In article ,
BllFs6 wrote:
Now that we've backed off the bleeding/leading edge of rocket
engineering.....we take the new "shuttle" design and put THAT on top of a BDB
first stage....

NASA actually looked at the idea of simple pressure-fed liquid boosters
for the shuttle. They didn't go quite as far in that direction as the BDB
guys would, but the general idea did get looked at. It looked slightly
more expensive than SRBs to develop, alas.

make that expendable as well...

Making a BDB first stage recoverable and refurbishable may not be all that
hard, given that it's pretty durable.

Oh yeah...as a mostly irrelevant aside.....about a year ago I had the idea of
dissolving ammonium nitrate in water and using that as a liquid oxidizer...

It has, I think, been suggested in the past. Performance is definitely
low, however.

Dissolved fertilizer would be pretty darn stable I would think.....and has got
to be easier to get in large quantities than nitrous oxide or h2o2....

Ever since the Oklahoma City bombing, a non-farmer buying large amounts of
nitrate fertilizer *does* get viewed with some suspicion. And low-grade
peroxide is not that hard to get; it's the high-grade stuff that causes
supply difficulties.

You might even be able to also put your fuel in the water as well.....one of
the alchohols maybe.....

Now, however, you have to start wondering whether what you've got is an
explosive. Proper testing takes some effort and tends to be noisy, but
finding out the hard way is a really bad idea.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |