H
halman
Guest
pistolPete,<br /><br />This whole discussion seems off course to me. Launching at supersonic speeds is not going to impart any great advantage, because the whole reason for using a carrier aircraft is not, as one poster put it, to get the space vehicle high enough to increase the efficiency of the rocket engine. The purpose is to get the vehicle above the densest part of the atmosphere so that it can accelerate at full throttle without being torn apart by aeordynamic turbulance. Why does the shuttle throttle the main engines back to 60 percent right after lift off? So that it won't get going too fast in the lower atmosphere. Once the point of max-Q is passed, they can pour the coal on.<br /><br />There is no existing vehicle that I am aware of that will be able to carry an orbital-capable manned spacecraft, unless it is a very small capsule on a solid rocket booster. We need to start from scratch, because the mission requirements of a carrier aircraft are unlike anything that has ever been built. (Except for the White Knight.) You want to have a carrier aircraft whose empty weight is considerably less than the payload it is to carry, but can carry a fuel load which is several times its own weight. You want an aircraft which is a fuel tank shaped into a wing, with many times the amount of thrust that the carrier needs to fly.<br /><br />At some point, the orbiter will get too big to launch under the wing, because the wing has to be distorted to allow for the landing gear to reach the ground with the payload underneath it. By puttitg the payload on the back of the carrier, it is possible to keep the wing in a fairly straight line, so that structural weight is kept to a minimum. An orbiter perched on top of a wing which has no tail section is free to run up its engines to full thrust without crisping the carrier. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>