D
delta26
Guest
It looks like this has been discussed before but I want to start off in a different direction.<br /><br />There seems to be a feeling that the capsule design of the Orion is a "step backward". Yet nobody seems to consider the Soyuz TMA a step backward, or the Shenzhou for that matter.<br /><br />The General consensus is that a reusable spacecraft will be the only way to make space flight economical, and that such a spacecraft must be of a winged or lifting body type design.<br /><br />What's wrong with a reusable capsule?.<br /><br />Obviously the ablative heatshield would need to be replaced every flight, but the cost of checking and refurbishing the rest of the vehicle couldn't be any more than turning around a Space Shuttle Orbiter.<br /><br />Now there's also the launch vehicle, It also doesn't need wings to be reuseable, the shuttle SRBs are essentially a reusable first stage, It's more difficult to make a reusable second stage.<br /><br /> The best solution I've seen for this is Kistler 's design. their crew capsule and second stage are one spacecraft. Now this poses design challeneges, but they can't be as great as those for a SSTO winged vehicle.<br /><br />In short, I think designs like those of Kistler and SpaceX(Falcon 5/9 supposedly fully reusable) should be given more credit. People seem to put launch vehicles and spacecraft in two categories: Those with wings that can be reused, and those that can't. The real solution may very well lie between those two.