Re: Salvaging X-33


"stork" <tbandrow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1122838554.994712.197540@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Was HTHL no longer viable because of NASP politics, or NASP
> technological results? I thought the deal with NASP was that they
> thought they might be able to push the limits of a scramjet to Mach 25
> and hence orbital speeds by managing the thermal load, but they could
> only really get it to be as high as Mach 17, and they didn't actually
> have working scramjets anyway.

NASP was largely a paper project. They were nowhere near ready do start
bending full size metal, let alone attempting to launch the thing...

Single stage HTHL vehicles are just really hard to do when you consider the
mass of the landing gear needed to support the fully fueled vehicle.

Jeff
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