Reply #17: Valves can fail on the Shuttle, too. [View All]

Or on my Ford Ranger.

I wouldn't want my life to depend on a post-Soviet Russian valve, either place.

But, if you build them to high standards and include redundant backups in critical spots, they can be made about as reliable as (say) a ride down the interstate in pickup. Same for parachutes. You -can- carry a spare 'chute.

In contrast, there doesn't seem to be any way to keep those insulating tiles from being fragile and vulnerable. And, the basic concept of -gliding- the craft in unpowered leaves little room for error. They -can't- come back for a second try or land the Shuttle in the Atlantic if they miss the runway the first time.

And, putting the crew -beside- the fuel tank and solid fuel boosters leaves them vulnerable to any failures in those dangerous devices. Plus, there is -no- way of escaping during launch if something goes wrong in any of the engines. It is inherently safer to put the crew -atop- all the fire and fury of the launch--then you can have a little rocket on the top that pulls them away safely. (Forgot what they called those things in Mercury, Gemini, Apollo.)

The Shuttle is a classic example of the way -not- to make a major development decision. They started off with very ambitious goals, then kept scaling them back as budgetary and technical realities forced them. Somewhere along the line, the whole business no longer made sense, but nobody could pull the plug.

-Why- can't you launch Hubble without the Shuttle? If we don't have any rockets big enough (I think we do), building a new Saturn moon rocket would be cheaper than running the Shuttle.

I am, overall a supporter of NASA. I just think a lot of money is wasted on the Shuttle program that could be used for cool machines landing on Mars.