Ideal Mature spaceplane

[hesham]

Hi,

http://books.google.com/books?id=t35_fEOtN0oC&pg=PA138&dq=spaceplane&hl=ar&ei=sBolTNLUN9S5jAfRiYFz&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDwQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=spaceplane&f=true

 

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Spaceflight Revolution is written by David Ashford of Bristol Spaceplanes, see http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,3538.0.html for more info.

 

[OM]

...So, what's their concept of the Ideal Adolescent spaceplane?

[slaps knee, guffaws, slays self again]

 

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Just to expand on my previous post, David Ashford/Bristol Spaceplanes have designs for the first three concepts in the sequence posted at the top of this thread:

• Ascender is a small suborbital spaceplane
  
  
• Spacecab is a small orbital spaceplane (basically a bigger Ascender 2nd stage, carried on a concorde-like first stage)
  
  
• Spacebus is a large orbital spaceplane (both stages much larger and both have rocket engines)
  
  

AFAIK there's no design for the long-term (hypothetical) ideal mature (SSTO) spaceplane.