I've often heard it said that the Shuttle and craft with payloads as large as it could lift aren't militarily useful.
1. This would be a good question for Jim: "Why were the shuttles never retro-fitted with autopilots after the Challenger disaster?" If the Soviets could have one on their shuttles, why couldn't the US match that safety feature? 2. Well as I recall we did use the Shuttle for at least a half dozen or more classified military payloads in the 1980s. That had to spook the Soviets, given how much they distrusted us. Heck, they thought we were about to do a nuclear surprise attack on them in 1983 during Operation Able Archer.
Quote from: Hyperion5 on 03/17/2013 04:01 amI've often heard it said that the Shuttle and craft with payloads as large as it could lift aren't militarily useful. Unsubstantiated and totally wrong. How come another launch system (Titan IV) was created with the same performance and cargo size capabilities?
Actually Jim, can't the Shuttle actually out-lift the Titan IV to LEO by about 3 mt? Getting away from the faults of my memory, isn't the very nature of the shuttle stack problematic for flinging substantial satellites up to geosynchronous orbit? If I had wanted to launch a 5700 kg DoD satellite up to GSO, I could have done it in one launch with the Titan IV. I'm not so sure that's the case with the shuttle, which besides its design causing problems, is also much higher cost than even the Titan IV. At the very least the Soviets wouldn't have had aproblem with the layout. If they had wanted to stick a 20 mt satellite into GSO, the Energia rocket could have done it rather than Buran. So once again in terms of military utility, the Energia stack would by its very layout be much easier to use than STS.
Quote from: Hyperion5 on 03/18/2013 06:45 pmQuote from: Jim on 03/17/2013 11:24 amQuote from: Hyperion5 on 03/17/2013 04:01 amI've often heard it said that the Shuttle and craft with payloads as large as it could lift aren't militarily useful. Unsubstantiated and totally wrong. How come another launch system (Titan IV) was created with the same performance and cargo size capabilities?Actually Jim, can't the Shuttle actually out-lift the Titan IV to LEO by about 3 mt?The Titan IV could carry any DoD payload the shuttle could. That was pretty much the driving design requirement for it. Any difference in *gross* payload capacity was not relevant to DoD.
Quote from: Jim on 03/17/2013 11:24 amQuote from: Hyperion5 on 03/17/2013 04:01 amI've often heard it said that the Shuttle and craft with payloads as large as it could lift aren't militarily useful. Unsubstantiated and totally wrong. How come another launch system (Titan IV) was created with the same performance and cargo size capabilities?Actually Jim, can't the Shuttle actually out-lift the Titan IV to LEO by about 3 mt?
But a US version of Energyia/Buran probably would have been cheaper
If I had wanted to launch a 5700 kg DoD satellite up to GSO, I could have done it in one launch with the Titan IV. I'm not so sure that's the case with the shuttle, which besides its design causing problems, is also much higher cost than even the Titan IV. At the very least the Soviets wouldn't have had aproblem with the layout. If they had wanted to stick a 20 mt satellite into GSO, the Energia rocket could have done it rather than Buran. So once again in terms of military utility, the Energia stack would by its very layout be much easier to use than STS.
(from the secret projects forum) Picture of the MSC-042 shuttle. Unlike Energia the Titan III-L had no monolithic hydrogen core but two hypergolic stages. As such the orbiter had to go on top of stage 2. This thing would have had serious control issues...
Quote from: Archibald on 03/24/2013 09:00 am(from the secret projects forum) Picture of the MSC-042 shuttle. Unlike Energia the Titan III-L had no monolithic hydrogen core but two hypergolic stages. As such the orbiter had to go on top of stage 2. This thing would have had serious control issues... That link is not working... Or do you have to be logged on to their server to see it?For this reason it would be better if you attach the image to a post directly. Link usually go bad after a while.
Looking at the bottom line, counting dead bodies and billions wasted, its pretty obvious which system was "superior"
Quote from: Hyperion5 on 03/18/2013 06:45 pmIf I had wanted to launch a 5700 kg DoD satellite up to GSO, I could have done it in one launch with the Titan IV. I'm not so sure that's the case with the shuttle, which besides its design causing problems, is also much higher cost than even the Titan IV. At the very least the Soviets wouldn't have had aproblem with the layout. If they had wanted to stick a 20 mt satellite into GSO, the Energia rocket could have done it rather than Buran. So once again in terms of military utility, the Energia stack would by its very layout be much easier to use than STS. I think the Titan Iv stack actually got up as expensive as STS, or close to it. Which is why it was retired and replaced with the EELV program. This is Wikipedia, so for whatever it's worth, it said the Titan 401A that exploded in [1998] cost $1.4 billion. I'm sure the flights after that must have cost similar. That's right in the range of STS launches, if not more expensive.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_IV
And yea, especially with a hydrogen upper stage (did the Soviets even have hydrogen upper stages? I think the RD-0120 on the core of Energia was their first hydrogen engine in production) Energia would have gotten a lot to GTO or escape. With a kerolox upper stage it would have been less, but I'm still thinking it's have been pretty capable?
I suppose the question though, was there any or many payloads that big that needed to get to GTO or escape? Did they have anything they couldn't just have done with Proton?
Even if it was cheaper than STS (and I don't know that it was), it would have been a very expensive system for launching non Buran payloads. Four Zenit boosters, a big core with four RD-0120's, and external payload carrier, and an upper stage. It'd have been a pretty spendy stack compared to Proton...and it would have been in addition to maintianing Proton unless they were going to retire Proton and just have Energia, Zenit and Soyuz?Although, in reality, they probably could have retired Proton, and used Zenit instead. It didn't have the performance, but...but two or three of them together, and you have Proton and more. And Zenit was supposed to replace Soyuz, but that went away with the fall of the soviet Union.
But, if Energia/Zenit had been kept, and Soyuz and Proton had been retired, and if the Soviet Union hadn't fallen apart just then, then Energia/Zenit/Buran could have possible lived as the main system for the Soviets to cover their launching requirements.Would have been interesting if that'd happened. Might have been good for them to develop two versions of the Energia core, a side mount one for Buran (once Buran was designed to launch side mount, I don't think it could have been modified to launch axially) and an in-line version for cargo launching. Of course, NASA toyed with doing that for a long time and never did...so who knows if the Ruskies would have had the money to do it, even if they were -only- maintaining a Buran orbiter or two, the Energia core, and the Zenit boosters (and appropriate upper stages). Still, Energia as it was would have been a lot like side-mount SDHLV, and a pretty capable HLV in it's own right...just more limited than an in-line version. So it would have been probably capable enough they might have not have needed an inline version.
That link is not working... Or do you have to be logged on to their server to see it?
This is Wikipedia, so for whatever it's worth, it said the Titan 401A that exploded in [1998] cost $1.4 billion. I'm sure the flights after that must have cost similar. That's right in the range of STS launches, if not more expensive.
1. Oh don't worry, they had something they couldn't just have done with Proton. Let's not forget the first payload on the Energia was a carbon dioxide-powered laser weapons platform massing 80 mt and designed to blow up US SDI satellites out of orbit! 2. The inline PLF of the Energia M is testament to the core's adaptability.
Quote from: Hyperion5 on 03/30/2013 06:14 am1. Oh don't worry, they had something they couldn't just have done with Proton. Let's not forget the first payload on the Energia was a carbon dioxide-powered laser weapons platform massing 80 mt and designed to blow up US SDI satellites out of orbit! 2. The inline PLF of the Energia M is testament to the core's adaptability. 1. it was a mockup, they had no working laser
2. Energia M was a kludge