On Sun, 02 Feb 2003 15:45:41 -0800, Pierce Nichols
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> It's all a balancing act. You can make a very good TSTO with stage
>mass fractions in the range of 7-8. For SSTO, you need to hit 20 or higher.
>That's an enormous jump. I think that avoiding it probably gains you much
>more than you lose to the additional flight testing requirements, at least
>for the first couple of generations of cheap, reusable launch vehicles.
I think you're right.
>PS -- I still don't understand how adding a third stage could possibly get
>you enough of a relaxation of mass fraction requirements to make it worth
>the trouble.
I believe in amateur high mass fraction about as much as Sean believes
in cermet catalyst. ("It doesn't exist.") So I set a max mass
fraction of 80%. That and RTLS seem to require a 3STO. ...Of course,
I haven't found time to sim all three stages since I imported the ICAO
data and figured out how to automate the landing...
-R
_______________________________________________
ERPS-list mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
