From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Sun Apr 27 2003 - 14:44:33 MDT
Robert Bradbury observed:
<<No it isn't. There are significant differences
between the Shuttle and the Buran. The largest
of which in my mind is the fact that the Main Engines
for the Buran are *not* on the orbiter. That is one
reason it has increased cargo return capacity>>
If you had quoted the other examples from my post, you would concede that we
could jerry-rigg the shuttle into a Buran. Why? because the service level
agreement of the original shuttle (even pre-Challenger) did not match its
promises. So we are stuck with some clever challenges, on how we might
support the space station, and do a few interesting other tid-bits. We are
going to have to do this, or let someone else do this, and/or greatly reduce
the number of spaceflights performed by the shuttles (already happening). Why
we might consider futzing about with shuttle components, is because in the
past the innovations, done by Skylab were all off the shelf materials,
abstracted from Apollo modules. We thus have a history of producing using
science from discarded projects like Apollo. We should consider the doing
this, while the brightest minds produce a new orbiter.
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