Air breathing Engines

(Zoltan Szakaly) writes:

We would not just be eliminating the weight of the oxygen tank, we
would be eliminating the weight of the oxygen. The mixture ratio being
6:1 we would be eliminating 83% of the weight of the stage.

Please go back and re-read =ALL= of Henry Spencer's many, many postings
on the _UTTER STUPIDITY_ of using Gross Lift-Off Weight as a figure of merit,
and the _UTTER STUPIDITY_ of speading enormous sums of money on hardware
to save a bit of LOX, when LOX is one of the cheapest industrial chemicals
you can find on Earth, until you =FINALLY= understand what he is saying,
and the truth of it exterminates your false ideas and wishful thinking.


-- Gordon D. Pusch

perl -e '$_ = \n"; s/NO\.//; s/SPAM\.//; print;'

the _UTTER STUPIDITY_ of using Gross Lift-Off Weight as a figure of merit,
Well, it IS a figure of merit. And it's intelligent to think so and it's ok
to have an opinion. No need to take out your anger issues on this board.
^
//^\\
~~~ near space elevator ~~~~
~~~members.aol.com/beanstalkr/~~~

We would not just be eliminating the weight of the oxygen tank, we
would be eliminating the weight of the oxygen. The mixture ratio being
6:1 we would be eliminating 83% of the weight of the stage.

Please go back and re-read =ALL= of Henry Spencer's many, many postings

on the _UTTER STUPIDITY_ of using Gross Lift-Off Weight as a figure of merit,

and the _UTTER STUPIDITY_ of speading enormous sums of money on hardware

to save a bit of LOX, when LOX is one of the cheapest industrial chemicals
you can find on Earth, until you =FINALLY= understand what he is saying,
and the truth of it exterminates your false ideas and wishful thinking.

Please reread the posts. No one cares about saving the cost of the LOx. They
care about the dev cost and operating cost of the vehicle (virtualy none of
which involves the cost of the fuel or LOx), and BIG TIME care about the
riskyness of the development program. Cutting the weight and bulk of the big
tanks and rocket motors. It lowers thrust needs, increases structural
strength, lowers drag, and simplifies the design, increses operating
flexobility. That kind of thing really interests designers. Especially when
all rocket SSTO are widly considered at best very near the edge of doability.
Air breath your way out of the bulk of the take off weight, and you eliminate a
ton of design problems.

Lox is trivial, buildability however...
Kelly Starks


"Humans are a race of compassionate predators."