Silver Dart |
Posted on 02/17/2007 9:27:02 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
The Ultimate Glide: PlanetSpace's Suborbital Travel Plan
Tariq Malik
Staff Writer
SPACE.com
Wed Feb 14, 11:30 AM ET
Even as the private spaceflight firm PlanetSpace, Inc. aims for orbital space shots, the Chicago-based company is also drawing up plans for a suborbital Earth transit system.
The firm's planned Silver Dart space plane, currently targeted at providing NASA crew and cargo services to the International Space Station (ISS), could be equipped with a suborbital rocket engine for point-to-point flights around Earth, PlanetSpace CEO Geoff Sheerin told SPACE.com [image].
"This is the killer application for space industry," Sheerin said. "You've got a destination already."
PlanetSpace officials are planning to make their first Silver Dart demonstration launch by December 2009 [image].
"The initial tests of that Dart are suborbital," Sheerin said. "We're talking about an initial test flight that might go 5,000 miles (8,046 kilometers) down range, so with the Dart you can glide quite a ways."
Point-to-point aboard Silver Dart
PlanetSpace's Silver Dart spacecraft calls for a metal lifting body frame based on the U.S. Air Force's Flight Dynamics Laboratory-7 (FDL-7) and NASA's X-24B test aircraft. The spacecraft is designed to fly at hypersonic speeds of up to Mach 22, launch atop either an orbital NOVA booster [image] or suborbital rocket, and make a runaway landing [image].
PlanetSpace's planned suborbital Silver Dart booster is reminiscent of NASA's Little Joe rocket used during tests of the space agency's Mercury spacecraft launch escape system [image].
It's the Silver Dart's potential glide range, more than 25,000 miles (40,233 kilometers) at hypersonic speeds, which lend it to point-to-point flights around Earth, Sheerin said.
"A flight from New York to Paris in 20 minutes is not out of the question using that system," Sheerin said, adding that it is the longer, 16-hour flights where Silver Dart could excel. "The best uses for this vehicle are places where it might take a jet a long haul."
Sheerin said PlanetSpace is studying plans for an initial five-vehicle fleet of Silver Dart spacecraft, each capable of making eight-passenger or unmanned cargo trips into suborbital or orbital space. Versatility, he added, is the goal.
"If they're not flying to orbit, then I'd like to fly them point-to-point and if they're not flying point-to-point than I'd like to be flying them on short jaunts into space on space tourist flights," Sheerin said. "They're flight rate will be very high."
PlanetSpace plans to launch spacecraft from Cape Breton in Nova Scotia [image], and also has an agreement with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center for technical support in spacecraft and booster development.
Laying the foundation
Earlier this month, NASA announced plans to support PlanetSpace's orbital space plane efforts by supplying specifications and advice, but no funding, for potential crew and cargo transport services to and from the ISS once the agency's shuttle fleet is retired in 2010.
The U.S. space agency also agreed to similar deal with Reston, Virginia's Transformational Space (t/Space), while two other firms - Oklahoma's Rocketplane Kistler and California-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) - are sharing the space agency's initial $500 million Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) investment.
"We don't have any agreements with them to do demonstrations to the space station," Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office at the Johnson Space Center, told SPACE.com of the COTS contenders and other firms.
A subsequent COTS bid for ISS services will be open to all capable parties, Lindenmoyer added.
"Our belief is that once we're able to satisfy NASA's requirements for going to the International Space Station, then all the other requirements for passengers and crew would also be satisfied," Sheerin said.
Private Spaceflight Industry Foresees Steady Progress in 2007 Virgin Galactic Strikes Deal with Swedish Government VIDEO: Blue Origin's Goddard Vehicle Test Launch Special Report: The New Space Race
Silver Dart |
Ping!
The looks like it was designed by a 1st grader.
I used to make lots of them, too. Made them longer and pointier as time went.
Hopefully, I will ride this suborbital hypersonic plane someday.
I guess that flight time to Paris dosen't include the wait time of 10 hours to get deiced.
Too many concepts, not enough results. Until this thing accomplishes *at least* what Burt Rutan did, it simply isn't news.
Add the other 10 hours to get through security checkpoints.
>>>The firm's planned Silver Dart space plane
Somewhere Captain Midnight is consulting his attorneys regarding trademark infringement.
Oh, Silly me forgot that "little" wait. LOL!
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PING
Start with the departure point, in Nova Scotia. Not exactly centrally located, and I doubt the weather's very friendly for daily launches.
They're also using an array of boosters to achieve Mach 22 and that stately glide into Paris. I figure they throw away 10-20 million dollars worth of hardware on every flight. For 8-12 passengers, wouldn't that make the ticket a little pricey?
Well, they could do Ultra-Fedex for really urgent and expensive packages.
More feasible than a transporter.:-)
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My question too. If they could eliminate the boosters with a low acceleration rail gun at the airport, now that would be economical. And it would rock.
Congress is ready to throw our economy in the toilet with carbon taxes and we're supposed to embrace this thing? Hell, to meet the carbon reduction goals they are discussing, we'll all have to ride bicycles, end all vacation travel, and never heat or cool our houses or offices again. Why would anybody even consider this energy hog in this eco-kook climate?
None of this stuff is even remotely possible until we can ensure that some troglodyte jihadist doesn't decide that this is his martyrdom target.
So what if it takes a day to travel up to Nova Scotia, then you have to wait more days for good weather to launch, and all this for $5 million or so a ticket. You get to travel to Paris or somehere in 20 minutes. Like, woohooh. They'd find plenty of suckers, I mean passengers, at twice the cost.
Unless you can build the railgun at 60,000 feet, it won't work. Too much air resistance.
...Or his suborbital reentry vehicle. This thing sounds like little more than a ballistic missile with landing gear.
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