Re: SpaceX Aims For 2009 Re-usability Demo

Pat Flannery <flanner@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

dumpster4@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
See:

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/STAGE010909.xml&headline=SpaceX%20Aims%20For%202009%20Re-usability%20Demo&channel=space

I hope it goes well.


They will have a hell of a time figuring out how to get that second
stage back down in one piece.

This would be a good point to finally try active cooling. Let the fuel
tank heat up and design in pressure-controlled valves that vent residual
(vaporized) fuel over the skin of the stage, cooling it and protecting
it from the plasma. I have always thought that this is the best way to
get anything mainly consisting of large and nearly empty fuel tanks
intact through reentry.


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
.

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