On 19 Nov 2009 at 8:19, Bruce Bostwick wrote: > Oh, and while we're talking about STS .. why is it, exactly, that NASA > has been dropping all of those ET's back into the atmosphere to burn > up, after spending the $10k/pound to get them up there, and not saving > them on-orbit as construction material?
One of my my *major* bugbears with the way the entire program's been run, actually. They've hauled up the ISS *inside* the shuttle. I have yet to hear any convincing explination either. For reference, the volume of the ET's LOX tank alone is very roughly 3500m^3. The current ISS habitable volume is 358m^3. >The stack geometry of the STS is one of the most insane >things I've ever seen, and I'm quite frankly impressed that they've >only had two LOV/C's and not many more, especially in the pre-51L >days. I'm not convinced that for carrying Humans, Ares is going to be much safer. Yes, I've heard the arguments. Still not entirely convinced, and it's still an extremely expensive launch vehicle - for the price, they'd be better just using proven Russian lifters. >And you know what? If you come up with a propulsion system that's >more efficient than binary-fuel combustion from onboard fuel and >oxidizer, Well - I'm sure you're aware that SpaceShipOne sucessfully used a N2O/HTPB Hybrid rocket engine. And I'm with Pournelle's contention that if you gave Rutan a billion, he'd have a working reuseable Spaceplane which could reach a reasonable orbit inside three years. (And honestly, he could of done so for at least a decade). _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
