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Back to the moon, only CEV reuseable?
Looking at the planned vehicles for the return to the moon, the
article(s) seemed to emphasize leverage of shuttle technology. For example the use of SSMEs and SSRBs. However, only the CEV was described as reusable. Will the new systems also recover and reuse the boosters? If not, seems like a waste of a good SSME which are supposed to be good for many firings. |
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Philip Walden wrote:
Looking at the planned vehicles for the return to the moon, the article(s) seemed to emphasize leverage of shuttle technology. For example the use of SSMEs and SSRBs. However, only the CEV was described as reusable. Will the new systems also recover and reuse the boosters? If not, seems like a waste of a good SSME which are supposed to be good for many firings. They did studies on the cost of recovering the SRBs and reusing them vs. using new-build ones based on the actual costs encountered during the Shuttle program, it was a bit cheaper to reuse them (I imagine that the involved inspection process after each flight is fairly expensive), but not all that much cheaper than using new-build ones. Pat |
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"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
... They did studies on the cost of recovering the SRBs and reusing them vs. using new-build ones based on the actual costs encountered during the Shuttle program, it was a bit cheaper to reuse them (I imagine that the involved inspection process after each flight is fairly expensive), but not all that much cheaper than using new-build ones. While this may not be such a great thing economically, it's certainly nice to inspect them after every flight. After the redesigned solid rocket booster joints started flying (post-Challenger), NASA was able to inspect those joints after each and every flight to insure that the problem was really fixed. If they weren't being reused, there would be economic pressure to not recover the flown boosters in order to save money. This could result in disaster if any change in the manufacture of the boosters (intended or not) started to cause problems, since you might not notice signs of the problem until another launch vehicle was lost. Safety is certainly a good reason to keep reusing SRB's, even if it saves little money to reuse them. Jeff -- Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address. .. |
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Pat Flannery wrote:
Philip Walden wrote: Looking at the planned vehicles for the return to the moon, the article(s) seemed to emphasize leverage of shuttle technology. For example the use of SSMEs and SSRBs. However, only the CEV was described as reusable. Will the new systems also recover and reuse the boosters? If not, seems like a waste of a good SSME which are supposed to be good for many firings. They did studies on the cost of recovering the SRBs and reusing them vs. using new-build ones based on the actual costs encountered during the Shuttle program, it was a bit cheaper to reuse them (I imagine that the involved inspection process after each flight is fairly expensive), but not all that much cheaper than using new-build ones. Pat And I guess if I had thought about more, the SSMEs used on the core boosters are not recoverable from MECO altitude. Philip |
#5
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Philip wrote:
And I guess if I had thought about more, the SSMEs used on the core boosters are not recoverable from MECO altitude. Which makes it strange to use them, as they are not a cheap engine by any means. I'd have gone with J-2S, despite its lower ISP. It could be that they are just going to take all the existing SSMEs and use them up on the stick, figuring that at only one SSME per launch they will have plenty to work with for a fairly substantial program. Engine burn time will be a lot shorter in this usage also, so that probably lowers the level of reliability that an engine is acceptable at, particularly if they operate at lower than standard thrust. Pat |
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