TransporterBeam
Lieutenant Commander
Will the American Space Shuttle be retired soon ? Haven't they been flying over 25 years ? Are they using computers from the 1970s ? Does magnetism or radiation in space mess up it's computers ?
How old is the Space Shuttle ?
- Thread starter TransporterBeam
- Start date
Yes, some of the fleet is approaching 25+ years old, but it's primarily just the airframe. Computers have been upgraded (if memory servs) twice now. Like anything else, pumps, piping and electrical systems have been upgraded/replaced/repaired over the years. They're scheduled to be retired in a few years, once the space station is essentially complete. More details can be found over at NASA'a website.
Q2
Q2
Design work on the Shuttle began in the early 1970s.
Shuttle Enterprise began approach and landing tests in 1977.
STS-1 the first orbiter test flight launched April 1981.
STS-5, the first operational launch, was November 1982.
Try Wikipedia, nasa.gov, or astronautix.com for lots more data to sift through.
The shuttle fleet is marked for retirement. If you do a bit of research, you'll be able to come up with its successor on some of those web sites. You'll also find data on when flight systems (computer) upgrades were done.
AG
Shuttle Enterprise began approach and landing tests in 1977.
STS-1 the first orbiter test flight launched April 1981.
STS-5, the first operational launch, was November 1982.
Try Wikipedia, nasa.gov, or astronautix.com for lots more data to sift through.
The shuttle fleet is marked for retirement. If you do a bit of research, you'll be able to come up with its successor on some of those web sites. You'll also find data on when flight systems (computer) upgrades were done.
AG
TECHNICALLY speaking, the design is well over thirty year old. However, it WAS designed with upgradability and modularity in mind, albeit with a 1970s mentality. The original idea was to have a shuttle that would be able to make up to 100 flights per airframe. The remaining shuttles will never reach that number, but up till now they have performed admirably for their design purpose. Granted, they were SUPPOSED to be used only through the 1980s, but the people at NASA excel at squeezing more out of their hardware, no matter the cost. :P
Note that the two shuttles we've lost were technically the two oldest ones: the flagship Columbia, and Challenger (which was actually built out of a test flight article) though their age had nothing to do with the reasons they were lost. The other three have a significantly fewer years on them: Discovery first launched in 1984, Atlantis in 1985, and Endeavour (the replacement for Challenger, built mostly out of spare parts) in 1992. Regardless of their actual age, NASA puts each bird through an exhaustive battery of tests to check that everyting will work exactly as planned and foreseen. Furthermore, each shuttle has gone through major upgrades every 5-7 years, for example to upgrade the cockpit to a 'glass cockpit' configuration.
Mark
Note that the two shuttles we've lost were technically the two oldest ones: the flagship Columbia, and Challenger (which was actually built out of a test flight article) though their age had nothing to do with the reasons they were lost. The other three have a significantly fewer years on them: Discovery first launched in 1984, Atlantis in 1985, and Endeavour (the replacement for Challenger, built mostly out of spare parts) in 1992. Regardless of their actual age, NASA puts each bird through an exhaustive battery of tests to check that everyting will work exactly as planned and foreseen. Furthermore, each shuttle has gone through major upgrades every 5-7 years, for example to upgrade the cockpit to a 'glass cockpit' configuration.
Mark
^By "doubt it would still be flying today," do you mean that the micro-fractures would have caused a problem with the wings and led to a disaster in that regard, or that NASA would have been unable to fix the problem and retired Challenger?
I think NASA would've considered it too big a risk and retired Challenger.
Or Challenger would have suffered the same fate as Columbia but for different reasons.
True. However, the issues with Challenger were not seen in Columbia at that time (though I believe they had started to crop up by the time she was lost in 2003) so it wasn't like they were going to retire the whole fleet based on that. Also note that the shuttles share certain components such as main rocket engines, robot arms, etc. that are swapped between shuttles as needed.
I love the shuttle. It's done so much while waiting for the space station to get off the ground, which was its main reason for existing in the first place. The shuttles will be a sad loss when the final flight touches down at the end of 2010, but it will have long since been their time to fly off into the sunset. It's only really annoying that its replacement won't be ready until four years after that!
Mark
I love the shuttle. It's done so much while waiting for the space station to get off the ground, which was its main reason for existing in the first place. The shuttles will be a sad loss when the final flight touches down at the end of 2010, but it will have long since been their time to fly off into the sunset. It's only really annoying that its replacement won't be ready until four years after that!
Mark
That's a common assumption, but not really true, that the shuttle was designed with the ISS in mind. It's really the other way around. NASA's first phase of study before the shuttle program began in 1968, long before the ISS was even possible. The 1969 space shuttle symposium pushed the idea as a cost reduction over the Saturn V. And in 1972, when the program formally began, NASA described it to Congress as "reduc[ing] substantially the cost of space operations" and "provid[ing] a future capability designed to support a wide range of scientific, defense, and commercial uses." Now, a space station in the late 1990s could certainly fall in that loosely, but it was not the main reason by any stretch.
If anything, the ISS gave the shuttle something to do when NASA was seen as an agency in critical need of a mission. Like the saying went in the 1980s, "See the shuttle go up and down, see the Russians go round and round."
I will and going back to a 'man-in-a-can' isn't as fun. Bush killed the replacement shuttle just before Columbia blew up - another insight into the forward thinking mind of GW Bush - but I digress
At least with Michael Griffin NASA has a champion with the ability to get things done - he's the only Bush appointee I like! I hope Obama keeps him on board to see Orion/Ares through to the Moon.
Penn and Teller (I know, I know... but if someone cares to research it) on their show mentioned that the shuttles are supposed to be retired in the early part of the next decade. And that the new shuttles won't be ready 'til mid-late next decade, so we could go a few years without acceptable government transportation... but there are many companies trying to develop ways to get into space... No doubt NASA can hitch a ride 
Its a step backwards, actually.
