Xref: utzoo sci.space:11392 sci.space.shuttle:3121
Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!polyslo!jmckerna
From: jmckerna@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Dr. Dereference)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: heavy launchers
Message-ID: <11401@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>
Date: 14 May 89 10:50:55 GMT
References: <1989May11.050951.11130@utzoo.uucp> <136@enuxha.eas.asu.edu> <11316@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> <1989May13.201437.23217@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: jmckerna@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John McKernan)
Organization: Cal Poly State University -- San Luis Obispo
Lines: 33

In article <1989May13.201437.23217@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>In article <11316@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> jmckerna@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John McKernan) writes:
>>We threw away the Saturn V because it was a very expensive, virtually hand
>>built rocket that was thrown away after every use...
>
>This is a fairly circular statement.  The Saturn V was expensive, hand-built,
>and non-recoverable because of the decision in the mid-60s to throw it away!
>When Congress capped Saturn V production at 15, (a) all hopes of reducing
>cost through volume went away, (b) it was no longer worth mechanizing the
>production process as had been planned, and (c) all work on making Saturn V
>stages recoverable stopped because it would never be done.  
>
>Blaming the NASA of the 70s for throwing away the Saturn V is pretty much
>a mistake.  The real culprit is the Congress of the 60s.

It's hardly surprising that congress refused to guarantee long term funding
for the Saturn program, few if any large procurment contracts are or have
been long term. If the "experts" would have told congress to stick with the
Saturn V post Apollo, congress most likely would have funded more of them. 
Although probably with another expensive, short term, and low volume contract.

The Saturn V was fairly expensive and a lot of people thought changing to a
fully reusable (that was the original plan) vehicle would save money over
the long run. As things worked out these people were tragically wrong, and
the US space program has been severely damaged for the last 15 years. I
think the major principle NASA violated in deciding to build the shuttle was
developing brand new technology when developing existing technology would
have worked very well.

John L. McKernan.                    Student, Computer Science, Cal Poly S.L.O.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The future is rude and pushy. It won't wait for us to solve today's problems
before it butts in with tomorrow's.