> I still think Shuttle could have worked, if it had been cheaper to evolve it.

I doubt it. It's a gigantic kludge that isn't fixable.

For example, the requirement that it land like an airplane meant it needed wings, landing gear, and a full set of flight control surfaces. None of that is useful apart from the landing, and yet it is necessary to push it all into space and re-enter it.

I once emailed Homer Hickam about it, and he was kind enough to reply and said he'd argued the same thing.

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mrguyorama 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

None of that would have been a serious concern had the shuttle actually met any of it's re-usability claims. It doesn't matter that it costs a bit more in fuel and initial outlay for the orbiter if you actually could turn it around with little effort or cost in a couple weeks.

Having to inspect each and every tile after every trip because they basically didn't work like initially designed was the primary failure of the Shuttle program. It also wasn't nearly safe enough, primarily due to a shitty management culture that was taking over America (and is still currently in power in nearly every business).

The thermal tile technology was for some reason believed to be dramatically easier to design, engineer, and manage than it ever came to be in reality. I'm not convinced that Starship has "solved" the problems inherent in tile systems.

	▲	WalterBright 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		That assessment massively underestimates the impact of all that machinery needed to fly it, in terms of design, cost, maintenance, etc. It cannot be wished away.

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btilly 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The shuttle is the only rocket system that put part of the rocket above the payload. Were it not for that fatal design flaw, both fatal flights would have been survivable. The first because the explosion would have done less damage. The second because there would have been nothing above the shuttle from which something could have fallen.

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GMoromisato 5 days ago | parent [-]

I think @WalterBright is probably right and that the Shuttle design was too compromised to be fixable.

Stacking the orbiter on top of the external tank is a non-starter, IMHO. Obviously you'd have to add engines at the bottom, but now your cost goes up unless you plan on recovering the external tank (and how do you do that?).

And now you need another fuel tank for the orbiter, right? Do you extend the orbiter so it can fit an internal fuel tank? Or do you remove the engines and move them to a separate disposable stage?

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WalterBright 5 days ago | parent [-]

The Shuttle cannot even fly straight. The engine thrust has to be tilted.

	▲	metalman 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Ouch! These arguments are new to me, and so painfully obvious from an aircraft design point of view. Ouch!

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Teever 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's sort of a fallacious argument though because you could say the same thing about every part of a spacecraft that is used only for the return phase of its mission.

It might be more accurate to say that the ratio of mass for re-entry equipment to the entire craft mass is too great.

But with that said I think that the ultimate failure of the shuttle was that the design wasn't amenable to low cost maintenance. A spacecraft could have a crappy payload to orbit as long as it's cheap to maintain and use with quick turnaround.

I have a feeling that should Starship succeed this will be the case with it and it will end up having a substantially lower payload than intended but will make up for it with a design that's cheap to build and maintain.

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WalterBright 5 days ago | parent [-]

It's not fallacious at all. Look at the difference in the hardware bringing the Apollo crews back vs Shuttle crews. Several orders of magnitude.

	▲	Teever 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		And what's the ratio of that to the returned payload mass?

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GMoromisato 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Fair enough!