On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, David Weinshenker wrote:
> Sounds like a heat-exchanger design might fit well with a circular ring
> of chambers around a large blunt base plug - make that the heat-exchange
> surface during ascent (could it also be an LH2-cooled heat shield for
> descent??), and then control flow to the chambers for attitude control.
This was, in fact, Jordin's original expendable-vehicle design. Flat-plate
heat exchanger with a ring of nozzles around it, a great big spherical LH2
tank on top of it, and a little payload on top of that. The heat exchanger
is split into quadrants, each feeding its own engines, so you can steer by
varying the beam-power distribution.
His latest version puts the heat exchanger on the side, and is a sort of
sled shape. (When he presented it at Space Access last year, I dubbed it
the Photon Sled.)
Henry Spencer
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