Except the US doesn’t have a cheap, easily available source of titanium.
The stuff we used for the SR-71 and F-14 had to be gotten surreptitiously from the Russians.
That’s why the Space Shuttle didn’t have the titanium heat shield it was designed with and had to rely on the newly invented, much more delicate, ceramic heat shields. Which, it can be argued, resulted in the all of the deaths of the Challenger crew.
No, the ceramic heat shield killed the Columbia crew.
The Challenger crew was killed when a leaky SRB blowtorched the big orange tank. The SRB leaked partially because of an imperfectly designed seal and partially by being flown outside of its design limitations regarding temperature.
It is my belief as a pilot and aircraft mechanic that both accidents share a critical design flaw: The crew vehicle for some bizarre reason was carried next to its rockets instead of on top where it belongs. It meant that Challenger had no way to escape, no launch escape tower could take them away from an exploding lower stage, and it put Columbia in a place where debris shed by the lower stage could hit it. Nothing could fall off of an Apollo first stage and hit the capsule because it was a hundred feet ahead.
And it was vectored down through the floor at the center of mass somewhere in the big orange tank, which is why the shuttle always did a sick Tokyo drift off the pad.
Thrust from rocket engines(or jet engines) is not lift. The force they genarate is perpindicular to the focre genarated by lift. All of the lift being genarated in front of the CG would cause the rocket to pich over and crash back into the ground.
I’m going to bet that we won’t see another spacecraft of the same plan as the shuttle. We barely got it to work, the Soviets managed a single unmanned test flight of something similar, and we’ve got vertically landing reusable rockets now. Large space planes I think are a dead end.
I hear you
Pros:
Except the US doesn’t have a cheap, easily available source of titanium.
The stuff we used for the SR-71 and F-14 had to be gotten surreptitiously from the Russians.
That’s why the Space Shuttle didn’t have the titanium heat shield it was designed with and had to rely on the newly invented, much more delicate, ceramic heat shields. Which, it can be argued, resulted in the all of the deaths of the Challenger crew.
No, the ceramic heat shield killed the Columbia crew.
The Challenger crew was killed when a leaky SRB blowtorched the big orange tank. The SRB leaked partially because of an imperfectly designed seal and partially by being flown outside of its design limitations regarding temperature.
Mea culpa, you’re right. I was misremembering.
So with the original titanium heat shield the Columbia crew wouldn’t have died such gruesome deaths. All because Congress was cheap.
It is my belief as a pilot and aircraft mechanic that both accidents share a critical design flaw: The crew vehicle for some bizarre reason was carried next to its rockets instead of on top where it belongs. It meant that Challenger had no way to escape, no launch escape tower could take them away from an exploding lower stage, and it put Columbia in a place where debris shed by the lower stage could hit it. Nothing could fall off of an Apollo first stage and hit the capsule because it was a hundred feet ahead.
Not a rocket scientist so I can’t say.
But I’m betting a room full of them and NASA engineers thought through all of their options based on the criteria and current tech.
Having been to NASA and seen their museum and the launch pads and shit and gotten to talk to people who work there:
You’d think they thought it through, but small details get missed all the time in Nassau history
I mean, sure hindsight is 20/20.
But Columbia would have never happened if Congress hadn’t pulled funding for the titanium heat shield they wanted.
The issue is that they wanted to really pump up the reusable launch vehicle part, so it couldn’t be this little thing on the top with 4 SRBs.
They died for the marketing.
And more than a little scope creep.
Aerodynamics called: your center of lift being far infront of your center of gravity does not work
When basically all of your “lift” is coming from thrust, sure it does. As if the space shuttle stack was a work of aerodynamic genius.
Like 30% of the shuttles launch thrust came from the main engines.
And it was vectored down through the floor at the center of mass somewhere in the big orange tank, which is why the shuttle always did a sick Tokyo drift off the pad.
Thrust from rocket engines(or jet engines) is not lift. The force they genarate is perpindicular to the focre genarated by lift. All of the lift being genarated in front of the CG would cause the rocket to pich over and crash back into the ground.
Aerodynamic lift has a lot to do with angle of attack. Source: I am a flight instructor.
But but, it could glide*!
*Kinda, and the parachutes are slower. It also has to piggyback on a 747 to be moved anywhere.
I’m going to bet that we won’t see another spacecraft of the same plan as the shuttle. We barely got it to work, the Soviets managed a single unmanned test flight of something similar, and we’ve got vertically landing reusable rockets now. Large space planes I think are a dead end.
Pros:
Forces the US to upkeep international relations and trading
Cons:
Trading with “the enemy” used to be considered treasonous.