starship-design: Boeing Considers Ideas to Replace Shuttle Columbia

["L. Clayton Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>]

Boeing Considers Ideas to Replace Shuttle Columbia
By Jim Banke
Senior Producer,
Cape Canaveral Bureau
posted: 03:00 pm ET
30 April 2003


CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA isn't likely to order another orbiter to
replace shuttle Columbia but that isn't stopping Boeing engineers from
thinking about how they might go about building a 21st century addition to
the fleet.


These somewhat conflicting views were presented here Wednesday by industry
officials attending the 40th Space Congress.


"The best value to the country is not to build another one," Michael
Kostelnik, a senior spaceflight official in Washington, D.C., told SPACE.com
during an exclusive interview.


With a starting price of $2 billion, it doesn't make sense to manufacture a
new shuttle just to wind up with a vehicle that still is basically a
30-year-old design, Kostelnik said.


The former Air Force two-star general said it made better sense to invest in
future technology and transportation hardware that can help keep the current
fleet flying another decade or more, while developing new vehicles to
augment the shuttle's capabilities and eventually replace it.


"It wouldn't be pragmatic enough to build another shuttle," he said.


Nevertheless, Boeing NASA Systems manager Mike Lounge told a packed Space
Congress audience that engineers at his company were doing an internal
exercise to determine the best way to construct a replacement spaceplane if
needed.


Lounge, a veteran astronaut with three spaceflights, presented two possible
ideas:


First, build a new shuttle based on the old blueprints but use modern, 21st
century manufacturing techniques that wouldn't rely on the original factory
equipment and workers, both of which in most cases are no longer available.


Such a vehicle would essentially be a copy of Endeavour, Atlantis and
Discovery, which are more like each other than Columbia, Challenger and even
Enterprise.


Lounge called such a vehicle "OV-106," as that would be the next addition in
the numbering scheme for the current shuttle design. Endeavour, Atlantis and
Discovery are better known by workers here as OV-105, OV-104 and OV-103,
respectively. Columbia was OV-102, Enterprise was OV-101 and Challenger was
OV-99.


Second, Lounge suggested the shuttle program consider building what he
called "OV-201," a modernized version of the shuttle that would look the
same on the outside but on the inside sport every new system and gadget now
being considered to keep the shuttle fleet safely flying through 2020.


Those changes might include updated avionics with a vehicle health
monitoring system, steering thrusters that don't use toxic propellants and
replacement of the hydraulic system so wing flaps and engine nozzles would
move with electric actuators.


Lounge had no estimates yet on the cost or schedule demands for either idea.


"We're still looking at what that would mean to do," Lounge said.


Following the 1986 Challenger disaster, Congress approved building a
replacement orbiter that became Endeavour. The shuttle cost about $1.8
billion -- considered then to be a bargain -- but it relied heavily on using
major structural spare components that had already been built.


Rockwell was the original shuttle contractor but they are now part of
Boeing.