Re: Is "side mount" Shuttle-C?

In article <1125023432.823803.281530@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
dbohara@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...

>Is the much discussed side mount SDV the same as Shuttle-C? If so, why
>the hell didn't we do this years ago? Are the arguments still valid
>that it would be cheaper to use Titan IV for heavy lift?

Titan IV no longer being available (there's one left, and it's already
on the pad), that argument is no longer valid.

If ~25 tons to LEO constitutes "heavy lift", the presently valid argument
is that it would be cheaper to use the appropriate Delta IV or Atlas V
models. If we're using the hundred-ton definition of "heavy lift", the
argument is now and was then that lifting a hundred tons at a time is a
silly thing to do unless you're planning on putting at least ten thousand
tons into orbit, and NASA at least isn't planning on doing that any time
soon. Well, Congress isn't planning on giving NASA the money for that,
in any event.

Saturn needed to be a hundred-ton rocket because it would have taken an
extra year or so to learn how to assemble a Moon ship out of twenty-ton
pieces; we were in a Race, and the big rocket could be designed in parallel
with the Moon ship. Plus, people figured we would be putting ten thousand
tons in orbit Real Soon Now anyway, what with the space station and the
Mars expeditions and whatnot, so a hundred-ton rocket seemed like a good
investment.


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