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Virgin Galactic and Orbital
Seems the folks at www.space.com are reporting that Virgin Galactic
and Orbital Sciences are going to work together on orbital transportation. rick jones -- the road to hell is paved with business decisions... these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH... |
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Virgin Galactic and Orbital
On 12/15/2010 3:39 PM, Rick Jones wrote:
Seems the folks at www.space.com are reporting that Virgin Galactic and Orbital Sciences are going to work together on orbital transportation. This will take you straight to the article: http://www.space.com/news/virgin-gal...ct-101215.html Virgin Galactic said they were looking into something like this a few years back, under the concept name "SpaceShip 3". Two problems with this idea are that Atlas V's aren't cheap, and lifting body RV's tend to be heavier than ballistic capsules that have the same cargo/crew capabilities; which is why no one has ever built a operational system using a lifting body RV, despite a lot of them being designed starting in the 1960's. Pat |
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Virgin Galactic and Orbital
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Virgin Galactic and Orbital
On 12/16/2010 5:36 AM, Dan Birchall wrote:
Hmm... the HL-20 RV mentioned in the article weighs in at 10,000kg empty; figure 11,000kg with crew. You can put that much into LEO with pretty much _any_ expendable heavy-lifter nowadays, can't you? That's what they say the HL-20 is _supposed_ to weigh when actually built...the history of small spaceplanes is one of them coming in a lot heavier when they are actually ready to be built than when originally planned. The ESA Hermes spaceplane suffered so much weight growth due to having to carry an expendable rear module to assist cooling (the problem with a reentry TPS is that keeps heat in the spacecraft in orbit as well as out of it on the way back down) that it rapidly outgrew the lifting capability of the Ariane V booster, and rather than having to redesign the Ariane, ESA just canceled the whole program: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/hermes.htm Pat |
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