Space Shuttle: The History of Developing the National Space Transportation System [Hardcover]

Dennis R. Jenkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1996

Space Shuttle goes behind the scenes and describes the technical aspects of the Space Shuttle. This revised 2nd edition covers 25 new Shuttle flights.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Motorbooks Intl; 2 edition (July 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963397443
• ISBN-13: 978-0963397447
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,345,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for the next generation of rocket engineers, December 29, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Space Shuttle: The History of Developing the National Space Transportation System (Hardcover)

Jenkins is a veteran engineer from NASA, having spent over 15 years working with the shuttle. This book is a fundamental reference for anyone interested in any one of several areas: 1) technical approaches to building a reusable or semi-reusable launch vehicle 2) the history of the Space Shuttle, including its funding, construction and flights 3) the technology of the Space Shuttle, as it was original built and as it has been modified through the years. The book focuses on the technical details of today's Shuttle, and how the design of the Shuttle got that way. It starts of with a discussion of early work on high speed vehicles with aerodynamic lift, including the Sanger and Bredt work, the first X-planes, the X-15, and Dyna-Soar, along with many other vehicles not so famous, including extensive discussion on early lifting bodies. The book continues with a long discussion of the literally dozens of distinct design concepts from multiple sources which were made in the pre-Shuttle era to obtain low cost access to space via reusability. Eventually NASA issued a series of contracts to explore reusable vehicle concepts. The book is at its best here, as it attempts to follow the flowering of design concepts by the different aerospace companies. Almost every conceivable type of reusable vehicle is represented. Wings range from deltas to conventional shapes, thermal protection ranges from super alloys to ablative shielding and booster range from elegant winged monsters to throw-away solids. Some vehicles have folding wings, some have fully internal propellant tanks, and some have expendable tanks. The number of engines in the upper stage varies - early contractors were offered the possibility of being given engines with more thrust than the current SSME, allowing two rather than three engines to be used. Abort mode analysis eventually convinced most that three smaller engines were better than two larger engines, even though performance was not as good. All vehicles are illustrated by beautifully prepared line drawings, with important features pointed out with lines and fragments of text ("skid type landing gear", "abort solid rocket motors" , "air breathing engines"). There is even a discussion of Chrysler's SERV (Single -stage, Earth-orbital, Reusable Vehicle), an early SSTO with a semi conical shape and aerospike engines which took off and landed vertically. It dwarfed the current SSTO concepts, being able to put 116,000 lbs into orbit. The book then follows the Shuttle itself, through its early design concepts and evolution, to its building and early flight testing. The book deals only briefly with the operational record of the Shuttle (in contrast to most Shuttle books, which focus on the flights and not the vehicle). Some brief information on the first 50 flights is followed by an analysis of the accident and the resulting Shuffle modifications. The remaining flights are then briefly discussed. The final third of the book gives a detailed technical description of the Shuttle as it exists today, down to such obscure items as the Shuttle's coordinate system (definitions of x, y and z axes) and line drawings of the pilot's rudder pedals and attached hardware (including a "Brake System Artificial Feel Bungee"). The last chapter of the book is titled "The Next Generation" and discusses possible modifications to the Shuttle (liquid boosters, the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor), Shuttle derivatives (Shuttle C, Shuttle Z), possible Shuttle II configurations (aiming for full reusability), and the HL-20 personal launch system (for launch from a Titan IV). Jenkins generally takes the position of a historian. He doesn't discuss for example which of a number of different design concepts he favors, but does do a good job of presenting the arguments of others for or against different designs. Much of the early history of the Shuttle should be required reading for anyone wishing to develop a new vehicle. For example: "It became clear, even during the NASA's early in-house analyses, that any economic justification depended crucially on the Space Shuttle being the only US launch vehicle during the 1980s and later." "But there were dissidents as well. Several 1970 studies by the think-tank RAND Corporation stated that Space Shuttle "...development is not easy to justify..." Based primarily on traffic rates derived from conservative options in the STG and DoD plans, it was projected that the Space Shuttle would show a net transportation cost savings of $2.8 billion in the fifteen years ending in 1990. ..... while a savings of $2.8 billion seemed large, total costs for all the programs involved ranged from approximately $75 billion to over $140 billion (FY75-90), and any technical difficulties or overruns in the programs could negate all of the savings..." All in all, an excellent book. Much of the information on the current shuttle design is probably available elsewhere, but the information on the early design proposals has probably never been collected before. For such information, Jenkins went to the archives of the various companies involved, and dug the information up himself.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent and definitive history of the Space Shuttle., June 15, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Space Shuttle: The History of Developing the National Space Transportation System (Hardcover)

Surprisingly, the concept of a Space Shuttle-like vehicle is much older than most people know. During the 1930s, German engineer Eugen Sanger designed the "Silverbird," a winged rocket that glided back to Earth at the completion of its mission. During World War II, he promoted his vehicle to the Luftwaffe as an "Amerika Bomber": a reuseable winged spacecraft that would deliver bombs onto New York City. The Amerika Bomber was never built, but many of Sanger's concepts were recurring themes throughout the history of spacecraft development.

In this book, the author chronicles the work of Sanger and all others who are found on the road to the Space Shuttle. And a long road it has been: research vehicles like the X-Planes and lifting bodies; a staggering number of design concepts; engineering triumphs and fatal tragedies; and, of course, the fickle political winds that decided if, when, and how an idea would be turned into an actual working spacecraft.

Rather than just a dry history and collection of technical facts, Dennis Jenkins gives the reader a feel for the reasons things were done they way they were. I think this is the most interesting aspect of the book -- the "why" component of history. Mr. Jenkins gives us a look into the aerospace industry, and we see a bit of how NASA, corporations, and economics dictated what the Space Shuttle eventually became.

The latter half of the book is dedicated to a technical description of the Space Shuttle and its missions to date. As a former Shuttle Engineer and one of the proof readers for this book, I was fairly astonished at detail and careful accuracy in the book. If you want to know any hard fact concerning the Space Shuttle -- from mission crew to engine serial numbers -- this is the perfect reference. If you want understand a piece of history and how our aerospace industry really works, this book is an ideal choice.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, but only for die-hards..., January 24, 2001

By 

Jim Kirk (Boston MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Space Shuttle: The History of Developing the National Space Transportation System (Hardcover)

This book is an incredibly detailed exploration of history of the development of the Space Transportation System (aka space shuttle). The book begins with a history of some pioneering work by Germans in WWII and follows the history of the development of the concept of the shuttle, how contracts were awarded to aerospace firms, and how the actual shuttle was built. The book also details the first 75 shuttle missions.

The text is vigorously illustrated with copious black and white photos as well as many, many line drawings of various proposed shuttle variants, design concepts, etc.

Books like these are a boon to those who have read all of the standard "so-you're-interested-in-the-space-program" books as they delve deeply into technical issues and provide a lot of hard data as opposed to broad strokes. This book works very well with such texts as the "NASA mission reports series" edited by R. Godwin.

My one and only complaint is that there are many typographical errors and omitted punctuation marks that are distracting.

A must for those really interested in the details.