Time to Think ‘Horizontal’ for Future Space Launches

In article 44ed2bdf-6260-4c81-90a0-
, says...

On Sep 23, 8:46*am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article d82da96a-39ad-47b2-915d-c97befe360f8
@x18g2000pro.googlegroups.com, says...

I agree, Jeff Pat and Fred are damn annoying and rude. *My comment was
relevant to the horizontal take off and landing statement. *I don't
see how that can be annoying and rude.

It wasn't relevant. *Your napkin drawing takes off vertically and
ultimately lands vertically. *It is not a horizontal take off and
horizontal landing vehicle, so your post was a clear thread-jack.

Nonsense. The Air Force released a study pointing out that horizontal
landing and take off adds significantly to structure fractions for a
multi-stage orbiter.

This is true.

I provide a counter example that shows VTOVL
launch elements parallel staged makes more sense.

This is false. Your counter example is still a napkin drawing and
proves nothing.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

In article 4aa8da68-c652-4eee-8c5c-32ddb1bade83
@p37g2000pra.googlegroups.com, says...

On Sep 23, 9:07*am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article 656fdf76-a183-4975-895c-
, says...





On Sep 22, 11:57*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:
My system uses an inflatable thermal protection system to slow below
sonic speeds and fold away wings when gliding below the speed of
sound. * A tow plane flying down-range snags the booster as it is
gliding down-range with a tow line and tows it back to the launch
center. *There the booster is released. *The engine re-starts at a low
thrust setting, as the booster climbs into vertical position. *It then
settles down tail first, like the old tail sitters from the 1950s - on
a mobile landing platform. *The wings and thermal systems retract and
the booster is readied for another launch.

And all you need is a few thousand tons of unobtanium to go with your
handwavium and you'll be able to implement your crayon drawings.

Nonsense

You're the one making extraordinary claims. *You have yet to provide the
extraordinary proof required.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

What is so extraordinary about a rocket that takes off vertically?

Nothing, that's proven tech, but that's about the only thing that's
"easy" about your design.

About parallel staging of an ET?

Parallel staging *using cross fed propellants* has not been demonstrated
in flight. This is unproven tech.

About annular aerospike engines?

Unproven in flight, depending on the details. Certainly a large,
continuous, annular aerospike has never flown. The Soviet N-1 was
actually multiple separate engines with traditional bell shaped nozzles.
If you claim to use multiple bell shaped nozzles arranged to mimic an
annular aerospike, then you can claim the design has flown before.

About an inflatable thermal protection system that protects an ET
airframe during re-entry?

Unproven in flight on the scale you propose. Inflatable reentry
vehicles which have flown have been *extremely* small compared to an ET.

About fold-away wings that allow a rocket
to transition to a glider?

Unproven in flight on an actual launch vehicle under actual reentry
conditions.

About down-range recovery of a glider by a
tow plane pre-positioned at the down-range location?

Unproven in flight on the scale you propose. Discovery capsules were
absolutely *tiny* compared to the aircraft which snagged them. Your
proposal is to snag something about as big and heavy as the aircraft
doing the snagging. This is something new, not proven.

About towing a
glider back to the launch center?

Unproven in flight on the scale you propose. Again, flight proven
glider towing has been done in the past with vehicles far smaller and
lighter than what you propose.

About releasing a glider and having
it start a landing engine and transition to tail sitting mode?

Unproven in flight on a rocket powered vehicle with wings. Those wings
will could cause headaches during the transition from horizontal to
vertical flight. Aerodynamics is *hard* and often CFD doesn't
accurately predict flight conditions, especially during these sort of
transitions. To have confidence in this transition, you'd need to prove
it can be one with an actual rocket powered winged vehicle.

About
landing a rocket on its tail?

Unproven in flight on a rocket powered vehicle with wings. Those wings
will cause headaches during the landing phase. They'll act as huge
sails in a cross wind, so how do you propose to handle cross winds which
could be coming from any direction?

On a mobile platform?

Unproven in flight on a rocket powered vehicle with wings.

ALL OF THESE THINGS HAVE BEEN DONE AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER - so, you
explain to me what's so extraordinary about any of them?

Not in the way you propose on the scale you propose. What you lack is
experience in aerospace *systems* engineering. You theorize that you
can take any technologies you want and scale them up to what you need
while at the same time completely ignoring systems engineering.

You really have no clue what you're doing in the aerospace world. Maybe
you should go back to cash register design.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

In article 288d613e-450b-44a8-83af-bd4ffb1f01e2
@t5g2000prd.googlegroups.com, says...

Still, the tail sitter is rather simple to carry out as a method to
recover through automatic means an ET sized booster with minimal added
mass and minimal complexity.

Simple only in your own mind. This is unproven on a vehicle the size
you propose in the configuration you propose. Aerodynamics is a
discipline where you have to prove that a design will work, not just
assert it. Even CFD and wind tunnel testing can end up giving you the
wrong results.

If you'd fly a model aircraft to a vertical landing transitioning from
horizontal flight, you'd see how simple it is.

Model aircraft aren't launch vehicles.

Restarting an aerospike engine to carry out a landing similar to that
of the DC-X provides a simple light weight approach to booster
recovery.

Restarting of an aerospike engine while in flight has not been
demonstrated. Also, DC-X didn't have wings, which simplified its VTVL
mode of operation. Wings on a vertical landing vehicle will act as
sails in a cross wind. Good luck with that precision landing.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

In article
tatelephone,
says...

On 9/23/2010 4:51 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:

True. Any way it was tried, the "tail sitter" mode of landing was just
too dangerous to proceed to an operational vehicle.

You could do it nowadays relying on GPS and automated landing control;
but trying to land something as big and light as a ET in a side wind
would be pure folly.

I see I'm not the only one who's thought of this.

The Coleoptere had one advantage over the Pogo and Lockheed "Salmon"; in
it the pilot could pivot his seat ninety degrees so he ended up sitting
upright and looking out a window in the bottom of the aircraft's nose
during landing.

The design looked cool, but I can't imagine trying to fly it without
modern stability and control systems. I like the Wikipedia comment "the
design proved to be very unstable and flying it was dangerous".

One of the big problems in the Pogo was that the pilot couldn't tell how
fast he was ascending or descending in vertical flight other than
looking at the altimeter or a "wind vane" mounted on the wingtip that
would at least tell him if he was rising or descending.
The big problem was that if it started descending too fast the aircraft
was going to tip over sideways under the influence of the wings going
backwards into the airstream, and end up doing a power dive straight
into the ground.
We can thank the Germans for coming up with this goofy idea:
http://www.luft46.com/heinkel/hewespe.html
http://www.luft46.com/heinkel/helerche.html
http://www.luft46.com/fw/fwtrieb.html

Today, vertical landing with the aircraft in the horizontal position is
preferred (e.g. Harrier, V-22 Osprey, and pretty much every operational
helicopter). This eliminates the 90 degree rotation required by a tail
sitter which eliminates the requirement for the pilot to guide the craft
down with his back to the ground and his eyes pointed up at the sky.

The VTOL aspect of the Coleoptere was only the start of the fun; it was
going to come flying out of a silo in the ground, and once in horizontal
flight the space between the circular wing and fuselage was going to
turn into a ramjet...like I said, the thing was straight out of
"Thunderbirds".

I think it's a design only a sci-fi buff would love. ;-)

I've got Mook killfiled, so I'm only reading what you quote from him.
Is there some reason that he wants it to land vertically rather than
just glide-land with the inflatable wings?

Not that I can tell, other than he seems determined to make his
"design" as Rube Goldberg in operation as he can. The number of
critical transition events during its flight would make steam come out
of the ears of a NASA safety engineer.

If you are going to land it vertically, all you need to do is stick some
parachutes in the nose and have the weight of the rear plug-nozzle
engine make it fall tail-first towards the landing site.
There's no need for the goofy wings then.

True. You could even eliminate the parachutes and land on engine power
ala DC-X.

In that case what you end up with is very similar to the SASSTO Saturn
IVB stage, with the plug nozzle serving as the heatshield:
http://www.up-ship.com/drawndoc/sdoc53ani.jpg

True, but then you wouldn't need the inflatable heat shield for the nose
of the ET, so that's not nearly complicated enough for Mook.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

In article fcbfe968-0bb0-46ce-a6bf-f5611a8d94d4
@l32g2000prn.googlegroups.com, says...

On Sep 23, 4:02*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
On 9/23/2010 4:51 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:



True. *Any way it was tried, the "tail sitter" mode of landing was just
too dangerous to proceed to an operational vehicle.

You could do it nowadays relying on GPS and automated landing control;

Correct.

but trying to land something as big and light as a ET in a side wind
would be pure folly.

Nonsense.

Saying "nonsense" doesn't make what Pat said false.

The Coleoptere had one advantage over the Pogo and Lockheed
"Salmon"; in
it the pilot could pivot his seat ninety degrees so he ended up sitting
upright and looking out a window in the bottom of the aircraft's nose
during landing.

Correct.

One of the big problems in the Pogo was that the pilot couldn't tell how
fast he was ascending or descending in vertical flight other than
looking at the altimeter or a "wind vane" mounted on the wingtip that
would at least tell him if he was rising or descending.

Yep.

The big problem was that if it started descending too fast the aircraft
was going to tip over sideways under the influence of the wings going
backwards into the airstream, and end up doing a power dive straight
into the ground.

Yet, none were lost this way.

We can thank the Germans for coming up with this goofy idea:http://www.luft46.com/heinkel/hewesp...w/fwtrieb.html

Its not goofy - especially in a rocket that takes off vertically.

It's goofy in any vehicle which has wings, which yours does.

Today, vertical landing with the aircraft in the horizontal
position is
preferred (e.g. Harrier, V-22 Osprey, and pretty much every operational
helicopter). *This eliminates the 90 degree rotation required by a tail
sitter which eliminates the requirement for the pilot to guide the craft
down with his back to the ground and his eyes pointed up at the sky.

Moot for an unpiloted vehicle.

Unproven in flight on the scale you propose.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

In article 1c84d3c2-2c33-4d92-a2d6-fb264eb9aa70
@x18g2000pro.googlegroups.com, says...
Yeah, many of Jeff's objections ignore the possibility of designing a
crew seat and avionics to avoid the problems he outlines - but the use
of this technology in an unpiloted vehicle makes the points moot
anyway.

The fact that this tail sitting technology has not been used in an
unmanned winged vehicle means you have no valid point. You've got
another R&D program here because you can't buy the control algorithms
for such a craft "off the shelf" from the likes of Boeing or Airbus.
Saying that flying a winged vehicle in this manner with modern
electronic controls doesn't dismiss the R&D program necessary to turn
this into a reality.

It's amazing to me the things you think will be "easy" when there simply
isn't enough prior art to make it so.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

In article ,
says...

Jeff Findley wrote:

In article
otatelephone,
says...

If you are going to land it vertically, all you need to do is stick some
parachutes in the nose and have the weight of the rear plug-nozzle
engine make it fall tail-first towards the landing site.
There's no need for the goofy wings then.

True. You could even eliminate the parachutes and land on engine power
ala DC-X.

In that case what you end up with is very similar to the SASSTO Saturn
IVB stage, with the plug nozzle serving as the heatshield:
http://www.up-ship.com/drawndoc/sdoc53ani.jpg

True, but then you wouldn't need the inflatable heat shield for the nose
of the ET, so that's not nearly complicated enough for Mook.


I'll merely note that Mookie's calling forth of DC-X as proof of how
easy vertical landing is sort of ignores the small fact that they
cracked the aeroshell on the vehicle on its 8th and final flight.

That was a (somewhat) forgivable mistake. This was an X-vehicle, so the
design was obviously not meant to be quite as optimal as an operational
vehicle. From memory, the landing gear couldn't retract without
disconnecting and reconnecting the hoses used for lowering the landing
gear. Before the final flight, someone forgot to reconnect a hose, so
one of the gear failed to deploy. That sort of gear design shouldn't be
accepted in an operational vehicle where loss of one gear means loss of
vehicle.

I believe Henry Spencer said something to the effect that X-vehicle
programs should plan on losing one or two vehicles during their flight
program and should therefore build multiple copies from the beginning.
I tend to agree with him.

He's got a proposed vehicle with a much bigger cross section and lower
density (a virtually empty ET) WITH WINGS that he thinks he can just
set down. Perhaps his plan is to have it dance a hula after it goes
vertical in order to restow the wings?

This I agree with. He's comparing apples and oranges since the DC-X is
so different than what he's proposing. Those wings are just silly in
the way they're designed and in the way they're planned to be used.

Yeah, an engineer he ain't...

True. I'm thinking he's more of a sales guy. In this case, he's
selling vapor-ware by trying to make it look like a real product.

Jeff
--
The only decision you'll have to make is
Who goes in after the snake in the morning?

On Sep 24, 12:20*am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:
On Sep 23, 10:43*am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:
On Sep 22, 11:57*pm, Fred J. McCall wrote:
William Mook wrote:
My system uses an inflatable thermal protection system to slow below
sonic speeds and fold away wings when gliding below the speed of
sound. * A tow plane flying down-range snags the booster as it is
gliding down-range with a tow line and tows it back to the launch
center. *There the booster is released. *The engine re-starts at a low
thrust setting, as the booster climbs into vertical position. *It then
settles down tail first, like the old tail sitters from the 1950s - on
a mobile landing platform. *The wings and thermal systems retract and
the booster is readied for another launch.

And all you need is a few thousand tons of unobtanium to go with your
handwavium and you'll be able to implement your crayon drawings.

Nonsense

No need for you to sign your posts. *We know what your output is.

Stop it Freddie.

**** off, Mookie.

--
"Ordinarily he is insane. But he has lucid moments when he is
*only stupid."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * -- Heinrich Heine

Just can't help yourself can you Freddie?

On Sep 24, 12:22*am, Fred J. McCall wrote:
Sylvia Else wrote:
On 24/09/2010 5:24 AM, Pat Flannery wrote:
On 9/23/2010 1:15 AM, Sylvia Else wrote:
Thing is, you need a structure strong enough to tolerate the aerodynamic
forces of whatever speed the launch rail gives at its end point, but
then you need to carry that structure to up to where the second stage is
released, or orbit if you're going for SSTO.

...and God help you if there's a rabbit or rock sitting on that track
considering how fast you are going to be going down it on the launch sled.
You note whenever they show drawings of these things, they seem to throw
in a tunnel it's going to pass through before it reaches the end of the
track:http://www.g2mil.com/argus2.jpg
I don't know if that's just for effect, or if it's supposed to serve
some purpose - I had the thought that the tunnel might have thin sheets
of plastic on either end and be pumped full of pure oxygen to help light
the scramjets as the vehicle pierces the plastic walls on launch.

I think the tunnel is just to add another aerodynamic effect, so as to
make things more complicated. Otherwise it's much to easy.

Why not go with Pat's idea, but postulate a light gas gun or vacuum
tube to let the vehicle avoid air drag until it is up to speed?

--
"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

What sort of engineering do you imagine operates at the high velocity
end of the gun? If its open to the air, air is flowing in. If not,
then there is some sort of membrane holding it back. In any case, the
high velocity projectile hits the air at very high speed which tends
to smash it and slow it down.

If you set up a parametric equation starting with zero air pressure
along the acceleration portion rising step fashion to ambient at the
end - you can calculate air drag loss for this condition.

Now do the same sort of equation for air pressure being ambient long
the entire length of the accelerator - calculate the air drag loss for
this condition.

These are the boundary conditions.

Now, use calculus of variations to vary the air pressure function to
minimize air drag loss.

You'll find that the hammer head at the end, which you suggest, is the
very worst, suffering the greatest losses due to air drag.

Goddard did this sort of thing for rockets, and came up with the
Goddard trajectory for vertical lift off from Earth. These are
superior to any sort of horizontal acceleration - which when combined
with other factors - like supersonic and hypersonic wing structure
weight - make vertical launch preferred - as stated by Lockheed and
Air Force experts on the subject.

On Sep 24, 2:40*am, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 24/09/2010 2:22 PM, Fred J. McCall wrote:



Sylvia *wrote:

On 24/09/2010 5:24 AM, Pat Flannery wrote:
On 9/23/2010 1:15 AM, Sylvia Else wrote:
Thing is, you need a structure strong enough to tolerate the aerodynamic
forces of whatever speed the launch rail gives at its end point, but
then you need to carry that structure to up to where the second stage is
released, or orbit if you're going for SSTO.

...and God help you if there's a rabbit or rock sitting on that track
considering how fast you are going to be going down it on the launch sled.
You note whenever they show drawings of these things, they seem to throw
in a tunnel it's going to pass through before it reaches the end of the
track:http://www.g2mil.com/argus2.jpg
I don't know if that's just for effect, or if it's supposed to serve
some purpose - I had the thought that the tunnel might have thin sheets
of plastic on either end and be pumped full of pure oxygen to help light
the scramjets as the vehicle pierces the plastic walls on launch.

I think the tunnel is just to add another aerodynamic effect, so as to
make things more complicated. Otherwise it's much to easy.

Why not go with Pat's idea, but postulate a light gas gun or vacuum
tube to let the vehicle avoid air drag until it is up to speed?

It depends which problem one is trying to solve. As I understand the
point of these rail-launch mechanisms, it's that the energy required for
the initial acceleration doesn't have to be contained in fuel carried by
the vehicle, thus reducing the mass of the latter. But it also means
that drag losses while the vehicle is on the launcher are not such an
issue - you just build a powerful enough launcher.

But no matter how the vehicle is accelerated, sooner or later it has
cope with the air at the end of the launcher. If it's not strong enough,
it will come apart. Putting the vehicle in a tube, whether in a lighter
gas, or a vacuum, just means it has to handle a transient in the
transition to flight in the air as well.

Sylvia.

Right, Sylvia, and this is easily resolved with an appropriate
parametric equation and using calculus of variations to show what the
optimal variation in air pressure along the accelerator.

Goddard worked this all out for vertical rocket launch, and horizontal
launch - even with launcher assist - doesn't compete. This should be
well known by anyone interested in space travel.

Others worked on guns.

the late Gerald Bull
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP

and John Hunter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_H...search_Project

Hunter's program achieved Mach 8.8 before being canceled. He expected
to achieve Mach 21 (orbital velocity) - before the cancellation.

Both guns had air in their barrel before firing - since this leads to
the highest muzzle velocity per the analysis I've already described
elsewhere.

Success with HARP and SHARP has inspired me to propose a buoyant
propellant gas gun.

Here, oxygen and hydrogen gas is injected into a closed cell aerogel
foam in such a way as to have a specific density function with
length. When the length of foam is released it arcs into the sky
along a modified Goddard trajectory.

A spacecraft is accelerated to Mach 0.8 by JATO type units or on board
propellants and flies into the high density end of the length of foam
- detonating it. The detonation wave accelerates the vehicle as it
moves along the length of foam. At the end, it is moving at Mach 21.
It then starts a kick stage, or on board engine, to circularize its
orbit.

The foam generator can be quite compact, and guided by UAV helicopters
released every few km along its length to maintain altitude and
orientation. As the spacecraft approaches the helicopters detach from
the foam they have guided, and fly back to the launch center.

A small set up for this - involving 10 kg payload vehicle - can be
done for relatively little money. Successfully orbiting 10 kg - or
placing 10 kg on the moon's surface - would allow raising additional
money for a larger system of equal capability.