A-10 in WWII??

"John Mullen" wrote in message ...
"Steve Hix" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Kristan Roberge wrote:

As to Challenger, my understanding of post accident
investigations were that the crew were pretty much
all recovered together, and still strapped to their seats
in the cabin, and that they may have still been alive
post explosion (though unconscious). An ejection
seat system that could have blown them clear
of the crew compartment in such a major system failure would possible
have been useful.

So much for any useful payload...

Yeah, seven ejector seats would not have worked.

On the other hand, it is mind-boggling that they had not even given any
thought to the possibility of abandoning it in flight...

It is at least possible that simple parachutes and a bail-out pole might
have saved them, such as are now installed.

John

The US had a series of clamshell ejection seats for the B58 Hustler,
XB70 Valkyrie and X15 that could handle Mach 5.5. They worked to.
Plans for even more capable ejection seats based on this series were
afoot. Surely these would have saved the crew?

The Gemini Style ejection seats of the Gemini Capsule and SR71 handled
in excess of Mach 3.

The EGRESS system based on these clamshell seats added a heat shield
to the rear and was capable fo full re-entry from orbit. It is
difficult to imagine the seat not managing most situations except a
very rapid disintegration.

This is EGRESS:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/egress.htm

http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/rescue.htm

The lack of ejections seats on the shuttle was purely an economic one:
it allowed either more crew or more payload.

"David E. Powell" wrote in message
s.com...

(snip)

Well, that was one, unmanned flight. Vs. numerous ones in shuttles that
aged
over time, flew in different weather conditions, etc.

Challenger was done in partly by low temperature at launch, and the foam
that hit Columbia came off the external tank, Buran also has an external
booster unit in a similar location, strapped to the belly. Both accidents
happened after numerous successes. One cannot know Buran's true odds as
one
for one is 100 percent. Like a batter hitting 1000 after two at bats, will
he still be batting 1000 at the middle of the season?

Challenger was killed by a SRB letting go. Buran-Energia had no SRB's.

Columbia was killed by foam insulation falling off an ET and hitting a wing.
I do not think this could happen in the Buran-Energia setup, looking at how
they are oriented.

STS ~100 manned flights, two total losses, 14 deaths.

A hair over a 98% success rate, a bit better than Soyuz (Which also
had 2 fatal flights, with 100% crew loss on each, (But smaller crews),
and several launch aborts. And a number of nasty landing incidents.

Really? I cannot easily find a total for the number of Soyuz missions
but
feel sure it must be way over the 100-odd of the STS. Do you have better
figures?

Well there was that time one decompressed while still at very high
altitude
during a landing. Not sure about others, but then again there are still
rumors that not all the Soviet era space stuff has come out as yet,
accidents, etc.

AFAIK there were only the two well-documented Soyuz losses, one
decompression and one parachute failure. All the Soviet era accidents can be
safely assumed to have come out I would say.

And to me the survivable aborts are an indication of the robustness of
the
1960s design. The people on Challenger would have loved a surviveable
abort
system. The people on Columbia would have loved merely to have suffered
a
nasty landing incident.

Well nobody ever flew on Buran to find out I guess. As for Challenger, any
survivable system under those circumstances, or in Columbia's
disintegration, would have had to be a heck of a system. The forces
involved
in both cases were literally unimaginable. I am not sure if Buran could
have
survived either disaster, or how she could have fared with her own
mechanics
over time. Nobody can know that, I suppose.

As I have said above, I do not think Buran would have been susceptible to
either disaster in the first place.

Both were consequences of the poor design of the STS in the first place, and
of breathtaking complacency within NASA about safety.

Columbia's loss was from such a hit that I cannot be sure if any wing
built
could have survived, with that kind of glide path and loss of heat
shielding. Is there any information on what Buran's heating
characteristics
and glide path were intended to be, or recorded as during her flight?

(snip)

I am certain they were fine peices of equipment, but I would run one down
at
the expense of the other. Energia is a fine piece of equipment - do they
still make them? Be the thing to get a Mars craft up there to orbit for
assembly.

It certainly would. AFAIK they are finished like the Buran.

John

"John Mullen" wrote in message
...
"David E. Powell" wrote in message
s.com...

(snip)

Well, that was one, unmanned flight. Vs. numerous ones in shuttles that
aged
over time, flew in different weather conditions, etc.

Challenger was done in partly by low temperature at launch, and the foam
that hit Columbia came off the external tank, Buran also has an
external
booster unit in a similar location, strapped to the belly. Both
accidents
happened after numerous successes. One cannot know Buran's true odds as
one
for one is 100 percent. Like a batter hitting 1000 after two at bats,
will
he still be batting 1000 at the middle of the season?

Challenger was killed by a SRB letting go. Buran-Energia had no SRB's.

Sir, Energia was a gigantic booster. Solid or liquid there is room for error
in each.

Columbia was killed by foam insulation falling off an ET and hitting a
wing.
I do not think this could happen in the Buran-Energia setup, looking at
how
they are oriented.

How so? I felt they were more or less similar, shuttle riding the
booster/fuel section, the Energia for Buran and the SRBs/Tank for the NASA
shuttle.

STS ~100 manned flights, two total losses, 14 deaths.

A hair over a 98% success rate, a bit better than Soyuz (Which also
had 2 fatal flights, with 100% crew loss on each, (But smaller
crews),
and several launch aborts. And a number of nasty landing incidents.

Really? I cannot easily find a total for the number of Soyuz missions
but
feel sure it must be way over the 100-odd of the STS. Do you have
better
figures?

Well there was that time one decompressed while still at very high
altitude
during a landing. Not sure about others, but then again there are still
rumors that not all the Soviet era space stuff has come out as yet,
accidents, etc.

AFAIK there were only the two well-documented Soyuz losses, one
decompression and one parachute failure. All the Soviet era accidents can
be
safely assumed to have come out I would say.

There is still the contorversy over whether another fellow went up before
Gagarin, though....

And to me the survivable aborts are an indication of the robustness of
the
1960s design. The people on Challenger would have loved a surviveable
abort
system. The people on Columbia would have loved merely to have
suffered
a
nasty landing incident.

Well nobody ever flew on Buran to find out I guess. As for Challenger,
any
survivable system under those circumstances, or in Columbia's
disintegration, would have had to be a heck of a system. The forces
involved
in both cases were literally unimaginable. I am not sure if Buran could
have
survived either disaster, or how she could have fared with her own
mechanics
over time. Nobody can know that, I suppose.

As I have said above, I do not think Buran would have been susceptible to
either disaster in the first place.

You are entitled to your opinion, but if there was some sort of insulator on
sections of Energia, and if the tank on Energia contained fuel and booster
units, the possibility IMO exosted for failures simply because similar
things were present. The composition of the foam and performance under
different conditions and the performance of Energia may not have as much
available data as those of the shuttle, and the question of possible
failures in Buran over time are hard to plot out from the one flight. I do
hope it was a sound ship, it is just toguh to look at it all now compared to
another system's record over years of flights, reuse cycles, weather
conditions, foam changes, etc.

Both were consequences of the poor design of the STS in the first place,
and
of breathtaking complacency within NASA about safety.

The foam thing really gets me, I cannot see the reason it was changed if the
old foam was fine. I know the envoronment matters, but the science being
dealt with is also important, and the tank either orbits or burns up in the
high atmosphere anyway.

Columbia's loss was from such a hit that I cannot be sure if any wing
built
could have survived, with that kind of glide path and loss of heat
shielding. Is there any information on what Buran's heating
characteristics
and glide path were intended to be, or recorded as during her flight?

(snip)

I am certain they were fine peices of equipment, but I would run one
down
at
the expense of the other. Energia is a fine piece of equipment - do they
still make them? Be the thing to get a Mars craft up there to orbit for
assembly.

It certainly would. AFAIK they are finished like the Buran.

That's sad. In the early 1990s I recall hearing mention of their possible
use a space station or large vessel component boosters. Very powerful
rocket....

John

Sorry for taking so long, but I was lining up some ducks...

In article ,
"John Mullen" writes:
"Peter Stickney" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"John Mullen" writes:
"Emilio" wrote in message
...
Actually they admitted they copied the US Shuttle.

More I think about Buran, it is clear that the politician who decided
to
"copy" the shuttle and not the engineers. Russian industry simply was
not
setup to produce space qualified $20 nuts and bolts like we do. If
they
made special run to make such nuts and bolts it would have cost them
$100
a
peace. Buran must have been reengineered to be able for them to build
it
there. That's a problem though. It's going to get heavier than a US
shuttle. Reentry and flight parameters will no longer be the same do
to
added weight. It's amazing that they made it to work in the first
place.

Actually, it was a superior design to the STS it was copied from.
Heavier
payload, more crew space and less rinky-dink stuff to blow up like the
ET
and the SRBs.

Just teh Big Honkin' booster it was hooked to. Both configurations
have their advantages, and their risks.

I can't think of any advantages to the STS's layout. What did you mean here?

Just off the top of my head - better alignment of teh Main Engine's
thrust lines with the CG of the entire stack. This gives you less
problems with control, and more tolerance of off-normal
conditions. (Such as losing a Main Engine - it's happened once on STS)
Concentration of teh Guidance & COntrol systems in a single,
integrated system, rather than having two independant systems that
have to try to talk to each other. Keeping the expensive, reusable
bits in one place, and throwing away the cheap stuff. (As it turns
out, this didn't work out as well as originally expected - rather than
a clear advantage wrt reusing STS SSMEs vs. the Energia's cheaper,
(but still not cheap) expendables, it seems to be pretty much of a
wash.


Well, the Astronauts never flew it. That tells you something.

Buran: 1 unmanned flight, total success.

Not a total success - teh flight article was structurally damaged on
re-entry. I don't know if repair was possible.

That is news to me. See for example:

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/buran.htm

Mark Wade quote excized

Could you be mistaken? Or is this fairly new info? If the latter, I would be
interested in knowing your source.

No, I'm not mistaken. It's not new info, although teh (then) Soviets
weren't too big on publishing it. There are various sources, but the
best place to go, if you can read Russian, is the Official Buran
site:
Http://www.buran.ru/

Even if you don't read Russian, here are some post-flight images of
Buran:

http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle01.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle02.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle03.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle04.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle05.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle06.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle07.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle08.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle09.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle10.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle11.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle12.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle13.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle14.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle15.jpg

While most of them are pretty ordinary - some damage occurs on any
flight, pay special attention to image 15. That's a breach of teh
wing structure, caused by poor joints between the Carbon-Carbon
Leading Edge and the Ceramic Tiles that cover most of the wing skin.
The Russians were fairly coy about the internal damage, but from the
scarring and marks left by hte exiting material, it wasn't trivial.
At best, you're talking about rebuilding/replacing the wing. At
worst, it goes to Monino and you fly the #2 flight article. Thay're
lucky that it occurred out toward the wingtip. If it had been where
the chine & the wing come together, where the shock impingement from
the bow shock occurs, (And where Columbia's damage occurred), it would
have been much, much worse.


STS ~100 manned flights, two total losses, 14 deaths.

A hair over a 98% success rate, a bit better than Soyuz (Which also
had 2 fatal flights, with 100% crew loss on each, (But smaller crews),
and several launch aborts. And a number of nasty landing incidents.

Really? I cannot easily find a total for the number of Soyuz missions but
feel sure it must be way over the 100-odd of the STS. Do you have better
figures?

Currently, the number is 90 Soyuz flights, and 112 Shuttle flights.
http://space.kursknet.ru/cosmos/english/main.sht hads been keeping a
running total, valid through late May, 2004. (no flights since then)

And to me the survivable aborts are an indication of the robustness of the
1960s design. The people on Challenger would have loved a surviveable abort
system. The people on Columbia would have loved merely to have suffered a
nasty landing incident.

They're not really relevant - every vehicle, from a Skateboard to a
Shuttle, has failure modes which are not survivable. If the aborts
had taken place at a slightly different time, or the reentry and
landing incidents, like the time a Soyuz Service Module didn't detach
after retrofire, causing the Soyusz to reenter not heatshield first,
but Aluminum hatch cover first (The SM burned away, allowing the
spacecraft to reorient itself before the crew was lost), and the
guidance problems that have caused some reentries to occur hundreds
of miles off from their targets could very easily have been much worse.

Aviation, and especially Spaceflight, is all about tradeoffs. What
sorts of system could have been aboard Challenger that would have
extended the survival envelope significantly, and wouldn't have been a
hazard during most of the flight? And which wouldnt' require some
compromise of the stucture? What system could possible have turned
Columbia's loss to a nasty landing incident? I don't see any systems
that would allow a successful bailout at Mach 25/200,000'. (You
could, I suppose, postulate something like MOOSE, but that's only
useful before the retro burn occurs)


(I never mentioned Soyuz btw!)

Whenever the "Two Accidents, 100% crew loss" line comes up, a
comparison with Soyuz reliability is not far behind. There's no
reasonable comparison to anything else, after all. Buran made 1
limited flight, got broken, although the full extent still isn't
known, during that flight, and sat in the assemble building until the
building collapsed on it.

There's no objective indication that the expendable Soyuz capsule is
any safer than the STS.

Er.. how about the fact that the STS is currently grounded for safety
improvements after the last fatal crash? Leaving Soyuz as the world's only
manned orbital vehicle, other than the Chinese and maybe Bert Rutan!

That's not objective, it's subjective.
Because the Russians, (and for that matter, us) are willing to accept
the risks that flying Soyuz right now represent. That doesn't make it
risk-free. Anytime you fly anything, whether it's a kite or a 747
with 500 people aboard, or a spacecraft, you run the risk of a fatal
crash. If you fly something enough, it becomes pretty much certain
that you'll crash it. To a large extent, it's a question of whether
the risk is perceived to be sufficiently minimized. Here in the U.S.,
we see that there are steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of
Shuttle flights, and we'er willing to take the time to implement
them. I don't think there's a lot that you can do to make a Soyuz
less risky. (Which does not make it risk free).

As for Burt Rutan, please don't make the mistake that SpaceShipOne is
the harbinger of entry into orbit. It's not. The design is very
heavily optimized for a single, very limited goal - getting an X-prize
equivalent mass to 100 km altitude. The peak Mach Numbers for SS1 are
down around Mach 2, the materials are all conventional, and the
"shuttlecock" re-entry profile isn't going to hack Mach 25. Don't get
me wrong, it's an excellent achievment, but useful Space Travel it
isn't.


I'd say the Russians realised they had no need of a shuttle and quit
while
they were ahead.

More like they couldn't afford it. Both Buran and Energia (The
booster)

Well sure. It is true that their country did collapse during the devlopment
of the Buran and Energia projects, leading to their cancellation. My point
was that this wasn't because they were inferior kit, quite the contrary.

But there also isn't enough sample size to claim with any validity
that it was superior, either.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

"Peter Stickney" wrote in message
...

Sorry for taking so long, but I was lining up some ducks...

(snip)

I can't think of any advantages to the STS's layout. What did you mean
here?

Just off the top of my head - better alignment of teh Main Engine's
thrust lines with the CG of the entire stack. This gives you less
problems with control, and more tolerance of off-normal
conditions. (Such as losing a Main Engine - it's happened once on STS)

The Buran didn't have Main Engines on the Shuttle. One of its major
advantages to me, not having all that plumbing to the ET...

Concentration of teh Guidance & COntrol systems in a single,
integrated system, rather than having two independant systems that
have to try to talk to each other. Keeping the expensive, reusable
bits in one place, and throwing away the cheap stuff. (As it turns
out, this didn't work out as well as originally expected - rather than
a clear advantage wrt reusing STS SSMEs vs. the Energia's cheaper,
(but still not cheap) expendables, it seems to be pretty much of a
wash.

Exactly. Although the original concept of the STS being a reuseable vehicle
was excellent, the compromises made during the design process (many at the
behest of the DoD) negated them almost entirely.


Well, the Astronauts never flew it. That tells you something.

Buran: 1 unmanned flight, total success.

Not a total success - teh flight article was structurally damaged on
re-entry. I don't know if repair was possible.

That is news to me. See for example:

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/buran.htm

Mark Wade quote excized

Could you be mistaken? Or is this fairly new info? If the latter, I
would be
interested in knowing your source.

No, I'm not mistaken. It's not new info, although teh (then) Soviets
weren't too big on publishing it. There are various sources, but the
best place to go, if you can read Russian, is the Official Buran
site:
Http://www.buran.ru/

Even if you don't read Russian, here are some post-flight images of
Buran:

http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle01.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle02.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle03.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle04.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle05.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle06.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle07.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle08.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle09.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle10.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle11.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle12.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle13.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle14.jpg
http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/posle15.jpg

While most of them are pretty ordinary - some damage occurs on any
flight, pay special attention to image 15. That's a breach of teh
wing structure, caused by poor joints between the Carbon-Carbon
Leading Edge and the Ceramic Tiles that cover most of the wing skin.
The Russians were fairly coy about the internal damage, but from the
scarring and marks left by hte exiting material, it wasn't trivial.
At best, you're talking about rebuilding/replacing the wing. At
worst, it goes to Monino and you fly the #2 flight article. Thay're
lucky that it occurred out toward the wingtip. If it had been where
the chine & the wing come together, where the shock impingement from
the bow shock occurs, (And where Columbia's damage occurred), it would
have been much, much worse.

Interesting.


STS ~100 manned flights, two total losses, 14 deaths.

A hair over a 98% success rate, a bit better than Soyuz (Which also
had 2 fatal flights, with 100% crew loss on each, (But smaller crews),
and several launch aborts. And a number of nasty landing incidents.

Really? I cannot easily find a total for the number of Soyuz missions
but
feel sure it must be way over the 100-odd of the STS. Do you have better
figures?

Currently, the number is 90 Soyuz flights, and 112 Shuttle flights.
http://space.kursknet.ru/cosmos/english/main.sht hads been keeping a
running total, valid through late May, 2004. (no flights since then)

And to me the survivable aborts are an indication of the robustness of
the
1960s design. The people on Challenger would have loved a surviveable
abort
system. The people on Columbia would have loved merely to have suffered
a
nasty landing incident.

They're not really relevant - every vehicle, from a Skateboard to a
Shuttle, has failure modes which are not survivable. If the aborts
had taken place at a slightly different time, or the reentry and
landing incidents, like the time a Soyuz Service Module didn't detach
after retrofire, causing the Soyusz to reenter not heatshield first,
but Aluminum hatch cover first (The SM burned away, allowing the
spacecraft to reorient itself before the crew was lost), and the
guidance problems that have caused some reentries to occur hundreds
of miles off from their targets could very easily have been much worse.

Aviation, and especially Spaceflight, is all about tradeoffs. What
sorts of system could have been aboard Challenger that would have
extended the survival envelope significantly, and wouldn't have been a
hazard during most of the flight?

Simple. A parachute for each crew member and a bail out pole, as they fitted
post-Challenger, might have at least given them a sporting chance.

And which wouldnt' require some
compromise of the stucture? What system could possible have turned
Columbia's loss to a nasty landing incident? I don't see any systems
that would allow a successful bailout at Mach 25/200,000'. (You
could, I suppose, postulate something like MOOSE, but that's only
useful before the retro burn occurs)


(I never mentioned Soyuz btw!)

Whenever the "Two Accidents, 100% crew loss" line comes up, a
comparison with Soyuz reliability is not far behind. There's no
reasonable comparison to anything else, after all. Buran made 1
limited flight, got broken, although the full extent still isn't
known, during that flight, and sat in the assemble building until the
building collapsed on it.

There's no objective indication that the expendable Soyuz capsule is
any safer than the STS.

Er.. how about the fact that the STS is currently grounded for safety
improvements after the last fatal crash? Leaving Soyuz as the world's
only
manned orbital vehicle, other than the Chinese and maybe Bert Rutan!

That's not objective, it's subjective.
Because the Russians, (and for that matter, us) are willing to accept
the risks that flying Soyuz right now represent. That doesn't make it
risk-free. Anytime you fly anything, whether it's a kite or a 747
with 500 people aboard, or a spacecraft, you run the risk of a fatal
crash. If you fly something enough, it becomes pretty much certain
that you'll crash it. To a large extent, it's a question of whether
the risk is perceived to be sufficiently minimized. Here in the U.S.,
we see that there are steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of
Shuttle flights, and we'er willing to take the time to implement
them. I don't think there's a lot that you can do to make a Soyuz
less risky. (Which does not make it risk free).

Granted.

As for Burt Rutan, please don't make the mistake that SpaceShipOne is
the harbinger of entry into orbit. It's not. The design is very
heavily optimized for a single, very limited goal - getting an X-prize
equivalent mass to 100 km altitude. The peak Mach Numbers for SS1 are
down around Mach 2, the materials are all conventional, and the
"shuttlecock" re-entry profile isn't going to hack Mach 25. Don't get
me wrong, it's an excellent achievment, but useful Space Travel it
isn't.

I still think it is a very good step in the right direction. Waiting with
bated breath...


I'd say the Russians realised they had no need of a shuttle and quit
while
they were ahead.

More like they couldn't afford it. Both Buran and Energia (The
booster)

Well sure. It is true that their country did collapse during the
devlopment
of the Buran and Energia projects, leading to their cancellation. My
point
was that this wasn't because they were inferior kit, quite the contrary.

But there also isn't enough sample size to claim with any validity
that it was superior, either.

No. I still think though that is was a shame it wasn't persevered with.

John

In article ,
"John Mullen" writes:
"Peter Stickney" wrote in message
...

Sorry for taking so long, but I was lining up some ducks...

(snip)

I can't think of any advantages to the STS's layout. What did you mean
here?

Just off the top of my head - better alignment of the Main Engine's
thrust lines with the CG of the entire stack. This gives you less
problems with control, and more tolerance of off-normal
conditions. (Such as losing a Main Engine - it's happened once on STS)

The Buran didn't have Main Engines on the Shuttle. One of its major
advantages to me, not having all that plumbing to the ET...

You asked what advantages there were for the STS layout over the
Bura/Energia. To be more explicit, the STS's placement of the main
engines in the Orbiter give a superior thrust line through the CG of
teh stack as a whole, leading to teh advantages in control and
tolerance of failure. The Energia setup, with the Main Engines on
what is essentially the external tank section of teh stack, has the
advantage in terms of operational flexibility - you can use an Energia
stack to launch something other than Buran, for a cargo-only flight.
The problem is that Energia's cargo is still parallel staged,
(side-by-side), and the problems of guidance & control of the stack,
and tolerance of failures remain. While teh plumbing of teh external
tank to the Shuttle is a bit complicated, it hasn't been much of a
factor wrt flying the Shuttle. It could probably benefit from some of
the Russian's rather better crygenic plumbing connectors, though.


Concentration of the Guidance & Control systems in a single,
integrated system, rather than having two independant systems that
have to try to talk to each other. Keeping the expensive, reusable
bits in one place, and throwing away the cheap stuff. (As it turns
out, this didn't work out as well as originally expected - rather than
a clear advantage wrt reusing STS SSMEs vs. the Energia's cheaper,
(but still not cheap) expendables, it seems to be pretty much of a
wash.

Exactly. Although the original concept of the STS being a reuseable vehicle
was excellent, the compromises made during the design process (many at the
behest of the DoD) negated them almost entirely.

The biggest problems with Shuttle reusibilit costs weren't physical,
but people/management/the economy in general - Labor costs in the
1970s skyrocketed, and that put the overhead costs of teh refit &
refurbish cycle through the roof.


They're not really relevant - every vehicle, from a Skateboard to a
Shuttle, has failure modes which are not survivable. If the aborts
had taken place at a slightly different time, or the reentry and
landing incidents, like the time a Soyuz Service Module didn't detach
after retrofire, causing the Soyusz to reenter not heatshield first,
but Aluminum hatch cover first (The SM burned away, allowing the
spacecraft to reorient itself before the crew was lost), and the
guidance problems that have caused some reentries to occur hundreds
of miles off from their targets could very easily have been much worse.

Aviation, and especially Spaceflight, is all about tradeoffs. What
sorts of system could have been aboard Challenger that would have
extended the survival envelope significantly, and wouldn't have been a
hazard during most of the flight?

Simple. A parachute for each crew member and a bail out pole, as they fitted
post-Challenger, might have at least given them a sporting chance.

I rather doubt it. bailing out from a Shuttle, or any large airplane,
such as a KC-135, requires the the aircraft be in steady, stable
flight - not a piece of wreckage tumbling through the sky at more than
Mach 3. Then you've got the problems that come from jumping above
50,000' (Note that the Challenger's cabin section's trajectory peaked
somewhere around 100,000' - anybody jumping would follow the same
tarajectory fairly closely - there isn't much drag up there.) Any
escape mechanism used in the region where teh Challenger's loss
occurred has to provide Pressure, Oxygen, protection from the cold -
Jumping at 50,000' and free-falling means that you'll most likely
freexe to death in short order - and protection from the prepellant
residues of the boost motors, which are extremely corrosive. Ejection
seats don't add much in the way of a _usable_ escape envelope, and add
in all the dangers that accompany hot seats in airplanes - the risks
of catastrophe due to inadvertantly activating a seat - not just the
big things like, say, blowing a section of the cabin roof off with
Primacord in orbit, but if setting off pyros & such in the cabin
atmosphere, would increase teh overall danger. Capsules would, at a
great penalty in wieht and structure, extend the envelope a bit
further, but no much - the big problem with ejecting much
higher/faster than Challenger was going when the breakup occurred is
that the deceleration incurred on an unmodified ballistic trajectory
are on teh order of 50-60Gs, and aren't survivable. Adding the
ability to change the trajectory would make any such system too heavy
and complicated to be worth it.

As for Burt Rutan, please don't make the mistake that SpaceShipOne is
the harbinger of entry into orbit. It's not. The design is very
heavily optimized for a single, very limited goal - getting an X-prize
equivalent mass to 100 km altitude. The peak Mach Numbers for SS1 are
down around Mach 2, the materials are all conventional, and the
"shuttlecock" re-entry profile isn't going to hack Mach 25. Don't get
me wrong, it's an excellent achievment, but useful Space Travel it
isn't.

I still think it is a very good step in the right direction. Waiting with
bated breath...

We've been through this before - technologically, SS1 is less of a
challenge than the X-15, 45 years ago. While SS1's performance will
be sufficient to win the X-Prize, it won't yield a useful, productive
system. I'm not seeking to minimize the achievement, but let's not
blow it up beyond what it really is.

In Buran and Energiya

No. I still think though that is was a shame it wasn't persevered with.

They were keeping it around, stored against the possibility that there
may be some interest in the future. But the Assemply Building
collapsed on it. If they couldn't keep a fairly new building
together, I rather doubt that they were going to be re-starting any
serious, and expensive development programs anytime soon.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster