Space Shuttle as a Long-Range Vehicle

They are currently working on a craft that can hit low orbit with a payload and not use large rockets and at least one has succeeded and won the X-Prize. They are piggy-backed on other aircraft like the shuttle was during its testing phase. If you have a 'mothership', basically a structure you could attach the shuttle to that was just thrusters and fuel tanks, I think you could mount a mission to say the moon. The gravity of the moon is so muchlighter than Earths that the shuttle would not need as much power to escape it and get back to the mothership, like the Apollo craft. I think in twenty years that would be feasable if the proper resources are given to space programs. Hope this helps-Bob

From what I've read, the actual space shuttle has been severely out-dated and overall kind-of crappy for several years. If Plot severely upgrades the shuttle and it's a life-or-death mission (think Armageddon), you could probably swing it.

*Reads the ideas, reads the Armageddon reference, and shudders* Sorry, the shuttles in that movie just annoyed me. Read on to see why.

I would have to get my grandfather and/or my friend to validate this statement (both work for NASA) but the answers to your questions are, really, a flat-out no.

First, for the shuttle, the entirety of the shuttle is built on 1960's technology. There have been no upgrades to it ever since. Soyuz, though an older platform than the shuttle, has seen some retrofits over the years, I believe. But, the Russian cosmodome is notoriously tight-lipped about their technology. A Soyuz capsule cannot even be sitting on the International Space Station without some form of Russian presence there as well. But, I digress. The shuttles themselves (and this is meant to include the Russian Buran's as well) were designed and built from the ground up to be a low-earth orbit transport. Columbia herself was physically incapable of reaching the higher orbits of Mir and the International Space Station. Though the three surviving shuttles are able to reach it, this is only because they are marginally lighter. And I am pretty sure that that height pushes their operational envelope.

As for mounting two external fuel tanks, I'm gonna say "improbable". If you look at the old STS-1 and STS-2 pictures, you'll notice the ET is white, and later missions it's orange. This was to, again, make the shuttles lighter at launch. They simply were not painted and removing the paint alone allowed for a more efficient launch. Adding a second ET, especially if you wanted the shuttle loaded for an EDM (Extended Duration Mission), would simply be too heavy to launch from Kennedy. Also, there really isn't a sufficient hardport for mounting the second ET.

As for the length of the mission, I do believe it would be possible to store enough supplies for an EDM, in part because the fuel cells actually generate water and the oxygen is scrubbed by efficient Lithium-something (sorry, brain fart. Wanna say it's LiCa (Lithium Calcide) or LiNO...(Lithium Nitroxide)) scrubbers. Also, the vast cargo bay can be fitted with, essentially, a supply cart (this is now done for the ISS) to carry enough supplies for two or three months. But, to do that, you most certainly would not have the room for a Return-to-Orbit rocket in the cargo pay. But, if you're going to send it back, you'd need a launch complex anyways. So, why wouldn't they have the spares there?

Now, for the "to make your plan work" category: Switch to the Ares I and Ares V dual-rocket system (Ares I carries the doubled Apollo capsule. No lies, I 'crawled' over an Apollo Capsule to help NASA get the location of the retro rockets. I only say 'crawled' in quotes because we never actually touched the capsule itself. Just got close,,, Ares V is a bigger-the-the-Saturn V heavy lifter for hauling the lunar lander and other equipment into space.) Ares I-X just proved the design a few days ago, so it should be on course, assuming funding holds, for the 2012 deadline for suspension of shuttle operations.

If you're dead-set on using the shuttle, however. A working idea, send an added pair of solid rocket boosters into space (expensive, admittedly, but doable if hauled in parts. SRBs are about five cylinders, a nose cap, and the nozzle. Little tweaking, they could be assembled in space) to meet with the ISS. Have the shuttle dock there, space walk to attached them, and use them to push the shuttle out of LEO. Though, even this would make some "hard science" people shudder...

Oh, and in one last Armageddon reference... Please please please don't pull G's going around the moon for a slingshot. Apollo 13 showed us that is most certainly NOT necessary. And yes, I watched the Nostalgia Chick episode.

Going from seal level to low earth orbit takes about half the deltaV of going from sea level to Mars. As Robert Heinlin once said, "If you can get your ship into orbit, you're halfway to anywhere." That said, a second set of solid rocket boosters without a fresh tank of propellant might not be enough to escape Earth's gravity well.

“Luke: What's in there?
Yoda: Only what you take with you.”

The propellant for the SSMEs wouldn't really be necessary (at least I don't think) to generate the deltaV needed to get out of the gravity well. Apollo used a single engine that generated a fifth of the thrust of the massive first stage engines on a Saturn V, and most of the thrust on the shuttle during launch comes from the SRBs, not the SSMEs. So... *Shrug* Seems reasonable enough to me.

Thanks, everyone! Your comments are very helpful.

Thanks to Jacob especially--that kind of rant is exactly what I was looking for! My primary reason for thinking about the space shuttle was that I'm nervous about hitting the "sardines" problem--a story can get really boring really fast if your characters can only sit and talk. Well, maybe a great psychological story can occur, but I'm not writing that story.

Granted, even the shuttle would only afford so much room to move around. What I really need is a way to get at least one of the crew to the surface of a planet (breathable atmosphere preferable) and up to four back up to orbit where the mothership will presumably take everybody back to Earth. I realize this is a pretty tall order even with an astronomical budget (pun not intended, but I'll roll with it!) and years to prepare the mission.

Ah--an idea: given that I'd assemble the whole thing in orbit (and availability of components is not an issue), could I take some modules off the space station and combine them with the Orion setup to make a bigger spaceship? If several rockets could be strapped to several space station modules, and put the Orion capsule on top of that... Again, I'm willing to bend physics a little, and that includes the engineering challenges of getting everything hooked up! Then to solve the problem of getting to the planet's surface...I guess the Orion could serve to get down, but I'd need another rocket to get back up. Hmm.... Ideas?

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"Writing is like taking a bath: if you don't do it every day, you stink!"

Umm, I think we need to discuss exactly what you mean when you say "long range." To me, long range is anything past the moon. But if we're talking another planet with a breatable atmosphere we're looking at something outside the solar system. Unfortunately there is simply no plausible way for us to go that far with present technology in any reasonable amount of time.

One thing currently giving the engineers and scientists working on longer-range manned missions a headache is how to deal with exposure to cosmic radiation. In orbital missions, the Earth's magnetic field offers some shielding against cosmic radiation. Once you get outside that field, radiation levels go up. You'd either need the crew to sign some very unfortunate waivers or have some sort of shielding against cosmic rays.

When it comes to disassembling the space station and cannibalizing its modules to make the spaceship "larger," keep in mind that the modules themselves have been constructed to serve a certain purpose. While some may be co-opted into your larger design, others would probably be useless.

In both respects, you may be better off extrapolating our technology slightly. Give us a little more capability than we currently have, just not enough to make it too unrealistic. Maybe there's a new project for long-duration spaceflight that has been in the works for years but never fully realized, and this crisis galvanizes those in charge to accelerate the project's schedule. Maybe there's more suitable components than random space station modules available, owing to shorter test-flights of related components. Instead of having to assemble a long-range spacecraft completely out of the blue, have a planned mission in the works, and then make it necessary to accelerate that mission from "in the next ten years" to "in the next six months." This would maintain the urgency of the mission and the haphazard construction of the craft without making it too haphazard.

IIRC the shuttle doesn't even have the delta-v nor Isp to reach escape velocity

It's a ridiculously poor vehicle for anything besides what it's intended to do, which is reach LEO and come back to Earth. And it's really not even good at that, given some of the other options.

2009: The Kings of Distant Stars

If you write space-based fiction and have questions, read the Atomic Rockets page.

Maybe I should have used in the title the words "Long-Duration" instead of "Long-Range." It's not so much that the craft has to travel a long distance (as perceived from the ship itself) thanks to wormhole weirdness, but the long-duration part would be important. Also, I don't plan for them to spend much time outside planetary magnetic fields, but that's certainly a possible plot point to consider!

When I suggested commandeering space station modules my goals, in order, were: (1) having something pre-made so that my characters can get going on the mission in a matter of weeks instead of years, (2) a bigger stage for the characters to act on, (3) extending endurance of the craft by packing in supplies, (4) something that the government could hide the real purpose of until time to use it. Is there anything currently on the drawing board or tucked away in some filing cabinet that might meet some or all of these goals? I just don't know enough about the different ideas people have proposed to NASA over the years (or is there a website I can look at?).

I do have a possible escape route since, in my story, the government has known about this wormhole craziness since the Apollo era. I could say that a special exploration ship was under construction, but efforts ceased after the Apollo crew was lost in the wormhole...

If anyone is still willing to give suggestions, how might such a ship be designed, given that we know nothing about the other side of the wormhole except that we can come out the other side in one piece? Am I asking the impossible to land crew members on the surface of a planet then blast off into orbit again?

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"Writing is like taking a bath: if you don't do it every day, you stink!"

Read the link in my sig. It will answer every question you have in some detail.

2009: The Kings of Distant Stars

If you write space-based fiction and have questions, read the Atomic Rockets page.