Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: orbiters
Message-ID: <1990Nov5.163159.5428@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Oct27.220840.3756@zoo.toronto.edu> <4405@disk.UUCP> <1990Nov4.070304.427@zoo.toronto.edu> <1990Nov05.080643.29287@xenitec.on.ca>
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 90 16:31:59 GMT

In article <1990Nov05.080643.29287@xenitec.on.ca> edhew@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew) writes:
>>You're almost alone; not even NASA agrees with you.  In hindsight it is
>>not a very good design.  Apart from anything else, it is far too costly
>>and manpower-intensive.
>
>Given that there is room for improvement, are there any alternatives
>for a reusable manned vehicle with similar or enhanced capability under
>consideration?

There is a lot of talk, but no action, I'm afraid.  NASA has produced pretty
design sketches for a "Shuttle II", showing various approaches, but nobody
is funding development or likely to fund it any time soon.  (It *is* time
work got started on this, but...)  Even these designs typically don't
qualify if you take "similar capability" literally, since they are mostly
somewhat smaller than the existing shuttle -- it's over-sized for the bulk
of the users, having been driven by a now-irrelevant USAF requirement.

(For purposes of this discussion I ignore seriously different vehicles,
like SSX and the various small spaceplanes, which are getting active
attention in various places.)
-- 
"I don't *want* to be normal!"         | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
"Not to worry."                        |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry