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WI: Could they have pulled it off, no.1: SASSTO/Gemini
2004 at last! Approaching 02:30 on the East Coast of North America, and trying to reboot my brain after reading that last goddamn' Hallerb post about Jesus, Gagarin and Voskhod 1. Pleasantly relaxed on a pint of Bass and some very mellow smoke, now, just sort of gliding into the New Year while browsing all this fantastic concept imagery and history at Marcus Lindroos' site, and I've started wondering about all these concepts that never got picked, and whether or not they may have actually flown with a reasonable amount of work. Hell, even back when the Shuttle final design was first chosen, the NASA Admin was heard to comment to the effect that it was already in danger of becoming a "flying white elephant", and had suffered a lot from committee design, and resulted in a vehicle which was -- shall we say -- slightly sub-optimal. So, what the hell, how about a nice, fresh what-if, totally fresh, not even a what-if-the-Russians-had-managed-to-make-a-race-of-it thread, OK? Given: whatever you ask for within bounds of reason, Congress gives you. It once again involves Mondale's car pool "forgetting" to pick him up a couple of mornings, but you push it through. So, we're off to do our first generation reusable vehicle. Keep in mind that, for the purposes of this WI, the budget's no problem, and given this, all you engineers and pilots lurking out there are encouraged to chime in on some of the concepts that get my interest going. (Disclaimer: any impressions, thoughts, speculation, WAGs, SWAGs made in these posts are strictly those of a layman aficionado who grew up watching lots of Gemini, Apollo and SkyLab missions) So, let's kick things off with http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/SpaceLVs/Slides/sld017.htm , the Douglas SASSTO ...but not the advanced versions, the really huge-assed things with all the drop tanks, but the first version, the technology demonstrator which launches a Gemini, seen at http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/space60s/sassto.jpg -- because we're all such suckers for a really interesting advanced Gemini variant. (I'm surprised EA hasn't picked this up for "Geminimania!") This, iirc, was a "Saturn Application" project, one of many rounds of feasibility studies of SSTO launchers that continue to this day. Any reason why this couldn't have been made to work (some of you will probably say "because it's one of Phil Bono's old ideas")? The idea of landing the vehicle by backing downwards, onto landing-pad legs, like a rocket ship in an old movie, sounds like a bit of a stretch, but the rest of it...? Also, in the image at http://www.abo.fi/~mlindroo/space60s/bono.jpg , what's with the checkered roll pattern on the Gemini SM at the upper left, even though it's beneath an aerodynamic fairing which has its _own_ checkerboard roll pattern? It's not as if once they make orbit and jettison the fairing, anyone will be able to see the roll pattern on the SM. And what's with the roll patterns on the drop tanks on the concept at lower left? This is some of the cooler concept art at this site, but it looks as if it may have been created by someone who didn't quite understand how roll patterns work. -- "All over, people changing their votes, along with their overcoats; if Adolf Hitler flew in today, they'd send a limousine anyway!" --the clash. __________________________________________________ _________________ Mike Flugennock, flugennock at sinkers dot org Mike Flugennock's Mikey'zine, dubya dubya dubya dot sinkers dot org |
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WI: Could they have pulled it off, no.1: SASSTO/Gemini
2004 at last! Approaching 02:30 on the East Coast of North America, and trying to reboot my brain after reading that last goddamn' Hallerb post about Jesus, Gagarin and Voskhod 1. Thats a impersonator not me. |
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