Re: After the shuttle



William Mook wrote:

Well, that may be true of the linear aerospike engine designed for the
X-33.  But I'm speaking of an older design that is pretty well proven;

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/p236.htm



I could never understand why that design didn't get pushed forward immediately. I first saw in in the book "Frontiers Of Space" and it looked like an easy way to get a more effective engine design fairly quickly. (Okay, the surface-launched Mars ship was pushing it a bit- but the Hyperion looked doable) it would have been fairly easy to test on a sounding rocket...somewhere, I seem to remember someone putting a plug nozzle engine tester on a solid fueled rocket.

Pat
.