NASA's first space shuttle. Space Shuttle

While space launches were rare, the question of the cost of launch vehicles special attention didn’t attract me. But as space exploration progressed, it began to become increasingly important. The cost of the launch vehicle in the total cost of launching a spacecraft varies. If the launch vehicle is serial and the spacecraft it launches is unique, the cost of the launch vehicle is about 10 percent of the total launch cost. If the spacecraft is serial and the carrier is unique - up to 40 percent or more. The high cost of space transportation is explained by the fact that the launch vehicle is used only once. Satellites and space stations operate in orbit or in interplanetary space, bringing a certain scientific or economic result, and rocket stages, which have a complex design and expensive equipment, burn up in dense layers of the atmosphere. Naturally, the question arose about reducing the cost of space launches by re-launching launch vehicles.

There are many projects of such systems. One of them is a space plane. This is a winged machine that, like an airliner, would take off from a cosmodrome and, having delivered a payload into orbit (satellite or spacecraft), would return to Earth. But it is not yet possible to create such an aircraft, mainly due to the required ratio of payload masses to the total mass of the vehicle. Many other designs for reusable aircraft also turned out to be economically unprofitable or difficult to implement.

Nevertheless, the United States nevertheless set a course towards creating a reusable spacecraft. Many experts were against such an expensive project. But the Pentagon supported him.

The development of the Space Shuttle system began in the United States in 1972. It was based on the concept of a reusable spacecraft designed to launch artificial satellites and other objects into low-Earth orbits. The Space Shuttle consists of a manned orbital stage, two solid rocket boosters, and a large fuel tank located between the boosters.

The Shuttle launches vertically with the help of two solid rocket boosters (each 3.7 meters in diameter), as well as liquid orbital rocket engines, which are fed by fuel (liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen) from a large fuel tank. Solid propellant boosters operate only in the initial part of the trajectory. Their operating time is just over two minutes. At an altitude of 70-90 kilometers, the boosters are separated, parachuted into the water, into the ocean, and towed to the shore, so that after restoration and recharging with fuel they can be used again. When entering orbit, the fuel tank (8.5 meters in diameter and 47 meters long) is jettisoned and burns in the dense layers of the atmosphere.

The most complex element of the complex is the orbital stage. It resembles a rocket plane with a delta wing. In addition to the engines, it houses the cockpit and cargo compartment. The orbital stage deorbits like a regular spacecraft and lands without thrust, only due to the lifting force of a swept wing of low aspect ratio. The wing allows the orbital stage to perform some maneuver both in range and heading and ultimately land on a special concrete runway. The landing speed of the stage is much higher than that of any fighter. - about 350 kilometers per hour. The orbital stage body must withstand temperatures of 1600 degrees Celsius. The thermal protection coating consists of 30,922 silicate tiles glued to the fuselage and tightly fitted to each other.

The Space Shuttle is a kind of compromise both technically and economically. The maximum payload delivered by the Shuttle into orbit is from 14.5 to 29.5 tons, and its launch weight is 2000 tons, that is, the payload is only 0.8-1.5 percent of the total mass of the fueled spacecraft. At the same time, this figure for a conventional rocket with the same payload is 2-4 percent. If we take as an indicator the ratio of the payload to the weight of the structure, without taking into account fuel, then the advantage in favor of a conventional rocket will increase even more. This is the price to pay for the opportunity to at least partially reuse spacecraft structures.

One of the creators of spaceships and stations, USSR pilot-cosmonaut, professor K.P. Feoktistov assesses the economic efficiency of the Shuttles this way: “Needless to say, create an economical transport system not easy. Some experts are also confused by the following about the Shuttle idea. According to economic calculations, it justifies itself with approximately 40 flights per year per sample. It turns out that in a year only one “plane”, in order to justify its construction, must launch about a thousand tons of various cargo into orbit. On the other hand, there is a tendency to reduce the weight of spacecraft, increase their duration active life in orbit and, in general, to reduce the number of launched vehicles due to the solution of a set of tasks by each of them.”

From an efficiency point of view, creating a reusable transport ship like this heavy lifting capacity it's premature. It is much more profitable to supply orbital stations with the help of automatic transport ships of the Progress type. Today, the cost of one kilogram of cargo launched into space by the Shuttle is $25,000, and by Proton - $5,000.

Without direct support from the Pentagon, the project would hardly have been brought to the stage of flight experiments. At the very beginning of the project, a committee on the use of the Shuttle was established at the headquarters of the US Air Force. It was decided to build a launch pad for the shuttle at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, from which military spacecraft are launched. Military customers planned to use the Shuttle to carry out a broad program of placing reconnaissance satellites in space, radar detection and targeting systems for combat missiles, for manned reconnaissance flights, creating space command posts, orbital platforms with laser weapons, for “inspection” of aliens in orbit space objects and their delivery to Earth. The Shuttle was also considered as one of the key links in the overall program for creating space laser weapons.

Thus, already on the first flight, the crew of the Columbia spacecraft carried out a military mission related to testing the reliability of an aiming device for laser weapons. A laser placed in orbit must be accurately aimed at missiles hundreds and thousands of kilometers away from it.

Since the early 1980s, the US Air Force has been preparing a series of unclassified experiments in polar orbit with the goal of developing advanced equipment for tracking objects moving in air and airless space.

The Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986 made adjustments to the further development of US space programs. Challenger went on its last flight, paralyzing the entire American space program. While the Shuttles were laid up, NASA's cooperation with the Department of Defense was in doubt. The Air Force has effectively disbanded its astronaut corps. The composition of the military-scientific mission, which received the name STS-39 and was moved to Cape Canaveral, also changed.

The dates for the next flight were repeatedly pushed back. The program was resumed only in 1990. Since then, the Shuttles have regularly made space flights. They participated in the repair of the Hubble telescope, flights to the Mir station, and construction of the ISS.

By the time the Shuttle flights resumed in the USSR, a reusable ship was already ready, which in many ways surpassed the American one. On November 15, 1988, the new Energia launch vehicle launched the Buran reusable spacecraft into low-Earth orbit. Having made two orbits around the Earth, guided by miracle machines, it landed beautifully on the concrete landing strip of Baikonur, like an Aeroflot airliner.

Launch vehicle "Energia" is the base rocket of an entire system of launch vehicles formed by a combination different quantities unified modular stages and capable of launching vehicles weighing from 10 to hundreds of tons into space! Its basis, the core, is the second stage. Its height is 60 meters, diameter is about 8 meters. It has four liquid rocket engines running on hydrogen (fuel) and oxygen (oxidizer). The thrust of each such engine at the Earth's surface is 1480 kN. Around the second stage, at its base, four blocks are docked in pairs, forming the first stage of the launch vehicle. Each block is equipped with the world's most powerful four-chamber engine RD-170 with a thrust of 7400 kN at the Earth.

The “package” of blocks of the first and second stages forms a powerful, heavy launch vehicle with a launch weight of up to 2400 tons, carrying a payload of 100 tons.

"Buran" has a great external resemblance to the American "Shuttle". The ship is built according to the design of a tailless aircraft with a delta wing of variable sweep, has aerodynamic controls that operate during landing after returning to the dense layers of the atmosphere, the rudder and elevons. It was capable of making a controlled descent in the atmosphere with a lateral maneuver of up to 2000 kilometers.

The length of the Buran is 36.4 meters, the wingspan is about 24 meters, the height of the ship on the chassis is more than 16 meters. The launch weight of the ship is more than 100 tons, of which 14 tons are fuel. A sealed all-welded cabin for the crew and most of the equipment to ensure flight as part of the rocket and space complex, autonomous flight in orbit, descent and landing is inserted into the bow compartment. The cabin volume is more than 70 cubic meters.

When returning to the dense layers of the atmosphere, the most heat-stressed areas of the ship's surface heat up to 1600 degrees, while the heat reaching directly to the metal structure of the ship should not exceed 150 degrees. Therefore, “Buran” was distinguished by powerful thermal protection, which ensured normal temperature conditions for the ship’s structure when passing through dense layers of the atmosphere during landing.

The thermal protective coating of more than 38 thousand tiles is made of special materials: quartz fiber, high-temperature organic fibers, partly carbon-based material. Ceramic armor has the ability to accumulate heat without transmitting it to the ship's hull. The total weight of this armor was about 9 tons.

The length of the Buran's cargo compartment is about 18 meters. Its spacious cargo compartment could accommodate a payload weighing up to 30 tons. Large spacecraft could be placed there - large satellites, blocks of orbital stations. The ship's landing weight is 82 tons.

"Buran" was equipped with all the necessary systems and equipment for both automatic and manned flight. These include navigation and control equipment, radio and television systems, automatic thermal control devices, a crew life support system, and much, much more.

The main propulsion system, two groups of engines for maneuvering, are located at the end of the tail section and in the front of the hull.

Buran was a response to the American military space program. Therefore, after the warming of relations with the United States, the fate of the ship was predetermined.

In any online discussion of SpaceX, a person always appears who declares that, using the example of the Shuttle, everything is already clear with this reusability of yours. And now, after a recent wave of discussions successful landing Falcon's first stage onto a barge, I decided to write a post with a brief description of the hopes and aspirations of the American manned space program of the 60s, how these dreams were later dashed by harsh reality, and why, because of all this, the Shuttle had no chance of becoming cost-effective. Picture to attract attention: the last flight of the Shuttle Endeavor:

Lots of plans

In the first half of the sixties, after Kennedy promised to land on the moon before the end of the decade, budgetary funds began to rain on NASA. This, of course, caused a certain dizziness with success there. Not counting the ongoing work on Apollo and " practical application Apollo Program" (Apollo Applications Program), work was carried out on the following promising projects:

- Space stations. According to the plans, there were to be three of them: one in low reference orbit near the Earth (LEO), one in geostationary, one in lunar orbit. The crew of each would be twelve people (in the future it was planned to build even larger stations, with a crew of fifty to one hundred people), the diameter of the main module was nine meters. Each crew member was allocated a separate room with a bed, table, chair, TV, and a bunch of closets for personal belongings. There were two bathrooms (plus the commander had a personal toilet in his cabin), a kitchen with an oven, dishwasher and dining tables with chairs, separate seating area with board games, first aid station with operating table. It was assumed that the central module of this station would be launched by the super-heavy carrier Saturn-5, and to supply it it would be necessary to fly ten flights of the hypothetical heavy carrier annually. It would not be an exaggeration to say that compared to these stations, the current ISS looks like a kennel.

Moon base. Here is an example of a NASA project from the late sixties. As far as I understand, it was intended to be unified with the space station modules.

Nuclear shuttle. A ship designed to move cargo from LEO to a geostationary station or to lunar orbit, with a nuclear rocket engine (NRE). Hydrogen would be used as the working fluid. The shuttle could also serve as an accelerating block for a Martian spacecraft. The project, by the way, was very interesting and would be useful in today’s conditions, and as a result, we have advanced quite far with the nuclear engine. It's a shame it didn't work out. You can read more about it.

Space tug. Designed to move cargo from a space shuttle to a nuclear shuttle, or from a nuclear shuttle to the required orbit or to lunar surface. A greater degree of unification was proposed when performing various tasks.

Space shuttle. A reusable spacecraft designed to lift cargo from the Earth's surface to LEO. The illustration shows a space tug carrying cargo from it to a nuclear shuttle. Actually, this is what mutated over time into the Space Shuttle.

Mars spacecraft. Shown here with two nuclear shuttles serving as upper stages. Intended for a flight to Mars in the early eighties, with a two-month stay of the expedition on the surface.

If anyone is interested, it is written in more detail about all this, with illustrations (English)

Space shuttle

As we see above, the space shuttle was just one part of the planned Cyclopean space infrastructure. In combination with a nuclear shuttle and tug based in space, it was supposed to ensure the delivery of cargo from earth's surface to any point in space up to the lunar orbit.

Before this, all space rockets (RSRs) were disposable. Spacecraft were also disposable, with the rarest exception in the field of manned spacecraft - Mercury with serial numbers 2, 8, 14 and also the second Gemini flew twice. Due to the gigantic planned volumes of payload launches into orbit, NASA management formulated the task: to create a reusable system, when both the launch vehicle and the spacecraft return after the flight and are used repeatedly. Such a system would cost much more to develop than conventional rocket launchers, but due to lower operating costs it would quickly pay for itself at the level of planned cargo traffic.

The idea of ​​​​creating a reusable rocket plane took hold of the minds of the majority - in the mid-sixties there were many reasons to think that the creation of such a system was not too difficult task. Even though the Dyna-Soar space rocket project was canceled by McNamara in 1963, this did not happen because the program was technically impossible, but simply because there were no tasks for the spacecraft - the Mercury and the then-created Gemini. coped with the delivery of astronauts to low-Earth orbit, but the X-20 could not launch a significant payload or remain in orbit for a long time. But the experimental rocket plane X-15 showed excellent performance during operation. During 199 flights, it tested going beyond the Karman line (i.e., beyond the conventional boundary of space), hypersonic reentry into the atmosphere, and control in vacuum and weightlessness.

Naturally, the proposed space shuttle would require a much more powerful reusable engine and more advanced thermal protection, but these problems did not seem insurmountable. The RL-10 liquid rocket engine (LPRE) had by that time shown excellent reusability on the stand: in one of the tests, this rocket engine was successfully launched more than fifty times in a row, and worked for a total of two and a half hours. The proposed shuttle rocket engine, the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), as well as the RL-10, was supposed to be created using oxygen-hydrogen fuel pair, but to increase its efficiency by increasing the pressure in the combustion chamber and introducing a closed cycle scheme with afterburning of the fuel generator gas.

No special problems were expected with thermal protection either. Firstly, work was already underway on a new type of thermal protection based on silicon dioxide fibers (this is what the tiles of the Shuttle and Buran that were later created were made of). As a backup option, ablative panels remained, which could be changed after each flight for relatively little money. And secondly, to reduce the thermal load, it was planned to make the apparatus’s entry into the atmosphere according to the “blunt body” principle - i.e. using the shape of the aircraft, first create a front of a shock wave that would cover a large area of ​​heated gas. Thus, the kinetic energy of the ship intensively heats the surrounding air, reducing the heating of the aircraft.

In the second half of the sixties, several aerospace corporations presented their vision of the future rocket plane.

Lockheed's Star Clipper was a spaceplane with a load-bearing body - fortunately, by that time, aircraft with a load-bearing body were already well developed: ASSET, HL-10, PRIME, M2-F1/M2-F2, X-24A/X-24B (by the way, the Dreamchaser currently being created is also a spaceplane with a load-bearing body). True, the Star Clipper was not completely reusable; fuel tanks with a diameter of four meters at the edges of the aircraft were jettisoned during takeoff.

The McDonnell Douglas project also had drop tanks and a load-bearing hull. The highlight of the project were the wings extending from the body, which were supposed to improve the takeoff and landing characteristics of the spaceplane:

General Dynamics put forward the concept of the "Triamian twin". The device in the middle was a spaceplane, the two devices on the sides served as the first stage. It was planned that the unification of the first stage and the ship would help save money during development.

The rocket plane itself was supposed to be reusable, but there was no certainty about the booster for quite a long time. As part of this, many concepts were considered, some of which teetered on the brink of noble madness. For example, how about this concept of a reusable first stage, with a launch mass of 24 thousand tons (Atlas ICBM on the left, for scale). After launch, the stage was supposed to plop into the ocean and be towed to the port.

However, three possible options were most seriously considered: a cheap disposable rocket stage (i.e. Saturn-1), a reusable first stage with a liquid-propellant rocket engine, a reusable first stage with a hypersonic ramjet engine. Illustration from 1966:

Around the same time, research began in the technical directorate of the Manned Spacecraft Center under the leadership of Max Faget. He, in my personal opinion, had the most elegant design created as part of the development of the Space Shuttle. Both the carrier and the space shuttle were designed to be winged and manned. It is worth noting that Faget abandoned the load-bearing body, judging that it would significantly complicate the development process - changes in the layout of the shuttle could greatly affect its aerodynamics. The carrier aircraft launched vertically, worked as the first stage of the system and, after the separation of the ship, landed at the airfield. When leaving orbit, the spaceplane had to slow down in the same way as the X-15, entering the atmosphere with a significant angle of attack, thereby creating an extensive shock wave front. After entering the atmosphere, Fage's shuttle could glide for about 300-400 km (the so-called horizontal maneuver, "cross-range") and land at a very comfortable landing speed of 150 knots.

Clouds are gathering over NASA

Here it is necessary to make a brief digression about America in the second half of the sixties, so that the further development of events becomes clearer to the reader. There was an extremely unpopular and costly war in Vietnam, in 1968, almost seventeen thousand Americans died there - more than the losses of the USSR in Afghanistan during the entire conflict. The black civil rights movement in the United States in 1968 culminated with the assassination of Martin Luther King and the subsequent wave of riots in major American cities. Large government social programs became extremely popular (Medicare was passed in 1965), President Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" and infrastructure spending - all of which required significant government spending. The recession began in the late sixties.

At the same time, the fear of the USSR diminished significantly; a global nuclear missile war no longer seemed as inevitable as in the fifties and during the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Apollo program fulfilled its purpose by winning the space race with the USSR in the American public consciousness. Moreover, most Americans inevitably associated this gain with the sea of ​​money that was literally poured into NASA to accomplish this task. In a 1969 Harris poll, 56% of Americans believed that the cost of the Apollo program was too high, and 64% believed that $4 billion a year for NASA development was too much.

And at NASA, it seems, many simply did not understand this. The new director of NASA, Thomas Payne, who was not very experienced in political affairs, certainly did not understand this (or maybe he simply did not want to understand). In 1969, he put forward NASA's action plan for the next 15 years. A lunar orbital station (1978) and a lunar base (1980), a manned expedition to Mars (1983) and an orbital station for one hundred people (1985) were envisaged. The average (i.e. base) case assumed that NASA funding would have to be increased from the current 3.7 billion in 1970 to 7.65 billion by the early eighties:

All this caused an acute allergic reaction in Congress and, accordingly, in the White House too. As one of the congressmen wrote, in those years nothing was done as easily and naturally as astronautics; if you said at a meeting “this space program must be stopped,” your popularity was guaranteed. Over the course of a relatively short period of time, one by one, almost all large-scale NASA projects were formally abolished. Of course, the manned expedition to Mars and the base on the Moon were canceled, even the flights of Apollo 18 and 19 were canceled. The Saturn V rocket was killed. All giant space stations were canceled, leaving only the stump of Apollo Applications in the form of Skylab - however, the second Skylab was canceled there too. The nuclear shuttle and space tug were frozen and then cancelled. Even the innocent Voyager (the predecessor of the Viking) fell under the hot hand. The space shuttle almost came under the knife, and miraculously survived in the House of Representatives by a single vote. This is what NASA's budget looked like in reality (constant 2007 dollars):

If you look at the funds allocated to them as a % of the federal budget, then everything is even sadder:

Almost all of NASA's plans for the development of manned astronautics ended up in the trash, and the barely surviving Shuttle turned from a small element of the once grandiose program into the flagship of the American manned astronautics. NASA was still afraid of canceling the program, and to justify it, it began to convince everyone that the Shuttle would be cheaper than the then existing heavy carriers, and without the frantic cargo flow that had to be generated by the defunct space infrastructure. NASA could not afford to lose the shuttle - the organization was actually created by manned astronautics, and wanted to continue sending people into space.

Alliance with the Air Force

The hostility of Congress greatly impressed NASA officials, and forced them to seek allies. I had to bow to the Pentagon, or rather to the US Air Force. Fortunately, NASA and the Air Force have collaborated quite well since the early sixties, in particular on the XB-70 and the aforementioned X-15. NASA even canceled its Saturn I-B (bottom right) so as not to create unnecessary competition with the heavy ILV Titan-III (bottom left):

The Air Force generals were very interested in the idea of ​​a cheap carrier, and they also wanted to be able to send people into space - around the same time, the military space station Manned Orbiting Laboratory, an approximate analogue of the Soviet Almaz, was finally shut down. They also liked the declared possibility of returning cargo on the Shuttle; they even considered options for stealing Soviet spacecraft.

However, in general, the Air Force was much less interested in this alliance than NASA, since they already had their own used carrier. Because of this, they were able to easily bend the Shuttle design to suit their requirements, which they immediately took advantage of. The size of the cargo bay for the payload was, at the insistence of the military, increased from 12 x 3.5 meters to 18.2 x 4.5 meters (length x diameter), so that promising optical-electronic reconnaissance spy satellites could be placed there (specifically the KH-9 Hexagon and, possibly, , KH-11 Kennan). The shuttle's payload had to be increased to 30 tons when flying into low Earth orbit, and up to 18 tons when flying into polar orbit.

The Air Force also required a horizontal shuttle maneuver of at least 1,800 kilometers. Here's the thing: during the Six-Day War, American intelligence received satellite photographs after the fighting had ended, because the Gambit and Corona reconnaissance satellites used at that time did not have time to return the captured film to Earth. It was assumed that the Shuttle would be able to launch from Vandenberg on the west coast of the United States into a polar orbit, shoot what was needed, and immediately land after one orbit - thereby ensuring high efficiency in obtaining intelligence data. The required distance for the lateral maneuver was determined by the Earth’s displacement during the orbit, and was exactly the 1800 kilometers mentioned above. To fulfill this requirement, it was necessary, firstly, to install on the Shuttle a delta wing more suitable for gliding, and secondly, to greatly strengthen the thermal protection. The graph below shows the estimated heating rate of the space shuttle with a straight wing (Faget's concept), and with a delta wing (i.e. what ended up on the Shuttle as a result):

The irony here is that soon spy satellites began to be equipped with CCD matrices capable of transmitting images directly from orbit, without the need to return the film. The need for landing after one orbital revolution was no longer necessary, although this possibility was later justified by the possibility of a quick emergency landing. But the delta wing and the thermal protection problems associated with it remained with the Shuttle.

However, the deed was done, and the support of the Air Force in Congress made it possible to partially secure the future of the Shuttle. NASA finally approved as a project a two-stage fully reusable Shuttle with 12(!) SSMEs on the first stage and sent out contracts for the development of its layout.

North American Rockwell Project:

McDonnell Douglas Project:

Project Grumman. An interesting detail: despite NASA's requirement for complete reusability, the shuttle was nevertheless supposed to have disposable hydrogen tanks on the sides:

Economic justification

I mentioned above that after Congress gutted NASA's space program, they had to start making an economic case for the shuttle. And so, in the early seventies, officials from The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) asked them to prove the declared economic efficiency of the Shuttle. Moreover, it was necessary to demonstrate not the fact that launching a shuttle would be cheaper than launching a disposable carrier (this was taken for granted); no, it was necessary to compare the allocation of funds required to create the Shuttle with the continued use of existing disposable media and the investment of freed-up money at 10% per annum - i.e. in fact, the OMB gave the Shuttle a "junk" rating. This made any business case for the shuttle as a commercial launch vehicle unrealistic, especially after it was inflated by Air Force demands. And yet NASA tried to do this, because again, the existence of the American manned program was at stake.

A study was commissioned economic feasibility from Mathematica. The often mentioned figure for the cost of launching the Shuttle in the region of $1-2.5 million is only Muller’s promises at a conference in 1969, when its final configuration was not yet clear, and before changes caused by Air Force requirements. For the projects above, the cost of the flight was as follows: 4.6 million dollars 1970 model. for the North American shuttles Rockwell and McDonnell Douglas, and $4.2 million for the Grumman shuttle. The authors of the report were at least able to put an owl on the globe, showing that supposedly by the mid-eighties the Shuttle looked more attractive from a financial point of view than existing carriers, even taking into account 10% of OMB requirements:

However, the devil is in the details. As I mentioned above, there was no way to demonstrate that the Shuttle, with its estimated development and production cost of twelve billion dollars, would be cheaper than expendables when factoring in OMB's 10% discount. So the analysis had to make the assumption that lower launch costs would allow satellite manufacturers to spend significantly less time and money on research and development (R&D) and satellite production. It was declared that they would prefer to take advantage of the opportunity to cheaply launch satellites into orbit and repair them. Further, it was assumed very a large number of launches per year: The base case scenario shown in the graph above postulated 56 Shuttle launches each year from 1978 to 1990 (736 total). Moreover, even the option with 900 flights during the specified period was considered as an extreme scenario, i.e. start every five days for thirteen years!

Cost of three different programs in the base case - two expendable rockets and a Shuttle, 56 launches per year (millions of dollars):

	Existing RKN	Promising rocket launcher	Space Shuttle
Expenses for RKN
R&D	960	1 185	9 920
Launch facilities, shuttle production	584	727	2 884
Total cost of launches	13 115	12 981	5 510
Total	14 659	14 893	18 314
PN expenses
R&D	12 382	11 179	10 070
Production and fixed costs	31 254	28 896	15 786
Total	43 636	40 075	25 856
Expenses for RKN and PN	58 295	54 968	44 170

Of course, OMB representatives were not satisfied with this analysis. They quite rightly pointed out that even if the cost of a Shuttle flight were indeed as stated (4.6 million/flight), there is still no reason to believe that satellite manufacturers will reduce reliability for the sake of production costs. On the contrary, existing trends indicated an upcoming significant increase in the average life of a satellite in orbit (which ultimately happened). Further, officials no less correctly pointed out that the number of space launches in the base scenario was extrapolated from the level of 1965-1969, when a significant share of them was provided by NASA, with its then gigantic budget, and the Air Force, with its then short-lived optical reconnaissance satellites. Before all of NASA’s bold plans were cut, it was still possible to assume that the number of launches would increase, but without NASA’s expenses it would certainly have begun to fall (which also turned out to be true). Also, the accompanying government programs cost growth: for example, the increase in Apollo program costs between 1963 and 1969 was 75%. The OMB's final verdict was that the proposed fully reusable two-stage Stattle was not economically feasible compared to the Titan-III at a 10% rate.

I apologize for writing so much about financial details that may not be of interest to everyone. But all this is extremely important in the context of discussing the reusability of the Shuttle - especially since the figures mentioned above and, frankly, made up from thin air, can still be seen in discussions about the reusability of space systems. In fact, without taking into account the “PN effect”, even according to the figures accepted by Mathematica and without any 10% discounts, the Shuttle became more profitable than the Titan only starting from ~1100 flights (real shuttles flew 135 times). But don’t forget - we are talking about a Shuttle, “bloated” by Air Force requirements, with a delta wing and complex thermal protection.

The shuttle becomes semi-reusable

Nixon did not want to be the president who completely shut down the American manned program. But he also did not want to ask Congress to allocate a ton of money for the creation of the Shuttle, especially since after the conclusion of officials from OMB, congressmen would still not agree to this. It was decided to allocate about five and a half billion dollars for the development and production of the Shuttle (i.e., more than half what was needed for a fully reusable Shuttle), with the requirement to spend no more than a billion in any given year.

In order to be able to create the Shuttle within the allocated funds, it was necessary to make the system partially reusable. First, the Grumman concept was creatively rethought: the size of the shuttle was reduced by placing both fuel pairs in an external tank, and at the same time the required size of the first stage was reduced. The diagram below shows the size of a fully reusable spaceplane, a spaceplane with an external hydrogen tank (LH2), and a spaceplane with both an oxygen and hydrogen external tank (LO2/LH2).

But the cost of development still greatly exceeded the amount of funds allocated from the budget. As a result, NASA also had to abandon the reusable first stage. It was decided to attach a simple booster to the above tank, either in parallel or at the bottom of the tank:

After some discussion, the placement of boosters in parallel with the external tank was approved. Two main options were considered as boosters: solid propellant (SFU) and liquid-propellant rocket boosters, the latter either with a turbocharger or with a displacement supply of components. It was decided to focus on TTU, again due to the lower cost of development. Sometimes you can hear that there supposedly was some kind of mandatory requirement to use TTUs, which supposedly ruined everything - but, as we see, replacing the TTUs with boosters with liquid propellant engines could not fix anything. Moreover, liquid-propellant rocket boosters splashing into the ocean, albeit with a displacement supply of components, would actually have even more problems than with solid-fuel boosters.

The result was the Space Shuttle that we know today:

Well, a brief history of its evolution (clickable):

Epilogue

The shuttle was not such an unsuccessful system as it is usually presented today. In the eighties, the Shuttle launched into low-Earth orbit 40% of the entire launch vehicle mass delivered in that decade, despite the fact that its launches accounted for only 4% of the total number of ILV launches. It also delivered the lion's share of the people who have been there to date into space (another thing is that the very need for people in orbit is still unclear):

In 2010 prices, the cost of the program was 209 billion, if you divide this by the number of launches it will come out to about 1.5 billion per launch. True, the main part of the costs (design, modernization, etc.) does not depend on the number of launches - therefore, according to NASA estimates, by the end of the 2000s, the cost of each flight was about 450 million dollars. However, this price tag is already at the end of the program, and even after the Challenger and Columbia disasters, which led to additional safety measures and an increase in launch costs. In theory, in the mid-80s, before the Challenger disaster, the launch cost was much lower, but I don’t have specific figures. I'll just point out the fact that Titan IV Centaur's launch cost in the first half of the nineties was $325 million, which is even slightly higher than the above-mentioned Shuttle launch cost in 2010 prices. But it was the heavy launch vehicles from the Titan family that competed with the Shuttle during its creation.

Of course, the Shuttle was not cost-effective from a commercial point of view. By the way, the economic inexpediency of it greatly worried the leadership of the USSR at one time. They did not understand the political reasons that led to the creation of the Shuttle, and came up with various purposes for it in order to somehow connect its existence in their heads with their views on reality - the very famous “dive to Moscow”, or basing weapons in space. As Yu.A. Mozzhorin, director of the Central Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering, head of the rocket and space industry, recalled in 1994: “ The shuttle launched 29.5 tons into low-Earth orbit, and could release up to 14.5 tons of cargo from orbit. This is very serious, and we began to study for what purposes it is being created? After all, everything was very unusual: the weight put into orbit using disposable carriers in America did not even reach 150 tons/year, but here it was planned to be 12 times more; nothing was descended from orbit, and here it was supposed to return 820 tons/year... This was not just a program for creating some kind of space system under the motto of reducing transportation costs (our studies at our institute showed that no reduction would actually be observed ), she had a clear target military purpose. And indeed, at this time they began to talk about the creation of powerful lasers, beam weapons, weapons based on new physical principles, which - theoretically - allows you to destroy enemy missiles at a distance of several thousand kilometers. It was precisely the creation of such a system that was supposed to be used to test this new weapon in space conditions". A role in this mistake was played by the fact that the Shuttle was made taking into account the requirements of the Air Force, but the USSR did not understand the reasons why the Air Force was involved in the project. They thought that the project was initially initiated by the military, and was being done for military purposes. In fact NASA desperately needed the Shuttle to stay afloat, and if the Air Force's support in Congress depended on the Air Force demanding that the Shuttle be painted green and decorated with garlands, they would have done it. In the eighties, they already tried to attract the Shuttle to the program SDI, but when it was designed in the seventies there was no talk of anything like that.

I hope the reader now understands that judging the reusability of space systems using the example of the Shuttle is an extremely unsuccessful idea. The cargo flows for which the shuttle was made never materialized due to NASA spending cuts. The Shuttle's design had to be changed in major ways twice, first due to Air Force demands for which NASA needed political support, and then due to OMB criticism and insufficient appropriations for the program. All economic justifications, references to which sometimes come across in discussions of reusability, appeared at a time when NASA needed to save the shuttle, which was already heavily mutated due to the requirements of the Air Force, at any cost, and are simply far-fetched. Moreover, all participants in the program understood this - Congress, the White House, the Air Force, and NASA. For example, the Michoud Assembly Facility could produce at most twenty-odd external fuel tanks per year, that is, there was no talk of fifty-six or even thirty-something flights per year, as in the Mathematica report.

I took almost all the information from a wonderful book, which I recommend reading to anyone interested in the issue. Also, some text passages were borrowed from uv’s posts. Tico in this topic.

The parts highlighted in bold will be sorted out at the end.

Shuttle and Buran

When you look at photographs of the winged spacecraft "Buran" and "Shuttle", you may get the impression that they are quite identical. At least there shouldn’t be any fundamental differences. Despite their external similarity, these two space systems are still fundamentally different.

"Shuttle"

The Shuttle is a reusable transport spacecraft (MTSC). The ship has three liquid rocket engines (LPREs) powered by hydrogen. The oxidizing agent is liquid oxygen. Entering low-Earth orbit requires a huge amount of fuel and oxidizer. Therefore, the fuel tank is the largest element of the Space Shuttle system. The spacecraft is located on this huge tank and is connected to it by a system of pipelines through which fuel and oxidizer are supplied to the Shuttle engines.

And still, three powerful engines of a winged ship are not enough to go into space. Attached to the central tank of the system are two solid propellant boosters - the most powerful rockets in human history to date. The greatest power is needed precisely at launch, in order to move a multi-ton ship and lift it to the first four and a half dozen kilometers. Solid rocket boosters take on 83% of the load.

Another Shuttle takes off

At an altitude of 45 km, the solid fuel boosters, having exhausted all the fuel, are separated from the ship and splashed down in the ocean using parachutes. Further, to an altitude of 113 km, the shuttle rises with the help of three rocket engines. After the tank is separated, the ship flies for another 90 seconds by inertia and then, for a short time, two orbital maneuvering engines running on self-igniting fuel are turned on. And the shuttle enters operational orbit. And the tank enters the atmosphere, where it burns up. Some of its parts fall into the ocean.

Solid propellant booster department

Orbital maneuvering engines are designed, as their name suggests, for various maneuvers in space: for changing orbital parameters, for mooring to the ISS or to other spacecraft located in low-Earth orbit. So the shuttles visited several times orbital telescope Hubble for maintenance.

And finally, these engines serve to create a braking impulse when returning to Earth.

The orbital stage is made according to the aerodynamic design of a tailless monoplane with a low-lying delta-shaped wing with a double swept leading edge and with a vertical tail of the usual design. For control in the atmosphere, a two-section rudder on the fin (there is also an air brake), elevons on the trailing edge of the wing and a balancing flap under the rear fuselage are used. The landing gear is retractable, three-post, with a nose wheel.

Length 37.24 m, wingspan 23.79 m, height 17.27 m. Dry weight of the device is about 68 tons, takeoff - from 85 to 114 tons (depending on the mission and payload), landing with return cargo on on board - 84.26 tons.

The most important feature of the airframe design is its thermal protection.

In the most heat-stressed areas (design temperature up to 1430º C), a multilayer carbon-carbon composite is used. There are not many such places, these are mainly the fuselage toe and the leading edge of the wing. The lower surface of the entire apparatus (heating from 650 to 1260º C) is covered with tiles made of a material based on quartz fiber. Upper and side surfaces partially protected by low-temperature insulation tiles - where the temperature is 315-650º C; in other places where the temperature does not exceed 370º C, felt material coated with silicone rubber is used.

The total weight of thermal protection of all four types is 7164 kg.

The orbital stage has a double-deck cabin for seven astronauts.

Upper deck of the shuttle cabin

In the case of an extended flight program or during rescue operations, up to ten people can be on board the shuttle. In the cabin there are flight controls, work and sleeping places, a kitchen, a pantry, a sanitary compartment, an airlock, operations and payload control posts, and other equipment. The total sealed volume of the cabin is 75 cubic meters. m, the life support system maintains a pressure of 760 mm Hg. Art. and temperature in the range of 18.3 - 26.6º C.

This system is made in open version, that is, without the use of air and water regeneration. This choice was due to the fact that the duration of the shuttle flights was set at seven days, with the possibility of increasing it to 30 days using additional funds. With such insignificant autonomy, installing regeneration equipment would mean an unjustified increase in weight, power consumption and complexity of on-board equipment.

The supply of compressed gases is sufficient to restore the normal atmosphere in the cabin in the event of one complete depressurization or to maintain a pressure in it of 42.5 mm Hg. Art. for 165 minutes with the formation of a small hole in the housing shortly after launch.

The cargo compartment measures 18.3 x 4.6 m and has a volume of 339.8 cubic meters. m is equipped with a “three-legged” manipulator 15.3 m long. When opening the compartment doors, they rotate together with them working position cooling system radiators. The reflectivity of radiator panels is such that they remain cool even when the sun is shining on them.

What the Space Shuttle can do and how it flies

If we imagine the assembled system flying horizontally, we see the external fuel tank as its central element; An orbiter is docked to it on top, and accelerators are on the sides. The total length of the system is 56.1 m, and the height is 23.34 m. The overall width is determined by the wingspan of the orbital stage, that is, 23.79 m. The maximum launch mass is about 2,041,000 kg.

It is impossible to speak so unambiguously about the size of the payload, since it depends on the parameters of the target orbit and on the launch point of the ship. Let's give three options. The Space Shuttle system is capable of displaying:

29,500 kg when launched east from Cape Canaveral (Florida, East Coast) into an orbit with an altitude of 185 km and an inclination of 28º;

11,300 kg when launched from the Space Flight Center. Kennedy into an orbit with an altitude of 500 km and an inclination of 55º;

14,500 kg when launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base (California, west coast) into a polar orbit at an altitude of 185 km.

Two landing strips were equipped for the shuttles. If the shuttle landed far from the spaceport, it returned home riding on a Boeing 747

Boeing 747 carries the shuttle to the spaceport

A total of five shuttles were built (two of them died in disasters) and one prototype.

During development, it was envisaged that the shuttles would make 24 launches per year, and each of them would make up to 100 flights into space. In practice, they were used much less - by the end of the program in the summer of 2011, 135 launches had been made, of which Discovery - 39, Atlantis - 33, Columbia - 28, Endeavor - 25, Challenger - 10 .

The shuttle crew consists of two astronauts - the commander and the pilot. The largest shuttle crew was eight astronauts (Challenger, 1985).

Soviet reaction to the creation of the Shuttle

The development of the shuttle made a great impression on the leaders of the USSR. It was believed that the Americans were developing an orbital bomber armed with space-to-ground missiles. The huge size of the shuttle and its ability to return cargo of up to 14.5 tons to Earth were interpreted as a clear threat of theft of Soviet satellites and even Soviet military space stations such as Almaz, which flew in space under the name Salyut. These estimates were erroneous, since the United States abandoned the idea of ​​a space bomber back in 1962 due to the successful development of the nuclear submarine fleet and ground-based ballistic missiles.

The Soyuz could easily fit in the Shuttle's cargo bay.

Soviet experts could not understand why 60 shuttle launches per year were needed - one launch per week! Where would the many space satellites and stations for which the Shuttle would be needed come from? The Soviet people, living within a different economic system, could not even imagine that NASA management, strenuously pushing the new space program in the government and Congress, was driven by the fear of being left without a job. Lunar program was nearing completion and thousands of highly qualified specialists found themselves out of work. And, most importantly, the respected and very well-paid leaders of NASA faced the disappointing prospect of parting with their lived-in offices.

Therefore, an economic justification was prepared on the great financial benefits of reusable transport spacecraft in the event of abandonment of disposable rockets. But it was absolutely incomprehensible to the Soviet people that the president and Congress could spend national funds only with great regard for the opinions of their voters. In connection with this, the opinion reigned in the USSR that the Americans were creating a new spacecraft for some future unknown tasks, most likely military.

Reusable spacecraft "Buran"

In the Soviet Union, it was initially planned to create an improved copy of the Shuttle - the OS-120 orbital aircraft, weighing 120 tons. (The American shuttle weighed 110 tons when fully loaded). Unlike the Shuttle, it was planned to equip the Buran with an ejection cabin for two pilots and turbojet engines for landing at the airfield.

The leadership of the USSR armed forces insisted on almost complete copying of the shuttle. Soviet intelligence By this time, she had managed to obtain a lot of information on the American QC. But it turned out that not everything is so simple. Domestic hydrogen-oxygen liquid rocket engines turned out to be larger in size and heavier than American ones. In addition, they were inferior in power to overseas ones. Therefore, instead of three liquid rocket engines, it was necessary to install four. But on an orbital plane there was simply no room for four propulsion engines.

For the shuttle, 83% of the load at launch was carried by two solid fuel boosters. The Soviet Union failed to develop such powerful solid-fuel missiles. Missiles of this type were used as ballistic carriers of sea- and land-based nuclear charges. But they fell very, very far short of the required power. Therefore, Soviet designers had the only option - to use liquid rockets as accelerators. Under the Energia-Buran program, very successful kerosene-oxygen RD-170s were created, which served as an alternative to solid fuel accelerators.

The very location of the Baikonur Cosmodrome forced designers to increase the power of their launch vehicles. It is known that the closer the launch site is to the equator, the larger the load the same rocket can launch into orbit. The American cosmodrome at Cape Canaveral has a 15% advantage over Baikonur! That is, if a rocket launched from Baikonur can lift 100 tons, then when launched from Cape Canaveral it will launch 115 tons into orbit!

Geographical conditions, differences in technology, characteristics of the created engines and different design approaches all had an impact on the appearance of the Buran. Based on all these realities, a new concept and a new orbital vehicle OK-92, weighing 92 tons, were developed. Four oxygen-hydrogen engines were transferred to the central fuel tank and the second stage of the Energia launch vehicle was obtained. Instead of two solid fuel boosters, it was decided to use four kerosene-oxygen liquid fuel rockets with four-chamber RD-170 engines. Four-chamber means with four nozzles. A large-diameter nozzle is extremely difficult to manufacture. Therefore, designers go to make the engine more complex and heavier by designing it with several smaller nozzles. As many nozzles as there are combustion chambers with a bunch of fuel and oxidizer supply pipelines and with all the “moorings”. This connection was made according to the traditional, “royal” scheme, similar to “unions” and “Easts”, and became the first stage of “Energy”.

"Buran" in flight

The Buran winged ship itself became the third stage of the launch vehicle, like the same Soyuz. The only difference is that the Buran was located on the side of the second stage, and the Soyuz at the very top of the launch vehicle. Thus, the classic scheme of a three-stage disposable space system was obtained, with the only difference being that the orbital ship was reusable.

Reusability was another problem of the Energia-Buran system. For the Americans, the shuttles were designed for 100 flights. For example, orbital maneuvering engines could withstand up to 1000 activations. After preventative maintenance, all elements (except for the fuel tank) were suitable for launch into space.

The solid fuel accelerator was selected by a special vessel

Solid fuel boosters were lowered by parachute into the ocean, picked up by special NASA vessels and delivered to the manufacturer's plant, where they underwent maintenance and were filled with fuel. The Shuttle itself also underwent thorough inspection, maintenance and repair.

Defense Minister Ustinov, in an ultimatum, demanded that the Energia-Buran system be as reusable as possible. Therefore, designers were forced to address this problem. Formally, the side boosters were considered reusable, suitable for ten launches. But in fact, things did not come to this for many reasons. Take, for example, the fact that American boosters splashed into the ocean, and Soviet boosters fell in the Kazakh steppe, where landing conditions were not as benign as warm ocean waters. And a liquid rocket is a more delicate creation. than solid fuel. "Buran" was also designed for 10 flights.

In general, a reusable system did not work out, although the achievements were obvious. The Soviet orbital ship, freed from large propulsion engines, received more powerful engines for maneuvering in orbit. Which, if used as a space “fighter-bomber,” gave it great advantages. And plus turbojet engines for flight and landing in the atmosphere. In addition, a powerful rocket was created with the first stage using kerosene fuel, and the second using hydrogen. This is exactly the kind of rocket the USSR needed to win the lunar race. “Energia” in its characteristics was almost equivalent to the American Saturn 5 rocket that sent Apollo 11 to the Moon.

"Buran" has a great external resemblance to the American "Shuttle". The ship is built according to the design of a tailless aircraft with a delta wing of variable sweep, and has aerodynamic controls that operate during landing after returning to dense layers of the atmosphere - rudder and elevons. He was capable of making a controlled descent in the atmosphere with a lateral maneuver of up to 2000 kilometers.

The length of the "Buran" is 36.4 meters, the wingspan is about 24 meters, the height of the ship on the chassis is more than 16 meters. The launch weight of the ship is more than 100 tons, of which 14 tons are fuel. A sealed all-welded cabin for the crew and most of the equipment for flight support as part of the rocket and space complex is inserted into the bow compartment, autonomously of flight in orbit, descent and landing. Cabin volume is more than 70 cubic meters.

When returning to the dense layers of the atmosphere, the most heat-stressed areas of the ship's surface heat up to 1600 degrees, the heat reaching directly to the metal the personal design of the ship, should not exceed 150 degrees. Therefore, “Buran” was distinguished by powerful thermal protection, ensuring normal temperature conditions for the design of the ship when passing through dense layers of the atmosphere during landing.

The heat-protective coating of more than 38 thousand tiles is made of special materials: quartz fiber, high-temperature organic fibers, partly oc-based material new carbon. Ceramic armor has the ability to accumulate heat without letting it pass to the ship's hull. The total weight of this armor was about 9 tons.

The length of the cargo compartment of the Buran is about 18 meters. Its spacious cargo compartment could accommodate a payload weighing up to 30 tons. It was possible to place large-sized spacecraft there - large satellites, blocks of orbital stations. The landing weight of the ship is 82 tons.

"Buran" was equipped with all the necessary systems and equipment for both automatic and manned flight. These are navigation and control devices, radio and television systems, automatic thermal control devices, crew life support systems, and much, much more.

Cabin Buran

The main engine installation, two groups of engines for maneuvering, are located at the end of the tail compartment and in the front part of the hull.

On November 18, 1988, Buran set off on its flight into space. It was launched using the Energia launch vehicle.

After entering low-Earth orbit, Buran made 2 orbits around the Earth (in 205 minutes), then began its descent to Baikonur. The landing took place at a special Yubileiny airfield.

The flight was automatic and there was no crew on board. The orbital flight and landing were carried out using an on-board computer and special software. The automatic flight mode was the main difference from the Space Shuttle, in which astronauts perform manual landings. Buran's flight was included in the Guinness Book of Records as unique (previously, no one had landed spacecraft in a fully automatic mode).

Automatic landing of a 100-ton giant is a very complicated thing. We didn't make any hardware, just software landing mode - from the moment of reaching (while descending) an altitude of 4 km until stopping on the landing strip. I will try to tell you very briefly how this algorithm was made.

First, the theorist writes an algorithm in a high-level language and tests its operation on test examples. This algorithm, which is written by one person, is “responsible” for one, relatively small, operation. Then it is combined into a subsystem, and it is dragged to a modeling stand. In the stand, “around” the working, on-board algorithm, there are models - a model of the dynamics of the device, models of actuators, sensor systems, etc. They are also written in a high-level language. Thus, the algorithmic subsystem is tested in a “mathematical flight”.

Then the subsystems are put together and tested again. And then the algorithms are “translated” from a high-level language to the language of an on-board computer. To test them, already in the form of an on-board program, there is another modeling stand, which includes an on-board computer. And the same thing is built around it - mathematical models. They are, of course, modified in comparison with the models in a purely mathematical stand. The model “spins” in a general-purpose large computer. Don’t forget, this was the 1980s, personal computers were just getting started and were very underpowered. It was the time of mainframes, we had a pair of two EC-1061s. And to connect the on-board vehicle with the mathematical model in the mainframe computer, you need special equipment; it is also needed as part of the stand for various tasks.

We called this stand semi-natural - after all, in addition to all the mathematics, it had a real on-board computer. It implemented a mode of operation of on-board programs that was very close to real time. It takes a long time to explain, but for the onboard computer it was indistinguishable from “real” real time.

Someday I'll get together and write how the semi-natural modeling mode works - for this and other cases. For now, I just want to explain the composition of our department - the team that did all this. It had a comprehensive department that dealt with the sensor and actuator systems involved in our programs. There was an algorithmic department - they actually wrote on-board algorithms and worked them out on a mathematical bench. Our department was engaged in a) translating programs into the computer language, b) creating special equipment for a semi-natural stand (this is where I worked) and c) programs for this equipment.

Our department even had its own designers to create documentation for the manufacture of our blocks. And there was also a department involved in the operation of the aforementioned EC-1061 twin.

The output product of the department, and therefore of the entire design bureau within the framework of the “stormy” topic, was a program on magnetic tape (1980s!), which was taken to be further developed.

Next is the stand of the control system developer. After all, it is clear that the control system of an aircraft is not only an onboard computer. This system was made by a much larger enterprise than us. They were the developers and “owners” of the onboard digital computer; they filled it with many programs that performed the entire range of tasks for controlling the ship from pre-launch preparation to post-landing shutdown of systems. And for us, our landing algorithm, in that on-board computer only part of the computer time was allocated; other software systems worked in parallel (more precisely, I would say, quasi-parallel). After all, if we calculate the landing trajectory, this does not mean that we no longer need to stabilize the device, turn on and off all kinds of equipment, maintain thermal conditions, generate telemetry, and so on, and so on, and so on...

However, let's return to working out the landing mode. After testing in a standard redundant on-board computer as part of the entire set of programs, this set was taken to the stand of the enterprise that developed the Buran spacecraft. And there was a stand called full-size, in which an entire ship was involved. When the programs were running, he waved the elevons, hummed the drives, and so on. And the signals came from real accelerometers and gyroscopes.

Then I saw enough of all this on the Breeze-M accelerator, but for now my role was very modest. I did not travel outside my design bureau...

So, we went through the full-size stand. Do you think that's all? No.

Next was the flying laboratory. This is a Tu-154, whose control system is configured in such a way that the aircraft reacts to control inputs generated by the on-board computer, as if it were not a Tu-154, but a Buran. Of course, it is possible to quickly “return” to normal mode. "Buransky" was turned on only for the duration of the experiment.

The culmination of the tests were 24 flights of the Buran prototype, made specifically for this stage. It was called BTS-002, had 4 engines from the same Tu-154 and could take off from the runway itself. It landed during testing, of course, with the engines turned off - after all, “in the state” the spacecraft lands in gliding mode, it does not have any atmospheric engines.

The complexity of this work, or more precisely, of our software-algorithmic complex, can be illustrated by this. In one of the flights of BTS-002. flew “on program” until the main landing gear touched the runway. The pilot then took control and lowered the nose gear. Then the program turned on again and drove the device until it stopped completely.

By the way, this is quite understandable. While the device is in the air, it has no restrictions on rotation around all three axes. And it rotates, as expected, around the center of mass. Here he touched the strip with the wheels of the main racks. What's happening? Roll rotation is now impossible at all. Pitch rotation is no longer around the center of mass, but around an axis passing through the points of contact of the wheels, and it is still free. And rotation along the course is now determined in a complex way by the ratio of the control torque from the rudder and the friction force of the wheels on the strip.

This is such a difficult regime, so radically different from both flying and running along the runway three points" Because when the front wheel drops onto the runway, then - as in the joke: no one is spinning anywhere...

In total, it was planned to build 5 orbital ships. In addition to “Buran,” “Storm” and almost half of “Baikal” were almost ready. Two more ships in the initial stages of production have not received names. The Energia-Buran system was unlucky - it was born at an unfortunate time for it. The USSR economy was no longer able to finance expensive space programs. And some kind of fate haunted the cosmonauts preparing for flights on the Buran. Test pilots V. Bukreev and A. Lysenko died in plane crashes in 1977, even before joining the cosmonaut group. In 1980, test pilot O. Kononenko died. 1988 took the lives of A. Levchenko and A. Shchukin. After the Buran flight, R. Stankevicius, the second pilot for the manned flight of the winged spacecraft, died in a plane crash. I. Volk was appointed the first pilot.

Buran was also unlucky. After the first and only successful flight, the ship was stored in a hangar at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. On May 12, 2012, 2002, the ceiling of the workshop in which the Buran and the Energia model were located collapsed. On this sad chord, the existence of the winged spaceship, which showed so much hope, ended.

With programs approximately equivalent in cost, for some reason orbital stage - the Buran spacecraft itself had initially declared resource of 10 flights versus 100 for the Shuttle. Why this is so is not even explained. The reasons seem to be very unpleasant. About pride in the fact that “our Buran landed automatically, but the Pindos couldn’t do that”... And the point of this, and from the first flight to trust primitive automation, risking breaking a fucking expensive device (Shuttle)? The cost of this “fuck up” is too high. And further. Why should we take our word for it that the flight is truly unmanned? Oh, “that’s what they told us”...

Ah, the life of an astronaut is above all, you say? Yes, don’t tell me... I think the Pindos could do it too, but apparently they thought differently. Why do I think that they could - because I know: just in those years they were already worked out(they actually worked, not just “flyed”) a fully automatic flight of a Boeing 747 (yes, the same one to which the Shuttle is attached in the photo) from Florida, Fort Lauderdale to Alaska to Anchorage, i.e. across the entire continent. Back in 1988 (this is about the question of supposedly suicide terrorists who hijacked the planes of 9/11. Well, did you understand me?) But in principle these are difficulties of the same order (landing the Shuttle on automatic and taking off - gaining echelon-landing of a heavy V- 747, which as seen in the photo is equal to several Shuttles).

The level of our technological lag is well reflected in the photo of the on-board equipment of the cabins of the spacecraft in question. Look again and compare. I am writing all this, I repeat: for the sake of objectivity, and not because of “adulation to the West,” which I have never suffered from..
As a point. Now these too have been destroyed, already hopelessly lagging electronics industries.

What then are the vaunted “Topol-M”, etc. equipped with? I do not know! And no one knows! But not yours - this can be said for sure. And all this “not our own” can very well be stuffed (certainly, obviously) with hardware “bookmarks”, and at the right moment it will all become a dead heap of metal. This, too, was all worked out back in 1991, when Desert Storm, and the Iraqis' air defense systems were remotely turned off. Looks like French ones.

Therefore, when I watch the next video of “Military Secrets” with Prokopenko, or something else about “getting up from your knees”, “analogue shit” in relation to new high-tech prodigies from the field of rocket, space and aviation high-tech, then... No, not I smile, there’s nothing to smile about. Alas. Soviet Space is hopelessly fucked up by its successor. And all these victorious reports are about all sorts of “breakthroughs” - for alternatively gifted quilted jackets

On July 21, 2011, at 9:57 UTC, Space Shuttle Atlantis landed on Runway 15 at the Kennedy Space Center. This was the 33rd flight of Atlantis and the 135th space mission of the Space Shuttle project.

This flight was the last in the history of one of the most ambitious space programs. The project on which the United States relied on in space exploration did not end at all as its developers once envisioned.

The idea of ​​reusable spacecraft appeared in both the USSR and the USA at the dawn of the space age, in the 1960s. The United States began its practical implementation in 1971, when the North American Rockwell company received an order from NASA to develop and create an entire fleet of reusable ships.

According to the plan of the authors of the program, reusable ships were to become an effective and reliable means of delivering astronauts and cargo from Earth to low-Earth orbit. The devices were supposed to scurry along the route “Earth - Space - Earth”, like shuttles, which is why the program was called “Space Shuttle” - “Space Shuttle”.

Initially, the shuttles were only part of a larger project that involved the creation of a large orbital station for 50 people, a base on the Moon and a small orbital station in orbit around the Earth. Considering the complexity of the plan, NASA was ready to initial stage limit ourselves to only a large orbital station.

When these plans came to the White House for approval, US President Richard Nixon My eyes darkened from the number of zeros in the estimated project estimate. The United States spent a huge amount of money to get ahead of the USSR in the manned “moon race,” but it was impossible to continue funding space programs in truly astronomical amounts.

First launch on Cosmonautics Day

After Nixon rejected these projects, NASA resorted to a trick. Having hidden away the plans to create a large orbital station, the president was presented with a project to create a reusable spacecraft as a system capable of generating profit and recouping investments by launching satellites into orbit on a commercial basis.

The new project was sent for examination to economists, who came to the conclusion that the program would pay off if at least 30 launches of reusable spacecraft were carried out per year, and launches of disposable spacecraft would be stopped altogether.

NASA convinced that these parameters were quite achievable, and the Space Shuttle project received approval from the President and the US Congress.

Indeed, in the name of the Space Shuttle project, the United States abandoned disposable spacecraft. Moreover, by the early 1980s, a decision was made to transfer the launch program for military and intelligence vehicles to the shuttles. The developers assured that their perfect miracle devices would open a new page in space exploration, force them to abandon huge costs and even make a profit.

The very first reusable ship, called the Enterprise by popular demand from fans of the Star Trek series, was never launched into space - it served only to test landing methods.

Construction of the first full-fledged reusable spacecraft began in 1975 and was completed in 1979. It was named "Columbia" - after the sailing ship on which Captain Robert Gray explored in May 1792 inland waters British Columbia.

April 12, 1981 "Columbia" with a crew of John Young and Robert Crippen successfully launched from the Cape Canaveral launch site. The launch was not planned to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the launch Yuri Gagarin, but fate decreed it that way. The launch, originally scheduled for March 17, was postponed several times due to various problems and was eventually carried out on April 12.

Start of Columbia. Photo: wikipedia.org

Disaster on takeoff

The flotilla of reusable ships was replenished with the Challenger and Discovery in 1982, and in 1985 with the Atlantis.

The Space Shuttle project has become the pride and calling card of the United States. Only specialists knew about its reverse side. The Shuttles, for the sake of which the US manned program was interrupted for six years, were far from being as reliable as the creators expected. Almost every launch was accompanied by troubleshooting before the launch and during the flight. In addition, it turned out that the costs of operating the shuttles are actually several times higher than those envisaged by the project.

NASA reassured critics: yes, there are shortcomings, but they are insignificant. The resource of each ship is designed for 100 flights, by 1990 there will be 24 launches per year, and the shuttles will not devour funds, but make a profit.

On January 28, 1986, Expedition 25 of the Space Shuttle program was scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral. The Challenger spacecraft was heading into space, for which this was the 10th mission. In addition to professional astronauts, the crew included teacher Christa McAuliffe, winner of the “Teacher in Space” competition, who was supposed to teach several lessons from orbit to American schoolchildren.

This launch attracted the attention of all of America; Christa's relatives and friends were present at the cosmodrome.

But at the 73rd second of flight, in front of those present at the cosmodrome and millions of television viewers, the Challenger exploded. Seven astronauts on board died.

The death of the Challenger. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

"Maybe" in American

Never before in the history of astronautics has a disaster claimed so many lives at once. The US manned flight program was interrupted for 32 months.

The investigation showed that the cause of the disaster was damage to the o-ring of the right solid fuel booster during take-off. Damage to the ring caused a hole to burn out in the side of the accelerator, from which a jet stream flowed towards the external fuel tank.

In the course of clarifying all the circumstances, very unsightly details about NASA’s internal “kitchen” were revealed. In particular, NASA managers have known about defects in o-rings since 1977, that is, since the construction of Columbia. However, they gave up on the potential threat, relying on the American “maybe.” In the end, it all ended in a monstrous tragedy.

After the death of the Challenger, measures were taken and conclusions were drawn. Refinement of the shuttles did not stop in all subsequent years, and by the end of the project they were, in fact, completely different ships.

The lost Challenger was replaced by the Endeavor, which entered service in 1991.

Shuttle Endeavor. Photo: Public Domain

From Hubble to the ISS

We cannot talk only about the shortcomings of the shuttles. Thanks to them, work was carried out in space for the first time that had not previously been carried out - for example, the repair of failed spacecraft and even their return from orbit.

It was the Discovery shuttle that delivered the now famous Hubble telescope into orbit. Thanks to the shuttles, the telescope was repaired four times in orbit, which made it possible to extend its operation.

The shuttles carried crews of up to 8 people into orbit, while the disposable Soviet Soyuz could lift no more than 3 people into space and return to Earth.

In the 1990s, after the Soviet Buran reusable spacecraft project was closed, American shuttles began flying to the Mir orbital station. These ships also played a major role in the construction of the International Space Station, delivering modules into orbit that did not have their own propulsion system. The shuttles also delivered crews, food and scientific equipment to the ISS.

Expensive and deadly

But, despite all the advantages, over the years it has become obvious that the shuttles will never get rid of their shortcomings. Literally on every flight, the astronauts had to deal with repairs, eliminating problems of varying degrees of severity.

By the mid-1990s, there was no talk of any 25-30 flights per year. 1985 remained a record year for the program with nine flights. In 1992 and 1997, it was possible to make 8 flights. NASA has long preferred to remain silent about the payback and profitability of the project.

On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia completed the 28th mission in its history. This mission was carried out without docking with the ISS. The 16-day flight involved a crew of seven, including the first Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon. During Columbia's return from orbit, communication with it was lost. Soon, video cameras recorded the wreckage of the ship rapidly rushing towards the Earth in the sky. All seven astronauts on board died.

During the investigation, it was established that during the launch of Columbia, a piece of thermal insulation of the oxygen tank hit the left plane of the shuttle’s wing. During descent from orbit, this led to the penetration of gases with temperatures of several thousand degrees into the spacecraft structures. This led to the destruction of the wing structures and the further loss of the ship.

Thus, two shuttle disasters claimed the lives of 14 astronauts. Faith in the project was completely undermined.

The last crew of the space shuttle Columbia. Photo: Public Domain

Exhibits for the museum

The shuttle flights were interrupted for two and a half years, and after their resumption, a fundamental decision was made that the program would be finally completed in the coming years.

It was not just a matter of human casualties. The Space Shuttle project never achieved the parameters that were originally planned.

By 2005, the cost of one shuttle flight was $450 million, but with additional costs this amount reached $1.3 billion.

By 2006, the total cost of the Space Shuttle project was $160 billion.

It’s unlikely that anyone in the United States would have believed it in 1981, but the Soviet disposable Soyuz spacecraft, the modest “workhorses” of the Russian manned spacecraft, space program, won the competition in price and reliability against the shuttles.

July 21, 2011 space odyssey"shuttles" has finally ended. Over 30 years, they made 135 flights, making a total of 21,152 orbits around the Earth and flying 872.7 million kilometers, lifting 355 cosmonauts and astronauts and 1.6 thousand tons of payload into orbit.

All “shuttles” took their place in museums. The Enterprise is exhibited at the Naval and Aerospace Museum in New York, the Discovery Museum is located at the Smithsonian Institution Museum in Washington, Endeavor has found shelter at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, and Atlantis is permanently moored at the Space Center. Kennedy in Florida.

The ship "Atlantis" in the center. Kennedy. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

After the cessation of shuttle flights, the United States has now been unable to deliver astronauts into orbit other than with the help of the Soyuz spacecraft for four years.

American politicians, considering this state of affairs unacceptable for the United States, are calling for speeding up work on creating a new ship.

It is hoped that, despite the rush, the lessons learned from the Space Shuttle program will be learned and a repeat of the Challenger and Columbia tragedies will be avoided.

Humanity has learned to build very powerful and high-speed objects that take decades to assemble in order to then reach the most distant goals. The Shuttle in orbit moves at a speed of more than 27 thousand km per hour. A number of NASA space probes, such as Helios 1, Helios 2 or Vodger 1, are powerful enough to reach the Moon in a few hours.

☛ This article was translated from the English-language resource themysteriousworld.com and, of course, is not entirely true. Many Russian and Soviet launch vehicles and spacecraft overcame the barrier of 11,000 km/h, but in the West, apparently, they got used to not noticing this. And there is quite a bit of freely available information about our space objects; in any case, we were never able to find out about the speed of many Russian spacecraft.

Here is a list of the ten fastest objects produced by mankind:

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10

Rocket cart

Speed: 10,385 km/h

Rocket carts are actually used to test platforms used to accelerate experimental objects. During testing, the trolley has a record speed of 10,385 km/h. These devices use sliding pads instead of wheels to achieve such lightning-fast speeds. Rocket carts are propelled by rockets.

This external force imparts an initial acceleration to experimental objects. The trolleys also have long, more than 3 km, straight sections of track. The rocket cart tanks are filled with lubricants, such as helium gas, so that this helps the experimental object reach the required speed. These devices are commonly used to accelerate missiles, aircraft parts and aircraft recovery sections.

✰ ✰ ✰

9

NASA X-43A

Speed: 11,200 km/h

The ASA X-43 A is an unmanned supersonic aircraft that is launched from a larger aircraft. In 2005, the Guinness Book of World Records recognized NASA's X-43 A as the fastest aircraft ever made. He develops maximum speed 11,265 km/h is about 8.4 times faster than the speed of sound.

NASA X-13 A uses drop-launch technology. First this supersonic plane hits a higher altitude on a larger plane and then crashes. The required speed is achieved using a launch vehicle. In the final stage, after reaching the target speed, the NASA X-13 runs on its own engine.

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8

Shuttle Columbia

Speed: 27,350 km/h

The Columbia shuttle was the first successful reusable spacecraft in the history of space exploration. Since 1981, it has successfully completed 37 missions. The record speed of the space shuttle Columbia is 27,350 km/h. The ship exceeded its normal speed when it crashed on February 1, 2003.

The shuttle typically travels at 27,350 km/h to remain in Earth's lower orbit. At this speed, the spacecraft crew could see the sun rise and set several times in one day.

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7

Shuttle Discovery

Speed: 28,000 km/h

The shuttle Discovery has a record number of successful missions, more than any other spacecraft. Since 1984, Discovery has made 30 successful flights and its speed record is 28,000 km/h. This is five times faster than the speed of a bullet. Sometimes spacecraft must travel faster than their normal speed of 27,350 km/h. It all depends on the chosen orbit and altitude of the spacecraft.

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6

Apollo 10 lander

Speed: 39,897 km/h

The Apollo 10 launch was a rehearsal for NASA's mission before landing on the moon. During the return journey, on May 26, 1969, the Apollo 10 apparatus acquired a lightning speed of 39,897 km/h. The Guinness Book of World Records has set the Apollo 10 lander's speed record as the fastest manned vehicle speed record.

In fact, the Apollo 10 module needed such speed to reach the Earth's atmosphere from lunar orbit. Apollo 10 also completed its mission in 56 hours.