The capsule for the FSW, like that of the US Discoverrer/KH-1 spy satellite, was mounted heat shield-forward on top of the launch vehicle. The ablative impregnated-oak nose cap covered electrical equipment.
The US has already been there and done that. The rough-lander capsules used during the (failed) Ranger flights had a crushable balsa-wood internal structure. I believe there was at one point a proposal for crushable balsa parts in the LM legs, though I'm not sure if that reached a hardware stage.
Why can't you just put on some thick lacquer coating to prevent outgassing, etc?
At least wood is a mature and well-known material with a long history of use and plenty of available tooling and skillbase to work with it.
Interesting point. It's strength per unit mass is pretty good and it's quite easily worked. My instinct would be that by the time satellite and LV construction started the aircraft companies had lost those skills (outside of home builders or sail planes), along with perhaps a perception that wood was too "low tech" to get the job done.
The US has already been there and done that. The rough-lander capsules used during the (failed) Ranger flights had a crushable balsa-wood internal structure. I believe there was at one point a proposal for crushable balsa parts in the LM legs, though I'm not sure if that reached a hardware stage.The benefits of plywood and balsa as structural components seem pretty obvious, especially with laser-cutting and CNC tooling available - there's hardly, for example, a more electrically and magnetically inert material than wood. I'm actually surprised that wooden CubeSats have not yet been on the drawing board.One issue with wood, of course, would be brittleness as water is leached out in space - again, perhaps soluble via silicon injection in a vacuum chamber (much like anti-rot treatments).
If you have a cheap and ready supply of a building material, overbuilding is not a problem. We are not building many houses out of carbon fiber right now.
Glue laminated timber would deal with some of the problems with "local variabilities and discontinuities" and provide consistent structural load bearing and durability over time.
houses don't have weight constraints. (why did aircraft move away from wood?)
Quote from: Jim on 06/30/2014 03:29 pmhouses don't have weight constraints. (why did aircraft move away from wood?)I don't have the source in front of me, but at the time the general switch occurred, at least for small aircraft (Piper Cub / Cessna Skyhawk class), it was as much marketing and public perception as it was performance. People thought metal planes were better, regardless of whether they actually were. Many of these wooden planes are still flying, some 80 years after construction.Of course, when you scale to higher performance craft, with ever shrinking margins for weight and performance, it's a different story.