Manned Space Missions
Discussion
speedtwelve said:
The lunar Saturn V also weighed 1000 tonnes more than the max take-off weight of the shuttle. Shuttle stack power/weight ratio was a good bit better than the Saturn V. The Shuttle was already doing 100mph by the time it cleared the tower, which I always thought was quite impressive for something so heavy.
For all it's 7.5 million lbs of thrust, the five F1 engines of the Saturn V were burning relatively low energy propellants - liquid oxygen and kerosene. The Shuttle was burning liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen - plus the solids.John_S4x4 said:
Interesting. Makes you wonder how many other good ideas have been killed off by politics. Most if not all I suspect.bus pass said:
Eric Mc said:
the shuttle hardly ever exceeded 300 miles
Any idea what the highest the Shuttle ever reached Eric, or high high / far it could have gone?And why couldn't it have gone further?
The limit was due to weight. The Shuttle needed all that power just to lift itself because, as I said, a lot of the Shuttle's basic structure was totally uneccessary for spaceflight - wings, tailfin, undercarriage, weight for landing systems etc were all "dead" weight as far as geting into space was concerned.
Columbia was so heavy it couldn't actually get to the ISS.
The other limitation on the Shuttle was having orbital inclinations greater than 50 degrees to the equator. To get away from an orbit that is set at Cape Canaverals latitude needs extra power and/or lower payload. The highest ever angle of inclination ever achieved by the Shutle was 62 degrees - and that was on a military mission so we don't even know what the payload was.
It was planned to launch Shuttles into 90 degree polar orbits from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. To achieve the necessary payload weights, specially lightened Solid Rocket Boosters were designed. After Challenger, the lightweight boosters were abandoned as were any plans for launches from Vandenberg.
Simpo Two said:
John_S4x4 said:
Interesting. Makes you wonder how many other good ideas have been killed off by politics. Most if not all I suspect.Eric Mc said:
There are alternatives and they are being worked on and tested.
For getting off the surface of the earth and into earth orbit, rockets work best and are (fairly) reliable.
Once in space, there are a couple of options. The best alterntive to old fashioned chemical rockets is ion drive. A number of space probes have used this technique already and it works well. Expect to see more ion drive spacecraft over the next few decades.
This Ion spacecraft recently achieved orbit around an asteroid (sorry if this has already been mentioned):For getting off the surface of the earth and into earth orbit, rockets work best and are (fairly) reliable.
Once in space, there are a couple of options. The best alterntive to old fashioned chemical rockets is ion drive. A number of space probes have used this technique already and it works well. Expect to see more ion drive spacecraft over the next few decades.
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft.asp
It's quite interesting reading about how it got there. The engine never stopped and would increase the acceleration by a tiny amount every day (equal to the force it would take to push a feather). This meant that the spacecraft could be controlled all the way to the asteroid, rather than propelling it and making alterations. It has just sent back some nice pics too.
funkyrobot said:
This Ion spacecraft recently achieved orbit around an asteroid (sorry if this has already been mentioned):
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft.asp
It's quite interesting reading about how it got there. The engine never stopped and would increase the acceleration by a tiny amount every day (equal to the force it would take to push a feather). This meant that the spacecraft could be controlled all the way to the asteroid, rather than propelling it and making alterations. It has just sent back some nice pics too.
Yep - I started a thread just after it got there - http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/spacecraft.asp
It's quite interesting reading about how it got there. The engine never stopped and would increase the acceleration by a tiny amount every day (equal to the force it would take to push a feather). This meant that the spacecraft could be controlled all the way to the asteroid, rather than propelling it and making alterations. It has just sent back some nice pics too.
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
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