The shuttle does have RTLS capability, although it's never been used.
The fact that two shuttles have been lost in 120 missions in no way predicts that we will lose a shuttle every 60 missions. Both losses were due to design deficiencies, one of which has been corrected, and the other will be.
The Titan IV has just as much lift capability as the shuttle. I don't know where this bozo got his numbers.
The author didn't even mention orbital planes at all (at least in the first half that I read) - he should have explained that AlGore killed the manned space program when he and Chernomyrdin insisted that the ISS be in the 51 degree orbit. We lose over 30% of our lift capablity by being forced to launch into that orbit. Not much we can do about it now, though...
I am a true dunce about this. Could you explain this to me in simple terms.
What this article did do for me was give me a clearer understanding, if not misconcieved, what the weight consequences are, and why the ballistic return is so much more cost-effective than with wings.
I too thought the extrapolation of failure rates and losses of the space-craft was way too cavalier, and unscientific.
The ISS orbit could be changed. No big deal, except the Russians would then have the launch burden.
It's true that two failure out of 120 missions (is that all, I thought there were more?..whatever) is not a good estimate, but it's all we've got and it certainly indicates that the shuttle's reliablity/safety is no where near it's design goal. As to the failures being due to design defects... two points. The second "failure" was not due to an original design failure, since the original foam didn't fall off in chuncks as the newer stuff does, so why would the wing leading edges be designed to withstand that impact? Secondly how many other design defects are there?