Author Topic: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?  (Read 37785 times)

Offline publiusr

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #20 on: 04/29/2006 08:38 pm »
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hop - 24/4/2006  6:49 PM

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Tap-Sa - 24/4/2006  7:59 AM
Why didn't the Russians choose big SRMs? And ship them in pieces from Baikonur to ... Kamchatka for reload by Thiokolvskiya. :)

The most often cited reason is that there was no Thiokolvskiya! Russia lacked experience with large segmented solids. Even their large ICBMs were liquid fueled. Glushko, who was by then the chiefest of the chief designers, was a liquids guy. Also, even when they planned to recover the boosters (they were never actually re-used AFAIK), they planned to do so on land, so the issues are different.

They were better off focusing on liquids. They serve the LV market better.

If Oural is more than a dream--it will likely be kerolox--so we may never see hydrogen at Kourou for anything other than upper stages.

The former Soviets have replaced the Germans in setting standards for liquid fueled excellence--while we focused on tiny solids with tiny warheads, the bigger rocket =better rocket philosophy from the Russians (who had no fear of large LVs) won the day--and the markets.

We could have gone that route, but didn't. We got better ICBMs out of the solids, yes--but they have better space carrier rockets.


Offline BarryKirk

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #21 on: 05/06/2006 02:36 pm »
Why is everybody so interested in a flyback first stage?  For every pound of flyback equipement on board, the mass of the upper stages needs to be reduced by one
pound.  The cost of putting flyback equipement on board is very expensive.  How about a bare bones, just enough TPS as needed and a parachute?  Bring the vehicle
back by pulling it out of the drink.

You don't need fuel, landing gear, wings, and flyback engines.

Offline Jim

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #22 on: 05/06/2006 04:22 pm »
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publiusr - 29/4/2006  4:38 PM
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hop - 24/4/2006  6:49 PM
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Tap-Sa - 24/4/2006  7:59 AMWhy didn't the Russians choose big SRMs? And ship them in pieces from Baikonur to ... Kamchatka for reload by Thiokolvskiya. :)
The most often cited reason is that there was no Thiokolvskiya! Russia lacked experience with large segmented solids. Even their large ICBMs were liquid fueled. Glushko, who was by then the chiefest of the chief designers, was a liquids guy. Also, even when they planned to recover the boosters (they were never actually re-used AFAIK), they planned to do so on land, so the issues are different.
They were better off focusing on liquids. They serve the LV market better.If Oural is more than a dream--it will likely be kerolox--so we may never see hydrogen at Kourou for anything other than upper stages.The former Soviets have replaced the Germans in setting standards for liquid fueled excellence--while we focused on tiny solids with tiny warheads, the bigger rocket =better rocket philosophy from the Russians (who had no fear of large LVs) won the day--and the markets.We could have gone that route, but didn't. We got better ICBMs out of the solids, yes--but they have better space carrier rockets.

Back up your statements.  They don't have better rockets.  We have one or more to compete with each of theirs.  We haven't been behind them in lift capability since the Saturn 1B first flew except for one blip Energia (see your reference doc ILR351, page 41).

Offline Giovanni DS

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #23 on: 05/06/2006 04:41 pm »
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BarryKirk - 6/5/2006  4:36 PM

Why is everybody so interested in a flyback first stage?  For every pound of flyback equipement on board, the mass of the upper stages needs to be reduced by one
pound.  The cost of putting flyback equipement on board is very expensive.  How about a bare bones, just enough TPS as needed and a parachute?  Bring the vehicle
back by pulling it out of the drink.

You don't need fuel, landing gear, wings, and flyback engines.

If you have to recover and refurbish it then probably it would cost less to build a new one. Imagine an immediatly reusable 1st stage that does not require an extensive rebuild but just inspection and refueling, that would be really interesting. Why a 1st stage ? because it would be the easiest and most logical thing to recover from a launch vehicle.

Offline mlorrey

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #24 on: 05/06/2006 10:07 pm »
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BarryKirk - 6/5/2006  9:36 AM

Why is everybody so interested in a flyback first stage?  For every pound of flyback equipement on board, the mass of the upper stages needs to be reduced by one pound.  The cost of putting flyback equipement on board is very expensive.  How about a bare bones, just enough TPS as needed and a parachute?  Bring the vehicle back by pulling it out of the drink.

You don't need fuel, landing gear, wings, and flyback engines.

This depends on your design. If your first stage uses RP-1 for fuel, your wings can double up as fuel tanks. If you use metal matrix TPS, your airframe structure and skin is a hot structure, so no TPS penalties. Nor do you need flyback engines: the shuttle lands without engines with no trouble. An empty flyback stage can have a much lower wing loading, allowing for a higher L/D.

However, I agree that parachutes are a good way to land. Going with a deployable rogallo wing for both fly back and landing might be optimal.
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Offline BarryKirk

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #25 on: 05/07/2006 04:26 pm »
Well, if you can flyback to a landing strip with a rogallo wing... Than that type of flyback makes a lot of sense.

I made the bad assumption that flyback means that you end up with the first stage very close by the launch pad.

It does make more sense to land the first stage on dry land than in the ocean.  Just as long as very little mass is added to make it recoverable.

Maybe a new term would be more appropriate, given the connotations of flyback.

How about soft landing?

Another Question, can a rogallo wing or parachute be set up for a low horizontal or zero horizontal velocity landing with low vertical velocity?

Than skids could be used instead of landing gear.  Would that reduce the weight?

Offline mlorrey

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #26 on: 05/07/2006 08:19 pm »
Skids would reduce weight over landing gear.

Keep in mind that a liquid fuelled first stage is going to be nowhere near as dense as the SRB, nor does it have an open end that lets in seawater. When it touches down over water, in a parachute/parawing landing, it will sit extremely high on the water, like an empty birchbark canoe.

Also, distance from launch pad depends on launch profile. Note that the SpaceX launchers go straight up for a considerable distance. Even with a Parawing, they should be able to glid back to the area of the launch pad.

Rogallo wings are essentially hang gliders: kites. With a shift of CG, they stall out once they get within a few feet of ground.
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Offline BarryKirk

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #27 on: 05/08/2006 03:08 pm »
So, there you go,  use a Rogallo wing and/or steerable parachute.  Put skids on it and bring it down to a designated landing spot close to the launch pad.

I don't think that the extra electronics for precision flyback should weigh that much.  Electronics are very light weight these days.  Possibly the largest part of the weight
would be mechanical actuators to steer the Rogallo wing and batteries to power it.

For a manned launcher you will need a landing spot downrange because those launches have a different trajectory.

Who knows, if you get good enough at it, maybe you can make a landing directly on a recovery ship.

This does add some more weather restrictions on launch though.


Offline tom nackid

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #28 on: 05/08/2006 07:58 pm »
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Tap-Sa - 23/4/2006  10:23 AM


Why NASA is so bent on using solids as or paraller with first stage is beyond me. Thinking seem to have changed radically since Von Braun's times. I bet CLV plans cause considerable spinning in his coffin. Solids guarantee a very rough ride to those who end up riding those beasts. They also guarantee a much bigger bang when motor fails. Why is this? When rocket engine 'blows up' it usually means the reaction chamber, a pressure vessel with hole (throat), disintegrates. Energy released is proportional to the pressure and volume of contained gases. SRB is basically just a big reaction chamber, thus it contains orders of magnitude more high pressure gas during operation than liquid engines. But, as in many other threads it has been pointed out, NASA decisions are more political, less technical.

On the contrary, large solids in parallel were planned as an upgrade for Von Braun's Saturn V. And of course the Air Force has used large solids in Titans for years. In fact the Titan IV launched on solids only I believe.

Small solid rockets blow up because chunks of propellant break off and block the throat. This is far less likely to happen on larger solids--at least according to people who's job it is to study failure modes in solid rockets.

Offline josh_simonson

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #29 on: 05/08/2006 10:29 pm »
The first stage is the least weight sensitive stage, so if you're going to throw weight at recovery systems it's the best place to do it.

The first stage of the falcon 1 is probably light enough that a heavy helicopter could catch it in mid-air and return it in pristine condition.  DARPA is developing a cargo airship capable of carrying 500t (called walrus), that critter could catch a very large first stage that is descending via parachute and set it down gently at the launchpad.  This would be the ultimate solution for a fast turnaround re-useable first stage with the bare mimimum weight on the rocket dedicated to re-use.

I guess the walrus was cancelled, to such capability may not be available COTS anytime soon.

Offline Jim

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #30 on: 05/08/2006 11:56 pm »
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tom nackid - 8/5/2006  3:58 PM
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Tap-Sa - 23/4/2006  10:23 AMWhy NASA is so bent on using solids as or paraller with first stage is beyond me. Thinking seem to have changed radically since Von Braun's times. I bet CLV plans cause considerable spinning in his coffin. Solids guarantee a very rough ride to those who end up riding those beasts. They also guarantee a much bigger bang when motor fails. Why is this? When rocket engine 'blows up' it usually means the reaction chamber, a pressure vessel with hole (throat), disintegrates. Energy released is proportional to the pressure and volume of contained gases. SRB is basically just a big reaction chamber, thus it contains orders of magnitude more high pressure gas during operation than liquid engines. But, as in many other threads it has been pointed out, NASA decisions are more political, less technical.
On the contrary, large solids in parallel were planned as an upgrade for Von Braun's Saturn V. And of course the Air Force has used large solids in Titans for years. In fact the Titan IV launched on solids only I believe.Small solid rockets blow up because chunks of propellant break off and block the throat. This is far less likely to happen on larger solids--at least according to people who's job it is to study failure modes in solid rockets.

The titan had large explosions

Offline aero313

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #31 on: 05/09/2006 01:04 am »
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tom nackid - 8/5/2006  3:58 PM

Small solid rockets blow up because chunks of propellant break off and block the throat. This is far less likely to happen on larger solids--at least according to people who's job it is to study failure modes in solid rockets.

Boy, is that an uninformed and incorrect statement.  The last failure of a small solid that I'm aware of is the Delta II/GPS mission in Jan 1997.  The actual failure was attributed to damaged graphite fibers on the case of one of the solids, resulting in a case failure due to internal pressure.  Titans have failed due to cracks in the propellant that resulted in hot gas reaching the case and burning through.  I'm not aware of ANY solid rocket motor failures, large or small, attributed to "blocked throats".  The CONTOUR spacecraft failure of the Star motor was at first attributed to a blocked throat, but in reality was caused by an incorrect thermal design that buried the motor too far inside the spacecraft, resulting in structure overheating and failure during burn.

I certainly invite you to list the failures that "these people" attribute to propellant chunks in the throat.

Offline Jim

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #32 on: 05/09/2006 01:15 am »
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aero313 - 8/5/2006  9:04 PM
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tom nackid - 8/5/2006  3:58 PMSmall solid rockets blow up because chunks of propellant break off and block the throat. This is far less likely to happen on larger solids--at least according to people who's job it is to study failure modes in solid rockets.
Boy, is that an uninformed and incorrect statement.  The last failure of a small solid that I'm aware of is the Delta II/GPS mission in Jan 1997.  The actual failure was attributed to damaged graphite fibers on the case of one of the solids, resulting in a case failure due to internal pressure.  Titans have failed due to cracks in the propellant that resulted in hot gas reaching the case and burning through.  I'm not aware of ANY solid rocket motor failures, large or small, attributed to "blocked throats".  The CONTOUR spacecraft failure of the Star motor was at first attributed to a blocked throat, but in reality was caused by an incorrect thermal design that buried the motor too far inside the spacecraft, resulting in structure overheating and failure during burn.I certainly invite you to list the failures that "these people" attribute to propellant chunks in the throat.

One SRMU did on a test stand at EAFB.  But that is only one, you are correct.

Offline aero313

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #33 on: 05/09/2006 02:35 am »
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Jim - 8/5/2006  9:15 PM

One SRMU did on a test stand at EAFB.  But that is only one, you are correct.

Yup.  Of course, the SRMU is most certainly not a "small solid rocket".  That was the first test firing of a brand new design.  That's why you run tests.  Solids may have a higher initial problem rate during development (and I'm not sure that's necessarily true), but once the design is proven, solids are super reliable.  There's a reason why all US ICBMs are solid propellant.

Offline Propforce

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #34 on: 05/09/2006 07:50 am »
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Tap-Sa - 23/4/2006  8:23 AM

Hydrocarbons are the practical first stage fuel, but the sad fact is that after Saturn V NASA completely forgot how to make good HC engines. The shuttle was supposed to solve everything, no need to fool around with anything else. Well it didn't. And now would have been a great time to dig up F-1A (or maybe F-1C, F-1D etc) plans for CaLV, if only the previous people at NASA helm would have had the 'waste not' attitude and allocated a few dimes to keep those engine plans updated to the latest design/manufacturing methods. But noo, politics required tunnel vision.

(Sorry if this answer reeks too much 'solids suck' attitude. But IMO they do :))


Oh boy, I really don't have that much to add to this EXCELLENT essay, except to say that the U.S. was NEVER ABLE to make as good of HC engine as the RD-170/RD-171/ RD-180.  The F-1 while comparable with the RD-170 in thrust, has a much lower Isp than the RD-170/-171 because of the nature of engine cycle selection.  The SLI era engine, e.g., Aerojet's Cobra, Rocketdyne's RS-84, was an effort to fund the U.S. engine industry to learn how to design high pressure HC engines.  

In fact, many experts in the U.S. rocket engine industry had thought a HC engine with a Pc at 3,000 psia was impossible.  Their experience with the F-1 had them convinced that the gas side of combustion chamber will have a layer of carbon deposition, and RP-1 fuel heat transfer capability, or a lack thereof, will force the fuel to thermally decomposed and deposit carbon particle on the coolant channels hence to cause a burn through.  The U.S. rocket industry was terrified of oxidizer-rich combustion and would not think of anywhere near oxidizer-rich zone, not even for the preburners.

So to be fair, the U.S. has benefited greatly from the Russian engine technologies learned since the end of the Cold War.  kUDOS go to Lockheed Martin for going to the Russians for their EELV booster engine and was able to convince the Air Force to use a foreign-supplied engine for Air Force's assured access to space.

But on the other hand, the U.S. was able to achieve a large single combustion chamber for LOX/RP engine, e.g., F-1, that the Russians with all their skills could not.  That is why the RD-170/ 171 has 4 main combustion chambers (MCC), and the RD-180 has 2 MCC, while the F-1 has only 1.  The main reason - a lack of advanced computing power by the Russians thereby not able to solve the issue of combustion instability with the LOX/RP combustion.  Russian also has a habit of putting together a higher thrust class engine by combining several smaller thrust class chambers together, perhaps as a mean to reduce development cost.


Offline aftercolumbia

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #35 on: 06/03/2006 02:41 am »
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Tap-Sa - 23/4/2006  9:10 AM

Why NASA is so bent on using solids...

edit: And about hypergolics, Russia and China can still use them in a large scale because these anarchocapitalist and communist nations couldn't care less about environmental issues. NTO/UDMH raining from the sky means a real bad day. AFAIK their usage in large boosters is banned in US, and rightly so.

I think its a de facto ban rather than a real one.  Environmentalists, and I'm pretty sure that many safety organizations would be up in arms.  As for solids...they burn aluminum and ammonium perchlorate, with a bit of HTPB/CTPB and iron oxide.

...those poor, poor manatees...

Offline aftercolumbia

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #36 on: 06/03/2006 02:59 am »
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Tap-Sa - 23/4/2006  2:05 PM

Kerosene, being a long complex chain of C and H, can produce all sorts of 'interesting' partially burned stuff. Kerosene will also coke ie. molecules get clued together, if it gets too hot too soon (in coolant pipes). If it happens too much tar will come out of the injector instead of kerosene. Hydrogen won't coke, nor simpler hydrocarbons, especially methane.

Another thing is the rate at which burning happens. Hydrogen, being a simple two atom molecule, burns fast. Fast burning means propellants don't need to linger inside the combustion chamber very long, therefore it can be smaller. In methane, the carbon really wants to keep the four hydrogen atoms it gots. This is good thing in the cooling pipes, methane doesn't break prematurely and coke, but in the combustion chamber it means that it takes some time to eventually break the molecule so that LOX can combine with the parts.

As I recall, coking is the result of fractionating carbon out of a molecule, resulting in lighter (possibly polymerized) hydrocarbons and a deposit of sooty black stuff.  This, of course, is why oxyhydrocarbon staged combustion engines use oxygen rich preburners...you'd gum up the turbines so fast, it'd be almost funny.

As far as "fast burning means propellants don't need...", the combustion chamber can be shorter, not really smaller.  The overall size of the combustion chamber is dictated primarily by pressure and desired thrust levels.  Higher pressure chambers are smaller at the same thrust level (note the SSME.)  This is somewhat, but not totally made up for by higher expansion ratio nozzles which keep the same exit pressure as an equivalent lower pressure engine.

From my AFAL studies ("Rocket Engine Specific Impulse Calculator" at www.dunnspace.com), the most troublesome product of oxykerosene engines (and other oxyhydrocarbon engines) is...same as furnaces...carbon monoxide.

Also, most engines use lower than stoichiometric (100% complete reaction) mixture ratios.  This is especially true in oxyhydrogen engines.  One of the major factors in exhausts ability to expand is its molecular mass.  The lower the molecular mass is, the more it can expand, and the faster it can go.  This is why the NTR programs liked hydrogen.  I actually disagree with using hydrogen in NTRs because of its low density.  Water (or possibly a Water/Ethanol mix) would be the best choice, again because of density.  An NTR engine's reactor forces it to a low T/M (thrust over mass), so it helps to have a big propellant supply.  Water is about 14 times as dense as liquid hydrogen, and a lot easier to pump and store.  So...what gets you further, 1 tonne of LH2 at 900sec, or 14 tonnes of water at 400sec?

As you can probably imagine, it is probably best to get this water from an interplanetary source rather than painstakingly hauling it up from earth!

Offline aftercolumbia

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #37 on: 06/03/2006 03:07 am »
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BarryKirk - 6/5/2006  8:23 AM

Why is everybody so interested in a flyback first stage?  For every pound of flyback equipement on board, the mass of the upper stages needs to be reduced by one
pound.  The cost of putting flyback equipement on board is very expensive.  How about a bare bones, just enough TPS as needed and a parachute?  Bring the vehicle
back by pulling it out of the drink.

You don't need fuel, landing gear, wings, and flyback engines.

I absolutely agree with you 100%...and I have more percentages.  I did a study comparing the recovery systems of the Shuttle's two reusable stages...the SRB and Orbiter.  For this study I booked the RCS, OMS, main engines and payload as not being part of the recovery system (not counting deorbit propellant should compensate for not counting the payload bay doors as part fairing.)  For the SRB's I including the parachutes...and that was pretty much it.  Based on ascent burnout masses, this is how it came out:

Orbiter: 60% (a tad less, IIRC, I don't have it with me as I'm typing)
SRB: 1.3%

Ain't it tough to argue with numbers like that!!

Reproportioning StarBooster more realistically (for maximum payload/GLOW performance) would probably wind up putting the 1-2 staging point at such a low speed that the StarBooster would probably tailslide back into the pad!

Offline mlorrey

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Re: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #38 on: 06/03/2006 03:15 am »
I have wondered why it is that rocket engines have the turbopump separate from the combustion chamber. A rocket engine is, after all, just essentially a honking powerful turbine engine burning liquid fuels. Being a turbofan geek, I've thought that it would be both more efficient and powerful to simply mount the turbopump to the top of the combustion chamber, so it's all in line, no plumbing to lose energy on.
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Offline aftercolumbia

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RE: When will LOX/LH2 lose its dominance with rocket launches?
« Reply #39 on: 06/03/2006 03:20 am »
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josh_simonson - 8/5/2006  4:16 PM

The first stage of the falcon 1 is probably light enough that a heavy helicopter could catch it in mid-air and return it in pristine condition.

Any volunteers?

An idea that I thought of:

A big, big, slow-like-a-dog high altitude aircraft with modest wing loading and a winged booster hanging from it takes off...BTW this winged booster has no landing gear...and then transfers propellant into the booster at altitude.  At the launch point, it drops the booster, which then flies to orbit, executes a LEO mission similar to Shuttle missions, and then reenters the atmosphere.

On its way back, the big, big plane is circling near the returning booster's TAEM (Terminal Area Energy Management) area, once there...over an unpopulated area, lest people get hurt by the booster's belly landing should this fail...the booster pulls into formation behind the big big aircraft so the carrier can snag it with a flying boom (similar to, but bigger than the one the Air Force...not the Navy...uses for mid-air refueling.)  After it's snagged, the big, big aircraft retracts the unpowered booster back up to its launch rail and hard docks it, then lands much the same way as it took off.  Theoretically, the big, big aircraft could refuel it in flight and the booster would go back into space without nearing the ground, but there would be no point...where's the payload?

Perhaps with an oxyhydrogen orbiter and Scaled Composites...this might just barely be feasible.

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