[HN Gopher] Simulation of Space Shuttle - STS 62 A Polar Express...
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       Simulation of Space Shuttle - STS 62 A Polar Express high altitude
       journey
        
       Author : emondi
       Score  : 74 points
       Date   : 2021-04-25 13:25 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (forum.flightgear.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (forum.flightgear.org)
        
       | marcodiego wrote:
       | Flightgear has so much potential... I really would like to see
       | its development advancing faster and become more popular among
       | flight-simmers.
        
       | everyone wrote:
       | Reminded me of this.. https://youtu.be/_q2i0eu35aY
       | 
       | " The Space Shuttle was a vehicle designed to do many things, and
       | in a deal with the US Military it was redesigned to make it able
       | to perform a very specific secret mission. The redesign radically
       | changed the Shuttle from the early concepts to the actual design
       | which we saw fly, but, before the shuttle even flew the secret
       | mission had been abandoned.
       | 
       | "
        
       | billfruit wrote:
       | I haven't seriously looked into it, but won't Orbiter be better
       | than FlightGear for trying this?
        
         | imglorp wrote:
         | Looks fun, but sadly windows with MSI installer. Maybe Wine is
         | up to the job? Also needs some love, not touched since '17.
        
         | emondi wrote:
         | I don't know about orbiter but FlightGear uses JSBsim for
         | flight dynamics modeling which can be very accurate and was
         | even used at NASA. You are correct that as space is not the
         | primary use case for FG the shuttle developers had to start
         | from scratch on many things.
        
       | ajdoingnothing wrote:
       | I still can't comprehend how the scientists and engineers managed
       | to launch STS 1 (test flight) with two astronauts in 1981 -
       | without doing a prior test launch with no astronauts inside (like
       | SpaceX).. Absolutely incredible. I don't know what it is about
       | the Shuttle, but the aesthetics are just really nice. The safety,
       | of course, is a different question, but it still has a special
       | place in my heart.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | billfruit wrote:
         | Also it was rather astonishing when Soviets did an autonomous
         | flight of Buran, perhaps the only time it flew.
         | 
         | https://youtu.be/QH0Lo97Hjjc
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | rpeden wrote:
         | They did a lot of static testing of both the SRBs, external
         | tank, and main engines before the first flight. This NASA slide
         | deck gives a pretty good overview:
         | 
         | https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/552577main_Shuttle_Propulsion_Mitig...
         | 
         | After all of that they were probably confident enough in the
         | individual pieces working well individually that they were also
         | decently confident that they'd all work well together during
         | the STS-1. Although STS-1 through STS4 had ejection seats
         | installed for both crew members, just in case. Perhaps the
         | thinking was that if anything was going to go wrong, it would
         | happen below 80k feet where the ejection seats would still be
         | usable.
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | "-Up to 20 tons of payload capacity on re-entry *1,693,500
           | lbs returned to earth*"
           | 
           | I always find myself laughing when propaganda material like
           | this mixes units for the benefit of sounding more impressive.
           | Capacity of 20 tons, yet they switch to pounds to get a
           | larger number. 1,693,500lbs is only 846.75 tons, which just
           | doesn't sound nearly as impressive.
        
       | systemvoltage wrote:
       | Sidenote: IMO these STS space suits were far better looking than
       | the oompa loompa version that SpaceX has devised. In the name of
       | minimalism, they've created something that looks like a bad
       | hollywood low-budget scifi film (including the purely decorative
       | bridge to the space capsule and the touch screen cockpit). It's
       | personal opinion/taste but I can't help but look at how beautiful
       | and professional it was back in the day. Also, traveling to the
       | SpaceX rocket in Tesla Model X is one of the tackiest things I've
       | seen.
        
       | xattt wrote:
       | Brining Comic Book Guy level of pedanticism, the thing that stood
       | out the most for me was that the space shuttle in the sim had a
       | glass cockpit with full colour displays.
       | 
       | The shuttle cockpit upgrades didn't take place until
       | late-1990s/early-2000s, and before then, it was just green text
       | on CRTs.
       | 
       | Regardless, it's amazing to see what people can achieve with
       | enough interest and time.
        
         | sjcsjc wrote:
         | _Comic Book Guy level of pedanticism_
         | 
         | Pedantry ;-)
        
         | emondi wrote:
         | This FlightGear's shuttle is the most accurate version. I think
         | the choice of shuttle mission was because of the unusual
         | transpolar trajectory.
        
           | xattt wrote:
           | The STS 62A polar orbit mission was scheduled to take place
           | in 1986, so the model used in the sim doesn't correlate to
           | what the shuttle capabilities were at the time.
        
       | gus_massa wrote:
       | This reminds me an old video by Scott Manley of an abort
       | procedure of the Space Shuttle that never was tried in real life.
       | (He used a model in the Kerbal Space Program.) " _Space Shuttle
       | RTLS Abort Challenge - Without The Manual_ "
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwn3kk-q1YU
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | qwerty1793 wrote:
         | Unlike many of his videos which are made using KSP, this RTLS
         | Abort Challenge video was made using Orbiter 2016 Space Flight
         | Simulator from UCL http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
        
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       (page generated 2021-04-25 23:01 UTC)