Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002iaf..confe.282t&link_type=abstract
IAF abstracts, 34th COSPAR Scientific Assembly, The Second World Space Congress, held 10-19 October, 2002 in Houston, TX, USA.,
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Thirty-two years have past since I criticized the design of the shuttle in my article in Aeronautics and Astronautics, entitled Shuttles--What Price Elegance? At that time I predicted that the shuttle would not reduce the cost of space transportation, as its proponents almost pleadingly averred. I called it a money sponge of unparalleled capacity. I have since labeled it as the worst combination of primary features that could possibly be assembled into one vehicle. While I called the concept puerile, I lauded its makers for their execution - for their ability to make such a ludicrous concept work at all. It has been nearly sixty years since I pointed the way to low cost space transportation with my Sea Dragon concept. Simple, reusable, two stages to orbit, pressure-fed propulsion and recovery in the ocean by parachute. Since that date, billions have been spent on even more elegant approaches to reusable vehicles, and substantially nothing on the big, dumb reusable booster concept. As of now, all of the more elegant approaches have been cancelled, but the urge to elegance above common sense is still with us. I am sure that a single stage to orbit, reusable vehicle is possible, or will be within the next fifty years. I am equally sure, however, that it will not be economical. It will very probably be worse than the shuttle. We want two stages rather than one because it allows the upper stage to use very low pressures. We want parachute recovery in the ocean because it offers 70% of the Earth's surface to land in, and easy tow-back from anywhere. Perhaps it is necessary for the older generation to die out for the realities of over- sophistication to sink into the heads of our space engineers. All technologies mature, and ultimately reach a point where further sophistication is uneconomical. Launch vehicles reached this point long before they were invented. The big liquid ICBMs were useless as ballistic missiles and more sophisticated than necessary as space launch vehicles, but they were there. They helped lead us down the primrose path to exorbitant costs for access to space. Let us hope that a new generation of launch vehicle designers will keep their eye on the dollar and not on Isp and mass fraction to the exclusion of all else. Let us hope that the aeronautical engineers and test pilots who still exercise a great influence on the design of our launch vehicles will realize that there "ain't no air out there", and that despite all the X- wings on the Star Wars vehicles, wings on launch vehicles are as useless as the proverbial "tits on a bull". Flying into space is the hard way to get there.
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