The Space Shuttle is a failure? Only from small minds further clouded by petty jealousy.
Without a mission: Manned space exploration. These discoveries, knowledge, and engineering accomplishments would not enrich mankind:
- Prior to the Space Shuttle with disposable vehicles that were used to ferry humans to space and return them to Earth, reentry heat pretty much destroy the vehicle's shielding and the vehicle itself. No one reused those capsules. The US invented new composite material that not only protect a reusable vehicle but is also reusable itself. Could China do that without that mission?
- Prior to the Space Shuttle with disposable vehicles that were used to ferry humans to space and return them to Earth, hard landings on earth and/or sea pretty much destroy the vehicles. Does Russia refurbish and reuse crashed capsules? How about China? How much knowledge can we continue to gain with crashed capsules? How much more knowledge can we continue to gain with capsules at all?
- Prior to the Space Shuttle with disposable vehicles that were used to ferry humans to space and return them to Earth, how much aerodynamics knowledge do we have with capsules? Pretty much all we need. But now how much more aerodynamics knowledge did we gained with a winged vehicle that have so much more surface area designed not only withstand like capsules but actually exploit aerodynamic forces? Did this knowledge came from either Russia or China? A whole new generation of astronauts are also created. Previously, astronauts became mere cargo from the moment of reentry to landing, now they must be active pilots transitioning from being weightless to having forces upon them and their vehicles that can destroy everything they just accomplished. Guess which country have that new generation of pilots/astronauts. Certainly neither Russia nor China.
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Space Shuttle Spinoffs
We are not talking about products but base technology spinoffs. We are not saying that these technologies could not come from other potential sources but it is equally valid to say that we do not know if they could have come to be as quickly and as demonstrably as they did with the Space Shuttle program. Not sure if Russia and China have anything equivalent and to the same scale, but we are willing to be corrected.
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The truth about NASA's space tech spinoffs - Technology & science - Innovation - msnbc.com
Do we have any estimates for the rubles and the yuan? After the Soviet space program collapsed, did any of those Russian scientists and engineers created any commercial companies that created new technologies and products from their experiences? For China, their tech entrepreuners came from the US.
- Prior to the Space Shuttle with disposable vehicles that were used to ferry humans to space and return them to Earth...
No need to continue. Fair minded people can see the absurdity of criticizing pioneers who are brave enough to challenge the unknown. Did anyone forced any American to join the Space Shuttle program and finally into space? Chinese scientists and engineers were probably wishing it was their country and they that had such an adventure.
I dare say that of all the shortsighted fools in this forum who calls the Space Shuttle a 'failure' have never personally seen a live on-site launch. Not even of a robot satellite rocket launch. What is really sad is the case of our Chinese-Americans who benefitted from the program but are now insulting their country's success out of a dubious racial tie they feel to a country that accomplished far less in the same area and probably see them as foreign as if they came from Africa.
