Challenger 30 Years on

[{ Emilia }]

Reminds me of something I read this week: Face it, America. The Space Shuttle was a total failure.

It was never really safe, cost a lot of money and bound many resources that could've been used for actual exploration that wasn't just LEO.

The shuttle’s program suffered from an ill-defined mission and greatly diminished funding (compared to the Moon program). At its core the shuttle’s design was the bastard child of horse-trading, a compromise between NASA and the Office of Management and Budget. As the Columbia Accident Investigative Board stated in 2003, the shuttle was “an inherently vulnerable vehicle, the safe operation of which exceeded NASA’s organizational abilities.”

That's pretty harsh, huh?

The report added: “The increased complexity of the Shuttle, designed to be all things to all people created inherently greater risks than if more realistic technical goals had been set at the start. Designing a reusable spacecraft that is cost-effective is a daunting engineering challenge; doing so on a tightly constrained budget is even more difficult.”

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Reminds me of something I read this week: Face it, America. The Space Shuttle was a total failure.

It was never really safe, cost a lot of money and bound many resources that could've been used for actual exploration that wasn't just LEO.



That's pretty harsh, huh?

I'd like to say that any undertaking from which we can learn useful lessons isn't a total failure, but, yes, I think that both of those quotes, at least, are completely accurate.

It's definitely worth noting that nothing happens in NASA outside of politics, because that's how the money gets allocated; politics will always impact NASA's systems. So, yeah, the Space Shuttle program was, to a great extent, an exercise in the negative impact of politics on the design and operation of manned space vehicles.

 

[MacLeod]

Also wasn't the President due to give the State of the Union address that evening and was due to mention the shuttle mission? So NASA might have felt it was under pressure real or percieved to go with the launch.

 

[Timewalker]

That was when the Cold War was still on peoples' minds. Why "waste" money on legitimate, intended-to-be-useful science when you can spend it on ways to kill millions, if not billions, of people on the other side of the planet?

/angry sarcasm

 

[2takesfrakes]

In reference to - and support of - my previous statement, regarding a shuttle that was forced to re-enter the atmosphere and land with damaged tiles. I'm not sure if this was the same event; I just remember seeing the pictures of tiles all over the top portion of the shuttle being scored. In any event, this a very interesting read:

https://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts119/090327sts27/

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

I was in school, aged nine. I loved the space program even then but had never seen a launch live - I'd been to the Houston and Florida complexes though. When I heard about it from a teacher (since most science teachers had at least a peripheral interest due to Christa McAuliffe being aboard) , I thought Challenger was already on-orbit. Spent the day doodling pictures of shuttles in space, waiting desperately to get home to see the news since there were no TVs in the school. Tough day to not remember.

Mark

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I remember that day. I was about to attend my first paying job and woke to breakfast TV and this was on the news just before I was to leave the house. Was a very sad day as I really liked the idea of the shuttle program.

 

[HIjol]

I was delivering for United Parcel, and had just dropped a package off. The Deliveree invited me in, and we watched the coverage.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

There were other shuttles that almost didn't make it back. I forget which one it was, but it was sprayed with pellets of tank foam on the way up and the damage was really obvious. The crew was even informed in space that they had a good chance of not making it back. I remember reading the pilot having said that if it were clear that was the case, he was going to get on the radio and let NASA know just what he thought of how they run the space program. Anyway, it landed safely, with all of these black and dark streaks all over it, as if it passed through a meteor shower. This is only something I've read about ...

From reading about this accident and surrounding events this doesn't sound surprising.

 

[publiusr]

Some wanted an Americanized Energiya Buran type system--with an escape cabin at the least. http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=6348.0

See also Figure 21 here: https://www.aiaa.org/uploadedFiles/...uttle_Launches/ShuttleVariationsFinalAIAA.pdf

Wayne Ordway called for this:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19910018890.pdf

..




Some wanted escape cabins F-111 style



No O-rings on SRBs here.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Some wanted an Americanized Energiya Buran type system--with an escape cabin at the least. http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=6348.0

See also Figure 21 here: https://www.aiaa.org/uploadedFiles/...uttle_Launches/ShuttleVariationsFinalAIAA.pdf

Wayne Ordway called for this:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19910018890.pdf

..




Some wanted escape cabins F-111 style



No O-rings on SRBs here.

That escape system does look cool but would have added millions to the cost. Like the folding wings.

 

[publiusr]

That's why it should have been added from the start. The reason I want an Americanized Energiya wasn't just so we would have an SLS type heavy lifter out of it. The simpler Buran orbiter could have been turned around faster than our orbiters due to not having three SSMEs to fight with in a cramped aft boat-tail. Look at the smaller illustration above--no SSMEs on the Orbiter/spaceplane itself.

Now what that does is to free up the aerodynamics of the orbiter even more. One concept was for Buran to be a huge lifting body: http://www.buran.ru/htm/history.htm.

How I wish the US had made Buran

Imagine, many different types of orbiters. Test different shapes at large scale. One a Faget straight wing, a waverider, etc.
Yes, this would have been expensive--but would have paved the way to better spaceplanes--and gave us an HLV to boot.

One of the early Buran type concepts was the OK-92:
http://www.buran.ru/htm/ok-92.htm http://www.anigrand.com/AA5004_Buran_OK-92.htm

It had a huge solid rocket escape motor in its tail, and jet engines, so it need not land dead-stick like our orbiter
https://books.google.com/books?id=VRb1yAGVWNsC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=OK-92+shuttle&source=bl&ots=UyW8kJnjJA&sig=jgjZ9K2bYGrUqgWTajdpGeHYDrc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja_cekzvXKAhWD4CYKHSYiA_EQ6AEINzAE#v=onepage&q=OK-92 shuttle&f=false

There was even an attempt to fly Energiya herself back
http://www.buran.ru/htm/41-3.htm.

If only I could go back in time (with a lot of computer patents in tow) and influence how our shuttle could have been designed.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Buran was a neat idea but even the Russians abandoned it.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Buran was a neat idea but even the Russians abandoned it.

The Soviet Union had good ideas, but not the rubles to pull them all off. They drove the whole place into bankruptcy building a massive military.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Also, your post contains a logic error. You said, "If cold causes O-ring erosion, then why does warmth also cause it?", as if that's a question that would even need to be answered under the circumstances. The relevant information is granted right there in the hypothesis, "cold causes O-ring erosion." According to the source I quoted, there was convincing data presented to conclude that under the prevailing cold conditions, adequate seals wouldn't form. You don't need to go off on a red herring and also answer why adequate seals hadn't formed under other conditions, because that couldn't change the fact in front of you, that they wouldn't form under the prevailing conditions.

Not just that, but the very strange implication here is that if heat will ruin something, that would mean that cold wouldn't, or vice versa - and anyone who has ever witnessed both meat that has been left out to spoil AND meat that has been freezer burnt can tell you right off that that isn't correct. So maybe warmth erosion comes from materials and air expansion moving parts against each other, and cold erosion comes from material contraction moving parts against each other and ice crystals forming in tiny gaps between parts? Still eroding, either way.