Author Topic: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?  (Read 21448 times)

Offline Naito

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There are so many discussions regarding why STS was a failure, or why it was so expensive.  So what DID turn out to be a good decision with regards to cost saving?  The original ideal of STS was to reduce launch costs, so the engineers must've designed every piece with thoughts towards reducing costs in mind.  Did it really cost more to replace every single component than it did to refurbish them over the life of the program?

Just as a possible example, was it ultimately cheaper reusing the SSMEs, or would it have been cheaper to manufacture a new set for every flight?
Carl C.

Offline wolfpack

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #1 on: 04/03/2014 01:57 am »
So what DID turn out to be a good decision with regards to cost saving?

Ending the program.

Offline edkyle99

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #2 on: 04/03/2014 02:51 am »
There are so many discussions regarding why STS was a failure, or why it was so expensive.  So what DID turn out to be a good decision with regards to cost saving?  The original ideal of STS was to reduce launch costs, so the engineers must've designed every piece with thoughts towards reducing costs in mind.  Did it really cost more to replace every single component than it did to refurbish them over the life of the program?

Just as a possible example, was it ultimately cheaper reusing the SSMEs, or would it have been cheaper to manufacture a new set for every flight?
STS was NASA's longest running manned space program.  It provided capability and flexibility that no other system has provided before or since.  Shuttle missions were reprogrammed, sometimes on short notice.  Cargo was hauled up and down.  Some of the down included complete satellites. 

I'm not sure the cost argument against STS holds up today - not with EELV program costs skyrocketing.  It would take a billion dollar Delta 4 Heavy and a half-billion dollar EELV Medium-something, both topped by billion dollar throwaway spacecraft, to roughly equal the capability of one STS.  That reality alone shows how STS actually did provide a relatively decent deal for the nation's money.

In my opinion, Shuttle's flaws were mostly related to the eventually unacceptable risks it posed to crews, which is why it ended and why we're enduring the "gap" right now.

 - Ed Kyle
« Last Edit: 04/03/2014 03:08 am by edkyle99 »

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #3 on: 04/03/2014 02:55 am »
I'm interested in the thread's title, so let's talk about that, not all the other things you guys bring up (which may still be good points). Let's focus on the technical stuff.
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Offline Jim

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #4 on: 04/03/2014 11:22 am »

I'm not sure the cost argument against STS holds up today - not with EELV program costs skyrocketing.  It would take a billion dollar Delta 4 Heavy and a half-billion dollar EELV Medium-something, both topped by billion dollar throwaway spacecraft, to roughly equal the capability of one STS.  That reality alone shows how STS actually did provide a relatively decent deal for the nation's money.


No,
1.  Delta IV is not a billion dollars
2.  Shuttle could not go to PEO
3.  Shuttle needed an upperstage to go to anything but LEO
4.  Delta IV has more lift capability to PEO, LEO, GTO, GSO and escape
5.  most missions require throwaway spacecraft.  Shuttle flew more of these than returnable ones.

Offline Darren_Hensley

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #5 on: 04/03/2014 12:25 pm »
C'mon Jim, Shed some light on the subject at hand.

Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?

It makes me wonder if "NASA Spinoffs" has an article or two on the subject?
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Offline JasonAW3

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #6 on: 04/03/2014 01:08 pm »
There are so many discussions regarding why STS was a failure, or why it was so expensive.  So what DID turn out to be a good decision with regards to cost saving?  The original ideal of STS was to reduce launch costs, so the engineers must've designed every piece with thoughts towards reducing costs in mind.  Did it really cost more to replace every single component than it did to refurbish them over the life of the program?

Just as a possible example, was it ultimately cheaper reusing the SSMEs, or would it have been cheaper to manufacture a new set for every flight?
STS was NASA's longest running manned space program.  It provided capability and flexibility that no other system has provided before or since.  Shuttle missions were reprogrammed, sometimes on short notice.  Cargo was hauled up and down.  Some of the down included complete satellites. 

I'm not sure the cost argument against STS holds up today - not with EELV program costs skyrocketing.  It would take a billion dollar Delta 4 Heavy and a half-billion dollar EELV Medium-something, both topped by billion dollar throwaway spacecraft, to roughly equal the capability of one STS.  That reality alone shows how STS actually did provide a relatively decent deal for the nation's money.

In my opinion, Shuttle's flaws were mostly related to the eventually unacceptable risks it posed to crews, which is why it ended and why we're enduring the "gap" right now.

 - Ed Kyle

Ed,

     As many billions of dollars as we have dumped down the drain on this project, why the heck didn't they simply refund the Shuttle 2 program for an SSTO VLHL craft?  As we had all the info on how not to do things from the Shuttle, it would have made sense to create a more reliable craft in that the shuttle was an experimental, transitional craft in the first place.
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Offline Jim

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #7 on: 04/03/2014 01:10 pm »
C'mon Jim, Shed some light on the subject at hand.

Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?

It makes me wonder if "NASA Spinoffs" has an article or two on the subject?

There wasn't any aspect that was.  It made any spacecraft on it, more expensive due to manrating requirements.

STS was effective in servicing a space station and providing a platform for small experiments to get zero g time

Offline RanulfC

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #8 on: 04/03/2014 02:34 pm »
There are so many discussions regarding why STS was a failure, or why it was so expensive.  So what DID turn out to be a good decision with regards to cost saving?  The original ideal of STS was to reduce launch costs, so the engineers must've designed every piece with thoughts towards reducing costs in mind.  Did it really cost more to replace every single component than it did to refurbish them over the life of the program?

Just as a possible example, was it ultimately cheaper reusing the SSMEs, or would it have been cheaper to manufacture a new set for every flight?

There's a couple of "flaws" in the thread title and OP :) STS was a very "expensive" lesson in trying to achieve a (for-the-time) very high tech prototype with a specific budget capped at a certain amount and under constraining political "rules" that led to even more compromises.

Ed is of course "correct" in that STS gave America a lot of "capability" but as others pointed out it was a rather limited capability for the price. While it is also true that the engineers were "cost" conscious during design, it was conscious towards the budget for getting the STS not its maintenance and opertions costs. Any "competent" account would have easily noted that the transportation costs alone of shipping "reusable" Solid Rocket Booster segments from Florida to Utah and back was not "cost-effective" in any way. But politics trumped cost-savings, and not surprising given the amount of political support that had to be rounded up to get STS off the ground in the first place.

The STS wasn't a "mistake" or a "failure" or won't be as long as we really learn from it. The STS as a "first-generation" RLV wasn't a very good example of the breed. It was comprimised from the original intent, it was designed for a specific set of tasks and then had other tasks "loaded" on that required even more design changes and finally became a "program" in and of itself when it should have only been a "part" of an overall program and a "goal" unto itself. The Shuttle was supposed to reduce costs through reuse of the system, originaly the WHOLE system, booster, orbiter and all.

Instead the reusable self--recovering booster was replaced by "recoverable/rebuildable" SRBs. The Orbiter was supposed to have a rapid turn-around with little work but instead it needed major work after every flight. The engines were supposed to be able to be flown mulitple times with little maintenance, but were maintenance intensive and time consuming to pull and replace. (This got better and towards the end of the program the SSMEs were actually very close to meeting their original goals) The Orbiter itself had to be a crew transport, a cargo hauler, a mini-space-station, etc all rolled into one vehicle from the very start. This made it expensive, to expensive to think of replacing, but as a "first-generation" RLV that's exactly what should have happened on a "regular" basis as we learned more.

The STS system was not "modular" (spacecraft are not LEGO's :P ) but it very well could have been and was a very good start on doing so. There was a lot of "promise" in the STS that was never fully explored. And the main reason was that it was too expensive to fly and maintain and there was never enough money or support to make major changes to the "system" even if there had been the will.

In the last analysis NO aspect of the STS was "effective" at reducing costs because the actual "goal" of reducing costs was the very first victim of the compromises that defined the STS system.

Now that I've had time (and incentive :) ) to think about it more I'll probably post another alternate STS on the "What would a better STS have looked like thread :)
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28474.0;all

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Offline Naito

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #9 on: 04/03/2014 02:41 pm »
There wasn't any aspect that was.  It made any spacecraft on it, more expensive due to manrating requirements.

STS was effective in servicing a space station and providing a platform for small experiments to get zero g time

That COULDN'T have been the only things, I hope!

How about some other little things, like how most of the expensive valving was put on the orbiter side rather than the tank side so that it could be reused instead of discarded, did it really save money vs building new ones every time?

Or maybe how the fail-operational/fail-safe design saved a couple missions which would've otherwise needed to cut short or even a reflight on any other craft?  Were there any?

Now that I've had time (and incentive :) ) to think about it more I'll probably post another alternate STS on the "What would a better STS have looked like thread :)
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28474.0;all

That thread was kinda where I got this idea from :) I knew about how the SRBs ended up almost as expensive to build new as to refurbish every flight, but wondered if there were ANY reusable bits that really did pay off as being built reusable rather than replaceable, and if any of the features that were purposely built-in to make these bits reusable actually paid off (if only just barely), or did they all become just extra bit to maintain?

Carl C.

Offline Go4TLI

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #10 on: 04/03/2014 03:04 pm »
There were many, many things done to bring down costs.  Some big and some small.  There were still many other things that could have been done. 

It's frustrating to see those who were not there, that have no knowledge of anything about it jump on here to make only snarky comments like "ending it" or calling it a failure. 

I would be willing to bet that those individuals will never be involved in something remotely as rewarding and something remotely as challenging as this program was.  Something where lives were at stake on every flight (and sometimes on the ground), the nation watching, building a space station - the most complex assembly ever to name just a few. 

I would suggest to those who do just want to come in here and do that, there are plenty of SLS threads where your "informed" opinion can be shared.  But leave history to those who lived it and wrote it. 

Offline wolfpack

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #11 on: 04/03/2014 03:13 pm »
but wondered if there were ANY reusable bits that really did pay off as being built reusable rather than replaceable

I think block III SSME had a chance. If the engines didn't have to come out after each flight that would have shown up somehow on the bottom line. But we'll never know as block III never made it to fruition.

Offline BrightLight

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #12 on: 04/03/2014 03:16 pm »
Was there an alternative to STS that would have been cheaper? - if man rating raises the cost of a payload (which it does), what model would be cheaper?
How would we build ISS with this "other" approach?

Offline Go4TLI

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #13 on: 04/03/2014 03:27 pm »
Was there an alternative to STS that would have been cheaper? - if man rating raises the cost of a payload (which it does), what model would be cheaper?
How would we build ISS with this "other" approach?

See Mir.  Or a large part of the Russian segment of ISS.  The contrast is pretty huge. 

Offline BrightLight

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #14 on: 04/03/2014 03:34 pm »
Was there an alternative to STS that would have been cheaper? - if man rating raises the cost of a payload (which it does), what model would be cheaper?
How would we build ISS with this "other" approach?

See Mir.  Or a large part of the Russian segment of ISS.  The contrast is pretty huge.
I thought about that - can the US model its human space flight on the Russian approach - use a robust and "simple" LV and spacecraft and make mods where needed. I have spoken directly to astronauts who flew on the ISS early-on and later and they say the Russian segment is problematic (I assume they are biased). Was STS to much too soon?
Is the Russian model better than the US?
They tried Buran - and didn't like it, yet the Russians are having a hard time getting there modules up.

Offline notsorandom

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #15 on: 04/03/2014 03:49 pm »
Many who look at the SSP costs are looking at the launch costs. While the Shuttle did not live up to the promise of lowering these cost dramatically it still did lower other costs. Except for the rare exception the payload of a rocket is often times more expensive than the rocket it launches on. If you look at the Space Shuttle not as a launcher but as payload it looks like there were some pretty good savings.

The Shuttle could launch up to 7 people, reusable laboratories and experiments and support them for weeks at a time in orbit. It could do that several times a year. In the 80s and 90s before the ISS the Shuttle enabled NASA to learn a lot about living, working, and building in space. It certainly had value as a reusable space craft and payload.

I was curious what that might have cost using expendable systems. Apollo CSM cost about $77 million in 1960s dollars (Astronutix figure) which with inflation works out to about half a billion now. That is about the marginal cost a a Shuttle flight, which had more capability then the Apollo CSM. The Canadarm was a big part of the SSP NASA got 5 of them for $700 million. They were reused throughout the program. Those are just two examples of how reuse of the spacecraft did reduce the cost of spaceflight. For three decades the Shuttle was affordable and flew regularly. It did get some things right.

Offline DDG40

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #16 on: 04/03/2014 03:53 pm »
There were many, many things done to bring down costs.  Some big and some small.  There were still many other things that could have been done. 

It's frustrating to see those who were not there, that have no knowledge of anything about it jump on here to make only snarky comments like "ending it" or calling it a failure. 

I would be willing to bet that those individuals will never be involved in something remotely as rewarding and something remotely as challenging as this program was.  Something where lives were at stake on every flight (and sometimes on the ground), the nation watching, building a space station - the most complex assembly ever to name just a few. 

I would suggest to those who do just want to come in here and do that, there are plenty of SLS threads where your "informed" opinion can be shared.  But leave history to those who lived it and wrote it.


What I recall was we were reducing cost and manpower big time till the Columbia accident. Return to flight and flyout caused a increase in cost. Return to flight for ET required more personel hired and new very labor intensive processes.
 The cost of an ET went from 80-90 million to 140 million (est) a copy.

Offline Jim

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #17 on: 04/03/2014 06:41 pm »
Was there an alternative to STS that would have been cheaper? - if man rating raises the cost of a payload (which it does), what model would be cheaper?
How would we build ISS with this "other" approach?

See Mir.  Or a large part of the Russian segment of ISS.  The contrast is pretty huge. 

How the ISS could have been built without the shuttle.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=11968.msg247631#msg247631

Offline Jim

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #18 on: 04/03/2014 06:46 pm »

That COULDN'T have been the only things, I hope!

How about some other little things, like how most of the expensive valving was put on the orbiter side rather than the tank side so that it could be reused instead of discarded, did it really save money vs building new ones every time?

That thread was kinda where I got this idea from :) I knew about how the SRBs ended up almost as expensive to build new as to refurbish every flight, but wondered if there were ANY reusable bits that really did pay off as being built reusable rather than replaceable, and if any of the features that were purposely built-in to make these bits reusable actually paid off (if only just barely), or did they all become just extra bit to maintain?


The "savings" were overshadowed by other costs and there are other methods (don't dispose of anything in the first place) that are better.  Spending 10 million to save 1 million doesn't' make sense.

 

The ET cost as much as some ELV's.
« Last Edit: 04/03/2014 06:47 pm by Jim »

Offline Naito

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Re: What aspect of STS was EFFECTIVE at reducing costs?
« Reply #19 on: 04/03/2014 07:46 pm »
The "savings" were overshadowed by other costs and there are other methods (don't dispose of anything in the first place) that are better.  Spending 10 million to save 1 million doesn't' make sense.
The ET cost as much as some ELV's.

Yes, that's well established given what we know now.  But trying one more time just to look beyond that, was there anything on STS that the extra 10 million invested DID save 1 million on?  That was a large premise of the program after all, design a more cadillac spacecraft because they thought they would be able to save money on the higher-end reusable pieces rather than low-end pieces manufactured many times.  Wolfpack mentioned the SSME's, the SSME block II monitoring systems and pump designs certainly sound like they helped bring SSME refurbishment costs per flight down to where it COULD have possibly been cost-effective if it were given even more time to mature.  What other systems were like that?

Maybe I'll amend the question a bit:  What systems on STS were there that if given more time to mature actually looked like they would have been more cost effective to refurbish and reuse vs. replace with new?  An example being that the SRBs would NOT have been a cost effective reusable piece, whereas the SSMEs might have eventually become cost saving.  Maybe even the tiles, nearing the end of the program when they stopped being damaged so much from ET debris and requiring so many replacements after flight, might they have eventually broke even?
Carl C.

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