Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise is/was a fully functional Orbiter yet it was never launched. Why was this Orbiter never used as a backup? We could have been still launching the Space Shuttle with this machine. What gives?
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Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise is/was a fully functional Orbiter yet it was never launched. Why was this Orbiter never used as a backup? We could have been still launching the Space Shuttle with this machine. What gives?
Rocket Boffin
Will Marchant, KC6ROL
NAR 13356, Tripoli 10125 L3, AMA 800142, FBIS
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Soooo, with a few nails, a little paint, she could fly into space!
I'm sorry she did not get the chance!
I hope to go and see her this summer!
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Enterprise was built as an aerodynamic test artical and had none of the systems installed --external or internal --to make it a functional orbiter.In fact it was so different from the orbiters it would have been next to impossible to bring it up to orbiter standards. It was built as a one-off test bird. It really only looks like the other shuttles externally.
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Why did they consider it to be a replacment to the the Challenger?
or Columbia?
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I never heard that. Sounds like a media thing to me , but I could be wrong. My understanding was it would cost less-or about the same to build another orbiter than to try to refit Enterpise. There where a ton of structural differences among other things. btw is the packet idea ok?
Rocket Nerd
They were planning to convert it, but decided it would be more economical to build a whole new orbiter.Originally Posted by dlazarus6660
2012 Neutons Burned: 6419 (66.6%M)
2013 Neutons Burned: 7331 (71.6%M)
2013 Motors: B:1 D:1 G:1 H:1 I:1 J:3 K:1 L:1
"With enough power, anything can fly, it's just a matter of how it flies"
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Converting Enterprise was the natural "popular" first idea when it was decided to continue the shuttle program after the Challenger disaster, but as several have already posted, Enterprise was significantly enough different in terms of structure, inside systems etc etc that to refit it would have cost more than assemble Endeavour essentially from scratch.
As far as I know there was never any serious discussion of replacing Columbia when it went down. By that stage it was obvious there were some serious fundamental design deficiencies in the shuttle and with the program already being drawn down, building a new shuttle would not have made sense.
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