[vannrox]

Cool. I was wondering when they were going to revise NASP after CLINTON Killed it!

[Billy_bob_bob]

I've seen discussions of next generations space planes before, and I've also seen discussions of a "space elevator". I remember an idea I saw in an old sci-fi movie from the fifties. The basic idea is a rail that a rocket goes along until it gets up to speed, and is then launced into orbit.

In the real world, the launch rail and rocket would instead be an electromagnetic rail, a carrier, and a payload designed to survive the heat of exiting the atmosphere. Once in orbit the capsule could dispose of the used up heat shielding and proceed with its mission.

Escape velocity is something like five miles per second. My question is would a system like this have any possibility of being technically and economically feasible? I have this vision of a hundred miles of electromagnetic rail traversing the desert, with an ever so slight rise during the last few miles to ensure the payload makes it over the horizon. Is this vision purely sci-fi, or does it offer enough practical advantages to be worth pursuing?

[dark_lord]

A "tin hat" would say - NASA ran the shuttle program 'til they started to fail from old age - to ensure funding of next generation vehicles.

[Brett66]

I've read a troubling financial analysis of this OSP concept by Rand Simberg. The upshot of this analysis is that if they can't hold development costs down for the OSP then it will cost at least as much as the shuttle per flight. They keep spouting ten years and 12 billion dollars for development of this and it will give us less capability than the shuttle with increased costs.

See post 5:

NASA Sets Initial Requirements for Orbital Space Plane System

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for posting this article!

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