Henry Spencer wrote:
In article . com,
Totorkon wrote:
The shuttle's SRBs hit the ocean at about 85 mph. Would it be
practical to have a liquid booster with a 'crushable' upper tank to
absorb the force of that kind of impact to protect its engine? Some
kind of air bags could cushion and serve as floats when the upside down
booster falls on its side.

As JRF has noted, there are some problems with this in a tail-heavy
booster. That said, schemes along those lines have been proposed many
times. It's not impossible, although there are a number of practical
difficulties. As with the SRBs, though, refurbishing rocket hardware
after it's been soaked in seawater is tedious and manpower-intensive, and
when all is said and done, there is a high payoff for "flyback" schemes
which recover the boosters onto land.
--
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mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

For the two (now NASA funded) upstarts, parachutes are the only game in
recovery. SpaceX ends with a splash in sal****er, Kistler with airbags
in the sand.
STs would be the next step in simplicity, a way to avoid the high up
front cost, complexity and weight of wings and landing gear.
With some control system for the parachutes, the zone of crash landing
could be shrunk and ground speed of final impact could be reduced.
There ought to be some testing before the concept is ruled out outright.