How To Send A Space Shuttle To The Moon
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ส.ค. 2020
- "For All Mankind" is a TV show built around an alternate history of the space race, and the trailer for season 2 includes one shot showing a space shuttle far enough from the Earth that it looks like it's coming back from the moon:
• For All Mankind - Seas...
So, let's do the math and figure out what it would take to send a Space Shuttle to the moon, and why it's a really bad idea.
The Space Shuttle orbiter model is part of the ReDirect mod for Kerbal Space program. - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
The most unrealistic thing about this video is a working space shuttle in Kerbal Space Program.
its possible to make one, you just have to get the balance correct.
@@alexvives1335 I found it easier to make a Buran style shuttle in the end. The balance was less finicky.
Once you figure out how to line up the COMs and COTs through each stage it’s fairly straight forward. I did it in one single design iteration after I figured that out and I know $&#% all about physics 😂
@@thomitch1995 ofc it would, Buran and Energia are better.
@@machirim2805 none of that commie talk here, thank you very much
Now remember.. the more fuel you need.. the more fuel you'll need
Unless you can make fuel at your deatination.
Thats why Apollo went off as a huge building size and returning could barely squeeze 3 folks inside.
It takes fuel to carry fuel to carry fuel to carry fuel to carry fuel to carry fuel ...
@i don’t know what to do here if you can make fuel at your destination you dont need to carry that .. so you save a lot of weight and complications. thats what SpaceX is trying to do developing fuel plants so a future mission to mars could had the fuel for the return trip allready on Mars.. same concept as used in the Martian where the MAV had a fuel plant processor wich made fuel during years on the surface from the atmosphere so they would not need to carry that fuel with them in the inbound flight
To carry more fuel you need a bigger rocket... The bigger the rocket the bigger engine you need to lift it... The bigger the engine the more fuel to feed it l... And so the cycle continues as a balance is hard to find
In 1983, a classmate kept asking me: "Why don't they use the space shuttle to go to the moon?"
37 years later, the definitive answer is here.
My question that noone ever answered is why did the orbiter have the massive dead weight of the main engines on it, if they could only be used until the external tank has been dropped? It would have made much more sense to put them right below the external tank and only give the orbiter engines that it could actually use while it is on its own. Interestingly thats exactly how Buran would have worked, so sad that it got cancelled.
@@Chuckiele I think there's a lot of weird things the shuttle did
@@Jaker788 yeah, but this is something that really bothered me, because it could have allowed the launch system to be used for other heavy payloads and would have made the orbiter more versatile and efficient.
@@Chuckiele I think it's because of the RS-25 being a cripplingly expensive engine so recovering them for reuse on the shuttle was done to try and reduce launch costs.
@@ezraprice6709 Well, the RS-25 was only designed to be this expensive because they knew it would be reused, it obviously would have been way cheaper if it was designed to be expended, but I thought making the external tank plus engines a proper reusable first stage would have made much more sense. Landing savely is obviously not easy but at least the engines would have to do that much of a reentry.
The armed Astronauts have a red and gold stripes embroidered on their spacesuits. They're likely US Marines since that's their branch's colors. Technically, Space Marines.
Well, you know.. Apple - the thieves of everything great.
*The God Emperor shifts uncomfortably on his throne.*
FOR THE EMPRAH!
US Space Marines. I dont believe I would be hearing that today
They should be called Astroines
Maybe this shuttle just looks exactly the same like our shuttle, but it's scaled up 200% by all proportions.
@starshipeleven that thing flew pretty far for proto-plywood.
@starshipeleven STOVLSSTLO sea plane? :P
Don't forget the wing mounted machine guns that we wasn't in frame
@Chi Sam
A comma after "impertinent", or none after "silly", would've been rhetorically norminal* .
_______
* *norminal,* yes
@@muxite6035 It's an errorist attack, there's no reasoning with errorists x^))
My entire criticism with this show can be boiled down to one sentence:
"You have Sea Dragon, yet you choose to develop Shuttle?"
That was my thought. I haven’t gotten around to watching the show yet but I did see someone had posted the sea dragon clip to TH-cam awhile back. So I was confused when Scott started talking about a shuttle in the season 2 trailer. I was thinking didn’t they build a sea dragon? Why would you go from the sea dragon to the shuttle.
My question is how do these things work? Because today we have treaties about helping astronauts and nukes in space and all, but do these exist in the show?
Too much drama, not enough meat. The people that made this show have a very vague and romantic idea of what the Space Race entailed.
The Sea Dragon's biggest hurdle was development, after that it was supposed to be a cheap rocket, made from cheap parts. Why would they EVER go from it to clunky, expensive, accident prone craft?
Appeal for casual spaceflight fans.
If they were to develop a reusable spacecraft it wouldn't have looked like Shuttle anyways. STS was a design by committee, NASA, USAF, NRO etc all had a say in it and the ended up with an inefficient design. In the show's setting they would have the funding and political clout to develop more mission oriented spacecraft that could better meet specific needs.
In season 2 they did mention refueling in orbit, and they had sea dragon for payloads. So the shuttle was just used for crew exchanges. It wouldn’t need to use the external tank
The main issue I have with that is the Seadragon could launch both the space shuttle (orbiter), and the payload
It could launch four orbiters, and fit them all, all to low earth orbit
The space shuttle becomes completely pointless
@@glauberglousger6643 gotta love hollywood 🫠
At least they gave it a mention so a non engineer would at least have to google it.
They only used sea dragon for big cargo - Jamestown modules, mining equipment, etc. Possibly the second LSAM but the first one was sent on a Saturn V. Day to day supply was done by Titan rockets.
@@glauberglousger6643the main issue with your idea is that the sea dragon wouldn't, and really couldn't have been human rated
I just want to note that I appreciate how, after calling out the front of the wings being entirely wrong for the Columbia, your simulator version of the shuttle has Columbia labels on the back and Discovery on the front.
6:58 “There’s a better solution.” I was expecting him to say “more boosters.”
I expected 4 SRBs instead of 2 and a direct ascent
@@TheAechBomb A Space shuttle heavy :)
Well, at 5:23, there are some neat ideas for More Boosters.
@@kangirigungi yeah :)
4 SRBs would only require some more support cross beams inside the inter-tank. The whole weight if the Shuttle stack is supported by the single inter-tank crossbeam and the two SRBs.
Engineers: We may not have enough fuel to get to the Moon.
Scott: Just load extra propellant and DEAL WITH IT
@@cabraham9838
I think that too even before watching this
Spot on Scott! Confirmed in episode 9 that they refuel in LEO before TLI
And they also refuel in lunar orbit to make a slow down maneuver before reentry
They probably wouldn't develop the space shuttle in this timeline, since in the show they're more interested in the moon than LEO. And the space shuttle was designed for LEO.
The Space Shuttle was conceived as a reusable "shuttle" for tranportation of humans and cargo to LEO. The plan was for it to be one component of Space Transportation System (ever wandered what STS stands for, eh?) and of course moon and beyond were definitely important destination of the STS.
Just look up "Space Tug" on Wikipedia.
i mean it could have been a "we have this thing that works, lets make it do more." instead of a new design.
I could see the Space Shuttle being developed, but as the LEO truck it was meant to be to build space stations and perform other support missions; not for actual travel to the moon.
Kaleb - NASA was Origionally going to use DC-3 in the 1960's , modified and Outfitted for Space and Launched by Saturn Derived Launchers. DC-3 was a Perfect Airframe and it could Easily made AIRTIGHT.
and the Metal Skin would be a Efficient HEAT Radiator.
@@markplott4820 This idea is delightfully insane.
For all the people complaining about the plot holes...
You have to have a Space Shuttle if you're going to have Space Shuttle Door Gunners.
And what self-respecting Sci-Fi of the 80's wouldn't have Space Shuttle Door Gunners?
I'm hollerin' 🤣
I'm imagining a couple of astronauts with guns hanging halfway out of the shuttle's cargo bay and doing a drive-by on a Russian space station at several kilometers per second.
@@timothymclean that's exactly what everyone was thinking 😄
I’d imagine Wagner Die Valkyrie is playing in their space suit helmets during the strafing run? Maybe Proud Mary in the battle zone arrival moment...
Canadarm better hold a katana to deal with those aliens
Somewhere in alternate reality (where STS-135 wasn't the Last One):
Aug 8, 2020: STS-162 Launch cancelled, investigation pending.
Aug 9, 2020: Mott Stanley - "How To Not Send A Space Shuttle To The Moon"
lmao, accurate
lmao, 'mott stanley'
aah mott stanley the youtuber who works as software engineer at microsoft and studied astrology instead of astrophysics.
All those extra launches costing billions more dollars rather than finding a cheaper solution.
Hmmmm I don't know if you have read Space by James Mitchener, it's worth the effort. One of the main characters is named Stanley Mott (the rambling wreck from Georgia tech). I wish they would remake the Mini series( based on the book from the 80s)
Just showed my 9yr old daugther a landing space shuttle, her reaction; "Hey thats handy they can just land like a normal plane!" tja..
4 episodes into season 2. Man, did that solar storm on the moon look Scary. And Cool. Scary Cool.
Yes, and Columbia was supposedly in lunar orbit when the solar storm hit. Yet no worries about how the crew or the hardware would respond.
While you were going on about payload capacity and yadda yadda i was thinking 'why not just refuel in orbit?'
Bing. Discussed.
Thank you Scott. Stay awesome.
I thought the same thing, especially since they just about could have hung onto the external tank all the way to orbit
"Prelude to space" features this, and a "shuttle" too. It was written in the early 1950's! The shuttle makes many missions to orbit to leave fuel tanks, then carries up a smaller lunar module "empty", this then fuels in orbit and heads to the moon.
In an amusing "of it's time" moment, they say the big shuttle can stay in orbit "until the crew run out of cigarettes"!
My first thought was "some kind of Earth orbit rendezvous, only reentry would be a problem at the end." Unless there was some kind of reverse injection burn prior to reentry, which would vastly increase the fuel requirements. I imagined docking with a new tank rather than hauling the existing one, but similar idea.
@@worldcomicsreview354 Earth-orbit rendezvous, usually with the reentry vehicle being hauled to the lunar surface and back, was definitely the preferred idea in most of the early articles from von Braun and such. It'd work but there's a lot of complexity. Seems like more recent plans for a revival of the Moon program combine EOR *and* LOR, to bring the launch requirements down a bit.
Introducing Scott Manley, newest technical advisor to the producers of "For All Mankind."
They both work for Apple so it isn't too far-fetched...
Which is odd, given that their actual technical advisor is an astronaut
@@cmdrvaneia1498
RE: "Which is odd, given that their actual technical advisor is an astronaut"
Technical advisors on movies and TV shows are often NOT listened to. To the producers, "dramatic license" is more important and scientific and engineering accuracy.
@@spaceman081447 I mean yeah, it is more important to create a fun piece of media that the general audience is going to enjoy then make sure a bunch of nerds (myself included) don't have any problems with the logistics.
So can the Shuttle go to the moon?
Short: yes.
Long: In pure theory, with a metric shitload of modifications that would cost a jillion times more than re-opening the Saturn V program...and it could never come back.
Bring back the saturn V has just one problem that no one has figured out a solution. The engines were severely modified after building and there are no details or blueprints of it.
@@josealexandrereis Yeah, I wasn't actually proposing that, I was just trying to make a point.
"Well yes, but actually no"
@@josealexandrereis You can still operate a Saturn V with solid rocket motors. The SRBs have twice the thrust of a F-1, albeit with less thrust time but you can always add more solid fuel.
@@Edax_Royeaux I usually go with more struts
Now that most of the season is out, I think this video needs to be updated in a Part 2.
Here’s why:
In the show they only used the Shuttle for crew transport when it went to the Moon, and they used the Sea Dragon for payload transport to the Moon, so I think it’s safe to assume that when going to the Moon instead of LEO, the Shuttle in the show had extra fuel in its payload bay. Furthermore, they mentioned that the shuttle had been upgraded which likely means that they increased the efficiency of the engines, and maybe the fuel mixture and nozzle in the SRB’s, so even though it looks the same as the old shuttle, it is actually a much more optimized version. Also, the heat shield may have also been upgraded in the show.
P.S. I like your theory a lot as well, and it may be more accurate. Hopefully they tell us at some point in either Season 2 or Season 3
I think they still carry cargo, but only comparatively light cargo and small amounts of it, as the M16's came with the marines on a shuttle mission.
Using the wings, they could have a much shallower Re entry glide path reducing the heat load. Between this and an upgraded TPS, it could be possible. However, more practical would be the shuttle remaining in LEO with a lunar ferry craft
Jeez...
"For All Mankind," should have hired Scott as a consultant.
:/
He wouldn't have lasted long after he told them de-orbit would melt the shuttle.
I am reminded of a very old saying, "Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story."
I mean he does work for Apple so...
@@yes_head 8m ko
@@yes_head Wouldn't the extra delta-v from a full ET leave it plenty of gas left to slow down a lot before entry, even after boil-off?
This was intense - thanks Scott!
Oh hey Jared! Enjoyed your new vid
Your videos are awesome, keep them coming! I would like to see what you could animate in the way of rockets :D
Hey you! Stop right their! Have a nice day! :)
2 kings collide
Hey Jared
Looking at this now that I've finally gotten around to watching For All Mankind and the latest season.
I was thinking all the exact same things Scott. Unfortunately they didn't explain how that worked.
Some amendments though. The sea dragons payload was plutonium, it wasn't nuclear powered.
However, the Pathfinder, the next gen shuttle did indeed have Nerva nuke engines and was SSTO from a C-5.
The shuttle in the show never descended down to the moon. It was just a ferry.
My thoughts on their methods are similar to yours.
They have an internal tank in the cargo bay they use for HydroLox that is fuelled in orbit. They also partially fill the external tank with whatever gives them the dV to complete the TLI.
Upon completing the TLI, they dump the external, and use the cargo bay tank for LOI. The base then tops off their fuel for the transfer back.
As for the tiles....yeah I dunno. Hahaha.
For the tiles they might do a multi-pass setup where they intentionally skip off the atmosphere a few times and then do a reentry to the ground, but the Shuttle tiles weren't perfectly reliable so that might need some handwaving to make work completely.
They probably dock with a space station, before re entry
@@chrisw443If the space station manufactures & stores fuel, that would make sense in order for the shuttle to have enough delta-V to do a deorbit burn; but then it would need enough delta-V in order to do a holmann transfer burn in order to dock with the space station in the first place.
@@efulmer8675
What's really handwavium is both countries having the tax revenue to have a sustained space race; Between the space race, the arms race, domestic underproduction, and international 'influence operations,' the USSR's economy went belly-up.
Honestly, with thicker tiles and a better bonding adhesive, they might have pulled it off with a 'multi-pass' approach as suggested above.
Scott, didn’t you forget the Shuttle went to moon for that gravity assist to stop that one asteroid
태선우TaeSunWoo That was an Ytterly silly movie and the ”gravity assist” scene was totally stupid. You can’t accelerate around Moon, to get ”gravity assist”
@@YDDES 1 it was a joke. 2 you can gravity assist around the moon
That is actually the part of the movie that (sort of) makes sense. It is not enough to get where the asteroid is at the right time. You need to match speeds with it to land. The lowest delta-v way to do that is to do something similar to an Apollo 13 style free return hyperbola around the Moon so you're going the same direction as the asteroid, THEN match speeds (provided you have enough time and the Moon is in the right place).
Also, obviously the US shuttle and the Russian space station were obviously more advanced (then-near-future) models than the ones actually orbiting above the theaters.
Scott: how to fly a space shuttle to the moon...
"You don't"
Scott: how to fly to the moon .... "You don't"
Patrick's Music The heat shield tile would probably not withstand the reentry of 40.000 km/h.
Wroger Wroger Well, still several of the tiles came lose already at the first Journey.
More like: "This is how but you probably shouldn't also who ordered the char broiled shuttle crew?"
Wroger Wroger So, No tiles have come lost during the latent flights?? Go Ask NASA and Don’t forget to Ask them if a Shuttle would survive a Moon Journey.
As an American who watched Apollo 11 live, the first minutes of For All Mankind were unexpectedly among the most intense minutes of TV fiction I've ever watched. The idea of *losing* the space race is unthinkable.
They already did
To the Nazi's
@@robertsutton8894 iron sky
@Geoff Canyon - Me too, from Coco Beach Florida, top of a 300 ft. high grain silo acroos the canel, 6½ miles from the blast. That was the closest spot to the launch out side of NASA. Even closer than the VIP observation bleachers @ the base.
- How's that for unbelievable luck from someone from Chicago on a trip into history. I owe one to the man upstairs for indulging me on that one. Best view ever!
I mean, historically it was quite a draw, America went to the moon, and the Soviet Union did almost everything else, which also explains them giving up (among other things)
It would have been a blessing to NASA in the long run. Almost unlimited spending would follow.
That was a very threatening "Fly Safe" at the end of this one, Mr. Manley. :)
It was a great one.
I watched your video today and immediately binge watched the whole first season. Jesus what a roller-coaster! I loved it! I was crying and everything. Thanks Mr Manly for the idea to watch it..
No one will see this but anyway I’ll tell.
The space shuttle always flew retrograde (nose away from the direction of travel) to avoid space debris hitting the crew module.
i saw it :)
I was it, very cool
So maybe it's flying TO the Moon in that shot? Nah, what am I thinking. That show looks so dumb, there's no way the people behind it could possible realize that spaceships don't have to fly nose first.
Not necessarily. I think it's preparing for insertion burn. Woudn't it also be bad if debris destroyed the engines?
@@thick45 while it would be bad, destroying the engines is far less of an issue than destroying the cabin. The three RS25s were just dead mass in space, and if the OMS was damaged, they could always send up another shuttle to rescue the crew.
7:28 Fuel ferries or fuel fairies? Either work as far as I'm concerned.
Fuel ferries, I think that would probably be better then fuel fairies.
@@poopkiler2768 Given the continuity error, probably fairies.
Depends who has to milk the fairy :)
@@randomnickify Shit just went from 0 to 100 real quick.
@@poopkiler2768 idk. A waive of the wand and your tanks are magically refilled
This is why I'm never making a space show, scott manley would just show me what's wrong with it in the most enjoyable way possible, and I'd have to be always changing things
You could as well hire Scott to help you make things make sense ;)
Well they have actual NASA astronauts as advisors on this show.
I was a Flight Control Engineer at JSC (EECOM) during ALT & OFT programs.
I loved "For All Mankind" The set scenes must have been shot on campus. I swear I saw my office corridor.
As to flying to the moon...and back. I found your analysis of the feasibility of the real shuttles going to the moon to be very thorough and accurate.
Scott Manley: Giving reasons how the shuttle could go to the moon with lots of good solutions. “It will be cool to see this in the second season”
For all mankind writers: Yeah we didn’t do any of that! *sweating intensifies*
it would be fun to know what science advisors they have. Probably don't need that many I guess.
@@snuffeldjuret they have at least 1 former shuttle Astronaut I believe
@@snuffeldjuret probably as bad as the people who mess up badges on military uniforms in movies (my navy dad, NAVCOM always rants on this lol)
Honestly if you are a professional science fiction writer then you already know better than to let things as trivial as physics get in the way of a good story.
@@Marinealver I feel there is a balance; the expanse's "extra speed" to make transit more sensible (like kerbal's scaling) is ok. technobable, and sharknado level of rediculous is bad. That's my take at least.
I was at rapt attention until he said “fuel ferries,” which I heard as “fuel fairies,” and I lost it. 7:21
Or worse, "fuel furries". º__º
I remember back in the late 1970's and early 1980's NASA was really pushing the Space Shuttle as the ultimate workhorse that could do anything, at one point they claimed that multiple shuttles would launch on a daily basis and eventually there would be future versions that would explore the entire solar system. Needless to say neither of those goals every came anywhere near happening.
Tv show: Let's do a cool scene where the Columbia shuttle is returning to earth. 😎
Scott Manley: Nope, and here's why..
Tv show: 🥺
My wife was so excited to see a shirt she thought I'd like. It was a picture of the space shuttle with the words "Let's go to the moon!"
She realized something was wrong when my eye started twitching. I had to let her down gently. "The space shuttle could never get to the moon."
AHAHAHAHHAHAA MAN YOU TOLD HER OFF HUH?
Are you sure that was not a shirt for the movie " Airplane 2 " ?
I really enjoyed the first season and I'm disappointed the econd season will have the real world STS instead of an alternate design.
I would really have liked to see Max Faget's straight wing shuttle, or something similar to one of the shuttle II proposals.
yeah it just seem kinda lazy. it makes sense that the Apollo would be very similar to the real thing, but after that its chaos theory, everything could be completely different.
A good use for the shuttle in a lunar programme would be as... well, a shuttle, to ferry astronauts from a translunar space tug to Earth's surface and back. ;)
@@mikicerise6250 accept Space Shuttle isn't at all what would be proposed as a shuttle, rather the fueling system for what would was originally the Earth-Moon shuttle in the STS proposal.
Even the wacky Chrysler shuttle would have made a little more sense
Yeah, esepcially with Sea Dragon in the S1 ending stinger, woudl have loved for the show to show more alternative proposals and show the deviations from real
Scott, as always well done! Great content, always learn so much from your videos. Thank you!
I felt a little threatened by the ‘Fly Safe’ on that one! :D
My favorite Scott Manley videos are when he talks about the moon, because I love the way he says "Mün".
Reminds me of J.J. Jameson Jr. bringing back the symbiote from Spider-man using a Space Shuttle in the 90s animated series.
Scott, you doing these calculations and really thinking about HOW it could be done and what the problems .. I mean: challenges! .. would be - is exactly why I'm excited each time you post a new video! I loved doing these highly theoretical calculations with my best friend in physics class and often we would stay way beyond the end of the lesson to discuss and explain the latest crazy idea we had to our physics teacher. And he never got bored or annoyed of us, instead helped us find the right equations (this was before the internet, wikipedia and wolfram alpha) to see if and how and most importantly WHY it might or might not work as we imagined.
the sad truth is, though - probably NO ONE working on this tv series will have made even remotely that kind of effort to see what's realistically possible and what not. that being said, I also very much like the show just for the idea and am looking very much forward to watching season two :)
but thank YOU for making the effort!
This was one of the big questions on my mind after seeing the For All Mankind Season 2 trailer. Thank you.
I didn't get the impression it was a nuclear propulsion engine in the payload on the SeaDragon, but more-likely a reactor for the Shackleton base, eliminating the need for solar+batteries. "Going there to stay". SeaDragon would be perfect for lifting that kind of mass.
You probably don't need a Sea Dragon to send a reactor to the moon, unless the thing already has the reactor shielding on it.
Sure you wouldn't want to be next to a newly built and fueled reactor on a trip to the moon without it's shielding, but reactors really aren't all that radioactive inside until the control rods are withdrawn for the first time. Until that time, the only radiation the thing would be putting out is that from natural radioactive decay, and that's a tiny fraction of the radiation of an active reactor.
So you can transport the newly constructed reactor with the control rods all the way in, with no/minimal shielding, so long as it's an unmanned rocket. Once it gets to the Moon, you bury it in the deepest hole you're capable of digging, as far from the habitat as the power cables will reach. Long power cables are much lighter than bringing all that heavy reactor shielding with you all the way from Earth.
Of course, sending earth-moving equipment to the Moon might very well need a Sea Dragon.
@@44R0Ndin I assume they'd launch a fully ready-to-go reactor, rather than an IKEA box of parts to assemble on site. Maybe the rods are stored separate, but honestly probably easier to just have a fully ready to plug-and-go system rather than risk trying to assemble something that critical in space suits and low-gravity, while the Russian are lurking around in the hills.
@@TheGeekyDudeFromWI That's what I took away from it being a sea dragon too. It'd allow the whole thing to be launched together.
Rather like when in Kerbal you build a big contraption and just throw the budget out the window and pack it into a massive fairing.
@@44R0Ndin You can design earth-movers specific to moon which would mean they could be a lot less structurally rigid, hence lighter.
This particular "fly safe" sounded like a veiled threat. Sort of like someone who just cut your brake line saying "drive safe." Scott... what have you done?
Lol! “It would be an awful shame if anything should happen to your boosters wouldn’t it...”
Scott Manly: Your Space Show has broken the Laws of Physics.
LOL yeah that "fly safe" had a very ominous tone to it ;)
Noted. Since now it's topic-appropriate, I'd be a helluva lot more inclined to follow Scott's commands if he carried, oh, I dunno... an assault rifle.
I just watched the episode with the shot in question and immediately went off googling wondering about this very thing. Glad I was able to find your video!
i wouldnt have know about that series had you not metioned it. Thank you! fly safe.
scott manley: what would it take to fly the shuttle to the moon?
me: a miracle.
I think you mean Mun
It's theoretically possible, biggest challenge other than fuel or reentry protection would be landing and takeoff from the lunar surface. Could a plane-like vehicle take off horizontally in a lunar environment? It's very different design from anything built to date, even SpaceX's Starship. If successful though, Starship would have a big rival (as it could land on ordinary runways rather than specially built landing pads and towers).
I always had a ridiculous idea of placing the Apollo modules in the cargo bay of the shuttle. I think a video on that was already done and explains why it won't work.
@@EstorilEm lol
Thunderbird 1 a plane-like vehicle needs air for the wings to have lift. There is no air on the Moon. So no.
I ask Matt Lowne to do an Apollo-style mission using a Shuttle and I get this.
Scott Manley: Fine, I'll do it myself
Was you surprised to find out he doesn't do what you ask him to do?
@@IOwnThisHandle Tbh I couldn't care less, I got Scott doing it so I'm happy.
@@billy4734 You didn't get Scott to do anything at all. You're powerless. This wasn't your idea at all.
Jesus Scott, you really took that video to a new height lol. Seriously cool math, and thanks for dissecting the idea of Shuttle to Moon with some good ol science! Really enjoyed it, and you brought up some things I either didn't think about, or that I am unable to calculate - tho I do own The Space Shuttle Workshop Manual, thanks Haynes! Cheers mate.
Wait, why have only just discovered this channel?! Fecking brilliant content mate!
For first half of the video i was thinking why wouldn't they just put an extra tank low earth orbit so glad we agree Scott! Haha
9:25 - Why couldn't they make multiple aerobraking passes through the extreme upper atmosphere to bleed off speed before the final reentry? Since the shuttle's heatshield wasn't ablative, it was peak-heat-flux-limited rather than total-heat-absorbed-limited, so it _should_ have been possible to spread out the deceleration over several aerobraking passes rather than reentering directly from a lunar return.
Yep. Definitely wouldn't have been as much of an issue if it skipped off the atmosphere. Having the aerodynamic control capability that the shuttle provided would make it an option that simply wasn't on the table for Apollo.
You'd run into the multiple passes through the van-Allen belts problem again I think.
My knowledge of orbital mechanics is mostly acquired from playing KSP, so this reply is mostly guesswork, but I believe the problem with that is that there isn't a feasible trajectory to return from the moon that would allow a more gentle re-entry unless the vehicle started out to overshoot the Earth, then burned retrograde in order to be captured into Earth orbit, then burned again to lower its periapsis into the upper atmosphere. This approach has some problems. First the vehicle would need delta V in hand to perform the initial Earth orbit capture maneuver and again to lower its periapsis. Even assuming it had enough fuel to do this, if its engines failed to re-ignite for the initial capture burn, the vehicle would overshoot Earth and either be lost in deep space or get stuck in an extremely elongated elliptical orbit. Simply grazing the upper atmosphere on its first approach would have the same result. ie if the approach was shallow enough not to overheat the heat shield tiles, it wouldn't be steep enough to slow the vehicle enough to capture it into orbit and it would skip off the atmosphere and be lost in deep space. This is why Apollo was designed to come back from the moon direct to a fast+hot re-entry. Because it was cheaper simpler and more reliable to build a capsule capable of surviving a hot re-entry than it would have been to send enough fuel all the way to the Moon and back that the CSM could have used to perform an Earth orbit capture maneuver leading to a lower speed re-entry from low Earth orbit.
tl;dr. Anything's possible if you have enough Delta V and are confident your engines will light when needed, but unlike KSP, where you can easily fast forward through multiple highly elliptical aerobraking orbits, your Kerbals will put up with anything and losing a crew and vehicle is a minor inconvenience, real astronauts want to get back home as quickly, safely and reliably as possible.
@@Andrew-Kerr It would be _literally impossible_ for skipping off the atmosphere on a lunar return trajectory to send the shuttle into deep space; at worst, it would have ended up on an elliptical orbit that would still intersect the atmosphere on the next pass, and would still eventually have braked down to a low orbit.
When you're returning from the moon, you've _already_ been captured into Earth orbit (given that _the Moon is in Earth orbit)._
They’d pass through the van allan belt too many times, and it would take too much time
Thanks for this video, Scott. I have watched many of your videos because they are very interesting and I have had an interest in rockets since I was young. I heard a little about the show 'For All Mankind' and managed to watch the first episode and became more curious as to what would happen next. Of course, that led to viewing another episode and well...I ended up watching the entire 10 episode 1st season. The last image of the show with that massive rocket made me jump out of my seat! The water launch was totally insane to me but totally awesome at the same time. I had no idea that it was dubbed Sea Dragon and that it was a real, conceptual design from the 1950s. I really like the show because it talks about all the things that are involved with rocket development and going farther into space...the politics, the funding, male and female astronauts, international relationships, potential discovery of new resources, etc. It requires an elevated style of writing and vision that I feel is not shown enough with traditional broadcast television. I'm glad to hear there will be a second season coming soon. I have a request since you appear to be well-versed in NASA history. Can you explain where the 'thrust trainer' vehicle came from and it's purpose for astronaut candidates. In season one, a female candidate dies, unfortunately, while operating it at low altitude on the base. It hovers above ground but uses bursts of gas to maneuver but it seemed extremely temperamental. I would love to hear some history on it like who conceived of it, built it and what it was replaced with over time. Thanks!
A bit late, but the trainer thing you are talking about is probably called a LLTV (lunar landing test vehicle). It is designed to basically teach astronauts how to land the lunar module. And yes all of this was already mentioned in the show
I thank you for tipping me off about Season one of this show. As a Canadian, I got it easily! The whole production and all the episodes with only a few hours of sleep, I binged the whole thing. Not since "The Orville" have I watched such an engaging product like this! Seth would LOVE it. Well, like the rest of the world avoiding each other by necessity and working from home, who knows? Computers are wonderful and computers seem to work well at least most the time. It has been asked before but My first home computer was an Atari 600 and I really pushed it hard, ,,
Yep, at 10:26 that astronaut is moving his arms as if he were running on earth. Never saw any astronaut do that on the moon.
A cute 'in your face deniers' demonstration, that the film of Apollo astronauts on the moon was not faked.
I like that those flaws are there. It shows that it's not as easy to fake as some people claim.
@@gaydonaldtrump it's funny you call em lazy and then lazily assume they're landing the shuttle
@@darth856 If a bunch of youtube commenters get those easily I'm sure a decent production crew would too, if they just bothered to pay attention.
@@gaydonaldtrump sci-fi show has one detail about movement "THIS SHOW IS SO LAZY"
If it has extra fuel on it's way back, it could flip around and use the thrusters to slow down to a manageable speed when it hits the atmosphere
@Alpha Centauri [this is fiction] it could be refueled at the lunar orbital station. With that extra fuel, it could slow down so much that it would be safe for it to safely re-enter earth's atmosphere
I love it ! He has the technical knowledge to cover all the bases on why it won’t work but also the ability of sci fi fans to suspend doubts, accept a plot premise and enjoy the fictional story ! Some of the best sci-fi I’ve read or watched had unrealistic tech but the story was how people interact in a given situation. The tech was just part of the stage set.
You just described me watching Sharknado.
1. Create a dockable heat shield that's waiting for it on its return home. 2. Reuse the main external fuel tank as described. 3. Carry a lunar lander in the cargo bay since the extra fuel will be carried externally.
Some early space craft used wood for an ablative heat shield. Modifying the orbiter with an extra layer of heat shield should not be that difficult. Just costs mass. If using external fuel tanks refueled in orbit you have some mass to spare.
I remember early concepts of the shuttle (infrastructure) A smaller shuttle, space stations and so on. Maybe that could have gone to the moon. It certainly didn't have the massive and useless engines to carry around all the time in space. So more fuel would have been possible. Richard said nope, so we'll never know.
Then again you cannot land it anyway so what would be the advantage over a capsule and a space station? You'd carry pointless but not mass-less wings and all.
This is maybe the fundamental issue: What would be the point? Beyond it loooking cool of course.
+Jay Polasek; Who are you and why do you keep commenting that.
the advantage was the huge fucking payload bay. but why not just launch everything in a single giant fairing without the need of the extra fuel to send it back ?
In terms of small space plane, a common argument (which is used as a Scenario in the Japanese manga "Space Brothers") is: If someone is injured, their body cannot sustain the high amount of G's, and a spaceplane entry in theory have much less G. Granted, during that scenario, they ended up transit from moon to ISS in an Orion capsule and then do tele-surgery, but I think it's an emergency surgery to stabilize the patient (sharpeniel injury on Moon) before the actual transit back to Earth
how to send thermal protection, wings, and sea level engines to the moon
SpaceX - hold my BEER.
starship? BUT it has not wing, it has aerobreaks. And lunar lander version will not have them and it will not have sea level engine.
EDIT: and it will not have thermal protection. So basically nothing.
Edit 2: I am really stupid. This is not about starship, this is about space shuttle
Actually the RS25 engines are not optimized for sea level, the nozzle is as big as it can get before flow separation would destroy it.
You can see the over expansion on some engineering cameras
@@Jaker788 also, it uses cool trick with changing its shape, so it can be realy big without flow separation
Brilliant video, mate. Great analysis.
Scott, I'm one Massachusetts, and just wanted you to know just how much I enjoy your videos.
Hey Scott, you were right! Refuel in LEO prior to TLI!
Now we need a "Could Buran get to the moon?" video
9:25 a golden shuttle sounds like it would be a sight to see :D and since gold is great at reflecting heat...
Love the show. Great video. Could you get into the details of a hypothetical moon base and all that - even the sea dragon?
I just came across this, and I had the same thought. There was just absolutely no way the actual Shuttle could do all the maneuvers needed to go from Earth to the Moon and back in one piece. Not even the DeltaGlider IV in Orbiter could do a reentry from lunar orbit without melting within the first thirty seconds. but as shown, they refueled it before TLI. In the show, the Buran was still the same design as a Shuttle, and it didn't show it in lunar orbit with an ET. I'm sure the Russians would've jettisoned their ETs, while an OG Shuttle could've possibly docked the ET with an orbiting outpost for refueling, allowing for partial reusability.
I'm still convinced that sending a blue box to the moon is best.
Doctor who reference incoming.
@@diverguy3556 his tinfoil hat may have overheated his brain.
Astronauts with assault rifles make me sad...
It's perverse.
One heck of an evocative image for sure. I don’t think we can get a happy ending out of that.
@@ryanrising2237 nothing good can come of it...
I know right, like another comment pointed out, it's perverse
My first instinct 😮 "Bad idea! Don't do it!" Thanks for explaining exactly how and why that's true.
Thanks for this. It feels like the science/engineering slips a little bit more with every episode, which is fine "it's a TV show" but coming here and hearing your explanations of things lets me know I'm not crazy when I find myself thinking "that doesn't seem right, but I don't have the math to back it up."
But it makes sense in terms of alternate timeline, the shuttle they used could be different but look the same. Doesn’t have to be 1:1 with the one we used until 2011, could have secret design and flight profile differences. Same with season 1, the Apollo csm for Apollo 21 onwards might not be the Block 2 CSM.
I've never clicked so fast
Me neither 😂
I tried a direct push but i am 6th?? How fast can a man be!?
I thought this was an ad for a game for a second...
Always
Nobody cares.
Scott, all other points being quite valid, could the shuttle, having a long(er) term load of consumables, used its existing heat shield with a multi pass aerobraking maneuver strategy to create a successful re-entry? Thanks for the great videos and efforts.
In KSP you could do that and slowly reduce your apoapsis or you can use a lot of extra fuel to inject back in to low earth orbit after which the re-entry would be as normal.
Just found and watched the series, enjoyed it so far.
You answered a question I have long pondered. Thanks!
TLDW: SciFi show fails at the main thing it's supposed to be good at. Science and Fiction.
So it's bad at science and fiction, in that it gets science wrong, but being bad at fiction means it's factual? Disregarding that issue, Isn't that like 95% of science fiction?
aserta The second season failed at that. But hey it’s a tv show yeah know.
@@pricelessppp We don't know it's failed yet, no one's seen it.
Is the show actually bad from a storytelling point of view?
@@Mastikator I don't think so. It gets a little muddled in interpersonal drama instead of the space side of things, but I think it's a solid show.
My Dad always said, "if you bottled shit, someone would buy it", so true.
Did your dad work for NASA?
@@Nostradamus_Order33 probably for apple
Fun show. Tough to watch at times with all the interpersonal conflicts. Still the nostalgia, music are great. Best BSG line used so far “Sometimes ya’ gotta roll the hard six.” Love that!
Reminds me of when I was a little kid and would watch America's Funniest Home Videos, I remember whenever they announced how to send in videos they had an astronaut standing on the Moon with the Space Shuttle behind him with a ramp that was down. I was convinced that the Shuttle did Moon missions along with the regular missions. You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered that it didn't do Moon landings and only goes to orbit.
Next up, Scott tests “Salvage 1” for accuracy.
Oh yeah. Before watching: my idea was to fill orbiter's payload bay with hydrogen and oxygen tanks, possibly replacing payload bay door with solid hull to make it lighter and add more space, slightly lenghten the main tank for even more propellant and than to compensate for increased mass of the stack, well, if you played Kerbal you know the answer: Moar Boosters.
When I was in fifth grade a JPL engineer visited my school. I asked him, in front of the whole school, why they don't send shuttles to the moon. Instead of offering an answer that might lead a young person to science, he replied that it was because there are no runways on the moon, to which my fifth grade self internally said "no sh*t", but still resulted in classmates laughing at me for being the apparently stupid one.
I'm still a bit sore about it, 37 years later. All he had to say was that it did not have enough fuel.
I didn't know about this show. Sounds awesome, going to watch right now.
I really liked that while Scott was going over all the fuel problems at the beginning of the video, I was saying "refuel the shuttle in orbit" and then that's exactly the solution that Scott suggested.
I was waiting for the *DEPOT*
*Senator Shelby has entered the chat*
surprise seeing you here, now go make more videos >:)
You did a good job with lots of details of getting the shuttles to the moon, but wimp out on re-entering the Earth. If it's too fast for the TPS to handle, just go into a few LEOs to reduce speed to one that the TPS could handle.
This is such a fun and great channel.
For anyone who found this very interesting, Raiz space has a series of trying to do this in KSP realism overhaul.
My first tought after thumbnail was: Scott must have seen it
Agreed
In orbit refueling! :D
7:05 Eyyy! :DDD
Fantastic discussion. I was a huge fan of FAM season 1 and will be thinking about these weight/fuel considerations during season 2 - though as you rightly point out, it's just (science) fiction. Thanks for a very cool post!
I haven’t watched any of these shows, but I’ll give it a try based on your opinion as good entertainment. Thanks for your content!
There is also a possibility that the the launch sequence is another mission than the supposedly return from Moon shot. The elevons might be a clue here. Since the deep space shot shows clearly post OMDP elevon pattern, there is a possibility that this takes part much later in the show timeline that the launch sequence (which may well be Columbia's first flight). If that is the case, it is possible they, by the time they fly to the moon with the Shuttle, have upgraded the Shuttle stack. But if I was to guess, I'd also say they could and should go for orbital refueling.
If we went to the moon in 1969, why can't we do it anymore?
@@GM-lj8ct Budget constraints
G M we Will, as soon as we have figured out metods to ”harvest” ice at the poles. What’s the Hurry?
@@YDDES No, we won't. The moon can't be traveled to. It is a light in the firmament, not a rock in space. That's why we haven't been back - we never went.
G M From where have You got those hilarious idéas? From the ancient goatherds, sittning around the campfire, fantasizing about the universe? Of course, we can travel in space and have been to the rock, called Moon, that falls around Earth.
Well, I see that the people doing props fer "For All Mankind" havent been reading much of Atomic Rockets.
Oh dear, I appear to have started a bit of a debate. Atleast it seems mostly friendly?
Tell me about it, even Kubrick had that part figured out in 68
@Jay Polasek Yeah, I initially forgot to specify the props department. Im sure someone there has been reading it and been suffering disappointment from their coworkers.
Nyrath/Atomic Rockets has his own issues. The guy knows a lot about science, but virtually nothing about military tactics or technology. I got into a long email exchange with him years ago where I argued space fighters are not as useless as he made them out to be and he eventually started arguing in favor of AI controlled ballistic missiles that were basically space fighters in all but name.
If you're talking about the rifle props, they're fine. They'd likely function. Someone even had the bright idea to paint them white for helping with the heat.
@@matchesburn I have to disagree a bit on the rifle props. I do agree they would function but definitely not to the extent or performance you get on earth. The white paint would only help with reflecting heat away from the furniture and does not help with cooling the actual weapon system like the barrel or the action. The white furniture is actually quite insulated and separate from the heat emitting parts of the rifle. So they would probably experience severe overheating issues faster than they would if they were in atmosphere.
There there's the issue with aiming. I see no way they can actually use their scopes without resting the rifle against their helmets.
@@HCFyD they could have a smart scope and have the camera feed into a screen in their helmets
oh cool, i never heard of this show but you made it sound interesting, i think i watch season one shortly :)
I just found _For all Mankind_ off another channel and am enjoying the story.
Headline: "NASA to buy lightweight, semi-automatic rifles."
Me: *[worried laughter]*
They bought ar-15 pattern rifles. Most likely the M-4 variant
When you pronounce the word "moon" I can only hear "Mun".
Myhn !?
Mün. As in KSP.
And when you meet someone shamed jebediah you automatically think their last name is Kerman
I just watched the entire series because of this video... the late night was worth it
Give the shuttle TWO secondary external tanks!!!! And the larger boosters and all that. I'm sure they could have figured it out if they wanted to. Awesome video! Merry Christmas, Scott and readers!