Blue Origins, update Options

[jabe]

Blue origins update..
go Bezos go
BTW hate the web page but neat videos.. From nasawatch resource

[edstrick]

With adequate heat shielding, a vehicle derived from the current shell design for this test vehicle could make a very nice reusable orbital vehicle when put on top of a reusable DC-X style first stage.

One of the fundamental advantages of a VTVL vehicle <vertical take off vertical landing> is you can have a structurally efficient vehicle, structually efficient tanks (unlike the horrific X33 from Lockmart) minimal landing leg mass, no wings, use your flight rocket engines at very low thrust and only carry a little extra fuel for landing.. and you can land (as DC-X did) on unimproved reasonably flat terrain.

[Bob Shaw]

Back in the 1960s there were a number of paper studies by Philip Bono at Douglas Aircraft Company, Inc looking at future launchers. Notable was SASSTO, an S-!VB derived single stage to orbit design. SASSTO had a payload capability of 3,629kg to a 185km orbit. Many excellent colour paintings of this and other projects were included in the 1974 'Frontiers of Space' book he co-authored with BIS stalwart Kenneth Gatland.

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/sassto.htm

Wings won in the first serious stab at RLV technology, but the economics of VTVL remain attractive. Bono's beloved plug-nozzle rocket engine design has still not been flight tested on a large scale, though the X33 and VentureStar would have used such propulsion.


Bob Shaw