[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> While I know POGO is crucial to our further progress, due to its guidance
> capabilities, I am not convinced that moving Spike off the front burner is a
> good idea for our long term development. POGO-like vehicles have already been
> flown, and by more than one group. No-one has flown anything like Spike, and I
> would like to have an accomplishment like that to call our own, for
> fund-raising if nothing else.
Ah ... no one but MacDAC has flown a Conrad square. The Japanese have
just gon up and down. John Carmack has done wobblie bunny hops. No one
else I'm aware of has even considered demonstrating the control and
remote pilotting issues that are the heard of POGO's flight
demonstration program.
> OTOH, fast-tracking POGO would bring up an interesting Spike possibility.
> Instead of the fin-guided ballistic Spike we have been contemplating, we could
> build our spike engine as a cluster of POGO engines, and fly a guided Spike,
> helping to prove out not only the spike nozzle concept but also the idea of
> using a relatively small number of conventional nozzles to feed a spike
> engine. It's just a brainstorm right now, but it might be worth taking a quick
> look at.
Flying an aerospike engine and flying an aerospike engine of the type
you intend to use on larger vehicles are two different goals, IMHO. If
Spike were to be a prototype clustered engine aerospike, I think there
would be more likelyhood we could raise the money to build it. We
could fly POGO and show the design work for Spike and point out that
our next step towards orbit is extending the range of the engine
concept and taking that vehicle supersonic with a full aerospike
engine.
Michael
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Wallis KF6SPF (408) 396-9037 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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