Henry Spencer wrote:

Also, the fuel tanks will not need to be periodically cleaned out or
inspected; there will be little risk of dirty sediment building up and
clogging things.

Except in the oxidizer plumbing, of course, which means that the cleaning
and inspection still has to be done.

On *one* set of plumbing, yes.

Replacing a
hydrid fuel grain could be, if designed right, the job
of two guys and ten minutes, using tools available at any Home Depot.

I don't recall Home Depot selling forklifts,

They sell the equipment for moving heavy items, like truck engines and
the like.

Don't forget that you have to get the remains of the old grain out first.

They're called "bolts." Undo them, and the case/grain falls right off.
For an example, see "Space Ship One."


Fueling an airliner usually takes one guy about the same length of time
with no tools.

No hoses, huh? No pumps? Fuel trucks? Grounding cables?

And in this case, these two guys can be relatively low-tech, and thus
lower pay and overhead than the several guys needed for RP-1 maintenance
(and certainly far cheaper than LH2 maintenance guys).

The airliner fueling crew usually doesn't have a PhD either.

Do they clean out the airliner fuel tanks? Replace the fuel sensors and
whatnot?

DC-X didn't
have a squad of people devoted solely to pouring fuel into the tanks,

Of copurse not. But did they have people who scoped out the tank?

With a liquid vehicle, the liquid tanks need to be maintained,
periodically cleaned. With an SS1 style hybrid, the fuel grain is
integral witha low-cost case; simply remove from shrink wrap, bolt to
injector head and go.

--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
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