Thread: The 100/10/1 Rule.
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Old March 28th 07, 03:25 AM posted to sci.space.history,sci.space.policy,sci.space.station,sci.space.shuttle
Fred J. McCall
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Posts: 5,736
Default fun with expendable SSTOs (was The 100/10/1 Rule.)
(Henry Spencer) wrote:

:In article ,
:Mr Jim wrote:
:
:Would you chose steel, like Atlas, or Aluminum alloy?
:
:
:Atlas went with steel mostly because of aerodynamic heating in worst-case
depressed) trajectories. I'd favor aluminum or composites, with some
:ablative thermal protection if necessary (my guess: might need a bit on
:the nose).

I (vaguely) recall someone (name escapes me) on the newsgroup some
years ago bringing up the idea that steel might actually be cheaper
and wouldn't add that much weight. Some of the savings come from the
steel being easier to work with. He seemed to have a good case. Has
this changed?

:
:Would such an engine use
:differential throttling to control pitch and yaw?
:
:
:I'd like to. Needs some analysis, and perhaps some test flights, to
:establish whether it's sufficient. I'd want throttling at least for trim,
:but it might not be enough for worst-case control. My fallback would be
:fluid-injection vectoring on the aerospike's central plug.

Injection vectoring was the first thing that occurred to me here.

--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw