Does it have a future?
No one died in it at all apart from the two accidents that claimed the entire crew.
It is believed that more money (as always) spent by NASA during the '70s could have prevented the accidents with a reusable booster. But, I am sure someone on this site, indicated that the Yanks went fo rhte moer expensive design in the first place.
Has it a future or is it time to redesign?
TBH it never had a future in the first place. It is fundamentally a political project with little or no scientific or engineering justification. The cost benefits of being able to reuse the main engines (basically the only reason to build a shuttle in the first place) are massively outweighed by the cost and safety problems associated with the ceramic tile heatshield. That alone takes something incredible like 40,000 man hours to inspect and repair between flights. When in most cases the only thing of value you save by having a shuttle in the first place is the main engines, it simply isn’t worth it.
R.I.P.
For the US shuttle there are no future, but the US could take over the Russian space shuttle programe and make it a success again. The Russian space shuttle is way ahead of the US one and does not have the problems that the US shuttles has and 3/4 of the entire shuttle equipment is truly reuseable and does not cost as much to use as the US shuttle does.
I think they must sit and think about it.
Henk
No, it isn’t. It’s an even more utterly pointless political project than the US shuttle ever was. The Soviet shuttle doesn’t even save any expensive components (main engines) like the US shuttle does, yet forces a rocket to carry nearly 100 tonnes of useless payload into space. Using disposable capsules you could instead carry 98 tonnes of useful cargo into space. Which is why the Russian space programme abandoned Buran without a second thought as soon as they got the chance.
Nope wrong, the USSR fell in the peak of the Buran programe and thus when the new goverment came to power there was no money to make it go on. The Buran does not have the main engines that the US space shuttles has and the feal tank is also reusable not like the US one. The Tiles of the Russian shuttle is way better than that of the US one, the Russian shuttle does not get hit by foam or any tipe of debree, the Buran has a auto pilot that can take it to space and back to earth without any problems, it has ejection seats and the booster of the Buran can carry other space equipment into space without any problems.
So witch one is the best. NASA did not look after their shuttles and thus 14 people died in the las 20 years and they did not plan ahead and thus hurried into the space shuttle thing without looking at the foam dammaging the shuttle and not doing the maintance correctly because the mannegers said to cut on costs and thus another 7 people died in a shuttle that never should have gone up in the first place.
Wich is the best.
Henk
You’re missing the point. The whole of the Buran launcher is wasted weight that you don’t need to put into orbit in the first place. With space launch prices being of the order of millions of dollars per tonne placed in low earth orbit, an aircraft of 50 tonnes or so such as Buran placed into orbit is commercial insanity. Particularly as the only reason the US space shuttle was built in the first place was to enable the recycling of the main engines by giving them a fly-back capability.
I was reading about a new Richard Branson project that has already achieved a height higher then the X-15 did. A commercial venture as well. I think that may be the thing for the future.
Firefly you are probaly talking about Spaceship one that is launched from a aircraft and then travels into space. I gree that this will replace the shuttles and other projects to man around the earths orbit.
Henk
The only way we are going to launch satelites or heavy space craft is by launchers, other wise to much fuel will be required.
Satteliets yes, but go and look at the spaceshipone programe and you will see it is possiable.
Henk
I know it is possible, but I mean heavy spacecraft. As in craft that could help manufacture space stations or larger space craft for space exploration.
Correct, that is also my opinion.
Henk
The Russian shuttle had one flight into space and you can say this?
Considering what it does, the US space shuttle really has a good safety record. It is certainly the safest manned space vehicle the United States has ever developed. Its record of two failures in 113 missions translates into reliability greater than 98 percent – and management decisions could probably have avoided both of the failures. Considering what the space shuttle has accomplished in the past 22 years opening up a new frontier, it has been a marvelously safe machine. How many died opening up the American West in the 19th century? How many aviation pioneers lost their lives in the 30 years before commercial aviation took off in the 1930s?
113 MISSIONS!!! TWO FAILURES!!! THATS 98%
I know what you are saying Mike, but costs are going to kill the project. it is just too costly to maintain to the correct standard.
The SR-71 Blackbird had a zero fatality rate, I believe, but was still scrapped because it was no longer economically viable to keep it in service. The shuttle has done great things but the air frames are aging, an dthe costs of maintaince are far higher than was predicted.
Also I think one airframe should be capable of 100 missions, and as you point out the whole fleet has only just clocked 100 missions between them. So it is a bit of a white elephant now.
A success AGAIN??? I guess I had a problem with that statement from HG, one flight and it was a success. The SR-71 program was ended yes but only because we can do more with satellites now. If we didn’t have the two accidents with the shuttles and then the grounding there would a lot more flights to the record.
Sure it cost a lot of money to run a space program and there could be better ways but what other Country has done better? It just pisses me off a little to have people criticize a country’s attempts while there country isn’t doing dick. As far as Im concerned this is the best system Ive seen so far and I would rather see my tax money spent on this than paying some lazy people to sit home and collect welfare. 
Look at it the other way around. Every single time you use it, there is statistically a nearly 2% chance it will kill you. That means you’ve only got a 90% chance of surviving 5 flights. For 34 missions your chance of survival is only 50%. This makes flying the space shuttle very nearly as dangerous as flying B-17s against Germany in WW2.
I would also strongly dispute the assertion that it is the safest manned space vehicle the US has ever fielded - Mercury and Gemini both had no fatal accidents, and Apollo had a single launch pad fire (fatal) and a space accident (no injuries). The Apollo launch pad fire was a generic design problem to US rockets, and had it not happened the problem would have continued and affacted the space shuttle in it’s turn too.
The space shuttle is an inherently dangerous design that makes no economic or operational sense. Notice how even the US realises this - there have been no significant changes to the Shuttle since it was first designed, but the US has brought in IIRC two whole families of expendable rocket launchers in this time, both of which ISTR can launch things much more cheaply and reliably than the shuttle.
The shuttle has always been an experimental spacecraft and space exploration is dangerous, accidents will happen. The first accident was a management problem and could have been prevented. Look how safe airliners are but we still have crashes. I know its easy to launch vehicles cheaper but can any of those vehicles bring objects back to earth safely?
Re-entry capsules have been doing it for humans for years. Conceptually, it isn’t any harder to scale things up to do it for a satellite, although there may be one or two practical issues.
You’re also missing a vital point - how often does the shuttle actually bring objects back from space? I can think of only a literal handful of times when it was necessary to accomplish the mission. To gain that ability you’re throwing a very heavy object unnecessarily into space, and you are relying on the safety of a very complex machine indeed operating in an extremely hostile environment. It would be much cheaper and safer to design a special re-entry capsule for satellites (probably launched on a Russian Proton rocket nowadays, although previously it would probably have been based on Saturn V) and launch the manned missions seperately on something looking rather like Soyuz.
There is a place for winged aircraft in space, but until the technology required for single stage to orbit aircraft comes in the time for them will still be in the future.
Who knows??? Information like that would be Top Secret and would not be published to the world, dont you agree? Like I said… it’s always been an experimental spacecraft.