[AR] Re: SpaceX Single Stage to Orbit
- From: <anthony@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 22 May 2019 23:18:31 -0400
I'm on my third reading of James Mahaffy's writings. He seems a better idea of
where we went wrong than I do.
Anthony J. Cesaroni
President/CEO
Cesaroni Technology/Cesaroni Aerospace
http://www.cesaronitech.com/
(941) 360-3100 x101 Sarasota
(905) 887-2370 x222 Toronto
-----Original Message-----
From: arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of
Henry Spencer
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2019 10:34 PM
To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [AR] Re: SpaceX Single Stage to Orbit
On Wed, 22 May 2019, anthony@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Wasn’t the former Titan capable of SSTO, assuming a practical “zero”
payload?
The Titan II first stage could even carry a token payload into orbit, maybe 1t
or so if you did things just right, *but* it would need new engines to do SSTO
at all: the stock engines have *too much* thrust to fly an efficient
trajectory, and their design doesn't lend itself to substantial throttling.
The new engines wouldn't have to be lighter, or have higher Isp, but they'd
need lower thrust and preferably throttling capability as well. (In practice,
while you were doing new ones, you'd surely give them longer nozzles for a
modest Isp gain -- even the Titan II engines got an ablative nozzle extension
for the Titan IIIB -- and they'd probably end up lighter too...)
Max Hunter thought you could do the same with a classical Atlas (yes, taking
the booster-engine ring along to orbit), probably even with a Delta core, if
you tried hard.
And as Bill has already noted, the Falcon 9 first stage has the right numbers
to do it, probably without even needing engine mods since it's got enough
engines to shut some of them down for thrust reduction.
Henry
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