Suzy B Software 2/Suzy B Software CD-ROM 2 (1994).iso/nasa/deltaclp/delta_4/delta.004

Text File | 1995-05-02 | 174KB | 3,779 lines

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Topic 17        Tue Mar 31, 1992
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 08:23 EST
Sub: Delta Clipper

Delta Clipper is a project that will lead to SSTO (Single Stage To Orbit)
spacecraft. This is the topic for Delta Clipper and related advanced booster
development projects.
699 message(s) total.
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Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 301       Sun Jan 03, 1993
D.HARTSOCK [Dana]            at 22:37 EST

Whoops. I did forget that message # didn't I Tad.  :+)
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Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 302       Mon Jan 04, 1993
JERRYP [Chaos Master]        at 04:28 EST


  WARNING ***
   This is 7,000 words.

   LONG POST ***

  I am not sure whether this belongs here or another topic, but this will have
to do.



THE SSX CONCEPT

Jerry E. Pournelle, Ph.D.
 Copyright 1993 by Jerry E. Pournelle


    The intuitively obvious way to get to orbit is to
 build a rocket ship that will go there, fly around in
 space, and return to Earth for refueling and reuse. It's
 what Buck Rogers did. This is so obviously the 'right way'
 that people have to be taught why we don't do it.

    Explaining why we have not yet built that kind of
 ship, and why we can and ought to build one now, is going
 to take a little work. Not a lot. Fortunately the math is
 simple: there's only one actual equation in this paper.
 It's presented in a couple of forms, but it's still only
 one equation, and it's a pretty simple one. It's called
 the classical rocket equation, and studying it can teach
 us a lot about what has happened to the space program. You
 don't have to be a rocket scientist to follow the
 argument.

    The classical rocket equation:

  (1)  M0/M1 = e to the exponent (v/c)

  Where M0 is the initial mass of the rocket; M1 is the
 mass of the rocket at velocity v; c is the exhaust
 velocity, which is to say, the speed with which the
 propellant is ejected out the back end of the rocket in a
 direction opposite the line of flight; and e is the
 constant 2.71828... usually rounded to 2.7183.
   The quantity M0/M1 is called the mass ratio, and is
 critical to the concept of working rockets.

    In the above, we have assumed that the rocket started
 with an initial velocity of 0, and that it traveled
 through empty space unaffected by gravity. That formula
 can also be used to find a change in velocity of a rocket
 in empty space: substitute for v the quantity delta-v (or
 change in v, often written as delta-vee), where M0 is the
 mass at the initial velocity and M1 the mass at the final
 velocity.

    That equation is often written as

  (2)          delta-vee = (Ve)*ln(M0/M1)

where V-sub-e is the exhaust velocity; why the
 conventional representation changes from 'c' to V-sub-e is
 historical and utterly unimportant, and if you write that
 as

   (3)        v = c times ln(M0/M1)

you'll see that it's really formula (1) rewritten. It used
 to be that you had to look up the natural logarithm (the
 log to the base e) of the Mass Ratio in a book of tables,
 but nowadays a TI-30 calculator costing $9.95 at a drug
 store gives it to you at the punch of a key.

    A rocket taking off from earth would experience both
 atmospheric resistance and gravitational attraction. That
 doesn't change the fundamental usefulness of the rocket
 equation, but it does complicate calculating the result.
 You may think of atmospheric resistance and gravity as
 'consumers' of velocity: that is, the final velocity of a
 real rocket will be lower than that calculated by the
 rocket equation.
    Gravity consumes velocity. How much is a function of
 flight time. To a first approximation this will be about
 2500 feet per second. In practice, you design for the
 delta-vee required to get into orbit (about 5 miles/second
 or 25,000 feet per second), add an allowance for loss of
 delta-vee due to gravity, and if you can achieve that
 despite the atmospheric resistance, you've got your ship.

    Atmospheric resistance harms us in two ways: not only
 does it provide physical resistance to the rocket's
 movement through the air (drag), but it also hinders the
 escape of the propellant out the back end: which is to say
 it slows that down, or lowers the c in the equation.

    The faster the rocket goes the worse the drag. On the
 other hand, if you're headed for orbit, the faster the
 rocket, the less time spent in the atmosphere. Drag is a
 complex function of the size, shape, presented surface
 area, atmospheric density and temperature, winds, and
 flight profile. Artillery officers are well acquainted
 with this, since the effects can be quite significant on
 the trajectory of a round traveling five miles or more.
    Drag has the effect of consuming about 1500 to 2000
 feet per second of the rocket's velocity.

    The result of all this is that a first cut analysis
 shows that to achieve orbit, a rocket needs about 30,000
 feet per second total velocity. It won't ever go that
 fast, because gravity and drag will have consumed some
 5,000 feet per second, but your engines have to add that
 much energy to the vehicle.

    You can find out a lot just by playing with the rocket
 equation, and many of us did: in my case, in high school,
 after discovering this and much more in Willy Ley's
 classic _Rockets and Space Travel_. (Willy's book kept
 appearing in revised editions over the years: I think the
 last one was _Rockets, Missiles, Space Travel, and Man in
 Space._ It's still one of the best introductory works ever
 done.)

    For one thing, if you want a final velocity of twice
 your exhaust velocity, you need a mass ratio of e squared,
 and your calculator (or slide rule when I was in high
 school; I sure wish I'd had a TI-30) shows that's 7.4.

    Well. The orbital velocity of the Earth is about
 25,000 feet per second (fps). The best exhaust velocity
 you'll get from ordinary chemical fuels is around 7,000
 fps. Twice 7,000 fps can't even in theory get us to orbit.
 Neither can three times that 7,000 fps: and at 3 times
 exhaust velocity, we see from our equations that the mass
 ratio is e-cubed, or just over 20. Mass ratios of 20 and
 more weren't considered possible in those days. They're
 nothing like easy now with the best and most modern
 materials. Thus, even without allowance for gravity and
 drag losses, we can see that getting to orbit isn't easy.

    We've seen that the Mass Ratio is the mass at takeoff
 divided by the mass at velocity.  The mass at velocity --
 in our case what gets to orbit -- is conventionally
 divided into two components: structure and payload.
 Payload is the spacecraft you wanted to get into orbit.
 Structure is everything else: fuel and oxygen tanks,
 shrouds, casings, rocket engines, pipes, etc.  Note that
 the more structure, the lower the mass ratio.  Since a
 high mass ratio is Good, there came about a mind set among
 rocketeers: Structure is Bad.

    Note also that to get high mass ratios you need BIG
 rocket ships. That follows because there are minimum
 weights to many rocket parts. This is known as 'minimum
 gauge', meaning that you can't make it any thinner or
 lighter. Combustion chambers have to be rugged.  Pipes
 must be thick enough to hold pressures that don't get
 smaller just because you're trying to make a small sized
 rocket.  Thus the easy way to build a single stage to
 orbit rocket ship would be to make it BIG. This is the
 approach taken by Captain Truax with his Sea Dragon.
 Unfortunately, size costs. To make a larger ship get off
 the ground you have to add more engines, or make the ones
 you have more powerful. Either way is costly. There's also
 ground handling: clearly it's easier to move, store, and
 service a smaller ship than a larger one. Truax's Sea
 Dragon would be built in a shipyard, and towed out to sea
 to be launched from water.
    Big also means inflexible. All your payload will go to
 the same orbit. There's merit to that, but there's more
 merit to a capability for putting smaller payloads into a
 number of different orbits, at least until the market
 expands to demand the heavier lift.

    Back in the days when people first thought a lot about
 rocket ships, fuels with real exhaust velocities of 7,000
 weren't all that easy to come by, nor were rocket engines
 capable of handling the corresponding temperatures, so
 speculation about SSTO was pretty theoretical.
    Let's look at some possibilities (again from Willy's
 book):

 Propellant       Combustion          Exhaust Velocity
                  Temperature         (feet per second)
                  degrees F          Sea Level     Average

 Nitromethane        3950                6150        7420

 Nitric Acid/
  analine            5070                6200        7300

 Peroxide/
 methyl alcohol      4160                6300        7420

 LOX/ethyl alcohol   5260                6870        8090

 LOX/Hydrogen        4390               10150       12000


Those were with practical engines running at 300 pounds
 per square inch, which was what they knew how to do then.
 The 'average' value is a bit lower than the actual vacuum
 exhaust velocity. These are the kinds of numbers people
 thought about in 1940 - 1950.

    So. How were we to get to orbit?

    Some simply assumed we'd never do it. Vannevar Bush,
 Chairman of NASA's predecessor NACA and dean of US Science
 during World War II and just after, told the Congress of
 the United States that there was simply no possibility of
 Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles. "You can leave that
 out of your thinking. I wish the American people would
 leave that out of their thinking," he testified to the
 House Military Committee in 1946. You couldn't build
 ICBM's and you certainly couldn't build Moon rockets and
 launch satellites.
    Dr. Bush had great prestige, and his convictions led
 to great difficulties for the rocket program; but even as
 he was saying this, others knew better.

    Equation (1) condemns us to remain on the Earth's
 surface unless we can either get very high exhaust
 velocities, or absurd mass ratios.
    The American Rocket Society chose the second way.

    Rockets consist of structure, tankage, guidance
 mechanisms; all kinds of stuff besides the 'payload' you
 want to get into orbit. Suppose you could throw that junk
 away when it wasn't needed any more? If you could fling
 the tanks overboard when they were empty? Then you'd save
 big time, because you wouldn't have to push that dead
 weight along.
    That, of course, is precisely what a multi-stage
 rocket does. Incidentally, early books on rocketry
 generally contain no index reference to 'stages' or
 'staging.' They spoke of 'step rockets'.

    A typical two step rocket, as described in Willy's
 book:
       Payload of second step             20  lbs
       Structure of second step          180
       Together                          200
       Fuel, second step                 400

    Total of second step                 600

    Payload of first step
      (total second step) then is        600
    Structure of first step             4400
       Together                         5000

    Fuel for first step                10000

    Takeoff weight                     15000

  The takeoff weight is today generally called Gross
 Liftoff Weight, or GLOW. What's given here is about the
 size of a Viking sounding rocket.

   Now what's our mass ratio here?  Well, note that the
 second step starts at 600 and ends at 200 pounds, for a
 mass ratio of 3.  The first step starts at 15000 and ends
 with 5000, so it's also a mass ratio of 3. However, for
 purposes of calculating the Mass Ratio of the total
 system, we can MULTIPLY the two stage ratios, to get a
 final mass ratio of nine; meaning that this rocket should
 get a final velocity of something over 2 times the fuel
 exhaust velocity; so that if it burned, say, ethyl alcohol
 and liquid oxygen, which has a sea level exhaust velocity
 of about 1 1/4 miles per second, we ought to get about 2
 1/2 miles per second or 12,000 feet per second. In the
 real world, the first stage is unlikely to reach 6000 fps
 because of atmospheric drag and gravity, but the second
 should get most of the theoretical delta vee.

    The ultimate staged system was Saturn/Apollo, which at
 liftoff stood 363 feet tall, with GLOW of 6,423,000
 pounds. The first two stages dropped away to put about
 110,000 pounds into orbit prepatory to heading for the
 Moon -- corresponding to an effective mass ratio of well
 over 50 had it been a single stage system.

    Staging, in other words, can give quite high mass
 ratios; and that, of course, is how we got to space, to
 orbit and to the Moon. We built disintegrating totem
 poles, throwing away most of the rocket in order get
 velocity. It wasn't an elegant solution to the problem but
 it did the job.

    However, it got us used to thinking of rockets as
 ammunition, rather than as airplanes. A lot of people
 never got over that. It also got us to thinking that the
 ship i was useless junk: the only important thing was
 the 'payload' and the sooner you could get rid of
 everything that wasn't payload, the better off you'd be.
 That attitude is also still with us.

    The absurdity of the disintegrating totem pole was
 pretty apparent, though, so some continued to work on
 single stage rockets; and since mass ratios of 20 looked
 fairly silly (and required enormous ships), they had to
 look at higher fuel exhaust velocities.

    In Willy's engine hydrogen and oxygen at sea level
 have an exhaust velocity of 10,150 feet per second: 25,000
 fps divided by that is 2.46, and e to the 2.46 is 11.7,
 and while that's a pretty severe mass ratio, it's not
 utterly absurd.  Moreover, as soon as you get above the
 atmosphere, hydrogen and oxygen give exhaust velocities in
 the order of 12000 fps, and that corresponds to mass
 ratios less than ten; and THAT is at the edge of what we
 knew how to do.
    Even in Willy Ley's day many rocketeers said "just
 wait until we have hydrogen engines."  Willy was
 skeptical. Hydrogen was tough stuff to handle. It didn't
 burn properly in the engines they could build then, it
 takes insulation to keep it cold, and it's not very dense,
 so the tanks have to be big. That's all heavy and means a
 lot of 'structure' which by definition is dead weight.
 Many people including von Braun thought like that.
 Hydrogen engines would be great, but they would also have
 their problems.

    The result was that most rocket engineers went down
 the staging path, which was, after all, the only path to
 go down if we wanted to accomplish anything in the 50's
 and 60's; but a few kept looking at Single Stage to Orbit
 or SSTO. Among them were Phil Bono, Robert Salkeld and
 Gerry Driggers.  Driggers was a professional engineer, and
 at one time the President of the L5 Society. Salkeld was
 an associate of Dr. Muller. They, and others, were able to
 keep the notion of SSTO alive, but by 1980 it was just
 barely alive.

    Shuttle, meanwhile, was originally conceived as a two
 step rocket with both steps recoverable. One Boeing design
 called for both steps to be liquid rockets, and both would
 be manned. The first step flew to the edges of the
 atmosphere -- say 80,000 feet -- then separated and
 returned to Earth. The second step flew on to orbit. In at
 least one design concept, only the first step had wings.
 The second was a lifting-body design.
    There were other Shuttle concepts, but all involved
 recoverable systems. The notion was to fly to space, do
 something, return to Earth, refuel, and fly again. Some
 single-step Shuttle systems were examined, but the initial
 costs were thought to be very high for a winged vehicle --
 radically new engines would be needed -- and most Shuttle
 concepts were for a two-step system.

    Then something horrible happened. Precisely what isn't
 important; but Shuttle changed from a reasonably elegant
 reusable system to the Monster That Devoured The Budget.
    Partly this was due to engineering competition:
 Shuttle engines were designed to high performance, to run
 at high temperatures at very high pressures: something
 more appropriate to the ammunition concept than
 reusability.
    There was also a desire to put costs off, to stretch
 things out; to keep initial costs low even if that made
 final costs higher.

    For whatever reason, far from a low cost per launch
 system, Shuttle real costs per launch grew to a billion
 dollars each. Even the official cost is now over $500
 million per launch.

    In 1979 it wasn't entirely clear that Shuttle would
 become a monster. Some of us had suspicions, but after
 all, Shuttle was the only game in town; so the space
 community was asked to swallow its doubts and support NASA
 to get Shuttle flying, warts and all. Have faith, we were
 told; and we had faith. Hundreds of Shuttle launches were
 planned. NASA sold people on the notion of "Getaway
 Specials", low cost experiments that anyone, even high
 schools, could do in space. Shuttle was going to make
 American a spacefaring nation.
    That didn't happen. The number of Shuttle flights
 scheduled was scaled down, then down again. Precisely what
 happened to Shuttle isn't relevant to this paper, so I'll
 pass over it, except to note that Shuttle was designed in
 a way that requires a very large crew of experienced
 people to keep it flying. You cannot operate Shuttle
 without a big standing army of technically trained people.
 It also requires critical ground handling facilities: now
 that the Vandenberg effort has been abandoned there's only
 one place in the world that you can launch a Shuttle from.
    For all that, we all cheered when Columbia flew, and
 we hoped for great things.

    However, as early as 1980 some people said that
 Shuttle wasn't going to be what we wanted it to be. One
 group, led by Carl Sagan and Bruce Murray, said that
 Shuttle would eat the space sciences budget.
 Unfortunately, their valid critiques of shuttle were lost
 because of their vehement attacks on the whole concept of
 man in space.  As Larry Niven once pointed out, every time
 Sagan convinced someone there was no need for man in
 space, he as like as not lost a supporter for space. Few
 Americans wanted to spend money to make the universe safe
 for robots. They wanted to see heroes go to space and
 return to ticker tape parades.
    To many of the rocket scientists, though, those
 astronauts were merely 'structure', junk that worsened the
 mass ratio. We didn't need man in space. Skylab
 demonstrated that people could be useful after all, but
 Skylab was an odd mission, not part of the 'main stream'
 effort; as demonstrated when NASA took a fully operational
 SKYLAB and the Saturn rocket that could have launched it,
 and made them into museum displays.
    Shuttle was to be the Space Transportation System, and
 all other systems for putting stuff into orbit were
 abandoned: indeed, as mentioned, the last fully working
 Saturn rockets, each capable of putting into orbit about
 five times a typical Shuttle payload, were destroyed, laid down as lawn
ornaments.

    Not everyone agreed that Shuttle was the optimum way
 to go.  One lonely voice was Gary Hudson, who was not part
 of the 'men aren't needed in space' movement.
    In 1980 Hudson presented to the first meeting of the
 Citizens Advisory Council on National Space Policy a
 briefing on the Phoenix concept. Phoenix was a fully
 reusable single stage to orbit LOX Hydrogen ship which he
 had brought to preliminary design description stage.

    The Phoenix concept presented to the Council was a
 450,000 pound GLOW reusable vehicle designed to orbit a
 5-10 ton payload manned or unmanned. The powerplant would
 have been either an aerospike -- see below -- or multiple
 bell nozzle engines. It was to be fabricated from the
 technology of the day, principally aluminum and
 composites, and featured active water cooling to handle
 the heat generated during re-entry. This cooling system,
 which Boeing called a water wall, was studied in the early
 1960's as part of the Boeing Dyna-Soar proposal.

    Hudson's proposal was politely heard at the 1980
 meeting, but the idea of SSTO was dismissed without much
 discussion. In retrospect that was an error, and as
 Chairman I take responsibility for it. I can only plead
 that Hudson's concept did not even get a second. No one at
 the meeting -- which included Salkeld and Driggers, both
 known to be enthusiasts for SSTO -- spoke up in favor of a
 full debate, and thus SSTO was quietly dropped in favor of
 space plans involving Shuttle missions. In those days we
 thought there would BE Shuttle missions. We knew those
 missions would not be cheap: but we never dreamed that
 they'd go to a billion a mission. And Hans Mark, incoming
 Deputy Director of NASA, had personally asked us for
 support for the Shuttle program.
    We wanted to believe. We were still being asked to
 have faith, and many of us swallowed our doubts to present
 a common front in favor of "the space program"; and 'the
 space program' in those days meant Shuttle.

    By 1986 it was clear that the US space program was in
 trouble. People spent their entire professional lives
 anticipating planetary and space science data from space
 missions that were long delayed or canceled outright. Even
 our weather satellite observations were in danger of
 severe degradation or being lost altogether. The only
 commercial exploitations of space were communications and
 some commercialization of ground observation data: and
 both of those programs were badly underfunded.

    It was obvious that if space activity were to grow, it
 would need more commercial support: space should be a
 source of money, not a sink for government funding.

    In 1986 the Council reports strongly recommended new
 launch systems.  "If you want to be a spacefaring nation
 you must: Build more rocket ships.  Fly more rocket
 ships," it concluded. We had not as yet fastened on any
 particular system; there was still hope that a variety of
 programs might be funded.

    By 1987 it was clear that there would not be a variety
 of programs, nor was Shuttle going to take up the slack.
 By then the French getting far more commercial space
 business than we were. Even Red China got in the act. In a
 final irony, a Chinese refrigerator company was to launch
 the two commercial satellites the Shuttle recovered and
 brought down for repair.

    The Council met to consider particular systems. We
 were prepared for extensive debates. During the years
 1980-1989 there had been considerable interest in the
 National Aerospace Plane, NASP, sometimes known as the
 "Orient Express". This was a winged hypersonic ship that
 employed air scoops: oxygen would be drawn from the
 atmosphere, saving the weight of tankage, and of course
 lowering the liftoff weight and thus presumably improving
 the mass ratio.
    When Hudson again brought up the Phoenix concept in
 the Fall 1983 Council Meeting, the chief opposition was
 from advocates of winged vehicles. Winged vehicles seemed
 very logical to many of us. After all, if you're going to
 operate like an airline, it's reasonable that the ships
 look and act like airplanes. The result was that the
 Council endorsed NASP research, and said nothing about a
 wingless SSTO.

    By 1988 most of the Council members had lost their
 enthusiasm for winged vehicles. In particular, Max Hunter
 had become a convert wingless multi-engine SSTO ships, and
 had developed a number of SSTO concepts while at Lockheed.

    Astonishingly, in the 1988 meeting held to choose a
 specific line of space ship development, there were almost
 no debates. Just about everyone present recommended a
 Single Stage to Orbit Vertical Takeoff/Vertical Landing
 fully reusable multi-engine system. From having no
 adherents other than Gary Hudson in 1980, SSTO had become
 the unanimous choice of a distinguished group of rocket
 scientists and engineers.

                           SSX

    The ship recommended was called SSX, Space Ship
 Experimental. It was explicitly intended as part of a
 revival of the highly successful X-airplane program.

    SSX was recommended by two different analyses.  The
 first was an engineering analysis that indicated that it
 could be done, probably with existing engines. There was
 no agreement on how much payload SSX might carry. Gordon
 Woodcock was concerned about payload: the ship might not
 have any at all. His final calculations showed a probable
 payload of 5,000 pounds using existing engines; but while
 that sounds like a comfortable number, when we are dealing
 with mass fractions around 10 -- which we must in a single
 stage design -- then it doesn't take much change in engine
 performance or tankage weight to wipe out all the payload.
    SSX was to be a "hydrogen rocket" as Willy Ley would
 have called it. In 1947 the hydrogen engine was an exotic
 concept. By 1989 the Pratt and Whitney RL-10 hydrogen
 engine had been tested thousands of times without
 failures. There had been other changes.

    The RL-10 had been flown often enough to give hard
 performance data:

   Performance of the RL-10:
                      Sea Level            Vacuum

Exhaust Velocity       10615                14478

Isp                     330                  450


(Isp, or 'specific impulse,' is now usually used instead
 of exhaust velocity. It is nothing more than the exhaust
 velocity divided by gravity, or 32.17 feet per second per
 second.  The main reason Isp is generally used now is that
 it's a smaller number.)

    Assuming we need 30,000 feet per second, at an exhaust
 velocity of 10615 (Isp of 330) we need a mass ratio of
 16.88, which is beyond achievement; but at 14478 (Isp =
 450) it's only 7.6.  Since the rocket spends more time in
 vacuum, the average exhaust velocity during the flight is
 going to be higher than 10615; precisely what it will be
 can be calculated, but the calculations are sensitive to
 the flight path, and that's sensitive to the structural
 weight; meaning there's enough room for experts to
 disagree.  However, the numbers are intriguing, and
 recall, these are figures for well tested, reliable,
 existing engines.


    After three days of intensive meetings, we concluded
 that the SSX could be built, for under a billion dollars,
 and in under four years time. This was an engineering, not
 a political, analysis: one rule of the Council is that we
 will not paralyze ourselves with political pessimism. If a
 concept is technically feasible, we will recommend it and
 hope that it will find a political -- or commercial --
 champion. We saw no technical reasons why SSX could not be
 constructed using existing technologies and generally
 employing modifications of existing equipment.
    A second meeting, held in Fall 1988, confirmed this
 conclusion.

                          * * *

    The other line of argument for SSX was more
 theoretical.

    Start with this.  Most people in the space community
 still think of ships as ammunition rather than aircraft.
 What happens if you think of them as aircraft?
    Airlines typically operate at a small multiple of fuel
 costs. It takes roughly the same fuel to fly a pound to
 Australia as it does to put that pound in orbit. Granted
 that liquid hydrogen will be rarer and more expensive than
 jet fuel, the actual costs of space flight with Shuttle
 are not several times fuel costs but several hundred times
 those costs. Rockets are not less efficient than jet
 engines. Why, then should space flight cost so much?

    The answer wasn't hard to find. First, the cost of a
 ticket to Sydney would be a very great deal more than a
 few times fuel costs if they had to throw away the
 airplane after you took a trip in it. Clearly expendables
 -- ammunition -- could never be as cheap as airline style
 operations. You have to reuse the ship.

    That line of thinking had led to Shuttle, and it
 certainly wasn't cheap. What went wrong there?

    That answer wasn't hard to find either. Typical
 airlines have 120 employees per airplane, and most of
 those sell tickets. The highly technical SR-71 program had
 about 48 employees per airplane, many of them data
 analysts. By contrast, Shuttle has 20,000 people to
 operate 4 vehicles. The typical annual cost of a technical
 employee today (including benefits, retirement, office
 facilities, etc.)  is over $125,000 a year, meaning that a
 standing army of 20,000 costs at least $2.5 billion a year
 before they launch anything at all.

    Clearly Shuttle was not designed for operational
 simplicity. That provided the primary design directive for
 SSX: its design would be driven by operations
 considerations, not by performance. Performance has to be
 "Good Enough'. It doesn't have to be a lot better.  Better
 is the enemy of good enough. The important thing for SSX
 is simplicity of operations; low costs and low personnel
 requirements.

    Another SSX design criterion was SAVABILITY. It ought
 to be able to endure an engine out on takeoff: to hover,
 burn off fuel, and land. Clearly a desirable feature, and
 one that has a vast influence on total space operations
 costs.
    There are other benefits, but surely it is established
 that if you can build this kind of rocket ship, you would
 want to have one.

                           Size

    Gary Hudson's original Phoenix was a bit smaller than
 the SSX we envision.
    We thought in terms of a ship with about 45,000 pounds
 of structure, and 5,000 pounds of payload. With a Mass
 Ratio of 10 this produces a GLOW of 500,000, and requires
 an average exhaust velocity of 13029 feet per second. This
 is just within the capability of existing engines, and the
 structure weights are thought to be achievable.
    Clearly none of these round numbers is sacred. The
 truth is, until we begin to build that ship, we won't know
 precisely what those numbers are: and that's the rub,
 because if we size the ship small to keep the total costs
 down, we run the risk of not being able to make orbit, or
 of making orbit with no payload.
    Thus some proposals for DC/Y, a possible
 implementation of the SSX concept, call for a GLOW of 1.4
 million pounds. This makes for a large ship, complicating
 ground handling, and requiring considerable thrust which
 in turn requires engine developments.  That large a ship
 will have increased costs and complexity of operation, so
 a smaller ship is preferred. However, the big ship is in a
 sense a 'conservative' design, in that it contains
 considerable reserves of payload mass that can be
 sacrificed to compensate for unforeseen problems.
    The Council has no unanimous recommendations on
 sizing; there are members willing to defend a wide range
 of values. There is near unanimous agreement that we have
 no more to get out of continued analysis of existing data.
 It is time to FLY something; without new flight test data,
 it is impossible to choose the optimum design size.
    We recommended that we build the SSX and get on with
 the program; at worst we'd learn what we need to know to
 build the proper size bird.

                 Design for Test Flights

    At the Council meeting that recommended SSX it was
 unanimously agreed that a ship using RL-10 engines,
 modified for altitude compensation, would have a marginal
 orbital capability: it might not be able to make orbit,
 but it would be close to that capability. That ship could
 be flown incrementally. That is, it could take off not
 fully fueled and fly for short distances and times, thus
 allowing an exact determination of its capabilities. It
 could then be modified: add thrust, or reduce weight, to
 'nickel and dime' its way to an orbital capability.

    This incremental test philosophy seems to have been
 misunderstood -- in some cases rather deliberately
 misunderstood.

    "Almost make orbit" is of course a pretty dangerous
 thing to do -- if you try to make orbit and fail. However,
 a ship that can "almost make orbit" can be used for a LOT
 of testing in test missions that don't at all try for
 orbit. At each test stage you gain a new appreciation of
 the ship's capabilities, and the next test is designed
 accordingly.

    Given the experience of flying a ship that can 'almost
 make orbit' we would fully understand the requirements of
 a ship that DOES make orbit. This incremental approach to
 space ship design is similar to the X airplane programs
 that produced such dramatic results in US aviation.

    The original SSX concept envisioned building a couple
 of ships that would "almost make orbit": with luck and
 skill, one of them might actually be sent on an orbital
 mission. It would probably have no payload other than
 itself, but so what?  The payload of the X-1 was Major
 Yeager. The mission wasn't to deliver payload, but to fly
 faster than sound.  Similarly, the mission of SSX-1 is to
 develop the means for airline-like space operations, not
 to deliver payload into space.
    SSX-2 would take what was learned from SSX-1 to build
 a ship that would reliably go to orbit and return.  Once
 again, the amount of payload wasn't critical; but everyone
 was certain that with engines developed from what was
 learned by FLYING SSX-1 we would have a payload of at
 least 9,000 pounds, and with data developed by FLYING that
 ship, we could improve SSX-2 payload considerably: some
 expected as much as 19,000 pounds.

                 Ammunition or Airplane?

    Many rocket systems were developed for use as ICBM's.
 A missile needs performance and one-time reliability.
 There's no point in building the engine to last. It won't
 be used but once (and with luck never at all).
    The result was that many rocket engineers fell into
 the habit of thinking of rocket motors as part of an
 artillery system; they were ammunition, and it was
 pointless to build them for anything else. Even when the
 system was to launch a satellite, or a manned spacecraft,
 it wasn't likely to be used again.
    Shuttle was of course different, but except for
 Shuttle there wasn't much effort put into reusable,
 restartable, rocket engines.
    Even so, there was an exception. The Pratt and Whitney
 RL-10 is ultra-reliable and test engines have been
 restarted and refired many times. The P&W RL-10 was
 developed by engineers exclusively familiar with aircraft
 engines, not missiles, and many think that was a major
 influence on the engine design.  In any event the RL-10
 demonstrates that you can build reliable, reusable rocket
 engines if that's what you set out to do.


                     Technical risks

    It was unanimously agreed that the technical risk of
 the SSX program, through SSX-2 with a payload of at least
 10,000 pounds, was a lot lower than the technical risk of
 Apollo: that is, there are far fewer technical unknowns in
 the SSX program than there were in going to the Moon when
 Kennedy announced that mission.
    Exactly how far single stage to orbit -- SSTO --
 technology could be taken wasn't predictable until we had
 built and FLOWN some of these machines. However, it was
 clear that any advances in material science -- such as
 were coming out of the NASP program -- would instantly
 benefit the SSX. In general, anything that makes NASP more
 feasible helps SSX at least as much.

    There were some technical unknowns.  One was the
 engine concept known as "aerospike". This is a method of
 mounting a number of engines in a pattern that allows
 their exhaust plumes to work in a way that does automatic
 altitude compensation.
    Explaining aerospike and altitude compensation
 requires more technical detail than I want to give in this
 paper. The important thing to remember is that rockets are
 more efficient in a vacuum than in an atmosphere (which is
 why you want to get out of the atmosphere as quickly as
 possible when you fly rockets). Whatever is done to make
 the rocket work better in an atmosphere will detract from
 its performance in vacuum. It can also add weight. The
 aerospike concept tries to get around some of those
 limits.
    Aerospike engines were built and static tested decades
 ago. The results are encouraging, but hardly decisive. You
 can find people who are convinced they can build a working
 aerospike design with existing engines, and others who are
 convinced that if you do build it you won't get enough
 altitude compensation to make it worth the effort. The
 consensus seems to be that aerospike is the proper way to
 do altitude compensation, but there are some doubts about
 the effects of dynamic pressures at certain critical
 altitudes between 25,000 and 75,000 feet. In that flight
 regime the effect of dynamic or slipstream pressures could
 be to lower Isp by as much as 30 seconds, corresponding to
 a lowering of exhaust velocity by 965 feet per second.
 However, this applies only in the regime around 50,000
 feet, and the rocket doesn't stay there very long; so the
 total effect on average exhaust velocity (and thus mass
 ratio, and thus payload) for the flight isn't accurately
 known. The question won't be resolved without flight
 testing.
    Since aerospike engines have great benefits, it seems
 reasonable to have a program to develop both aerospike and
 the proper engines for use with them. It wouldn't cost
 more than fifty million dollars a year, which is pretty
 trivial given the potential gain. In particular, SSX /
 SSTO benefits from the gains our analysis says you'll get
 with a working aerospike. However, SSTO will work without
 aerospike, and while the original SSX concept employed
 aerospike in the proposed design, it was not considered
 essential to the SSX concept. You have to do altitude
 compensation, but that can be done with variable geometry
 rocket bells.

    Another technical unknown is re-entry geometry. If
 there's anything we understand about re-entry it's blunt
 cones, so that a nose first re-entry vehicle is easy to
 conceive. Moreover, nose first gives considerable
 increases in cross range maneuver capability for landing.
 However, since we want to land SSX tail down, and getting
 a blunt cone from nose first to tail first isn't easy, we
 either have to learn how to make that rotation or we have
 to let SSX re-enter tail first.
    Tail first entry has many advantages. Among them is
 the possibility of running the engines at idle, letting
 the exhaust plume serve as the heat protection mechanism
 for the ship. Once again, this is not a concept critical
 to the success of SSX, but it does or could save
 structural weight. It is also another unknown: we can
 simulate all we like, but we won't know how well that
 works until we try it, and right now we aren't trying much
 of anything.

    One bugaboo that isn't as big a problem as it looks is
 the tail first landing. This looks frightening, since if
 the fire goes out the ship falls: it can't possibly glide.
 Here is this enormous thing falling. . . However, once the
 ship has re-entered it is nearly empty. The terminal
 velocity due to atmosphere is something under 100 miles
 per hour. The empty weight of the ship is less than that
 of an airplane. No one wants to crash a space ship, but
 the consequences of crashing an SSX are a lot lower than
 those of crashing a shuttle or a 747.

    The real debate over single stage to orbit involves
 materials and structures. Clearly we know how to build the
 ship. The question is, will the structure -- complete with
 frame, tanks, motors, controls, re-entry shield, landing
 gear, crew and cargo compartments -- be light enough to
 allow the ship to have a reasonable payload?
    Some questions on structure weight were resolved in a
 series of classified experiments code named HAVE REGION.
 Recently declassified, these were conducted by the
 Strategic Defence Initiative Office. In HAVE REGION
 several contractors built scaled versions of sections of a
 single stage to orbit ship, using rather conservative
 mixtures of aluminum and composites. The results are not
 self interpreting, but structural experts have concluded
 that HAVE REGION demonstrated that vehicles having mass
 ratios and strengths better than those required for single
 stage to orbit can be constructed. The questions remaining
 have to do with costs.
    Most experts who have studied single stage to orbit
 technology are agreed that an SSTO ship can be built, and
 that it will have _some_ payload; and while there is
 debate over how much payload -- estimates range from 5,000
 to 19,000 pounds to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) -- nearly
 everyone is agreed that a practical, savable, and resuable
 ship with about 9,000 pounds payload can be constructed.
 The question is, can a ship that lightly built be used
 enough times to justify its construction?
    Note that this is question is as much economic as
 technical.

    There are other technical risk factors in SSX design,
 and they all work the same way: if things turn out well
 that increases performance, and turning out the other way
 doesn't. If every one of those factors goes the wrong way,
 SSX won't have much payload. If every one of them goes
 REALLY the wrong way, it won't have any payload at all.
 However, there is no reason to suppose that they'll all go
 wrong. Things don't usually work that way. In fact, the
 way to bet any one of them is that it will go right:
 Clarke's Law states that if a venerable scientist tells
 you that something is possible, he's right, and if he says
 it's impossible he's most likely wrong; and experience has
 proven him correct.  (Clarke, of course, remembers
 Vannevar Bush very well.)

                      The Real Risk

    The real risk to SSX was always known to be
 organizational.

    The first risk is capture by a group that wants to
 study it to death.

    There are two major engineering design philosophies.
 One says, "Do things right. Don't waste money putzing
 around, really understand what you're doing, figure out in
 advance all that can go wrong, and then build it right in
 the first place."

    The other says "Do the best you can, learn from that,
 and then go on from there. You'll learn more from one good
 flight than from a thousand computer simulations."

    Both concepts have merit. The first can be thought of
 as the 'prototype' approach. You don't build anything
 unless you'd be willing to build a lot of them.  The other
 is the "X vehicle" approach: X ships aren't prototypes.
 Build two, fly one until you prang it, use what you
 learned to modify the other one, and fly that until you
 augur it in or there's nothing more to learn.

    We are convinced that SSTO requires the X concept.
 Alas, there's nothing so magical about SSTO that it is
 immune from the "let's do it _right_" approach. Capture by
 a 'do it right' group would certainly delay SSTO well into
 the next century.

    Another danger is the 'requirements' group.  X
 concepts are to develop TECHNOLOGIES, not vehicles; if you
 start hanging specific requirements on an experimental
 vehicle, you will end up trying to 'do it right'; which is
 generally fatal to an X program. Single Stage to Orbit
 ships will have many customers; but the potential users of
 SSTO should not dictate the _development_ program.

                        Conclusion

    The conclusion is obvious. We believe that SSX is
 possible; that an SSTO ship could be built and flown in
 fewer than four years and for less than a billion dollars.
 We believe that doing that will show how to design and
 build SSTO vehicles with payloads of about 15,000 pounds,
 operate at costs of 4 or 5 times fuel cost, and require
 about 50 technical persons per vehicle.
    Such a ship would be 'savable': it could experience an
 engine out without disaster.
    Savability plus low cost to orbit will have an
 enormous effect on payload design, as well as on
 commercial uses of space. Payloads need not be
 overdesigned, since the cost to orbit will not be
 enormous. Obsolete satellites can be replaced.
    Airline style operations to space will lead to space
 commercial activities on a wide scale; look at what
 happened to air travel when reliable systems with low
 operating costs became available.

    SSX, we believe, could lead to the ships that will
 make America a Spacefaring nation as promised by John
 Kennedy all those years ago.

                        - 30 -

 APPENDIX: Some Data

The following data on LOX/LH2 engines is taken from
 Rocketdyne publications.

J-2     230,000 lb Thrust
        427 sec Isp (Vac) = 13,715 fps e.v.
        Area Ratio 27.5:1
        O/F Mixture Ratio 5.5:1
        Chamber Pressure 763 psia
        Weight 3480 lb

J-2S    265,000 lb Thrust
        435 sec Isp (Vac) = 13,970 fps e.v
        Area Ratio 40:1
        O/F Mixture Ratio 5.5:1
        Chamber Pressure 1246 psia
        Weight 3800 lb

SSME    513,000 lb Thrust
        455 sec Isp (Vac) = 14614 fps e.v
        Area Ratio 77.5:1
        O/F Mixture Ratio 6.1:1
        Chamber Pressure 3240 psia
        Weight 6990 lb

Linear  200,000 lb Thrust
        455 sec Isp (Vac) = 14614 fps e.v.
        Area Ratio 115:1
        O/F Mixture Ratio 5.5:1
        Chamber Pressure 1224 psia
        Weight ----

  (The Linear aerospike was not build as a flight weight
 engine, so the engine weight is uncertain.)

======================
   Following will be complete or trimmed from final
 version:


RL10A-3-3A    16,500 lb Thrust
              444 sec Isp (Vac)
              Area Ratio -----
              O/F Mixture Ratio 5.0:1
              Chamber Pressure ----
              Weight  310 lb

RL10A-4       20,800 lb Thrust
              449 sec Isp (Vac)
              Area Ratio -----
              O/F Mixture Ratio 5.5:1
              Chamber Pressure ----
              Weight  370 lb


(The RL10 data is from a P&W handout which did not give
 the area ratio and chamber pressure numbers. The new
 RL10A-4 uses an extendable nozzle to increase the
 available area ratio.)

All the above thrust numbers are vacuum thrust.


                       END APPENDIX

 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 303       Mon Jan 04, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 13:56 EST

It belongs here, and I thank you.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 304       Wed Jan 06, 1993
M.HUTCHINSO2 [Mardy in YUL]  at 00:18 EST

Jerry, Thanks for the post.  Good overview.

Regards -- Mardy
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 305       Wed Jan 06, 1993
K.BULLOCK [KenB]             at 22:47 EST

Thanks from me too, Dr. Pournelle.  I can't follow the whole thing, but the
portions I can understand are very informative.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 306       Fri Jan 08, 1993
H.GREGORY3 [Hugh-Van,BC]     at 05:20 EST

Excellent posting Jerry!

Still have that tape I shot of Dr. William Gaubatz address at Westercolt in
Phoenix on the Delta Clipper if folks are interested.

Any interested in a copy please Email me.

Cheers!
 Hugh S. Gregory
 Spaceflight Historian


 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 307       Mon Jan 11, 1993
R.KLEIN11 [Rich]             at 02:28 EST

Two things:
 1) For a different (or perhaps not) perspective on the SSTO topic, see the
military RT, cat 2, topic 32, message 672.
 2) Can somebody answer some basic questions for me ?
        a) what are the densities of LH2 and LOX ?
        b) what is the mass ratio and payload to LEO of a 'typically'
(whatever that is) configured STS (i.e., space shuttle)?

[...there's been a lot of heat but not too much light shed on this topic, JP's
recent posts notwithstanding, so I'm trying to do some back of the envelope
calculations for myself...]
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 308       Sat Jan 16, 1993
T.TELENKO [Trent]            at 17:27 EST



  I have talked to someone in a position to know about the once classified
"Have Region" SSTO technical demonstration program. I found out the following:

 o The Have Region structural prototypes conclusivly demonstrated that a
rocket powered SSTO was possible given existing structure technology.

 o The "Have Region" prototypes **WERE NOT** advanced composites.

 o The "Have Region" prototype structures **WERE NOT** advanced metallic
honeycombs.

 o The "Have Region" structural materials were late 1960's to mid 1970's
aircraft structure i.e. early production F-14 and F-15 generation materials.

IMPLICATION:

  This relevation is *DEVESTATING* to NASA, if the information I have recieved
is true. It indicates that NASA was **NEVER** an efficient or indeed effective
in what it did, Moon shots included.

  The Space Shuttle was never ment to be an effective space truck.

  The materials available during the shuttle program's early days were
entirely sufficient for and SSTO type vehicle. NASA could have built one if it
were willing to close down large protions of it's Apollo created centers to
fund it and adopted a different vehicle design paradigm. The Shuttle was
intentionally created as a NASA continuous employment program, all other
requirements were secondary to that objective.  Space Station Freedom, by
extention, is just more of the same.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE:

  So where does that leave us?

  NASA has been against SSX/SSTO from the beginning. NASA Administrator
Goldin, who was once neutral on the SSX/SSTO has turned against it as a threat
to the NLS in it's New and Improved "Starlifter" guise. The USAF Space Systems
Division has signed on to the Spacelifter bandwagon and has effectively
silenced the user proponents inside the USAF who support the SSTO concept
inside the Space Command.

  However, all is not bleak. The Starlifter/NLS proposal was the last made by
V.P. Quayle's Space Council. The NLS has thus earned the onus of being "Dan
Quayle's Love Child" with the incoming administration.

  What concerned people need to do to support the SSTO concept is to call and
meet with there Congressmen, especially newly elected ones, and tell them
about this program that will "employ our downsizing defense dependent
aerospace industry in commercial work" launching satellites that Ariane stole
from U.S. industry.


BACKGROUND:

  The "Have Region" program was a "Black" project that was funded
 out of the NASP office using it's "Management Reserves" in the early
 to mid 1980's. It's results were used by a NASP program officer that
 transfered to SDIO to create the SSTO/SSRT program using leftover
 National Launch System money's.

  The "Have Region" program constructed subscale and full scale test
 articles of a projected SSTO for both integrel load bearing fuel
 tank structure and frame load bearing structure. These articles were
 tested to destruction. There tests support the conclusion that a
 rocket SSTO is within the state of the art.

 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 309       Sun Jan 17, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 18:00 EST

That is most interesting indeed, Trent.  My thanks for the posting!

Any idea what construction and material HAVE REGION was built upon? One of the
big objections I have always had to advanced composites is the difficulty in
maintaining them, and assuring structual integrity after impact or routine
wear and tear.  If more mundane materails and methods can be used that
objection certainly goes out the window in a helluva hurry!

Any ideas about cost?  Perhaps we could set up a simple cost model and try to
get a better handle on the cost numbers?   NASA might find they are in the
position of lacking a mission.  Couldnt happen to a nicer bunch.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 310       Fri Jan 29, 1993
JERRYP [Chaos Master]        at 08:32 EST

 I am posting in the SSTO topic a short answer to the demands for 'engineering
data' that are so often made here.
  It's long enough that I prefer to refer to it here rather than repeat it,
but it's relevant to both topics.

 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 311       Mon Feb 01, 1993
W.GOIN [WEGMAN]              at 19:50 EST

I should have brought this up earlier (the series is half over) but has anyone
seen 'THE X PLANES' on THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL (Sat. 9pm/Midnite Eastern).

First two were on the X-1, next was on the second generation X-Planes (X-1D,
B, C, E (might have one two many letters)) which worked up to Mach-2, the X-2
had an episode of its own and this week was a hodgepodge of eXperimental
aircraft including the X-3, which did NOT achieve its goals.

One concept came to mind - 'Even if it doesn't do what we think it will
doesn't mean it is a failure.  We might learn something else'.  Which was the
case with the X-3 STILETTO.  It was designed for Mach 2, but the engine
manufacturer couldn't come up with what was needed.  So Mach 1 was tough.

However, they were able to do a lot of research on something called 'inertia
coupling' which makes high speed aircraft difficult to control and was
beginning to kill pilots in production (F-86 I think) aircraft.  I think it
also killed an X-2 pilot.

So, although the X-3 did NOT come anywhere near its performance goals, it was
still exceptionally useful.

WEGMAN
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 312       Sat Feb 06, 1993
R.ALWAY                      at 10:44 EST

Rich- The density of liquid hydrogen is .070 grams per milliliter. which works
out to one fourteenth that of water.  Pretty fluffy stuff. The density of lox
is 1.149 grams per milliliter.  slightly denser than water.   A good reference
book for a lot of this kind of stuff is the  venerable Handbook of Chemistry
and Physics put out by The Chemical  rubber Company commonly known as CRC.
About $70+ and worth every penny. Sometimes you can get a student edition for
about half the price. The only difference I have seen is that the cheaper one
says "student edition" on the cover.  Good luck with your calculations!
    -Bob Alway
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 313       Sun Feb 07, 1993
D.ANDERMAN                   at 13:19 EST

From: Allen W. Sherzer

Bush put money in the SDIO budget to continue the SSRT program in the form of
either DC-Y or a 2/3 scale reusable suborbital vehicle called DC-X Prime.
However, there is a very good chance Clinton will remove this funding.

If you want to help keep Delta Clipper alive, please write to each of the
following people and ask for full funding of the SDIO SSRT program.


1. President Bill Clinton,1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington DC 20500

2. Vice President Al Gore, Office of the Vice President, Old Executive  Office
Building, Washington DC 20501.  In addition, send a letter to  Gore's Senate
office (not many write there so it has more impact) at:  Vice President Al
Gore, S-212, Washington DC 20510.

3. Secretary Less Aspin, Secretary of Defense, The Pentagon 3E880,  Washington
DC 20301.

4. Director Leon Panetta, Office of Management and Budget, Room 252  Old
Executive Office Building, 17TH Street & Pennsylvania Ave NW,  Washington DC
20503.

Ask them to support full funding for the SDIO Single Stage Rocket  Technology
Program and ask that DC-Y construction be made a  priority. If you only do one
thing to support this program, this  should be it.

Letters by people like you worked to keep the Delta Clipper alive when
Congress tried to kill it last June. More effort will be needed this time.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 314       Sun Feb 07, 1993
M.MEHL [Big Mike]            at 22:03 EST

D.Anderman:

        Do you have FAX numbers for the White House, DOD, and OMB? GEnie has,
or used to have, a FAX service, which would make it easy to send messages.
(The fax service is not part of basic services, I'm sure.)

                                                        Mike

 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 315       Mon Feb 08, 1993
H.VANDERBILT                 at 02:51 EST

Official Space Access Society Action Alert (Wow, that looks official!)


OK, folks, it's that time again.  I ran into that call to save SDIO SSRT from
Allen Sherzer, posted here on Genie by David Anderman earlier this evening.
I did some checking, and it indeed looks like a good time to crank up those
calls and letters and faxes.

Here's what's happening.  (Alphabet Soup Warning!)  SDIO is running SSRT, the
Single Stage Rocket Technology program, also known as DC-X.  SDIO is part of
DOD.  New Secretary of Defense Les Aspin has told DOD to come up with $11
billion in FY '94 budget cuts by Tuesday.  Literally by this coming Tuesday.
They're burning the midnight oil at the Pentagon this weekend, chopping
whatever doesn't fight back too hard.

SSRT funding for this year is not currently in danger.  That's already
budgeted for FY '93, which runs through next autumn.  The only thing that can
stop DC-X low-speed flight test this summer is a "recision", or executive
branch decision not to spend funds already authorized and appropriated by the
Congress.  That's not the problem right now, though it might yet crop up
later this year.

The problem here is that while SDIO wants to continue SSRT after DC-X,
possibly by starting work on a high speed (but still suborbital) SSTO testbed
called DC-X'' --DC-X Double Prime -- unfortunately this weekend could well
see SDIO gutted of everything not immediately concerned with near-term  ground-
based theatre missile defenses.  We need to save SDIO's ability to  continue
SSRT.

Allowing SSRT to continue and build DC-X Double-Prime would be a good thing.
It would keep the DC-X team together and let them gain high-speed (near
orbital velocity) reusable rocket experience at a relatively low cost.
They'd be ready to build a useful orbital vehicle at that point; all the data
and experience would be in hand.  DC-X'' would also be useful as a reusable
sounding rocket, but that's not the primary justification, as until we run
out of surplus military solid rocket stages sounding rockets will be pretty
cheap.

The preceding is so y'all know why you're being asked to do something.  As
usual, the actual message to be delivered should be kept simpler:

  --  SDIO's SSRT (Single Stage Rocket Technology) program is important to
the nation's future technological competitiveness, and should be continued
and expanded. --

Paraphrase.  Tell them why SSRT is important, that reusable launch vehicles
have potential to vastly reduce the cost of space access and that a US lead
in this technology could go a long way to restoring US international
aerospace competitiveness.

As for who to send this message to, start with: Secretary of Defense Les
Aspin, The Pentagon 3E880, Washington DC 20301.  Phone [phone], fax 703
697-9080.  Go for it.  As usual, be polite, concise, and organized; make your
point, not enemies.

More on this when I know more.

 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 316       Wed Feb 10, 1993
D.FINLEY3 [Doug /CA]         at 04:16 EST

    Big Mike, for the White House you no longer need no steenking fax, the
Clinton admin has added IDs on CI$ (75300,3115) & America OnLine (CLINTON PZ).
Either one can be E-mailed via the Internet gateway here, cheap.

    Henry, that's "rescission" as in "rescind." A word only bureaucrats use.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 317       Wed Feb 10, 1993
H.VANDERBILT                 at 21:08 EST

I'll add to that correction on recission; it turns out it's an action of
Congress, not of the Executive.  Not likely a problem for DC-X this year, but
you never know.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 318       Tue Feb 23, 1993
PRESS-8                      at 19:57 EST

Hello all,  I have been given this press account for a month courtesy of GENIE
and through the efforts of Dave Small and David Zimmerman.  Thanks to both.
I'll check in here once a week or so.   Unfortunately my schedule doesn't
really permit a lot of time on line, so I hope you all will forgive hasty
comments and replies.

I thought I would start by commenting on #308.  A few of the details are
slightly wrong.  The HAVE REGION effort was the hardware demonstration follow-
on to the SCIENCE REALM and SCIENCE DAWN programs of teh early 1980s.  There
was no    connectio to NASP whatever, from what I understand.

During H/R, there were tests of metallic honeycombs, done by Boeing Aerospace
in Kent, WA.  These were successful and showed that the Boeing RASV concept
was workable.  The other tests involved Lockheed (Skunk Works) and MacAir (St.
Louis) and also met mass goals but had minor or major failures (the latter in
the MacAir case).  They were essentially conventional structures.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 319       Wed Feb 24, 1993
H.VANDERBILT                 at 01:14 EST

Hi, Press-8.  Thanks for the HAVE REGION info.  Any chance you could tell us
who's the man behind the mask?  The only way I know on Genie to find out more
about an ID costs money <grin>
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 320       Wed Feb 24, 1993
D.HARTSOCK [Dana]            at 07:43 EST

Welcome Gary, I for one am happy to see you here. Your name has come up often
in conversation on space related topics and it is wonderful to meet you in
this virtual reality.

Dana
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 321       Thu Feb 25, 1993
DAVIDBE                      at 22:06 EST

Date:     Thu Feb 25, 1993 11:24 am  MST
 From:     Charles J. Divine

TO:     * David Brandt-Erichsen / MCI ID: 549-4743

Subject:  Help needed to support Delta Clipper. (fwd)

This is not an official NSS alert.

This project is one effort addressing our most crucial problem -- the cost of
reaching LEO -- and is fully deserving of our support.

Noting Democrats' hostility to SDI, letter writers might consider putting
forward the information that the SDI program is supporting much excellent
research and development that will have benefits far beyond SDI.  The SSTO
program is one such effort.

Forwarded message:
 > From [e-mail] Thu Feb 25 11:01:49 1993
 > Date: Thu, 25 Feb 93 10:52:56 -0500
 > From: "Allen W. Sherzer" <[e-mail]>
 > Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
 > To: [e-mail]
 > Subject: Help needed to support Delta Clipper.


 In the next few days Al Gore will be meeting with his science
 advisor John Gibbon. They will be deciding on funding levels for
 some key programs. SSTO is one of the issues being decided on.
 We need to get at least $50 million allocated so that requirements
 can be completed and preliminary design finished. For $100M they
 cold also build prototypes to answer all open questions about
 feasibility. There are already people inside the Science Advisor's
 office pushing SSTO but there is an urgent need to show VP Gore
 that there is public support for this effort.

Please call Gore's offices at: [phone] and [phone]
 and ask Gore to fund the SDIO SSRT program and support SSTO research.  You
can also write to VP Al Gore, Room S-212, US Senate, Washington DC 20510. This
address is more effective than his VP office because not many people write
there.

   Allen

 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 322       Sat Feb 27, 1993
DAVESMALL                    at 23:35 EST

[ PRESS-8 is Gary Hudson, well known in SSTO/VTOL; I've managed to bring him
online with promises that some people think like he does ... ]

Given Jerry's note (good stuff in there, saving it), the timing is right.

What amazes me is that the hacker community, many of whom made quite a bit
during the boom years, can't come up with enough money to fund Gary and SSTO-
related research. What's a few million dollars to some of our errr, wealthier
programmers? Compared to the change in history they'll make if Phoenix flies
(whether or not McDonnell builds it, or Gary, doesn't matter as much; Gary won
when his design was approved.)

Everybody knows everybody, essentially, through one or two intermediaries.
Might be worth checking with people in your local club.

I don't want to see Phoenix get NASA'd.

 -- thanks, Dave Small / Gadgets by Small RT Sysop

p.s. Would I ever *love* to have an Real Time Conference about the latest from
Hudson Engineering  ... I've been working over some files for just that
purpose.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 323       Sun Feb 28, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 01:39 EST

I second your welcome Dave.  Good to see you aboard, Gary!
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 324       Sun Feb 28, 1993
PRESS-8                      at 19:14 EST

Thanks all.  BTW, Boz, those Russian videos at Making Orbit were spectacular!
Unfortunately, I was only able to catch an hour or so, but did get to see the
N1 launch and the Buran in the afterburner takeoff.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 325       Sun Feb 28, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 19:59 EST

My thanks gary.  Sadly I received another N-1 launch film, FAR better than
anything I showed at the meeting, but it arrived the day I was at the
convention.  It is the fourth launch in 1972.  The launch explosion was the
first vehicle, and the film I showed was of the third launch.  It is pretty
easy to tell if you are seeing either the first or second launch or the third
and fourth launch. Vehicles one and two were painted white, while the third
and fourth boosters were painted grey.  The film that arrived too late to show
also teld us what happened to the remains of the vehicles that were ready to
fly when the program was cancelled: The body sections and fuel tank halves
were used as sun shades for swine!  At least we had the civility to use our
lunar boosters as lawn decorations so folks can at least stare at what once
was.  The Soviets destroyed virtually everything that cold have been used to
trace te history of the program.

Another interesting detail has recently surfaced on N-1: It was first designed
for an aerospike engine system.  It was only after the death of Korolov that
the aerospike was deleted in favor of the 30 engine cluster we saw in the
finished booster.  In many ways the N-1 was quite advanced.  One wonders what
the design details of the aerospike were, and what finally made them drift
away from its use. If you look at the N-1 one is reminded of a Phoenix type
vehicle on steroids.  The cone shape of the first stage was designed around
the engine system.  It was, in part, the aerospike cancelation that killed the
program as an effective booster.  If the Sovs had plowed the money for the
independant Chelomei lunar effort into the N-1 (BTW, the complete designation
for the system was the N1L3S complex)
 and taken a more conservative approach to the lunar mission it is very
possible that the Soviets could have beaten us to the Moon.

Alexi Leonov was quite certain that with the proper development the lunar
effort would have worked.  Alexi should know, he was scheduled to be the first
man to land on the Moon had the Soviet plans worked.

The complete story of the early days of the spaceage have yet to be told.  I
only hope that someone will attempt to dig up and preserve the history of the
early Soviet space efforts.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 326       Sun Feb 28, 1993
D.HARTSOCK [Dana]            at 20:23 EST

I am curious as to how thermal loads are to be handled by MacDoug if it comes
time to build a sub-orbital or orbital DC-?.

Dana
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 327       Mon Mar 15, 1993
RSEVERY [Randall]            at 17:48 EST

 I just received this from the Internet this afternoon.  I thought some of you
 might be interested....

 Cheers....   Randall Severy

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-

 From: [e-mail] (Andy Cohen)
 Newsgroups: sci.space
 Subject: DC-X
 Followup-To: sci.space
 Date: 12 Mar 1993 22:51:22 GMT
 Organization: MDA-W

 I had the incredible honor to get a detailed tour of the Delta Clipper-X...
  and I'd like to try sharing some of it with you all....

 I went over there on my daily lunch time walk-by and saw a group of MDA
 folk getting a tour ..... so I ...walked over and joined them....
 I got to hear the end of the description of how the hydraulic system on the
 engine gimbles work....We were then invited to climb the stairs to get a
 closer look at the upper sections...some of the buildings here are tall and
 made for working on titans and deltas.....  The interior of the DC-X was
 exposed with the exterior-Dick Rutan-produced shell standing on it's German
 produced landing gear off to the side...  I got a closeup view of the
 Oxygen tank which looked like it came from a titan booster or possibly a
 delta-large cylindrical and takes up at least 2/3 of the interior...  The
 sperical hydrogen tanks are in a framework which sits on top of the O2
 tank. The same framework has a platform over the H2 tanks which house the
 avionics...which are off the shelf from the F-15 program.  I also got to
 see the hydraulics for the side flaps.... Everything is literally
 OFF-THE-SHELF....rivets, connectors...cables are longer than they needed to
 be just in case of a design change.....DC-X is a perfect example of
 concurrent engineering in the extreme!

 The outside shell is square on the bottom and narrows at the top to a
 circle.  Each side has a large flap which is used like the stabilizer on a
 jet to control the DC.....along with the flaps, and the engine gimbeling,
 the tour guide told me that the engines are throttled at different rates to
 also control DC direction...the use of all three are supposed to be enough
 to.....turn it around for a landing.......

 The landing gear are not strong enough to hold a fully loaded
 DC-X...instead a launch frame holds the infrastructure and during flight at
 some point the foor "legs" extract then help absorb shock at
 landing...along with the engines......

 We were standing at the opening of the building looking at the landing gear
 when.....Pete Conrad strolled by and went into a trailer....  I immediately
 realized that the trailer housed the launch control system..... After
 telling the tour guide of the support for DC-X coming from the people here
 at sci.space I asked if I could go into the control trailer....  It was
 great!  a set of Silicon Graphics workstations all with highly interactive,
 graphical representations of the DC-X flight systems..all running a liftoff
 simulation and tied directly to the avionics on the real bird.....Pete's
 console had a display of an ADI-like presentation to give some idea of the
 reliationship of DC-X orientation with the Earth surface.  There were
 graphical representations of the engines and the flaps too......it was a
 lot like what I and my team have been developing for SSF.

 The team in the trailer were happy to exchange technical details.... I told
 them that I'd trade my slot on SSF for a seat, but they all.....laughed!

 They were MOST interested in hearing about YOUR support.

 I agreed to carry hard copies of posts from here to their facility as a
 morale booster.....they say they work 40 hour days there....... and are
 looking forward to months in the desert.......They do not know about how
 this communitee feels about their efforts...so SPEAK UP!!

 I will be uploading for FTP more stuff....stay tuned!!  Just 3 more weeks
 to the rollout!!!


 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 328       Mon Mar 15, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 18:55 EST

Thanks for the report Randall!  Wish I could have been there.  Keep up the
great work!
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 329       Mon Mar 15, 1993
D.HARTSOCK [Dana]            at 19:57 EST

That is terrific Randall, really appreciate your descriptions!

Is Gary Hudson still checking in here? Gary, assuming you still stick your
head in here, what prompted you to work on a winged SSTO design? Are we
talking a VTOHL  spacecraft?

I know I was surprised by the MacDoug VTOVL design. My first reaction was how
in the heck were they expecting to make it work. Upon  learning more I began
to believe it was doable but as you remarked earlier, people are going to feel
more comfortable in a winged  design. You made some comments about limited
hover time. Are you speaking to the DC-Y iteration? I guess I am holding out
for some form of powered descent, I have been assuming your winged design is
unpowered during descent?

Dana
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 330       Tue Mar 16, 1993
J.GRANT1 [JohnG aka DC]      at 03:21 EST

Thanks Randall!
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 332       Thu Mar 18, 1993
RSEVERY [Randall]            at 17:39 EST

 Newsgroups: sci.space
 From: [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer)
 Subject: SSTO: A Spaceship for the rest of us
 Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
 Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 21:45:22 GMT


 [First of two papers on SSTO. This is also the draft NSS position
   paper on SSTO]


                             SSTO
                A Spaceship for the Rest of US

 Introduction
 Space is an important and growing segment of the U.S.
 economy.  The U.S.   space market is currently over $5
 billion per year, and growing.  U.S. satellites, and to a
 lesser degree U.S. launch services, are used throughout the
 world and are one of the bright stars in the U.S. balance of
 trade.

 The future is even brighter.  The space environment promises
 new developments in materials, drugs, energy, and resources,
 which will open up whole new industries for the United
 States.  This will translate into new jobs and higher
 standards of living not only for Americans but for the rest
 of the world's people.

 Standing between us  and these new industries is the
 obstacle presented by the high cost of putting people and
 payloads into space.  This paper addresses the reasons why
 access to space is so expensive and how those costs might be
 reduced by looking at the problem in a different way.

 Finally, this paper will describe a radical new spacecraft
 currently under development.  Called Single Stage to Orbit
 (SSTO), it promises to greatly reduce costs and increase
 flexibility.

 Access to Space: Expensive and Dangerous
 Access to space today is very expensive, complex, and
 dangerous  With U.S.  expendable launchers like Atlas,
 Delta, and Titan, it generally costs about $3,000  to $8,000
 to put a pound of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO).  In
 addition, U.S.  expendables require extensive ground
 infrastructure to do final assembly and payload integration
 and complex launch facilities to actually launch the rocket.
 Finally, despite all the extra care and effort, they don't
 work very well and even the best launchers fail about 3% of
 the time (would you go to work tomorrow if there was a 3%
 chance of your car exploding?).

 Even the U.S. Space Shuttle, which was supposed to give the
 U.S. routine low cost access to space, has failed.  A
 Shuttle flight costs about $500 million (roughly $10,000 per
 pound to LEO).  Even going full out, NASA can only launch
 each  Shuttle about twice a year (for a total of eight
 flights).

 The effects of these high costs go deeper than the price tag
 for the launches themselves.  Space equipment is much more
 expensive than comparable equipment meant for use on Earth,
 even when tasks are similar and the Earthly environments are
 harsh.  The difference is that space equipment must be as
 lightweight as humanly possible and must be as close as
 humanly possible to 100% reliability.  Both of these extra
 requirements are ultimately problems of access to space: if
 every extra pound costs thousands of dollars, and replacing
 or repairing a failed satellite is impossibly expensive,
 then efforts to reduce weight and improve reliability make
 sense.  Unfortunately, they also greatly increase price.

 With equipment so expensive, obviously building extra copies
 is costly, and launching them is even worse.  This
 encourages space projects to try to get by with as few
 satellites as possible.  Alas, this can backfire: when
 something does go wrong, there isn't any safety margin...as
 witness the U.S.'s shortage of weather satellites at this
 time.  Expensive access to space not only produces costly
 projects, it produces fragile projects that assume no
 failures, because safety margins are too expensive.
 Lamentably, failures do happen.

 Finally, although research in space holds great promise for
 new scientific discoveries and new industries, it is
 progressing at a snail's pace, and companies and researchers
 often lose interest early.  Why?  Because effective research
 requires better access to space.  Scientific discoveries
 seldom come as the result of single experiments: even when a
 single experiment is crucial, typically there is a long
 series of experiments leading up to it and following through
 on it.  And getting the "bugs" out of a new industrial
 process almost always requires a lot of testing.  But how
 can such work be done if you only get to fly one experiment
 every five years?  Good researchers and innovative companies
 often decide that it's better to avoid space research,
 because it costs too much and takes too long.   The ones who
 haven't abandoned space research are looking hard at buying
 flights on Russian or Chinese spacecraft: despite technical
 and political obstacles, they can fly their experiments more
 often that way.

 People excuse this because it has always been this way and
 so probably always will be (after all, this is rocket
 science).  But there are a lot of reasons to think that it
 needn't be so complex and expensive.

 Spacecraft are complex, expensive, and built to aerospace
 tolerances but they are not the only products of that nature
 we use.  A typical airliner costs about the same as a
 typical launcher.  It has a similar number of parts and is
 built to similar tolerances.  The amount of fuel a launcher
 burns to reach orbit is about the same as an airliner burns
 to go from North America to Ausralia.  Looked at this way,
 it would seem that the cost of getting into orbit should be
 much closer to the $1500 it takes to get to Australia than
 to the $500 million dollars plus it takes to put an
 astronaut up.

 Why the differences in cost?  Largely they are due to
 different solutions to the same problems.  Some of these
 differences are:

 1.  Throw away hardware.  A typical expendable launch
 vehicle costs anywhere from $50 to $200 million to build
 (about the cost of a typical airliner) yet it is used  one
 time and then thrown away.  Even the 'reusable' Space
 Shuttle throws away most of its weight in the form of an
 expendable external tank and salvageable solid rocket
 motors.  This is the single biggest factor in making access
 to space   expensive.

 Airlines use reusable hardware and fly their aircraft
 several times every day.  This allows them to amortize the
 cost of the aircraft over literally thousands of passenger
 flights.  The entire Shuttle fleet flies only eight times a
 year, while many airliners fly more than eight times per
 day.

 2.  Redundant Hardware and Checks.  Since expendable
 launchers are used one time and then thrown away, they
 cannot be test-flown; huge amounts of effort therefore go
 into making sure they will work correctly.  Since the
 payloads they launch are typically far more expensive than
 the launcher (a typical communication satellite can cost
 three times the cost of the launcher) millions can be and
 are spent on every launch to obtain very small increases in
 reliability.  This is well beyond the point of diminishing
 returns and sometimes results in greater harm.  For example,
 a couple of years ago a Shuttle Orbiter was almost damaged
 when it was rotated from horizontal to vertical with a loose
 work-platform support still in its engine compartment.  The
 support should have been removed beforehand...and three
 signatures said it had been.

 Airliners, since they are reusable and can also be tested
 before use, thus are able to be built to more relaxed
 standards without sacrificing safety.  The exact same
 aircraft flew to get to your airport and it is likely that
 any failure would already have been noticed.  In addition,
 aircraft are built with redundancy so they can survive
 malfunctions; launchers usually are not.  Most in-flight
 failures of airliners result, at most, in delays and
 inconvenience for the passengers; most in-flight failures of
 launchers result in complete loss of launcher and payload.

 3.  Pushing the Envelope on Hardware.  Current launchers
 tend to use hardware that is run all the time at the outside
 limit of its capability.  This may be fine for expendable
 launchers which are used one time and don't need to be
 repaired for reuse.  But this has also tended to carry over
 to the Shuttle which, for example, operates its main engines
 at around 100% of its rated thrust (this is like driving
 your car 55 MPH in first gear all the time).  Because the
 hardware is used to its limit every time, it needs extensive
 checkout after every flight and frequent repair.

 Airliners tend to be much more conservative in their use of
 hardware.  Engines are used at far less than their full
 rated thrust and airframes are stressed for greater loads
 then they ever see.  This results in less wear and tear
 which means they work with greater reliability and fewer
 repairs.

 4.  Labor Requirements.  For all of the reasons given above,
 existing launchers require vast amounts of human labor to
 fly.  The efforts of about 6,000 people are needed to keep
 the Shuttle flying.  This represents a huge expense and is
 amortized only over eight or so Shuttle flights every year.

 Airliners are far more streamlined and, for the reasons
 given above, don't need nearly as many people.  A typical
 airliner only has 150 people supporting it, including
 baggage handlers, flight crews, ticketing people, and
 administration.  Since the cost of those 150 people are
 amortized over thousands of flights per year, the cost per
 flight is very low.

 Our current  launchers are expensive and complex vehicles.
 Yet the fact that we routinely use vehicles with similar
 cost and complexity for far less cost indicate that the
 causes of high launch costs lie elsewhere.  If we looked at
 the problem in a different way, we could try to build
 launchers the same way Boeing builds airliners.  The next
 section will describe just such a launcher and how it is
 being built.

 A Spaceship that Runs Like an Airliner: SSTO
 For a long time, some launcher designers have realized that
 designing launchers the way airliners are designed would
 result in lower costs.  Several designs have been proposed
 over the years and they are generally referred to as Single
 Stage to Orbit (SSTO) launchers.

 1.  Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO).  Unlike an existing
 launcher which has multiple stages, a SSTO launcher has only
 one stage.  This results in far lower operational costs and
 are key to reusability.  Conventional launchers need
 expensive assembly buildings to stack the stages together
 before going to the launch pad.  An SSTO only has one stage,
 so these facilities are not needed.  This means that the
 only infrastructure needed to launch a SSTO is a concrete
 pad and a fuel truck.

 2.  Built for Ease of Use.  SSTO vehicles are built to be
 operated like airliners.  They can fly multiple times with
 no other maintenance needed other than refueling.  If a
 problem is discovered, all components can be accessed with
 ease (by design).  The defective Line Replaceable Unit (LRU)
 is replaced and launch can occur with only a short delay.
 If the problem is more complex or other maintenance is
 needed, the SSTO is towed to a hanger where the easy
 accessibility of parts insures rapid turnaround.

 3.  Standard Payload Interface.  Payloads need access to
 services like power, cooling, life support, etc., while
 waiting for launch.  The interfaces which provide these
 services are not standardized, adding cost and complexity to
 existing launchers.  In effect, part of the launcher must be
 redesigned for each and every launch.  SSTOs, however, would
 be designed with standard payload interfaces.  This allows
 payload integration to occur hours before launch instead of
 weeks before launch.  (Although in all fairness, the makers
 of expendable launchers are also slowly moving in this
 direction).

 4.  Built to be tested.  Unlike expendables, SSTO vehicles
 do not have to be perfect the first time.  Like airliners,
 they can survive most failures.  Like airliners, they can be
 tested again and again to find and fix problems before real
 payloads and passengers are entrusted to them.  Even when a
 failure does occur with a real payload aboard, usually
 neither the vehicle nor the payload will be lost.  The
 reliability of SSTO vehicles should be close to that of
 airliners -- a loss rate of essentially zero -- and far
 better than the 3% loss rate of existing launchers.


 SDIO Single Stage Rocket Technology Program
 Recent advances in engine technology and materials have made
 most critics believe that the technology is now available to
 build a SSTO.  In 1989, SDIO recognized the potential of
 this approach and commissioned a study to assess its risk.
 The study concluded that a SSTO vehicle is possible today.
 As a result of this study, SDIO initiated the Single Stage
 Rocket Technology Program  (SSRT).  The goal of the three
 phase SSRT program is to build a SSTO, thus providing
 routine cheap access to space.

 Phase I consisted of four study contracts to develop a
 baseline design for a SSTO.  General Dynamics and McDonnell
 Douglas proposed vehicles which both take off and land
 vertically (like a helicopter).  Rockwell proposed a vehicle
 which takes off vertically but lands horizontally (like the
 Space Shuttle does today).  Finally, Boeing proposed a
 vehicle which both takes off and lands horizontally (like a
 conventional aircraft).

 In August 1991, SDIO selected the McDonnell Douglas vehicle
 (dubbed Delta Clipper) for Phase II development, and
 contracted for the construction of a 1/3 scale prototype
 vehicle called DC-X.  This prototype is currently under
 development and should begin flying in April, 1993.

 DC-X will provide little science data but a wealth of
 engineering data.  It will validate the basic concepts of
 SSTO vehicles and demonstrate the ground and maintenance
 procedures critical to any successful orbital vehicle.

 Phase III of the program will develop a full scale prototype
 vehicle called DC-Y.  DC-Y will reach orbit with a
 substantial payload, hoped to be close to 20,000 lbs,  and
 demonstrate total reusability.  In addition, McDonnell
 Douglas will begin working with the government to develop
 procedures to certify Delta Clipper like an airliner so it
 can be operated in a similar manner.

 Phase III was scheduled to begin in September of 1993 but
 SDIO will not be able to fund the Phase III vehicle.  There
 is some interest in parts of the Air Force and it is hoped
 that they will fund DC-Y development.  It will be a great
 loss for America if they do not.

 After Phase III, it will be time to develop an operational
 Delta Clipper launcher based on the DC-Y.  At this point
 government funding shouldn't be needed any longer and the
 free market can be expected to fund final development.

 Conclusion
 If a functional Delta Clipper is ever produced it will have
 a profound impact on all activities conducted in space.  It
 will render all other launch vehicles in the world obsolete
 and regain for the United States 100% of the western launch
 market (half of which has been lost to competition from
 Europe and China).  It will allow the United States to open
 up a new era for mankind, and regain our once commanding
 lead in space technology.

 --
 +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 | Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
 |  [e-mail]     |  nothing undone"                                       |
 +----------------------91 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX-----------------------+


 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 333       Thu Mar 18, 1993
RSEVERY [Randall]            at 17:40 EST

 From: [e-mail] (Andy Cohen)
 Newsgroups: sci.space
 Subject: Single Stage Rocket Technology
 Date: 17 Mar 1993 17:10:37 GMT
 Organization: MDA-W

 The following comes from the Delta Clipper public relations
 flier....enjoy....

 Single Stage to Orbit

 Single Stage Rocket Technology ProgramQBreaking the
 SSTO Barrier

 What Is Single Stage to Orbit?

 Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) is the capability to take off from earth,
 achieve earth orbit, and return to land with the same vehicle. SSTO
 capability, which includes safe abort and return to base any time
 during launch, is a breakthrough in launch vehicle technology and
 operations. In the highly competitive international launch service
 business, SSTO provides this nation the low-cost advantage.

 MDSSC's SSTO craft, named the Delta Clipper, is designed for
 vertical take-off and landing. It is capable of placing 20,000 Ib. of
 payload in low earth orbit or 10,000 Ib. in polar orbit. The reusable
 craft is propelled by liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen rocket engines.

 The Delta Clipper design achieves airplane-like operations for
 rapid vehicle turnaround and low cost per flight. Delta Clipper
 meets the broad set of civil, commercial, and military space
 requirements. It will enable safe, low-cost transfer of people and
 cargo to and from space, dramatically increasing the potential
 uses of space travel.

 Why SSTO Now?

 The idea of building a single-stage-to-orbit rocket is not new. Thirty
 years ago, SSTO concepts were assessed and found to be
 infeasible. Since then, advances made in materials, structural
 designs, aerodynamics, propulsion, high-speed processing, and
 autonomous control have made possible a lightweight, rugged
 vehicleQthe Delta ClipperQwhich is capable of carrying out
 responsive and sustained operations.

 What is the Singie Stage Rocket Technology Program?

 The Single Stage Rocket Technology program is an SD10 initiative
 to demonstrate technology readiness. Under a 2-year, $58-million
 Phase 11 contract, MDSSC and its teammates are using a rapid
 prototype approach to design and build a one-third-size
 experimental vehicle the DC-X, and ground support and
 operations systems which, through a series of suborbital flights,
 will:

 % Verify vertical takeoff and landing

 % Demonstrate subsonic maneuverability

 % Validate "airplane-like" supportability/maintainability
 concepts

 % Demonstrate rapid prototyping development approach

 Demonstration flights start in the spring of 1993 at White Sands
 Missile Range in New Mexico. Results from flight and ground
 turnaround tests will be used in a follow-on program. Follow-on
 options include: (l) An SD10 program to develop a suborbital
 reusable rocket for SD10 systems testing; (2) A national program to
 develop a full-scale orbital prototype called the DC-Y.

 The Delta Clipper Team
 MCDONNELL DOUGLAS SPACE SYSTEMS COMPANY
 Douglas Aircraft Co. % McDonnell Aircraft Co. % McDonnell Douglas
 Electronic Systems Co.
 McDonnell Douglas Missile Systems Co. % McDonnell Douglas Research
 Laboratories
 Pratt & Whitney % Scaled Composites
 Aerojet % Eagle Engineering % Harris % Honeywell
 Martin Marietta % Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm
 Fluor Daniel % SpaceGuild

 MDSSC is now MDA or McDonnell Douglas Astronautics.
 SSTO is now SSRT or Single Stage Rocket Technology.

 I got detailed vugraphs which I'll be scanning in and translating to GIF
 files....
 WHERE DO YOU GUYS WANT EM FTP'd TO???????


 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 334       Sun Mar 21, 1993
PRESS-8                      at 23:46 EST

Yeah, I still stick my nose in here; just been away for a few days travel, and
my modem isn't functioning in the laptop.

As I have said over in topic #28, I don't care how the machine flys, VTOL,
HTOL or something in between, so long as it does the job.  But I focused on
VTOL during the last two decades becasue it could have been done with the
proven airframe technology and propulsion of the day.

My switching to HTOL is acutally not new (I did studies on same back in 1972),
but rather was prompted by several factors. Among these factors was the
advances in structural concepts which would be applied to winged vehicles.
Also important was the reduction in vehicle thrust/weight which is made
possible by use of wings.  Another factor was the results of detailed
trajectory programs which show a 1000 fps delta v reduction for an HTOL vs a
VTOL, not to mention the advantages a winged body has during re-entry and
landing in winds.  Finally, the capability to operate from rather conventional
runways while bearing a "November" number just like a conventional aircraft
was very appealing.

Gary C. Hudson
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 335       Mon Mar 22, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 01:15 EST

I see only one problem with your analysis Gary.  If the vehicle carries an "N"
number (N being the international designation for US aircraft) is the fact the
FAA assigns N numbers, and frankly I am not at all sure I want the FAA
involved with space operations. Speaking as a pilot I really do not hold the
FAA management in high regard.  You think NASA can be difficult?  Try the FAA!
How much do you think it will cost for a type certificate of airworthyness for
a vehicle the FAA has never seen before, and works in such an unusual
environment?  My guess is a lot of millions.  In addition you have the
additional problem of product liability.  Neither process is liable to be
cheap or easy.  But I openly admit these are political, not engineering
problems.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 336       Mon Mar 22, 1993
M.HUTCHINSO2 [Mardy in YUL]  at 22:01 EST

  Intuitively, a winged transport from ground to LEO makes sense.

  1) Lower Thrust required.  Same impulse, but don't need it all at once.  If
we're really serious about getting significant numbers of people into space,
then the G forces will have to be reduced.

  2) Max Q can be offset by simply 'sailing' out of the atmosphere, at nice
comfy Mach numbers.  The reduction in pressure is probably more than offset by
the temperature rise tho...

  3) Fail-softer:  Upon engine out, the wings will permit you to land a little
softer, with much more control.  Better cross-range under normal operating
conditions.

  4) Possiblity of 'free' oxidizer.  While in atmosphere, some of it could be
sucked in, and burned.  Don't have to carry it.  Who is it that said "free
oxidizer isn't worth the price?"


   You know, it just might work, if scram jets are used in the atmosphere, and
rockets, once those are no longer effective.

   Upon take-off, the rockets would have to be fired to get up to ram/scram
operating speed. Alternatively, you could use a ubiquitous 747 to tow the
rocket-plane to a good altitude and speed.

Regards -- Mardy
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 337       Mon Mar 22, 1993
PRESS-8                      at 23:54 EST

Art, I'd rather have the FAA (via an "experimental" registration) involved
than the Office of Space Transportation of the DoT,  which is now in charge of
space launch.  They charge steep fees to approve EVERY flight, plus can take
uup to 6 months by law to approve each flight, etc.  They are a disaster for a
private firm doing a rocketplane!  What I'm most concerned with right now is
the development period of my SkyRocket demonstrator...the matter of an
operational vehicle is of  less concern, and such a vehicle would likely
require some form of certification, no doubt.  But who says I have to  operate
in the US?   Frankly, the whole regulatory business is a mess, and I
publically apologize for having helped get the new DoT office established (the
alternative was letting NASA run things).

Mardy, I'M the guy who said that free oxygen from the air isn't worth it!  I
still believe that the NASP/scramjet approach is wrong.  I might buy off on
some hydrocarbon burning ramjet assist up to M3-4, but no higher.  To get to
orbit the only solution worth the trouble is an essentially pure rocket, maybe
with a bit of augenting duct, but toss out those scramjet plans!

Gary C. Hudson
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 338       Tue Mar 23, 1993
S.SCHAPER [Meneldil]         at 01:15 EST

Mardy,
  You could use a liquid air system for the oxidizer with a pulse jet such as
it is suspected Aurora and the British Hotol use/were to use, and that the
Japanese are working on.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 339       Tue Mar 23, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 01:30 EST

Gary, I certainly wont argue about the DOT, but if you license an vehicle as
experimental, you can not fly it for hire or profit. This might put a cramp on
operations.  Sooner or later we will have to deal with government regulation.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 340       Tue Mar 23, 1993
M.HUTCHINSO2 [Mardy in YUL]  at 22:27 EST

Gary,

   It was my intention to use the 'free oxygen' for comfy Mach numbers.  Mach
3-4 fits nicely, and you can get quite high doing that.  Once you've passed a
significant fraction of the atmosphere, then you can engage your pure rockets
under near-vacuum conditions.

   Of course, if you're only going to Mach 4, then you can use the much more
efficient turbine type engines.  (Also known as jets).

   But, this is a description of a two stage craft.  You might be better off
in this scenario to discard (for re-use) a portion of your drive system.


Regards -- Mardy
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 341       Tue Mar 23, 1993
M.HUTCHINSO2 [Mardy in YUL]  at 23:03 EST

Meneldil,

   You still have to carry liquid air.  Air breathers can gain a large
fraction of their reactants from the atmosphere.

   In a pure LOH/LOX rocket, the ratios are 1/8 in weight.  In other words,
you would have to carry only 1/9 as much propellant for air breathers.

   This ability to traverse large amounts of atmosphere would also give the
capability of changing the orbital inclination, almost for no cost.  You would
just fly to the equator if you wanted an equitorial orbit.


Regards -- Mardy
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 342       Wed Mar 24, 1993
S.SCHAPER [Meneldil]         at 01:01 EST

I was thinking that a liquid air using engine was an air-breather.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 343       Sat Mar 27, 1993
PRESS-8                      at 00:28 EST

Boz, I was aware of the limits on "for hire" use of aircraft with an
"experimental" certification.  But you could get away with carrying a logo for
a sponsor, as an example.  Voyager proved that.  And the rule allows persons
flying on board to pay for costs of operation.  That might be helpful.  But in
the end you are absolutely right; this is why we will ultimately operate
somewhere else...

Mardy, it will amuse you to note that I have spent the last six months
foooling with ground and air-launched rocketplanes which have air-augmented
rocket engines, and have also incorporated tubofans as superchargers, along
with some kerosene duct burners in the air-augmented duct.  I can lower mass
ratios to about 5.5:1, provide kerosene-powered turbofans for landing and
ferry, and operate witha  propellant mass fraction of about 0.83-0.86. Worth
further analysis.  (Avoid LH2 burning with air, however, since this increases
H2 tank volume upwards of 30%.)
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 344       Sat Mar 27, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 01:46 EST

I hope you didnt think you could not put a sponcers name on an experimental
aircraft.  I hope that isnt what I said!  Best look! ;-)
 Check the pits at the Reno air races.  There are rafts of experimental racers
looking like flying billboards.  But, you can not hire an experimental arcraft
to haul freight or passengers for hire.  Sorry for the confusion.

But, the bottom line we both agree on is simple: We have to have a stable,
reliable, affordable and non intrusive regulatory policy if we are to do
anything useful in commercial space.  I honestly dont think that will happen
any time soon, but I would be happy as hell to be proven wrong.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 345       Sat Mar 27, 1993
M.HUTCHINSO2 [Mardy in YUL]  at 21:45 EST

Press-8 --- Right on!!  (I'm amused)

   Any other details you can give about your 'Kerosene-powered turbofans'?
(Sounds an awful lot like a jet engine to me..., especially when used for
'ferry')

   Interesting that you note that LH2 causes more trouble than its worth, at
least for atmospheric use.

Regards -- Mardy
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 346       Sat Mar 27, 1993
D.BURCH [Ben]                at 23:25 EST

Gary,

 You know, Mexico might be a good venue for spacecraft research in the era of
NAFTA.  There is rail service from the States, open areas for a launch site,
and even local technical personnel.  One thing that they don't have is a good
telephone system, but that can be worked around.

 -Ben
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 347       Sun Mar 28, 1993
PRESS-8                      at 18:15 EST

Boz, sorry for the confusion: I did understand the rules about carrying
passengers or freight for hire...just wasn't clear in my comments.

Mardy, sometimes aerospacespeak gets to even me, and I start calling things
"kerosene fueled turbofans" when I should say jet engines.  The reason for the
kerosene is actually two-fold one being that kerosene is available everywhere,
so if we end up at some god-forsaken field in the middle of nowhere we can
still get out.  The other is that hydrogen is so bulkly that it means a
largere vehicle if we begin to use it for the air- breathers as well (not to
mention the need to requalify same for H2).

Ben, I have been seriously considering Baja as an operational site for just
the reasons you have mentioned!

Gary C. Hudson
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 348       Tue Mar 30, 1993
DAVESMALL                    at 01:57 EST

As a neophyte to this area (I hang out inside of 68000 CPU's), I'm unfamiliar
with the protocols here.

 Is it considered normal for Mac Doug to build something that looks to my
extremely untrained eye like Gary Hudson's Phoenix? The man spent decades
trying to sell that sensible design. Now SDIO did it, but he doesn't even get
a consulting contract.

 I believe in committee records the remarkable design coincidences are
mentioned, and that possibly I remember that an origin of those designs was
Gary Hudson. There were many Phoenix designs over the year.

 Now, if this is just common stuff, fine.

 It hacks me off.

 While I am personally glad to see the craft flown, and that is a victory for
Gary and his ideas, it is not a victory for him financially, nor for all his
work. And it sounds like the prototype has a limited future. Good heavens, the
scary future proposed by Fallen Angels, of parking the thing at Edwards,
sounds more likely by the moment.

 Anyway ... I know how look and feel is debated in the computer industry. I'm
working on protecting an entirely new paradigm for computer storage right now
(drawing flowcharts, for pete's sakes). But I don't know how it is handled in
this community, which in many ways resembles the one I'm visiting from.

 I think there is no excuse for at least naming the craft "Hudson"; Hudson is a
perfectly good explorer's name. And if my feelings are right, there might be
something gained by talking loudly about just who designed most of this craft
and spent 20 years "in the wilderness" talking SSTO/VTOL to people who would
not listen. It would make a most interesting story outside of aerospace
circles.

 Clue me in, will you? Damnit, I can't see Kelly Johnson doing something like
this, and he's my benchmark. My wife's dad ejected out of one of the few SR's
that ever went down (fire onboard) and she sat in an SR cockpit at age 5
(don't touch THAT button, dear). She knows Edwards real well. (I owe my wife
and kids to the SR ejection seat system.)

   It's easy to shrug and be cynical, but every now and then one of those
rusty ol' knights with a bent lance takes out a windmill.


 -- thanks, Dave / Gadgets by Small RT Sysop
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 349       Tue Mar 30, 1993
D.BURCH [Ben]                at 20:25 EST

Ah, Dave,

 Gary's Phoenix was derivative of work the Bonos did back in the late '60s for
M.D.  The current DC-X design is not at all the same as Phoenix.  Phoenix was
a plug nozzle design with an actively cooled heat shield.  As I understand it,
this vehicle comes about to fire descent rockets, with the heat shield being
an ablative nose assembly.  Also, I think that everybody involved in this
gives intellectual credit where it is due.

 -Ben
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 350       Tue Mar 30, 1993
PRESS-8                      at 22:24 EST

Just a few points.  Phoenix was certainly inspired by Bono's work in the
1960s.  One could say derivative, too, but the earliest Phoenix designs
actually had a few differences in  engine and configuration.  Subsequent
designs incorporated both plug nozzles (I called 'em aeroplugs) and individual
bell nozzles.  All in all, there were about 40-50 configurations from about
1972 to 1990, when I quit working on VTOL. The colling systems for early
Phoenixes was passive, with all- over active cooling by water transpiration in
the mid-1980s and onward.  The DC-Y/Delta Clipper would use non-ablative
carbon-carbon heat shields on the nose.

I am happy to see widespread acceptance of SSTO, something which I have pushed
for for many years.  Obviously, I'd have liked to make some money off it, and
so would have my investors.  But those are the breaks.  If anything, I should
be mad at the US government, which spent years telling me I was crazy (and
telling my investors the same) and which then flounces off and starts a
program to do what they said was impossible.  But that's happened before, too.
You can't win.

Right now, what I want is a chance to build and fly my SkyRocket and it's
derivative rocketplanes.  Turns out that is a lot cheaper to do than to build
a Phoneix, so maybe Washington has done me a favor.  Let's get on with it.
There's room for more than one low cost launcher out there, and if I get a
chance to build it, my aircraft will beat the pants off Delta Clipper in the
marketplace. That's better than credit for whatever part I may have played!
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 351       Wed Mar 31, 1993
RSEVERY [Randall]            at 17:49 EST

 From: Chris W. Johnson <[e-mail]>
 Newsgroups: sci.space
 Subject: DC-X: Pratt Ships Final Test Engine
 Date: 29 Mar 1993 23:17:43 GMT
 Organization: University of Texas at Austin Computation Center
 X-UserAgent: Nuntius v1.1.1d20
 X-XXMessage-ID: <[e-mail]>
 X-XXDate: Mon, 29 Mar 93 23:06:07 GMT

 Page 25 of the March 22nd issue of Aviation Week has a very short
 article which provides a little info on the status of the DC-X
 project which I thought others might be curious to see. In part it
 reads:

 "Pratt & Whitney has delivered the last of four modified RL10 rocket
 engines for use in McDonnell Douglas' prototype DC-X single-stage
 rocket technology vehicle.

 "The engines will be integrated in the DC-X on a schedule that
 should enable flight demonstrations to begin this summer at White
 Sands Missile Range, N.M. During testing, DC-X will be flown up to
 altitudes of 30,000 ft., and demonstrate rotation and vertical
 landing maneuvers within a 100 ft. touchdown footprint. [....]

 "The DC-X's RL10A-5s have been modified for variable throttling,
 and are equipped with a new thrust chamber for sea-level operation.
 Pratt & Whitney produces other versions of the cryogenic RL10 for
 use in General Dynamics' Centaur upper stage, but those engines
 are designed only for upper atmosphere operation."


 Chris W. Johnson

 Internet:   [e-mail]
 UUCP:       {husc6|uunet}!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!chrisj
 CompuServe: >INTERNET:[e-mail]
 AppleLink:  [e-mail]@internet#


 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 352       Wed Mar 31, 1993
RSEVERY [Randall]            at 17:49 EST

 From: Chris W. Johnson <[e-mail]>
 Newsgroups: sci.space
 Subject: DC-X: Vehicle Nears Flight Test
 Date: 30 Mar 1993 02:27:58 GMT
 Organization: University of Texas at Austin Computation Center
 X-UserAgent: Nuntius v1.1.1d20
 X-XXMessage-ID: <[e-mail]>
 X-XXDate: Mon, 29 Mar 93 01:38:27 GMT

 No sooner do you get home than you find the latest issue of
 Aviation Week has just arrived with another article on DC-X... so
 here's another set of excerpts. Some of this, of course, has been
 mentioned on the net before, but there's some new info, too.

 >From "DC-X Vehicle Nears Flight Test" by Bruce A. Smith, AW&ST,
 March 29, 1993, pp. 27-28:

 * DC-X should be rolled out on April 3rd. It's currently in the
     final stages of assembly and checkout.

 * Flight tests will begin in June at White Sands.

 * "Program officials said the DC-X has a .5 mass fraction--the
     ratio of propellant weight to gross weight of the vehicle at
     liftoff. A mass fraction of .9 is required to get into orbit."

 * "The DC-X is expected to be operated at a velocity of up to
     Mach 0.3, an altitude of 17,000-18,000 ft. and dynamic pressure
     of approximately 350 lb./sq. ft. for the White Sands tests this
     year."

 * "The initial series [of launches] will include low-altitude test-
     ing to evaluate the blended vehicle control provided by thrust
     vector control of the gimballed engines, the reaction control
     system and a set of flaps at the base of the aeroshell."

 * There will be three sets of flights. The first two will be hover
     tests differing in the altitudes and flight times. The first
     series will be conducted about 250 ft. above ground and will
     last 2 minutes, the second will be at 7,000-8,000 ft. and will
     last significantly longer (they don't say how much longer).
     "The second series could begin in late June or early July. The
     [third] series will involve the vertical landing rotation,
     which begins at 16,000-17,000 ft."

 * "[A]ll launch-related operations will be conducted by essentially
     a three-person crew. The flight vehicle has extensive health
     monitoring and built-in test systems to aid in the scaling back
     of support operations." "There will be five persons in the
     launch facility at White Sands [....]." And "[t]he crew will be
     rounded out by a deputy flight manager to monitor subsystems, a
     crewmember to load propellants and gases, the McDonnell Douglas
     program manager and a range safety officer."

 * DC-X is 40 ft. high and 13.5 ft. wide at its base. Liftoff weight
     will be 41,630 lb.

 * Propellant tanks are aluminum and hold about 3,300 lb. and 16,200
     lb. of liquid hydrogen and oxygen, respectively.

 * Composite aeroshell by Scaled Composites.

 * Main propulsion by Pratt & Whitney; four RL10A-5 engines, contin-
     uously throttleable from 25-100% thrust. Each can be gimballed
     +/- 8 degrees and produces 14,000 lb. of thrust.

 * Reaction control system by Aerojet. It "is a gaseous oxygen-
     gaseous hydrogen unit with four 400-lb. thrusters."

 * Avionics by McDonnell Aircraft. This "includes a Honeywell
     computer, an F-15 inertial navigation system, a Navstar [GPS]
     receiver and rate sensors and accelerometers from the F/A-18
     program."


 Chris W. Johnson

 Internet:   [e-mail]
 UUCP:       {husc6|uunet}!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!chrisj
 CompuServe: >INTERNET:[e-mail]
 AppleLink:  [e-mail]@internet#


 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 353       Wed Mar 31, 1993
G.ZSIDISIN [GREGZ]           at 22:53 EST

You know, I just realized something I'd not even considered before: whether DC-
X is remotely piloted or crewed (uh, manned or unmanned).  Is Pete Conrad
going to sit in it, or just twiddle control knobs on the ground?

Enquiring minds want to know.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 354       Thu Apr 01, 1993
PRESS-8                      at 00:28 EST

Gregz: unmanned.

To all:  my freebe account goes away today, so I liked to say "it's been
real".  Hopefully I'll be back relatively soon.  We'll see.

Ad astra, Gary C. Hudson
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 355       Thu Apr 01, 1993
DAVESMALL                    at 02:23 EST

Not to worry, Gary. You have friends, and we'll drag you back kicking and
screaming as necessary. .

SkyRocket is damned important and more work than you know of is going on to
try to make it happen.

I guess it's like a rock climber told me. "The only difference in getting
better is mental. You learn that that little bitty bump of rock will hold you
as well as a big ledge." The same thing applies to funding.

Gary, I honestly admire your spirit towards DC/X ... and it really is a
victory for you and for your ideas. Ted Taylor (Orion) would be damned proud.

In the computer industry, the benchmark is if you shipped. Vaporware, pre-
release, Beta is all voodoo and mist and smoke. Shipping shrink-wrap copies is
all that counts in the long run. I learned that from Sherwin Gooch (as in
PLATO, Apple, etc, etc) and have never forgotten; we have never failed to get
one out the door.

I wrote that computer hackers (in the good meaning of the world) funding
SkyRocket seemed ludicrous ... until you realize that those same hackers made
an incredible amount of money and created a new world. I think that can happen
here, and am finding out how it is done. The potential is so large, and so
very important, that such effort is called for.

Strongly recommended book: "Curve of Binding Energy", John McPhee. Talks about
Orion and Ted Taylor and Freeman Dyson developing it.

Anyway, Gary, we'll try to get you a comprehensible signon. This business of
numbering people is tooo much.

  -- thanks for giving it a try,

   Dave Small / Laundry Today / GBS
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 356       Thu Apr 01, 1993
S.SCHAPER [Meneldil]         at 19:21 EST

Hi Dave,

 Press-8, can you upload JPG's or GIF's of your SkyRocket?
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 357       Fri Apr 02, 1993
RSEVERY [Randall]            at 17:36 EST

 Newsgroups: sci.space
 From: [e-mail] (Brian J. Glass)
 Subject: John Pike on SSRT prospects
 Keywords: SSRT, DCX
 Nntp-Posting-Host: kronos-ethernet.arc.nasa.gov
 Organization: NASA/ARC Information Sciences Division
 Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1993 22:48:46 GMT

 During the lunch break of a seminar last week at American University, I
 wandered up to John Pike, the Director of the Space Policy Project of the
 Federation of American Scientists [and an occasional NASA critic].

 I asked him his opinion of SSRT program funding anywhere if DCX tests
 are successful this summer.  He said flatly,"There will be no new launchers
 during the Clinton administration."  Since (among other credentials in his
 talk's introduction) Pike was described as the space policy adviser to the
 Mondale and Dukakis campaigns, I assume that his opinions don't differ
 widely from those extant in the new administration.

 Oh well...

 Brian Glass
 [e-mail]
 I barely speak for myself, let alone NASA...



 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 358       Fri Apr 02, 1993
RSEVERY [Randall]            at 17:37 EST

 From: [e-mail] (Diaspar Virtual Reality Network)
 Newsgroups: sci.space
 Subject: DC-X rollout stereoscopic .gifs
 Date: 31 Mar 1993 12:03:20 GMT
 Organization: CERFnet Dial n' CERF Customer Group
 Keywords: DC-X SSTO Delta Clipper images gif stereoscopic

 I will be attending the rollout on 4/3/93 with stereoscopic 35mm
 camera and camcorder. This has been approved and I will try to make
 available .gif files of some of the better shots as soon as p
 possible after that. Interested parties should email me requests
 and I will also be posting them on the Diaspar Virtual Reality
 Network (diaspar.com via telnet or 714-376-1234 9600 baud)

 The same stereoscopic prism will be used on the camcorder so that
 3D video tape will be available. The portrait-style image shape
 due to this method somehow seems suited to the DC-X <grin>

 I have had the opportunity to see it at 3 stages of assembly
 and last week on a tour I was politely asked to step out from
 under it as they were about to do engine gymbol testing and didn't
 want me to be hit by one of the engines. (I had become so enthrawed
 in studying it I had actually ended up underneath it).

 My first tour was when the vehicle was first starting to be stacked
 and the aeroshell had just arrived. The aeroshell was being held in
 a special holder (horizontally) and was not yet painted - having a
 gray/black color. Only the thrust assembly was stacked at that time.

 On the second tour, the unit was about half completed and was over
 20 feet high. Got a good look at the landing gear and some of the
 components. A lot of clever scrounging and imaginative work went
 into parts procurement based on comments I have heard and what I've
 seen.

 On the last tour, the main aeroshell was in place and the upper
 aeroshell structure (not the top compartment with parachute) was
 being hauled from one end of the building to the other.    s

 Was impressive - not just the Clipper itself but the people.
 Good folk and very resourceful.



 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 359       Fri Apr 02, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 19:22 EST

Now we know why we, as a people, made a mistake in electing Clinton.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 360       Fri Apr 02, 1993
D.HARTSOCK [Dana]            at 22:10 EST

Yes, the DC-X is remotely piloted.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 361       Sat Apr 03, 1993
K.BULLOCK [KenB]             at 19:39 EST

Hey, I thought we were confining the Clinton bashing to the Auger Inn!
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 362       Sun Apr 04, 1993
C.IRBY1 [cirby]              at 17:40 EDT

DC-X was on CNN today.  Video of the rollout.  They painted it (white- what a
shock...)
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 363       Sun Apr 04, 1993
D.HARTSOCK [Dana]            at 21:48 EDT

I imagine white at least for now is for purposes of visibility for recording
during test flights..
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 364       Mon Apr 05, 1993
RSEVERY [Randall]            at 18:14 EDT

 From: [e-mail] (Diaspar Virtual Reality Network)
 Newsgroups: sci.space
 Subject: Re: DCX "Roll out"
 Date: 4 Apr 1993 21:06:38 GMT
 Organization: CERFnet Dial n' CERF Customer Group
 Keywords: DCX, Delta Clipper

    I attended both the press briefing and the rollout and will be
 putting more information here as I get a chance to write it up.
 The good news is I got lots of stereoscopic video "footage" and
 will be converting a number of the best shots to .gifs and it
 will include shots of not just the vehicle but of some of the
 people at the press conference. I'll have .gifs that are both
 normal and stereo pairs (left/right)

 As a quick summary of the rollout I will mention a few things.
 First, the weather was perfect: clear, sunny, high 70's to low
 80's. The press conference before the rollout was not unduly long,
 McDonnell Douglas made a major effort to make people welcome and
 to handle the crowd (est 1500) that was there. One can tell
 the turnout was larger at the last minute than expected since
 they ran out of hot dogs (but thankfully not soft drinks as it
 was hot). Col. Worden brought down the house at one time during the
 press conference when asked a question about how much money the
 Air Force had available for projects like these. He replied "I
 didn't make colonel by telling my contractors how much money I have
 available to spend."

 The rollout ceremony was pretty straighforward - a number
 of not-too-long speeches (including one each from a republican
 and democrate Congressman) and then the vehicle was pulled out of the
 The DC-X, as advertised, is about 41 feet tall, round at the
 top, squarish at the bottom, has rather large landing gear. Was
 really something to see paretns bringing their kids up and touching it
 and looking in the access hatches which were open (but covered with
 plexiglass).

 The concept of quick turnaround from idea to a finisahed unit
 and the concept of aircraft-style flight operations is appealing to
 me. It kind of hit home when people were allowed to touch the
 thing. I've touched more aircraft in my life that I can count, but
 this is the first time I've touched a space ship.

 D
 D
 D
 D
 D
 D
 DX
 hanger by an interesting little tractor/carrier. The DC


 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 365       Mon Apr 05, 1993
D.BURKHEAD [David]           at 18:59 EDT

Randall et al,
     Anyone know when the first flight will be, and will it be televised
(there's just no way I can get out there darnit).
                David

 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 366       Mon Apr 05, 1993
RSEVERY [Randall]            at 19:49 EDT

David,

      I don't have any great sources for DCX information, only what I see
coming across the Internet and various other sources.  The only dates I've
seen so far are from a status report on February 26 that stated "expected
first launch date in May/June 93".  Allen Sherzer apparently has some better
contacts because his message signatures from the last few months have
contained the countdown "xx DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX".  The most recent I
have here with me is from March 17 indicating 91 days to first flight.  Simple
extrapolation shows that to be June 16th, so June would be a good guess....

Cheers....    Randall

 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 367       Thu Apr 08, 1993
RSEVERY [Randall]            at 18:17 EDT

 Newsgroups: sci.space
 From: [e-mail] (Joyce Tokar)
 Subject: Re: DC-X: Vehicle Nears Flight Test (questions?)
 Organization: Ada Joint Program Office
 Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1993 10:14:01 EDT

 In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
 Michael Adams writes:

  [ about his ignorance of the DC-X program ]

 There is an excellent summary article about the Delta Clipper (DC-X)
 in the June '93 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, on the
 newstands now.  I read it this morning at the breakfast table; got so
 excited and scanned all boards containing 'space' in their names.
 That is how I find this thread.

 Regards,
 David Jones (using my wife's account!)


 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 368       Sun Apr 11, 1993
W.ROWLAND4 [W.B.]            at 09:26 EDT

W.B. here:

        BOZLEE [Bozlee] Re: Msg 309

        I'm new to this RT Top & Cat. I do visit this RT often. But I've
ignored the "Delta Clipper" Topic, as NO ONE could tell me anything about it.
But due to an article in the ANALOG Magzine, I now KNOW what the "Delta
Clipper" Topic on this RT is for. So, I appoligise for being "late for
lunch"<G>.

        I D/L'd ALL the prior messages and have spent the past TWO days, off
and on, reading them. There's been some interesting points brought up, and I
have LOT's of questions. But will hold them for NOW. What surprised me was the
discussion of the "HAVE REGION" project and most especially the LACK of
response to "what" it said about the "possibilities".

        The techonology that was "explored" with this project, basicly
confirmed what had been suspected by many people for years. That the
"metalurgical" techniques employed with modern ('60's & '70's) aircraft where
"capable" of being used in spacecraft manufacture. There were "other"
techniques explored, some were HIGHLY experimental, and some of them out right
FAILED. But, it DID open some people's eye's about "just how far along we
really are" in the "capability" area.

        What NO ONE seems to realise is that those same "metalugical
techniques" are taught to thousands of NAVY and AIR FORCE personnel every
YEAR. In their Aircraft Repair and Salvage Courses. This is a part of their
BASIC TRAINING, for Airframe Mechanics. Does this mean that "we" have a large
pool of spacecraft builder's out there? Could it be that SIMPLE?

        Also, has anyone "thought" about the projects "name". It was a "sub"
project of a MAJOR project, that has been said. But doesn't the "name" of the
project mean something and also at the same time "imply" a few others? It's
worth thinking about.

        As for Bozlee's request for a "cost analysis". A quick phone call and
some "qick and dirty" calculations, "say's" that the Delta Clipper can be
built (Air/Space Frame ONLY) for about 2-5 Million a copy. In SINGLE units. OR
about 1 Million in a production line. This is of course a best guess. The
person who provided me with this "price quote" was working from a few drawings
and basing his cost estimate on NOTHING requiring EXOTIC alloys. Just plain
old fashion "aircraft grade" construction work. As for the "guts" of the Delta
Clipper, he had NO IDEA. But a BASIC Air/Space Frame for 2-5 Million is quite
CHEAP.

        Why do I say that? Because most of the cost's for aircraft today are
for the "guts" and NOT for the Airframe. The F-14A Airframe cost's about 7.5
Million and is of "roughly" the same size and weight. The "old" F-15x
Airframes cost about 9.3 Million. Just remember the F-14A and the F-15x series
of aircraft are NO LONGER in regular production. The ONLY one that IS in, sort
of, production is the F-16C Airfcraft. The Airframe for that aircraft cost's
22.65 Million a copy and it's IN PRODUCTION!

        So what's WRONG with a Delta Clipper Air/Spaceframe costing only 5
million? Are we in a constest to see who can charge the most for a product? I
sincerely hope NOT!

        I hoe this "stirs" up some interest and that a discussion of the cost
of the Delta Clipper can be done here on this RT.

                                W.B.(Bill)
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Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 369       Sun Apr 11, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 14:08 EDT

Ok, you claim you can build Delta Clipper for a million bucks a copy on an
assembly line?  Perhaps, but I somehow doubt it.  That is a lower cost per
pound than the Voyager aircraft which was quite inexpensive.  My own
calculations show that if you can build as inexpensively as Voyager (something
I have doubt about, but what the heck, that isnt the point here.) your cost
for Delta Clipper airframes runs closer to 75 million a pop.  How you propose
to lower that cost to one million is rather beyond me.  Sure, it can be done,
but I would be surprised.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 370       Sun Apr 11, 1993
C.IRBY1 [cirby]              at 20:55 EDT

Bozlee,
  The Voyager aircraft was a one-off design, using custom-made engines. On a
dollars-per-pound basis, it wasn't inexpensive at all.  Lots of odd-shaped
pieces that were hand made, et cetera.
  The Delta Clipper airframe design is pretty simple, after all... maybe less
so than the Voyager, and once they start turning out several of them, the
thing ought to be pretty reasonable.  *Definitely* cheaper than (say) an F-14,
which has a *lot* of pieces.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 371       Sun Apr 11, 1993
W.ROWLAND4 [W.B.]            at 21:20 EDT

W.B. here:

        Correction. The Air/Spaceframe ONLY for 2-5 Million in SINGLE
quantities and on a production line for about 1 Million a copy. Maybe I should
have stated it more clearly. The FRAME is ALL that was quoted to me, NOTHING
else was known about the internals of the Delta Clipper.

        As for "me" claiming "I" can build it? NO, I did NOT claim that. I
stated that a person I had contacted had given me his best "gesstimate" of the
cost. AFTER "I" had obtained some skecthes and some rather poor drawings of
it. Along with the measurements, which were rather general in nature.

        This gentleman has been in the "tin binding" business for over 50
years and has built many items for Uncle Sam and a LOT of parts for the
aircraft industry. Mostly sub-assembles for high speed tactical fighters. If
there's anyone I'd trust to give me a "good ball park guess" it would be him.

        ALL of this was based on the assumption that you could use normal
"aircraft grade materials" and that there would NOT be any exotic materials
use in the manufacture of the basic Frame. That "space rated" materials would
be EXCLUDED from the "off the shelf" nature of this vehicle.

        I agree that the Voyager was inexpensive. But it was, again, a SINGLE
PURPOSE craft. It had NO other uses AFTER it had completed it's goal. It was a
"show" vehicle. To show the "world" WHAT could be done with the technology
that was available TODAY. As a "demo" aircraft, it PROVED that the materials
"we" have developed over the past 25 years CAN produce a superior aircraft. It
is now up to the aircraft industry to USE those materials to produce a
"commerically" acceptable vehicle, imploying those materials.

        For sake of argument, let's ASSUME that the Delta Clipper passes ALL
of it's test's and get's funding for production. Just HOW many will be needed?
To EQUAL the payload capacity of a Shuttle, with the proposed 20K payload
capability of the Clipper, you would need about two and a half Clippers. To
EQUAL the "current" payload capacity of ALL the Shuttles, you need,
approximately, 11 Clippers.

        Granted. The turn-a-round rate would be faster. But just equaling the
Shuttle capacity is NOT enough. At a guess, I would say that you would need 50
to 60 Delta Clippers. For a START. After that? IF the "commercial" support
begins to grow. Then a FLEET of 100 to 200 craft would be needed to keep the
flow going.

        NOW, as for you "cost" estimate of 75 million. I would agree with you
that this is a resonable cost for the first 10 or so. But AFTER that someone
had better put there foot down. Or the cost will grow to unbelieveable
amounts. If this were a NASA or DOD managed procurement then I would say that
your "cost" estimate would be GROSSLY underestimated. They yould, probably,
NOT consider a bid that LOW. A more realistic estimate would be around 250
Million for the first few and then allow the companies to, uhmmm, adjust for
economic reasons, the "base" price of the "completed" vehicle.

        In simple words, RAISE the PRICE.

        Hope this clears up the claims that you thought I made. If NOT then
I'll explain in more detail than this brief summary.

                                W.B.(Bill)
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 372       Sun Apr 11, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 23:36 EDT

Cirby, Voyager cost about 1500 per pound, EXCLUDING engines. Perhaps you can
get Delta Clipper for that price.  I doubt it, but it is possible.  Now figure
out how much you get with a million bucks.  Also, remember this:  The Voyager
cost estimate was made assuming ZERO labor costs.  Somehow I doubt you will
get a production line vehicle built at zero labor cost.

So what I hear you saying, Bill, is the million dollar proce only gets you
part of the airframe, minus any specialized materials required.  Somehow I
have a feeling the price will go up a big bunch over a million bucks a pop.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 373       Mon Apr 12, 1993
W.ROWLAND4 [W.B.]            at 22:30 EDT

W.B. here:

        I've been trying all day to get MORE information on the "specs" for
the Delta Clipper. So far I've been promised about everything BUT that. I now
have in my possession or on the way by mail almost everthing BUT what I need.
I even called the site where they were constructing it. In hope of finding a
phone number of someone who could at least give me a better idea of what the
Clipper was made of. I guess that the other person at the other end of the
line thought I was DUMM or something. He must have been reading from a "press
release" I guess.

        In simple words I got MORE from MY sources than I did from the people
who are constructing it. Don't know where I could any more "specs" from do
you?

        YES, your WERE right about the PRICE quote it was for NO LABOR cost.
The price quote was ONLY for the RAW materials and setup cost's. Of course
there would be a considerable INCREASE in the cost of assembling and
manufacturing the vehicle. I got NO estimate from my friend on that, as I
COULD NOT provide him with any more specific data. Like MIL-SPEC's for the
material and methods use to assemble the vehicle. These are what my friend
works with on a daily basis and he based his price on just the RAW materials.

        He also stated that if it cost MORE than that for the Air/Spaceframe,
using standard aircraft materials(for military aircraft) he would be greatly
surprised. As the total UP weight of the vehicle IF converted into the MOST
expensive HI grade aircraft metals would only run 10 million. What he ment was
IF the total lift off weight were converted into a stack of HI grade aircraft
metals. That the cost would be very suspecious(sp) IF it went OVER 10 Million
dollars.

        If the article in ANALOG is NOT off by much then the vehicle weight is
approximately 104,000 pounds(Empty). Now if HI grade aircraft materials were
used the cost for 104,000 pounds of that material would $9.61 per pound. Since
materials for aircraft are NOT sold by the pound, but are usualy sold by the
Sheet, and that sheet size can vary according to the material selected. You
have to use the "standard" commercial package for sheet metal. Which is a
"pallet" shipment size. Which is considered to be sheet metal that is NO
longer than 12 ft and NO wider than 4 ft. This pallet CAN NOT weigh over 1500
pounds.

        So this turns into a measuring game. Which materials do you qoute and
which materials are used. Since NONE of the above is known, you must use the
standard materials list for aircraft minimums. This list is published by the
FAA and is approved by ALL aircraft manufacturers. This "list" is a set of
minimums. Using this list my friend took the TOTAL Empty weight of the vehicle
and converted it's ENTIRE weight into these materials.

        Since there is also a minimum amount for EACH of these materials on
this list, that an Airframe MUST have in it, expressed in percentages. This
"excercise" becomes a "adding machine" job. That was HOW my friend came to
that figure for the Air/Spaceframe, using standard aircraft materials.

        Now, I've read the article, in ANALOG, and read about the materials
that ARE being used. Those materials ARE expensive and they will COST a
considerable amount of money. UNTIL they are in wide enough production, then
at that point I would be surprised if the price kept on increasing.

                                        W.B.(Bill)
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 374       Mon Apr 12, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 23:17 EDT

Bill, lets see if we can do a quick sanity check here.

I am not at all sure you will be able to build Delta Clipper with conventional
alluminum alloys such as you would use for aircraft.  A SSTO vehicle will be
the most weight sensitive machine ever flown. Every gram counts.  Thus I would
expect to see composite materials used.  Now we can get a very rough idea of
cost for such composite structures by examining other structures with similar
requirements.

In Indy car racing the chassis is made from quite sophisticated composite
materials.  The only numbers I have for commercial Indy car chassis is from
Lola, a british car constructor.

The chassis for a 1993 Indy car masses about 850-900 pounds, and sells for
(sitting down?) a bit over 300,000 dollars.  This is just the bare chassis
tub, bodywork, and suspension.  You have to add engine, gearbox, brakes,
hydraulics, fuel cells, springs, shock dampers, heat exchangers, electrical
system, instrumentation, wheels, tires, and wings.  Price when you are
finished, including labor?  Doesnt miss $650,000 by much.  Total mass of the
finished car is about 1500 pounds minus fuel.  You are telling us you can
build a far larger structure for under twice that price?  A structure with
similar requirements for strenth to weight ratio and rigidity?

Look at it another way.  A small car weighs in at, say, 2500 pounds. What is
the cost of 2500 pounds of steel?  Not all that much.  But assembleing that
material into a car and you have a 20,000 buck bill with a surprisingly modest
profit margin.

You may well be right, perhaps SSTO vehicles are cheap and easy to build.
Perhaps it is a simple process.  Perhaps it is the sort of thing you do out in
the desert feeding your free labor chili from GI cans.  But somehow i doubt
it.  But, i am fully prepared to be swayed by well reasoned, supportable
arguement.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 375       Tue Apr 13, 1993
H.VANDERBILT                 at 11:05 EDT

Well, Art, let's use your numbers instead.  900 pounds of hi-tech composite
race-car chassis for $300,000 works out to $333 a pound for the finished bare
structure, no engine or controls.  Let's apply this to a nominal full- size DC-
Y at around 100,000 lbs, empty equipped.  Figure roughly 75,000 lbs of that is
structure and tanks, the rest engines, avionics, and miscella- neous fittings.
75,000 lbs time $333 a pound comes to $25 million for the raw structure using
YOUR prices.  Not bad for a reusable spaceship that'll take 20,000 lbs to
orbit.  Even figuring the engines, avionics etcetera at $1000-$2000 a lb (the
ballpark for modern fighter engines and gear), the total vehicle cost works
out to $50M-$75M each.

Me, I'd expect that the first half dozen will cost more like a couple hundred
million each, between R&D and learning curves.  Big deal; 747's cost $150M or
so, and they work in a market where freight rates are measured in dollars per
pound, not thousands of dollars per pound.

Arguing over whether the airframe can be built for a couple million out of
conventional aerospace metals or a couple tens of millions out of modern
aerospace composites is pretty silly.  We'll only find out for sure which is
true by building and flying X-vehicles - but we can cut the cost of space
access by orders of magnitude EITHER WAY!
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 376       Tue Apr 13, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 13:23 EDT

I do not disagree with your numbers at all Henry, I suspect they are low bu a
factor of three to five, but that isnt the point.  My point is you will not
get an airframe for the thing for a million bucks. That was the only point.

It is easy to fall into the aerospace industry trap by saying "the only way to
know is to do it."  Perhaps, but that ignores the cost models that we know
work.  Boeing didnt just walk out and build a 747 to see what it would cost.
They did a cost study long before the first piece of tin was bent, and made
damned sure they stuck to a cost schedule.  To the best of my knowledge this
sort of exercise hasnt been done with SSTO vehicles.  If they have been done I
am sure you will correct me, which is the point of twigging you about
costs...;-)

But, one point seems to get lost in the noise.  SSTO 2STO or 27 stage to orbit
isnt the point.  I dont give a flyin rodents rear end how many stages
something takes to make orbit, I only care that the vehicle does the mission
planned at a COST I CAN AFFORD!  That is the real bottom line, cost per pound
of payload.  SSTO isnt the issue, even though a lot of folks want you to
believe it is, cost is the real bottom line.  I would prefer a three or four
stage to orbit expendable that is available next week at a cost I can afford
to a reusable SSTO available next year.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 377       Tue Apr 13, 1993
H.VANDERBILT                 at 22:34 EDT

YOUR numbers, Art.  Your numbers.  As for flying ships before you know what
you're doing well enough to analyze it completely in advance, well, you may
recall Boeing had a little advance experience base for the 747 called 737,
727, 707, KC-135, B-52, B-47...  We need to fly reusable space launcher
testbeds before we have anything like the proper basis for the sort of
analysis you're calling for.

But the sort of costs YOU were kind enough to provide for hi-tech ultra- light
composite structures per pound do sort of indicate SSTO's at a cost we can
afford.  If we ever aquire the cojones to do it instead of cavilling endlessly
about irrelevancies, that is.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 378       Wed Apr 14, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 00:04 EDT

We shall see what happens, of course, but the simple fact of the matter is
that good solid cost estimates have not been released to the public, if they
have been done.  But I suppose you are right, we have never built spacecraft
or boosters before so there is clearly nothing upon which to base a cost.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 379       Wed Apr 14, 1993
D.BURKHEAD [David]           at 00:38 EDT

Bozlee,
     We have build boosters before.  We have yet to build a spaceship.
               David

 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 380       Wed Apr 14, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 01:34 EDT

I am not sure the I agree that we have never built a spaceship, I will agree
we have not built any really good ones.  But I suppose it all depends on what
you define as a spaceship.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 381       Wed Apr 14, 1993
H.VANDERBILT                 at 10:29 EDT

Well, Art, that depends on your definition of "good, solid cost estimates".
Gary Hudson has published fairly detailed cost breakdowns for various of his
Phoenix designs, direct ancestors to the Delta Clipper.  Chrysler included
costs in their big SSTO proposal.  Phil Bono, who pretty much singlehandedly
invented the modern SSTO, was known to consider costs. Max Hunter and Gordon
Woodcock have both had a thing or two to say on the subject also.

But if you insist on defining all of these as not good enough, not  solid
enough, well then, you can be right, if you really want.  Define away...

The fact remains we've studied reusable launch vehicles - true spaceships - to
DEATH for thirty years.  It's time to build some, time to fly some. Or go back
to our caves and admit we'd rather live out our days as a species on this one
dirtball.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 382       Wed Apr 14, 1993
H.VANDERBILT                 at 10:44 EDT

As for "But I suppose you are right, we have never built spacecraft or booster
before so there is clearly nothing upon which to base a cost", pernicious
nonsense, sir!  I addressed design experience, not costs - we need additional
design experience and flight data from reusable space vehicle testbeds before
we can come up with detailed designs for commercial reusable space vehicles.
Get data, don't study the problem to death.  And calling the expendable
experience base a proper basis for detailed design and cost studies for
reusables is NONSENSE!  That's like calling wood and cloth biplane experience
a proper basis for 747 design studies; not only are the expected vehicle
lifetimes orders of magnitude apart, but you yourself are claiming that the
materials needed for a reusable spacecraft are totally different than those
used in current expendable boosters, advanced composite primary structures
versus current lightweight metal. I do not necessarily agree with that latter,
BTW; it's *your* argument.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 383       Wed Apr 14, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 14:35 EDT

Well, if the things are so well studied, so well understood, why isnt someone
building them?

So what are you trying to tell us in 382?  Are you trying to tell us that we
dont know enough about SSTO to cost one without building it, or we know enough
now to cost it?  Remember, >YOU< said we had not built spaceships.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 384       Wed Apr 14, 1993
W.ROWLAND4 [W.B.]            at 18:43 EDT

W.B. here:

        Re: Msg 374

        Neither am I, sure. But that report DID make me think twice about
going the "exotic" way. You know "leading/bleading edge technology"?

        As for the cost of those materials, you'd be surprised at how "cheap"
those "exotic" materials REALLY are. WHAT you are paying for is the LABOR, NOT
so much as the material. The material's are relatively inexpensive. Roughly
TWICE the cost of a similar(sp) "exotic" material, i.e. Fiberglass. If bought
in LARGE enough quanity these "exotic" materials are just as cheap a other
materials.

        What nearly all people DON'T understand is that in order for a company
to MAKE money they have to SPEND money. That means getting their people
TRAINED to work with those materials. Then they HAVE to pay those PEOPLE a
larger amount of MONEY to KEEP them working for the SAME company. Otherwise
those people would say THANK YOU, but "I" got a BETTER offer from Company
"XYZ", etc. Then the Company is BACK to square ONE, with an "order for a
product" and NO ONE TO MAKE IT!

        Down around here there are LOTS of NASCAR Body shops that use those
SAME materials. They pay GOOD wages to those people, and they charge MORE for
their "basic" frames than does Lola. A "stock" NASCAR Frame, and NOTHING else
has a "standard" price of 50K. For that AMOUNT of money ALL you get is a
FRAME, that's IT. It weighs in at, roughly, 350 pounds +/- 25 pounds. A "all
up" NASCAR "Stocker" will cost you about 1,000,000, ready to race, all you
need is a driver and some gasoline. Oh, yeah a sponsor  would be nice and some
spare tires, etc., etc.

        We have the SAME situation here with the Delta Clipper. More than 80%
of the "cost" is going for the TRAINING/RE-TRAINING and MAINTAINING of
personnel that work on this vehicle. It's also going to the contractors who
SUPPLY those materials to the manufacturer. Those contractors are ALSO in the
SAME "rut". They have to charge "us" those SAME percentages to KEEP their
people working for them.

        It's a VICIOUS Circle and there's ONLY one way out. DEMAND that those
companies supply their products at a FIXED rate and that they DISCLOSE to us
EXACTLY where every one ten thousandsth of a penney goes when they charge us
for a product. In other words where does the money "we" pay the contractor go.
EXPLAIN in detail, very meticilous(sp) detail. We did it in the NAVY and AIR
FORCE. We found hundreds of contractors charging us for "everything under the
sun" in order to PAD the account.

        We discovered companies charging us for company vacations, pay raises
to employee's that HAD absolutely NOTHING to do with the item, etc., etc. We
(that's you and me tax payer) were being "taken" to the cleaners in order to
support HIGHER retainer fee's for attorney's, consultants, extra "hires" to
HELP complete a project, etc., etc., add infinitum.

        When this was FINALY disclosed the "cost" of certain items DROPPED
dramtically. To give you "quickie" here. GRUMMAN AEROSPACE "discovered" a,
uhmmm, BAD Bolt in the pivot area of the F-14A Swing Wing area. They estimated
that it would take 18 months to replace all of them and that it would cost
"us" $2500(each) to have GRUMMAN AEROSPACE manufacture "new" bolts and replace
them. Several of us thought that was a little high.

        So we went looking, with the "spec sheet" for that "new" bolt in-hand.
Six hours later we had found an EXACT replacement bolt that either met or
EXECEEDED all the "new" spec's that had been proposed for this NEW bolt. Guess
WHAT! The "new" bolt was availble in quantities that would, for most people,
STAGGER your imagination. Also that this "new" bolt had been in production for
OVER 50 years with the EXACT same "specs". GRUMMAND IMMEDIATELY lowered the
time and price "estimate" that had been submitted and APPROVED. BTW, the "new"
Bolt cost $23.10 in quanities of ONE. A large, very large, reduction in that
cost resulted when you ordered more than 1,000 of them. We needed more than
one thousand.

        That is a QUICK & DIRTY example just HOW a company WILL and DOES "take
you to the cleaners". This has NOT stopped, and will NEVER stop until you
"look" at the REAL cost's of an item. THEN those companies will HAVE to
explain where that money they are charging "us" is going.

        AGAIN, "I" repeat the price of $1,000,000 is for MATERIAL. Setting on
a Shop Floor and NOTHING else. NO one is going near it or doing ANYTHING with
it. Just a Material's COST. This cost is for materials that are "standard
aircraft" grade metals. Also this cost is ONLY applicable IF there is a
"production line" running. Other wise the materials "cost" will EXCEED this
amount by several factors. AS you are NOT buying in "quanity".

        AS for those factors, "strength to weight ratio", and "rigidity"? I
can NOT say as there are NO published "specs" for the Delta Clipper's
material's. What those specs are is anyones guess. The construction people
won't say, probably don't have any idea either, and the company that's
supplying those materials WON'T say either. Due to the "chance" of being sued
for "liability" damage should the materials fail. Those specifications are
being kept at a confidential level due to sensitive nature of the project and
the possiblity of "industral espionage" from "foreign" agents.

        IF you can't figure that out? Then put simply - THEY AIN'T TALKING
ABOUT ANYTHING TO ANYONE FOR ANY REASON! Unless you are directly "involved"
with this project they WILL NOT talk you about ANY material's "spec's", NOR
even discuss those "spec's" with those people that are "involved" with this
project, except in the MOST general ways. The ONLY ones who DO know what these
"spec's" are, is the design engineers and the have signed a NON-DISCLOSURE
agreement with those companies. They can't even tell you that they DID sign
that agreement, as the agreement is CONFIDENTIAL too.

        I have NOT discussed nor do "I" have the ability to discuss LABOR
cost's. That is in an area which I do NOT have any expertise. But those that
do have, have stated to me that a 100 times increase in this "production line"
pricing of materials would be "reasonable" estimate for the CONSTRUCTION of
this Air/Spaceframe.

                                W.B.(Bill)
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 385       Wed Apr 14, 1993
D.HARTSOCK [Dana]            at 19:25 EDT

 Bozlee,
 I imagine if manned spaceflight was driven my normal market forces
 we would have a Delta Clipper type vehicle or two flying by now.
 Of course we know normal market forces are not at work here,
 what's the government know about marketing? So thirty years of study
 has not produced a Delta Clipper. It is not the concept that is lacking.


 Dana
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 386       Wed Apr 14, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 20:03 EDT

Bill, lets look real hard at one concrete example of advanced aerospace
vehicles manufactured with the the kind of tactics some advocate for Delta
Clipper.

The Rutan Voyager aircraft massed about 900 pounds empty.  The Rutans
estimated the aircraft cost over a million bucks, EXCLUDING labor, and all the
donated hardware/systems.  The bottom line came down to the fact that counting
only those items for which costs could be determined from standard catalogs
(such as the avionics) and excluding costs for which no estimate is available
(such as the engines and props and of course labor) you come up with a cost of
about $1500 per pound.  This means a Delta Clipper vehicle, built just as
carefully from a cost standpoint, will cost you about 70 million bucks.
Remember this excludes specialized software, engines, fixed costs for tooling,
and labor, a big item all its own as you correctly point out.

There are folks who say we should rush out and build a SSTO vehicle because
you will never know what you do until you try.  While this is true as far as
it goes, it utterly ignores the tools and realities of aerospace contract.
The usual refrain is "Just do it." This is a nice slogan, really stirs the
blood.  But it is a sterile slogan.  It doesnt tell you how to do something,
it doesnt tell you what to avoid, and most damning, it doesnt tell you how to
pay for all the pretty toys.  The people who repeat this battle cry the
loudest and longest are the folks who have never built anything, and have
never experienced the realities of the aerospace industry. Sure there are
problems, no one denies that.  But to advocate more of what has created the
huge costs in military contracts as a cure for these costs is simply silly.

Yes, there are problems with government contracting.  But dont forget there is
a whole industry that doesnt depend on aerospace contracting.  Boeing seems to
do quite well in the commercial aircraft market.

Perhaps you can build Delta Clipper for a million bucks in material. The real
question is simple:  Does this number mean anything?  I maintain it has
limited value.  As an example, look at the material cost of building a house,
a car, or an aircraft.  A 2000 pound light aircraft doesnt have a lot of
material in it.  Yet you can easily spend a quarter of a million bucks for a
new Bonanza or Mooney.  The raw material cost is a few thousand.  This the
material cost is a quite misleading figure.

So you have to ask the really hard questions:  Do we REALLY know how to build
a Delta Clipper class vehicle as a profit making venture, and what data exists
to support the conclusions?  Oh, there are folks fond of arm waving, and
telling you they have the data but they cant talk about it.  Fine, no problem.
I certainly understand about having embargoed papers and studies slipped under
the door. But dont expect folks to open the checkbook and write large checks
on that basis.


 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 387       Wed Apr 14, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 20:33 EDT

Perhaps you are right Dana, perhaps normal market forces would have given us
Delta Clipper long ago.  but then again perhaps not.  One of the REALLY nasty
problems with these normal market forces is the fact that there is no
>compelling< reason to go into space for profit.  Oh I know all the arguements
about Earth being too small a basket for all the eggs, and that humanities
destiny lies in the stars.  i do not disagree with that for a moment, in fact
I believe these things as strongly as anyone here.  But they are not reasons
that make a profit.

Solar power systems are often cited as a reason to go into space, but even
Delta Clipper doesnt help those.  You need a LOT bigger booster for that to
pay off.

Drugs and medicines have been brought up.  But genetic engineering seems to
have put this one on the back burner.

How about communications?  Well, we do that, and make a profit at it.
 And, fiber optics seems to hurt this industry.

Earth observation?  Best done with unmanned spacecraft for the most part.
Look at Landsat and weather observation vehicles for examples.

I fully agree NASA has been a terrible anchor to place on space, and we would
be well served by eliminating a lot of it.  But this ignores the fact that
were there really a profit to be made the existing aerospace industry was free
to capitalize on the markets any time it desired.  the fact that have done
nothing ought to tell us something.


 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 388       Wed Apr 14, 1993
H.HILLBRATH [Henry]          at 21:48 EDT

 > Message 384       Wed Apr 14, 1993
 > W.ROWLAND4 [W.B.]            at 18:43 EDT

 > If bought in LARGE enough quanity these "exotic" materials are just
 as cheap a other materials.

 This a totally incorrect, and misleading statement. If you bought
 them in sufficient quanity, they obviously wouldn't be "exotic". But,
 that aside, it makes no sense even discussing that in the generic
 sense. Everything  is totally dependent on which "exotic" material
 you are talking about.

 In solid rocket motors, some hot structure, etc. one of the "hot"
 material now is called "carbon-carbon" composites. For some of the
 processes for making this stuff, the actually "wall clock" time in the
 processing equipment is more than one year. That is never likely to
 be cheap. And, if it got cheap, there would be some even more exotic
 way to make it have  a bit higher performance, and in some
 applications that would well worthwhile.

 The graphite fiber that is a principal proposed material for the Delta
 Clipper uses something very like the stuff that carpets (some
 carpets) are woven out of as "feed stock". Most of the processing is
 done after the   state that the fiber would already be usable for non
 exotic applications, how much graphite are you going to have to buy
 to get it "just as cheap a other materials?"

 > It's a VICIOUS Circle and there's ONLY one way out. DEMAND
 > that those companies supply their products at a FIXED rate and
 > that they DISCLOSE to us EXACTLY where every one ten
 > thousandsth of a penney goes when they charge us for a product.
 > In other words where does the money "we" pay the contractor go
 > .EXPLAIN in detail, very meticilous(sp) detail. We did it in the
 >  NAVY and AIR FORCE. We found hundreds of contractors
 > charging us for "everything under the sun" in order to PAD
 > the account.

 Having spent nearly 35 years now as an employee of  government
 contractors, I can tell you that the thinking that you express here is
 very prevalent in the government, and is, in large part the reason
 that the government is never going to get anything cheap. Most
 companies won't tell you anything at all about what their costs are,
 and those are the ones that you can get something at a competitive
 rate from, The ones that will tell you to the  "one ten thousandsth of
 a penney" what their costs are have to develop a symbiotic
 relationship with the government, and therefore are hardly any
 more productive than the government itself.

 And, the basic facts are, often ignored by the government, that the
 companies  have to make money at something, or go out of business.
 There are a lot of them doing just that, these days, and there will be
 more, so the government is going to pay still more, not less.

 And, I am quite sure that you are going to find no one, not even
 those nasty people charging $2000 per bolt, are making any money
 at it, any they do, they spend on the accounting system to tell what
 things cost to absurd precision. (Norm Augustine, in his book says
 that the Congress requires that every program be priced to six
 significant figures when the money for them is authorized, and that
 he checked some 70 programs, not one of which was right in the first
 of those digits.)

 If the contractor can't sell some bolts for $2000, to cover the   ones
 they have to sell at the exact price, to "one ten thousandsth of a
 penney", they are going to have to make its some where else, but if
 they are doing more than breaking even on those swaps, they are
 keeping it well hidden from the  stockholders. I assure you.

 The company that I currently work for is making quite a lot in the
 commercial field, and has had a net loss in he government business
 for the last 10, I suspect that they would get out totally, if they
 thought they could get away with it, and may, soon. That is true of a
 lot, if not most, if not all, government contractors these days.

 There is an old joke about the resort hotel at which everything was
 incredibly cheap, except for golf balls, it is the same idea.

 And, I can tell you how to get a Delta Clipper, or any other thing,
 cheap, and that is to keep the government, and the "one ten
 thousandsth of a penney" counters the *&%# out of the entire
 program. Now, how to do that, I do not know. But I can guarantee
 you that nothing will cheap until you do.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 389       Wed Apr 14, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 22:16 EDT

Thank you Mr. Hillbrath, good job!
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 390       Thu Apr 15, 1993
K.WHEELER3 [Ken]             at 00:25 EDT

Excuse me, is this the DCX flames topic?

Ken

 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 391       Thu Apr 15, 1993
H.VANDERBILT                 at 01:22 EDT

Define the SSTO you want to cost out, Art.  Is it the proposed DC-Y
operational 20K lb payload spacelauncher, or the proposed SSX experimental two-
guys-and-a-suitcase orbital testbed?  I'm saying we need to build the latter
and fly it before we understand enough to cost out or design the former.

As for costs on an SSX testbed done as a government X-vehicle, I see estimates
in the $1G - $1.5G range over four years, as long as it's kept free of the
NASA/NASP/NLS "study it to death" approach.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 392       Thu Apr 15, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 02:28 EDT

It would seem that way would it not Ken?
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 393       Thu Apr 15, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 14:16 EDT

We agree you avoid NASA, but we disagree as to cost.  You say 1 to 1.5 billion
over four years.  OK, fine, Boeing spends 5 billion of their own money to
develop a 757 class aircraft.  I doubt your vehicle is any less expensive to
develop or build.   I suspect your costs are low by a factor of 4 or 5.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 394       Thu Apr 15, 1993
K.WHEELER3 [Ken]             at 22:50 EDT

Boeing also spend a lot of that $5 billion on capital plant equipment, a
complete set of documenting maintenance/repair for every single bolt, and
building a good mature product. The environment for "skunk works" is quite
different.

Then again, the environment of "government programs" is quite different, too,
usually not in the good way.

Ken

 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 395       Fri Apr 16, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 01:01 EDT

No Ken, according to one Boeing Vice president with whom I spoke the 5 billion
dollar number does not include tooling.  That is a different budget line item.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 396       Fri Apr 16, 1993
H.VANDERBILT                 at 02:14 EDT

Big difference between an airliner that's the umpteenth refinement of an old
technology (high subsonic jet transports) and thus *has* to be designed way up
in the dimishing returns region of various curves that contribute to ops
costs, and a first-of-its-kind X-vehicle that simply has to fly the mission
and return data.  B-47 design costs are a whole lot more relevant than those
for the 757.

And the B-47 cost a hell of a lot less than $5 billion to get flying...
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 397       Fri Apr 16, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 05:05 EDT

So, how much did the B-47 cost in 1993 dollars?  I will grant it was perhaps
less than 5 billion, but that ignores the point.

With the latest refinement of existing technology you can pull a lot of stuff
off the shelf.  You dont have to learn all the painful lessons all over again.
This contributes to lowered cost, not increased cost as you maintain.

The -80 aircraft, the 707 prototype, cost around 8 million in early 1950s
dollars.   This was more than the net worth of the Boeing company at the time.
This also doesnt count engine development.

Sorry Henry, you can arm wave, and perhaps you are right in your estimates,
but thus far, other than the claims of low cost (something you will no doubt
recall was claimed for the shuttle as well) I have seen no compelling data to
indicate the thing will be cheap.

Aside from whether we are talking billions, or just hundreds of millions, the
bottom line remains that no one with the money is sure enough of the concept
to build a vehicle.  Granted, we need something, but I am far from sure this
is what we need.  It can all too easily degenerate into another shuttle
system.

Rather than pin your hopes on an SSTO, why not simply design something,
ANYTHING, that offers a low cost per pound of payload.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 398       Fri Apr 16, 1993
H.VANDERBILT                 at 11:05 EDT

Your claim for more off-the-shelf gear indeed contributes to lower costs - for
X-type vehicles.  For a 757 or other new airliner, most things that go into
the beast have to be a few ounces lighter and a few hours longer between
overhauls.  Else why bother with a new subsonic airliner at all, buy more of
an existing design.  Performance improvements at the extreme margin of an
existing technology COST, and subsonic airliners are a technology that's been
pushed a long, long way into arginal improvements for massive investments
regime.

You want "compelling data"?  Help us support the construction of an orbital X-
vehicle of some sort - or hadn't you noticed my repeated statements that I'm
for whatever gets the job done?  At the moment, that looks like some sort of
reusable SSTO or 2STO.  We have considerable political and technical momentum
going for a reusable SSTO (of some sort; don't bet the ranch on the followon
being Mac-Dac's) and abandoning that for a "something, ANYTHING" design effort
ain't likely to get a whole lot done.

If you want data that will support detailed design and costing of reusable
spaceships, help us get an X-vehicle (or preferably several competing X-
vehicles, but that now is in the realm of "wouldn't it be great if.." Keystone
beer ads) built and flying.

I can see why you're worried that this is all going to wind up having Mac-Dac
designated to build a "Shuttle 2" bloated and near-useless never-fly DC-1.
Keep your eyes and ears open these next six months is all I can say.

And keep your mind open too.  Air it out, bubba <grin>
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 399       Fri Apr 16, 1993
BOZLEE [Bozlee]              at 14:47 EDT

Off the shelf hardware is ALWAYS cheaper than custom built hardware, no matter
if it goes into an X-plane, or a 747.  Do we disagree on this?

If the only way you can gather compelling data is to build a vehicle shows a
rather extreme lack of engineering.  Certainly actually flying a vehicle is
the most compelling data, but it is hardly the only compelling data.  Take a
look at the history of the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous for lunar landing.  By your
philosophy you would have had to actually go out and do it to make folks
believe it could be done. Of course that was not the case.  Real engineers
looked at real data and (There is that word again) studies, saw the logic of
the concept, and the rest is history.  The same kind of thought process needs
to happen here, but I fear a lot of folks dont like the idea of studying a
problem before they do anything.

Which brings us to the next point, the fear you seem to show to logically
thinking about the problem.  Studies are a lot like testing.  There is a
proper amount.  You dont simply grab a load of material and a few folks and
start ad hoc building of a spacecraft. That is a sure way to build the worlds
largest, loudest, most expensive pogo stick.  The NASA approach to study for
years and then study the studies doesnt work either.  Perhaps you have all the
reasonable design studies, trade analysis, and important data.  But perhaps
not.  I suspect not or we would hear more hard numbers and real engineering.

We agree we need something.  We agree we require cheap easy access to space.
These points are not in dispute by anyone here.  We only disagree about how
much engineering rigor is required to provide that access.  I maintain you
need a lot (but probably a lot less than NASA) and you seem to lean toward ad
hoc tin bnding.  Shrug.
 ------------
Category 3,  Topic 17
Message 400       Fri Apr 16, 1993
RSEVERY [Randall]            at 18:34 EDT

 Newsgroups: sci.space
 From: [e-mail] (Allen W. Sherzer)
 Subject: Re: DC-X update???
 Organization: Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
 Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1993 23:41:54 GMT

 In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Rob
Douglas) writes:

 >This question is probably mostly for Allen Sherzer, but anyone who KNOWS
 >would be welcome to answer.  I was just wondering if we could have some kind
 >of update on DC-X.

 Well it rolled out two weeks ago. As we speak it is at White Sands getting
 ready. I would have called my sources for the latest but they are all out
 of town (in NM).

 As for the future, there is at least $5M in next years budget for work
 on SSRT. They (SDIO) have been looking for more funds and do seem to have
 some. However, SDIO is not (I repeat, is not) going to fund an orbital
 prototype. The best we can hope from them is to 1) keep it alive for
 another year, and 2) fund a suborbital vehicle which MIGHT (with
 major modifications) just make orbit. There is also some money for a
 set of prototype tanks and projects to answer a few more open questions.

 Better news comes from the new Spacelifter effort. The USAF managers of
 this program are very open to SSTO and will have about $50M next
 year for studies. This would be enough to bring DC-Y to PDR.

 Now not all of this money will go to DC but a good case could be made
 for spending half on DC.

 Public support is STILL critical. Meet with your Congressperson (I'll
 help you do it) and get his/her support. Also call your local media
 ans get them to cover the flight tests.

    Allen
 --
 +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 | Lady Astor:   "Sir, if you were my husband I would poison your coffee!"   |
 | W. Churchill: "Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it."             |
 +----------------------62 DAYS TO FIRST FLIGHT OF DCX-----------------------+