On Tuesday, February 18, 2003, at 01:22 PM, Pierce Nichols wrote:
I agree on the need, but I don't see why it has to be slow and ponderous. Personally, I think the ideal vehicle would be a specially adapted travel lift, like they use to transport and launch boats from large dinghies up to 100'+ megayachts. Travel lifts tend to have fairly large tires and good suspension -- I don't see why they couldn't keep up the equivalent of a running pace or better (10-15 mph) over the equivalent of an airport tarmac.In the initial stages, while building up operational experience, it seems sensible to me to keep speeds low enough that a sudden stop imposes loads no larger than those encountered during launch (bearing in mind that the loads in question are side loads, not vertical loads, and they are concentrated in different places from the wind loads on launch). Maybe this can be done at speeds upwards of 10 mph.
I think a first generation cheap reusable should shoot for a much more modest turnaround goal -- a few hundred man-hours per flight, including routine maintenance and inspection, but not major maintenance. Allowing for a longer turnaround will reduce the vehicle's overall complexity and reduce the number of tradeoffs that must be made.Yep. If you are under a thousand man-hours for turnaround you're still so far ahead of anything that's ever made orbit that BoLock will refuse to believe it until you've put them out of business :-)
......Andrew
_______________________________________________
ERPS-list mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
