Re: Deep Rescue: Will a shuttle float?

I liked the concept of snagging a gliding booster mid-flight and air
towing it back to the launch center, in a manner similar to the
snagging of film canisters from Corona spy satellites;

http://msl.jpl.nasa.gov/Programs/corona.html
http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/imint/4recvry.jpg
http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/imint/4case2.jpg

Hmm... I can't seem to find photos of the aircraft actually snagging a
Corona film capsule. There used to be such photos on line, but the
links all seem to be broken! lol.

Seven External Tank sized boosters equipped for ballistic downrange
recovery, propelled by five SSME class engines - or better yet, five
SSME class turbopumps feed an aerospike engine at the base of the
External tank sized boosters. All are strapped together in a hexagonal
close packed sstructure. four of the six outer tanks feed all seven
boosters at lift off, draining them. These four are dropped when
empty, and the three remaining boosters of the seven, continue firing,
all three being fed by the two outboard boosters. When those are
drained, they are dropped, and they execute a downrange re-entry. The
remaining booster continues onward, carrying a 700 ton ballistic
orbiter - again based on an External Tank sized system- the final stage
of the seven completes its burn and is recovered farthest downrange.
Meanwhile the orbiter propels 600 tons of payload into LEO. All of the
seven boosters, which have the same sort of airframe and propulsion
system, are recovered downrange by an air-tug built out of an old
airliner. The tug tows the booster/glider back to the launch center
and releases it for a runway landing, then the aircraft lands itself.
When the orbiter re-enters it is recovered in the same way and lands at
the launch center -all components to be reused.

In this way 600 tons can be placed into LEO at a cost of around $60
million - $100,000 per ton - or $50 per pound!

This of course depends on flight rate and maintenance costs, which in
turn depend on infrastructure at the launch center. A fleet of three
vehicles (24 modules) woulc cost $2.4 billion to build, $1.5 billion to
design and test, and another $2.5 billion would be spent in vehicle
processing and launch infrastructure to maintain low costs. A total of
$6.4 billion - With weekly launch rates, a total of 50 launches per
year would be scheduled at a cost of $3.0 billion per year. A total of
$10.0 billion would be allocated to maintain launch rate, and provide a
sales effort to fill the payload bay each launch. Selling price might
be in the $1,000 per pound range, with deep discounts for larger sized
systems - that way you'd pay for a launch with only 60,000 pounds of
the 1,200,000 pounds payload.

A subscale version using the turbopumps from a RL10 engine massing
15,000 pounds each, rather than 1,500,000 pounds each, would put up 6
tons into LEO and prove the conept.

.

Relevant Pages

  • ATK, NASA Reach Space Shuttle "Return-to-flight" Milestone
    ... ATK Reusable Solid Rocket Boosters Stacked for May Launch of Discovery ... have completed the stacking of the twin reusable solid rocket motors ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)
  • Re: Challenger doc on 4
    ... I didn't realise the position of the shuttle had been moved (relative to ... the boosters), and that as the company making the boosters was not able to ... When the engineers tell you it's not a good idea to launch ... delay due to weather would delay for signifcant time. ...
    (uk.media.tv.misc)
  • Re: Challenger doc on 4
    ... I didn't realise the position of the shuttle had been moved (relative to ... the boosters), and that as the company making the boosters was not able ... When the engineers tell you it's not a good idea to launch ... delay due to weather would delay for signifcant time. ...
    (uk.media.tv.misc)
  • Re: Griffin Wants Inline SDLV and 5 Segment SRB/CEV
    ... is the same as saying Atlas 5 or Delta IV ... > Expendable Launch Vehicles" for years. ... I don't like ATK's designs because it means NASA-specific boosters ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: Mars Viewmaster
    ... launch frequency, perhaps with an RLV, makes sense. ... a Mars Direct sort of mission ... fraction of the mission cost divided across the weight of all the ... infrastructure, that loft between 500 metric tons to 2,000 metric tons ...
    (sci.space.policy)