space shuttle replacement?

Posted: Sun May 16, 2010 11:15 pm

what do you guys think of the space shuttle program and what do you think should be next?
replacement rocket system ie. orion/constellation
x-37 style ram jet system
nothing
hybrid rocket flight system
space elevator
super fluid/beifeld brown effect/meta-materials/ferral fluids ie.anti gravito technology

lets discuss this

Cherokee (3.8 mt) Joined: Mar 17, 2008 Posts: 402

Replacement: Either space elevator or ram jet.
But I could live with pretty much anything as long as they finally take the fingers out of their arses and do something. It's 2010! It's the "future" from a 20th century pov. According to Stanley Kubrick moon-flights should be a routine-job nowadays and flights to Jupiter not uncommon.
And now the grim reality: The next US-spaceship is supposed to look like the Apollo-capsule with Micky Mouse-ears. I mean, c'mon NASA! Surely you can do better than that. Confused

Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 12:27 am

your completely right my man. imagine what old men of the 60's thort 2010 would be like. they would be rather disappointed i think. this is why im working towards this goal. i want to be in the front loop of this technology, and i think many other people want to see it change.

Posted: Tue May 18, 2010 10:50 pm

You're right when I first saw the new capsule I thought that was a bad joke.

They should force the development of scramjets like the X-34. That would give a good base for reaching the orbit via a relatively small booster rocket.
Such a waverider design comes virtually without wings and that's a good thing for reentry. Developpng the appropriate Carrier plane to lift the whole thing looks to be the easiest part. That is Eugen Sängers dream and one should think that the NASA should manage to do that.

Of course the resulting plane whould be much smaller than the space shuttle but it might make for a good and cheap crew shuttle.

Combine such a System with a powerfull rocket to launch the cargo and you're done.

Fizzle Joined: Mar 24, 2010 Posts: 4

The space shuttle has done a very good job. What most people forget is that it's not just a rocket, it's a mobile space station that can spend a month in orbit and then re-enter and land, and then go up again. Nothing in service even comes close to that capability.

The most reliable rockets still blow up every 100 launches, and the space shuttle is several times as complicated as the average rocket, meaning there are many, many more things that can fail and lead to a catastrophic ending. In that light, the Space Shuttle has been phenomenally successful and the program cost understandable.

The problem with the Constellation Project was that it was importing the Shuttle's high costs while delivering a reduced capacity - with old technology. In fact, the overhead was projected to be even greater than the shuttle's. Furthermore, NASA was simply subcontracting the project out to the contractors that built and ran the Shuttle. It was in the private sector but without any real competition. Something had to give. Canceling Constellation was the right thing to do.

Historically, NASA gets a lot of money to develop new technology that wouldn't materialize in the private sector. That's what they should continue to do. They should keep a launch capability but continue to push the envelope with new technology; gem srb's for Ares1, air breathing first stages, flyback stages, hypersonic vehicles, and inexpensive launch infrastructure (these guys are supposed to be smart, make that a problem to solve), and robotics. Human space flight is expensive and we have our hands full with the ISS. NASA should be pushing the frontiers of robotic exploration. By the time humans walk on Mars, the living quarters and return fuel factory should already be constructed.

Also, NASA needs some competition, and I don't mean from the private sector.

Cherokee (3.8 mt) Joined: Mar 17, 2008 Posts: 402

This might be a good start to combine robotics with the reusability of the shuttle:
22. 4. 2010: Atlas rocket delivers Air Force spaceplane [X-37] to orbit

More about the X-37 on Wikipedia

Unfortunately the air force has taken over the X-37 from NASA. So the whole thing seems to be just another military project for the time being. Pretty much everything about it is confidential. I guess the X-37 is going to serve as prototype for a new global weapons-platform.

Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 10:26 am

nice one. sounds great. Now the only thing to do next whould be to launch this thing not entirely with a rocket but with a plane and a booster.
But reducing the crew is surely a good thing to reduce the costs. Humans need oxygen, water and food while the computers just need electricity.

Fizzle Joined: Mar 24, 2010 Posts: 4

UoPMark wrote:

what do you guys think of the space shuttle program and what do you think should be next?

What should be Next? ... NASA needs a good swift kick in the ass. They've become bloated fat pigs, along with their contractors.

For example, the J2X contract awarded to P&W - $1.2 Billion to upgrade the Apollo era J2 engine for the Constellation project.

For One Tenth that much, Elon Musk created a whole new company, including launch infrastructure, new rocket and TWO brand new engines from scratch. And they made it into space ... for one tenth the budget of the J2 upgrade.

NASA and their contractors are all lined up at the gravytrain, gorging themselves and consuming enormous amounts of money at ten times the going rate.

What should NASA do next? They really need to learn work on competitive bidding and possibly engineer some internal competition with funding dependent upon results. Another possibility is a new US Federal agency created to compete directly with NASA - funding based on results.

In general, the American public is happy to fund NASA's huge budget when they are blazing new trails. But NASA lost its way with the Constellation boondoggle.