Comment by wkat4242

Comment by wkat4242 4 days ago

6 replies

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That's one capability that was lost with the space shuttle. There's nothing remaining nor planned that can bring something that size back from LEO.

I feel like materials science could learn a lot more about radiation embrittlement and high energy micro impacts.

The space shuttle is often regarded as a huge mistake and in many ways (reusability especially, it was more like rebuildability :) ) it was, but it was still hell of a machine.

femto 4 days ago

> That's one capability that was lost with the space shuttle. There's nothing remaining nor planned that can bring something that size back from LEO.

Surely the X-37 could be used to bring a satellite down, even if it's not an acknowledged capability?

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  • mr_toad 3 days ago

    The X-37 is tiny, it’s only 5 tonnes itself. But one of the uses is probably to bring back smaller satellites to determine how long term exposure in space has affected them.

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ACCount37 3 days ago

Starship might be capable, once it gets the "chomper" cargo bay. Would require custom hardware though.

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  • wkat4242 3 days ago

    Yeah the cool thing about the shuttle is that it also was a mini space station. Astronauts could actually live in it for a while. Which came in handy building the ISS I'm sure. Robotics weren't what they are now so it was a lot of hand work.

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