http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29228900

I know this is all based on cost, and you only need to go as far as the ISS, but I can’t help thinking that this is a backwards step to the “bucket and parachute” times of Apollo and before.

A quote from an astronaut from QI sticks in my mind (and possibly paraphrase slightly):

I've been to the cape twice. They have a Saturn 5 in.. well basically it fills a warehouse. The scale of the thing is just ludicrous, given it was a device pretty much designed purely to get something the size of a camper van beyond orbit. The idea of something that size, mostly filled with something that could be very very explosive is a scary prospect indeed.

I was told by a tour guide that when the Saturn 5 was in active service, every time they had it fueled on the launch pad they formally told the Russians it was there (not like they didn't know anyway, but they liked to make it official) because if something had gone catastrophically wrong at launch and the whole thing had gone up in an explosion, it would have looked very much like a nuclear explosion and there was a moratorium on above ground testing. That and the fact that even the place where the people who needed to be there at launch had to retreat to is 10 minutes drive from the actual launch pad.

I have to admit I'm kind of sad NASA isn't actually making rockets any more. I know there are reasons, I know it hasn't got the funding any more and that, to a degree, it's something the private sector is now better suited to. But still, it feels like the end of an era.

Saturn 5 was designed to give a load enough speed to break orbit and reach the moon. That won't be required not so a smaller cheaper ticket can be used.
With regards to the shuttle's reusability, they still wasted the tank and boosters didn't they? And the design was kind of a compromise to start with from what I've heard.

All designs are a compromise. IIRC the booster engines parachuted back and were recovered, the tank basically crashed into the atlantic each time and was lost.

From 1998.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuAUE58MQt4

I really get the feeling that Mad Magazine made a similar observation in the 1980s. The whole sentiment of this seems very familiar - I read a lot of it at that time, and my memory kind of stores stuff like that away.



Yes - though I can’t help thinking that with a little foresight, the fuel tanks could have become the foundations for a space station.

Just like they did with parts of the Saturn 5