Re: Northrup Grumman - CEV Prime

From: Ed Kyle (edkyle99_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 11/23/04 

Date: 23 Nov 2004 13:50:53 -0800

Rand Simberg wrote:
> On 23 Nov 2004 10:24:16 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
> <edkyle99@hotmail.com> made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
> way as to indicate that:
>
> >No company has, as yet, funded its own development, entirely from
> >scratch, of its own successfully-flown orbital space launch vehicle.
>
> OSC has.
>

Pegasus was jointly developed by Orbital Sciences and
Hercules Aerospace. And how did Hercules Aerospace
manage to develop the composite case solid rocket motor
technology that allowed it to design the Pegasus Orion
solid rocket motors? From where did the money flow?
Those that don't remember, or who weren't born yet,
can do a search for LGM-118A, third stage motor, to
find the answer. (Hercules' (now ATK) investment in
Orion has paid big dividends now that it has been selected
for the taxpayer-funded BMD program - an effort that has
been much more lucrative than Pegasus/Taurus/Minotaur.)

And on what government funded project results did Orbital
base its drop-launch and supersonic flight regime designs?
Look up X-15.

And from whose government-owned aircraft did Orbital drop-
launch Pegasus boosters during the first four years of its
existence? Sure looked like a B-52 to me. Etc...

> >All of the orbital space launchers in use at the present time were
> >either developed with substantial amounts of government money, or
> >were largely derived from previous hardware that was developed
> >with substantial amounts of government money. And all are launched
> >from bases that use government-funded equipment and personnel.
>
> OSC's aren't. Neither is SeaLaunch's

All Pegasus launches in recent years have been tracked from
government bases (Vandenberg, Canaveral, and Kwajalein). All
Pegasus pre-launch processing is done at Vandenberg, as in
U.S. Air Force Base.

The Sea Launch Zenit 3SL booster is processed on, erected by,
and launched from, automated launch equipment originally
developed by the Soviet Union for the Zenit 2 pads at Baikonur.

(And all three stages of the rocket itself were, of course,
originally developed using Soviet government money during
either the moon launch program (Blok DM) or the Energia/Buran
program (Zenit).)

NASA's TDRS was used to handle some of the Zenit 3SL launch
telemetry, etc..

 - Ed Kyle

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Northrup Grumman - CEV Prime
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