re over zealous shuttle critics we ve had the the great western the dunno and the great northern postulated as brunel s masterpiece keep boxing the compass chaps you ll get round to it eventually the great western was a highly successful transatlantic mail ship with hybrid sail and steam propulsion the great eastern which broke the little giant financially and otherwise was a revolutionary leap forward in ship design a thirty thousand ton all steel vessel with primary steam propulsion it was at the time easily the biggest ocean going vessel ever built brunel took advantage of the fact that cargo and or fuel capacity rose with the cube of scale while drag rose with the square so a really big ship could steam thousands of miles without coaling unfortunately there was no real market for such a beast at the time and it was eventually sold off at scrap values as another poster said it then went on to a successful career as a telegraph cable laying ship it was in fact the only ship of its day capable of laying a transatlantic cable in one go with the endurance and capacity to carry the huge reel all the way and the manoeuverabilty to dredge for defective sections see arthur c clarke s book how the world was one i think that s right if that s how the shuttle goes down in history as a technical triumph and a financial disaster for the builder it would not be entirely ignoble but i doubt if history will be so charitable its true the shuttle can do things no other launch system can do but are they worth doing with low cost access to space you could have an affordable space station for doing shuttle like extended manned missions as it is the shuttle is not so much a space truck as a space rv only not so cheap to run peter card joint european torus abingdon oxfordshire ox ea uk tel fax email pjc jet uk or compuserve it wasnt me it was the others they made me do it disclaimer please note that the above is a personal view and should not be construed as an official comment from the jet project
