Altitude record for a single stage rocket

I've tried Googling with no success: does anyone know the current
altitude record for a single stage vehicle?

Nicholas Hill

On Sat, 31 May 2008 02:03:01 -0700 (PDT), in a place far, far away,
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:

I've tried Googling with no success: does anyone know the current
altitude record for a single stage vehicle?

Orbit, if you don't count the sustainers on the Atlas.

On May 31, 4:03 am, wrote:
I've tried Googling with no success: does anyone know the current
altitude record for a single stage vehicle?

Nicholas Hill

Dunno, but ESA's MAXUS gets to a bit more than 700 km.

wrote in message
...
I've tried Googling with no success: does anyone know the current
altitude record for a single stage vehicle?

Nicholas Hill

Note that altitude isn't an overly useful metric.

Velocity AND altitude matter. 700km isn't overly useful if it's straight up
and down.

--
Greg Moore
SQL Server DBA Consulting Remote and Onsite available!
Email: sql (at) greenms.com http://www.greenms.com/sqlserver.html

On May 31, 6:23 am, " wrote:
On May 31, 4:03 am, wrote:

I've tried Googling with no success: does anyone know the current
altitude record for a single stage vehicle?

Nicholas Hill

Dunno, but ESA's MAXUS gets to a bit more than 700 km.

? 700 km at zero payload ?

What's the inert shell or hull worth?

What inert mass is the MAXUS w/nuclear warhead worth?
.. - Brad Guth

On May 31, 2:23*pm, " wrote:
On May 31, 4:03 am, wrote:

I've tried Googling with no success: does anyone know the current
altitude record for a single stage vehicle?

Nicholas Hill

Dunno, but ESA's MAXUS gets to a bit more than 700 km.

The reason I'm asking is that I've heard it said that Black Knioght
BK03 holds the record at 499miles, or 795 km. I was wondering whther
this was true, and whether it's still true. It was fired at 88 degrees
to the horizontal.

I agree that altitude per se is no great achievement in itself. Atlas
SCORE would win, if you count it as single stage!

On May 31, 8:51 am, "Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)"
wrote:

700km isn't overly useful if it's straight up and down.

It is if the object of the flight is to do microgravity experiments.
Actually, ISTR that such flights are launched a little to the east to
bring the landing area closer to the launch site.

writes:

On May 31, 2:23=A0pm, " wrote:
On May 31, 4:03 am, wrote:

I've tried Googling with no success: does anyone know the current
altitude record for a single stage vehicle?

Nicholas Hill

Dunno, but ESA's MAXUS gets to a bit more than 700 km.

The reason I'm asking is that I've heard it said that Black Knioght
BK03 holds the record at 499miles, or 795 km. I was wondering whther
this was true, and whether it's still true. It was fired at 88 degrees
to the horizontal.

I agree that altitude per se is no great achievement in itself. Atlas
SCORE would win, if you count it as single stage!

If you count SCORE as a single-stage, then it certainly beats
out MAXUS: the apogee for SCORE was about 1500 kilometers (Encyclopedia
Astronautica gives its apogee at 1484 kilometers, perigee 185 km). But
again if Mark Wade's to be believed the dropped side engines had a mass
of about 3,000 kilograms, compared to the remaining rocket coming in at
4,000 kilograms (dry).


I would have nominated the famous September 1956 launch of a
Jupiter-C/Juno/What-Have-You, but on finally finding the Jupiter-C
page on Encyclopedia Astronautica -- it turns out to be
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/jupiterc.htm
for the record -- it turns out that was a three-stage launch, which
goes against the impression I had had about the Jupiter-C. Obviously
there are pieces of early space history which have been garbled in the
reduction to single sentences in 1200-page explanations of Apollo 11.

--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Sat, 31 May 2008 12:35:58 GMT, in a place far, far away,
h (Rand Simberg) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

On Sat, 31 May 2008 02:03:01 -0700 (PDT), in a place far, far away,
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a way
as to indicate that:

I've tried Googling with no success: does anyone know the current
altitude record for a single stage vehicle?

Orbit, if you don't count the sustainers on the Atlas.

Sorry, I misread the question. Obviously, you can get way above LEO
altitude, but you won't be in orbit. I thought you were curious as to
how close to orbit one could get, but that question would be better
asked as what kind of velocity had been achieved with a single stage.

I don't think there's a fair way to avoid counting the sustainers on
Atlas in response to this question: the rocket couldn't even lift off
without them. The same goes for aircraft launch.

If we are talking one integral stage, then Maxus seems to have the
record. A max of 700km or so leaves far behind the largest single-
stage American rockets I can think of, like Aerobee and Viking, as
well as the maximum reach (about 200 km, IIRC) of any of the V-2s
fired in Germany or in the U.S. I can't find a number for the single-
stage (unboosted) Black Brandt V, but it's well short of that, I am
sure. I found a Maxus 7 record of 702 km and an estimate for a Maxus 6
at 710, and I think that's likely to be it.
We could build an SSTO rocket (proposed many times, but never deemed
feasible - or, at least, those who have the funds to do it have never
deemed it desirable). An SSTO would in all likelihood be able to best
the Maxus if you aimed it straight up, but there would be no apparent
reason to fly one that way.

Matt Bille
SciTech News and Comment:

http://mattbille.blogspot.com