CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA isn't likely to order another orbiter to replace shuttle Columbia but that isn't stopping Boeing engineers from thinking about how they might go about building a 21st century addition to the fleet.
These somewhat conflicting views were presented here Wednesday by industry officials attending the 40th Space Congress.
"The best value to the country is not to build another one," Michael Kostelnik, a senior spaceflight official in Washington, D.C., told SPACE.com during an exclusive interview.
With a starting price of $2 billion, it doesn't make sense to manufacture a new shuttle just to wind up with a vehicle that still is basically a 30-year-old design, Kostelnik said.
The former Air Force two-star general said it made better sense to invest in future technology and transportation hardware that can help keep the current fleet flying another decade or more, while developing new vehicles to augment the shuttle's capabilities and eventually replace it.
"It wouldn't be pragmatic enough to build another shuttle," he said.
Nevertheless, Boeing NASA Systems manager Mike Lounge told a packed Space Congress audience that engineers at his company were doing an internal exercise to determine the best way to construct a replacement spaceplane if needed.
Lounge, a veteran astronaut with three spaceflights, presented two possible ideas:First, build a new shuttle based on the old blueprints but use modern, 21st century manufacturing techniques that wouldn't rely on the original factory equipment and workers, both of which in most cases are no longer available.
Such a vehicle would essentially be a copy of Endeavour, Atlantis and Discovery, which are more like each other than Columbia, Challenger and even Enterprise.
Lounge called such a vehicle "OV-106," as that would be the next addition in the numbering scheme for the current shuttle design. Endeavour, Atlantis and Discovery are better known by workers here as OV-105, OV-104 and OV-103, respectively. Columbia was OV-102, Enterprise was OV-101 and Challenger was OV-99.
Second, Lounge suggested the shuttle program consider building what he called "OV-201," a modernized version of the shuttle that would look the same on the outside but on the inside sport every new system and gadget now being considered to keep the shuttle fleet safely flying through 2020.
Those changes might include updated avionics with a vehicle health monitoring system, steering thrusters that don't use toxic propellants and replacement of the hydraulic system so wing flaps and engine nozzles would move with electric actuators.
Lounge had no estimates yet on the cost or schedule demands for either idea.
"We're still looking at what that would mean to do," Lounge said.
Following the 1986 Challenger disaster, Congress approved building a replacement orbiter that became Endeavour. The shuttle cost about $1.8 billion -- considered then to be a bargain -- but it relied heavily on using major structural spare components that had already been built.
Rockwell was the original shuttle contractor but they are now part of Boeing.
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