Deriving a way forward, What's next for the shuttle?

With my arrival back from the STS-132 Launch Tweetup (a truly once in a life time trip and my first ever launch in person) and the landing of Atlantis and end of the STS-132 mission today many have been asking me "What's next?" What's next for NASA? What's next for the shuttles after the next 2 (or 3) missions? These are questions that I've certainly been giving a good deal of thought to lately. What I'll frequently do is think about it in two different ways what is actually next and likely to happen, and what if I could wave a wand for the shuttle program would I like to happen.

"It belongs in a museum!" -Dr. Indiana Jones

I'll start with my thoughts on how I feel about what is most likely to happen to the shuttle next in reality. If you weren't already aware NASA has put out requests for proposals from museums interested in displaying one of the remaining shuttle orbiters. There are technically four orbiters up for grabs, Enterprise (glide test prototype never flew in space), Discovery, Endeavour, and Atlantis. Now it should be noted that it is an all but foregone conclusion that the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Annex in Washington, D.C. will get Discovery. The Annex is currently home to Enterprise and engineers recently gave Enterprise a check-out to make sure that it was carrier-flight ready when the time comes for it to make way for Discovery. So in reality Enterprise, Endeavour, and Atlantis are up for grabs by museums.

This raises the question though what's the best way to display such an amazing vehicle as the shuttle? After all this is the most versatile spacecraft ever constructed and the only manned reusable spacecraft that can land on a runway that has ever been put into service. CollectSPACE has a good article with pictures on some of the proposed exhibits.

"Boy that's the world's greatest electric flying machine I'll tell ya that!" -John Young, Commander STS-1 on landing of Columbia

In my opinion an exhibit must maintain the highest level of respect for the legacy of the shuttle program and the magnificent and really beautiful vehicles. Here are a few proposals I would make for any exhibit:

1. Shuttle Orbiters must be displayed in their own free-standing building or in a dedicated wing of any existing building.
2. No exhibits will be placed around the orbiter that are any higher than the height from the ground to the underside of the orbiter. No exhibits will be hung over the orbiter. In other words the orbiter must stand alone in it's own open space so that it may be appreciated in its entirety from any angle.
3. Under NO circumstances shall the orbiters be carved up or opened up for as a walk-through exhibit of the flight-deck, mid-deck, or payload bays. History was made time and time again on all three and we should respect that and appreciated it without traipsing 100s of visitors through. Note that the ability to provide access should be maintained by the museums for authorized/credentialed historical, academic, or engineering research purposes.

Ideally I would like to see something along the lines of what has been done with the three remaining Saturn Vs the orbiters are no less historically significant and more than worthy of as prominent display. Where would they go? Well with Discovery already going to the Air and Space, that makes sense. Additionally I would like to see at least one remain at a NASA facility. Kennedy or Johnson seem the most likely choices. Geographically Johnson would allow for one in the middle of the country. Lastly Palmdale seems like a significant choice since that is where the orbiters were originally constructed and reconditioned. Exactly locations may be up for debate but I think it would be nice to see one on the ease coast, one some where in the central part of the country, and one on the west coast.

The bottom line is however the orbiters are exhibited it should be with the highest possible level of respect and reverence for the history the represent. While it is admittedly heartbreaking to imagine them sitting in museums instead of up among the starts performing their mission more tragic would be to imagine them not receiving the respect the truly deserve.

"Many said she was old and past her prime. Still, she had only lived barely a quarter of her design life; in years, she was only 22." - Bob Crippen, Eulogizing Columbia after her lost and the loss of STS-107

As we face the end of the shuttle program as a whole many have echoed similar sentiments about the remaining orbiters. It is true that each orbiter was built for a flight life of 100 flights. However this assumes many more flights a year than occurred in reality and that those flights would be completed within a 20 year time frame. In other words our beloved fleet of orbiters isn't getting any newer.

What to do now truly epitomizes the old saying about being between a rock and a hard place. I could not believe more firmly that NASA and all involved are as good at flying the shuttle as they have ever been. Indeed the last several missions have been a testament to that I can't remember any significant technical delays and there have been very few on orbit issues as well.

As if to complicated matters further it is simply a fact there there is no vehicle in existence or on any publicly available design board that comes even close to the shuttle in terms of capability. I simply can't imagine how we would do something like repair Hubble or build a space station without the orbital workbench the shuttle as provided time and time again. Then there's the issue of down-mass, or the ability to bring large payloads and amounts of supplies back down from the space station. That just isn't possible without the shuttle, a huge handicapping of the space station program is the result. The shuttle's fuel cells are also used on orbit to produce large quantities of oxygen, water, etc. for resupply far more than can be shipped up in the proposed capsules. Truly the shuttle was build for station and station was built for shuttle.

I firmly believe the way forward is shuttle derived. We take the SRBs and the Main Engines and the ET we reconfigure them and we could end up with a heavy lift vehicle (which the shuttle already is by the way) and a crew transfer vehicle. If we do it right and reuse enough of the technology and lessons we might yet save large portions of the workforce and infrastructure.

What we need to be doing and we need to be doing YESTERDAY is this proposal. Then we take the X-37B and we expand it make a crew rated version using all the lessons learned and latest in materials science and technology so that it can launch in a stacked configuration and land on a runway and we have something that gives us back some of the shuttle capabilities like down mass, etc.