Post A Reply
my profile
|
directory
login
|
search
|
faq
|
forum home
»
Flare Sci-Fi Forums
»
Community
»
The Flameboard
»
Space Shuttle launch: 5/15/05!
» Post A Reply
Post A Reply
Login Name:
Password:
Message:
HTML is enabled.
UBB Code™ is enabled.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sol System: [QB] First of all, according to some NASA answer-man, there have been something like 4,000 satellite launches since satellites were invented. The subset of those launched by space shuttle is, as one might imagine, significantly smaller. That the shuttle is more reliable is not something I'm disputing, but how expensive is that reliability? According to <a href="http://strategypage.com/dls/articles/20030202.asp">some dude on the internet</a> (well, military historian James Dunnigan) the shuttle's launch costs for satellites run around twenty-five million dollars per ton, versus, at the lowest end of the scale, three million dollars. How much does it cost you to develop New Satellite X? (This isn't taking insurance into account, which the linked article does; in fact, it comes down in favor of the shuttle, sort of.) My point isn't that some particular rocket is better or even cheaper than the shuttle; simply that unmanned rockets in general can do almost everything the shuttle does in terms of payloads with only slightly less reliability and at much lower costs. And as for "spaceprobe delivery," I'm not quite sure what you're talking about. "Spaceprobes" don't launch satellites, for one thing; but I am guessing you're refering to the number of Martian probes lost, the majority of which were lost [i]at Mars[/i], making me wonder what delivery systems have to do with it. (Incidently, <a href="http://www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk/astro/textb/solsys/mars/probetab.htm">a list of probes sent to Mars</a>, along with their fates. "Failed and fell into the sea.") ((How many interplanetary probes has the shuttle launched, anyway? Galileo, and. . . ? I can't seem to find a simple list of both probes and their launch vehicles. Anyway, not many, compared, again, to the number of launches in total.)) [/QB][/QUOTE]
Instant Graemlins
Instant UBB Code™
What is UBB Code™?
Options
Disable Graemlins in this post.
*** Click here to review this topic. ***
© 1999-2024 Charles Capps
Powered by UBB.classic™ 6.7.3