Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: After Endeavour, what then?
Message-ID: <1991May4.213354.7453@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Sat, 4 May 1991 21:33:54 GMT
References: <346.281f448d@mwk.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <346.281f448d@mwk.uucp> pittman@mwk.uucp writes:
>Is Endeavour (OV-105) the absolutely last shuttle to be built? ...

Debatable point.  NASA now tends to side with the Rogers Commission, the
NRC, the OTA, and others who have studied the issue, in believing that an
ongoing supply of new orbiters is needed to keep the shuttle fleet viable
in the face of accidents and wear.  Unfortunately, the Augustine Commission
recommended against it, and Congress is hostile to the extra expense.  At
the moment, the farthest things are going is construction of a new set of
"structural spares" (the old set having been used to build Endeavour).

>Pardon my naivete, but what is the design lifetime of a shuttle orbiter?

Theoretically, I believe it was set at something like 200 flights.  Nobody
knows, yet, whether that has any relation to reality.
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry