Re: commercial uses of the Stick and the Heavy Lifter

"Ed Kyle" <edkyle99@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1128364904.375605.23280@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> A closer look shows that the two-stage Stick would
> only be able to do a bit more than 7 tonnes to GTO
> (I came up with 7.2 tonnes).

Unless someone invests in making the SSME restartable,
and the upper stage capable of supporting restarts, the Stick
would be unable to deliver any payload to GTO, because
it won't be able to coast and perform the injection burn
over the equator. Since restart capability isn't needed
in the nominal crew launch role, an annoucement (or
the lack of an announcement) of plans to make the engine
restartable would be a pretty good leading indicator of
whether or not GTO launch capability is planned.

(There are a couple of other alternative solutions with varying
degrees of improbability: a three stage configuration,
a two stage configuration that replaces the SSME with an
altogether different engine, or 'just' launching the current
configuration from a near-equatorial launch site.)

Josh Hopkins


.

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