Posted on 08/02/2005 8:56:13 AM PDT by jbstrick
Never would have even happened in the first place with liquid-fueled rockets....
Launching the crew separate from the bulk 'cargo' is a good idea. The crew rocket can forgo the solid propellant boosters. Strapping a pair of roman-candles to the side of a tank of liquid oxygen and hydrogen always seemed like a bad idea.
I like the idea of using the boosters as heavy lifters. I don't know if the external fuel tank is strong enough to support the payload shown in the diagram (it's a tank, not a column). The genius behind the space shuttle was that 3 of the 4 principal components are completely reusable. Only the external tank is wasted.
We need to move away from the vertical launch method of sending people to space. We need to look into designing a purely passenger vehicle that can be towed to a high altitude, released, and rocketed to the space station. This builds on the successful lauch method used by Chuck Yeager and also the Ansari X winners. Heavy cargo can still be vertically lauched by a Saturn V with the assistance of the reusable boosters currently used by the space shuttle.
And therefore proposed continuing business for his employer.
Go back and read the original bag of tricks, feats, and payloads (and missions) that the designers claimed for the Shuttle....none have panned out so far.
The problem is dealing with the reentry heat and still having a vehicle that's spaceworthy....why not just get a working space vehicle in space via the payload of another workhorse and build and keep the fleet in space? Concentrate on moving away from this planet and looking for alloys, etc. that can stand the heat of reentry among other things....
If we're gonna explore space, we better be prepared to live in it, not trying to figure out how to get from our house out through the driveway to the car.....
The BDB will be about 350 feet tall. That is close to the Saturn full up. The man launcher will be 250, which is still pretty big.
The 100 ton figure probably means to Low Earth Orbit, not to GEO.
I actually think that using solids might be more reliable and potentially safer than liquids. Yep, I know, I'm nutz...
I agree, but it will take an excellent escape system.
Hey, if they can ever get around the solids having only two power settings (off and full-blast), they'd be perfect.
Also there should be far less drag on liftoff for the inline vehicles.
Why would you want to do that even with a liquid fueled booster?
Most people don't realize how complicated the SSME are. At the time of design, they were the most complicated rocket motors ever concieved. They operated at extreme levels, and were meant to be flown over and over again! As I watched each launch, I was surprised that those things never blew up.
The power is reduced after liftoff so the stack will encounter less drag and turbulence while in the atmosphere. Once past the point of maximum drag and turbulence, the engine thrust is increased.
For one, the thrust of a liquid-fueled engine is adjusted to limit aerodynamic and thrust loads on the launch vehicle / payload during flight. Recall the last transmission from Challenger was, "go for throttle up", when the craft had passed the region of maximum aerodynamic forces on the vehicle.
> Why would you want to do that [throttle or shut down a
> booster] even with a liquid fueled booster?
If an incipient major malfunction can be detected early
enough, the booster can be safed before it causes a total
loss of the stack.
Note that the proposed Crew stack has a small escape
rocket on the top of the capsule, as Mercury-thru-Apollo
did (never used, but the USSR had to once). This only
works reliably if what you are blasting away from isn't
still accelerating toward you (or exploding parts at you).
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