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Why are people impressed with SpaceX?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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The Space Shuttle missions did not recycle the rockets, not to mention that the SpaceX missions were rated super-heavy: Only Apollo has done this before in America.
You think they didn’t?
The Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) from shuttle launched were recycled. They parachuted into the ocean after being jettisoned and were recovered and refused. They just didn't land themselves. The external fuel tank was not reused.
There was an extensive amount of refurbishment required to re-use the SRBs. Not to mention they had to be physically recovered, and salt water certainly made the process more complicated.
The shuttle itself needed each of its heat shield tiles replaced, which due to the shape of the shuttle were all unique.
The fuel tank was not reused.
The shuttle was meant to be a leap forward in rocket reusability, but it didn’t really pan out that way. There’s good reason the program was scrapped and not replaced with another space plane.
The Starship booster has the potential to launch multiple times per day. The only refurbishment period is how long it takes to refuel it.
Agreed. As I mentioned elsewhere, Falcon 9 is still revolutionary, but I was just clarifying that the SRBs were recycled, as that is sometimes forgotten.
TIL, thanks. That’s just a small part of the rocket though
Between the orbiter (reused), the boosters (reused), and the external fuel tank (not reused), which parts are not "just a small part" (in terms of technology/complexity/cost, not physical size)?
I take the part about "a small part" back as that's a misleading term for what I meant: The Super Heavy booster is much bigger in both technology/complexity and physical size and has many more parts than the old space shuttle rockets as it needs to carry the weight of two space shuttle orbiters. Plus, spaceplane is weird.
Remember, unless we're talking about Enterprise, "space shuttle rockets" includes the orbiter itself. The orbiter's main engines were where all that fuel from the external tank was going, after all! From that perspective, I would argue that the main "space shuttle rocket" was definitely much more complex than the Super Heavy booster, because the crew stuff, cargo stuff, spaceplane stuff, etc. was integrated into it.
I feel like your criticism of the shuttle system being less reusable than advertised might have been more applicable if we were talking about the Soviet Buran (which indeed used expendable Energia rockets to reach orbit), not NASA's shuttles.
I was under the impression that a "rocket" does not include the payload. Now that I search it up, I am not sure what to call that part.
Sure, I think you're totally correct... if the part with the engine is separable from the part with the payload. But with the Space Shuttle, that isn't the case unless you're limiting yourself to talking about the SRBs. The orbiter is a spaceplane and that makes it weird, but its main engines are rocket engines (as opposed to a hybrid ramjet or something) and it launches vertically, so I think it's still fair to also call it a rocket.
Or as another example, consider the problem scaled aaaaaaaall the way down to something like this:
Is the whole thing a "rocket," or does that only describe the bottom half and it's called something else from the payload bay up?
In my impression, the payload includes the entire spacecraft, none of which is part of the rocket.
No, they didn't. Enterprise conducted 5 approach and landing tests where she was carried aloft by a 747 and then detached to glide to a landing, three with that aerodynamic tailcone thing, two with mockup main engines to simulate a return from space. Though there were issues with PIO revealed during the last flight, all five of Enterprise's approach and landing test flights resulted in successful landings.
I would not describe any space shuttle as "crashed." Challenger exploded during launch and Colombia broke up during re-entry; destroyed in service yes, crashed no. Enterprise, Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour all survived service and are on display at museums. No other airworthy space shuttles were built. Explorer/Independence and Inspiration are 1:1 scale models, and Pathfinder was basically a boilerplate meant for testing and incapable of flight.
NASA blew up a LOT of shit before the space shuttle program. Who can forget Ranger 1 aka Stayputnik that blew up on the pad? But I'm especially thinking of a Little Joe launch, which I think was intended to test the Apollo launch escape tower, which developed an uncontrolled roll and threw itself apart. It was actually considered by NASA to be a double success because the escape system functioned correctly when the rocket was legitimately out of control.
Also, the Space Shuttle was THE WORST idea. It was as safe as barb wire contact lenses; it's God's greatest miracle that it only killed 15 people.
Frankly I'm surprised that I couldn't find any disintegrated SLS flight tests with what happened to Colombia. There was something about Orbiter Integrated Tests but I couldn't find some sort of itemized record on it.
I refrained from bringing up ancient stuff like Ranger because that's a much higher R&D milestone to surpass.
The space shuttle never flew unmanned. Enterprise did all her glide tests manned, and STS-1 and STS-2 were flown by 2-man crews.
John Young, commander of STS-1, was informed by fellow astronaut Tony England that the House had included the space shuttle program in the budget on April 21, 1972. At the time, he was standing in the Descartes Highlands on the surface of the Moon in his capacity as Commander of Apollo 16.