Re: How Rockets Differ From Jets


Fred J. McCall wrote:
> :Nothing magical about a SSME. Rocketdyne makes them. They work. They
> :produce 450,000 pounds of thrust each at sea level, 500,000 pounds of
> :thrust each in Space.
>
> I don't see any spaceplanes using 11 of them flying to Venus today.
> Perhaps you do?

Such a spaceplane is getting discussed here precisely because it hasn't
been built yet. It is the future of Space Engineering.

A spaceplane with 11 SSME's would have 5.5 million pounds of thrust at
full throttle in space. That is a lot of thrust. Combined with a very
light dry weight it just about could work 'magic'.

> :A good spaceplane would be a combination of extremely light materials,
> :like carbon nanotube fabric, and . . . vacuum. It just might float.
>
> In which case it is not acting as a spaceplane and will be in pieces
> from forces hitting it from the wrong directions.
>
> Engineering ain't magic, Tomcat.


We are not talking about 'bailing wire and bubble gum' here.

Both basalt fabric and nanotube fabric have enormous toughness and
strength. Nanotube fabric -- recently developed at the University of
Texas -- is not only 600 times stronger than steel for a given amount
of weight, but can take many thousands of degrees of heat.


tomcat

.

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