Re: How big would an SSTO be?

On Jul 13, 5:04 pm, Sylvia Else <syl...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
BradGuth wrote:
On Jul 12, 8:39 pm, Sylvia Else <syl...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Ian Parker wrote:
There is one other vital fact. Suppose we accept that a hypersonic
SSTO orbiter is possible. There is still one other important
parameter.
Will it be able to perform 1000 flights maintainance free - only fuel
and LOX, or will it like the Shuttle have to virtually be rebuilt
after every flight? You cannot tell simply be looking at the Skylon
design.
Skylon appears to be designed for a life of 200 launches. I doubt they
expect the engine to last that long, but one would hope that the engine
didn't need to be stripped down after each flight.

It appears from my what I've read over the last few days that a very
significant factor in the life and reliability of rocket engines is the
chamber pressure, and one reason the SSME requires so much maintenance
is that it runs at a very high pressure.

I haven't been able to find any indications of what kind of pressures
RE's SABRE engine will use.

Sylvia.

So what's the difference, because your precious Skylon simply has too
much inert mass instead of payload and fuel to deal with. It'll be
damn lucky getting 6 tonnes into LEO. Sorry about all that.

At this point, I'd buy 3 tonnes of LEO deployment, as doable. Prove
or best demonstrate otherwise.
-

I think I'll opt for 100 tonnes to LEO using a 150 tonne MTOW vehicle. I
mean, if we're just pulling numbers out of the air, why not pull some
nice ones?

Sylvia.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Are we going a little postal, or what?

Those ratios that I pulled were nostly out of a NASA and ESA hat, are
those of what a least inert rocket can manage to get the most of
whatever into LEO.

BTW, rockets typically don't have those nifty wings, multiple landing
gears, a reusable monohull configuration, nor are they accommodating a
crew and/or a few passengers, or that of a good dozen other hefty
sorts of related items which your SSTO Skylon can't possibly avoid
unless it's almost entirely made out of spendy and technically complex
CNT plus a few super alloys.
-
Brad Guth

.

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