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Comment by dredmorbius | Hacker News Reader

About $1.2 billion per launch.

https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-...

There's some room for argument, but on the order of 1,000x the stated SpaceX Super Heavy booster.

Even if that turns out to be vastly optimistic (not ... unheard of in rocket surgery), it's all but certain that costs will be 100x lower than the Shuttle. Even a 10x factor would be utterly transformational.

I'm not an uncriticle Musk fan, but he's repeatedly delivered on promises I thought were tots redic initially (long-range EVs, reusable boosters, powered return boosters). He's had a few missed deliveries (hyperloop and Boring Co. both seem infeasible, and Mars colonisation still strikes me as a very long shot within 50 years), but we're indisputably closer to those possibilities than before he came on the scene. Credit to engineering teams, there's also something to be said for vision and force of will.

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The government is at its most efficient when its main purpose cutting checks. DARPA, Operation Warp Speed, Social Security, countless grants to scientists. Try to have the government actually achieve things directly and you get the Space Shuttle.

> Try to have the government actually achieve things directly and you get the Space Shuttle.

I don't think that's entirely fair. The Orbiter ( developed by Rockwell, not NASA or .gov ) was the result of two decades of hypersonic aerodynamics research combined with the state of materials art at the time. The solid boosters were ahead of the technology curve. The overall package was compromised by USAF / .mil requirements but otherwise was an advanced product for its time.

> The overall package was compromised by USAF / .mil requirements but otherwise was an advanced product for its time.

[0] presents a somewhat different story. It argues that much of the blame for the compromises, lies not with DOD, but rather with OMB. To give one example, it is commonly claimed that DOD pushed for solids because of the use of solids in ICBMs; according to this account, that push came from Daniel Taft at OMB, not from DOD; Taft wanted solid boosters because they were estimated to be $1 billion cheaper.

[0] https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221.pdf – see pg 417 onwards (pg 435 of PDF)

Indeed, I consider the Space Shuttle an incredible huge engineering triumph. Basically built in the 70ies, it up to date is the most capable space vehicle built so far. Large crew compartment, huge cargo compartment, can fly space missions for weeks, allows extra vehicular activities, can take cargo down to earth and most importantly, can land on any large airport.

The problem was, while all of this was achieved, the resulting design was a bit too brittle (heat shields) and definitely too expensive to maintain between flights, so the prices were just off and the desired flight frequencies were never met.

While the engineering of the first edition of the shuttle was just great - especially considering some of the disputable design requirements - the failure rather lies in the fact that it never got a meaningful update. There were ambitious projects to produce a "next gen" shuttle with fixes "all" problems with the first gen, but they all failed. What was missing was updates and iteration. Just build a new shuttle which improves some aspects and keeps the rest of the design. Like a new heat shield, or just optimizing internal structures. That might have driven costs down and produced versions which still could be used. As, for example, we lost the capability to service the Hubble telescope.

Sure, it worked. But at great, great cost. The government has never been great at doing things cheaply. See: US defense budget.

> The solid boosters were ahead of the technology curve.

It was the wrong curve. RP1 based engines like F-1 would have been far better to get of the ground.

> The overall package was compromised by USAF / .mil requirements but otherwise was an advanced product for its time.

There were many mistakes made. Space fans love to blame the military and politics. But if you actually go back, NASA leadership made plenty of questionable choices.

The biggest issue with the shuttle is the basic architecture.

Governments have provided numerous services and projects at phenomenal efficiencies, including Medicare in the US, national healthcare systems in most of the civilised world, highway and transportation systems, postal delivery, air traffic control systems, aircraft investigations, sewers, numerous municipal utility districts (electric, gas, phone, broadband), and more.

Your criticism fails to fit the facts.

> Even a 10x factor would be utterly transformational.

In fairness, the current best option, the Falcon Heavy, is already 35x as cost effective as the Shuttle.

But yes, even in the worst case Starship will be far cheaper.

If you look at technologies which have had huge impacts on the world, a 10x change is simply tremendous.

A person walking typically manages about 3 mph / 5 kph.

A typical person on a bicycle can sustain about 15--20 mph (24--32 kph). Early trains operated at about 25--30 mph (40--50 kph), and soon regularly reached 60 mph (100 kph).

The combined factors of speed and cargo capacity make rail utterly transformational to humans (or animals) carrying loads. Even compared with high-tonnage cargo methods of the era (riverboats and canals), rail's speed was a major factor. (The tonnage/speed tradeoff continues between rail and river or ocean shipping today. For bulk, time-insensitive cargos, rail cannot compete.)

Propellor-driven aircraft moved at about 100-250 mph (160--320 kph) --- the DC3 cruised at 200 mph, as an example. Jet aircraft cruise at about 550--650 mph (850--1,000 kph).

And of course, orbital spacecraft / ballistic missiles hit 17,000 mph (27,000 kph), and up.

In the case of marine shipping, speeds didn't vary so much as tonnage did, with the net ton-miles/hour figure increasing accordingly. Clipper ships trended below 200 tons. Maersk's Triple-E class container ships displace 200,000 tons, a factor of 1,000.

The energy cost of lighting over the past 200 years has fallen by a factor of thousands, from candles and oil lamps to LEDs. Lighting uses which were previously unfathomable are now commonplace. Candle-powered outdoor advertising displays might be quaint, however, if somewhat fire-prone.

Again, typically, a 10x gain in some metric pushes applications to an entirely new domain, which was my point. Not that a 10x improvement was the likely limit in this case.

I'm not sure I understood your point correctly. I interpreted what you said as meaning that Starship being 10x better than the Shuttle would be a significant improvement.

I'm saying that the Falcon Heavy has already achieved a 35x improvement from the Space Shuttle, and therefore if Starship achieved only a 10x improvement relative to the Shuttle it would actually be worse than what we already have and so wouldn't be an advancement.

If you meant 10x relative to current rockets, then yes, I agree that would be significant.

I agree with you regarding FH's achievement.

You are not reading the message I am attempting to convey.

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