One does not rush off the first prototype into manufacturing. Yet the shuttles were.
Another example of bad design -- there is a massive lead ballast in the nose of the shuttle because there was a miscalculation in which the Shuttle-ET-SRB pairing would be off balance with regards to entering hypersonic velocities. This was discovered prior to the first launch, so they added a giant weight to compensate.
That same "hack" is on every external tank, to compensate for a screw up in the shuttle design.
And when one considers the loss of Challenger and Colombia, one really must ask, was redeveloping the technology to newer standards and models really that expensive compared to the loss of multiple, hyper expensive vehicles?
The shuttle was a great idea and only that. The execution was flawed and never seriously was re-evaluated and updated due to politics.
It is akin to Microsoft only releasing Windows 3.1 and never doing anything new past that. Thankfully, though, such an action would seal the fate of the offending entity.
Shame we can't do that to facets of government that treat ultra-high tech developments as their own personal pork projects.
The Shuttle had great potential, far more flexibility than the Soyuz-type of spacecraft. Shame it never was nurtured.
Another example of bad design -- there is a massive lead ballast in the nose of the shuttle because there was a miscalculation in which the Shuttle-ET-SRB pairing would be off balance with regards to entering hypersonic velocities. This was discovered prior to the first launch, so they added a giant weight to compensate.
That same "hack" is on every external tank, to compensate for a screw up in the shuttle design.
And when one considers the loss of Challenger and Colombia, one really must ask, was redeveloping the technology to newer standards and models really that expensive compared to the loss of multiple, hyper expensive vehicles?
The shuttle was a great idea and only that. The execution was flawed and never seriously was re-evaluated and updated due to politics.
It is akin to Microsoft only releasing Windows 3.1 and never doing anything new past that. Thankfully, though, such an action would seal the fate of the offending entity.
Shame we can't do that to facets of government that treat ultra-high tech developments as their own personal pork projects.
The Shuttle had great potential, far more flexibility than the Soyuz-type of spacecraft. Shame it never was nurtured.
