Shuttle II Concepts

[meiza]

Gekko0481 - 3/4/2007  3:31 PM

My god, how many engine nozzels does one need?!!?! That would most certainly put out a hell of a lot of power, but would it land so easily given the realitvely small wingsize compared to its length? I'm merely basing my assumptions on shuttle and buran, given that the wings start fairly near the front on them.

It's mostly empty tank so perhaps landing speed would be tolerable.

[Thorny]

Gekko0481 - 3/4/2007  9:31 AM

My god, how many engine nozzels does one need?!!?! That would most certainly put out a hell of a lot of power, but would it land so easily given the realitvely small wingsize compared to its length? I'm merely basing my assumptions on shuttle and buran, given that the wings start fairly near the front on them.

People complain about the U.S. Shuttle's design, with the two SRBs right next to the Orbiter. But look at THAT thing! Surrounded by fuel and engines! The "crew up top" crowd would have needed sedatives if that thing had ever been built.

[Marsman]

That was a design for the Energia for a fly-back stage, not a shuttle design.

[CFE]

meiza - 3/4/2007  2:33 PM

Gekko0481 - 3/4/2007  3:31 PM

My god, how many engine nozzels does one need?!!?! That would most certainly put out a hell of a lot of power, but would it land so easily given the realitvely small wingsize compared to its length? I'm merely basing my assumptions on shuttle and buran, given that the wings start fairly near the front on them.

It's mostly empty tank so perhaps landing speed would be tolerable.

Nominally, these RLV's would be able to land with empty tanks.  But what happens when a mission has to be aborted before the propellant is burned up?  This is an inherent problem with RLV concepts.  DC-X style vehicles have claimed that they would burn off the excess propellant during the hover prior to landing.  For winged RLV's, abort modes like ATO, TAL, or even the dreaded RTLS are a necessity.

[PurduesUSAFguy]

publiusr - 30/3/2007  3:42 PM

One concept for a spaceplane.

http://www.buran.ru/htm/41-3.htm

The label Rube Goldber comes to mind, wow


I think one of the most regretable mistakes of the 1990s was not finishing the X-33, even if it never led to the Venturestar for a hundred million more we would have gotten valuable data on reusable hypersonic vehicles. Axing it was a mistake.

[CFE]

X-33 would have taught us some lessons, but the key here is traceability.  The LockMart X-33 wasn't traceable to future RLV's.  Instead, it represented a bridge too far--new engines, new fuel tanks, new aerodynamic shapes, new structures, new TPS, etc.  NASA would have been wiser to develop these technologies one-by-one.  

In hindsight, X-33 should always have been about RLV technology development, instead of prototyping a pie-in-the-sky SSTO.  The Rockwell design represented far less risk than the others, and it might have made for a valuable x-program had it gone ahead.

[imfan]

CFE - 4/4/2007  6:44 AM

meiza - 3/4/2007  2:33 PM

Gekko0481 - 3/4/2007  3:31 PM

My god, how many engine nozzels does one need?!!?! That would most certainly put out a hell of a lot of power, but would it land so easily given the realitvely small wingsize compared to its length? I'm merely basing my assumptions on shuttle and buran, given that the wings start fairly near the front on them.

It's mostly empty tank so perhaps landing speed would be tolerable.

Nominally, these RLV's would be able to land with empty tanks.  But what happens when a mission has to be aborted before the propellant is burned up?  This is an inherent problem with RLV concepts.  DC-X style vehicles have claimed that they would burn off the excess propellant during the hover prior to landing.  For winged RLV's, abort modes like ATO, TAL, or even the dreaded RTLS are a necessity.

If you are writing regarding that Energia flyback design, you have to keep in mind that it is only unmanned RLV, so if it blows up.. it only blows up. and if there is manned payload(never seen it being proposed for flyback energia-probably because difficulties of capsule-nose-cone with heatshield integration), it would be probably classical capsule with LAS or similar abort system.

[Ronpur50]

This Shuttle II is quite a bit different to the Space Shuttle.  I thought I remembered reading of an upgraded plan for the shuttle that would allow upgrades to the existing airframe, like new TPS, replacing APUs, etc.  Upgrades to make it safer and more reliable.  Basically, OV-201 and on that would continue flying with new orbiters replacing older ones that were retired.  Obviously, money was never there for this.  But beyond the money, has anyone ever heard details of these plans?

I did find this model of an Evolved Shuttle that looks a lot like this Shuttle II plan from page 1.

[Go4TLI]

I thought I remembered reading of an upgraded plan for the shuttle that would allow upgrades to the existing airframe, like new TPS, replacing APUs, etc. 

There were all kinds of plans, some of them even had funding for development.  Some of the major mods I worked that had said funding for a time. 

Non-tox OMS/RCS
EAPU (Electric APU)
Long-Life Alkeline Fuel Cell
FICS/OPTS (Forward Interconnect System/Orbital Propellant Transfer System)

Others that were concepts, or some had funds, and upgrades that would be considered major:

Electric acutators
Liquid Fly-back boosters
Advanced cockpit (follow-on to MEDS) - was funded
Metalic TPS
and a many others I just can't recall right now.

That said, there were modifications made to the orbiters litterally up to the final flight.  Depending on the mod and the flow, some of these were just tweaks and others larger.

[Ronpur50]

I suppose, what I am trying to discover, being a model builder, is what the orbiters would look like with a metallic TPS, since that seams to be the major upgrade that would be visible to the outside.  All black, all white, the same?

The appearance of liquid boosters replacing the SRBs is a bit easier to google.

I found this flow chart showing some possible variations and upgrades, but it is hard to make out.

[Bob Shaw]

I just found the following picture in another forum. It said this would depict an advanced shuttle. Unfortunately found only this single picture with view from behind the vehicle. Maybe someone has other pictures where you can see the whole thing and maybe has more info on the system.

Stefan

It's one of Keith McNeill's stunning models - see his website real space models at:

http://www.keithmcneill.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/3a.html

[john smith 19]

LM won the X-33 because it was prepared to put in more of it's own money than the other bidders.

Well strictly speaking it claimed it would put more of its own money in. Which is easy to do if you have no real interest in making SSTO viable but you do have an interest in ensuring that better motivated players don't get it. 
They also promised that their X33 had more staggeringly amazing stuff on it than their competitors.

It did. All of which had to work, which it did not. 
as NASA discovered $1.1Bn later.

[john smith 19]

I will never forget Al Gore and Dan Goldin standing next to the model of that contraption.

All SKUNK
No WORKS.

This should really make people appreciate Griffin.

Nice. An elegant summation of the situation. LockMart did indeed play the procurement process like a violin.

And NASA fell for it. 

[Jim]

I will never forget Al Gore and Dan Goldin standing next to the model of that contraption.

All SKUNK
No WORKS.

This should really make people appreciate Griffin.

Nice. An elegant summation of the situation. LockMart did indeed play the procurement process like a violin.

And NASA fell for it. 

No, far from it.
a.  NASA influenced/dictated most of the requirements and technologies that prevent X-33 from being a successful test vehicle, hence LM was right in getting a contract that limited its financial exposure.  But LM did still put in a lot of its money.  MSFC management of the project was just as much to blame.
b.  And Griffin did worse to the agency

[edkyle99]

Here is a description of the "Shuttle II" with which I was familiar.
http://www.pmview.com/spaceodysseytwo/spacelvs/sld051.htm

 - Ed Kyle

[Lars_J]

Interesting... Personally I've always liked the Trimese or Bimese fully reusable shuttle concepts. It seems like such an elegant solution, but I realize that the booster and shuttle would need to be different enough that one shape might compromise both.

[john smith 19]

No, far from it.
a.  NASA influenced/dictated most of the requirements and technologies that prevent X-33 from being a successful test vehicle, hence LM was right in getting a contract that limited its financial exposure.  But LM did still put in a lot of its money.  MSFC management of the project was just as much to blame.

I would not call them blameless but I recall the concepts for STS. NASA asked for a 2 stage system and all the concepts from the various industry teams were 2 stage.

But in X33 all the concepts were different. Onlyy LockMart went with the never before tried crewed lifting body approach.

Given the core task of demonstrating SSTO was viewed as damm tough any extraneous requirements were just a rod to beat your own back. AFAIK all successful X programmes have known this and avoid "cleverness" except where it relates to the core task like the plague.

And LockMart did not promise the least (to limit their financial exposure) they promised NASA the most which weighed in their favor, if VentureStar got to flight status.

Of course if your main goal is just to siphon off funds from companies that might harm your LV business by actually creating a true SSTO RLV you can promise what you like, because you'll never have to deliver on it.

b.  And Griffin did worse to the agency

[Archibald]

Interesting... Personally I've always liked the Trimese or Bimese fully reusable shuttle concepts. It seems like such an elegant solution, but I realize that the booster and shuttle would need to be different enough that one shape might compromise both.

I think you might appreciate this - somewhat the next step beyond bimese or triamese...
http://selenianboondocks.com/2008/01/an-insane-but-interesting-idea-fleet-launched-orbital-craft/

[STS-200]

Having the option to operate without a crew always seemed a fairly obvious development for the Shuttle - particularly in the satellite launcher days.

Was the "Automated Orbiter" (seen in the above diagram) ever properly studied?

[john smith 19]

Having the option to operate without a crew always seemed a fairly obvious development for the Shuttle - particularly in the satellite launcher days.

Was the "Automated Orbiter" (seen in the above diagram) ever properly studied?

Not much I would guess.

Not having a crew is not a benefit when you're the Human Spaceflight Centre. 

Ostensibly it was about the limited flexibility of flight computers. Only the crew can disable a computer and take it out of the voting, because the question was what happens if there is a bug in the logic controlling which GPC are in the voting and a working computer was shut out leaving the rest as faulty but all agreeing?

The other point was the GPC's were not trusted to control landing gear deployment. Landing gear drops air speed quite a lot and is left to the last moment. Nor can it be retracted without GSE if you get wrong, so you crash. 

In reality under normal conditions the whole takeoff was under GPC control and the crew watched for an abort situation. Like wise autoland software was in the system from the early flights (about flight 5 IIRC) but the pilots complained it felt funny and would be too difficult to take over from if the software failed in mid landing (given Shuttle was FBW if the GPCs failed you're dead anyway).

Payload deployment is more problematic but in principal would have been doable.

Interesting... Personally I've always liked the Trimese or Bimese fully reusable shuttle concepts. It seems like such an elegant solution, but I realize that the booster and shuttle would need to be different enough that one shape might compromise both.

Bi & Trimese concepts were investigated at the British Aircraft Corp in the 1960s under project MUSTARD.

The key benefit of them is to deliver TSTO ELV payload fractions while requiring the development of a single stage.

Such a stage would always be a compromise, if only because some of them would not be carrying payload in their payload bays (although they could carry additional propellant tanks) and the single engine design would have to be usable at sea level. At the same time the "booster" member(s) would over spec'd TPS for their role.

However such a design, a true bi or trimese with every vehicle identical with the others and launched as a cluster might have met the STS cost requirements, if the permanent section was sized to hold say a pilot and commander and everything else (galley, sleeping, shower, even seating etc) was part of a payload module, which could be swapped with a "propellant module" when they were acting as a booster. Obviously that would be in as part of the "payload bay"

Of course with proper planning it might be found that the "crew module" could be deployed and actually left in space, and other modules might be added to it. Allowing a space station by the back door. 

Note the key finding of the study was that once you start to "tweak" the design to make some just a bit better as boosters or orbiters, you get configuration divergence and in fact you're developing 2 separate vehicles at (surprise surprise) 2x (or more) the cost.

Personally I think they're quite a good novel to be written about such an "alternative history" STS but IRL it seems it's a lesson Spacex have taken to heart. I've got quite a soft spot for James Follett for example.