/sci/ - Science & Math

I think SLS will have a launch failure

The space shuttle made so much sense at the times it’s just a shame that it sucked. NASA didn’t have the budget (or congressional will) to fly Saturn V a lot anymore so they figured a simple, reusable, vehicle could launch way more payload for a lower cost. But then the shuttle ended up sucking ass and that dream fell apart.

This is just sperging but it kinda rustles my jimmies how the MSFC artwork from the glory days was really inconsistent on the size of the space tug. In some pics (like >>12180005 ) two of them side-by-side were wider than the nuclear shuttle, which was supposed to match the 33-foot diameter of the s-ii, but in others they would fit in the 15-foot shuttle bay.

>>9496926

>while everything but the payload on the SLS is thrown away.

And? That's not an insignificant point. SLS was built to put an Orion capsule, lunar transfer stage and an Altair lander into orbit. FH isn't being designed to do that, although it's still great regardless.

>One Falcon Heavy and a few second stages could launch just about everything on the books for the SLS, before the SLS even flies.

Exactly, just like how one Space Shuttle and a few second stages could launch just about everything on the books for the SLS, before the SLS even flies. Just like how Russia was planning on doing a manned lunar mission using multiple Soyuz launches, which has never happened in Soyuz's entire 50-year long existence.

>>8789188
top kek, get a load of this retard
>No, the shuttle program was a sham, and a major obstacle to real progress in launch technology. It was always-manned just to say it was manned, and reusable just to say it was reusable. Rather than being designed for practical reasons, it was a product of turf wars, careerism, politics, and profiteering.
>NASA didn't want to lower launch costs. They wanted another fuckhuge program to keep growing the bureaucracy after Apollo was over.
bunch of conspiratard crap

the shuttle was originally part of the larger STS program, and as originally envisioned it would have been a major success

when all parts of STS (the nuclear tug, lunar tug&lander ect.) except the shuttle were cancelled for budgetary reasons, the program was already screwed
this is where the "reduced cost" part of the project died, in the concept stages

then the air force and navy got their hands in on the design process and decided that it needed to be fuckhuge to allow it to capture foreign polar orbit spy satellites (something it never even came close to doing)

then congress wanted to spread the jobs love to places other than the southern USA (understandable at the time, because LBJ was a southern-biased dixiecrat moron who placed every NASA center in the south) so thiokol got to have their meme boosters in the project

also, it was going to have to be manned because that was the only way to land something back when it was designed

by the time of Challenger there was already cheaper alternatives for satellite launch, so the only purpose of shuttle was to launch astronauts or missions that required EVAs