Re: modular aproach etc

Derek Lyons wrote:
....a bunch of jibberish.

Let me make my position perfectly clear. The Shuttle is an amazing
vehicle, conceived and designed in the 60s and 70s. It's has performed
tasks no other vehicle has performed or could perform. I follow
missions closely and have since it started flying. I've seen a launch
and was there when Columbia was first delivered via the Shuttle
Transport Aircraft to Kennedy (even though I live in Colorado). I even
got a picture of it on that very gray day.

But the Shuttle never became a simple to turn around, cheap way to put
stuff and people into space. This is because of many factors, but one
of them is the basic concept of toting an airplane with you into space
just to bring it back each flight (for reference, I love aircraft, I
could identify practically anything that flew over by the age of 4 and
am currently active in flying and teaching R/C flying). You should do
this if you have to, not just to make very cool videos and images on
landing. Since there are other approaches that weigh drastically less,
using one of those leads to one of two possibilities. Either you need
a smaller vehicle to launch the same useful mass, or you can launch
more useful mass with the same vehicle. Useful mass can be people (and
the equipment they need) or it can be equipment that you plan to leave
in LEO, or it can be some combination of the two.

The Shuttle can launch 7 people and rougly 20 metric tons depending on
orbit and other factors. The two replacement vehicles being proposed
include one that's roughly the same size as the Shuttle, but is capable
of launching about 100 metric tons, and one that's drastically smaller
than the Shuttle but that can still carry about the same number of
people. I believe it's not a coincidence that neither includes wings,
landing gear, the TPS to protect them, flight surfaces, and the
equipment to control and operate them. One doesn't come back, the
other comes back ugly. But ugly is effective.

Lee Jay

.

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