Why did NASA use low quality radios in the recent shuttle launch?

Question

Surely with 21st century tehnology, NASA could use higher quality transmission for communication instead of the very old school sounding radios I heard them using today. I mean if they can beam images from the shuttle surely they'd have enough bandwidth to transfer a bi-directional compressed audio signal?

Answer 1

A few reasons:
#1 They don't need to. The shuttle crew and mission control have been using those radios for so long that they are used to the low quality.

#2 The shuttle is 25 years old and the policy behind it is typically "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Having to swap out radios would cost a lot of time and money, and additional studies would have to be done to ensure that the new radios don't interfere with anything already installed. With the shuttle retiring in 4 years, it's not really worth it.

#3 Lack of bandwidth. Yes I know this seems a misnomer, but you typically want to reserve as much bandwidth for high speed data transmission than for voice comm. I mean if you can understand what the guy is saying, why take up more bandwidth than necessary?

Answer 2

Why go overkill with technology if it is not mission-critical? I can understand beaming back high quality images if they are part of the mission, but who cares how to communicate between crew and ground control if the good ol' radio gets the job done?

The shuttle is already complex and costly enough.

Answer 3

So that the frequency wouldn't interfere with the signals of the shuttle

Answer 4

I really don't know. If I can access the inter net from my cell phone surely to God they can use better communications equipment.

Answer 5

if the shuttle blowes up they save a little money.
how the hell do we know? dumb question!

Answer 6

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Answer 7

It's all about money.