Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: Indeed it landed!

When that was supposed to happen
Raoul — (archived)

In the meantime, we'll be building a space station with reusable spaceplanes, and flying long duration spaceflights routinely.

That's what we heard in the late 70's

Wasn't the shuttle supposed to render all other launcher obsolete?

It would be great if someone could build a cost effective rocket. Very soon, others would follow.
But now, in 2008, it hasn't happened yet and from 1986 till now, many have brought up reasons why it couldn't work. Even re-usability isn't necessarily the solution!

For instance: a factory builds 20 launchers (ELVs) which gives work to engineers for several years. Then they go on building more. The rockets can withstand hard forces as they're going to be discarded anyway.

But a re-usable rocket will be built once and many many times examined, repaired, refurbished while never achieving peak performances in order to preserve the engines. Often, repairs will involve things they didn't expect and for which no replacement exists!
What's more expensive? In the late 80's we found out the shuttle cost 3 times more than ELVs while it was supposed to cost 10 times less.

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