Scaled Composites' Proteus aircraft carries a 23%-size dummy version of the CXV and its booster over Mojave, CA
Future carrier aircraft for full scale CXV
Posted on 06/02/2005 8:23:30 PM PDT by Brett66
Crew Transfer Vehicle (CXV)
The t/Space Crew Transfer Vehicle (CXV) is an innovative spacecraft capable of carrying 4-6 crew to the International Space Station or other low Earth orbit destinations for less than $20 million per flight. Based on the Discoverer and Corona capsules, the CXV utilizes a proven re-entry design to maximize safety and survivability of the crew. The CXV is launched into space on a two-stage booster released from a carrier aircraft, which enhances safety, performance, and flexibility. Preliminary design of the CXV and launch system is under way as part of t/Space's "Concept Exploration and Refinement" contract with NASA. An uncrewed demonstration flight is planned for summer 2008, with a crewed flight in December 2008 -- eliminating the gap between the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2010 and the initial flight of the new Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) in the 2012 - 2014 period.
The t/Space CXV and Earth-to-orbit system will dramatically lower the cost of human space flight, allowing NASA to focus its scarce resources on exploration beyond low Earth orbit, while opening space to the public for the first time. The CXV can be used to transfer NASA astronauts to a waiting CEV for a journey to the Moon. The CEV can be launched to orbit uncrewed, then checked out, saving NASA the cost to human rate the CEV launch vehicle. In time, a robust market for personal space flight will lead to the development of other vehicles and destinations in orbit fully funded by the private sector -- of which NASA can take advantage.
Design Philosophy
Simplicity, Survivability, and Affordability guide the design of the CXV and the Earth-to-orbit launch system. Together, these principles lead to a design that is optimized for taking people into orbit safely and at a price low enough to enable development of a new market for personal space flight.
Simplicity
The CXV is designed to do only one thing -- take people to and from low Earth orbit. It uses proven technology, such as the Discoverer / Corona capsule design which has flown over 400 atmospheric reentries over more than 20 years.
Scaled Composites' Proteus aircraft carries a 23%-size dummy version of the CXV and its booster over Mojave, CA
Future carrier aircraft for full scale CXV
Found this on the T/Space site, fascinating stuff, good for a space ping.
Hmmmm, sounds like we could have flown 400 manned space missions in the last 20 years for 400 x $20M = $8 Billion.
Instead, we flew 100+/- missions x $450M = $45 Billion.
OTOH, we do have 14 fewer live astronauts drawing a government paycheck thanks to the Shuttle, so I guess that makes it all worthwhile.
Way to go NASA!
You left out the part that this is nothing more than a return to the air force X15 program. That NASA canceled, because they didn't want the air force to be the first into space.
Breaking it up into specialized components is a better way to go about it IMHO. Private companies can provide alternative components much easier. It would be easier to build a specialized cargo-only carrier or human carrier rather than a mutli-function monstrosity like the shuttle.
I'm confident that it's only a matter of time until private companies or even individuals begin to take over what NASA used to do, but gave up on.
One thing is sure; there will never be a shortage of human volunteers to go into space.
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