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From: dil@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Perry G Ramsey)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: launch rates
Summary: Not exactly a fair comparison
	 But I get the idea
Message-ID: <5623@mace.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 26 Sep 90 15:44:36 GMT
References: <10195.26fde341@pbs.org> <1990Sep25.033816.16652@zoo.toronto.edu> <26970@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Organization: Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Lines: 37

In article <26970@boulder.Colorado.EDU>, serre@boulder.Colorado.EDU (SERRE GLENN) writes:
> Note, however, that the Saturn V could put ~265,000 pounds into LEO in one
> launch, while the shuttle puts up ~60,000 pounds (?). 

Not exactly a fair comparison, because the 265Klb the Saturn is given credit
for included the crew and life support, (which WAS the useable payload)
but the 60klb the Shuttle gets credit for doesn't.
OTOH, why do you need a crew and life support to
launch a communications satellite?  It would probably be fair to count
the life support and crew weight of the Shuttle when it is being used
for, say, Spacelab, but not when it's doing routine satellite launching.
The unique capabilities of the Shuttle
are wasted by using it as a dumb booster.  It was dumb to design it
as one.  If you want reliable, inexpensive manned access to space,
you need a much smaller vehicle, which is what Max Faget wanted
in the first place, but political considerations overruled engineering
considerations.


> Also, the question
> should really be "What was the availability of the Saturn V vs. that for the 
> Shuttle?"  By availability I mean something like the average length of launch
> slips that booster-caused (I'm sure some commercial aviation type out there
> could tell us how the airlines define it).  
> 
> --Glenn Serre
> serre@tramp.colorado.edu

Absolutely.  We also need to think about the expendibles which were fired
during the Saturn days, and compare the FLEET reliablility, since NASA 
trashed the entire expendible fleet in favor of the Shuttle, claiming
higher reliablity, lower cost, etc., etc.
-- 
Perry G. Ramsey           Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
perryr@vm.cc.purdue.edu   Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN USA
dil@mace.cc.purdue.edu    We've looked at clouds from ten sides now, 
			  And we REALLY don't know clouds, at all.