Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Missed & Current Opportunities
Message-ID: <1988Oct13.163425.9890@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <6981@ihlpl.ATT.COM> <1988Oct2.021158.15076@utzoo.uucp> <1988Oct3.172838.8828@utzoo.uucp> <2316@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 88 16:34:25 GMT

In article <2316@ssc-vax.UUCP> eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) writes:
>> The Soviets say that all of Energia, the core as well as the strap-ons,
>> is designed to be recoverable...
>
>Good photographs of the Energia on the launch pad showed squarish bumps
>on the liquid strap-on boosters.  I could easily see those bumps
>containing parachutes.

I believe the Soviets have, in fact, officially said that that's what the
bumps are.  Recovering the strap-ons shouldn't be a big deal.  What I'm a
bit dubious about is recovering the core.  That, I want to see.

>> Sticking a shuttle on a Saturn V would have been a hell of a lot better...
>It was also proposed by the Boeing/Grumman team early in the development
>of the `Shuttle.  We would have put engines and a wing on the
>Saturn first stage, to make it recoverable.

Ah yes, the Flyback F-1.  The liquid-fuel booster the shuttle almost had.
Sigh.  (Boeing, as the manufacturer of the Saturn V first stage, had a
certain commercial interest in the matter, but the idea nevertheless made
a lot of sense.)

>May I also point out, for those netters who are amazed at the lift
>capacity of the Energia, that the Space Shuttle Orbiter plus cargo
>weighed 253,693 lb at launch on STS-26...

Ah, but this is (sort of) equivalent to counting the final stage of an
expendable as part of the payload.  The payload capacity of Energia or
the Saturn V would go up still further if you did this.  It's not quite
a fair comparison, since we're not counting the shuttle tank, but it's
close.

(Of course, if you're going to *use* that final stage for something,
then it's fair to count it as payload.  See, for example, the original
"wet workshop" Skylab concept, which called for moving into a spent
rocket stage.  Actually, if you really want a good example, look at the
old proposals for moving into a spent Saturn V *second* stage.  If you
folded it a bit, you could fit the entire NASA space station inside that
thing.  The second stage of the Saturn V that launched Skylab was the
single largest object ever orbited, much larger than Skylab.  It came
down several years earlier; nobody much noticed.  Alas for opportunities
lost...)
-- 
The meek can have the Earth;    |    Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
the rest of us have other plans.|uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu