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"Neither SDV nor a heavy EELV are truly capable of engine-out flight.  You could lose an SDV main engine in certain flight regimes and survive, but an SRB problem is fatal, the odds of escape are zilch (unless the vehicle is rebuilt as an in-line launcher,) and some engine failures would also be fatal."

Even so, the medium EELVs will use solids--and these smaller solids with no heavy steel casing worry me. SDV has multiple liquid engines, and plently of solid thrust ot minimize any liquid-fueled engine problems and certainly clear the pad. Delta IV cannot do this. A Saturn rebirth is clearly out of the question. SDV is about as best as we can hope for--the EELV will cost more in the long run--will waste more engines and upper stages--will make putting 100 tons in orbit a tedious, long process.

Frankly--we haven't seen that Delta IV can put 20 tons in LEO yet.

Bor rode in a shroud equipped Kosmos--and Kliper may not have true wings--if any.

On more artwork, play around at http://www.russianspaceweb.com]www.russianspaceweb.com

A site I often like to visit http://www.starshipmodeler.net]www.starshipmodeler.net is down

I wonder if my critics had anything do do with that hack-job.

Here are two of the largest seriously conceived:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/nexus.ht … /nexus.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/mllv.htm … s/mllv.htm

Pressure feds are cheaper, despite what many may say.

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/bealba2. … ealba2.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/truax. … /truax.htm

With nukes, much larger designs can be achieved:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/aldbaran … dbaran.htm

Misc:
http://www.launchcomplexmodels.com/lcm/ … vyLift.ppt

http://www.starshipmodeler.net/cgi-bin/ … ...tart=30

Even so--chew upon this.

If missile defense money goes into useless ground-based silos that Republicans dig and Dems bury over with Caterpillers--it helps us not a jot. If the money for SDI goes to an HLLV--then if a Dem gets in office--we still have a good booster out of the deal--instead of moth-balled silos that help space-exploration and solar powersat construction not at all.

In this sense ONCE HLLV IS UNDER CONTRACT, it becomes politician-proof. It keeps the shuttle jobs in place, and institutional inertia keeps it flying as it has kept the shuttle. The only diff' is that the SDV puts up 100 tons of cargo--not a puny 20 ton load with a big orbiter people are after with a hatchet.

Both Dems and Reps should support this--in that--if a Dem gets in office--it won't be as if that HLLV money has been wasted, because it--unlike JSF and other SDI tech--has a use beyond the military. Space Based Solar Power sats are best built with HLLVs.

My goal is to ramp up throw-weight to get us out of this
THALL SHALT NOT LAUNCH OVER 20 TONS TO LEO mindset the bean counters have locked us into.

SDV is only the beginning. I will not rest until SDV HLLVs are the smallest boosters we have, with that crutch of a Delta II banned and Sea Dragon flying with 550 tons to LEO. Only then will space open up to commerce--in bulk--not in Rutan's useless toys.

My mantra is that we all should be in the one true Church of the Heavy Lift.

Thy five segment solids comfort me--and the EELV heretics shall be put to the sword  :angry:

http://www.britishtitanium.co.uk
Nice site. (down now) Nice SDV pic. That at least saves you 12 RS-68s on 4-5 Delta IVs.

Those are your real costs.

With Five SDVs (which will not bankrupt NASA any more than shuttle--and will cost less without the orbiter) you have 500 tons in orbit for the same number of hydrogen engines.

An added market for HLLV
There's an article on potential space based weapons online at the IEEE website:

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/pu … 5star.html

http://www.aps.org/public_affairs/popa/ … /nmd03.cfm

Another reference is the RAND book, Space Weapons, Earth Wars, at:

http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1 … MR/MR1209/

http://www.missilethreat.com/]http://ww … hreat.com/
http://www.highfrontier.org]http://www.highfrontier.org

New Polyus pics.

http://fpmail.friends-partners.org/pipe … ...56.html

http://www.spaceislandgroup.com]http://www.spaceislandgroup.com

On Solids...

We are going to have to make do with solids--like it or not. Chances are, the CEV--if used for exploration, could get away with a Delta IV med or Atlas Med--but will probably need solids.

If anything, the fact that the SRBs kept going after the Challenger accident (a bad seal can doom any rocket) impresses me all the more. They have been fixed, and have heavy steel construction. The smaller solids actually scare me more. Let one turn loose, and it's headed right toward the capsule. ISS could force the CEV to turn into a pig for servicing--provided it gets to ISS at all:

Which CEV?
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3 … icle/322/1

With the abundant lift capacity of HLLV, the CEV design can be about as big as you like--no problem.

Not having SDV is what will bankrupt NASA.

As I see it, we stand to lose Shuttle architecture, the CEV will be a pig--(from a future DNC administration that abandons the Bush vision in favor of a LEO-only "Earth First" stance--and we will be stuck with capsules in LEo and be worse off than we are now. I see a big NASA hit if the DNC takes over.

Call it Hand-waving if you will--but I am of the opinion that it is now--or never--before we get into another stupid war.

"Ah huh, "secret projects." It is a simple matter of math that when volume increases, surface area doesn't increase as much, hence mass does not increase as much. Hence, the larger Venturestar would have been light enough not to need so much fuel that it would eliminate an internal cargo bay. The USAF wanted the X-33 to be their "SMV" vehicle and would therefore need to carry at least a little payload... so it would be logical to bolt it onto the side, since the X-33 was not designed with a cargo bay since it was only a technology demonstrator."

Nice try. But it doesn't work that way--because, unlike a parasite orbiter all the tankage needs heavy heat-sheild--so the small increase in surefacer area still hurts you--thus:

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/la … ...22.html

At least others are talking heavy lift:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rocketsc … e-05i.html
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3 … icle/335/1

"Why do you continue to pig-headed and stupidly ignore when I say that EELV can be upgraded? It can, the Delta-IV could be made from Lithium alloy like STS-ET, the RS-68 can have a higher Isp with a regenerative loop, and so on...Maybe you inhaled some of the nasty Hydrazine and it has ruined your reading comprihension and math skills... SDV is simply not the only option." Mr. G doesn't feel that way

http://www.space.com/spacenews/business … 40412.html

"And how exactly do you intend to ensure that the Shuttle Army is largely culled, Publiusr? It seems to me that the temptation for NASA management or Congressmen to not cut down their number sufficently will be the end of everything. Shuttle costs $4.3Bn per year to operate, and under a quarter of that is actual flight hardware aproximatly. SDV would absolutely have to be operated for no more then half a billion per flight, which right now that seems pretty optimistic since the pieces alone would run ~$180M... only a bit more then Shuttle's consumeables, but it costs about $1,000M per flight."

Even if that is true, that still comes to $200 million per 20 tons--the same or less than EELV, and with far less RS-68s and upper stages expended. And less construction time.

The actual cost is still less.

"Even when Zubrin states things that are factually not true? "

And how is what he says on this not true?

"Side mount allows outsized objects to be taken to space--and X-33 was to evolved into external payload pods due to all its internal volume going to fuel."

"Actually no. This is because the X-33 was not going to be the ultimate end of the design, but rather a light spaceplane as a design test bed and for specialty payload (or weapon) delivery for the USAF. The Venturestar would have had a fully internal payload bay, made possible with its lower mass per volume."

Not according to the book Lockheed's Secret Projects. The payload was in fact to be exterior/side-mount for Venture Star.   Look it up.

"Are you completly out of your MIND? ACTIVE cooling for reentry? Oh lord, I am going to rub my temples and pretend you didn't just say that. I think thats the dumbest idea i've heard since Errorist was building piplines."

You are not listening. Side mount allows for scramjet boilerplates and allows for active cooling to at least be tested in large scale. If that doesn't work--you can go to a Faget Straight wing. That is why engines need to go under the ET, so you are not limited to any one wing design--any one orbiter. I have seen drawings of side mount aerobrake disks wider than an orbiter's wingspan for some of Boeing's old Shuttle-C proposals. Top mount will not allow for this.

"Um, what? Why on Earth would we use low-performance, difficult to store,"

They are called storable propellants because they are in fact more easily stored. That's the dumbest statement I've heard you make in some time.

"And frankly, I don't exactly put much stock in the Starlifter people, nor this fellow at TheSpaceReview who can't add... The cost of the parts alone for Ares would aproximatly equal his estimate, and not include money for all the engineers to ready and fly it. Same deal with Shuttle-C with SSMEs."

So you say sir; But I don't put much stock in your opinions, because you can't subtract.

I want only three SSME's/RS-68s per 100 tons.

You want 15 thrown away in five launches of that pad-sitting Delta IV with piecemeal ISS assembly.

That means you want to throw away 12 more engines than are needed, not counting five upper stages, pad time, etc.

Now who can't do math?

It's shuttle-derived or nothing pal.

Deal with it.

I loved Revengers smack against "Angry Apollo era engineers."

How thoughtless.

Zubrin is not the only one who understands the need for SDV HLLV:

http://www.starbooster.com/aquila.htm]h … aquila.htm
http://www.starbooster.com/TALAYPanel3F … 3FINAL.pdf
http://www.nsschapters.org/ny....ied.pd … ...ied.pdf
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1 … icle/150/1

And you're right and they are all wrong. But Mr. Revenger has never been wrong about anything, has he?

The Indians are designing larger GSLV type vehicles, and China's largest new 504 series will exceed Delta IV according to some.

revenger wrote:
"Fine, tell me how any model of the Delta-IV could subject the CEV to 25G loads."

Abort profiles. I find the folks at Thiokol more credible than Boeing . Read last weeks av week about the Delta IV's problems--and how the astronauts don't like EELV.

"If you mean 25G's from the escape system to ensure crew surviveability in a booster failure, that is equally nonsense. Thikol estimated that putting CEV on top of a modified Shuttle SRB in their "Shuttle derived" vehicle would have only exposed the crew to 8Gs. "

Their vehicle--less than Boeing's. Talk to Chuck Jensen there at ATK.

"Guess what? Russia's new Klipper manned spacecraft, the replacement for the allmighty Soyuz... will ride on Zenit. "

Actually, Kliper was an excuse to convince the Euro's to give the R-7 pad there a hydrogen upper stage handling capability to double its payload and turn it into an Ariane killer by sneak.

Don't even try to talk down engine out. It is more than a nice thing to have. I doubt kliper will ever see service.

"No engine out capability there, and it doesn't seem to bother the Russians. The statistics are all that matters, not your wannabe-engineers' "intuition."

That is friendly talk from you. I guess the engineers who do appreciate engine-out aren't as smart as you. Or maybe you are just a smart-ass.

You sound like one.

"--throwing away five RS-68s to do it, where shuttle-derived can do it with three and have engine out."

Actually, each one would come equipped with only three booster cores, and only three RS-68's each.

Yeah three each--for five Delta IVs to do what one three RS-68 HLLV can do with the engine-out which saved at least one Saturn V mission--remember?

http://www.space.com/spacenews/pdf/zubr … zubrin.pdf

Read it and weep.

On to other matters then...

Ariane V may actually be phased out. The Zenit is Ukrainian--not Russian--in design, and the R-7 is what the Russians want upgraded, because with a hydrogen upper stage, it will take a bit more to LEO than even Zenit can--unless it gets the same work.

If the Euros go along with a hydrogen upper stage, they may try to build a larger launcher for their Aurora plans.

Energiya M would have been better than Ariane V anyway.

The lack of Engine-Out in the Delta IV--which must rise 1,000 feet straight up and can subject crews to 25 g during abort is all the reason to avoid the lemon that is the Delta IV.

"This is not true. The 25G seperation is a scare-tactic lie with no basis in reality."

It most certainly is true. That is Boeing hype that tells you it isn't.

"More unsubstantiated rumor-mongering."

Take a look at the other HLLV thread--for a picture of Delta IV surrounded by fire.

Or is that a scare tactic too?

Or Johnson's not taking a shine to it?

"The USAF doesn't seem terribly concernd"
The Air Farce is run by retards.

"It wouldn't really surprise me if these lies came from disgruntled NASA/United Space employees working at KSC who may become "surplussed" without a heavy lift rocket based from there."

It wouldn't surprise me if Boeing's lies about Delta IV are to unload that dog on us taxpayers now that it has been withdrawn from the commercial market--with its Zenit Sea Launch vehicle taking those--Zenit, the Energiya HLLV strap-on.

Two words: Darleen Druyen.

"Engine-out capability is also not that important."

:laugh:  :laugh:  :laugh:

"The model of Delta-IV that I am most interested in is the upgraded 40MT version of the current Delta-IV HLV, which will be able to acend from the pad much faster with its improved engines and lighter construction."

--throwing away five RS-68s to do it, where shuttle-derived can do it with three and have engine out.

"Going with "Delta-IV+" will also save having to develop two rockets."

We already have two tax supported EELVs as it is. We need one EELV and one HLLV. Not duplication of effort.

On Page 55 of POP SCI there is a nice stack.

Admittedly, Space Dev is probably not up to the task.