RE: STS-135: The last Space Shuttle mission.
July 8, 2011 at 6:42 pm
(This post was last modified: July 8, 2011 at 7:05 pm by Anomalocaris.)
The problem with the shuttle isn't it was too expensive or not safe enough for certain purpose. The problem was it didn't do what it actually did better than cheaper alternatives, plus the additional things it was forced to be designed to do it never really has opportunity to actually do, finally there are things it had to promised to do for political reasons which it simply could not do.
It is an amazing piece of engineering to fulfill all those conflicting requirements. The problem is most of the requirement is shit.
Were it not for the military requirement that the shuttle be capable of being used as a once around orbital bomber to take out Moscow from a lunch in Vendenberg air force base in California, the whole orbiter would have had a totally different shape, without those exposed wings and their vulnerable leading edge tiles,and far lighter and mote efficient. As it is, the shuttle was designed to have a cross range gliding capability that allows it to land 1000 miles to one side of it's orbital track, which is what it would need to do if it were to take off from vendenberg AFB, go over the north pole toMoscow, drop a bomb, then loop back over the south pole and land back at vendenberg. As it happened, the Russians deduced this from the shuttle's shape, and raised a huge stink, and the us never dared to actually launch a shuttle from vendenberg for any purpose. So the whole orbiter design was governed by a requirement that never actual materialized, but did make the shuttle much heavier, thus less efficient, and more vulnerable to lunch mishaps.
It is an amazing piece of engineering to fulfill all those conflicting requirements. The problem is most of the requirement is shit.
Were it not for the military requirement that the shuttle be capable of being used as a once around orbital bomber to take out Moscow from a lunch in Vendenberg air force base in California, the whole orbiter would have had a totally different shape, without those exposed wings and their vulnerable leading edge tiles,and far lighter and mote efficient. As it is, the shuttle was designed to have a cross range gliding capability that allows it to land 1000 miles to one side of it's orbital track, which is what it would need to do if it were to take off from vendenberg AFB, go over the north pole toMoscow, drop a bomb, then loop back over the south pole and land back at vendenberg. As it happened, the Russians deduced this from the shuttle's shape, and raised a huge stink, and the us never dared to actually launch a shuttle from vendenberg for any purpose. So the whole orbiter design was governed by a requirement that never actual materialized, but did make the shuttle much heavier, thus less efficient, and more vulnerable to lunch mishaps.
