🚀 go-pugleaf

>All of which is irrelevent.  The Shuttle's design goal was to reduce
>the cost of space transportation.  Its size, reuseability, etc. were
>features decided on to meet that goal.  But instead of reducing costs,
>the Shuttle increased them.
>
>It is a failure.

  Size was increased to accomodate the military, not meet the reduced
  cost goal (and you call me a revisionist!) Reusability was and still
  is considered critical to meeting the low-cost objective. That payload
  return is a capability seldom used is beside the point. That the
  Shuttle is a failure is certainly true, as long as you believe Shuttle's
  only purpose was to haul cargo into LEO cheaply. I do not agree, and
  the presense of astronauts aboard certainly points to something else
  being a very highly-regarded design goal. 

>>  Shuttle is also as much a technology demonstrator as it is a launch
>>  system.

>I see you've graduated from the Gary Coffman School of Historical
>Revisionism. :-)  The Shuttle was not designed as a technological
>demonstrator, but an operational vehicle.  If there was a technology
>demonstrator for the Shuttle program, it would be the X-15 or X-24.

    See above reply regarding revisionism. X-15 is a program very
    distantly related to the Shuttle, and it's goals were to expand
    the high speed, high altitude flight regime. That in doing so it
    gave NASA alot of information to use when designing Shuttle was
    just good luck, but the USSR flew their Shuttle without ever
    building an X-15 clone. HL-10/M2-F2/X-24 are certainly related
    to Shuttle, but they only demonstarted the landing portion of the
    technology, and the wingless lifting body was not used, anyway.
    
>Yes, to "failure-oriented" managers, the fact that a project failed
>is always beside the point.  (After all, don't we expect every
>project to fail?)

    Only when dealing with technology that has never been done before,
    such as the reusable spaceship. Twelve years after maiden flight
    and still nobody else has done that.
    
    -Brian

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Brian S. Thorn                                    "If ignorance is bliss,
BrianT@cup.portal.com                               this must be heaven."
                                                -Diane Chambers, "Cheers"
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