
Beam Me Out Of This Death Trap, Scotty (1980) - acqq
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/8004.easterbrook-fulltext.html
======
craftsman
It's interesting that nearly everything that was wrong with the Space Shuttle
was accurately predicted in this article. Both catastrophic breakups were
essentially predicted (a booster failing and tile damage from falling fuel
tank ice), as well as the huge cost overruns and performance shortfalls. I
wonder what author Gregg Easterbrook thinks as he looks back on the Shuttle
era? Having a quick glance at his article on Wikipedia, it seems he's written
or said a bit more about space policy since the shuttle; I'll have to read up.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_Easterbrook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_Easterbrook)

~~~
hudibras
Unfortunately, Easterbrook is coasting on the reputation he built up from this
one magazine piece from 34 years ago. It's basically impossible to read
anything he writes nowadays without finding something either wrong or
infuriatingly contrary-for-the-sake-of-contrariness.

~~~
acqq
The article I'd really like to read is about the "whistleblower" (or more of
them) who gave Easterbrook all the info for that 1980 article. It would be
very fitting to today's world.

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patio11
It's great realizing, when reading a 35 year old polemic, that the chief issue
with its criticisms was that it allocated WAY too little probability space to
the outcome "worse than even we think it will be." For example, the debate in
the article is between optimists who think the shuttle will hit 70 flights a
year and pessimists who said 20. Nobody had their money on "four."

The article also describes Challenger and Columbia in chilling detail in
advance. Quote: "The plan is, you die."

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WalterBright
I've thought for 30 years that the shuttle design was terribly misguided.

The terrible problem with space flight is weight. Weight, weight, weight. It
takes an enormous amount of fuel and rocket to push any kind of weight into
orbit.

But the shuttle is not optimized for getting useful weight into orbit (i.e.
payload, with the emphasis on pay). It's optimized for returning the rocket to
earth. I.e. it has landing gear, wings, rudder, etc. All this is heavy, and
therefore terribly expensive.

Step back a moment, and look at what we really need to bring back from orbit -
it's the astronauts. Nothing else. All we actually need is a tiny capsule to
bring the astronauts back, i.e. a heat shield and parachute. The rest can just
be left in orbit.

Getting rid of all that weight then means the rocket can either be far
cheaper, or it can launch much bigger PAY loads.

As for reliability, likely the most cost effective solution is to build a
smaller, highly reliable rocket just for pushing astronauts up into orbit. Use
another rocket, a big, heavy, unmanned one, and one that needn't be so
reliable, to push up the stuff the astronauts need to do their mission.

~~~
patio11
The deeper problem with the shuttle is that we need to bring the astronauts
back because we sent them to space, and we sent them to space to do a mission,
and that mission is to go to space. There is absolutely nothing a human can do
in space that a machine can't do better, except die.

~~~
objclxt
> _There is absolutely nothing a human can do in space that a machine can 't
> do better, except die_

I would love to hear you explain how to perform, for example, research on the
effects of long-term zero-gravity on humans using only machines.

Or to take another example: I suppose it would have been possible to develop
robots to repair the Hubble, but the cost of developing said robots to a point
at which they can perform without failure is going to be equal - if not
greater - than the cost of actually sending someone up to do the repair work
in the first place.

~~~
nradov
It would have been cheaper to build another Hubble and launch the replacement
on a disposable rocket.

~~~
leoc
Would it really? Hubble ended up costing over $2.5bn
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope)
by launch day while a Shuttle launch cost around $450m
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle)
. Probably a rebuilt Hubble would have cost less, but how much less?

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throwaway_yy2Di
For reference, the amortized cost of a shuttle launch ended up being $1.45
billion ($196 billion / 135), with the recurring (per-launch) cost as $450
million of that (?). For comparing with the article's figures, $1.00 (1975) =
$1.53 (1980) = $4.18 (2011). _(So you could compare, e.g. the $22.4 million
1975 estimate with either $108 M or $347 M)._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Budget](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Budget)

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt

~~~
fennecfoxen
You're linking to the BLS's CPI data, but you really don't want to deflate
currency figures for the Space Shuttle using the CPI. Use something like the
percentage of GDP:
[http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/](http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/)

"Putting a man on the moon: [...] How much would that be today? If we used the
CPI, it would be $160 billion, but this would not be a very good measure since
the CPI does not reflect the cost of rockets and launch pads. ... [as] a way
to consider the "opportunity cost" to society, the best measure might be the
cost as a percent of GDP, and that number would be $453 billion. "

~~~
wtallis
Using percent of GDP as an answer to the question of "How much would that be
today?" is absurd, because our economy today is not only larger but more
efficient at converting raw materials and manpower into working spacecraft.
The question it really answers is something like "How daunting of an
investment was that, in terms of today's economy?", though even that doesn't
properly convey that such an investment made today would accomplish far more.

~~~
fennecfoxen
Okay. To some extent that's fair, but on the other hand "opportunity cost to
society" is just a fancy way of saying the same thing as "how daunting of an
investment was that" so the quoted statement is hardly in disagreement per se
:)

Of course, there are also plenty of alternative measures available at the
linked site which could be better than either percent-of-GDP or CPI. (I'm
leaving their use as an exercise to the reader...)

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acqq
The most interesting discovery for me was to compare: "cost projections: The
analysts assumed that the shuttle fleet would stage at least 50 flights a
year" with now known 135 launches in 30 years total which gives less than 5
per year.

The article is fantastically well researched and written.

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sien
It's curious how little is written about the X-37B that seems to be a
successful reusable space vehicle.

It's unmanned, very much smaller than the Shuttle but seems to be of use for
the US Air Force for something. It also stays in orbit for over a year at a
time.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37)

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zachbeane
[http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm](http://idlewords.com/2005/08/a_rocket_to_nowhere.htm)
is a nice overview as well.

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FD3SA
Required watching [1], straight from Dale D. Myers (Deputy NASA administrator
86-89) himself. An extremely fascinating tale regarding the importance of
engineering constraints in mission critical designs.

1\. [http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-
astronautics/16-8...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/aeronautics-and-
astronautics/16-885j-aircraft-systems-engineering-fall-2005/video-
lectures/lecture-1/)

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WalterBright
I hadn't known the Spruce Goose was damaged by its flight. That explains a
lot.

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lafar6502
Great read. I wonder if the author realized the madness will continue for 30
more years before someone makes a rational decision.

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samplonius
I don't get it. The Shuttle project included a lot of things that had never
been done before. So things didn't quite go to plan and some people died? But
in the mean time, it performed useful tasks.

Predicting failure is easy, because something will always go wrong. There
hasn't been a perfect anything built yet.

What is also surprising about these dredged up past articles, is that they all
invariable criticize the engine (SSMB/SSME), even though the engine was never
a major issue. Yes, the rebuilds between flights took longer than expected,
but it was the first ever re-usable engine and is still an amazing
achievement.

~~~
gus_massa
Feynman explains the problems with the main engines in the report about the
Challenger disaster. They were a good candidate for the 3rd deadly accident if
the shuttle program had continued.

Current discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7201645](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7201645)
(125 points, 1 day ago, 79 comments)

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codex
The shuttle is representative of a class of problems that occur in almost
every software project: uncontrolled complexity. It's easier to fix the
symptoms in software than in other fields, so this issue runs rampant
throughout all of IT.

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fennecfoxen
This is why we can't have nice space-things.

