Tasha From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Posted (8 years 10 months 1 day 7 hours ago) and read 7951 times:
What will replace the Space Shuttle?
I think it has served it's purpose and should be retired. In the near future, I think a space capsule, like an enlarge Apollo, who do the trick. How hard would it be to launch it on a Titan 4? If you can seat 5-6 Astronauts it would be great, but it would be wasteful to use it for fixing orbital satellites and the like. How difficult would it be to replace the Saturn booster series?
What the U.S. lacks at the moment is a very heavy lift booster. - All the eggs where put in the Space Shuttle basket. Here is a vehicle that is older than I am, by a good bit!! LOL
Cadmus From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2004, 183 posts, RR: 0 Reply 1, posted (8 years 10 months 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 7846 times:
The current plan is to replace the shuttle's manned spaceflight capability with something known as the CEV, or Crew Exploration Vehicle. I came across an interesting website about this project the other day at:-
Lehpron From United States of America, joined Jul 2001, 7028 posts, RR: 22 Reply 2, posted (8 years 10 months 1 day 4 hours ago) and read 7848 times:
In short-term, I think the winged-capsule thing will be the quick fix to take astronauts up to space more often than the Chinese, Russians, future Japanese and Indians will ever.
Like someone mentioned, the space shuttle had a lab and could be a space freighter and a crew carrier all at once. When we finish the ISS then it will be the lab. Our Titan rockets, French Ariane and Russian Suyuz(sp?) could be the cargo transports and maybe have their own crew capsule thinger up on there too.
Long-term, well...what is long term? In terms of space travel, the idea of going to Mars is somehow a short-term goal. Therefore long term ends up as in the 25-50 year range, which makes for inflation, etc. and a change in Admin the idea of replacing the shuttle all-out imposiible.
The meaning of life is curiosity; we were put on this planet to explore opportunities.
Cloudy From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 3, posted (8 years 9 months 3 weeks 3 days 7 hours ago) and read 6593 times:
What the U.S. lacks at the moment is a very heavy lift booster
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The Delta IV and Atlas V come very close. The Delta IV could be upgraded to a near Saturn-V class rocket relatively easily (About 80% of Saturn V capacity is possible, I heard somewhere). The overall cost to orbit with these rockets is far less than a Saturn V or the space shuttle. The heavylifter will not be the problem with future missions. We do need a 6-7 person crew taxi (working on it now). Other than that the only space shuttle capability that is really missing is downmass(the ability to carry a large cargo of stuff down safely to earth from space). This capability will be missed but it hasn't been used all that much. We could probably regain it fairly easily with an inflatable reentry vehicle, if there is ever a demand for such a capability.
Dl021 From United States of America, joined May 2004, 11433 posts, RR: 81 Reply 4, posted (8 years 9 months 3 weeks 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 9298 times:
OK Tasha, here is a highly classified photo of the space shuttle replacement during flight testing.
Actually, the current budget woes affecting NASA have prevented a timely replacement of the Shuttlecraft, and unless they get it handled in the next little bit we will be flying Russian rockets at a serious premium (we are already going to have to start paying them to send people to work on the ISS starting next year).
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