Why were the Shuttle payload bay doors made 60' in length?
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the link.
Another piece of trivia is why were the Shuttle payload bay doors made 60' in length?
There was an initial USAF-NASA three volume report in June 1969 that was a joint
study into the shuttle's requirements. This report was classified Secret at the time.
In 1970, the USAF and NASA came to the decision that the payload bay be 60' long
by 15' in diameter. NASA requirements were for a payload bay only 30' long at the
time but the USAF and CIA had requirements for new generations of reconnaissance
satellites that were longer, such as the KH-9 "Big Bird" and KH-11 Kennan which
was also codenamed "Key Hole". These were essentially large Earth-ward pointing
telescopes with long focal lengths and proportionally narrow FOV's. The "Key Holes"
had 2.4m mirrors. As it transpired, these particular satellites ended up being launched
on Titan-3D's and Titan 4's.
Some military payloads went aboard the Shuttle, such as the SYNCOM IV military
communications satellites, but the Shuttle may never have had a 60' long payload
design if it had not been for the original planning to use it to launch spy satellites.
The Hubble Space Telescope, manufactured primarily by the same contractors that
designed and built the reconnaissance satellites, was 43.5' (13.2m) long.
As a young undergraduate at UWA in the 1970's someone posted a job advert from NASA for trainee Shuttle Pilots.
Under 21 years old....................check
Science or Engineering Degree... check
Pilots Licence..........................ch eck
2000 hours of jet experience......bugger!
Like Concorde, it's truly sad to see yet another technology icon fade into history...
Like Concorde, it's truly sad to see yet another technology icon fade into history...
That's 2 giant leaps backwards for mankind.... the Concorde....won't be anything like it in the next few lifetimes, and the Space Shuttle... to be replaced with a tiny capsule with a fraction of its payload capacity.
Why were the Shuttle payload bay doors made 60' in length?
