NASA's 1980 Space Shuttle vs Most of EVE's Ships

Communications Center General Discussion
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I love the Space Shuttle, ever since I first saw her in 1978. I thought she was the coolest thing in the world, and still do. So this crazy idea came to mind to compare it to some of the ships in EVE. I couldn’t imagine my surprise at the end of some of the calculations I did though.
Let me share :slight_smile:

1. CPU (Computational Power)

  • The Shuttle’s General Purpose Computers (GPCs) might seem weak by today’s standards (using 1970’s tech), but their efficiency and redundancy were extreme. They handled flight control, navigation, telemetry, and life support in real-time.
  • EVE Comparison: Most ships in EVE have laughably low CPU in the range of 200–700 teraflops-equivalent, which would barely power basic software.
  • Advantage: The Space Shuttle’s computational system is far superior to any EVE ship, given that it has real-world precision in controlling atmospheric re-entry and orbital mechanics.

2. Power Grid (Energy for Thrusters, Life Support, and Systems)

  • The Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) were absolute monsters. Each one produced 418,000 pounds of thrust using cryogenic hydrogen/oxygen fuel.
  • The Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) provided 85% of the total launch thrust.
  • Once in orbit, the Shuttle relied on fuel cells for electrical power and maneuvering thrusters for control.
  • EVE Comparison:
    • A Frigate (like a Merlin) has a Power Grid of ~30 MW.
    • A Battleship (like a Raven) has a Power Grid of ~10,000 MW.
    • The Shuttle’s actual real-world power output during launch exceeded 37,000,000,000 Watts (37 GW)—way beyond any non-capital ship in EVE.
  • Advantage: The Shuttle’s raw power generation dwarfs anything below a Titan-class ship in EVE.

3. Capacitor (Sustained Energy and Operational Endurance)

  • The Shuttle used three fuel cells, combining hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity with continuous recharge (like an infinite capacitor).
  • EVE ships rely on capacitor banks, which are limited reserves that deplete quickly under heavy module usage.
  • EVE Comparison:
    • A Frigate’s capacitor is ~250 GJ and drains in seconds.
    • A Battleship has about 5,000 GJ but still runs dry in a prolonged engagement.
    • The Shuttle’s power source kept it running for 17+ days, making it more efficient than most EVE ships in sustained power.
  • Advantage: The Shuttle has a continuous, self-regenerating energy source, unlike the finite capacitor of EVE ships.

Final Verdict: The Shuttle is more powerful than most EVE Ships

If we dropped NASA’s Space Shuttle into New Eden, it would outclass almost any subcapital ship in terms of:
:white_check_mark: Computational power (CPU)
:white_check_mark: Raw energy output (Power Grid)
:white_check_mark: Sustained operation (Capacitor)

The only EVE ships that could rival it would be Titans, Carriers, or specialized Strategic Cruisers—but even then, the Shuttle has real-world engineering precision that most EVE ships lack.

So our so-called ‘advanced’ starships of the year AD 23363 are still weaker than a 20th-century space shuttle. I find that amazing!

Discuss?

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The tech is also far different in how that energy is used. Most of the shuttle energy is used to escape the gravity well it starts from. I doubt a even the most blinged out Catalyst would survive any landing on a planet.

Realistically speaking the energy output of a ship in EVE is reflective of not having to land or take off from a gravity well. Though in truth A T1 ship is underpowered compared to any real world rocket or shuttle. A T2 and above are more efficient and of course what your skill level might be for some of those modules used in a ship.

I do agree that the shuttle has a better Compactional power - CPU, Raw energy output - Power grid, And Sustained operation - Capacitor. But the kicker here is the difference between how each is built and flys.

I would imagine that the reason for the shuttle being able to outclass most ships in EVE. Is that a ship in the game does not use energy in the same way. Nor utilize in quite the way the Shuttle does, Throw in that much of the Tech in EVE is basically alien in nature.

In canon is supposed not to be really or completely understood. As in we are not going to get all that technical to keep from having to write an engineering manual(s). Drifter/Jovian tech forms the basis of much of the capsuleer (our toons) ability to become a virtual immortal in the capsule. Energy use and storage is far different than the 20th and this early part of the 21rst centuries tech.

This is just my opinion and to be taken with a large grain of salt.

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I think you got both your assumptions and calculations pretty wrong.

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Well, isn’t the CPU and the power grid we see in the fitting window what’s left for modules and not at all related to the barebone running of the ships?

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A simple corvette would turn a shuttle into confetti so it doesn’t really matter in the end.

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Shuttles were pretty damn cool for their day, no doubt. CPU and maximum thrust might sound pretty sexy, but in the end it’s all about the armaments, baby. Arms and armor, that’s where it’s at.

Shuttle only has 1 ‘arm’, and it punches like a girl! It’s more a “stand still so I can sloooowly poke you in the eye!” kinda thing, not an MMA grappler.

Sure, EVE ships are put together on the cheap and made with minimal resources, that’s because they’re meant to be disposable. Heck, the Minmatar make theirs out of recycled pop cans. Today’s Quafe is tomorrow’s Thrasher!

It’s unlikely I’ll ever be able to buy my own space shuttle, but you can give frigates away like candy. (Just ask @Mike_Azariah’s Magic School Bus!)

Plus, EVE ships are made to take a licking and keep on ticking. You can bring a ship back shot so full of holes it can be used to drain pasta, and have it ready to fly again in no time. Modular parts and flexible upgrades. With the Shuttle, one bad tile or part and it’s all over but the crashing.

Shuttle’s pretty fair for an old girl, but EVE ships win where it counts - affordability, survivability and punch!

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Yes, its only the free CPU and PG for optional equipment after providing

  • life support systems for a crew of dozens to thousands
  • basic maneuverability with sublight speeds
  • FTL warpdrive
  • FTL communication including de- and encryption
  • realtime FTL scanners able to detect specified objects in the range of a whole solar system
  • a collision- and radiation-deflection field able to repel nearly any object or force (only weapon systems are specifically designed to penetrate it), even allowing spaceships to fly through a planet, in the corona of a star or near a black hole
  • a basic energy shield being able to deflect even weapon impact on top, up to the detonations of nuclear torpedoes

U can just test it, just undock in a completely unfitted EVE spaceship and it can do all of the above things.

Then when it comes to engine power:

  • a Frigate with MWD (Executioner) reaches 3800m/s in about 5 seconds. Thats an acceleration of 760m/s². The Mass of the ship with the MWD active is 1.500 tons (aka 1.500.000kg), which equals a propulsion force of 1.140.000.000 N - Thats 1.14 TN.
  • a Battleship with MWD (Machariel) reaches 2700m/s (non overheat) in about 10seconds. Thats equals a force of 39.063.600.000 N or 39 TN.

When it comes to capacitor power:
EVE ships recharge capacitor for all eternity unless drained by active but purely optional modules exceeding this recharge. Under comparable circumstances than those of the Space Shuttle (just flying around in Space with sublight speed), the power source would never run out, at least lasting for centuries or millennia - most likely until some hardware failure. However, it has, throughout the entire known history of New Eden never reported that hardware failure is an issue on spaceships, so redundant they are built. The Amarr Navy Imperial Fleet has ships in service that are centuries old and still work like on their first day.

So we can conclude: The EVE spaceships, even the smallest ones, top a human Space shuttle by magnitudes in every aspect imaginable.

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@Aallin_Gicquet
Thank you for taking the topic seriously and thanks for the thoughtful reply.
You bring up some great points, especially about how energy use in EVE is fundamentally different from real-world spaceflight. The lack of a gravity well in New Eden does change the equation quite a bit—most EVE ships aren’t designed for planetary operations, whereas the Shuttle was built specifically for re-entry and landing. I wouldn’t want to see what happens if a Catalyst tried to land on Earth, either! :laughing:

I completely agree that EVE ships don’t use energy in the same way as the Shuttle. The game’s technology—especially with its reliance on alien and Drifter/Jovian advancements—makes direct comparisons tricky. That said, it’s still interesting to consider how much raw power and efficiency NASA was able to squeeze out of 20th-century engineering, compared to EVE ships that sometimes feel like they should be way more powerful than they are.

Ultimately, while EVE ships might operate on different principles, the Space Shuttle still sets a crazy high bar for what real-world engineering can achieve, especially in terms of computational power, raw energy output, and sustained operation. And who knows—maybe somewhere in EVE lore, there’s an ancient Terran relic floating around that outclasses even the most advanced capsuleer ships. :smirk:

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The Space Shuttle was a terrible ship. It worked for getting into and out of orbit and that’s all it was good for. It had no other function. It could not reach top speed on its own. To launch into orbit, it needed massive tanks full of rocket fuel. Those tanks were boosters and did most of the work. The shuttle was a terrible glider and had no maneuverability. It couldn’t fly and was simply able to glide along a relatively straight path in order to land.

The shuttle could not break orbit because it used up all its fuel just to get into orbit. If you refueled the shuttle without any boosters, the maximum burn time you’d get would be 480 seconds. That’s all. Then its tank is empty. You can’t take a ship like that to… anywhere. It could not break orbit. Earth was its prison.

And again- the Shuttle’s power output during launch was from big huge oversized tanks that had a tendency to explode because they were filled with liquid oxygen. The shuttle itself did not have that much power. The booster tanks strapped to it did.

Capital ships don’t have this problem. No Eve ship has this problem. They rely on a different kind of fuel that does not get expended and run out. All Eve ships have armor, shields, and weapons. They can move through space with ease. And they all go way faster than the shuttle ever did.

I never saw the shuttle leave orbit and warp to the edge of a star system. My T3 cruiser travels faster than light at 6 AUs a second (That’s 2,994 times the speed of light!). The shuttle can’t even go fast enough to leave orbit.

Edit: The race:

I’ll put any Eve ship you choose against the Space Shuttle and race. the shuttle was built to be carried into orbit by large tanks and then do a controlled fall back to the planet. That was all it could do. Pick your Eve ship. The shuttle will lose. Even against a Titan- the shuttle will be out of fuel and be left behind and then it’ll fall back into the atmosphere while the Titan slowly chugs off into space.

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Oh, absolutely @Kezrai_Charzai. No one is strapping blasters or cruise missiles to a Space Shuttle (though now I kind of wish NASA had tried… :laughing:). When it comes to pure combat capability, EVE ships win hands down. The Shuttle might have had a robotic arm, but unless it could grab an enemy ship and swing it, it wasn’t exactly a threat in a fight!

That said, I’d argue that the Shuttle’s real strength wasn’t in its offense but in its engineering. Sure, EVE ships are designed to be modular, disposable, and easy to rebuild—heck, Minmatar engineers probably look at a pile of scrap metal and see five new ship designs—but the Shuttle was built for precision, reliability (well, mostly), and pushing the limits of real-world technology.

And yes, EVE ships can take a beating and keep going, but let’s be real—half the time, capsuleers slap duct tape on their hulls, call it “armor repair,” and hope for the best. Meanwhile, the Shuttle had to survive the insane forces of launch, re-entry, and space operations without a single armor repper.
So yes, in a fight? The Shuttle’s toast. But in a battle of raw engineering flex? NASA’s old girl still holds her own.

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The shuttle as great as real world tech is or rather was 20++ years ago. Consider that right now we are stuck in the light speed limit. We have theoretical equations that suggest we can break that light speed limit. I am not aware of that moving past the theoretical has been achieved.

But this still a far far cry from achieving the speed of light or even breaking that speed limit. In the end no matter how good the real world tech is today. EVE ships are a future imagining of what a possible of future spaceships and space flight might look like.

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@Aallin_Gicquet You’re absolutely right that current real-world technology, including Orion, is nowhere near breaking the speed of light while EVE’s ships represent a far-future vision of space travel. That said, my original focus was on comparing the Space Shuttle’s engineering and operational aspects to EVE’s ships, rather than broader advancements in space travel.

For example, the Shuttle’s reliance on external fuel tanks vs. EVE’s ships having onboard reactors, or how aerodynamics play a role in real-world spacecraft but are largely ignored in EVE. The contrast between our real-world engineering challenges and EVE’s game design choices is where I find the discussion most interesting.
Would love to hear your thoughts on how EVE ships handle propulsion compared to real-world spacecrafts.

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Why do Eve ships need to be aerodynamic? In the vacuum of space, none of that matters. You merely have to overcome the ship’s mass and it moves forward.

There is something that’s ignored in Eve, but it’s not aerodynamics. It’s Newton’s 3rd law of motion. In Eve, if I cycle my MWD and turn it off, I speed up and then immediately slow back down. In reality, you would continue to enjoy that incredible burst of speed forever- until acted on by an opposing force. If I wanted to, I should be able to crank up the MWD, get up to maximum speed (overheated would be about 2,500 m/s in my favorite ship) and then shut everything down without losing any speed.

That’s because we need big booms to propel us forward. Fuel gets expelled. In reality, there is no way around this. Nothing creates thrust without getting expelled. Liquid O2 doesn’t last forever- it actually burns up really fast and then… well… no more forward motion except what you’ve already acquired.

In Eve and other forms of science fiction, you can simply ignore that by stating that you have a different means of creating thrust that doesn’t require fuel.

For real world space travel, you need:

  1. A really massive amount of energy- nuclear fusion or matter/antimatter… or something even more powerful- probably something far far more powerful
  2. A means of harnessing that power- electricity is far too weak- you need to cause a massive reaction and then harness every last bit of it as raw power and somehow make use of that- which is absolutely impossible.
  3. An engine that can actually make use of all of that power to generate some form of forward motion that doesn’t require thrust (because thrust equals massive consumption of fuel which is bad for space flight)

We can create big reactions, but we can’t harness the power. That’s why power plants convert the reaction into heat which boils water which turns a turbine with the generated steam. Electricity is the only form of power we have- that and burning fuel to generate thrust. Nothing we have is what we need for space flight.

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Capacitor and Power Grid are not the same thing. True you need cap for things that use a lot of power in quick bursts, like guns, etc. However, have you even been left orbiting earth dead in space because your power cells ruptured or whatever? Not a good comparison in the sustainability category.

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I see a lot of people who cannot separate science-fiction from science facts.

The 1980’s space shuttle was a misnomer. It was a low orbit free fall vehicle to deploy and repair satellites. Space shuttle would be something to take into outer space, while this never completely left the Earth’s gravity.

True. There is no such thing as warp travel. At the fastest speeds our probes can reach, it would take a huge ship several generations to reach another star system. The best we can hope for in the next 100 years is a moon-base, as the jump point to send colony ships to Mars.

Assuming we could invent a FTL ship, it might not work since nothing but light travels at the speed of light. We have no idea what affect it could have on a human. We broke the sound barrier and supersonic flight is possible, but we don’t have any idea what the results of a FTL ship would be.

To enjoy a good fictional book, game, or movie, I ignore the science so I can enjoy it.

Have fun!

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The moon and Mars colonies are science fiction. There isn’t a material in the Universe that could be used to make it happen. It just doesn’t exist.

NASA, SpaceX, and all the other agencies know this. But, interest in projects like these bring in funding and that’s what they want and need. It won’t happen though. It can’t happen. Moon and Martian colonies are like the Dyson Sphere. Any attempt will end in failure. So will any generational ship to another star. It all looks great on paper, but nothing in the Universe could ever make it a reality.

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Actually NASA is fairly certain that they can… So yeah, One fine day there will be both a base or colony on both the Moon and Mars. The Chinese and surprisingly perhaps India are heading in that direction as well.

Your statement reminds me of the people that said that cars were a passing phase. Or that we would never fly. ‘If man was meant was meant to fly. God would have given man wings.’

Time and again people said something was not possible.Only for it to become not only possible. but have in fact is now part of our everyday lives.

Now whether we somehow break the FTL speed limit. That in my opinion is still a long way off. Will it happen… Hard to know really just how or when.

But if you have not heard of the Kardashev Scale. Do a search for it. Interesting take on differing levels of civilization. We by the way do not even hit level one on the scale.

Humanity as a whole has great potential. We can and will have a presence on the Moon and Mars. I guarantee it is going to happen.

As for as musk and space X goes… Yeah if it happens. I suspect that it will be a shitshow.

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NASA knows good and well that they can’t. They’re hoping no one remembers what outer space is really like.

Everyone thinks that every moon and planet is identical to life here on Earth. Same gravity, same weather, same atmosphere, and same temperature. No one knows what the moon and Mars are like.

The moon:

  1. No atmosphere
  2. No Magnetic Field
  3. Killer Lunar Dust
  4. Very very very low gravity.

Those 4 things will destroy any hope of ever having a colony on Mars all themselves, but all together? There’s no way. Let’s start with number one: No Atmosphere. meteors hit the moon on an almost hourly basis. One rock traveling over a hundred thousand miles an hour will destroy the colony, destroy equipment, and just give anyone living there a really bad day. It’s not a matter of If. It’s a matter of When.

The second one is no Magnetic Field. This means no protection from the sun… ever. Radiation. Radiation. and more Radiation. The ISS is in orbit around Earth, but it’s actually still inside the magnetic shield which helps limit the amount of radiation it’s exposed to. It doesn’t get a full dose. The moon does. The moon’s surface is not habitable. The cosmic rays will destroy any electronics and kill any humans over time. It won’t happen immediately, but it will happen. You’d have to bury yourself deep underground and live in caves… until a moon rock hits the surface above you at over 100,000 miles an hour. Bye bye cave!

And then there’s the killer Lunar Dust! The Lunar Dust is made up of very tiny and VERY razor sharp bits of rock. They are electrically charged which means that they cling with static electricity. This has been proven. It’s been studied. There is no long-term defense against it. It tore apart the seals of the space suits. Not critically, but it did do significant damage and is capable of destroying any seal and compromising the atmosphere inside the habitat.

And the very low gravity. You’ve been watching Star Trek too much if you think this isn’t a problem. Mankind can’t live outside of Earth’s gravity. A small change is fine. A large change is not. The moon is 1/6th the Earth’s gravity which will cause severe damage over time. The longest one can remain in zero G is 6 months without the risk of permanent damage. That damage is slow to heal too. Right now, there are 2 people who have been aboard the ISS for the last 8 months. They will require up to three years to fully recover if they’re lucky enough to have not sustained permanent damage. Let’s hope we can finally manage to get them home. They’re currently trapped up there.

Mars

Mars isn’t much better. Everything about Mars will kill you just as dead as everything on the moon. The only differences are the increased gravity on Mars and the fact that it has an atmosphere.

Well… kind of. Mars consists of an atmosphere, but it’s so thin and so full of Carbon Dioxide that it will both suffocate and depressurize you at the same time if you’re unlucky enough to breathe it in. The gravity is 38% of Earth’s, but it’ll still cause permanent damage if you live there much more than a few years.

Everything else about Mars will kill you just like the moon will. It has no magnetic field, it can’t fight off meteors, and the dust is even worse on Mars than it is on the moon.

In Short:

No material exists that can enable you to survive on those rocks out in space. You’d have to live deep deep underground just to have a chance. Can’t grow food. Can’t grow livestock. the lack of gravity and the presence of the dust will destroy any solar collectors and equipment as well as slowly destroy your insides if the radiation doesn’t do it first. And the meteors can punch through just about anything.

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And I know all about the Kardashev Scale. It was made up by us. It is not based on science. It’s based on science fiction without any real hand observations of any civilization other than… well… us.