Rocket Report: “No man’s land” in rocket wars; Isaacman lukewarm on SLS

China's approach to space junk is worrisome as it begins launching its own megaconstellations.

See full article...

 

[original_mds]

In other news, the initial Gateway hab component arrived on US soil last Friday.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/nasa-welcomes-gateway-lunar-space-stations-halo-module-to-us/

 

[ricardoRI]

I really don't understand the hypocritical Texas MAGAturds wanting to waste a billion (?) dollar to transport a retired shuttle to Houston. On top of an original 747 there already is a shuttle in Houston: see https://spacecenter.org/exhibits-and-experiences/independence/

Yeah, it is a replica. So what?

 

[MLMichael]

This Week's Additional Launches
There are three launches this wee beyond the next three listed, including one by the venerable Minotaur IV. Every time I think the Minotaurs have flown their last race and are listed as active for no real reason, Grumman pops up and flies another one. Raise a glass to Orbital Sciences, who were pioneering private space launch before SpaceX was even a gleam in Elon Musk's eye. (Obligatory, politically correct calumny against Elon Musk)

April 14 | 23:00 UTC: Atlas V 551 | Project Kuiper (KA-01) | SLC-41, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida

April 16 | 19:00 UTC: Minotaur IV | NROL-174 | SLC-8, Vandenberg SFB, California

April 17 | 03:24 UTC: Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 6-74 | SLC-40, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida

 

[ubercurmudgeon]

The one-ton performance range is "no man's land" in the market, Beck said. "It’s too small to be a useful rideshare mission, and it’s too big to be a useful dedicated rocket"

Shouldn't that be no man's sky?

 

[Rector]

I really don't understand the hypocritical Texas MAGAturds wanting to waste a billion (?) dollar to transport a retired shuttle to Houston.

Contract with Boeing to build a new aircraft (entirely new design) to carry the shuttle and load the contract with lots of onerous and expensive requirements, minimal cancellation penalties, and the majority of the payment due at delivery.

Then 5 or 10 years later, whenever the crazy subsides and when, without doubt, the aircraft is nowhere near delivery, just cancel the contract.

 

[Rector]

Well, so it's not a Shuttle, it's a mockup, and Houston is far more deserving of having an actual Shuttle Orbiter than other places where they were put. And if your standard form of political discourse is to spout calumnous ad hominems rather than make reasoned arguments, you probably don't persuade many people to your point of view.

Houston may be more deserving than other places that were chosen, but is it deserving of wasting $1 billion on moving the space shuttle?

 

[Juvba Fnakix]

I thought Spinlaunch aiming for a constellation made sense two different ways. It either creates a demand to keep their launch system sufficiently active to spread the R&D and NRE costs or it creates an inviting bottomless pit for investors to fill with money.

 

[DougF]

However, there's another factor that made SpaceX a shoe-in for this contract.

Ahem…”shoo-in”. That is all…

 

[DistinctivelyCanuck]

I was on the Dulles runway when a shuttle was being moved on the back of a 747, in 2012(16 Nov)?

Are they going to move it the same way, or is there a large road transporter....?

the article does clearly point out that absolutely none of the infrastructure exists to move a shuttle remains.

 

[casualphilosopher1]

SLS isn't any less a waste of limited NASA money just because you hate Musk. It can only launch once in 2 years at a cost of over 2 billion per launch. It serves no practical purpose other than enriching Boeing and some other aerospace contractors.

You don't even have to wait for Starship. Falcon Heavy and New Glenn have already made it redundant. Develop a lunar version of Commercial Crew that flies on those two rockets. Or just put Orion on them.

 

[DougF]

This means China is leaving rockets in orbits high enough to persist in space for more than a century

May I suggest that as we develop a ”clean-up” system for LEO (will be needed sooner or later), that we demo/practice on dropping said rockets on the nation that launched them? And, how many times can we get away with “Oops we did it again“, if we get Brittany Spears to sing it as the vehicle deorbits?

 

[webpublius]

…demanding more than a thousand launches in the coming years.

While Western launch providers typically deorbit their upper stages after dropping off megaconstellation satellites in space, China does not. This means China is leaving rockets in orbits high enough to persist in space for more than a century…

I would ask why, why is China creating this problem not only for themselves but everyone else by doing this but the CPC’s logic and worldview always eludes me.

 

[Frosty Grin]

Ahem…”shoo-in”. That is all…

If you barely get a foot in the door, is that a shoe-in?

 

[Lexomatic]

Weekly incremental summary of rocket launches by SpaceX and others

• Time frame: 2025 YTD through Thu 4/10 (day 100 of 365, week 14 of 52, 0.28 year)
• By SpaceX: 42 (+2 w/w), of which 40 by Falcon 9, of which 27 Starlink (68%)
• By others: 38 (+2 w/w) by 13 providers of 7 nationalities [1], of which 21 by China (55%)

Spoiler: Launch performance by SpaceX

Launches completed

• Total launches: +2=42
• By customer/contract type:
  • Internal: +2=27 (Starlink)
  • External/paying: 13 (ISS: 1, other U.S. gov: 4, other: 8) [2]
  • Test: 2 (Super Heavy/Starship)
• Payload mass:
  • Potential: 533 ths. kg [11]
  • Known: 472 ths. kg (i.e., 1.1 ISS-mass) [3][4][11]
  • Excl. Starlink: >18 ths. kg
• Satellite count: >840
• By launch site: CCSFS: 20, KSC: 7, VSFB: 13, Starbase: 2
• By landing site:
  • Florida: ASDS ASOG: 12, JRTI: 11, RTLS LZ-1: 3, LZ-2: 0, expend: 1 [5]
  • VSFB: ASDS OCISLY: 9, RTLS LZ-4: 4
  • Distant splashdown: 0 for 2

Performance goals (F9 and FH), during 2025
Launch rate:

• Goal for year: n/a
• Annualized rate: 146 (+0 w/w)
• Turnaround days: 41.7 [7]

On-time statistics (excl. Starlink and tests):

• Count of launches: 13
• Days of delay, mean: 5.7
• Days of delay spectrum (days x count): 0x6, 1x1, 2x2, 11, 12, 15, 31
• Longest delay(s): Thuraya 4-NGS, NROL-57
• Pending, behind firm schedule: None
• "And counting..." delay spectrum: None
• Pending, behind soft ("NET") schedule: Bandwagon-3, LUXEOSys, NROL-192, Nusantara Lima

On-time statistics (Starlink):

• Count of launches: 27
• Days of delay, mean: 4.9
• Days of delay spectrum (days x count): 0x4, 1x7, 2x3, 3x4, 4, 6, 8, 9, 15, 25, 36
• Pending, behind firm schedule: Groups 10-5, 12-17
• "And counting..." delay spectrum: 1x1

Spectating a SpaceX launch, during 2025 (probabilities)
Florda's Space Coast:

• NLT one day after initial schedule: 0.59 (=16/27) [8]
• On any given day: 0.27
• Within any given week: 0.85
• Weeks without a launch: 0 of 14
• During dawn, daylight or dusk hours: 0.59 (=16/27)
• RTLS: 0.11 (=3/27) [9][10]

Near VSFB:

• Within any given week: 0.60
• RTLS: 0.31 (=4/13) [9][10]

Spoiler: Fleet utilization by SpaceX

F9 and FH cores, during 2024

• New cores - 2: B1072, 85
• Cores expended - 6: B1060, 61, 64(s), 65(s), 87(c), 89(c)
• Cores lost - 1: B1062
• Reuse (flights per core): 1 to 10, mean 5.3
• Turnaround: 35.2 days [7]

F9 and FH cores, during 2025

• Cores added - 2: B1092, 93
• Cores expended - 1: B1073
• Cores lost - 1: B1086
• Reuse (flights per core): 1 to 3, mean 2.1
• Turnaround: 41.7 days [7]
• By location:
  • East coast: 12 - B1067, 69, 73[-], 76, 77, 78, 80, 83, 85, 86[-], 90, 92[+]
  • West coast: 7 - B1063, 71, 75, 81, 82, 88, 93[+]

Flights

• By model, during 2024-2025: F9 173, FH 2, SH/SS 6
• By core number, during 2025 only:
  • 1 each: 4 - B1075, 81, 90, 93
  • 2 each: 10 - B1063, 67, 69, 71, 73, 76, 82, 83, 85, 92
  • 3 each: 5 - B1077, 78, 80, 86, 88
• By core number, over full lifetime:
  • 1 each: B1072(s), 87(c), 89(c), 93
  • 2 each: B1090, 92
  • 4 each: B1088
  • 5 each: B1086(s)
  • 6 each: B1064(s), 65(s), 85 [6]
  • 9 each: B1083
  • 11 each: B1082
  • 13 each: B1081
  • 17 each: B1075, 80
  • 19 each: B1077, 78
  • 20 each: B1060
  • 21 each: B1073, 76
  • 22 each: B1069
  • 23 each: B1061, 63, 71
  • 24 each: B1062
  • 26 each: B1067

Missions by Dragon capsules, over full lifetime

• Test vehicles and Cargo Dragon 1 (flown 2010 to 2020):
  • C103: 1 (CRS-1)
  • C104: 1 (CRS-2)
  • C105: 1 (CRS-3)
  • C106: 3 (CRS-4, 11, 19)
  • C107: 1 (CRS-5)
  • C108: 3 (CRS-6, 13, 18)
  • C109: 1 (CRS-7)
  • C110: 2 (CRS-8, 14)
  • C111: 2 (CRS-9, 15)
  • C112: 3 (CRS-10, 16, 20)
  • C113: 2 (CRS-12, 17)
• Test vehicles and Cargo Dragon 2 (flown 2019 to present):
  • C201: Ground prototype, status: retired
  • C202: Ground prototype, status: retired
  • C203: Ground test article, status: active
  • C204: 1 (Demo-1) status: destroyed
  • C205: 1 (In-flight abort test) status: retired
  • C208: 5 (CRS-21, 23, 25, 28, 31)
  • C209: 4 (CRS-22, 24, 27, 30)
  • C211: 2 (CRS-26, 29)
• Crew Dragon 2 (flown 2020 to present):
  • C206 Endeavour: 5 (Demo-2, Crew-2, Ax-1, Crew-6, Crew-8)
  • C207 Resilience: 3 (Crew-1, Inspiration4, Polaris Dawn, Fram 2)
  • C210 Endurance: 4 (Crew-3, 5, 7, 10)
  • C212 Freedom: 4 (Crew-4, Ax-2, Ax-3, Crew-9)
  • C213 not yet named: 0, pending (Ax-4)
• United States Deorbit Vehicle (USDV) - under development

Spoiler: Launch counts by other providers

Total: +2=38
By nationality of provider:

• China: +1=21 - CASC: +1=15, CAS Space: 0, Chinarocket: 1, Deep Blue: 0, ExPace: 1, Galactic Energy: 3, iSpace: 0, Landspace: 0, Orienspace: 0, SAST: 1
• Europe [1]: 1 - Arianespace: 1
• Germany: 1 - HyImpulse: 0, Isar: 1, RFA: 0
• India: 1 - Agnikul Cosmos: 0, ISRO: 1
• Japan: 1 - Interstellar Technologies: 0, JAXA/MHI: 1, Space One: 0
• Russia: +1=5 - Roscosmos: +1=2, VKS: 3
• U.S.: 8 - ABL: 0, Blue Origin: 3, Firefly: 0, Northrop: 0, Relativity: 0, Rocket Lab: 5, Stoke Space: 0, ULA: 0, Virgin Galactic: 0

Aspiring and/or low-traffic countries:

• Australia: 0 - Gilmour: 0
• Canada: 0 - MLS: 0
• France: 0 - Latitude: 0
• Iran: 0 - IRGC: 0, ISA: 0
• Italy: 0 - Sidereus: 0
• Korea, North: 0 - NATA: 0
• Korea, South: 0 - KARI: 0
• Poland: 0 - LIA: 0, SpaceForest: 0
• U.K.: 0 - Astron: 0, Orbex: 0

Spoiler: Abbreviations, methodology, endnotes

Abbrevations
n/a=not available, n/c=not calculated, w/w=week over week, BEO=beyond Earth orbit, F9=Falcon 9 Block 5, FH=Falcon Heavy, (c)=Falcon Heavy center core, (s)=Falcon Heavy side core, ASDS=autonomous spaceport drone ship, CCSFS=Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, GTO=geosynchronous transfer orbit, KSC=Kennedy Space Center, LEO=low Earth orbit, LZ=landing zone, MEO=medium Earth orbit, NLT=no later than, RTLS=return to launch site, SSO=sun-synchronous orbit, VSFB=Vandenberg Space Force Base, YTD=year to date.

For entities and programs: CASC=China Aerospace Corporation, CRS=NASA Commercial Resupply, IRGC=Islamic Guard, ISRO=Indian Space Research Organization, ISA=Iranian Space Agency, JAXA=Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, LIA=Łukasiewicz Institute of Aviation, MHI=Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, NATA=National Aerospace Technology Administration f.k.a. National Aerospace Development Administration (North Korea), RFA=Rocket Factory Augsburg, SAST=Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, ULA=United Launch Alliance, U.S.=United States, VKS=Russian Aerospace Forces.

Methodology

• Counts include orbital launches; suborbital launches by entities with aspirations to be orbital, including tourist flights; complete success, qualified success, failure (i.e., launched but terminated); tests and production. They exclude ground tests, pad aborts and unintended launches (i.e., Space Pioneer 6/30).
• Date format: month/day, i.e., U.S. style.
• Annualized rates assume 366 days for year 2024.
• Metrics and formatting are subject to change.
• Counts and calculations are subject to correction.
• Figures are rounded.
• SpaceX launch mass assumes 730 kg for Starlink v2 Mini (per Wikipedia) and Starlink v2 Mini w/ D2C (they're reportedly heavier, but by an unknown amount); 5,000 kg for Transporter-10; >12,000 kg for Crew-8; USSF-124 is unknown; Starship IFTs are excluded.
• Launch mass fraction assumes 419,725 kg for ISS.
• Launch goal during 2024 for SpaceX is per comments of VP Jon Edwards at Everyday Astronaut Astro Awards 1/14. Includes four launches delayed from 2023.
• Unless otherwise stated, launch rate, fleet utilization and similar calculations include only the F9 fleet, not the (much less common) FH.
• Delay stats are subject to correction if initially-announced schedule (within a sequence of scrubs) is corrected. Aggregates will be marked "n/a" if I have incomplete data.
• Launch probability uses the Poisson method, per Wickwick 7/5.
• Nationality of provider vs. launch site: Rocket Lab is a U.S.-domiciled company but launches from New Zealand. Orbex is British but plans to build engines in Denmark. RFA is German but will launch from the U.K.
• Sources: EverydayAstronaut.com (previous and upcoming), Ken's Launch Schedule, NASA.gov (ISS CRS mission overview PDF), NASASpaceFlight.com, NextSpaceflight.com, Space.com, Space Explored, SpaceX.com, SpaceX.com X feed, SpaceflightNow.com, Wikipedia.

Endnotes

• Note 1. "Nationality" counts "European Union" separately from individual member states, to account for Arianespace launches under the aegis of ESA.
• Note 2. Customer allocation: Some early launches of Starshield were believed to be mixed with Starlink, so they would count towards both "internal" and "U.S. government excl. ISS." Later launches are believed to be categorized openly as NROL.
• Note 3. Starting with Starlink Group 7-9 in January 2024, most launches have manifested a mix of sats with D2C capability. The number of each type is announced by SpaceX, but the mass of the latter is not known.
• Note 4. Sea-level mass is not necessarily comparable to delta-V, given differences attributable to orbital inclinations. In other words, "we've lofted three ISS-masses this year" is not the same as "we could've put three duplicates in the ISS's orbit."
• Note 5. A FH counts for one launch but three landings.
• Note 6. Counting the fleet is tricky because cores may be used as singletons or FH side cores, e.g., B1064 and B1065, which flew five times as F9 and a final time as expended FH.
• Note 7. Turnaround time of F9 cores: Trimmed mean, based on most recent 20 flights, per NextSpaceflight.com. I.e., starting with >20 flights, drop the outliers at each extreme.
• Note 8. Most (>65% during 2024) launches are F9 carrying Starlink and hence fungible for spectating purposes, so a long delay attributable to any particular mission (e.g., 10-2 was delayed 12 days while B1073 was swapped for B1078, during which 9-1 and SES-24 launched) doesn't reduce the chance of seeing a launch in general.
• Note 9. Starlink launches always land downrange on a drone ship, so RTLS is a possibility only on the 30% that are paying-customer launches.
• Note 10. A FH dual landing counts as one RTLS viewing opportunity.
• Note 11. Crew and Cargo Dragon missions are excluded, because they "are" satellites but do not "deliver" satellites. Potential mass accounts for NRO and rideshare missions that have unspecified payloads to known orbits, i.e., F9 carries 16,000 kg to LEO and 6,500 kg to SSO.

 

[YetAnotherBoris]

SLS isn't any less a waste of limited NASA money just because you hate Musk. It can only launch once in 2 years at a cost of over 2 billion per launch. It serves no practical purpose other than enriching Boeing and some other aerospace contractors.

You don't even have to wait for Starship. Falcon Heavy and New Glenn have already made it redundant. Develop a lunar version of Commercial Crew that flies on those two rockets. Or just put Orion on them.

New Glenn's theoretical payload to GTO is less than 14 tonnes - even if it didn't underperform as it currently does. Falcon Heavy's max payload to GTO is 26.7 tonnes, supposedly (assuming the center booster core and second stage can actually sustain that stress).

I use GTO rather than TLI above, as presumably Orion's service module has enough oomph to take it from there.

Unfortunately, Orion + ESM + LAS together have a wet mass of 33.5 tonnes, and Orion + ESM alone at 26.5 tonnes basically consume the entire Falcon Heavy capacity.

So no, you can't "just put Orion on them". Other alternatives are more plausible, but won't be materializing this side of 2030 even if development begins yesterday.

 

[Perardua]

Well, so it's not a Shuttle, it's a mockup, and Houston is far more deserving of having an actual Shuttle Orbiter than other places where they were put. And if your standard form of political discourse is to spout calumnous ad hominems rather than make reasoned arguments, you probably don't persuade many people to your point of view.

A national air and space museum seems like the most logical destination for a space shuttle. The nation, not Texas, paid for it.

If one ever finds themselves facing a delay at Dulles, take an uber to the museum (it’s on the airport grounds, about 5-10 min drive). Very impressive!

 

[Malmesbury]

May I suggest that as we develop a ”clean-up” system for LEO (will be needed sooner or later), that we demo/practice on dropping said rockets on the nation that launched them? And, how many times can we get away with “Oops we did it again“, if we get Brittany Spears to sing it as the vehicle deorbits?

Various systems are being developed now.

A serious issue is the ownership of abandoned items in orbit. Those stages still belong to whichever Chinese entity created and flew them. Legally, you would need their permission to touch them.

 

[uhuznaa]

The trouble with the Chinese Thousand Sails constellation isn't just the number of the sats or the upper stages but the orbit of 800 km or more. Failed and uncontrollable satellites in this orbit will be there for hundreds of years before the orbit decays, turning into a source for more and more debris over time.

SpaceX at least was sensible enough to use a very low orbit for Starlink from which dead and uncontrolled satellites will decay and burn up within years at most, even when they can't be actively deorbited.

 

[Lexomatic]

For reference, a list: of Space Shuttle (STS) Orbiter Vehicles (OV) and related exhibits, by location:

In the U.S.:

• New York City, NY: Enterprise (OV-101, glide-test article) in a special pavilion at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. Visited the Louisiana World Exposition in 1984, stored by the Smithsonian at Dulles from 1985 to 2003, displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, relocated to Intrepid in 2012.
• Washington, DC: Discovery (OV-103) in Chantilly (VA) outside Washington, D.C., proximate to Dulles International Airport, at Smithsonian » National Air and Space Museum » Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
• Cape Canaveral, FL: Atlantis (OV-104) at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Displayed yawing to the left.
• Los Angeles, CA: Endeavour (OV-105) at the California Science Center. Currently off-view during construction of the Samuel Oschin Shuttle Gallery, where it will be displayed vertically with ET and SRBs.

Official mockups:

• Dayton, OH: Space Shuttle Crew Compartment Trainer CCT-1 built by Rockwell, augmented to full size with a cutaway of the payload bay, at the National Museum of the USAF.
• Huntsville, AL: Pathfinder (early mockup) at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, mounted outdoors with ET and SRBs, pitched up.
• Houston, TX: Independence fka Explorer (non-flying replica) mounted atop B747 carrier aircraft "NASA 905" at Space Center Houston in the outdoor Independence Plaza. Relocated from KSC in 2012.
• St. Cloud, MN: Inspiration (mockup by Rockwell), currently off-view. Previously on display at KSC, purchased by one Felicity-John Pederson in 2024, intended for a museum in Minnesota. Inspiration Space Port is is currently fundraising.
• Everett, WA: Full Fuselage Trainer (FFT) at the Museum of Flight between SeaTac and Seattle. Originally located in Johnson Space Center.

Abroad:

• Prague (Czechia): Forward section (exterior and two-level cabin interior) of Atlantis at Planetum Praha, the city planetarium and space museum.

EDIT 1: Per @The Dark, corrected Inspiration (Rockwell not NASA), added Pathfinder (in Huntsville). EDIT 2: Czechia. EDIT 3: Per @sporkinum, added CCT-1 in Dayton; reordered items with location first. EDIT 4: Per @blookoolaid, added FFT in Seattle; added remaining links; separated flight articles from mockups.

 

[The Dark]

Well, so it's not a Shuttle, it's a mockup, and Houston is far more deserving of having an actual Shuttle Orbiter than other places where they were put. And if your standard form of political discourse is to spout calumnous ad hominems rather than make reasoned arguments, you probably don't persuade many people to your point of view.

Houston is more deserving than Kennedy Space Center, the California Science Center (the closest major museum I know of to Vandenberg), or the National Air & Space Museum? I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that argument, because it's utterly absurd as an unsupported statement.

 

[equine_physics]

New Glenn's theoretical payload to GTO is less than 14 tonnes - even if it didn't underperform as it currently does. Falcon Heavy's max payload to GTO is 26.7 tonnes, supposedly (assuming the center booster core and second stage can actually sustain that stress).

I use GTO rather than TLI above, as presumably Orion's service module has enough oomph to take it from there.

Unfortunately, Orion + ESM + LAS together have a wet mass of 33.5 tonnes, and Orion + ESM alone at 26.5 tonnes basically consume the entire Falcon Heavy capacity.

So no, you can't "just put Orion on them". Other alternatives are more plausible, but won't be materializing this side of 2030 even if development begins yesterday.

SpaceX's SH booster could as I remember it. I think the number was @ 150 tonne of payload. For now, SS, if it gets past its blow up phase, could be modified to carry heavy payloads and get dumped (as SpaceX does now at times with F9).

SS is nowhere near human rated (again, once it gets past blow up phase), but as a freight hauler, it can be the 18 wheeler for LEO and return or higher if you toss the second stage. Leaving politics and Mars out of this, SH/SS can be/is the solution for getting humans more established in LEO. Maybe use a modified Dragon to carry its full complement while SH/SS lofts space station parts.

If its the moon, using BO New Glenn, FH, and SH/SS to again put moon base parts in orbit around the moon to built a permanent station works for freight then Dragon/Orion/<something else> to get humans to the moon and back. Maybe a modified SS used only for intraspace travel with moon landing capabilities.

I'm just spitballing, but it is clear SLS is a money-pit with no real ROI, so if we really want to gt a more permanent presence on the Moon, it may take some coordination and changing of purpose for some vehicles.

 

[The Dark]

For reference, Space Shuttle (STS) Orbiter Vehicles (OV) or replicas thereof are currently on display in these locations:

• Enterprise (OV-101, glide-test article) in New York City (NY), at Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum
• Discovery (OV-103) in Chantilly (VA) outside Washington, D.C., proximate to Dulles International Airport, at Smithsonian » National Air and Space Museum » Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
• Atlantis (OV-104) at Cape Canaveral (FL), at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
• Endeavour (OV-105) in Los Angeles (CA), at the California Science Center
• Independence fka Explorer (non-flying replica) in Houston (TX), at Space Center Houston
• Inspiration (NASA-built mock orbiter), intended for St. Cloud (MN) but currently in limbo

Inspiration wasn't NASA-built. It was North American Rockwell's mock-up of what the Shuttle would look like, assembled out of wood and plastic, later used for test-fitting hardware. (I also had to go look it up because it wasn't named until 2012 and I hadn't looked at information about it since then).

There's also Pathfinder, which was NASA's test simulator, which is at the US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

 

[Lexomatic]

If one ever finds themselves facing a delay at Dulles, take an uber to the museum (it’s on the airport grounds, about 5-10 min drive). Very impressive!

Seconded. There's nothing quite like viewing artifacts at a museum for a visceral sense of the size of vehicles (large, like the STS OV, or cramped, like a Soyuz capsule).

On thing you don't get from photos is how rough the materials are, in Apollo- and Shuttle-era vehicles -- stenciled ID numbers on thermal tiles on the belly, thermal blankets on the sides, wiring harnesses. Exteriors do not have the fit and finish you might expect from daily interaction with automobiles. You can get the same sense when flying a commercial airliner, if you get a close look by sitting over the wing or boarding from the tarmac -- "wow, that's a lot of rivets and countersunk bolts."

 

[aleske]

Just signed up just to say that I love Stephen's rocket report as much as I loved Eric's

 

[Lexomatic]

Inspiration wasn't NASA-built. It was North American Rockwell's mock-up of what the Shuttle would look like, assembled out of wood and plastic, later used for test-fitting hardware. (I also had to go look it up because it wasn't named until 2012 and I hadn't looked at information about it since then).

Hmm. The news items re: the move from Kennedy to Minnesota are inaccurate in that respect, then.

There's also Pathfinder, which was NASA's test simulator, which is at the US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

I had a vague notion there was another, but it didn't come up in my cursory searches for "space shuttle replicas museums" etc. Thanks for the two corrections, and editing OP now...

 

[EllPeaTea]

Houston is more deserving than Kennedy Space Center, the California Science Center (the closest major museum I know of to Vandenberg), or the National Air & Space Museum? I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that argument, because it's utterly absurd as an unsupported statement.

I don't think Vandenberg is a reason to have a shuttle in California. More significant would be the number of landings at Edwards AFB, plus the orbiters were built by Rockwell in Palmdale, California.

 

[jlredford]

Jonny Kim, a former Navy SEAL, Harvard Medical School graduate, and now a NASA astronaut

Dude, you're making the rest of us look bad!

 

[YetAnotherBoris]

SpaceX's SH booster could as I remember it. I think the number was @ 150 tonne of payload. For now, SS, if it gets past its blow up phase, could be modified to carry heavy payloads and get dumped (as SpaceX does now at times with F9).

SS is nowhere near human rated (again, once it gets past blow up phase), but as a freight hauler, it can be the 18 wheeler for LEO and return or higher if you toss the second stage. Leaving politics and Mars out of this, SH/SS can be/is the solution for getting humans more established in LEO. Maybe use a modified Dragon to carry its full complement while SH/SS lofts space station parts.

If its the moon, using BO New Glenn, FH, and SH/SS to again put moon base parts in orbit around the moon to built a permanent station works for freight then Dragon/Orion/<something else> to get humans to the moon and back. Maybe a modified SS used only for intraspace travel with moon landing capabilities.

I'm just spitballing, but it is clear SLS is a money-pit with no real ROI, so if we really want to gt a more permanent presence on the Moon, it may take some coordination and changing of purpose for some vehicles.

A modified SuperHeavy with a purpose-built expendable second stage, possibly topped with a third stage, and an Orion ESM payload adapter, would be my preferred alternative to the SLS in the mid-term (for Artemis 4+). In addition to the new heavy lift rocket variant, SpaceX would need to build out and crew-rate the pad infrastructure to support crew ingress/evacuation, as well as the necessary GSE umbilicals for the ESM/Orion/LAS stack. I think this should be doable by 2030 or so, for Artemis 4 - if we get started this year.

 

[MLMichael]

SLS isn't any less a waste of limited NASA money just because you hate Musk. It can only launch once in 2 years at a cost of over 2 billion per launch. It serves no practical purpose other than enriching Boeing and some other aerospace contractors.

You don't even have to wait for Starship. Falcon Heavy and New Glenn have already made it redundant. Develop a lunar version of Commercial Crew that flies on those two rockets. Or just put Orion on them.

The only problem with that is that you would need to develop a TLI stage, which would have to rendezvous and dock with Orion in orbit and, obviously, that could not be developed in the next couple of years. If you wanted to do something that would delay the project that much, you might as well shut down SLS/Orion all together and go whole hog on Starship.

 

[The Dark]

Hmm. The news items re: the move from Kennedy to Minnesota are inaccurate in that respect, then.

It ended up being used on the actual program to fit-check parts and make sure cable runs wouldn't interfere with each other, but yeah, originally it was just the "this is what the finished product will look like" showpiece.

I had a vague notion there was another, but it didn't come up in my cursory searches for "space shuttle replicas museums" etc. Thanks for the two corrections, and editing OP now...

I keep half-expecting someone to build another mockup out of some spare parts lying around, like an engine fit test jig or something.

And because I had forgotten about it until being reminded recently - Intrepid got Enterprise because of her legacy as a recovery ship during Mercury and Gemini.

The original decision in 2011 was pretty well documented. Johnson was tied for the second-lowest score out of the 13 museums that were ranked. The Smithsonian flat-out was getting a Shuttle. If any of CSC, KSC, or Intrepid hadn't gotten one, the next choice would have been the National Museum of the US Air Force, then the Museum of Flight (Seattle), and then either Adler Planetarium (Chicago), March Field Air Museum (Riverside, CA), or the San Diego Air and Space Museum. Next on the list was Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, and only then did Houston rank on the table in a tie with the Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium and the US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville.



Former JSC Director Wayne Hale had some thoughts on why Houston didn't deserve a shuttle.

 

[Errum]

Houston is more deserving than Kennedy Space Center, the California Science Center (the closest major museum I know of to Vandenberg), or the National Air & Space Museum? I'd love to hear the reasoning behind that argument, because it's utterly absurd as an unsupported statement.

The current real Shuttle locations are very Eastern US biased, with California as the sole exception. Simply as a matter of public access, Houston would arguably have been a good location.

But that was then. Someone’s desire to reargue the decision isn’t sufficient reason to waste a truly massive amount of money on relocating a Shuttle.

Tell you what, how about they offer free Smithsonian tickets to all visitors from Texas and leave it at that.

 

[PatientZero]

I would ask why, why is China creating this problem not only for themselves but everyone else by doing this but the CPC’s logic and worldview always eludes me.

If you have the time, watch the show Chernobyl on HBO. There's a great scene where Jared Harris, playing Valery Legasov, explains the 20th century Soviet-style way of thinking.

Why is China doing this? Because it's cheaper. That's it. Designing an upper stage that deorbited would cost more money. Cheaper to just let it disintegrate in orbit.

• Valery Legasov: Why? For the same reason our reactors do not have containment buildings around them, like those in the West. For the same reason we don't use properly enriched fuel in our cores. For the same reason we are the only nation that builds water-cooled, graphite-moderated reactors with a positive void coefficient.
• [pause]
• Valery Legasov: It's cheaper.

[Source]

 

[SkyeFire]

For reference, Space Shuttle (STS) Orbiter Vehicles (OV) and complete or partial replicas thereof are currently on display in these locations:

On a tangential note: the Boeing Museum of Flight in Tukwila, WA has the (a?) cabin training mockup for the STS program. Really drives home what a tiny shoebox the habitable volume of an STS was. Also, climbing the ladder from the mid deck to the flight deck is an exercise in mild gymnastics, which is why it's a very guided tour -- they have to prevent the tourists from breaking their ankles.

 

[MLMichael]

ULA's response to getting second place in the new round of national security contracts is interesting. Last time around, they had said that if they didn't get 60% of the contract, they would just take their bat and ball and go home. I rather imagine they are just glad that New Glenn has been so delayed that it has only had one launch and has yet to achieve reusability. I had frankly been expecting New Glenn to be operational by now and, with Falcon, to completely squeeze ULA out of the contract. Of course, those same delays in New Glenn allowed ULA to get that Kuiper contract, which will keep them in business for several more years. Nonetheless, when the next round of major national security contracts rolls around, we can expect New Glenn, Neutron, Nova, and Starship all to be fully operational and certified for such payloads, and even vertical integration will no longer be unique to ULA. I don't see how an expendable rocket will any longer have anything to offer in the space launch market.

 

[EllPeaTea]

ULA's response to getting second place in the new round of national security contracts is interesting. Last time around, they had said that if they didn't get 60% of the contract, they would just take their bat and ball and go home. I rather imagine they are just glad that New Glenn has been so delayed that it has only had one launch and has yet to achieve reusability. I had frankly been expecting New Glenn to be operational by now and, with Falcon, to completely squeeze ULA out of the contract. Of course, those same delays in New Glenn allowed ULA to get that Kuiper contract, which will keep them in business for several more years. Nonetheless, when the next round of major national security contracts rolls around, we can expect New Glenn, Neutron, Nova, and Starship all to be fully operational and certified for such payloads, and even vertical integration will no longer be unique to ULA. I don't see how an expendable rocket will any longer have anything to offer in the space launch market.

Do we know what the price difference between Vulcan and New Glenn is? There's not much point in giving more launches to NG just because it's reusable, and it actually costs more.

 

[wagnerrp]

Well, so it's not a Shuttle, it's a mockup, and Houston is far more deserving of having an actual Shuttle Orbiter than other places where they were put. And if your standard form of political discourse is to spout calumnous ad hominems rather than make reasoned arguments, you probably don't persuade many people to your point of view.

Deserving? Such entitled thinking is unbecoming. If you’re going to visit NASA, you’re going to Florida, so a Florida gets one. The Smithsonian is the country’s preeminent museum, so DC gets one. In terms of outreach, and making things available to the most people, the west coast gets one, and LA is as good a place as anywhere else. That leaves one more, and again, this is for outreach. There’s a case to be made about a centrally located Orbiter in Houston, especially with one already in DC, but New York sees significantly more tourism, especially international tourism.