Re: An alternative to Orion/Constellation?

On Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:09:50 -0400, David Spain <nospam@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Such a vehicle would be much more expensive to develop than Orion.

Yes definitely. I'm not opposed to spending money if its in the right
direction.

But you must make sure its the best way to spend the money. Something
like Delta Clipper or Roton could well make much more economic sense
than air-launch.

NASA did study air launch (albeit a vertically launched mothership)
for the orignal Shuttle concept, but abandoned it due to high cost and
engineering difficulty. (Reportedly, the manager of the Flyback
Booster program breathed a huge sigh of relief when NASA pulled the
plug.)

Yes. We should have preserved ELVs for heavy lift. Saturn 1B would have
been good to have kept around.

Saturn IB was not heavy lift. It was in the Proton/Titan III-class at
a little over 40,000 lbs. payload. And with nine engines, it was
expensive. NASA did use Titan III to launch Viking and Voyager. They
probably could have launched something like Mir with it (USAF planned
to launch MOL with it.)

To your knowledge or my knowledge, yes. But who is making that claim
besides yourself? Do you have cites? What does Rutan say?

He wants SpaceShipThree to be orbital, but he's not saying how he'll
do it. I just can't see the draggy White Knight/SpaceShip combo
getting to supersonic speeds, much less hypersonic speeds, but that's
what he'll need for orbital capability. It will be interesting to see
what he comes up with.

Brian
.

Relevant Pages

  • Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide
    ... The following is the Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide. ... HAM frequencies for listening to and watching NASA ... http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/view/view_shuttle.html (NASA KSC ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)
  • Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide
    ... The following is the Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide. ... HAM frequencies for listening to and watching NASA ... http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/view/view_shuttle.html (NASA KSC ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)
  • Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide
    ... The following is the Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide. ... HAM frequencies for listening to and watching NASA ... http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/view/view_shuttle.html (NASA KSC ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)
  • Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide
    ... The following is the Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide. ... HAM frequencies for listening to and watching NASA ... http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/view/view_shuttle.html (NASA KSC ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)
  • Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide
    ... The following is the Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide. ... HAM frequencies for listening to and watching NASA ... http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/view/view_shuttle.html (NASA KSC ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)