On Sun, 16 Feb 2003, Andrew Case wrote:
> > I'm just laying this out on principle -- For a vehicle that is going
> > to operate that rapidly, I would almost certainly opt for some kind of
> > active cooling.
>
> Water cooling seems to me the way to go. You'll be fueling anyway, so
> the same guy who hooks up the Fuel and Ox lines can do the TPS water...
As I think I noted before, at that kind of operations pace, *nobody* hooks
up fuel and oxidizer lines -- they are part of the launch stand, like all
the other umbilicals, and are hooked up (and leak-tested) automatically
when the vehicle is positioned on the stand. The Russians have been doing
this for thirty years; surely us backward Westerners :-) can learn to do
it before too much longer.
> The water will take a lot less time, it can be completed in the slack
> time while the fuel/Ox handler is waiting for the tanks to fill.
The "handler" will be a computer, or at least an automatic sequencer --
like the one that tanked operational V-2s -- and it will have no problem
doing multiple fills simultaneously. Everything that can possibly be
done via the umbilical plate and automatically-controlled valves will be.
> ...also want containerized payload so the payload swap would be a simple
> matter of pulling the old pallet and installing the new one...
Yep. There's going to have to be at least a bit of human supervision for
that one, I expect, even if the work is done by a sort of specialized
forklift.
> ...the four man hours of on-pad effort is possible, but once you
> take into account the time to install the payload on the pallet...
Those are the customer's man-hours, not yours. You accept only palletized
payloads. There is none of this business of custom treatment for each
payload, or at least it's an extra-cost option rather than normal practice.
> ...and time in the hanger for periodic maintenance...
I think it's reasonable to count that under a different heading.
> a total of four man hours
> per flight seems out of reach, especially if you have a pilot (which I
> think is a good idea for various reasons).
Yeah, it's gonna be difficult to manage four man-hours per flight if the
pilot's up there for ten or twelve. :-)
Henry Spencer
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