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Flyback boosters
Has anyone ever flown flyback boosters on any vehicle?
-- aaronl at consultant dot com For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke |
#2
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Flyback boosters
On Aug 24, 8:46 am, Aaron Lawrence
wrote: Has anyone ever flown flyback boosters on any vehicle? Do X-planes count? Anti-satellite weapons launched from fighters? Pegasus? Rutan's SpaceShipOne? Tom |
#3
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Flyback boosters
TC wrote:
On Aug 24, 8:46 am, Aaron Lawrence wrote: Has anyone ever flown flyback boosters on any vehicle? Do X-planes count? Anti-satellite weapons launched from fighters? Pegasus? Rutan's SpaceShipOne? I suspect he means rocket powered VTHL, which is (AFAIK) the default meaning for 'flyback booster'. To date the HTHL airbreathers you refer to have been referred to as 'carriers' or 'motherships'. D. -- Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL |
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Flyback boosters
Surely, at the start you are battling huge weight of propellant, you want to
not add weight surely, so any additional structure to allow fly back would seem to be a non starter, at least to my mind. Brian -- Brian Gaff - Note:- In order to reduce spam, any email without 'Brian Gaff' in the display name may be lost. Blind user, so no pictures please! "Derek Lyons" wrote in message ... TC wrote: On Aug 24, 8:46 am, Aaron Lawrence wrote: Has anyone ever flown flyback boosters on any vehicle? Do X-planes count? Anti-satellite weapons launched from fighters? Pegasus? Rutan's SpaceShipOne? I suspect he means rocket powered VTHL, which is (AFAIK) the default meaning for 'flyback booster'. To date the HTHL airbreathers you refer to have been referred to as 'carriers' or 'motherships'. D. -- Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh. http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/ -Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings. Oct 5th, 2004 JDL |
#5
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Flyback boosters
"Brian Gaff" wrote in message k... Surely, at the start you are battling huge weight of propellant, you want to not add weight surely, so any additional structure to allow fly back would seem to be a non starter, at least to my mind. If the alternative is using less fuel, but throwing away the booster after every flight, then a fly back booster makes economic sense if the flight rate is high enough. Also, a liquid fueled flyback booster seems to make more sense to me than solid fueled boosters you drop in salt water, then fish out and refurbish after every flight. This is why, at one time, liquid fueled flyback boosters were studied for the space shuttle. The problem was, with the shuttle's low flight rate, you'd never make back your investment since development costs were projected to be pretty high. Jeff -- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - B. Franklin, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (1919) |
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Flyback boosters
On a pleasant day while strolling in sci.space.shuttle,
a person by the name of Jeff Findley exclaimed: This is why, at one time, liquid fueled flyback boosters were studied for the space shuttle. The problem was, with the shuttle's low flight rate, you'd never make back your investment since development costs were projected to be pretty high. I suppose it would be like developing a second vehicle to boost the shuttle... almost double the effort... though without the complications of people involved... Anyone know if the Buran Zenit boosters got beyond just the idea of wanting flyback? They had a lot more incentive with the more complex engines ... at least throwing away solids seems to make some sense. Ironic that they don't. -- aaronl at consultant dot com For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke |
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Flyback boosters
On a pleasant day while strolling in sci.space.shuttle,
a person by the name of Brian Gaff exclaimed: Surely, at the start you are battling huge weight of propellant, you want to not add weight surely, so any additional structure to allow fly back would seem to be a non starter, at least to my mind. Seems that way to me, also. Especially an actual precision flyback and landing seems to be fairly difficult and require a lot of control ability, far beyond what a booster would have otherwise ...not to mention wings... -- aaronl at consultant dot com For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke |
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Flyback boosters
Aaron Lawrence wrote:
I suppose it would be like developing a second vehicle to boost the shuttle... almost double the effort... Think "a lot more than double." See Geoff Little's (quite good) "Mach 20 or Bust" in the new Air & Space for a realistic look at what we don't know about aerodynamics of *any* kind beyond Mach 7 or so. What we know about sustained, airbreathing flight beyond Mach 3+ (as distinct from the X-15's rocket-driven "going up, seeya later when I'm a glider") is even less. It's going to take a long time and a lot of money -- military money aimed at some sort of hyper-cruise missile, long before anything big, reusable or manned -- to fill in the gaps Decades of STS second-guessing and handwaving hindsight notwithstanding, the people who looked at a wide variety of more or less winged hypersonic first stages in 1969-1971 -- and settled for the clunky, partly-reusable, kinda-stage-and-a-half solution we got -- were neither stupid nor unimaginative nor timid. |
#9
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Flyback boosters
On Aug 25, 11:42 am, Monte Davis wrote:
Aaron Lawrence wrote: I suppose it would be like developing a second vehicle to boost the shuttle... almost double the effort... Think "a lot more than double." See Geoff Little's (quite good) "Mach 20 or Bust" in the new Air & Space for a realistic look at what we don't know about aerodynamics of *any* kind beyond Mach 7 or so. What we know about sustained, airbreathing flight beyond Mach 3+ (as distinct from the X-15's rocket-driven "going up, seeya later when I'm a glider") is even less. It's going to take a long time and a lot of money -- military money aimed at some sort of hyper-cruise missile, long before anything big, reusable or manned -- to fill in the gaps Decades of STS second-guessing and handwaving hindsight notwithstanding, the people who looked at a wide variety of more or less winged hypersonic first stages in 1969-1971 -- and settled for the clunky, partly-reusable, kinda-stage-and-a-half solution we got -- were neither stupid nor unimaginative nor timid. They were, however, budget limited. There were continous cuts in STS R&D funding that forced the configuration to what it is now. I agree with you, no one designing or building and ultimately flying this thing was lacking for intelligence, imagination, or courage. John |
#10
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Flyback boosters
On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 15:42:43 GMT, Monte Davis
wrote: See Geoff Little's (quite good) "Mach 20 or Bust" in the new Air & Space for a realistic look at what we don't know about aerodynamics of *any* kind beyond Mach 7 or so. What we know about sustained, airbreathing flight beyond Mach 3+ (as distinct from the X-15's rocket-driven "going up, seeya later when I'm a glider") is even less. It's going to take a long time and a lot of money -- military money aimed at some sort of hyper-cruise missile, long before anything big, reusable or manned -- to fill in the gaps Decades of STS second-guessing and handwaving hindsight notwithstanding, the people who looked at a wide variety of more or less winged hypersonic first stages in 1969-1971 -- and settled for the clunky, partly-reusable, kinda-stage-and-a-half solution we got -- were neither stupid nor unimaginative nor timid. For those of us financially challenged dolts who don't receive Air and Space, is the article online somewhere? Thanks Jim in Houston. Contrary to popular opinion RN does not mean Real Nerd! Teddy Roosevelt's mother said: "Fill what is empty, empty what is full, and scratch where it itches" -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com |
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