Henry Spencer wrote:

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
It's almost going to have to be something using balloon tankage to get
the mass fraction to where it's good enough to do the job.

Interestingly enough, both the Titan II first stage and the S-IC had lower
tank mass, in proportion to contents, than the Atlas E did. (Some of the
other Atlas variants may have done better, but I don't have numbers for
them handy. Atlas tank-wall thickness got dialed up and down to suit the
application.) Mind you, the Titan stage benefitted from higher propellant
densities, and the S-IC from sheer scale.

Certainly a space shuttle main engine could do it with any decent
tankage. I want to do it. I'm going to do it. It shall be done.

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