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And not to mention the 2 shuttle that exploded and killed 12 astronauts, while only 4 astronauts ever died flying in Soyuz, which had a perfect safety record since 1971 to now.

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jackliu said:

Dude, that is the whole point, Shuttle was originally designed to be a cheap and reliable way to sending stuff up in space, but later it turns out that it is actually 3 times MORE expensive than just build disposable rockets, every time after a shuttle touch down, they have to spend billions to prepare it for the next launch.

As for payload, the shuttle's payload is actually less than Apollo rocket they used to send to the moon, so actually if they have stick with the Saturn rockets, it can do anything the Shuttle can do, but cheaper, and more multi mission ability.

The final cost of the Space Shuttle program, averaged over all missions and adjusted for inflation, was estimated to come out to $1.5 billion per launch. NASA just signed a contract with Russia to sending astronauts to the ISS, the cost is only $753 million for 12 round trip, and Russian are making a good profit on this, so you do the math.

And not to mention the 2 shuttle that exploded and killed 12 astronauts, while only 4 astronauts ever died flying in Soyuz, which had a perfect safety record since 1971 to now.

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bd popeye said:

there were 14 astronauts killed in the two space shuttle disasters. I once read that the expected failure rate of a space shuttle was 37%.

To be fair in comparing the programs since the first space shuttle launch in 1981 until the last in 2011 there were 135 launches with two failures. 35 of those missions were to the ISS.

True the Soyuz has had no disasters since 1971. Since April 1981 there have been 46 Soyuz missions.

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Equation said:

I don't know dude, it would require more rocket launches to equal one shuttle launch. And if you think the bureaucratic red tapes with the shuttle missions were bad, imagine the Saturn V rockets having to go through all that, plus more because its payload is smaller.

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bd popeye said:

there were 14 astronauts killed in the two space shuttle disasters. I once read that the expected failure rate of a space shuttle was 37%.

To be fair in comparing the programs since the first space shuttle launch in 1981 until the last in 2011 there were 135 launches with two failures. 35 of those missions were to the ISS.

True the Soyuz has had no disasters since 1971. Since April 1981 there have been 46 Soyuz missions.

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Equation said:

I don't know dude, it would require more rocket launches to equal one shuttle launch. And if you think the bureaucratic red tapes with the shuttle missions were bad, imagine the Saturn V rockets having to go through all that, plus more because its payload is smaller.

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delft said:

The specification for the Shuttle included a payload in low earth orbit of 30 tons. Initially they remained well below that and I don't know if it was reached after all the modifications. The launch weight was about 1800 tons.
The Saturn V had a launch weight of some 3000 tons and could take 120 tons into low earth orbit. ( I'm doing this from memory, am about to go to bed and I'm too lazy to look it up in wikipedia ).
To achieve a low cost to orbit of the payload each Shuttle was intended to be launched once every six weeks or so. It came out at about twice a year. A major factor was the immense amount of work necessary to turn a Shuttle around. In that respect the Shuttle was an economic disaster.

If you want to launch payloads of 30 tons into low earth orbit you can use LOX/kerosene rockets of some 900 tons, possibly with an upper stage of LH2/LOX. You can use LOX/kerosene boosters that fall into the ocean and may be reused. If you use series production for your rockets your costs will be much lower than achievable by a Shuttle with 1970's technology and probably also with 2010's technology. But choosing that 1972 would have meant imitating/improving on the Soviets and that wouldn't have won the election for Richard Nixon.

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jackliu said:

COME ON MAN!!!!! Do you have any idea what is the payload for Saturn V? The payload to LEO for Saturn V is 120,000 kg, and it still remains the most powerful rocket ever build in human history.

The payload to LEO for Space shuttle is only 24,400 kg to LEO.

The argument should be the other way around, it would take 4-5 Space shuttle launch for one single Saturn V launch.

And do you know what United State is trying to do at this very moment? They are in the process of developing the SLS rocket family, which at earliest would be fully operational after 2020, and guess what? It is targeted payload is 70,000-130,000 km to LEO. By all intended purposed, they are trying to rebuilding Saturn V!!!!

And remember, they abandoned Saturn rockets to fund the Space shuttle!!!! So what does that tell you?

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