NASA Decider decides to throw away $200 million dollars per launch

Let's see :

Five (5) RS-68s

One (1) large upper stage engine, who knows what that will be, they keep
changing their minds.

One (1) Ten (10) meter ET External Tank.

The associated infrastructure, etc.

America - Love it, and throw it away.

Michael Griffin - The NASA Deciderer.

http://cosmic.lifeform.org

I've never understood what what so wrong with Robert Zubrin's "Ares" vehicle
with the flyback engine module - it would have saved having to design an
entirely new system as th eShuttle engines could have been retained.


Nathan

"Thomas Lee Elifritz" wrote in message
...
Let's see :

Five (5) RS-68s

One (1) large upper stage engine, who knows what that will be, they keep
changing their minds.

One (1) Ten (10) meter ET External Tank.

The associated infrastructure, etc.

America - Love it, and throw it away.

Michael Griffin - The NASA Deciderer.

http://cosmic.lifeform.org

Blurrt wrote:

I've never understood what what so wrong with Robert Zubrin's "Ares" vehicle
with the flyback engine module - it would have saved having to design an
entirely new system as th eShuttle engines could have been retained.

That is precisely what I want to do, but incremental development demands
that I demonstrate pure SSTO before RLV. Ideally the engine module would
boost to near LEO orbit, and fly a once around back to the vicinity of
the launch site, and the tankage would go on to LEO, and the upper stage
on to GEO. The tankage itself must eventually be migrated up to GEO, or
to the moon and Mars, but that is way down the road. It just doesn't
make sense to do it again after 40 years, especially Apollo style.

To do the moon and Mars we need fuel, fuel and more fuel.

Three words : propulsion, propulsion and propulsion.

http://cosmic.lifeform.org

Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote:

...incremental development demands
that I demonstrate pure SSTO before RLV.

That sounds one hundred percent backwards to me. Incremental
development should very quickly push you toward reusability first, and
performance later.

Alan Anderson wrote:

Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote:

...incremental development demands
that I demonstrate pure SSTO before RLV.

That sounds one hundred percent backwards to me. Incremental
development should very quickly push you toward reusability first, and
performance later.

I don't see how reusability is possible without performance.

Surely taking the engines into orbit, is technologically simpler than
detaching them from the stack, and flying them back to the launch site.

I intend to get people excited about solving the reusability problems by
demonstrating high performance single stage to orbit space flight.

http://cosmic.lifeform.org

Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote:
Alan Anderson wrote:

Thomas Lee Elifritz wrote:

...incremental development demands
that I demonstrate pure SSTO before RLV.

That sounds one hundred percent backwards to me. Incremental
development should very quickly push you toward reusability first, and
performance later.

I don't see how reusability is possible without performance.

PMJI but the consensus is that you CAN build SSTOs, just not that great
from an economic POV. I recall a thread discussing S-IVB as a candidate
for such.
On the other hand, data obtained from a reusable near-orbital SSTO
might help design a second generation that "goes all the way". There
are several proponents of such an X Programme. IIRC Mr. Hudson said
something about "coaxing" an X vehicle into orbit.

Blurrt wrote:
I've never understood what what so wrong with Robert Zubrin's "Ares" vehicle
with the flyback engine module

A couple of things:

1) It wasn't Robert Zubrin's vehicle, but Martin-Mariettas.
2) It would have required a substantial redesign of the tank to take
the new loading points (the forward bipod of the Shuttle is located in
the ET intertank section), so you've already got pretty much a new tank
anyway... might as well go the extra step and put the engines
underneath.

In article ,
Blurrt wrote:
I've never understood what what so wrong with Robert Zubrin's "Ares" vehicle
with the flyback engine module - it would have saved having to design an
entirely new system as th eShuttle engines could have been retained.

The flyback engine module *was* pretty much an entirely new system, and
a complex one at that.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |