If that Sea Dragon thing was so good, how come it hasn't been proposedrecently?

I keep seeing nothing but good comments about it. What is bad about it?

On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 04:27:54 GMT, in a place far, far away, Clueless
newbie made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

I keep seeing nothing but good comments about it. What is bad about it?

There's no obvious need for it.

--
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Rand Simberg wrote:

On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 04:27:54 GMT, in a place far, far away, Clueless
newbie made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:


I keep seeing nothing but good comments about it. What is bad about it?


There's no obvious need for it.

That and it is too cheap. Defense contractors made a boatload of money
on the Shuttle. "reuseable" and all that nonsense, despite a higher cost
per launch.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message .. .
On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 04:27:54 GMT, in a place far, far away, Clueless
newbie made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:
I keep seeing nothing but good comments about it. What is bad about it?
There's no obvious need for it.

Let's be a bit more specific:

1) Sea Dragon is TOO BIG. The initial design was for the million pounds
to LEO market, which never materialized. If you try to scale it down
to match current payloads, the cost per pound rises until it is about
the same as a Proton launch.

2) Some of the design features have not been proven to scale up.

3) The reliability of the design is a complete unknown.

4) Truax was unable to get either NASA or the US Air Force to get behind
the low-cost BDB idea, probably because neither of these organizations
actually benefit from lower costs. Private investment was also very
hard to get, because investors were concerned that the Big Players,
(NASA, Russia, Europe, plus the US contractors) would squash the
uppity newcomer, and US regulations could shut the project down at
any time.

5) The tendency to try to improve the 40 year old design with newer tech.
Many people can't help but try to make the design more efficient.
That is completely the wrong idea. Rather than boosting payload by
lightening the structure or improving the ISP, BDB philosophy says
just scale up the booster until it fits your payload.

--Charlie

Charlie wrote:
h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message .. .
On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 04:27:54 GMT, in a place far, far away, Clueless
newbie made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:
I keep seeing nothing but good comments about it. What is bad about it?
There's no obvious need for it.

Let's be a bit more specific:
snip
2) Some of the design features have not been proven to scale up.

Could you elaborate?
Engines?