Thread: A kerosene-fueled X-33 as a single stage to orbit vehicle.
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Old July 14th 11, 03:30 PM posted to sci.space.policy,sci.astro,sci.physics,sci.space.history
Jeff Findley
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Default A kerosene-fueled X-33 as a single stage to orbit vehicle.
In article , lid
says...

sigh It's not a rocket in airbreathing mode.

It's some ******* engine that does nothing well. It's not as efficient
as a turbofan (likely even a turbojet) aircraft engine when in air-
breathing mode and it's not as efficient as a liquid fueled rocket
engine when operating in pure rocket mode (LOX from internal tanks).

I fail to see how an engine which operates worse than the state of the
art in either mode is better than having two separate stages with two
separate types of engines on each.

All of this silliness is in pursuit of SSTO. Fully reusable TSTO would
be far easier to implement than this because it would require no new
technologies (i.e. fundamentally new engine) to be developed.

Jeff
--
" Solids are a branch of fireworks, not rocketry. :-) :-) ", Henry
Spencer 1/28/2011