What will be the new Shuttle?

Now that the days of the shuttle seem to be numbered in flights and not years I was thinking what will be the replacement ?

I know that the new moon shots will be by a conventional rocket design with a capsule not too different from the Appollo era but what about the sub-orbital/orbital design?

We have all seen or read something about the X33, mothership, blackhorse etc, etc but is there a definate replacement for the shuttle sitting out there somewhere as I find it hard to believe that the shuttle and its capabilities will be scrapped without a newer system ready to go.

I know the shuttle is near the end of its useful life and the danger involved with its launch process is significent but what if they where to automate the shuttle and do away with the crew....as was done by the russians with the Bruan.

This would free up a lot more payload lifting capacity and would enable the remaining shuttle fleet to soldier on until the next re-usable shuttle/spaceplane can be painted in Virgin Spaceways colours and start making space more accesable for all Space Cadets out there!

Or maybe we will do away with conventional flight all together and use Light Ship, Anti-Grav or Space Elervator technology but I feel that might be in the future or does anybody out there know different!!!!!!!!

Sv....Out!

I believe there was a contracting contest put out to two company alignements. One was given to Lockeed Martin. The other was given to Boeing AND McDonnell-Douglas (both acting as allies). I believe the idea was that the better idea got the production contract. As far as I know Lockheed won. May need to check on that, so don't believe me! As if you would anyway.

The Space Transport System or Shuttle is being replaced with a whole range of new vheicles. Rather than the one size fits all approach taken by the STS, the new architecture taylors each vehicle to a specific task.

There are to be two new launch vehicles, the Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) for launching crew on and the much heavier Cargo Launch Vehcile (CaLV) for launching heavy payloads.

There is a new spaceship for taking people to and from orbit called the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) and a new lander to go from low Luna orbit and back called the Luna Surface Access Module (LSAM)

Currently the STS can take seven people and around 25 tonnes of cargo to orbit and seven people and 15 tonnes back. However each launch costs around $1B or more if you inclused all the servicing costs and the STS can't go higher that about 400km with a useful poayload.

The CLV is predicted to have a payload of around 25 tonnes to low Earth orbit, roughly the same as the STS but there are currently no plans to launch anything on it apart from the CEV. The CEV can take 6 people and a few tonnes of cargo to and from the ISS.

The CaLV has recently changed and it is predicted to have a payload to orbit of between 125 to 175 tonnes and is nomialy tasked to launch the LSAM and an Earth departure stage which will take the LSAM and CEV to the Moon.

There is also $500M in the new budget for private companies to develop their own ISS access vehicles.

The new system, sometimes refered to as Constellation will be able to supply the ISS as the STS does, will act as a life boat on the ISS allowing a crew of six, the STS can't do this. It will also be able to deliver crews and cargo to the Moon something the STS can't do. It is also very well suited to further development for near Earth asteroid missions and Mars missions, again something the STS can't do.

The only thing the new system can't do is bring back very large items from space, something the STS was tasked to do but it turned out not to be worth the cost.

Here is a picture of the CaLV and the CLV that is mostly up to date.

CaVL and CEV

And a picutes of the CEV and LSAM

CEV and LSAM

NASA have a few longer term research efforts in place for none vertical launch.

One of which is a maglev track launched orbiter.


www.discover.com...


I know its not a direct link, but I've seen the NASA stuff in the past.

Well if I have to sume all of what I know , I must say there is not going to be a new shuttle just an expandeble modular system like the russians use today(alltough they might start using a partly reusaeble system based on the klipper).

So the answer is without been crude: US no new shuttle...Russia maybe soon.

Originally posted by Darkpr0
I believe there was a contracting contest put out to two company alignements. One was given to Lockeed Martin. The other was given to Boeing AND McDonnell-Douglas (both acting as allies). I believe the idea was that the better idea got the production contract. As far as I know Lockheed won. May need to check on that, so don't believe me! As if you would anyway.

Actually, the 2 companies are Lockheed...And Boeing & Northrop. And Nasa still has several months before it picks the winner.