That is pretty cool. I just really hate both the Shuttle program and "hard" SF that didn't do its research, which is the only way anyone could have thought a big wing Shuttle in lunar orbit made sense.
A) The Shuttle, even in the original hopeful STS plans, was never intended to go beyond LEO, and is a terrible platform for doing so because of all the dead weight. Absolutely terrible payload to mass. In the original STS plan, which also had no SRBs and which had a reusable external fuel tank, the Shuttle would dock at Space Station Freedom and then transfer crew and supplies to a NERVA lunar shuttle with no atmospheric dead weight and a vastly better vacuum Isp to get to lunar orbit.
B) The Shuttle only got those big wings because Nixon cut the program so much that NASA had to go beg for more funds from the Air Force, which demanded the huge wings so it could have enough cross range capability to do a bazinga star wars ass satellite stealing once around mission.
I stopped watching when I saw a big wing shuttle in lunar orbit. Just wrong on so many levels.
Nah you gotta keep watching
spoiler
Popular Korea gets the first person to Mars
That is pretty cool. I just really hate both the Shuttle program and "hard" SF that didn't do its research, which is the only way anyone could have thought a big wing Shuttle in lunar orbit made sense.
A) The Shuttle, even in the original hopeful STS plans, was never intended to go beyond LEO, and is a terrible platform for doing so because of all the dead weight. Absolutely terrible payload to mass. In the original STS plan, which also had no SRBs and which had a reusable external fuel tank, the Shuttle would dock at Space Station Freedom and then transfer crew and supplies to a NERVA lunar shuttle with no atmospheric dead weight and a vastly better vacuum Isp to get to lunar orbit.
B) The Shuttle only got those big wings because Nixon cut the program so much that NASA had to go beg for more funds from the Air Force, which demanded the huge wings so it could have enough cross range capability to do a bazinga star wars ass satellite stealing once around mission.