In September 1969, several months after the Apollo 11 lunar landing, President Richard M. Nixon established the Space Task Force to chart NASA’s path for the decades to come. This imaginative vision was shattered less than six months later when, on January 13, 1970, NASA Administrator Dr. Thomas Paine announced that, owing to funding cuts, only the reusable Space Shuttle could be afforded -- there would be no space station, no return to the Moon, and no missions to Mars. This is a story never before told about the missions and technologies that NASA had begun to plan but never fully realized. The book is a companion to the author’s previous two works on the Space Shuttle. Whereas the first two books showed how the Space Shuttle flew in space and what the program accomplished, this book explains what more the Space Shuttle could have achieved and how the space transportation system could have further matured if circumstances had been otherwise. A final chapter also discusses how some of these plans might be resurrected in future programs.
Author(s): Davide Sivolella
Publisher: Springer-Praxis
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 355
City: Chichester
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Contents
Acronyms
1: A Remarkable Flying Machine
The Space Plane
Space Shuttle 101
Solid Rocket Boosters
External tank
Orbiter: structure
Space Shuttle: What For?
REFERENCES
2: Upgrading the Space Shuttle
Introduction
The Power Extension Package
The 25 kW Power Module
The Science and Application Platform
REFERENCES
3: Boosting the Booster
An attempt to make the Space Shuttle safer
The Liquid Rocket Boosters (LRB)
Liquid Fly Back Booster: The Pre-Phase A Study
Liquid Fly Back Booster: The Boeing and Lockheed Martin Proposals
REFERENCES
4: Orbital Hopping
“A tale of two upper stages”
Death Star
The Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle: the space tug returns
NEWSTAR: Nuclear Energy Waste Space Transportation And Removal
REFERENCES
5: Unflown On-Orbit Servicing Capabilities
Opening the era of on-orbit satellite servicing
Payload Berthing System, Satellite Workshop, and Robotic Arms
The Space Operation Center
On-Orbit Cryogenic Fluid Management Experiments
The Orbital Spacecraft Consumable Resupply System
The Superfluid Helium Tanker Study
REFERENCES
6: Factories in Space
The Materials Experiment Carrier
A pioneering initiative: the Industrial Space Facility
Ultra-vacuum: the Wake Shield Facility
REFERENCES
7: The Unfulfilled Potential of the External Tank
Introduction
The Very Large Space Telescope
The Large Area Gamma Ray Imaging Telescope
Propellant Scavenging System
Aft Cargo Carrier
REFERENCES
8: Shipyards in Orbit
The Large Space Systems Technology Program
Orbital Assembly and Maintenance Study
The Orbital Construction Demonstration Article
The Space Construction Automated Fabrication Experiment
The Engineering Technology Verification Platform
REFERENCES
9: Space Shuttle and Skylab: A Missed Opportunity
Introduction
Saving Skylab: The Lost Mission of STS-3
The Skylab Reuse Study
The Skylab Reuse Study: Shuttle Operations and Continued Growth
The Solar Scientific Instruments Spacelab/Orbiter Report
Epilogue
REFERENCES
10: Space Shuttle in Uniform
The Lost Polar Mission
The “Big Bird”
The STS-Hexagon Study
REFERENCES
11: Lost Science and Technology Missions
The Research and Application Module
The Shuttle Payload Planning Working Group
The Shuttle InfraRed Telescope Facility
The Large Uncooled Infrared Telescope
The Accessible Focal Plane Telescope
The Plasma Physics and Environmental Perturbation Laboratory
The Communication and Navigation Research Laboratory
Orbital Research Centrifuge
REFERENCES
12: Epilogue
REFERENCES
Index
