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About LinkBacksPerhaps that's because it has taken such a long time to fully utilise all of the Roswell technologyOriginally Posted by sikander293
Perhaps that's because it has taken such a long time to fully utilise all of the Roswell technology
This is exciting if it actually makes it to completion, but this is current day NASA, not ye olde heavily funded let's go to the moon NASA. Almost everything they do these days is way overbudget and has to get past layers and layers of bureaucracy.
I'm more excited by what SpaceX are upto at the moment, especially the in development Falcon Heavy. 53 tons to LEO with a launch cost of $80-$120 million. That's crazy cheap when you look at the cost of shuttle flights, which could do 23 tons to LEO.
Shuttle cost from wikipedia:and a quote from the SpaceX website:With 134 missions, and the total cost of US$192 billion (in 2010 dollars), this gives approximately $1.5 billion per launch over the life of the program.So for 1 shuttle resupply mission to the ISS, you can have 12 missions from SpaceX. Ok, the payload to LEO of the shuttle is approx twice that of Falcon 9, but that's still impressive and you have to wonder what NASA were/are playing at...In December 2008, NASA announced the selection of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) when the Space Shuttle retires. The $1.6 billion contract represents a minimum of 12 flights, with an option to order additional missions for a cumulative total contract value of up to $3.1 billion.
Last edited by Bagnaj97; 15-09-2011 at 09:44 AM.
Yes but the shuttle worked and was a real working product. Falcon Heavy isn't and so cost of launch at this stage means nothing.
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True, but Falcon 1 and 9 are real products, with much lower cost per ton launched than Shuttle. Falcon Heavy is based on the same technology and is well in development. Whilst it's not ready yet I doubt there will be any major problems.
Shuttle was designed for cross-range capability and other military operations, not just launching satellites.
Usual rog warning, but a good read anyway:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04...aunch_options/
Interesting read. I see more people than just me are worried that we can't bring back anything we launch into space without the shuttle.
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The problem with the shuttle was the cost of keeping the thing flying, its all good and well having a reusable space craft but the cost and time of servicing the thing was far greater then anticipated so they couldn't get the turnaround on the missions they wanted.
Personally I believe the day space exploration will become viable is the day we can launch payloads into orbit via railguns, you could literally fire the fuel and supply's needed to Mars before the manned mission launches.
Getting back on track though it is nice to see NASA doing something outside of low earth orbit.
Don't forget the Space shuttle was a bit long in the tooth, tech gets cheaper with time, Moore's law and all that and pretty much a first attempt at a re-usable spacecraft.
You're also skewing the maths a little, that's the cost of the whole program, including facilities and ground breaking new tech, which will be re-used by people like spacex saving them the upfront costs of these things. Along with Kal's very good point.
The only way I can see depp space travel working is to have a lauch system in space and for the actual ships to be built etc in space.
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And all we need is a rather long rope
just need a short stay launcher to LEO, no payload etc.
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Yay, we're finally up to 1970's level of rocket technology!
The Shuttle was outdated and frankly dangerous. Useful for maintenance work, but the Soyuz has a much better safety record and we know that SLS style rockets work well. To be honest I think we should put more money into robotic endeavours and focus on that. I used to be for astronautics, but the sort of stuff you can do robotically these days is amazing.
Be on the lookout for the ISS successor too - since the ISS was essentially a testbed for the next generation of space stations.
Most of this stuff is already available to the public if you know where to look.
Bring on the Mars plane: http://marsairplane.larc.nasa.gov/platform.html!
Oh, and this is much more important news: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-09-...telescope.html
Last edited by Whiternoise; 15-09-2011 at 09:36 PM.
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