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From: dietz@SLB-DOLL.CSNET (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Shuttle Articles in Discover Magazine
Message-ID: <8511251341.AA17196@s1-b.arpa>
Date: Mon, 25-Nov-85 07:39:47 EST
Article-I.D.: s1-b.8511251341.AA17196
Posted: Mon Nov 25 07:39:47 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Nov-85 06:15:06 EST
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I just read Discover magazine's November 1985 issue.  It has a series
of three articles on the space shuttle.  The cover is a picture of the
shuttle floating in orbit, with the quote: "The shuttle is a superb
technological achievement, and it's flown by brave, immensely competent
men and women...   But what is it good for?"  Lest you think the issue
was put together by anti-space Luddites, that quote is from the third
article, by Gerard O'Neill.  (O'Neill's Geostar company is going to
launch its satellites using Ariane.)

The first article was on the history and economics of the shuttle.  I
was appalled.  The shuttle is an economic failure to dwarf the Concorde.

First of all, it hasn't reached its design payload capacity (ever
wondered why the payload bay is so empty?) of 65000 pounds.  That's
going to require increasing the thrust on the SSME's to 109% of rated
capacity, and that has proved difficult to achieve (it's going to cost
around a billion dollars more to do it).  Current maximum payload is
around 47000 pounds.

Second, it's expensive.  The average full cost minus development cost
of a shuttle launch is $108 million.  That's $2298 per pound at present
or, when the engines are improved, $1662 per pound.  Throwing in
development cost raises the cost another $42 million.  In contrast,
former NASA administrator James Fletcher estimated in 1972 that a Saturn-V
costs $1677 (in 1985 dollars) to put a pound into orbit.  Incredibly, NASA
has spent $14 billion and ten years and has no improvement in launch
costs to show for it.

Third, it can't recoup operating expenses, much less development costs,
because of foreign competition.  NASA can only charge $71 million for a
fully dedicated flight, and doesn't even get that much for most flights.
This situation can only get worse as new, more efficient, versions of
foreign rockets are developed.

What NASA should do is learn from the shuttle experience and design an
improved shuttle with better economics.  But no, they're going to build
a space station.  I can take solace in the fact that the europeans are
working on shuttle-like vehicles (Hermes and HOTOL) and you can bet
they will learn from NASA's mistakes.

For the shuttle, things could become grim in a few years if fiber
optics really depresses the market for communications satellites, and
if DOD decides to build a new expendable booster as backup for the
shuttle.