/sci/ - Science & Math

>>9711483
The whole concept of space shuttles (unless SSTO) is retarded.

>>9711483
Whether the concep is shit or not still remains to be seen. The space shuttle itself was one of the worst way you could do it because of a lot of political reasons that are very easy to track.

-The first was an inmense payload requirement by the air force which made it impossible to put the orbiter on top of the rocket, that alone would have made it much much better.

Then you have the decision to mix liquid fuel and solid fuel, just for the keks(money for copmanies), the retarded idea that you could recover things that landed in salt water, the baffling decision to make the orange tank disposable, and the outright shitty american manufacturing which made it so obvious that it was going to explode that a guilty engineer called nasa to warn about it and they didnt listen to him because they could not believe they had done such a piece of shit on purpose.
Oh and dont even get me started on the heatshield, that shit was almost meant to fail.

this should have been called the american astronaut and budget execution system

>>9711532
>-The first was an inmense payload requirement by the air force
The Space Shuttle was, first and foremost, a military asset. It hindsight it seems stupid for them to make that requirement, but I'm sure they had their reasons for it at the time. There are still missions that are classified, they were likely doing some spook shit like recovering Soviet spy satellites or something.

>>9711551
>but I'm sure they had their reasons for it at the time.

The reason being the cold war, that gave all military branches the mentality that no matter how big a problem we can drown it in money.

If they really knew just how wasteful it was they would have reconsidered. They could have just bought a mansion to every russian to make them forget about communism and be done with it

It suffered from bad case of political engineering. What potential existed was killed long before construction even began.

The idea that every state needed a cut of the money for the shutle was already a obvious sign that this thing would be a clusterfuck.

A safe, effective and simple Shuttle design looks like BFR, not like Shuttle.

>>9711564
Boy you should run for president or something with all those ideas. I'm sure you'd be a huge hit with the tax base

>>9711483
Well, as a famous anon once asked, "you got a better idea?"
You can talk shit all you want, but as far as I can tell no one's come up with anything better and got it 10ft off the ground

>>9711483
Rockets in general have a 6% failure rate, historically.
The space shuttle had two major failures out of 135 launches, so about 1.5% failure rate.
it was a marvel for its time, a brilliant design, but we have known for quite a while that there are better approaches still.
And leftists don't want America to have its own independent space program, so they would rather we had to use Russian rockets and a socialized space station.

>>9711564
>the mentality that no matter how big a problem we can drown it in money
Kind of like leftists trying to solve the problem of nonwhite intellectual underperformance that just won't go away no matter how much they tax workers and discriminate against whites, isn't it.

>>9712536
The predicted failure rate was 1 in 70, which is about what it gave. Pretty good for a system as enormously complex as the shuttle. Saturn V's predicted failure rate was 1 in 50 but they only launched 18 or so.

>>9712618
Also its extremely unlikely the russians could have launched 132 Buran-Energias and only lost 2.

>>9711564
>They could have just bought a mansion to every russian to make them forget about communism and be done with it

It's funny but could've been somewhat possible.

24 metric tons on a low near-earth orbit for 450 million dollars. Too expensive

>>9712541
Yes that is exactly the same as funding for the shuttle program! Spot on!

>>9712541
there's probably a more appropriate thread/board for you to be on there, champ

>>9711483 >>9711509
Russian rockets werks just fine.

US shuttles sucked in security

>>9711483
the design was hampered by politics
the program became a "political football" and when they finally had the resources to complete it, the design was outdated. but NASA didn't want to risk everything falling through after a redesign, so they pushed it through as is. by the time it was built, the computers inside were worse than consumer-grade PCs.
'murrica

If the STS was modeled after the X-15 it would have been much more successful:

>air launch from a B-52
>two stage to orbit, using a single disposable booster
>4-5 crew in a passenger configuration
>cargo version at the start
>24 hour turnaround time

Basically the X-38 or the Dreamchaser but air launched. Space Station Freedom would have actually existed using inflatable habs and would have set the stage for the ISS.

>>9712687

The X-38, whose basic concepts were recycled into the Dreamchaser.

>>9712689

The Dreamchaser itself is supposedly being downsized/modified to work with Stratolaunch, which has it's first flight next year.

>>9712687
>>9712689
>>9712690

JUST THINK OF WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN

>>9712509
How about a regular rocket that isn’t a glorified payload fairing?

>>9712505
Trump did it with his wall so I dont see how mansions would be any worse

>>9712536
Stop using leftist so casually, it makes you look like an uneducated idiot.

>>9712692
American designers actually have no shame.

>>9712768

It probably would have worked though.

>>9712798

also this was the original design for the actual IRL shuttle, but was canned when everyone involved realized the boosters would need to be much bigger to compensate for a lack of an external drop tank (the big orange thing the actual shuttle used)

>>9712804

>>9712806

>>9712809

And one of the earliest shuttle concepts, back when NASA and the Air Force thought they could get away with only drop tanks.

>>9712812

On a more serious note an inflatable and reusable drag cone. NASA would later recycle this idea for inflatable lander crashdown pads.

Shuttle was there to keep contractors and those employed at NASA... employed. In times when anti-government sentiments were growing and public support for the wasteful space program dwindling. The "first spaceplane" is also an element of propaganda victory about technological superiority, and the soviets attempted imitation and through espionage somewhat succeeded in duplicating it with some issues in the late 80's. Political reality will always get in the way of state fundeg space programs. This is why I think it's important to let private enterprise do whatever has to be done and not tie it down through regulations guised in pseudo science (capital cant into science/contamination) and patriotism (public rockets belong to the people, private ones don't and are dangerous).

>>9711483
Idk, how would you feel about sitting on a giant boomstick without an escape option?

The lack of escape system makes it inherently dangerous.
Now, traumatized NASA wants a shitload of tests on capsule designs for no reason.

>>9713016

Private venturism will never have as many resources than government funded programs.

The disctinction between public and private, is that public tries to bring srevices and private tries to bring profit to itself, you are only the intermediary and progress a subproduct of it.

NASA is always bringing new programs and managing several at the same time that aren't as famous as the mars rovers but still are important in giving more information about space and space fenomena and theorizing new ways to adapt to them in future man-manned mission.

The problem is that NASA was betrayed even in his golden era, when the moon landing was suposed to be a process, for future space missions and not just a one way endevour, but Kennedy wanted to beat the russians at the space race, and patience is not allowed in races, therefore after the Moon landing ended with budget cuts and in the cold with imposible missions(man manned trip to Mars for example) with the current infrastructure.

>>9712505
Well we could say, provide one of the best standards of education, public health and public housings like the soviets did, but brainwashed americans prefer "le hurr durr warr murrica #1" so that's off the table.

>>9712618
>The predicted failure rate was 1 in 70, which is about what it gave. Pretty good for a system as enormously complex as the shuttle. Saturn V's predicted failure rate was 1 in 50 but they only launched 18 or so.
can't you just launch 49 saturns, then scrap the one that would fail and launch another 49 that way you get perfect launch rate i dont know why people launc hthings they know they are going to fail much more so whent heres humans beings on top of it them

>>9713193
>brainwashed americans prefer "le hurr durr warr murrica #1"
Yeah, our massive defense spending had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the Soviet Union was an expansionist communist totalitarian dictatorship that invested massive amounts of funding and infrastructure into warfare and nuclear stockpiles. Nah, we were just fear-mongering and wanted to go to war with them. Fucking faggots like you should be sent to the front lines as bullet sponges.

>>9713388
>Yeah, our massive defense spending had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the Soviet Union was an expansionist communist totalitarian dictatorship that invested massive amounts of funding and infrastructure into warfare and nuclear stockpiles.
it really had nothing to do with that fantasy, its well documented how defense spending is something made to make defense contractor richer, its literally clear in every history book, even one of your presidents said it out loud, CLEARLY during an open speech.

But of course, their defense against it is to make their population dumb via propaganda, so dumb that even a foreigner freshly out of high school and studying something technical knows more about the history of your country than you who i presume are a college aged individual(who probably is a slave to his debts till the day he dies to study in a shitty community college while on my country i can study on a top rated nobel prize winner for free, go capitalism!)

>>9711483
is driviing a giant rocket into space inherently dangerous y/n

>>9713411
What a brainwashed little faggot you are, you do not know more about American history than I do, I absolutely guarantee it. Are you seriously trying to say that the US had absolutely no threat from the Soviet Union? And you're a communist to boot, wow, they sure breed them retarded over in the Soviet Socialist Republics of Europe.

>>9713411
>while on my country i can study on a top rated nobel prize winner for free
You can also be arrested for voicing opinions that your unelected overlords at the EU don't agree with, have absolutely no right to bear arms, and get raped in the ass by taxes to pay for the social welfare of illegal immigrants. And of course your police spend more time and resources policing hate speech than they do the migrants raping and murdering their way across your country. Sweden yes!

>>9713411
>hurrrr durrrrr muh dumb dumb muricans
what little remains of your eurotrash country's "sovereignty" is entirely subsidized by the American taxpayer and provided by the American military. You would have been speaking Russian for the past 80 years if it weren't for us.

>>9713435
>What a brainwashed little faggot you are, you do not know more about American history than I do, I absolutely guarantee it
let's start with something basic, ill go easy on you, do you even know which president warned about giving all your power to arms companies? hint: it's an important one you should know.