Actually Hubble was put into space by a (mostly) reusable system the space shuttle STS-31. That was about 30 years ago.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9
Starship looks a lot like Shuttle 2.0 to me. Except the landing is somehow even more terrifying.
As far as I can tell the idea with Starship is to design a vehicle that can survive losing a few tiles because that’s inevitable.
It's easy to attribute political reasons to whatever Congress does, because Congress is filled with politicians. But members have other motives too, and private businesses, despite the hype, have plenty of corrupt and political motives - throwing contracts to allies and friends, undermining enemies, etc. - though they are far less transparent and are unchecked by the public or other institutions.
which references
https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1156294287245660160
Quote:
> Digging through some old notes. Found this quote from a few years ago from a senior academic engineering source at the time.
> "Senator Shelby called NASA and said if he hears one more word about propellant depots he’s going to cancel the space technology program."
Aren't we supposed to start by considering the accuracy of the information?
So yeah the Falcon is an improvement and I'm sure will be better one day, but the Space Shuttle was a huge achievement for its time, and as of today there is no lift system that can match it for both capacity and reusability.
Sigh. Where did you get that number? Wikipedia lists 27,500 kg to LEO, but according to Guinness
"With a mass of 22,753 kg (50,161 lb), Chandra X-ray Observatory telescope launched on 23 July 1999 is the heaviest satellite the shuttle has ever launched."
And I suspect that if the flight required abort and won't reach orbit, the shuttle would have out-of-specification loads at landing, as the payload mass which is safe for landing is less than that.
From NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/pdf/584722main_Wings-ch...
Agree.
> as of today there is no lift system that can match it for both capacity and reusability
Disagree. Falcon Heavy lifts higher payloads - you don't count the orbiter mass itself, do you, just like you don't count the mass of the last stage which actually gets to LEO, right?
Reusability was also lacking. SSME was made by Rocketdyne, not Pratt and Whitney, who had somewhat better hydrogen technology, so after each flight SSME had to be disassembled, tested and parts nearing faults (e.g. turbines) had to be replaced. The first stage modules, which dropped to the ocean, had to be cleaned from the sea water, which also isn't an easy rinsing. And of course thermal protection tiles had to be inspected and the broken ones replaced. X-37 is way better here.
For example your standard AA/AAA batteries are much cheaper if they are one time use than reusable [1]
Reuse may be desirable in a product for environmental impact, turn around time, security or many other concerns.
Shuttle was mostly reusable even the booster components , not cheaply but reusable nonetheless.
[1] it is a crude example, overall cost being more expensive, TCO per cycle will be cheaper for rechargable batteries