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On Sun, 25 Apr 2010 10:34:17 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
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On Sun, 25 Apr 2010 09:17:21 -0400, "mmc" wrote:

Where the hell is the replacement for the STS?

"Replacing" the shuttle would just be a tumor transplant. One shot
rockets are a lot more flexible and end up being cheaper. They
basically have to rebuild the shuttle on every trip at a huge cost


I guess that's why the USAF is planning reusuable boosters..

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/
There is a difference between a reusable rocket tube and the bloated
Shuttle program.
When 80-90% of your total budget is tied to one platform it severely
limits what else you can do.
You can put a vast number of things on top of a big booster. The Atlas
5 went to the moon but it also launched Skylab.
The Shuttle went to low earth orbit and that was all it could really
do efficiently. Missions were not based on what we might want to do
but what the Shuttle could do.

The only good thing that came out of that was it forced us to create
very capable robot probes for Mars, the outer solar system and deep
space instead of wasting money on manned probes. We got a lot more
science out of them, if not the "gee whiz" factor of seeing a guy
standing there hitting a golf ball.


By far there were many good things that came from the shuttle program...

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Nom=de=Plume