/sci/ - Science & Math

Bringing up the discussion again: If NASA decided the shuttle was too ambitious and/or they had less budget, and they decided to keep flying Apollo capsules but on Titan rockets by the mid 70’s, how would history be different
>USA probably starts building a modular station in the 80’s
>No real change to planetary probes (launch on Titan)
>More budget for other NASA missions
Here’s some really interesting thoughts
>Booster+Hydrogen core architecture likely to never happen (No Ariane 5, H-II, Delta IV, etc.)
>”Commercial Resupply” May never happen (No SpaceX or NewSpace)
>Gigantic SRBs on Titan still pose the issue of melting parachutes in case of an abort (Challenger still happens?)
Thoughts?

>>15093383
CE 20 is arguably even cooler. 186 kN of thrust and 442 second isp; it’s the most powerful upper stage engine in the world

Apollo-Titan

>>15002353
It’s telling that NASA decided, if they were to fly Apollo CSM’s in the future, it would be on Titan instead of Saturn IB.

Honestly what if NASA decided that the shuttle was too expensive so they just continued using Apollo for LEO taxis.
Maybe they used the extra budget to fly one lunar mission per year. So the moon becomes like the ISS is today. Maybe in this timeline, people complain about the Lunar Base taking interest and money away from mars. Lol.
This could be feasible right? Like there’s no way developing and flying the shuttle was cheaper than 1 Saturn V flight per year over 20-30 years?

>>14581608
they could have just gone with apollo+titan IIIMs and admitted that we were just gonna dick around in LEO with some cheap space station for a few decades and it would've worked. we'd be in a better position today.
BUT if they could've been more honest about how long and slow the process of getting to practical reusability would have been, then i think there still would've been a political will for an ambitious space program and the budget wouldn't have been cut as much as it got cut. reusability was such a game-changer in the industry that it would have been well worth nearly any investment put into it 50 years ago if they could've just made a clear-eyed case for it.
if you're a politician and nasa is making all these crazy promises about what shuttle can do then the logical thing is to cut their budget in half so they get a cut-rate shuttle which can still do 70% of the crazy shit they're promising. it's only when it turns out that the shuttle can do 10% of what they're promising that you get in trouble.