to make the hardware sufficiently reliable that it doesn't need costly >>human supervision. >This can easily be as costly as sending humans along. *Reliable* hardware >is expensive; that's why Shuttle costs so much, and why Ariane's so cheap. There is a difference between the reliability needed for carrying people and the reliability needed for economic launchers. For example, launching a $100 million satellite on a booster with a 5% chance of catastrophic failure is acceptable; the insurance costs will be a small fraction of launch costs. Launching people in such a booster is clearly unacceptable. The shuttle needs to be much more reliable than expendable boosters, and it costs. The question here is: does it make sense to make the booster more reliable so that you can make the PAM motor less reliable? Not likely, given that the booster costs orders of magnitude more than the PAM motor (assuming that the unmanned system would even HAVE a PAM motor). Also, using the shuttle to launch high-energy upper stages using LH/LOX fuel is causing big headaches. The Centaur upper stage used with Gallileo is having safety problems and may delay that mission for a while. >>Developing the current shuttle was a silly waste of hard-to-get funding. >Not at the time the decision was made. There was a serious danger there >would be no space program as such at all, just a bunch of Atlas and Titan >boosters kicking communications satellites into orbit. The shuttle changed >all that, and instead of no spaceflight we have spaceflight that's so >routine it's not even newsworthy anymore. Now the truth comes out. Could it be that the purpose of the shuttle was not to provide cheap transport into orbit, but rather to allow NASA (aka "the space program") to continue to exist? That putting people into space was taken as given and a justification was invented for doing so? This is not necessarily bad, if the money would otherwise have gone to some worthy cause like propping up the price of butter. But... I suspect that if the shuttle hadn't been developed the aerospace companies would have gone to work improving their expendable boosters, much as the europeans did. As it happened, they didn't, because NASA was supposed to produce a fantastically cheap launcher that would make any such expendable booster uneconomical, and working on the shuttle was a risk-free source of money. --- An aside: an article in Business Week (12/9/85, page 124) talks about the DOD and their shuttle facility at Vandenburg. It contains the paragraph: "Operation of manned space-launch facilities at Vandenburg will add only $400 million to the military's $15 billion space budget next year. But Congress may have to increase that figure considerably in 1987 and beyond because of plans to replace the present space shuttle. The next-generation spacecraft will be designed to take off from an airport rather than from a rocket pad. This will reduce waiting time between launches and cut their cost in half." DOD apparently isn't constrained to justify the shuttle. In fact, there have been reports (in Science last year, for example) that the DOD was concerned about the shuttle's poor reliability and potential for catastrophic failure, and wanted to develop an interim expendable booster (NASA was horrified; I don't know if the idea has died). The military is the biggest customer for low altitude satellites -- weather and spy satellites -- for which the shuttle is suited. This is probably the biggest market for satellite repair the shuttle can service, or, rather, will be once the shuttle is able to reach polar orbit.
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (12/04/85)
> > The fact that other countries are developing reusable vehicles in > > no way redeems NASA's failure... > > ... Are you a U.S. citizen and were you able to vote back in the very early > 1970's? If so, any "failure" that can be assessed is yours, not NASA's and > not even your congressional representatives'. If you can vote in the U.S. > now, then any future "failure" will also be your responsibility. Nonsense. If you foul up, it is *your* fault, not that of the Rockwell shareholders. They may perhaps be responsible for tolerating situations that encourage fouling up, and thus share some of the blame, but you are most definitely still accountable for your actions. (Ask your boss about this if you don't believe me.) Same principle. US voters may perhaps be blamed for inadequate NASA funding, but not for NASA making promises that it can't keep. > If you never > have been extended the privilege of voting for this country's legislative and > executive positions and never will, then you have no basis whatsoever to > criticize this country's space program. Utter nonsense. It may disqualify us from demanding answers from NASA brass, on the grounds that they don't work for us, but calling a failure a failure is not the exclusive prerogative of the people who pay the bills for it. > > It is eminently fair to criticize the shuttle on the basis of > > cost/pound to orbit. Reducing this cost was the primary justification > > of the shuttle program! ... > > That's entirely incorrect. Reducing the cost of reaching Earth orbit was > a primary MOTIVATION for the Space Transportation System program. It was > never a justification, nor was it ever meant to be... The whole justification for undertaking an expensive development program in the first place was that existing expendable boosters were not adequate to do the job. In what way? They were too expensive. I fail to see the fine line you are drawing between "motivation" and "justification". If anything, you are drawing it the wrong way: NASA's motive for the shuttle was a combination of the development of space and bureaucratic self-preservation, while the justification offered was lower launch costs. Check out the Congressional testimony if you don't believe me on the latter. > Had the original design > concepts (fully reusable) been adopted AND FUNDED we'd be much closer to this > goal than we are now. Agreed. But it remains true that even the partly-reusable shuttle was claimed by NASA to greatly reduce launch costs; it hasn't, and won't. > Calling the present shuttle a failure even though a > future design will work better is like standing in front of the SR-71 and > saying that Orville and Wilbur Wright were incompetent boobs. "fail, v.t. 1. attempt without success. 2. not to do. 3. disappoint. ..." [from the little dictionary in my desk] The issue at hand is not whether the Wrights could build an SR-71, but whether they could make good on their claims, i.e. whether they could build something that would fly. They did not claim to be able to reach Mach 3; NASA most definitely did claim to be able to drastically reduce launch costs, with the shuttle. > ... Ground-breaking engineering is a very capital-intensive > undertaking. It happens all too frequently that a project is made more > expensive rather than the reverse when engineers are denied the resources to > achieve what they have planned and are forced to scale it down. ... Nobody is claiming that NASA wasn't (a) working under difficult conditions to (b) achieve a rather difficult goal. That does not change the facts: they failed. The promises they made *after* the scaling-down occurred have not been kept. Probably nobody on Earth could have kept them -- although there are some people I'd have given better odds than I'd have given NASA on the job -- so the blame rests with those who made the promises in the first place. NASA. Understand, I think the shuttle is a winner on the whole (although I mourn for what it could have been, and isn't). Routine manned access to space is definitely worth having, and that's what the shuttle is good at. Alas, not as good as something that didn't claim to be a cheap payload truck too -- a larger fleet of smaller orbiters would do a much better job on routine manned access to space -- but a little is better than none. NASA probably couldn't have sold the shuttle on that basis only. But let us be honest: the shuttle was justified as a cheap payload truck, and it's not. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
dls@mtgzz.UUCP (d.l.skran) (12/05/85)
Mr. Dietz seems to be ignoring shuttle history as he dunns what can only be described as in incrediblely successful program. Point 1: the military was a big factor in making the shuttle uneconomical. NASA wanted as *smaller* shuttle with lower thrust engines. Point 2: NASA was told to design to cost(6 billion I recall), not for any other major consideration except DOD requirements. Hence, designs with greater reusability and lower cost could not be considered. Point 3: The program was underfunded at all points, finally resulting in near disaster at the end. Inadequate $ were available for component testing so engines were tested all at once, with predictably bad results. Point 4: A very considerable cost for the shuttle is the maintenance of permanent equipment(gantries, ground crews, etc.) Having one more shuttle and many more flights would substantially lower costs per flight. The original fleet was planned to have six, not four shuttles. Given the military role in crippling the shuttle, their current about face is disgusting. The shuttle represents an enormous increase in our space going capability, and is more flexible than the large Saturn. Ya, Saturn is cheaper per pound, but we are not launching dirt into orbit. The shuttle has comparable costs combined with a MUCH more useful craft. I agree that a follow on shuttle is very important, but I see no reason to start development for a couple of years. Let's build the station, and do it "right" about 1995. Meanwhile, the military may have developed a small orbital plane we can use as a basis for further work. Seriously - more is happening every two months in space than happened for years during the 60s. Just look at the tremendous amount and variety of vital stuff that has gotten packed into the first 22 shuttle missions. Without the shuttle we would be going NOWHERE FAST, just launching communication satellites on some "big cheap booster." With the shuttle we are repairing satellites, building beams in space, running Spacelab(s) all over the place, and providing small scale, low cost access to space(getaway specials). Dale
rjnoe@riccb.UUCP (Roger J. Noe) (12/06/85)
> > ... Are you a U.S. citizen and were you able to vote back in the very early > > 1970's? If so, any "failure" that can be assessed is yours, not NASA's and > > not even your congressional representatives'. If you can vote in the U.S. > > now, then any future "failure" will also be your responsibility. > > Nonsense. If you foul up, it is *your* fault, not that of [your company's] > shareholders. They may perhaps be responsible for tolerating situations > that encourage fouling up, and thus share some of the blame, but you are > most definitely still accountable for your actions. . . . Same principle. > . . . . US voters may perhaps be > blamed for inadequate NASA funding, but not for NASA making promises that > it can't keep. Point 1: I work for a publicly-held industrial concern, not a government agency. So it's not at all the "same principle." My employers are not elected public officials. If you lived in the U.S. you might understand the difference. (-: Seriously, I do appreciate that individuals are accountable for their actions. But here in the USA we are fortunate enough to have a measure of responsibility for our government's actions. These actions are mainly what the government chooses to fund and by how much. Pay attention to our next presidential campaign and you'll see that most of the talking the candidates do is along the lines of which programs will be cut, which will be started, and how much our taxes will change to accommodate these changes. Point 2: I maintain that the only macro-mistake in the STS program was by how much it was funded and for what reasons. This decision drove all the others, including the design of the STS. That is why the shuttle costs more than was projected. That is all the NASA officials were doing, making projections that if this much money was spent on development, then it would at some specified point cost this much to launch this payload, etc. I don't recall ever reading in any of the congressional testimony that NASA guaranteed such things. Only that, to the best of their experience, it would come to pass. It is a rare engineering project indeed that accomplishes some- thing never done before and does it in the time and within the budget originally projected. How can anyone say they "promised" something they couldn't deliver? And, even if one does aver that they made promises, wasn't it incredibly naive to believe that they could do something that incredible with such limited resources? > > If you never > > have been extended the privilege of voting for this country's legislative > > and executive positions and never will, then you have no basis whatsoever > > to criticize this country's space program. > > Utter nonsense. It may disqualify us from demanding answers from NASA brass, > on the grounds that they don't work for us, but calling a failure a failure > is not the exclusive prerogative of the people who pay the bills for it. It's not because we pay the bills that I made that statement. It's because no other country has equalled U.S. accomplishments in space. You think we failed in the shuttle program? What has Canada done better? Oh, yeah, you made the robot arm. Impressive (I'm serious). You've sent one astronaut into space, but then that was on a U.S. space shuttle. How many communications satellites would Canada have up were it not for the U.S.? Take off, eh. (In your nonexistent shuttle, that is.) > > Reducing the cost of reaching Earth orbit was > > a primary MOTIVATION for the Space Transportation System program. It was > > never a justification . . . > > I fail to see the fine > line you are drawing between "motivation" and "justification". If anything, > you are drawing it the wrong way: NASA's motive for the shuttle was a > combination of the development of space and bureaucratic self-preservation, > while the justification offered was lower launch costs. Check out the > Congressional testimony if you don't believe me on the latter. No, I've got it right, you've got it backwards. NASA was directed by the President of the United States to develop a system which would lower these costs. They presented what ideas they had and stated their belief that it would in fact lower launch costs. Since this occurred before they began the program, it is a motivation (stimulus to an action), not a justification. Clearly, the word "justification" is entirely misplaced here because that is denoted to be an after-the-fact demonstration of correctness. NASA has not maintained that they accomplished what they originally projected. > But it remains true that even the partly-reusable shuttle was claimed > by NASA to greatly reduce launch costs; it hasn't, and won't. They claimed (even after budget cuts) that they thought it would still reduce costs. Again, that was just a projection. In any event, they had no choice but to build that which was funded. > > Calling the present shuttle a failure even though a > > future design will work better is like standing in front of the SR-71 and > > saying that Orville and Wilbur Wright were incompetent boobs. > > The issue at hand is not whether > the Wrights could build an SR-71, but whether they could make good on their > claims, i.e. whether they could build something that would fly. Read again: the context was that the shuttle can be built better; because of this, the current project is a failure. You're mistaking someone else calling NASA a failure versus calling the shuttle a failure. > That does not change the facts: > they failed. The promises they made *after* the scaling-down occurred have > not been kept. Probably nobody on Earth could have kept them -- although > there are some people I'd have given better odds than I'd have given NASA > on the job -- so the blame rests with those who made the promises in the > first place. NASA. Again, you're saying they made promises when all they did was make projections based on almost no data. Once they began operating, they knew how much things would cost and they told everyone. So who could have done better? Who HAS done better? > Understand, I think the shuttle is a winner on the whole (although I mourn > for what it could have been, and isn't). Routine manned access to space is > definitely worth having, and that's what the shuttle is good at. Alas, not > as good as something that didn't claim to be a cheap payload truck too -- > a larger fleet of smaller orbiters would do a much better job on routine > manned access to space -- but a little is better than none. NASA probably > couldn't have sold the shuttle on that basis only. But let us be honest: > the shuttle was justified as a cheap payload truck, and it's not. > -- > Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology I agree with you on almost all that paragraph. But NASA does not now claim that the shuttle is a cheap payload truck. That was what it was supposed to be, but because the funding and politics went awry, it's not what we have. But it was, for the last time, NOT justified on that basis. NASA has not claimed for years that's what the shuttle does or will do. It should never have been the emphasis. I should also point out that there are generally accepted accounting principles which do show that the shuttle is an economic success. It's all in how you want to look at it. -- These ideas are mine and, it appears, nobody else's! Roger Noe ihnp4!riccb!rjnoe
jlg@lanl.ARPA (12/07/85)
I don't understand this line of controversy. I though the shuttle WAS cheaper per pound than saturn Vs and the like. Oh, the actual dollar amount might be the same - or even more - but inflation has reduced the value of the dollar by more than A FACTOR OF TWO since the last Apollo mission. Is the $/lb. figure for the shuttle really that much? Maybe I should get a back issue of Discover to figure out what started this discussion in the first place. J. Giles Los Alamos
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (12/20/85)
[Having let the last-referenced article sit for a while so I could cool off before replying to it, I've decided that most of it isn't worth rehashing. However, one point deserves comment.] > > ...Probably nobody on Earth could have kept [the Shuttle promises] -- although > > there are some people I'd have given better odds than I'd have given NASA > > on the job... > > ...So who could have done better? Who HAS done better?... If I had to use the US aerospace establishment to build a Space Shuttle, I think I'd give the contract to Kelly Johnson's "Skunk Works" at Lockheed, and tell him to call me when he was ready for flight tests -- and not before. Or I'd give it to Ed Heinemann at Douglas (if I'm allowed to juggle time scales a bit so he'd still be there), with the same instructions. That is, to people who have a track record of doing difficult aerospace jobs quickly and cheaply. A rare distinction, alas. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (12/20/85)
> [I'd give the Shuttle contract] > to people who have a track record of doing difficult aerospace jobs quickly > and cheaply. A rare distinction, alas. A further interesting note on this... One of the many interesting facts brought out in Norman Augustine's fascinating book "Augustine's Laws" ($19.97 postpaid from the AIAA, 1633 Broadway, NYC 10019) is that the Defence Department has no memory. A simple scatter plot of contract awards vs. past performance demonstrates clearly that cost overruns (or underruns!) on previous contracts don't make any difference in whether you get the next contract. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
al@ames.UUCP (Al Globus) (12/31/85)
> I see no evidence that launching people with a satellite increases > the launch reliability. > It is at this stage that three failures > have occured (the two PAM failures and the IUS failure with the TDRS > satellite). It should be noted that NONE of these has resulted in a complete loss of the satellite. The PAM failures were followed by recovery of the satellites and TDRS eventually got to its final orbit. Also, the LEASAT failure not mentioned here was followed by a repair mission which resulted in a fully operational satellite in the proper orbit. Although not launched by the shuttle, the Solar Max mission was saved by a shuttle repair. By contrast, all Ariane failures have resulted in complete loss of the entire payload. And there have been a lot of failures. > > There is a difference between the reliability needed for carrying people > and the reliability needed for economic launchers. For example, > launching a $100 million satellite on a booster with a 5% chance of > catastrophic failure is acceptable; the insurance costs will be a small > fraction of launch costs. Failure rates for the Ariane are more like 20% (top of the head, please check the figure) and insurance rates are hitting about 20% too. In one case this led to an uninsured launch (on the shuttle). > launch high-energy upper stages using LH/LOX fuel is causing > big headaches. The Centaur upper stage used with Gallileo is > having safety problems and may delay that mission for a while. Any time you do something new you have headaches. So what? Let's just wait and see if it works. > But... I suspect that if the shuttle hadn't been developed the aerospace > companies would have gone to work improving their expendable boosters, Most of the aerospace industries business is military. NASA work is a drop in the bucket. They probably would simply have built more killing machines. > > DOD apparently isn't constrained to justify the shuttle. In fact, there > have been reports (in Science last year, for example) that > the DOD was concerned about the shuttle's poor reliability and > potential for catastrophic failure, and wanted to develop an interim > expendable booster (NASA was horrified; I don't know if the idea has > died). The idea is alive and kicking. NASA was molified by an agreement whereby DOD pays for shuttle use regardless of whether it actually uses the shuttle or not. With Abrahamson (sp?) running SDI (he used to run shuttle) though, I suspect DOD will get a lot of use out of the shuttle.