Various US Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLV) Projects

Nik said:
Tangential, would 'StarClipper' external tanks have solved the X-33 issues with those internal tanks being a 'composite too far' at time ? With part of tankage outside, internal shapes could be much simpler and lighter, incidentally helping with c/g issues. Likewise, the 'traditional' external tankage design would not be an engineering challenge, while providing ample space in nose for recovery chute...
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The answer is likely yes, but it sure sounds a lot like "Hey, lets add major throwaway elements to our RLV design just so we can keep that kewl looking groovy body shape, even though a boring cylindrical fuselage would be more efficient and effective!"
 
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From Aviation Magazine 1971,

please notice Rockwell Model 040.
 

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From Aviation Magazine 1971,
 

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I use to think S-IC was the way to go (but reuse was a PITA whatever the smart tricks imagined) as for the orbiter... how about internal LOX but drop tanks LH2 ? would provide limited experience with reusable cryogen plumbing and tankage. Leaving out deep cryogen voluminous cumbersome LH2.
 
martinbayer said:
publiusr said:
Those are lovely.
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If you are willing to ignore all those hideous expendable stages, which completely defeated the original intent and of course won out in the end.
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They won out in the end because the reusable two stage space shuttle wasn’t economically viable even when they were flying shuttle at 10 a year, in addition to the extreme development costs that would be required to make it work in the 70’s.
 
Jcking said:
martinbayer said:
publiusr said:
Those are lovely.
Click to expand...
If you are willing to ignore all those hideous expendable stages, which completely defeated the original intent and of course won out in the end.
Click to expand...
They won out in the end because the reusable two stage space shuttle wasn’t economically viable even when they were flying shuttle at 10 a year, in addition to the extreme development costs that would be required to make it work in the 70’s.
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I'm well aware of the infamous Mathematica analysis, see https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19730005253/downloads/19730005253.pdf. The funny thing though is that the semi-reusable STS was *NEVER* "economically viable" in any even halfway realistic sense either.
 
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martinbayer said:
Jcking said:
martinbayer said:
publiusr said:
Those are lovely.
Click to expand...
If you are willing to ignore all those hideous expendable stages, which completely defeated the original intent and of course won out in the end.
Click to expand...
They won out in the end because the reusable two stage space shuttle wasn’t economically viable even when they were flying shuttle at 10 a year, in addition to the extreme development costs that would be required to make it work in the 70’s.
Click to expand...
I'm well aware of the infamous Mathematica analysis, see https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19730005253/downloads/19730005253.pdf. The funny thing though is that the semi-reusable STS was *NEVER* "economically viable" in any even halfway realistic sense either.
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They were shitting their pants and banging their heads against walls because every sane analysis showed the Titan ELVs made more sense at current flights rates (current = 1961-1971), that is: 1 to 40 flight a year.

Only by pushing well beyond 50 flights per year did the Shuttle made a little sense. And even then, the hypthetical savings were a handful of billion dollars (10 and counting) which could easily wiped out by any major development cost overruns (F-111, cough, C-5 Galaxy, the horror)

Truth be told, they added space tugs and Spacelab missions the Titan couldn't do - except they did not made a lot of sense either.

52 flights a year between 1978 and 1990: 624 flights. That's 4.62 times the entire number of flights done by the Shuttle in 30 years (135).

At 52 annual flights rate, those 135 missions would have been flown in merely 2.5 years (52+52+26 = 130 flights)
Two and a half year, rather than 30 years.

Something pretty amazing in the NRO influence in all this. 365 Agenas flown between 1959 and 1987; 250 of them optical spysats, of which 144 CORONA 1960-1972 plus GAMBIT-1 (38) and all the failed birds.

When Nixon started the Shuttle early 1972, 320 Agenas had already flown, the bulk of them military missions, a large fraction spysats of every kind.

Agena

Gunter's Space Page - Information on Launch vehicles, Satellites, Space Shuttle and Astronautics
space.skyrocket.de space.skyrocket.de

But that launch rate manna from heaven was going away, notably with CORONA retirement.

Only that, meant that the 1960 US flight rates fed into the Mathematica study were wrong, at least if applied to the next two decades. Military satellites future flight rates were rapidly shrinking, because the days of cheap and plentiful and short-lived, film Agenas were going away.
 
STS gave tiles to Starship at least. Now, LockMart's giant shroud makes me wonder about the Radian spaceplane atop Super Heavy?
 
Fingers very loosely crossed (that's that tiny little romantic dreamy optimist in me - I'll always be a sucker for RLV concepts), but not holding my breath for even a Yoctosecond on Radian. Over my long and decidedly undistinguished aerospace career, I've seen way too many harebrained concepts like that being pitched. I call Bullshit.
 
Me too. SSTO with kerolox takes a smashing 0.95 fuel fraction with minuscule payload, and the sled doesn't help a lot - 200 m/s out of an exponential 9400 m/s.
Rutan's Global flyer was 0.82, Voyager 0.74 and vanilla B-52H, 0.64. And they don't go orbital even if they circle the globe. That's where aerospace fuel fractions presently stands.
 
U.S. Air Force Reusable Space Shuttle: The Triamese by Convair (by Hazegrayart). For more information see also reply #103 in this forum.

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Lovely--but a very busy design. A Buran/OK-92 craft with those jets---maybe atop the wings, would be more manageable.
 
publiusr said:
Lovely--but a very busy design. A Buran/OK-92 craft with those jets---maybe atop the wings, would be more manageable.
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They are 'inside' because high-bypass turbojets do NOT react well to hypersonic (let alone supersonic) airstream well :)

The wings are also retracted to keep them from the thermal and aerodynamic stresses of launch and reentry. They are not actually "variable" wings either as they really only have two positions. Fully open or fully closed, and no aero-surfaces either like flaps or such. Makes for a pretty fun landing :)

Randy
 
MUSTARD on a starvation diet.

OK-92 had the jets above the wings…with some blow-off housings perhaps. No huge resonating tanks to manhandle…more compact.
 
SLS can serve similar duty to the ET platforms. A shuttle 2 would be agile…glide—unlike Starship…perhaps self-ferry—unlike starship. If shuttle 2 could even pop up an in-flight refueling boom—be a REAL aircraft upon return. Stretch SLS out to be ROOST, a wet workshop (easiest perhaps).

But having something come back with real AGILITY—-you call that foolish? Musk doesn’t like wings—I don’t like tanks—just a different philosophy. And since I didn’t get an answer last time—which would you rather come back from orbit inside…an OK-92 shuttle 2? Or something nearly slap empty that either lands perfectly or is scrap metal…no gliding…no bailing out, etc.
 
publiusr said:
SLS can serve similar duty to the ET platforms. A shuttle 2 would be agile…glide—unlike Starship…perhaps self-ferry—unlike starship. If shuttle 2 could even pop up an in-flight refueling boom—be a REAL aircraft upon return. Stretch SLS out to be ROOST, a wet workshop (easiest perhaps).

But having something come back with real AGILITY—-you call that foolish? Musk doesn’t like wings—I don’t like tanks—just a different philosophy. And since I didn’t get an answer last time—which would you rather come back from orbit inside…an OK-92 shuttle 2? Or something nearly slap empty that either lands perfectly or is scrap metal…no gliding…no bailing out, etc.
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ET platforms are non starters. There is no infrastructure to deal with them. Dry workshop was shown better. Flying a winged vehicle with SLS is nonsense and no point to it.
Shuttle 2 is not agile. And self ferry is not an option. Too much addition weight and scarring.
Refueling during entry is not an option, tanker aircraft are too slow, plus the timeframe is too short.

More boosters have landed than shuttles. OK-92 is worse than shuttle or X-37. They have to land just as perfectly as a booster or Starship. There is no bailing out of shuttles either.
Wings in space are useless. Propulsive landing is more efficient both in cost and propellant.
 
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Byeman said:
publiusr said:
A shuttle 2 would be agile…glide—unlike Starship…perhaps self-ferry—unlike starship. If shuttle 2 could even pop up an in-flight refueling boom—be a REAL aircraft

But having something come back with real AGILITY—
Click to expand...
Refueling during entry is not an option, tanker aircraft are too slow, plus the timeframe is too short. There is no bailing out of shuttles either.
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No one said anything about re-fueling re-entry...and self ferry was looked at early on. And I distinctly remember an extending-telescoping arm to help astronauts bail out and down. Now, if I had Bezos money, my first thought would be about what I want to fly and what I want to fix. So I get rid of the SSMEs, and have kero and laughing gas or LOX engine-tank cassette I could switch out with a forklift-the polar opposite of what went on with the aft boat-tail of Columbia-type orbiters. Next, I would get the poor sods who did orbiter overhaul to design systems on a skeletal frame in such a way that it could be easy to repair and replace using only an Allen wrench, say. I would try to have it where the crew could deploy anything by hand cranks. Then I get J-79s bolted to my skeletal bird. Then I hire an aerospace engineer to build an orbiter around that. Once it flys at some air-shows-I talk to the LV guys, and have them scale up an Energia. I weigh my spaceplane at its heaviest-and say Energia's payload should be twice that. That margin can then be used to make Energia 2 in such a way as to lend itself to easy wet-workshop use...or for re-usability without endangering crew. Let that do the Adama-while my men cruise on.

As it turns out, there was a plan to use ablatives on the shuttle orbiter:

The ablative layer for most locations could be surprisingly thin. For the simplest mechanically attached panel design, for example, the MMC computer models indicated that a point on the Orbiter's underside on the fuselage centerline 50 feet aft of its nose would need a layer of ablative material only 1.7 inches thick.

http://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2020/01/no-flying-brickyard-1972-1973-plan-for.html
 
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publiusr said:
Byeman said:
publiusr said:
A shuttle 2 would be agile…glide—unlike Starship…perhaps self-ferry—unlike starship. If shuttle 2 could even pop up an in-flight refueling boom—be a REAL aircraft

But having something come back with real AGILITY—
Click to expand...
Refueling during entry is not an option, tanker aircraft are too slow, plus the timeframe is too short. There is no bailing out of shuttles either.
Click to expand...
No one said anything about re-fueling re-entry...and self ferry was looked at early on. And I distinctly remember an extending-telescoping arm to help astronauts bail out and down. Now, if I had Bezos money, my first thought would be about what I want to fly and what I want to fix. So I get rid of the SSMEs, and have kero and laughing gas or LOX engine-tank cassette I could switch out with a forklift-the polar opposite of what went on with the aft boat-tail of Columbia-type orbiters. Next, I would get the poor sods who did orbiter overhaul to design systems on a skeletal frame in such a way that it could be easy to repair and replace using only an Allen wrench, say. I would try to have it where the crew could deploy anything by hand cranks. Then I get J-79s bolted to my skeletal bird. Then I hire an aerospace engineer to build an orbiter around that. Once it flys at some air-shows-I talk to the LV guys, and have them scale up an Energia. I weigh my spaceplane at its heaviest-and say Energia's payload should be twice that. That margin can then be used to make Energia 2 in such a way as to lend itself to easy wet-workshop use...or for re-usability without endangering crew. Let that do the Adama-while my men cruise on.
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Couldn't even do that with Bezos money. Plus nothing to fly on it.
The wet shop is still unworkable, even if it gets to orbit. There is still no infrastructure to deal with it. Also, no scarring makes it more feasible.

This line of thinking is why you're not a billionaire or have discretionary funds. This design would not be economical.
 
Nothing to fly on it--I guess shuttle I had no payloads either. With it simply a payload-it's ride can be tested minus the orbiter-modularity.
 
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publiusr said:
Nothing to fly on it--I guess shuttle I had no payloads either. With it simply a payload-it's ride can be tested minus the orbiter-modularity.
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No payloads for side mount neither. Plus it is inefficient.
 
Efficiency isn’t a be-all end all. From a purists standpoint a rocket should be an in-line affair of course.

That keeps the aerodynamics simple.

But side-mount and parallel stage design means all engines are near the pad, and attachment points well away from engines.

From an inspector’s viewpoint, I imagine having everything visible for the most part is it’s own reward.

Side-mount also means not everything has to fit in a compact circle…as per figures 12-13 here:

Had LOFTID been packed into something already wide and disk shaped—-imagine
how broad it would be fully deployed.
 
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publiusr said:
1. Efficiency isn’t a be-all end all. From a purists standpoint a rocket should be an in-line affair of course.

2. But side-mount and parallel stage design means all engines are near the pad, and attachment points well away from engines.

3. From an inspector’s viewpoint, I imagine having everything visible for the most part is it’s own reward.

4. Side-mount also means not everything has to fit in a compact circle…as per figures 12-13 here:

5.Had LOFTID been packed into something already wide and disk shaped—-imagine
how broad it would be fully deployed.
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1. Wrong, Efficiency is the end all. Financial efficiency. Rockets are a transportation system. The object is to make money.
2. meaningless points. Horizontal processing does the same thing.
3. again, meaningless. Provides nothing. see above
4. Powerpoint design and not really viable. Hence, why it hasn't gone anywhere
5. There would be no need for LOFTID, if the basic vehicle was wide and disk shaped.
 
On point #5 a nice wide solid shield is good…but an even wider inflate allows even heavier loads. Such a wide disk also means a wider, less densely packed series of parachutes.

My point was in showing the usefulness of such modularity. Energia could be tested without risking an orbiter. Starship is no different than STS being an all or nothing design. Yes it can launch without people, but at some point all the types of systems in a Buran 2 type system do have to be put at hazard. An orbiter can stay in orbit a long time as seen with X-37…a nice compact airframe. Once rid of its tankage it is rather more agile. A shuttle 2 with jets would be safer still upon return. Your stance is that making sure astronauts have something as capable as any other plane is foolish. Got it.

On point 1.) Starships real goal is to take humans to Mars…not make money.

Now, you may respond that that it’s massive uplift is the key to Starlink’s success…yet when I made that arguement in defense of HLLVs in general at NSF, you attacked it in one of your so-called “myth buster” segments I was not allowed to respond to. If Musk was right then so was I. If you are right that putting all your payloads in one basket is foolish, then Musk is wrong—so which is it?
 
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publiusr said:
On point #5 a nice wide solid shield is good…but an even wider inflate allows even heavier loads. Such a wide disk also means a wider, less densely packed series of parachutes.

My point was in showing the usefulness of such modularity. Energia could be tested without risking an orbiter. Starship is no different than STS being an all or nothing design. Yes it can launch without people, but at some point all the types of systems in a Buran 2 type system do have to be put at hazard. An orbiter can stay in orbit a long time as seen with X-37…a nice compact airframe. Once rid of its tankage it is rather more agile…you have to concede that point. A shuttle 2 with jets would be safer still upon return. Your stance is that making sure astronauts have something as capable as any other plane is foolish. Got it.

On point 1.) Starships real goal is to take humans to Mars…not make money.

Now, you may respond that that it’s massive uplift is the key to Starlink’s success…yet when I made that arguement in defense of HLLVs in general at NSF, you attacked it in one of your so-called “myth buster” segments I was not allowed to respond to. If Musk was right then so was I. If you are right that putting all your payloads in one basket is foolish, then Musk is wrong—so which is it?
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1. Starship is not like the shuttle. There will be different "modular" versions including expendable, tanker, crew, cargo, etc
2. Starship will test recovery but it is not all or nothing. They can afford to lose some while working out the kinks. Just like they have in the past.
3. Size has no bearing on orbital duration. And "agility" is not a relevant spacecraft characteristic. Starship will have long duration capability, especially ones going to Mars or serving as propellant depot.
4. A shuttle 2 with jets would not be safer. a. Because you are carrying around unnecessary mass and complexity in systems that have little use during a mission. b. You still have to plan for the jets not working.
5. Starship has to make some money to help fund Mars missions.
6. The Mars mission is the driver for size of Starship. But it still relies on propellant depots.
7. Musk is right for want he wants to do and it doesn't mean you are right. There is no argument that support the need for HLLVs in general. He is generating a need for an HLLV (which the US gov't doesn't have or need). But the only the HLLV can be justified is to make it reusable.
 
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As for 4.), the dead stick glide can still be an option---no gliding for Starship

Oh---about Starship...

SpaceX reportedly dodged Starship accident during full stack test, Starlink chief now leading project

According to a report from The Information, SpaceX could be pushing its Starship production too fast, with safety concerns reported by employees during a recent full stack test. All this under the eyes of Starlink’s chief, now unofficially running the program. SpaceX employees share Starship...
spaceexplored.com spaceexplored.com
www.theinformation.com

‘Make Fire’: Inside Musk’s Struggle to Launch SpaceX’s High-Stakes Mars Rocket

Elon Musk’s ambitions of landing on Mars rest on a 394-foot-high rocket that currently sits in the open air in Boca Chica, Texas. Two weeks ago, Musk’s hopes nearly came crashing down in an incident that caused employees to question whether the world’s most important rocket company was moving ...
www.theinformation.com www.theinformation.com

But as for A Buran II...I imagine this modularity could allow something more manageable than tiles---that Musk also uses
spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com

Flying Brickyard Postponed: A 1972-1973 Study of an Interim Ablative Space Shuttle Heat Shield

The story of spaceflight told through missions and programs that did not happen - that is, the great majority of them.
spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com

The snap-on panels here could be replaced with whatever TPS materials are at hand--as opposed to just using tiles.
What I am talking about is something that---from the start---was made to be serviced---by people who actually serviced shuttle.
 
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