Welcome back to the third and final installment of "A History of Rockets", covering modern rocketry following the apollo missions.
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Post-Apollo
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| The original STS concept |
After the Apollo landings, the Space Race was "won" and there was an extreme lack of political motivation for space. NASA initially proposed the Space Transportation System (STS) that would use a Space Shuttle to construct multiple space stations in orbit around the Earth and Moon, and multiple tugs consisting of both chemical and nuclear engines that would pull cargo to and from stations and orbits. Alas, Reagan scrapped everything but the Shuttle, and inherited the name, giving us STS (Shuttle DLC but it's only the DLC). After the Apollo Program, the focus of NASA, with its now small budget and thus smaller vision, shifted towards scientific advancement and unmanned exploration.
The Space Shuttle
Nowadays, the Space Shuttle is iconic for its large orange fuel tank and white solid rocket boosters (which you can learn more about
here). But what was the significance of the Shuttle?
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| Shuttle docked with the ISS |
I won't go into detail on the design of the shuttle, you can find that on Wikipedia, or Ill cover it in another post but what I will discuss is the significance of the Shuttle. The Shuttle was the first attempt at a reusable rocket. Not only did the shuttle land 78 metric tons like a glider on a nearly 5-kilometer runway, but it also recovered its solid rocket boosters with parachutes, becoming, to this day, the largest and heaviest object carried under parachute, absolutely stomping the 1974 stunt of dragging a missile out of the back of a C-5. The Shuttle not only represented a step away from expandability but also a step, nay, a leap, towards extended human presence. The Shuttles delivered 40 of the 50 ISS modules, which just passed 20 years of continuous human space presence (the ISS that is).
The Space Shuttle, being new and shiny, had a lot of difficulties and problems. The Shuttle had numerous close calls, especially with its heat shield, as it was basically glued to the orbiter, and sat in between two million-pound rocket behemoths and right next to a fragile-ish foam fuel tank that was prone to shedding.
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| Disintegration of Space Shuttle Columbia |
The Shuttle may have had many problems with its heat shield, but its first catastrophe arose because of its solid rocket booster. On January 28th, 1986, Challenger exploded just after T+60, killing all 7 astronauts. The failure arose because of the abnormally large temperatures that caused the O-ring (that kept hot gases inside the SRB) to fail, resulting in the explosion of the ET. In 2004, Columbia disintegrated during reentry because a piece of foam fell off the ET and caused a hole in the leading edge of the right-wing, which caused the orbiter to spin and disintegrate, again causing loss of all hands.
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| The last shuttle to land - ever |
But with each Shuttle flying around 30 missions (albeit for an extremely hefty price tag), it's important to remember that with all its faults and failures, the Shuttle is an extremely significant piece of hardware and technology that has lent itself tremendously to space, rocketry, and exploration
What the Russians were doing
In 2011, the Space Shuttle retired, which meant that NASA had to buy seats on the Russian Soyuz Rocket to the ISS. But the Russians didn't go from the losers of the Space Race to the vital link to the ISS just instantly.
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| Shuttle docked with Mir |
After losing the race to the moon, they started developing space stations and rockets to supply said space stations. With this they created the Mir space station, a space station which by the end of it, looked crazy with a bunch of attachments. The Shuttle also docked with Mir for 4 years during the Shuttle-Mir program. This was the beginning of the international collaboration that would eventually lead to the International Space Station.
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Krikalev, stepping foot in
what once was
the Soviet Union |
Mir also had an interesting case when Mir was still in orbit during the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the tumultuous collapse, Astronaut Krikalev was stranded on Mir as the country that sent him to Mir now no longer existed. He was stuck on Mir for 311 days while Russian space agencies scrambled to gather funds and launch a return mission (rescue mission) for Krikalev, the last Soviet citizen ever.
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| Soyuz-2 on the pad |
During this time, an throughout the latter half of the 20th century and to this day, Russia/USSR developed the Soyuz rocket and spacecraft. The Soyuz Rocket was derived from the previous Vostok launcher, and it became one of the most reliable rockets ever flown, with production of Soyuz rockets reaching 60 per year in the 80's. The Soyuz rocket family has flown over 1900 times, beating the runner up by nearly 3 times. Speaking of family, the next major evolution was the Soyuz-2, with a new guidance system and modified third stage. The spacecraft Soyuz is a human rated spacecraft that suceeded the 60's Voskhod spacecraft, with Soyuz being intended to fly humans to the moon for the Soviet Lunar program. Soyuz has 3 main parts, composed of the Orbital, Descent, and Utility module. Soyuz is interesting because Progress is derived from it. Progress is the Russians orbital resupply module, looking practically identical to Soyuz.
SLS
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| The SRB's of SLS are now fully stacked! |
With the return of reliable launch services to the US, NASA has made ambitious plans to return to the moon by 2024. NASA is developing the SLS, or Space Launch System, which is a 2 stage Super-Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle designed to launch cargo and the Orion spacecraft, which is set to fly this year in November for its maiden flight. It's worth noting that SLS has been racking up costs and has been delayed multiple times, but it looks like this year is gonna be the year where they actually launch. SLS is currently being stacked and assembled in the VAB.
The plan for SLS is to support NASA's Artemis program, a program to build an orbiting lunar station in collaboration with many commercial partners to send humans back to the moon, to stay.
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Thanks for reading!
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