News Secret plan to privatize shuttle; now, to a next-generation shuttle.

[T.Neo]

You can explain that the world is flat and the Sun goes around the Earth that does not mean I am required to believe it.
The most difficult problems for any launch vehicle are creating the engines and the lightweight structures. Once you have those mating them together is trivial in comparison.

Yet you are the one who is claiming the world is flat and that the Sun orbits the Earth. People keep trying to explain that this isn't the case, and you choose not to believe it.

While the development of the engines is pretty difficult, that does not magically make everything trivially easy. Again, this is stressed repeatedly. And you choose not to believe it.

Integrating the "lightweight structures" to everything else is about as important as the structures themselves (especially when the way they fit together with other components determines their nature).

Neither the engines nor the "lightweight structures" of the X-33 exist, and both are completely unsuitable for the task of being a shuttle orbiter.

To be particularly impolite, RGClark, it is a horrible idea. If you wanted to create a new orbiter for the STS stack there are a plethora of ways to do it, and the X-33 is not one of them.

 

[RGClark]

One can be tempted to call the Space Island Project rubbish. They don't understand the economic reality of developing, building, and operating a "fleet of space shuttles". The activities they propose leasing out their stations for won't generate enough revenue to sustain such a gargantuan operation.

One could be tempted to call heavier than air flight and flights to the Moon rubbish as well and 99% of the population did until they were accomplished. All it took is those with the insight and the desire to accomplish it.
In regards to the economics, remember there are groups who are attempting to come up with next-generation versions of the shuttle that they believe can be profitable.
There will clearly be a huge market for tourism in space. Elon Musk believes the cost to space can be brought down to the $100 to $200 per kilo range by reusability. I happen to believe he's right. In my view it's not even a technically difficult problem. That is, once you have a launcher, adding reusability is trivial compared to the design and construction of the launcher itself.


Bob Clark

---------- Post added at 11:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:19 AM ----------

Yet you are the one who is claiming the world is flat and that the Sun orbits the Earth. People keep trying to explain that this isn't the case, and you choose not to believe it.

I'm sure the editor of the New York Times believed he was perfectly correct when he wrote in an editorial Robert Goddard's ideas about space trips to the Moon were rubbish because in space "there is nothing to push against". And no doubt most of the NYT readers agreed with the editorial.


Bob Clark

---------- Post added at 11:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:24 AM ----------

While the development of the engines is pretty difficult, that does not magically make everything trivially easy. Again, this is stressed repeatedly. And you choose not to believe it.

It is trivial in comparison to the design of the engine and the lightweight structures.
It would be like having separately the SSME engines, the ET external tank, the shuttle orbiter and the SRB's and someone suggesting that these could be used to make partially reusable launcher. Then the complaint could be raised as well that combining them is not possible.
Combining them into a launcher is a trivial problem compared to the design of those complex components.

Bob Clark

 

[T.Neo]

One could be tempted to call heavier than air flight and flights to the Moon rubbish as well and 99% of the population did until they were accomplished. All it took is those with the insight and the desire to accomplish it.
In regards to the economics, remember there are groups who are attempting to come up with next-generation versions of the shuttle that they believe can be profitable.
There will clearly be a huge market for tourism in space. Elon Musk believes the cost to space can be brought down to the $100 to $200 per kilo range by reusability. I happen to believe he's right. In my view it's not even a technically difficult problem. That is, once you have a launcher, adding reusability is trivial compared to the design and construction of the launcher itself.


Bob Clark

---------- Post added at 11:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:19 AM ----------



I'm sure the editor of the New York Times believed he was perfectly correct when he wrote in an editorial Robert Goddard's ideas about space trips to the Moon were rubbish because in space "there is nothing to push against". And no doubt most of the NYT readers agreed with the editorial.


Bob Clark

Your only argument here is: "In the past, people thought X was impossible. It was possible, therefore everything that people think is impossible is possible!"

That is an incredibly poor argument.

Also, "next generation" does not remove economic and technical realities. Just because Elon Musk believes something doesn't mean he is right. And the development of space vehicles is an extremely difficult thing.

You disagree not with ignorant New York Times editors, but with people who are fairly knowledgable on the matter*. People who know what they're talking about. Sometimes people who have actually been a part of real spaceflight-related developments (I've read up, your crusade is not just limited to O-F).

*I would not include myself in that group, but even I seem to know better than you... :facepalm:

 

[Urwumpe]

I'm sure the editor of the New York Times believed he was perfectly correct when he wrote in an editorial Robert Goddard's ideas about space trips to the Moon were rubbish because in space "there is nothing to push against". And no doubt most of the NYT readers agreed with the editorial.

Sure? I remember quite many such newspaper editor claims, and still, they had been based on purest ignorance, even of science from centuries earlier (like in this case).

Still, I would see you closer to the NYT editors, because your claims are also based on believes and adding apples and oranges, instead of real engineering. We could now for ever tell you to be wrong and you to tell us to be wrong.

Lets battle this out with math.

Can you just remove tanks and engines from the X-33 and still have something left that can be based on experience and simulations of the X-33? No. Your aerodynamics are altered. Your mass calculations are wrong since you forget to include adding a new aerodynamic hull and structure around the places that had been tanks once. But that is just a mathematical captains assignment.

Still it doesn't matter, since you just turned an unmanned SSTO into a hull with just RCS and OMS, which could be better be done by a much simpler upper stage/space tug.


Also, you are wrong about launching the ET being easy. The ET is no normal compact payload - it is light but has a huge volume, which puts its CoG into the worst thinkable places for all launchers that are designed for more compact satellites.

 

[T.Neo]

It is trivial in comparison to the design of the engine and the lightweight structures.
It would be like having separately the SSME engines, the ET external tank, the shuttle orbiter and the SRB's and someone suggesting that these could be used to make partially reusable launcher. Then the complaint could be raised as well that combining them is not possible.
Combining them into a launcher is a trivial problem compared to the design of those complex components.

Except all those components are designed from the start to work together. It's a different matter from taking totally unrelated components and trying to put them together into a workable system.

What makes your claims even more difficult to believe is that you propose integrating unrelated components in absurd ways.

 

[zerofay32]

A further possibility would be to develop an orbiter lacking a crew cabin.

AKA Shuttle-C.

But i suppose you also mean a winged shuttle-C

 

[T.Neo]

AKA Shuttle-C.

But i suppose you also mean a winged shuttle-C

Yes, a recoverable payload fairing. Most payloads do not require the extra cost, mass, or risk of a human crew.

 

[RGClark]

You disagree not with ignorant New York Times editors, but with people who are fairly knowledgable on the matter*. People who know what they're talking about. Sometimes people who have actually been a part of real spaceflight-related developments (I've read up, your crusade is not just limited to O-F).
*I would not include myself in that group, but even I seem to know better than you... :facepalm:

Just because someone on the internet proclaims himself an expert does not mean he actually is. And another person having more knowledge on a topic than oneself does mean that other person is actually an expert. A news reporter might live next door to a high school physics teacher and ask his opinion about the Large Hadron Collider. That does not mean the reporter has gotten expert opinion on the matter.

Some other members on this forum regarded you as an expert just because you knew more about spaceflight than they did.

Bob Clark