Space Shuttle External Tank Launchers

October 27, 2003

"Dholmes" wrote in message :

With the MB-60 they can easily fit a Delta II second stage on all Delta
IV's.

The high thrust upper stages require significantly more fuel.

http://www.pratt-whitney.com/prod_space_cobra.asp

http://www.pratt-whitney.com/prod_space.asp

I greatly appreciate this I was about to give up hope on the RL-60.
Now if Boeing would just do the same and give more recent info on the MB-60.

http://www.mhi.co.jp/aero/english/productf/u07.htm

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/...opul/mb60.html

Thomas Lee Elifritz
http://elifritz.members.atlantic.net

October 27, 2003

(Carsten Nielsen) wrote in message :

How about putting them into a capsule and recovering them ?

http://www.airbornesystems-na.com/en...IAA97-1513.pdf

There must be a solution in there somewhere.

Thomas Lee Elifritz
http://elifritz.members.atlantic.net

(Thomas Lee Elifritz) wrote in message . com...

http://www.airbornesystems-na.com/en...IAA97-1513.pdf

Thank you. That's a fascinating and informative article.

Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

In article ,
dave schneider wrote:
Would the payload be a new beanie cap? Or would it go about where the
shuttle is?

The ideal would be to put the payload either inside the intertank ring,
or within the engine assembly (which has to be new anyway), to minimize
changes to existing hardware. Neither is a very convenient place to put a
substantial payload, alas.

For a minimum-changes solution, you'd probably want to sling a payload
canister from the existing orbiter mounts somehow. This shouldn't be
prohibitively hard.

Probably the best solution, although more hassle, would be to replace the
LOX tank's pointed nose with a flatter dome, and put a cargo area and nose
fairing on top.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |

(Henry Spencer) wrote in
:

In article ,
dave schneider wrote:
Would the payload be a new beanie cap? Or would it go about where the
shuttle is?


For a minimum-changes solution, you'd probably want to sling a payload
canister from the existing orbiter mounts somehow. This shouldn't be
prohibitively hard.

Probably the best solution, although more hassle, would be to replace
the LOX tank's pointed nose with a flatter dome, and put a cargo area
and nose fairing on top.

Might as well; installing the engines on the bottom of the ET is going
to require significant changes anyway.

--Damon

Damon Hill commented on
(Henry Spencer)'s wise words:
dave schneider wrote:
Would the payload be a new beanie cap? Or would it go about where the
shuttle is?


For a minimum-changes solution, you'd probably want to sling a payload
canister from the existing orbiter mounts somehow. This shouldn't be
prohibitively hard.

Probably the best solution, although more hassle, would be to replace
the LOX tank's pointed nose with a flatter dome, and put a cargo area
and nose fairing on top.

Might as well; installing the engines on the bottom of the ET is going
to require significant changes anyway.

--Damon

Good point!

smacks forehead, quotes the Other H.S., and grabs a donut

/dps

Damon Hill wrote:
(Henry Spencer) wrote in
:

Probably the best solution, although more hassle, would be to replace
the LOX tank's pointed nose with a flatter dome, and put a cargo area
and nose fairing on top.


Might as well; installing the engines on the bottom of the ET is going
to require significant changes anyway.

--Damon

Hmm... I used to make a big noise about the need to modify the ET to
support engines directly thrusting it. The though of course is that the
H2 tank is not designed to take that kind of thrust load as in actuality
the H2 tank is *pulled* into space since the thrust from the SRB's is
transferred into the ET at the thrust beam in the Intertank, not at the
base.

However, I was reading this thread and it suddenly hit me. There really
isn't a need to beef up the H2 tank structure to take this kind of load.
If 2 thrust pods are mounted to the side of the ET where the SRB's
currently reside, then the full thrust can translate to the ET at the
thrust beam where it was designed to. The H2 tank would need a design
change to feed the H2 lines into the pods as opposed to the after
orbiter masts, but the rest of the ET could be left mostly as is. I
would consider running the O2 lines down from the Intertank to the
engines through these thrust pods, but thats a line change, not a change
to the O2 tank.

The engine pods of course would not be jettisoned like the SRB's, and if
moldline changes to the whole stack are out of the question, the pods
could even have the shape of the SRB, although that would incur a weight
penalty. That could be a trade off as extra payload could be carried in
the pods. For example, the ET reuse crowd could place deployable solar
arrays in the pods. Or perhaps a robotic arm for tending the cargo. Or
additional fuel if desired.

Put an avionics package in each pod and you have a standard design which
also gives you a failover capability. As for cargo, hang a shuttle-C
style pod off the current shuttle mounts.

So what do you think?

Tom

Damon Hill wrote:
(Henry Spencer) wrote in
:

Probably the best solution, although more hassle, would be to replace
the LOX tank's pointed nose with a flatter dome, and put a cargo area
and nose fairing on top.


Might as well; installing the engines on the bottom of the ET is going
to require significant changes anyway.

--Damon

Hmm... I used to make a big noise about the need to modify the ET to
support engines directly thrusting it. The though of course is that the
H2 tank is not designed to take that kind of thrust load as in actuality
the H2 tank is *pulled* into space since the thrust from the SRB's is
transferred into the ET at the thrust beam in the Intertank, not at the
base.

However, I was reading this thread and it suddenly hit me. There really
isn't a need to beef up the H2 tank structure to take this kind of load.
If 2 thrust pods are mounted to the side of the ET where the SRB's
currently reside, then the full thrust can translate to the ET at the
thrust beam where it was designed to. The H2 tank would need a design
change to feed the H2 lines into the pods as opposed to the after
orbiter masts, but the rest of the ET could be left mostly as is. I
would consider running the O2 lines down from the Intertank to the
engines through these thrust pods, but thats a line change, not a change
to the O2 tank.

The engine pods of course would not be jettisoned like the SRB's, and if
moldline changes to the whole stack are out of the question, the pods
could even have the shape of the SRB, although that would incur a weight
penalty. That could be a trade off as extra payload could be carried in
the pods. For example, the ET reuse crowd could place deployable solar
arrays in the pods. Or perhaps a robotic arm for tending the cargo. Or
additional fuel if desired.

Put an avionics package in each pod and you have a standard design which
also gives you a failover capability. As for cargo, hang a shuttle-C
style pod off the current shuttle mounts.

So what do you think?

Tom

Tom Moore writes:

Damon Hill wrote:
(Henry Spencer) wrote in
:

(Mike Miller) writes:

1) Could the ET be converted to an (expendable) SSTO, or be
used as the basis for an SSTO in such a fashion?

Probably the best solution, although more hassle, would be to
replace the LOX tank's pointed nose with a flatter dome, and put
a cargo area and nose fairing on top.

Might as well; installing the engines on the bottom of the ET is
going to require significant changes anyway.

Hmm... I used to make a big noise about the need to modify the ET
to support engines directly thrusting it. The though of course is
that the H2 tank is not designed to take that kind of thrust load
as in actuality the H2 tank is *pulled* into space since the thrust
from the SRB's is transferred into the ET at the thrust beam in the
Intertank, not at the base.

Anything is *possible*, but I don't think that it would make any
sense to design a new vehicle around the ET.

The SS ET is the single biggest (dimensionally) part of the shuttle
stack, but from the design perspective it would account for only a
very small fraction of the total design effort.

I suggest that forgetting about the ET and starting from scratch
would lead to a far better and potentially much cheaper design.

As for the SSMEs, using those would only make sense if they could
be recovered.

--
Manfred Bartz

In article ,
Tom Moore wrote:
Hmm... I used to make a big noise about the need to modify the ET to
support engines directly thrusting it. The though of course is that the
H2 tank is not designed to take that kind of thrust load...

I haven't seen the design details on the ET LH2 tank, but the dominant
loads on rocket tanks are usually pressure loads, not acceleration loads.
Being pushed from underneath is actually the best possible case, because
then the tank pressure helps support whatever load is on top. Long odds
the LH2 tank would need no changes at all(*) for thrust from underneath;
at worst you might have to raise the tank pressure slightly.

(* Aside from whatever you need locally in the way of a thrust structure,
to spread the engine thrust over the bottom of the tank, that is.)
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |