You can save ONE (1) of these two beauties from extinction.

>>1039382
The shuttle, since I'd rather not have a bunch of rich fucks making sonic booms all the the time over my head just because they can.

The space shuttle.
I like space.

Space Shuttle was a compromised mess, originally the craft was to be a much smaller lifting body type of design, and the Saturn rockets would still be used to put payloads into space but with budget cuts they had to let the Pentagon get involved and all its requirements and then the Saturn being retired and the need to use the shuttle to launch payloads screwed up the whole thing

Concorde could have been saved very easily by the USA repealing its federal ban on supersonic passenger flights, this ban was very obviously introduced at the behest of the aerospace industry to avoid competition after their own SST was cancelled. Prior to the ban numerous airlines around the world had lined up to by the Concorde expecting to use them for the lucrative American market, then the ban was introduced and they all cancelled and the British and French were left holding the bag

The Shuttle for sure. Challenger was arguably one of the worst disasters in the United States' history purely because of the repercussions it had on the public and the fact that it arguably came at the worst possible time.
The loss of Christa McCauliffe especially was absolutely traumatizing to many because she represented the millions of civilians all hoping to go to space one day, as well as representing the U.S.'s finest, our educators. Top it all off with how the massacre ended up being broadcasted to almost every school-age child in the country.
Columbia, while not "as bad", it was traumatic and an absolute waste of incredible minds and souls, which would eventually lead to the demise of the Shuttle.
Lastly, a revamped shuttle would be such a treat. I'm super gay for the thing since I grew up with it and it was incredibly iconic.

I loved Concorde, but I'd rather see a more suitable replacement to it instead.

The Concorde. The shuffle is nice but i'd rather have something with a direct impact on daily life. With your predicament is assume many more competitors to the Concorde would have then emerged and we would not be stuck with the current slow as fuck airliners.

>>1039382
If the choice would also fix those problens then the shuttle since it have bigger problem

>>1039382
>shuttle
>limited to very low earth orbit
>"""reusable""" but has to be disassembled into molecules and put back together again
>99.5% of takeoff mas was non-reusable boosters, tanks and fuel anyway
Beauty it was not, anon. The horrible drain bamage that led to the shuttle concept has forever doomed us to this deteriorating ball of dust.

I prefer blimps over these two.

>>1039382
Concorde.
Shuttle sounds nice and had good PR, but i don't see it being relevant in this day... unless it serves Moonbase or something. In this age we need something much more capable, than goode olde satellite bus to serve as the pinnacle of human kind.

Supersonic Jets on the other hand would have much more prestigious and influential effect in their field. Sort of a step towards hyper-sonic terrestrial flights.

Otherwise the jets just keep getting bigger and fatter and that's how you get >>1039669.

>>1039382
Neither?

Concord: Instead of keeping a relic of the 60s in service, I'd rather have a modern SST

Shuttle: It's beautiful, and I'm super nostalgic about it - I drove 4000 miles round-trip to see STS-135 launch. But the damn thing never should have been built. The original vision was for a fully-reusable shuttle (including manned flyback-boosters), for the purposes of building and servicing a space station, itself for the purposes of assembling and servicing a manned mars transfer spacecraft.

Mars '85 died on the drawing board for budget reasons, throwing the space station plans into limbo (ISS is severely downsized and >20 year late evolution of the original ideas), which meant the Shuttle was a white elephant with no mission - but NASA pinned their hopes on it, because without it they'd have no manned program for >15 years.

As part of some political deals, NASA got congress to continue to fund the Shuttle (absent Mars or a space station) on the idea that it would be THE single US launch vehicle, for both civilian and military payloads, and economies of scale would keep the per-flight cost rate down and justify the high development cost. Congress took the bait, and it kept the shuttle program funded, but NASA suddenly had to accommodate Air Force requirements. They had to re-design it around a MUCH larger cargo bay, and give it the performance to loft Air Force payloads into polar orbits. This resulted in a much larger and more complex rocket, and to keep development costs in check, the re-usable flyback boosters got cut from the program in favor of (initially) cheaper expendable boosters and tankage.

>>1039734
con't

Then when the shuttle became operational, NASA couldn't demonstrate quick enough turnaround time for national security payloads and Challenger blew up, so the airforce cried to Congress and got their EELV program and quit using the Shuttle for military payloads after the 80s.

All this resulted in a shuttle with numerous design compromises that dramatically increased complexity and operating costs, but it never ever performed the missions (launching out of Vandy into a polar orbit) that demanded those design features in the first place.

A complete waste of money, and the high operating costs perpetually prevented NASA from giving even moderate attention to developing a successor. I'm still bitter about the DC-X and X-33.

Concorde. Space Shuttle suuuucked.

Now, if it were the Concorde or the Saturn V, I might change my tune.

>>1039382
Concorde, no contest. Unlike the Shuttle, Concorde was actually well-engineered. The Shuttle was a sub-optimal piece of shit.

>>1039382
Concorde. SST is the future.

Not hating on it, but in cruel reality the Space Shuttle was of poor design and never really did its job well. Dangerous as fuck too. It sucked a lot of monies that could have been used more effectively elsewhere and likely held back US space exploration and advancement. Even the Sovs abandoned their Buran program when they saw its gross limitations.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpinchefsky/2012/04/18/5-horrifying-facts-you-didnt-know-about-the-space-shuttle/#64dfc6e67b97

>>1039736
>>1039734
I agree. Personally I think the R&D that went into the shuttle should have gone to making a mass producible version of the Saturn V so we could have that as the "one size fits all" rocket for launching multiple satellites at a time.

>>1039752
Reusable Saturn-Shuttle vs Saturn V?

>>1039382
Neither. I love them both, but give me one good SSTO spaceplane and it will fulfill both their roles.

When you think about it it's kind of interesting how many parallels there are between them. Roughly 30-year lifespans, introduced around the same time, and taken out of service for being economic nightmares.

Two of my greatest regrets in life are never catching a shuttle launch and never getting to fly on Concorde, but now I work with both of them on a daily basis and I've spent 1000-plus hours on Concorde.

>>1039509
Even after the Saturn cancellation, NASA envisioned a much smaller orbiter than we got. It was the Air Force's requirements for single-orbit polar mission capability and a payload capacity 4x the original proposal that ballooned the cost, size, and complexity of the Shuttle.

And then the Air Force didn't use any of those design changes once, nor did they pay for any part of the development.

>>1039382
The Shuttle, by a wide fucking margin.

>>1039382
Shuttle was more useful to humanity. The shortcomings and operating costs of the Concord will be overcome in time with advances in technology anyway. We haven't seen the end of SSTs.

>>1039382
Shuttle. No question. Vastly superior engineering and cost.

I'd rather have the concorde, as it's more useful.

>>1040815
>Shuttle was more useful to humanity.
Orly? Tell me one thing the Shuttle contributed that couldn't have been done easier, safer and cheaper with conventional rockets. Just one thing, anon.
le_dream_of_lower_low_earth_orbit_ceiling.svg

File: concorde.jpg (92KB, 818x960px) Image search: [Google]

92KB, 818x960px

>>1039382
the Concorde
who the fuck cares about a retarded shuttle and a worthless space-rock.

>fatal accidents
the DC-10 was at fault for the concordes ONLY fatal accident.

>>1039509
this is extremely true

>>1039630
>more suitable
you dont know shit about the concorde then

>>1040816
>superior engineering and cost.
please, nigger. please.

Both are shit.

>>1040877
>please, nigger. please.
Calculate total hours worked + cost of materials and the shuttle wins.

>>1040916
1) is that real?
2) is that a fucking afterburner?

>>1040634
>And then the Air Force didn't use any of those design changes once, nor did they pay for any part of the development.
Incredible. Remind me again how NASA is at all a 'civilian' agency?

File: concodre outline.png (5KB, 337x149px) Image search: [Google]

5KB, 337x149px

>>1040924
this is comparing apples to oranges.
the shuttle was terribly engineered and was responsible for many casualties. the shuttle also was never ment to bring money in either.

the concorde on the other hand worked fine and even brought in money, until a DC-10 decided to drop a piece of its engine. after that, the fleet got grounded (without any logical reason) and they were forced to do structural changes on every single plane, which would have prevented such an accident in the future. these changes were so expensive that BA ad AF decided to only change a very small number of the AC.

also, i cant even tell how how stupid that statement is.
>total hours worked + cost of materials
what the hell does that even mean? it doesnt show superiority or anything like this.

>>1040926
yes, its real, the concorde used an afterburner.
also, check out the video on youtube. the car alarms go off when the concorde climbs above the neighborhood.

>>1040930
>the shuttle was terribly engineered
Can you tell me why? Genuinely interested.

>>1040926
>is that a fucking afterburner?

Yes it is. Concorde engines use reheat on takeoff. The sound is fucking incredible.

>>1040963
its not terrible engineered, i exaggerated of course. its a nice spaceship and whatnot.
still, the space shuttle had 134 launches, two of them failed completely and killed everyone on board. the concorde had how many starts and landings? dont know, a few. in how many of those was the concorde responsible for fatalities?

literally zero

>>1041000
>spaceship
A fucking spaceship.
/thread

File: ValkyriePassenger2.jpg (21KB, 960x576px) Image search: [Google]

21KB, 960x576px

>>1039382
Save the Concorde. Then maybe the USA would grow a pair, tell Boeing to fuck off and build our own SST.

>>1041000
>its a nice spaceship
No, it isn't. It's a terrible spaceship, with terrible payload capacity, terrible operating range, terrible safety record and terrible economics. It's a horrible abortion of a design concept. It is so fundamentally drainbamaged that it has set space faring back decades. Literally.

We could have been exploring Mars by now. Or even colonizing. But, no... As James May would have put it: Oh, cock!
>muh reusable weeeehickule

>>1041044
Concorde >> """""Space""""" Shuttle

>>1041044
Do explain why it's such shit, though. Be as specific as you can be. Genuinely curious.

>>1041047
its funny that you ask him the same retarded, passive aggressive question you asked me a bit earlier. >>1041000

>>1041050
I'm not being passive aggressive. I just want to know some specifics about why the shuttle sucks.

>>1041052
both me and this dude gave you a shitload of specifics.
but how about we stay with the 135 lanches and 2 complete hull losses with no survivors.
>gee whizz, this space shuttle thing was an amazing machine, all astronauts were the same opinion on this! except the ones who got cooked alive inside of course, or the ones who exploded with it.

>>1041053

If you really want to count casualties, you should look at all airplanes vs all spaceships, and then factor in that going to space is way the fuck more difficult.

I mean, can you give me some info like it can only bring an x payload for x dollars and it has this problem and that?

>>1041047
>Do explain why it's such shit, though.
Didn't I just? It can't practically reach more than low earth orbit. No more moon, no deep missions - it reaches the space station. It can lift small satellites to to some orbits, but rockets can put them anywhere and much cheaper. It lifts much less than a comparable rocket because the fuck-huge shuttle craft itself counts against useful payload.
It keeps blowing up because pieces of itself keeps hitting other parts of itself on take-off. It's insanely complex with oodles of points of failure, only to be """reusable""" in a nonsensical sense where the boosters are single use, the giant dildo fuel tank is single use, the shielding and engines might as well be as they have to be inspected and replaced piece by piece - it all ends up to a tiny fraction of the craft being practically reusable. And guess what - that's the part that isn't even needed. They literally added a purpose-built wingthingy to the side of an otherwise perfectly cromulent rocket just because wingthingy could be strapped to new rockets, several times.

Here's how the meeting went:
- HAI GUISE lets strap this big winged thing to a ricket.
- ... what does it do?
- ITS REUSABLE LOL
- ... but why?
- BUT fly TO SPACE AND stuffs
- ....
- AND THEN WE TAKEZ the engine OFF the rocket and puts them on the winged parts TO MAKE THE WINGEDPARTS SEEM USEFUL LOOOOLS
- ... can we just keep the engine on the fuel thing and have a nice, cheap, safe, phallic structure that does the exact same thing without strapping useless mass to in, severely limiting scalability, integrity as well as payload capacity?
- LOLZ NO

>>1041056
Fair.

>>1041055
>If you really want to count casualties, you should look at all airplanes vs all spaceships
No, we can stick to spaceship vs spaceship when judging the shuttles safety record. The Soyuz rocket has not seen a fatality since the second generation craft was introduced in 1973. It's had four in total - all in the first, experimental generation.

Putting an astronaut in space costs about 50 million per head with the Soyuz, for a maximum of three per flight. The average cost per flight of the Shuttle was 1.5 _billion_. <sarcasm>Though of course that's split seven ways and they only blow up some of the time so it's a bargain really and recycling is good for the environment and just think how much it would have cost if the launch vehicle wasn't reusable so it's a great deal for you it really is - pinky swear!</sarcasm>

Shuttle for sure
>trusting anything french

>>1041063
Soyuz also can't lift a fuckhuge payload into orbit along with a crew. The ISS would have been impossible to construct without the shuttle.

>>1041056
Your implication that reusability is useless/bad is embarrassingly stupid.

>buran and Concorde
>shuttle and Tu144

Pick one

>>1041078
That's tough, but certainly the first.

>>1041076
That's not my implication. What I am stating, rather than implying, is that the shuttle is in fact not reusable. It adds the illusion of reusability by adding a redundant and useless but """reusable""" design element to a rocket. A reusable rocket that doesn't need more than a wind screen wipe and refueling - now that would be great.

>>1041075
>The ISS would have been impossible to construct without the shuttle.
Horsey cock. Of course it wouldn't. You'd need bigger rockets than the Soyuz for some of the modules, granted, but that's how we got to the moon in the first place. In fact, two modules (Pris and Poisk) _were_ lifted by Soyuz rockets. And automatically docked. You only think you """need""" the Shuttle to perform the space building mission because the american half of those missions have been designed around trying to make it seem useful. A sane person design auto-docking modules that don't need a combined cargo/human launch as far as possible, and a combined human/cargo pod on top of a rocket when you do.
When the only tool you have is a guilt hammer you're going to use nails. Poorly.


The main ISS modules:
Zarya - ~20 tons - rocket launch
Unity - ~11 tons - Shuttle
Zvezda - ~20 tons - rocket launch
Destiny - ~15 tons - Shuttle
Columbus - ~10 tons - Shuttle
Kibo - ~24 tons - Shuttle but had to broken down to three fucking pieces to launch on three separate occasions because one of the Shuttle concepts stupid moments was the fixed size cargo bay, where a rocket cargo hold would just be built as large as you want it

Notice how the big, heavy, central pieces were rocket launched by cheap, safe, Soviet era rockets. And how it turns into a three launch clusterfuck to launch anything large and heavy with the Shuttle.

>>1041148
And for comparison the whole 77 ton Skylab space station was a single rocket launch. With an american Saturn V rocket. That's the kind of launch capacity that was traded away.

The total cost per launch of the Saturn V project was 1.1 billion inflation adjusted, 2016 value dollars. So, 0.4 billion cheaper per launch than the """reusable""" Shuttle. And it can fly to the moon. Or launch whole space stations.
God damn I hate the Shuttle program.

>>1039382
The concorde. The shuttle is nice as a concept, but when we have real space ships, not orbit hoppers, they'll be massive machines that can't enter the atmosphere. The whole point of a shuttle is having a way to go to and from the ground without landing such a massive ship, much like people used rowboats to get to shore in the days of sail. A large spaceship would never actually touch a planets surface.

>>1041539
Those real space ships won't be able to land on a planet, but neither will they be massive. Think of the spaceship in 2001 A Space Odyssey: it is not large, but also not aerodynamic.

>>1041148
Notice how the OVERWHELMING majority of the ISS was launched aboard the Shuttle and assembled more easily with use of its robotic arm. What's even funnier is that the Soviet/Russian space program attempted to go in the direction that you are against and only didn't because they were underfunded.

>>1041549
>Notice how the OVERWHELMING majority of the ISS was launched aboard the Shuttle
Which has fuck all to do with anything. It reflects the poor state of the Russian space programme which in turn reflects that the Russian economy is dwarfed by the US or the EU. It has nothing to do with the Shuttle concept.
>arm
LOL no.
>Buran
Again, not a technucal argument and complete done for political me-too reasons and inferiority complex. See the Tu-144 and numerous other examples. It's a pattern.

>>1041621
The Tu-144 started development and flew before Concorde.

Way to undercut yourself real hard there.

>>1041626
>The Tu-144 started development and flew before Concorde.
No. It flew before the Concorde, yes, but it was the product of industrial espionage on the Concorde project, because the rüskies freaked over the prospect of "the west" having supersonic travel - and they not. Precisely the same reaction as with the Shuttle; the west might soon have cheap, reusable spacecraft - we must too. The west have big nuclear bombs, we must build bigger ones. This type of cockfighting was called the Cold War.

Of course, the Shuttle never turned out to be cheap or particularly reusable. It turned out hideously expensive and not particularly capable - as did of course the copy. That's why the Buran was first on the chopping block when downsizing the Soviet space programme, and not the various rockets.
It's also why NASA is not building another Shuttle. Because it is more expensive when overall cost is considered, and performance is shit, frankly.

There is no explaining away these numbers:
Saturn V
Total cost per flight: 1.12 billion dollars
Payload to LEO: 118 tons
Range: To the moon and back (literally)

Shuttle
Total cost per flight: 1.5 billion
Payload to LEO: 27 tons (!)
Range: LEO

>>1039874
What do you do?

>>1039382
Neither.

I would save the Saturn V.

>>1041952
Why? They are in the process of building a better one/

>>1040924
>The more time and money wasted on it, the better the engineering
You work for the government, I take it?
>>1041056
>- HAI GUISE lets strap this big winged thing to a ricket.
>- ... what does it do?
>- ITS REUSABLE LOL
>- ... but why?
>- BUT fly TO SPACE AND stuffs
>- ....
>- AND THEN WE TAKEZ the engine OFF the rocket and puts them on the winged parts TO MAKE THE WINGEDPARTS SEEM USEFUL LOOOOLS
>- ... can we just keep the engine on the fuel thing and have a nice, cheap, safe, phallic structure that does the exact same thing without strapping useless mass to in, severely limiting scalability, integrity as well as payload capacity?
>- LOLZ NO
Just about nailed it.

Also worth mentioning what a retarded decision it was to omit any sort of launch escape system, as well. It's a space rocket, not a fucking airliner.

>>1041076
Reusability isn't fundamentally bad, and replacing expendable shit with reusable shit makes sense wherever reasonably viable. But it gets retarded when you do what the STS did and start adding reusable shit just for the sake of having more reusable shit. There's no reason for the entire payload bay (whose purpose could otherwise be served by an inexpensive aeroshell) come back from orbit with you, along with all the heat shielding and dead weight that it demands. The Shuttle would have been FAR more sensible if they had done away with the giant pointless airplane and replaced it with a much smaller reusable spacecraft (think HL-20), and perhaps a reusable capsule to recover the main engines in. EVERYTHING in-between the crew cabin and the engines was pointless, and just detracted from the amount of payload the Shuttle could lift (or alternatively, how high of orbit the Shuttle could reach).

Not to mention, a smaller spacecraft would be far easier to fix a launch escape system to, to separate it from the stack and save the crew's lives in the event of a launch mishap.

>>1039854
still leaning towards Saturn V for reasons in >>1042486

but that's pretty cool, I didn't know about that

>>1041964
And they always will be!