I meant to include airlaunch as well when I made this thread. So airlaunch where the carrier plane carries a spaceplane or where the carrier plane carries a booster. Say you take the stratolaunch plane and take the second stage off the ITS and put them together, would that be superior to the ITS as a whole? I mean I just sit here and day dream about the future of spaceflight and we have all these new people on the scene with all their schemes but I keep wondering which one in the end will be the superior way of doing things. I think at this point Elon And Jeff have the right idea with VT/VL rockets but at the same time I dont want to shut the door prematurely on other ideas as well. Say you were given a 100 billion dollars to revolutionize spaceflight so that one day the average man might be able to book a flight into space. Which route would you take? Would you go down the path Elon and Jeff are taking?
Quote from: Clueless Idiot on 06/07/2017 07:58 pm I meant to include airlaunch as well when I made this thread. So airlaunch where the carrier plane carries a spaceplane or where the carrier plane carries a booster. Say you take the stratolaunch plane and take the second stage off the ITS and put them together, would that be superior to the ITS as a whole? I mean I just sit here and day dream about the future of spaceflight and we have all these new people on the scene with all their schemes but I keep wondering which one in the end will be the superior way of doing things. I think at this point Elon And Jeff have the right idea with VT/VL rockets but at the same time I dont want to shut the door prematurely on other ideas as well. Say you were given a 100 billion dollars to revolutionize spaceflight so that one day the average man might be able to book a flight into space. Which route would you take? Would you go down the path Elon and Jeff are taking?ITS won't fit. It's supposed to be about 12 meters in diameter. That's roughly the distance between the two bodies on the Stratolaunch, but the ground clearance for the payload is about 1/4th that. That aside, air-launch doesn't give you much of a benefit, yes, you save roughly 10% of the fuel it takes to get to the launch altitude, but really it's simpler to just make the first stage ~10% bigger. The major pluses are you do avoid the costs of having to build or lease a launch site and maintain it, and you have more control over when you can launch.
"But yes, Stratolaunch would have to be TEN TIMES bigger to lift the ITS upper stage." Lol well that's not practical at all so I guess for the foreseeable future reusable rockets really are the future eh? So Elon and Jeff chose the right route to take it seems
Fella's I think the verdict is out on this one, reusable rockets will give you the best bang for your buck,
Quote from: edkyle99 on 06/03/2017 03:20 pmQuote from: john smith 19 on 06/03/2017 02:19 pmThe difference between reusable rockets and spaceplanes is that we know a spaceplane can do the reentry.We know that VTVL has a good chance of working for first stages. We know that space planes work for reentry. The next step seems obvious. - Ed KyleVTVL 1st stage + spaceplane upper stage?
Quote from: john smith 19 on 06/03/2017 02:19 pmThe difference between reusable rockets and spaceplanes is that we know a spaceplane can do the reentry.We know that VTVL has a good chance of working for first stages. We know that space planes work for reentry. The next step seems obvious. - Ed Kyle
The difference between reusable rockets and spaceplanes is that we know a spaceplane can do the reentry.
Quote from: Barrie on 06/03/2017 10:17 pmQuote from: edkyle99 on 06/03/2017 03:20 pmQuote from: john smith 19 on 06/03/2017 02:19 pmThe difference between reusable rockets and spaceplanes is that we know a spaceplane can do the reentry.We know that VTVL has a good chance of working for first stages. We know that space planes work for reentry. The next step seems obvious. - Ed KyleVTVL 1st stage + spaceplane upper stage?Something along those lines. The upper stage would need to reenter at much higher velocity than the first stage. The winged reentry method (STS, Buran, X-37B, etc.) is proven. The problem is that this limits the upper stage to LEO. - Ed Kyle
I've never ceased to be boggled at the concept of VTHL. You need a vehicle that's strong in two major axes and big enough to carry all the propellant.
LEO isn't a problem if it can hand off the payload to a cislunar tug. That will cover everything except the occasional interplanetary mission.
Yes, and that applies to both VTHL and HTHL. (The latter is actually worse, since it needs to sit on the tarmac and lift off fully loaded, whereas VTHL spaceplanes only need to support its near-empty weight while horizontal)
Quote from: RonM on 06/09/2017 03:27 pmLEO isn't a problem if it can hand off the payload to a cislunar tug. That will cover everything except the occasional interplanetary mission.I think in the future this will eventually prove to be the most cost effective solution as this makes full reusability a lot easier.Kinda like how things were in the Space Odyssey movies.
If lunar or asteriod supplied fuel to LEO ever becomes cheap enough it could partially refuel a SSTO for earth return. A SSTO becomes lot simplier and lighter if it has amble fuel for retropulsive burn and landing.Water or cryo fuel can also be used for cooling of heat shield surfaces.