On Friday, May 31, 2002, at 09:36 AM, Ed Schonert wrote:

> Wow, $10,000,000 between launches! (re Al Globus' 5-29 comments)
>
> How did Heppenheimer miss that little tidbit in his article on SSME's
> in 11-98 issue of Air & Space? Is that a per engine price or total for
> the 3 shuttle engines?

I believe, although I'm not totally sure, that this is per engine.

>
> Perhaps we can operate the shuttle under a foreign flag (Liberian or ?)
> to get lower labor rates for the shuttle engine & tile maintenance.
> Ed
> S.

Engine and tile maintenance require a *lot* of expertise, and one very
small mistake can destroy the orbiter. For example, an Arianne 4 was
once lost when a technician accidentally left a cleaning rag in a fluid
pipe and the shuttle fleet was grounded for months to check the wiring
that was, in part, damaged when technicians had to walk on the wire
bundles to do other maintenance tasks. The only place you can get low
cost labor that is qualified to do this kind of work is Russia -- and
the shuttle infrastucture cannot be moved to Russia at a reasonable
price.

The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
orbital space colonies with ~500 times the surface area of the Earth in
usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

While the shuttle has serious problems, it does work. Abandoning a
working system before the replacement is operational is very dangerous.
For example, the Saturn V was abandoned before the shuttle was available
because the (partially) reusable shuttle was going to be cheaper and
safer. In the event, the shuttle is a lot more expensive (about a
factor of 5 per kg to orbit) and has a failure rate of 1%, while the
Saturn never suffered loss of crew (although there were not that many
flights). Also, the Saturn launched the Skylab space station, which was
not that much smaller than the ISS, in a single launch. The shuttle
requires dozens of launches to bring the ISS to three crew members --
the same size as the Skylab crew.

On Friday, May 31, 2002, at 10:16 AM, Thetis Reticulum wrote:

> The most effective solution is to ditch the shuttle
> and build something better; personally, I prefer the
> HTOL space plane version. Exploiting impoverished
> peoples won't do the trick either; the quality isn't
> there and the cost of a military and police force to
> keep them working on empty stomaches is rather high,
> so you won't save any money there.
>
> Thetis
>
> --- Ed Schonert wrote:
>
The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect and
deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

From: "Al Globus"
To:
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 2:42 PM
Subject: Re: [spacesettlers] SSME Engine Maintenance

> While the shuttle has serious problems, it does work. Abandoning a
> working system before the replacement is operational is very dangerous.
> For example, the Saturn V was abandoned before the shuttle was available
> because the (partially) reusable shuttle was going to be cheaper and
> safer. In the event, the shuttle is a lot more expensive (about a
> factor of 5 per kg to orbit) and has a failure rate of 1%, while the
> Saturn never suffered loss of crew (although there were not that many
> flights). Also, the Saturn launched the Skylab space station, which was
> not that much smaller than the ISS, in a single launch. The shuttle
> requires dozens of launches to bring the ISS to three crew members --
> the same size as the Skylab crew.
(...)

I think that this question has been formulated again and again but,
anyway... Wouldn't it be better for NASA to simply resurrect the Saturn V as
a replacement for the Shuttle, instead of spending huge amounts in R&D for a
brand new partially or fully reusable launcher? What is the politics and
economics that prevents them from doing that?

Lucio Coelho

Something along these lines might be a good idea, but, ignoring politics
and economics, you still can't resurrect the original vehicle
as-it-was. Most of the parts are no longer made. Most of the
development documentation was destroyed. I understand the final plans
were preserved, but without the reasons behind the choices they aren't
that useful. Most of the people who worked on the Saturn are dead or
retired.

There is no way but forward, time only goes in one direction ...

On Friday, May 31, 2002, at 11:38 AM, Lucio de Souza Coelho wrote:

> - Wouldn't it be better for NASA to simply resurrect the Saturn V as
> a replacement for the Shuttle, instead of spending huge amounts in R&D
> for a
> brand new partially or fully reusable launcher? What is the politics and
> economics that prevents them from doing that?
>
> Lucio Coelho
>

The materials in one asteroid (the largest ) are sufficient to make
orbital space colonies with ~500 times the surface area of the Earth in
usable real estate. See http://lifesci3.arc.nasa.gov/SpaceSettlement/
for details.

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

--- In spacesettlers@y..., Al Globus wrote:
> Something along these lines might be a good idea, but, ignoring
politics
> and economics, you still can't resurrect the original vehicle
> as-it-was. Most of the parts are no longer made. Most of the
> development documentation was destroyed. I understand the final
plans
> were preserved, but without the reasons behind the choices they
aren't
> that useful. Most of the people who worked on the Saturn are dead
or
> retired.
>
> There is no way but forward, time only goes in one direction ...

Makes sense to me, but there are other designs out there which have
been put together on paper, only never built. How about the Sea
Dragon?

:) ed