Space X to build reusable launch vehicle

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 10:42 pm

Does anyone know whether the helicopter RLV concept of a few years ago was abandoned for financial or technical reasons? Would it be more reasonable to incorperate it into a reusable first stage instead of a SSTO launcher?

That was Gary C. Hudsons Rotary Rocket. IIRC, they had several problems.
The biggest one was that they never managed to get the financing to build the thing.
The second one was that from what I heard, the rocket was a bitch to fly. The rotor was not just autorotating, but had little rockets in the tips to provide additional torque. Either way, it was really difficult to handle.
That and lack of funding sealed its fate. It is a shame. Gary Hudson is a brilliant rocket designer and he has had some awesome concepts over the years (also see t/space), but he seems to have very little luck when it comes to getting his ideas funded. I think that we could have RLVs doing cheap orbital flights for years now, if he was more lucky with getting funding.
Youtube has several videos of the Roton in flight, such as this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kp63-an2ts

I also recommend reading on the DC-X/XA/Y. It is one of those projects that failed mainly for political reasons and it is what makes me so sure that at least first stage recovery is very much within the reach of SpaceX.
SpaceX has the added advantage that they do not need the cross range that the DOD wanted for the Delta Clipper. So it should be even easier to realize. In fact, I think that doing a complete SSTO like the Delta Clipper was meant to be is very much within reach and only a small step from what SpaceX is trying to do. In fact, it may be even easier to do than the TSTO, because you dont have to turn the first stage arround for landing (but rather do a complete orbit). I think that one would still need a second stage to bring the payload to a practical orbit (with the first stage only doing a very low orbit before returning).
Either way, even the shape of the DC-X provided quite a bit of cross range. Maybe SpaceX is considering something like this, but just did not show it in the video? Elon Musk mentioned something about the video not showing everything.
Either way, I wished that NASA had kept the DC-X project going instead of wasting billions on the X-33. It is one of the many reasons why I have lost all trust in NASA being capable of developing a new launch vehicle or manned spacecraft. They have demonstrated their inability over and over again in the past 30 years.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 12:59 am

Skipjack wrote: Youtube has several videos of the Roton in flight, such as this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kp63-an2ts

Wow, a really wierd helicoptor.

Skipjack wrote:Either way, I wished that NASA had kept the DC-X project going instead of wasting billions on the X-33. It is one of the many reasons why I have lost all trust in NASA being capable of developing a new launch vehicle or manned spacecraft. They have demonstrated their inability over and over again in the past 30 years.

IIRC, the only real success that the "delta clipper" had was when it was in Air Force hands. NASA took it over and totally bombed.

kunkmiester · Post by **kunkmiester** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 2:03 am

NASA took it over and totally bombed.

NASA seems to have that effect.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 2:33 am

NASA seems to have that effect.

Which is why the SLS is a total waste of money, a point that I have been trying to make earlier...
Imagine if NASA had just continued to properly fund the Delta Clipper instead of the wastly more ambitious X33!
We would probably have routine access to LEO with an SSTO RLV that has a turnaround time of just a few days.

IntLibber · Post by **IntLibber** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 11:55 am

Skipjack wrote:
NASA seems to have that effect.
Which is why the SLS is a total waste of money, a point that I have been trying to make earlier...
Imagine if NASA had just continued to properly fund the Delta Clipper instead of the wastly more ambitious X33!
We would probably have routine access to LEO with an SSTO RLV that has a turnaround time of just a few days.

Part of the reason X33 was such a failure was outright fraud by Lockheed Martin, whose personnell claimed to NASA that they had the expertise in black projects to make their Venturestar proposal work. In the X33 competition, McDonnell was in fact competing with a DC-Y based design while Boeing/Rockwell were competing a design akin to the X-37 of today.

Betruger · Post by **Betruger** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 12:24 pm

Dan you can (IIRC) read about the later part of the Rotary development at NSF. NSF user HMXHMX was part of that team.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Fri Oct 14, 2011 3:02 pm

In the X33 competition, McDonnell was in fact competing with a DC-Y based design while Boeing/Rockwell were competing a design akin to the X-37 of today.

I know, but NASA hated the DC-X (bcause of its success with little money) and they also had the weird concept that choosing the most ambitious design was a good idea for some reason.
So they chose the Lockheed design. The cancellation was also dubious. One main reason cited was the failure of the cryogenic composite tank and the issues with it. Interestingly enough they built a replacement from aluminium which was much lighter and worked fine, but NASA rejected it anyway on the grounds that they wanted the composite tank research as part of the project. Instead of keeping it going with the aluminum tank, they threw out the entire project including the many things that worked.
Typical NASA management and politics crap and the reason why nothing has ever happened at NASA in over 30 years.
Sure, Lockmart was not without fault in all this, but NASA is just as much to blame.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 12:08 am

The military has a mission, to protect the country. They spend as little money as they need to to get the tools to fullfill that mission.

NASA has a mission too. Their mission is to subsidize aero-space research. They spend as much money as they can get to fullfill that mission.

Kind of explains the difference, no?

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 12:57 am

NASA has a mission too. Their mission is to subsidize aero-space research.

At least if you are to believe Hutchinson, Shelby and co...

They spend as little money as they need to to get the tools to fullfill that mission.

I seriously doubt that though. There is just as much lobbying going on there as well and some purchase decisions in the US military are certainly of doubtful motivation.

charliem · Post by **charliem** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 2:08 am

From and programmer's perspective looks like NASA has a problem of queue management, but with money dedicated to projects instead of processor time dedicated to computer jobs.

Maybe they could benefit from using some of the well known algorithms to solve that.

If I recall correctly giving priority to the shorter jobs, and then implementing some mechanism to avoid that the biggest where delayed forever, was a quite efficient way for getting the most done with the available processor time.

Translate into money: fund the cheaper projects first.

On the other hand being that inefficient, public initiative lives plenty of opportunities for the private sector, although the monsters that the former tends to create don't die without a fight (and, being monsters, they're quite strong).

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 11:44 am

No NASA mostly has a political problem. Certain politicians are just using it as a vehicle to get giant earmarks to their respective lobbyists. Both republicans and democrats guilty there.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 1:33 pm

Skipjack wrote:
They spend as little money as they need to to get the tools to fullfill that mission.
I seriously doubt that though. There is just as much lobbying going on there as well and some purchase decisions in the US military are certainly of doubtful motivation.

My statement is true, but sometimes the "need" is, as you point out, driven by politics. I didn't say "as little as possible" but as little as they NEED to.

Sometimes they seem to pay a lot more than one would think necessary for a wigistat or thingumbee but if you delve down into it you will normally find that sometimes they need to keep capabilities beyond immediate usage rates, and keeping that capability costs money.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 4:54 pm

Sometimes they seem to pay a lot more than one would think necessary for a wigistat or thingumbee but if you delve down into it you will normally find that sometimes they need to keep capabilities beyond immediate usage rates, and keeping that capability costs money.

And sometimes they are just about earmarks for lobbyists like so many places in the government. It is what I noticed about the republicans in the US. They claim to be all against earmarks and wasteful government spending. but it seems that in their eyes spending on defense is never wasteful, no matter how ridiculously out of hand it has gotten in the last decades.

charliem · Post by **charliem** » Sat Oct 15, 2011 11:55 pm

I see enterprises as open dynamic state systems.

There's one clear initial state.

There's evolution through time.

There has to be a final state or set of states, defined by the goal or goals to achieve (those can be extended in time, so reaching them doesn't have to imply the end).

There can exist one connected path from the initial to [some of] the final states, or multiple, or none. If none, evidently the enterprise won't be successful, no matter what.

But even if there exist a path nothing guarantees that it's followed, because there are also forces that influence the systems dynamics "en route", and some of them are purely perturbing, tend to astray the system from it.

Too many perturbing forces and the system behavior becomes chaotic, a waste of resources, its goals never achieved.

I think there is a clear correlation between clarity of goals and number of perturbing forces, and probability for success. Private enterprises usually have much clearer goals, and have to deal with fewer perturbing forces.

Not that every public enterprise has to end in waste and chaos. In the 60's NASA had a very clear objective, and there where less people trying to use it for their own goals than now (that would have been unpopular then).

Compare that to the present situation of NASA, and it's clear why it's about to be overtaken (in some respects) by the private companies (and, being almost a monopoly, I would not include ULA in this category).

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Sun Oct 16, 2011 12:26 am

Skipjack wrote: And sometimes they are just about earmarks for lobbyists like so many places in the government. It is what I noticed about the republicans in the US. They claim to be all against earmarks and wasteful government spending. but it seems that in their eyes spending on defense is never wasteful, no matter how ridiculously out of hand it has gotten in the last decades.

AFAICT, the military does not earmark. Congress does in the military budget, but not the military itself.