Untold Stories of the Shuttle Program - Missions That Never Flew (book)

[Blackstar]

This could also go in the entertainment section as a new book. But I think there's enough to this subject that it properly belongs in the history section (in other words, this thread doesn't have to only discuss the book).

The book is due out at the end of the year.

https://www.amazon.com/Untold-Stories-Space-Shuttle-Program/dp/303119652X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=8577KSO0LCTD&keywords=the+untold+stories+of+the+shuttle+program&qid=1668370114&sprefix=the+untold+stories+of+the+shuttle+program%2Caps%2C69&sr=8-1

[saturnapollo]

That looks very interesting indeed.

I'm just about to contemplate building a model of each orbiter with some of the more interesting payloads which flew. Perhaps another project would be to build some with payloads or missions which never flew. The cover alone looks fascinating.

Keith

[Kyra's kosmos]

There were some ideas that were pure concept art (These would make a coffee table book) and some that had very developed mission documentation, selected crews and training. I hope he distinguishes how far each one actually made it.

My favorite concepts: a bus like Spacelab style module full of tourists, wheeled space stations and giant solar arrays that would make the ISS look like a toy.

[Blackstar]

There were some ideas that were pure concept art (These would make a coffee table book) and some that had very developed mission documentation, selected crews and training. I hope he distinguishes how far each one actually made it.

Agreed. That's always a problem with books/articles about unflown projects. Some of them were proposals that did not have a lot of effort behind them. Others involved a lot of time, people, and money, but got canceled for various reasons--budget cutbacks, or technical problems. There is a lot more to learn from the latter projects than the former.

[Blackstar]

The cover shows Shuttle-Centaur. I think there is at least one historical article on that, and it is probably covered in Jenkins' big shuttle book. But I've always thought that there must be an interesting story to that if somebody was willing to interview the people involved.

I'd also be interested in anything in the book on the Grumman Beam Builder. I've thought about writing something on that subject myself.

And I could list a bunch of military shuttle projects I'd like to see discussed:

-various Hexagon on shuttle proposals, including DAMON (I've written about all that)
-proposals for Gambit on shuttle
-GPS on shuttle
-other military payloads that were supposed to shift to shuttle
-Teal Ruby

[Jorge]

The author used to be a user here. I don't remember his username, though.

[Blackstar]

Something that is also rife for discussion is the early NASA plans for shuttle flights. It is a bit hard to believe, but even by the late 1970s (maybe up until 1981?), NASA was expecting to ramp up to 50 shuttle flights a year by the mid-1980s. I remember seeing a manifest for the first 5+ years or show that indicated that a lot of them were Spacelab flights. That was rather cheating, because in order to get the per-flight cost down, NASA would have to fund a lot of NASA flights. Where were they going to get the money for all those Spacelab flights?

http://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2015/07/what-shuttle-should-have-been-nasas.html

[AmigaClone]

I think there were some missions planned (prior to 1979) to at least reboost Skylab and possibly even do more with the NASA's first space station.

Post-STS 107 all but the last shuttle mission had a 'Launch on Demand' or 'Contingency Mission' associated with it that would be launched in case a shuttle was damaged on ascent like Columbia was on it's final flight. I suspect those missions were planned in a lot more detail than some of the missions planned in the late 1970s.

[Jorge]

I think there were some missions planned (prior to 1979) to at least reboost Skylab and possibly even do more with the NASA's first space station.

Post-STS 107 all but the last shuttle mission had a 'Launch on Demand' or 'Contingency Mission' associated with it that would be launched in case a shuttle was damaged on ascent like Columbia was on it's final flight. I suspect those missions were planned in a lot more detail than some of the missions planned in the late 1970s.

Yes. And the Hubble Launch on Need (LON) STS-400 mission moved around as STS-125 slipped in the manifest. Originally it was the STS-123 crew and orbiter, but ultimately ended up being STS-126.

There were also the "original" ISS-2A.1 (ICM), which later became the STS-96 ISS resupply mission, and ISS-10A.1 (Prop Module). The former got almost to the start of crew training, the latter not so much.

[laszlo]

Something that is also rife for discussion is the early NASA plans for shuttle flights. It is a bit hard to believe, but even by the late 1970s (maybe up until 1981?), NASA was expecting to ramp up to 50 shuttle flights a year by the mid-1980s. I remember seeing a manifest for the first 5+ years or show that indicated that a lot of them were Spacelab flights. That was rather cheating, because in order to get the per-flight cost down, NASA would have to fund a lot of NASA flights. Where were they going to get the money for all those Spacelab flights?

http://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2015/07/what-shuttle-should-have-been-nasas.html

You mean like justifying reusability by putting up a multi-thousand constellation of your own satellites that you then have to find users for? 

[Blackstar]

You mean like justifying reusability by putting up a multi-thousand constellation of your own satellites that you then have to find users for? 

There are similarities, but not really the same thing.

[Hog]

I've seen documents presented here at NSF.com showing manifests with 24 fight/year late into the post-Challenger RTF effort. Pretty bold considering the incident.

Plus there's all those FWC Filament Wound Case missions to the South out of Vandenberg using OV-103 Discovery that saw an unfortunate reality.  Discovery was also Centaur capable.  It would have been nice to see some USAF/Shuttle flights.  I remember reading the USAF budgets during this period and I would take note of all the line items that were STS related.  It seemed like USAF couldn't zero out the STS spending fast enough.

[Blackstar]

I've now acquired this and will be reviewing it. Lots of interesting stuff. There's a section on shuttle and Skylab, as well as a chapter on large in-space construction projects. There is still a lot more that could be included in the military section, I think. But it is really packed full of information.

Part of the table of contents:

About the Author
Acknowledgements
Acronyms

1 A Remarkable Flying Machine
The Space Plane
Space Shuttle 101
Space Shuttle: What For?

2 Upgrading the Space Shuttle
Introduction
The Power Extension Package

3 Boosting the Booster
An attempt to make the Space Shuttle safer
The Liquid Rocket Boosters (LRB)
Liquid Fly Back Booster: The Pre-Phase A Study
Liquid Fly Back Booster: The Boeing and Lockheed Martin Proposals

4 Orbital Hopping
“A tale of two upper stages”
Death Star
The Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle: the space tug returns
NEWSTAR: Nuclear Energy Waste Space Transportation And Removal

5 Unflown On-Orbit Servicing Capabilities  103
Opening the era of on-orbit satellite servicing 103
Payload Berthing System, Satellite Workshop, and Robotic Arms 107
The Space Operation Center  111
On-Orbit Cryogenic Fluid Management Experiments  119
The Orbital Spacecraft Consumable Resupply System  128
The Superfluid Helium Tanker Study  1

6 Factories in Space 143
The Materials Experiment Carrier  156
A pioneering initiative: the Industrial Space Facility  161
Ultra-vacuum: the Wake Shield Facility  166

7 The Unfulfilled Potential of the External Tank 170
Introduction  170
The Very Large Space Telescope  171
The Large Area Gamma Ray Imaging Telescope  173
Propellant Scavenging System  185
Aft Cargo Carrier  191

8 Shipyards in Orbit  196
The Large Space Systems Technology Program 196
Orbital Assembly and Maintenance Study  199
The Orbital Construction Demonstration Article  205
The Space Construction Automated Fabrication Experiment  213
The Engineering Technology Verification Platform  226

9 Space Shuttle and Skylab: A Missed Opportunity  244
Introduction  244
Saving Skylab: The Lost Mission of STS-3  246
The Skylab Reuse Study  251
The Skylab Reuse Study: Shuttle Operations and Continued Growth 255
The Solar Scientific Instruments Spacelab/Orbiter Report  264
Epilogue  269

10 Space Shuttle in Uniform 271
The Lost Polar Mission  271
The “Big Bird”  281
The STS-Hexagon Study 285

11 Lost Science and Technology Missions 301
The Research and Application Module  301
The Shuttle Payload Planning Working Group  313
The Shuttle InfraRed Telescope Facility  314
The Large Uncooled Infrared Telescope  314
The Accessible Focal Plane Telescope  317
The Plasma Physics and Environmental Perturbation Laboratory  319
The Communication and Navigation Research Laboratory  321
Orbital Research Centrifuge  323

12 Epilogue  332
Index  342
Contents

[hoku]

Something that is also rife for discussion is the early NASA plans for shuttle flights. It is a bit hard to believe, but even by the late 1970s (maybe up until 1981?), NASA was expecting to ramp up to 50 shuttle flights a year by the mid-1980s. I remember seeing a manifest for the first 5+ years or show that indicated that a lot of them were Spacelab flights. That was rather cheating, because in order to get the per-flight cost down, NASA would have to fund a lot of NASA flights. Where were they going to get the money for all those Spacelab flights?
http://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2015/07/what-shuttle-should-have-been-nasas.html

This is an interesting and complex topic. NASA must have been hoping for outside funds: commercial satellite operators, research contracts from industry, and missions funded by other agencies.

Initially STS was quite busy with launching (and rescuing/repairing) commercial and scientific satellites (STS-5, STS-7, STS-41-B, STS-41-C, STS-41-D, ...). I find chapter 6 on "Factories in Space" and the promise of electrophoresis an interesting read. In the early 1980s it seemed plausible that this could be turned into a commercially viable enterprise. There was DoD funding in the US (any other agencies?), and international funding by ESA and national space agencies for later spacelab missions (Japan was funding STS-47, and Germany STS-61-A and STS-55).

Actual mission costs meant that each of these outside partners could afford fewer mission than hoped for. The microgravity environment (as opposed to true "zero-G") was also detrimental for certain experimental projects, and then - as mentioned in the book - there was progress in biochemistry and genetics, which enabled new ways for the production of pharmaceutical components on Earth.

[OverThePlanetsAndFarAway]

This is definately going on my Christmas list this year.

[rliebman]

I think this would be a great addition to the offering in the NSF store.

[Jim]

There was DoD funding in the US (any other agencies?),

Not to NASA

[thomasafb]

got it over the holidays and it is an interesting read. It covers the obvious ones, such as Centaur, Vandenberg and Skylab rescue but also a lot of grand schemes of space utilization (those who got into Shuttle by way of the Operators' Manual from back in the day can get reacquainted with the Space Industrial Facility) and lesser known (hair brained) ideas such as nuclear waste disposal. The author did i nice job picking interesting ideas from the NTRS treasure trove from the early days of the program.

I have read both of his previous books on Shuttle and enjoyed them a lot, but for this one, his editor was perhaps not at the top of his game which takes away a bit from the reading experience.

[saturnapollo]

I have read both of his previous books on Shuttle and enjoyed them a lot, but for this one, his editor was perhaps not at the top of his game which takes away a bit from the reading experience.

I agree. For a Springer Praxis book it is unusual for a book to look as though it was not been proof read with so many errors and spelling mistakes - and even the wrong words sometimes. For instance the year of Apollo 17 is quoted as 1971, the Challenger launch date is wrong, Charlie Walker becomes Joe Walker half way through the book, Rick Hauck is frequently referred to as Huck. There are often two sentences saying the same thing as though the author wasn't sure which form of words were best.

And "3inches (0.5ft)"!

I'm only halfway through the book and I just have to hope the content I don't know about is accurate.

Keith