The year is 1972, the final Apollo mission to the moon has just been completed and
President Nixon has announced a new American Spacecraft.
"This is the largest spacecraft ever launched by man, the first winged spaceship”
“The world’s first reusable spacecraft”
The Space Shuttle. Capable of carrying several astronauts as well as large satellites into Earth’s orbit.
This new idea for a reusable spacecraft was meant to drastically reduce the cost of getting
into orbit, and although the Space Shuttle did complete hundreds of successful missions,
it never really lived up to everything it promised to be.
Today, we have SpaceX making another attempt to cut the cost of getting into space.
But what are they doing differently?
How do we know the BFR won’t become another Space Shuttle?
In this video, we’re going to compare the BFR to the Space Shuttle, we are also going
to look at what caused the Shuttle to fail and what SpaceX are doing to avoid the BFR
having a similar fate.
From the very beginning, the Space Shuttle was designed to be reusable and cheap to operate.
During the development of the Shuttle, NASA estimated that the entire cost for the
14 year life span of the Shuttle would be around $45 Billion with the cost for each flight being $54 Million.
NASA’s original estimates fell very short.
This was largely due to the incredible amount of refurbishment needed after each flight.
The original idea was to have the Shuttle quickly checked out between each flight,
just like an airliner.
This turnaround process was expected to take around 2 weeks, however it would usually take
around 3 months.
Each of the three RS-25 engines had to be detached and refurbished after each flight
and since the propellants used for the RCS thrusters were so toxic, no other activities
could be carried out on the Shuttle while they were being handled.
One of the most time consuming aspects of the Shuttles refurbishment was the heat shield,
with each of the 35,000 tiles having to be inspected individually between each flight.
SpaceX plan to use a material called PICA-X for their heat shield.
Although this material is designed to wear away slowly after each flight, SpaceX are
aiming to get hundreds of uses out of it before it needs to be completely replaced.
If SpaceX want the BFR to succeed in being cheap and reusable, they will need to master
the art of rocket reusability.
The Falcon Heavy in fully reusable mode is currently capable of carrying a similar payload
capacity to the Shuttle, but for a fraction of the cost.
But even if they do master rocket reusability, they will need to do so without compromising on safety.
One of the biggest problems in the Space Shuttle program actually had nothing to do with the
vehicle at all.
It was in fact NASA’s attitude towards safety, which started to become more lenient in the 1980's.
Due to an incredibly ambitious launch schedule, NASA’s upper-level management started to
embrace what many called “go-fever”.
In order to meet these ambitious launch dates, possible safety hazards were ignored,
which lead to the Space Shuttle experiencing two fatal disasters.
With the BFR aiming to make its first flight to Mars in 2022, it’s extremely important
that SpaceX don’t follow a similar path of cutting corners in order to make their own deadlines.
One thing that SpaceX have shown over the years, is their ability to make quick changes
to the design of their rockets.
Andy Lambert of SpaceX once stated that no Falcon 9 was ever the same, with upgrades being made to
every new rocket that rolled out of the factory.
This rapid development allowed them to perfect the Falcon 9’s propulsive landing technique.
However, they have also had their fair share of failures, which won’t be an option once
they start launching humans on the BFR.
Another thing that held the Space Shuttle back was the design and manufacturing process.
The workload was spread across many different companies all over the country
in order for the program to appear more attractive to Congress.
This not only raised the cost of the program but also added an extra layer of complexity
to the entire construction of the Shuttle.
On top of that, NASA had certain stipulations for the Space Shuttle, often requiring outdated
hardware to be used instead of developing a newer and more effective solution.
Since SpaceX won’t need to adhere to such specific requirements, they can design the
BFR from a blank canvas, and with nearly everything being designed and manufactured by SpaceX
themselves, every part of the vehicle will work together, perfectly as intended.
So although a lot of the hype surrounding the BFR does seem reminiscent to the conception
of the Space Shuttle, it does seem like SpaceX are already starting off on a better foot.
And if their success so far is anything to go by, we know the BFR will be very exciting.
What do you think of the BFR?
Will it live up to its goals or will it struggle to achieve the low cost and rapid reusability
that it promises to have.
Let me know in the comments below.
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Thank you very much for watching and I’ll see you in the next video.