Hooray!!!

[vik_thor]

WHEEE!!

As Spiked Punch said, I have seen all the fireworks I need to today, with the successful launch of Shuttle Discovery!

I would love to be in Florida and be able to watch the launch in person!

Question(s) for the more technically oriented people who might read this:

The solid rocket boosters (on the side) are reused, correct? and the big one isn't?
How high up is it when the shuttle separates from the big external tank?

Basically, what I would like to know, since materials are so expensive to get up into orbit, even the LEO orbit that is all we can get to anymore, how expensive in terms of fuel would it be to not detach the external tank and just take it to orbit? I've read about them doing that in several science fiction novels, but I've never come across anything about them actually doing it.

They are getting ready as I type this for a orbital correction burn, they would obviously need more fuel to achieve the needed orbit if the external tank was still part of the equation, but how much?

Comments

[makovette.livejournal.com]

The solid rockets are one shot deals, though they do recover them iirc.

Our very own shockwave77598 is a hardware engineer who has equipment flying on the shuttle - give him a ping and get some real answers straight from the horses, err, wolf's, muzzle :)

CYa!
Mako

[hartree.livejournal.com]

I believe the solids get refurbed and reused after recovery.

There was a push some while back inthe 80s to have NASA take the external tank into orbit. There were ideas about refitting one into a lab, etc. I seem to recall that letting the tank go fully to orbit would have used no extra or minimal extra fuel (read: little effect on payload capacity). Not sure what all the rationale for not doing it was. Maybe worry about more random stuff up there, and shedding parts of the tank in time, making the space junk problem worse.

[sci.livejournal.com]

IIRC, the tank is dropped to burn up just before some final insertion manuvers. Dropping it makes the final adjustments easier, in regards to mass distribution.
It is a shame to waste it, but the descision's not up to us. I do wonder though if the tank could be collected by some other sort of orbital manuvering craft, before it re-enters. It'd be a tight manuver though.

[jfox.livejournal.com]

actually the tank is dropped somewhere right about the ionisphere (Ion: am I roughly right there?). I know it isn't fully carried in to orbit.

There've been a number of comments already, but I'll add (since I have family involved in the shuttle program and hear about it from time to time) that the big red tank is basically an enormous gas-can... with just enough fuel in it to get the shuttle "up". It's built as thin, light and cheap as possible (hence the foam that likes to fly off and order take out on chunks 'o shuttle wing) and really wouldn't be useable for much of anything else. As Ion said-- it's far cheaper, safer and simpler just to let it burn up right as the shuttle hits the outer-edges of our atmosphere.