NASA space ship

Thinking of a space plane.

Something like this?

http://www.buran.ru/images/jpg/mg19-4.jpg

The old russian project, generally called the MG-19 "Gurkolet" (from the name of designer, Gurko)

She was supposed to be single-stage-to-orbit, horisontal-liftoff, horizontal-landing spaceplane. For this, the combined powerplant were proposed:

- Hydrogen-oxygen rockets (or detachable turbojets) for liftoff and acceleration to 1 Mach.

- Nuclear-powered closed-cycle ramjet, for acceleration to 3-5 Mach and climbing to the stratosphere

- Nuclear-powered open-cycle hydrogen rocket, for the orbital velocity, space maneuvering and re-entry decceleration.

The project was considered very realistic and effective... but then the "Shuttle" came, and the soviet goverment decided that they need something, that could be achieved quickly as "ansver to capitalist". And so, the MG-19 was cancelled and "Buran" was build.

The SpaceX "Raptor" engines which are being developed now are functionally equivalent of the F-1 rocket engines that powered the Saturn V in terms of their thrust, so it is quite reasonable to suggest that the next generation of SpaceX rockets will indeed be similar to the Saturn V in performance.

In fact, the only flies in the ointment are:

Elon Musk's insistence that rockets be reusable, and,

limited market for super heavy launch vehicles. If Musk want's to go to Mars, he is effectively his own customer.

Adding a huge level of technical complexity to achieve reusability, and trying to satisfy a very small and specialized market will certainly add a lot of time and expense to these sorts of projects.

As for an orbiting "aircraft carrier", I will ask what mission does that serve? Once you define an actual mission (besides "that looks really cool") then you have the parameters to actually design a spaceship.

The first thing we need is a reliable, efficient, practical surface-to-orbit vehicle, and NASA is absolutely the wrong outfit to build it. They have been stuck on the vertical-boost rocket and dead-stick re-entry paradigm for so long they are incapable of considering any other approach. Worse, after a fifty-year government monopoly space program, that's all we've got and what all the experts are trained in. They are all busy trying to force that unsuitable system to do what we need.

They are "too big to fail" so anything more risky than slight improvements to what they are familiar with is verboten. Since everything they build is hideously expensive we can only afford one and it has to perform multiple incompatible functions. It has to be a surface-to-orbit shuttle, an orbital-transfer vehicle, a work platform, and a temporary space station with life support for a crew of 8-12 for up to two weeks. Insanity!

All our existing launch vehicles are either completely consumed in delivering one payload to orbit, or are partially consumed and have to undergo a six-month, billion-dollar overhaul after every flight. Madness!

What we really need is a space-going 747. A spaceplane that can take off from an ordinary airport with a crew of two to four, deliver a cargo to low orbit, land at an airport, refuel, reload and do it again and again. Such a project is too big a risk to get funding, and our existing "space experts" are too specialized in rockets to design it.
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At my house, the “things that go bump in the night” are cats.

Thucydides wrote:The SpaceX "Raptor" engines which are being developed now are functionally equivalent of the F-1 rocket engines that powered the Saturn V in terms of their thrust, so it is quite reasonable to suggest that the next generation of SpaceX rockets will indeed be similar to the Saturn V in performance.

Ehm, we already KNOW what both their planned next generation, as well as their desired generation after that, of rockets will have in performance.

This is their "next generation", meant to start flying 2015, hopefully.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Heavy
Payload to LEO 53,000 kg (117,000 lb)

Projected generations after that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_%28 ... e_concepts
Falcon X, payload to LEO, 38t
Falcon X Heavy, payload to LEO, 125t
Falcon XX, payload to LEO, 140t

Only those last two are comparable to the Saturn V.
And even the preceeding Falcon X is currently nothing but wishful blueprints.
IF, that Raptor engine works out, then we MAY see the F-X Heavy within 10 years. Or maybe 30 years. Noone is paying the cash for its development yet.
And while SpaceX is doing quite well, paying for a new rocket completely out of their own pocket just isn´t going to work.

Adding a huge level of technical complexity to achieve reusability, and trying to satisfy a very small and specialized market will certainly add a lot of time and expense to these sorts of projects.

One of several reasons why their future generations may be nothing but hype, no matter what they want.

Imaginos1892 wrote:The first thing we need is a reliable, efficient, practical surface-to-orbit vehicle, and NASA is absolutely the wrong outfit to build it. They have been stuck on the vertical-boost rocket and dead-stick re-entry paradigm for so long they are incapable of considering any other approach. Worse, after a fifty-year government monopoly space program, that's all we've got and what all the experts are trained in. They are all busy trying to force that unsuitable system to do what we need.

They are "too big to fail" so anything more risky than slight improvements to what they are familiar with is verboten. Since everything they build is hideously expensive we can only afford one and it has to perform multiple incompatible functions. It has to be a surface-to-orbit shuttle, an orbital-transfer vehicle, a work platform, and a temporary space station with life support for a crew of 8-12 for up to two weeks. Insanity!

All our existing launch vehicles are either completely consumed in delivering one payload to orbit, or are partially consumed and have to undergo a six-month, billion-dollar overhaul after every flight. Madness!

What we really need is a space-going 747. A spaceplane that can take off from an ordinary airport with a crew of two to four, deliver a cargo to low orbit, land at an airport, refuel, reload and do it again and again. Such a project is too big a risk to get funding, and our existing "space experts" are too specialized in rockets to design it.

I´m sorry, but do you have any idea what you´re saying?

Please, why don´t you start by taking a look at what kind of airplanes ever built is even remotely close to reaching orbit?

Then maybe you should take a CLOSE look at just what kind of velocity is needed to stay in orbit.
How many aircraft are you aware of that are capable of reaching 28000km/h?

Or 160km of altitude. Of course, those are just MINIMUMs, satellites tend to be closer to 300km altitude.

The most extreme of aircraft, built or proposed can manage altitudes of around 25km and speeds of around 7000km/h.


The reason noone is even trying to build your "space-going 747" is because we do not have the ability to build such a thing.
Doesn´t matter if we try or not because we completely lack the kind of engines and materials knowledge needed.
Even with the most optimistic predictions about future research, we wont be able to build something like that 50 years from now either.

There´s simply no way you can build your fancy little spaceplane, because it would never be able to be built strong enough to reach high enough speed before breaking up, it could never carry enough fuel to do it, it could not reach the altitude required even for minimal orbit, because surprise, there´s not enough atmosphere there to provide lift or oxygen for engines...

Noone is trying to build your proposed spaceplane because for the foreseeable future, it´s an idea that doesn´t WORK.

Tenshinai wrote:
The reason noone is even trying to build your "space-going 747" is because we do not have the ability to build such a thing.
Doesn´t matter if we try or not because we completely lack the kind of engines and materials knowledge needed.
Even with the most optimistic predictions about future research, we wont be able to build something like that 50 years from now either.

Not quite right: we were perfectly able to build this even several decades ago. The nuclear thermal rockets could do the trick perfectly. You could use conventional rockets to lift above the atmosphere (suborbital jump) and then activate the nuclear rockets to achieve the escape velocity.

Dilandu wrote:
Not quite right: we were perfectly able to build this even several decades ago. The nuclear thermal rockets could do the trick perfectly. You could use conventional rockets to lift above the atmosphere (suborbital jump) and then activate the nuclear rockets to achieve the escape velocity.

The nuclear version considered as part of the Saturn V would have increased LEO delivery from 127t to 155t.
A later model would have upped that a bit more.

IF it worked. IF it worked reliably.

Simple truth is that most of the shouting about this stuff, like Project Orion etc, is mostly hype, because it was never finalised into a finished working model. At most there were some coldfiring tests and not a lot more.

So no, "we" were most definitely not able to build nuclear thermal rockets decades ago.
That´s total myth.
And when those projects were cancelled, they were nowhere near a finished product.
Even if kept up at full funding all the time in between they might still not have a working, reliable engine today.

It´s not a "next step" technology, and it has inherent risks that are one BIG jump worse than chemical only rockets.

Remember how nuclear power was repeatedly declared totally safe. The take a look at the 3 MAJOR and dozens of smaller incidents that have happened since then.
THEN, consider that nuclear thermal rockets had theoretical failure rates over a hundred times worse than nuclear power plants.

I have 100% understanding why nuclear propulsion is not looked at kindly anytime soon.

Well, as we say in Russia - "do you need a proper taxi, or you really need a ride to some place?" There are a lot of nuclear powered satellites launched in orbit in 1980; some of them crashed, but the results wasn't cataclysmic at all.

Tenshinai wrote:The reason noone is even trying to build your "space-going 747" is because we do not have the ability to build such a thing.
Doesn´t matter if we try or not because we completely lack the kind of engines and materials knowledge needed.
Even with the most optimistic predictions about future research, we wont be able to build something like that 50 years from now either.

Reaction Engines Ltd disagrees, they at least plan on Skylon flying to space in the 2020s.

Tenshinai wrote:

Dilandu wrote:
Not quite right: we were perfectly able to build this even several decades ago. The nuclear thermal rockets could do the trick perfectly. You could use conventional rockets to lift above the atmosphere (suborbital jump) and then activate the nuclear rockets to achieve the escape velocity.

The nuclear version considered as part of the Saturn V would have increased LEO delivery from 127t to 155t.
A later model would have upped that a bit more.

IF it worked. IF it worked reliably.

Simple truth is that most of the shouting about this stuff, like Project Orion etc, is mostly hype, because it was never finalised into a finished working model. At most there were some coldfiring tests and not a lot more.

That's not entirely true. The NERVA program for example was a success, the latest iterations of the engine worked reliable and NASA was in the process of designing a vehicle around it when the political backing for it disappeared due to various reasons.

If the development of NERVA had continued we probably would have a quite large permanent presence on the moon today among other things.