🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <s#s1_2@rpi.edu> kentm@aix.rpi.edu (Michael V. Kent) writes:
>
>NASA will not set a date to end Shuttle missions until a replacement system
>is online, but current thinking is that the Shuttle will fly through 2005.
>The flight rate will remain at about 8 flights per year, maybe slightly
>lower.  However with a reduced flight rate the per mission cost goes up.  A
>Rockwell consultant stated that the orbiters will likely last far beyond 
>their design lifetime of 100 flights each.
>
>There are currently two major ideas for the replacement.
>
>...
>
>The Shuttle is a very versatile, albeit expensive, system.  It can launch
>satellites, retrieve them, ferry a crew and experiments to a space station,
>serve as a space station, serve as an orbital repair facility, and serve
>as a technology testbed.  In order to replace it you need to replace all
>of these functions with newer (hopefully better and less expensive) systems.
>
>Since designing a new vehicle to perform all of these functions will create
>a vehicle with nearly the same qualities as the Shuttle, this path should
>be avoided as unlikely to reduce costs enough to justify its development
>cost.  Gains can be more cheaply made by improving the current system 
>instead of building a new one.  However, each individual function can be
>performed at reduced cost, and newer systems should be designed to do just
>that.  When all of the fuctions of the Shuttle have been off-loaded from
>it to other systems, the Shuttle will have been replaced.  But not until then.
>
  What about the SSTO DC-Y?  It's my understanding that the DC-1 should be
able to do just about everything that the shuttle can do (with the possible
exeption of carry the SpaceLab).  And a lot cheapter to boot.


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  ##  //   ## Matt J. Martin, Technosociology and Space Politics ##  //   ## 
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