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Rewriting the Shuttle history - Part 2
An interesting read of a fascinating alternate reality (would have been a cool time to follow the space program). Will look forward to more!Posted 07-26-2011 at 01:30 AM by Tycho 
Updated 07-26-2011 at 01:36 AM by Tycho -
Posted 07-24-2011 at 04:47 AM by Scav
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Rewriting the Shuttle history - Part 2
http://yarchive.net/space/shuttle/sh...rossrange.html...
The Space Shuttle's Delta wings are mostly out of the absolute requirement by the US Air Force, when they joined the STS program, to have a crossrange of 1500 miles on reentry... meaning a mission which purposefully makes one orbit (90 minutes) and then land right back. I left the precise flight duration out in the open for an hypothetical DOD mission, which in real-life never,ever required the full crossrange capability of the shuttle.Posted 07-18-2011 at 02:29 AM by Cairan
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Posted 07-18-2011 at 01:54 AM by Chub777
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Rewriting the Shuttle history
My personnal guess is that in case of an RTLS, they'd ditch the LFBB to make room for the returning orbiter.... As for dual landing, I haven't checked that section of the files I have on the LFBB concept...Quote:Originally Posted by kwan3217
How did they plan on recovering the LFBBs? One shuttle runway, three vehicles (the orbiter might need to RTLS as well). Were they going to bring them all down at SLF, and if so, were they going to land in formation or was one going to be in a holding pattern until the other one was towed off the runway? Were there going to be more runways?Posted 07-15-2011 at 05:06 AM by Cairan
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Posted 07-14-2011 at 09:10 PM by Eli13
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Posted 07-14-2011 at 08:56 PM by ky
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Rewriting the Shuttle history
How did they plan on recovering the LFBBs? One shuttle runway, three vehicles (the orbiter might need to RTLS as well). Were they going to bring them all down at SLF, and if so, were they going to land in formation or was one going to be in a holding pattern until the other one was towed off the runway? Were there going to be more runways?
Edit: I looked up on NTRS and found a report on a LFBB done in 1996. The boosters take an hour to fly back, and one of them does go into a holding pattern for 15min while the other lands and clears the runway. Any RTLS would arrive first. If they couldn't get the shuttle off the runway, they would probably sacrifice the boosters.Posted 07-14-2011 at 08:52 PM by kwan3217
Updated 07-15-2011 at 03:51 PM by kwan3217 (Did some research) -
Rewriting the Shuttle history
Yes, yes! Vandenberg deserves a few launches too, hope you include it in the future-past-alternate history.
This is a nice look at what could have been.Posted 07-14-2011 at 08:32 AM by PhantomCruiser
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Posted 07-13-2011 at 08:48 PM by ky
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Rewriting the Shuttle history
Indeed. Looking forward on the next parts, and hope Vandenberg gets used.Posted 07-13-2011 at 08:10 PM by Fabri91 
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Posted 07-13-2011 at 05:01 PM by ky
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Rewriting the Shuttle history
Well, I always fantasized about Enterprise making it into space... And besides in this alternate history, I want to play around with the idea of an expanded orbiter fleet, with maybe as much as 12 orbiters around. Besides, regarding conversion cost, it would have been infeasible for STS-1 to launch in 1979, but that's the beauty of "reboots"
Still wanted to keep early STS chronology close to what it really was. I'll probably use the "new" STS flight numbering for the remainder of the alternate chronology, since Challenger doesn't blow up in it it impacts all flights from STS-26 onward...Posted 07-13-2011 at 05:01 PM by Cairan
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Rewriting the Shuttle history
Very interesting. I can't see Enterprise being used in any timeline though as it was just too costly to convert to flight standards.Posted 07-13-2011 at 04:21 PM by garyw
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Rewriting the Shuttle history
Awesome thanks for this!I wonder if construction of the international space station would have occured had skylab been saved........Posted 07-13-2011 at 03:50 PM by ky
