At 05:06 PM 8/10/2002 -0700, Adrian Tymes wrote:
>I was going over the recent debate of "VTVL wants to be short and
>squatty, but in-flight aerodynamics say no", and I'm trying to remember
>why the solution that immediately occurs to me - vary the geometry based
>on what phase of the flight you're in - isn't the best of ideas (seeing
>if maybe I can find solutions to those problems).
It's because the biggest reason that a VTVL wants to be short and
squat, namely structural efficiency, it hard to finesse that way. In
addition, variable geometry is a poor failure risk. However, there is a
good way to deal with the aerodynamic issue, known (confusingly) as an
aerospike. It's a long, sharp spike protruding from the front end of the
vehicle. It can be made quite light with current technology, and is really
simple to make, maintain, and operate once it is designed. The use them on
the Trident sub-launched missiles, and they cut the drag in half or so.
-p
Mars or Bust!
www.marssociety.com
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