Boeing Building Space Shuttle Replacement


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As NASA's space shuttle fleet draws close to retirement, aerospace juggernaut Boeing is hard at work developing a new capsule-based spaceship to fly people to and from the International Space Station.

The new Boeing space capsule is a project using the company's recent $18 million award from NASA to advance the concepts and technology necessary to build a commercial crew space transportation system. It is one of several efforts by different U.S. companies to come with new spaceships to fill the void left by NASA's retiring shuttles.

And so far, things have been progressing right on schedule, said Keith Reiley, Boeing's Commercial Crew Development Program Manager.

At the heart of Boeing's new spaceship design is the CST-100 capsule, which will look similar to the cone-shaped Apollo and Orion spacecraft.

The capsule is being built for short missions to the space station, meaning it will not be designed to stay in space for long periods of time.

While NASA has outlined a launch target for 2016, the new capsule could be rolled out sooner than expected.

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What, exactly, does this offer us in terms of capabilities beyond what the shuttles have had?

The capsule looks smaller, seems to be less capable of extended duration missions, definitely doesn't have the capacity to ferry large cargo components into space, can't retrieve and repair large objects like the shuttle... Why should we spend money on something that doesn't quite replace the current shuttles?

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A space programme is a money sink. Only a few niceties for the people come out of it... like the microwaves. However, one day, it may save the humanity if the Earth becomes too small for us, for example, or something along the lines of a doom's day :)

On a macro level, it helps the economy and keeps whole industries afloat :)

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A space programme is a money sink. Only a few niceties for the people come out of it... like the microwaves. However, one day, it may save the humanity if the Earth becomes too small for us, for example, or something along the lines of a doom's day :)

On a macro level, it helps the economy and keeps whole industries afloat :)

I understand spending money for the sake of keeping funds moving, but I just can't help wondering why this is the best we can do. Here we are in 2010, planning to build something that won't see the light of day for at least six years, and unable to better a machine built thirty years ago.

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I understand spending money for the sake of keeping funds moving, but I just can't help wondering why this is the best we can do. Here we are in 2010, planning to build something that won't see the light of day for at least six years, and unable to better a machine built thirty years ago.

I agree. There seems to be a lack of creativity or innovation in the space industry. Then again, I'm not sure what the goals are here. For cheap, reliable, and reusable shuttles to and from the space station these may be perfect. Also, $18 million didn't strike me as a lot of money for a project like this. Maybe Boeing is using these funds from NASA together with their own investments?

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I agree. There seems to be a lack of creativity or innovation in the space industry. Then again, I'm not sure what the goals are here. For cheap, reliable, and reusable shuttles to and from the space station these may be perfect. Also, $18 million didn't strike me as a lot of money for a project like this. Maybe Boeing is using these funds from NASA together with their own investments?

It might be cheap, but consider that it doesn't do much - certainly it pales in comparison to the shuttles that we are retiring. I think the US is suffering from a fear of sinking too much money into a long-term project that may or may not pan out. Politicians don't want to be associated with large bills, given the current economic situation and the media backlash following the Columbia incident. Unfortunately, the public doesn't hear much about the successes of space exploration relative to its failures, and I think this distorts our ability to make rational, long-term plans.

I expect that in 20 or 30 years, the US space program will be eclipsed by Russia, China, the EU, Japan, and India. There won't be any impetus for further advancements for at least that long; one excuse being that we have this vehicle, and the other being that any abilities not provided by this can be had by renting them from some other country.

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A space programme is a money sink. Only a few niceties for the people come out of it... like the microwaves. However, one day, it may save the humanity if the Earth becomes too small for us, for example, or something along the lines of a doom's day :)

On a macro level, it helps the economy and keeps whole industries afloat :)

the space program has generated MUCH more benefits than just "a few niceties" for the rest of society.

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A space programme is a money sink. Only a few niceties for the people come out of it... like the microwaves. However, one day, it may save the humanity if the Earth becomes too small for us, for example, or something along the lines of a doom's day :)

On a macro level, it helps the economy and keeps whole industries afloat :)

Actually a lot of research and new technology relies on the MicroGee research done on the ISS

As for the capsule itself, it doesn't need to hold cargo, since stuff like new ISS modules, will like this capsule this be house in an external shell and placed on top of a regular rocket.

Afterall the reason for these thigns is that they are cheaper to use the the space shuttle. even the shuttle is more reusable.

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The government wants the private sector to take over the design and launch of space vehicles and it's probably a good idea. They can do it better and cheaper and will definitely keep us ahead of the EU, china, india, etc. Just because the government isn't in the shuttle launch business anymore doesn't mean we aren't still progressing forward.

Just remember, private industry can do things better and cheaper, so let's encourage this kind of development.

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Hmm the problem is there is a company thats ahead of them already. Spacex might just get a working one out before them since they already sent the rocket thhat will carry their capsule to orbit.

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Hmm the problem is there is a company thats ahead of them already. Spacex might just get a working one out before them since they already sent the rocket thhat will carry their capsule to orbit.

Competition is great ;-)

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It's certainly not as eloquent of a solution as the space shuttle but if it gets up there and back in one piece it will have done it's job.

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I thought we were going back to the moon :blink: guess that has been tossed aside?

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I'm guessing that this is probably going to be used on top of one of those multi-stage rockets like the canned constellation program, right? That style of a rocket lifts the most amount of weight for the least money possible.

An idea I had, was that what if we would park a couple vehicles on the space station that would allow us to move around more freely in space. Keep in mind that these vehicles wouldn't return to earth. Then just use a small capsule like this to get into space to begin with. This way you could limit the amount of weight that we need to life to begin with.

I do think that it was a mistake to scrap the moon missions. They made a lot of sense if you thought about it. We would test constructing a colony someplace a lot closer to home.

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I'm guessing that this is probably going to be used on top of one of those multi-stage rockets like the canned constellation program, right? That style of a rocket lifts the most amount of weight for the least money possible.

An idea I had, was that what if we would park a couple vehicles on the space station that would allow us to move around more freely in space. Keep in mind that these vehicles wouldn't return to earth. Then just use a small capsule like this to get into space to begin with. This way you could limit the amount of weight that we need to life to begin with.

I do think that it was a mistake to scrap the moon missions. They made a lot of sense if you thought about it. We would test constructing a colony someplace a lot closer to home.

That is a solid idea and will probably happen in the future, I don't think we're there yet though. We do have the ability to build a nuclear powered ship that would remain in space. They do it with aircraft carriers and submarines, so I don't think it would be hugely difficult. Just build it in pieces and assemble it in space like they did with the ISS. Also, with a nuclear powered ship, who knows how fast it could go, I assume quite fast though. The real problem would be what to do with it once it was built, they would need support shuttles to actually land on the moon or Mars or any other rock.

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I thought we were going back to the moon :blink: guess that has been tossed aside?

Obama scrapped that program a while ago. :(

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  • 1 year later...

Boeing just released an animation of their CST-100 system -

So we are basically going backward to the same way that was used to be in the 1960's Apollo program? I thought that NASA was developing the next generation transportation aircraft that will use a new way to go to space.

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About the same as on the shuttles I believe O.o It's just booster stages.

Why are you Americans so in love with the shuttles? (I'm asking seriously)

The pods seem to be far more efficient and to cause less problems. The Russians have been using them for ages.

I'm just curious >.<

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that's a lot of discarded parts -.-

Agreed! the only thing left is the small capsule on the end, the rest just turns into space junk!

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So we are basically going backward to the same way that was used to be in the 1960's Apollo program? I thought that NASA was developing the next generation transportation aircraft that will use a new way to go to space.

"Backwards" isn't bad if they got it right the first time.

You no doubt are expecting a spaceplane like the shuttle? There are reasons NOT to go with spaceplanes -

1) You don't need wings and a fuselage in space, and in fact they are detrimental because every extra kilogram they weigh is a kilogram less cargo and crew you can carry to orbit, and that extra weight costs several thousand dollars per kilogram to launch.

Example is the Shuttle; you had to launch >80 metric tons of spaceplane to get 7 people and 25 metric tons of cargo up at a cost of $1.5 billion a pop. This could be done using separate capsule and a cargo launchers for less than 1/4 the cost.

2) Geometry 101: the greatest volumetric efficiency (volume vs. surface area) is that of a sphere, semi-sphere (Soyuz, SpaceX's Dragon, Blue Origin's crew vehicle) or a segment of a sphere, like a cone (CST-100, NASA's MPCV (nee' Orion). This results in simplicity and the lightest structure - see #1.

3) A conical or semi-spherical spacecraft is, once properly aligned, self-stabilizing on re-entry. A spaceplane isn't. See Columbia when its wings failed.

there are only two things favoring a spaceplane -

1) they can land on a conventional runway

2) they have a large cross-range capability, meaning they can land a few hundred kilometers on either side of their orbital track. This makes them ideal for use as a rescue vehicle because they could land at an airport near a hospital.

A non-functional reason is that they look sleek and make for nice PR, targeted at folks that don't understand spacecraft design.

These reasons are why Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser spaceplane is under serious consideration. It started as a NASA project called HL-20, got canceled, then was picked up by private concerns.

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The space shuttle was the work horse of the ISS project ... you cant transport 40K lbs in a pod ... ;)

This is true.

In the same way a C-17 is used to transport tanks.. Do you think you need one for moving paperwork around? >.<

You are entirely correct, my point sounds a little mean but it's not really. Horse for courses as it were. Pods for people and shuttles for parts?

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Agreed! the only thing left is the small capsule on the end, the rest just turns into space junk!

Not really. The first stage falls in the ocean as it hasn't achieved orbital velocity, and the interstage (between first & second stages) is carbon fiber which also falls. The second stage is usually in a low enough orbit that it burns up in a couple weeks. Also: by international agreement designs are evolving so that stray bits are much rarer than before. Part of this will be recoverable and partly reusable first stages, something SpaceX has as a long term goal.

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