Re: Vision of the three Rs: Regular, Reliable and Reusable

On Feb 20, 9:20 pm, "Totorkon" <aertr...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Feb 20, 6:52 pm, "kT" <cos...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Feb 20, 8:23 pm, "Totorkon" <aertr...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Feb 20, 4:26 am, Fred J. McCall <fmcc...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Ian Woollard <ian.wooll...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
:Fred J. McCall wrote:

:> Would it really? We don't know that with any certainty.
:
:Beyond a certain point, do we know that any space activities are worth it?

No, we don't. That's rather the point...

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."

NASA runs on a current budget of a bit over 16 billion per year. The
stipulation is that a reusable launch system, of say twenty tons,
could reduce the cost to orbit by a factor of ten.

I can get a (roughly) 20 ton rocket into orbit with a single SSME,
with a few thousand pounds of fuel to spare. It's a simple matter of
placing the SSME into the nose cone carrier, and returning it to
Earth. That should at least allow us to get enough experience and hard
numbers to come up with something better.-

The RS68 has nearly twice the thrust and costs about a seventh as much
as the SSME RS25. While not as efficient, wouldn't it be better to
base an RLV on its $14M price tag?

It also weighs twice as much as an SSME. It's a hard starter too. Did
you forget that it isn't reusable? That's why the Delta IV Medium is a
two stage launch vehicle. If you want to fly the RS-68, fly the Delta
IV Medium.

When you launch an SSME in SSTO configuration, you are not throwing
the engine away. It's not expendable, it's reusable, get it?


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