Military Space Plane vs. Ares 1...which could be operational first?

On Nov 10, 4:41*pm, "Jonathan" wrote:
With the cancellation of Ares1-Y, it looks to be at least
six or eight years before Ares could see a manned flight.
Does it make sense to pursue two different paths to replacing
the shuttle?

I believe that the lack of support for another moon-shot, combined
with the glaring need for lower cost to orbit means this
program is the one that now makes sense.

U.S. Air Force Aims to Launch Space Plane Next Year

"As a reusable space plane, the intent of the craft is to
serve as a testbed for dozens of technologies in airframe,
propulsion and operation, and other items in the hopes
of making space transportation and operations significantly
more affordable. "http://www.space.com/news/090602-x-37b-space-plane.html

s

Executive Summary
NASA'S SPACE SOLAR POWER EXPLORATORY RESEARCH
AND TECHNOLOGY (SERT) PROGRAMhttp://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10202&page=1

S PS is terrific. However, what's a really good interplanetary
shuttle (half again or twice the volumetric size) with a nuclear
energy package and those multiple MW ion thrusters, going to cost us?

With a sufficient cache of onboard energy or solar derived energy,
most any fuel or substance can be utilized for ion thrusting,
especially nifty and extremely dense as well as already charged up and
ready to zip out the exhaust would be radon(Rn222) as obtained from a
few kgtonne of radium that could otherwise utilized.

~ BG

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
I don't know if this was a serious North American proposal or just
Strombecker models screwing around, but a manned interceptor based on the
Navaho missile is fairly nifty also:
http://fantastic-plastic.com/ITCF-108RAPIERPAGE.htm

Have you ever seen the Japanese Animated series Stratos 4? Reminds me of
the TSR-2MS aircraft in that show, but the F-108 Rapier looks much more
impressive with its much larger booster rocket.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratos_4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:St...sure_Suits.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ht_profile.png

For some strange reason, if you do a Google image search for Stratos 4, you
find a lot of pictures from the show, but very few that show the aircraft
used in the series. Strange, but true. :-)

The F-108 design they finally settled on didn't ride on the back of a
booster rocket, but they did propose launching a X-15 on a Navaho booster:
http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/g26x15.jpg

That would have been one heck of a ride.

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon

Jeff Findley wrote:

The F-108 design they finally settled on didn't ride on the back of a
booster rocket, but they did propose launching a X-15 on a Navaho booster:
http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/g26x15.jpg

That would have been one heck of a ride.

We never got Stratos 4 here in N.D.
We discussed the Navaho/X-15 a few years back here on the newsgroup, and
some people thought the booster acceleration would overstress the X-15
and cause it to break up during ascent.
That wasn't the only Navaho/X-15 concept by a long shot:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/x15b.htm
For off-the-wall crazy, how about giant Navy expendable nuclear armed
bombers with X-3 Stilettos riding atop them?:
http://xplanes.tumblr.com/post/19280...rsonic-nuclear
The thought of something that had as high of a landing speed as the X-3
(200 mph) trying to do a carrier landing is hilarious.


Pat

On Nov 10, 4:41*pm, "Jonathan" wrote:
With the cancellation of Ares1-Y, it looks to be at least
six or eight years before Ares could see a manned flight.
Does it make sense to pursue two different paths to replacing
the shuttle?

I believe that the lack of support for another moon-shot, combined
with the glaring need for lower cost to orbit means this
program is the one that now makes sense.

U.S. Air Force Aims to Launch Space Plane Next Year

"As a reusable space plane, the intent of the craft is to
serve as a testbed for dozens of technologies in airframe,
propulsion and operation, and other items in the hopes
of making space transportation and operations significantly
more affordable. "http://www.space.com/news/090602-x-37b-space-plane.html

s

Executive Summary
NASA'S SPACE SOLAR POWER EXPLORATORY RESEARCH
AND TECHNOLOGY (SERT) PROGRAMhttp://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10202&page=1

What's a really good interplanetary shuttle (half again or twice the
volumetric size of the existing shuttle), and its 100 tonne payload
capacity that’s also packing a nuclear reactor (actually as being
pulled or pushed by as an external reactor/thruster module that would
otherwise remain in LEO) with those multiple MW ion thrusters, going
to cost us?

With a sufficient cache of onboard or external energy (reactor or
possibly solar derived), most any fuel or substance can be utilized
for ion thrusting, especially nifty and extremely dense as well as
already charged up and ready to zip out the exhaust would be radon
(Rn222), as obtained from a few kgtonne of radium that could
otherwise be utilized as is within the reactor.

Btw; our moon should have loads of radium.

~ BG

On Nov 22, 10:44*am, BradGuth wrote:
On Nov 10, 4:41*pm, "Jonathan" wrote:





With the cancellation of Ares1-Y, it looks to be at least
six or eight years before Ares could see a manned flight.
Does it make sense to pursue two different paths to replacing
the shuttle?

I believe that the lack of support for another moon-shot, combined
with the glaring need for lower cost to orbit means this
program is the one that now makes sense.

U.S. Air Force Aims to Launch Space Plane Next Year

"As a reusable space plane, the intent of the craft is to
serve as a testbed for dozens of technologies in airframe,
propulsion and operation, and other items in the hopes
of making space transportation and operations significantly
more affordable. "http://www.space.com/news/090602-x-37b-space-plane.html

s

Executive Summary
NASA'S SPACE SOLAR POWER EXPLORATORY RESEARCH
AND TECHNOLOGY (SERT) PROGRAMhttp://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10202&page=1

What's a really good interplanetary shuttle (half again or twice the
volumetric size of the existing shuttle), and its 100 tonne payload
capacity that’s also packing a nuclear reactor (actually as being
pulled or pushed by as an external reactor/thruster module that would
otherwise remain in LEO) with those multiple MW ion thrusters, going
to cost us?

With a sufficient cache of onboard or external energy (reactor or
possibly solar derived), most any fuel or substance can be utilized
for ion thrusting, especially nifty and extremely dense as well as
already charged up and ready to zip out the exhaust would be radon
(Rn222), as obtained from a few kgtonne of radium that could
otherwise be utilized as is within the reactor.

Btw; *our moon should have loads of radium.

*~ BG

I would love to see that. Flash Gordon tech comes true!