C
Crossover_Maniac
Guest
In the race of cheap access to space, new technology and alternatives to rockets have be proposed. SSTO, scramjets, maglev, skyhooks, etc. But there has been some work being done on cutting the cost of conventional launch vehicles such as the EELV. But more radical approaches as been proposed. The BDB (Big Dumb Booster) in which a rocket would be constructed with less emphasis on performance and more on cutting cost. Steel instead of space age alloys, pressure-fed rockets instead of turbopumps, and hybrids over liquid or solid as ways to cutting the cost by avoiding unnecessary complexity and expense for the sake of performance. Two other projects come to mind: Otrag and Aquarius.
Otrag is a launch vehicle composed entirely of parallel-staged rockets stacked side-by-side. It runs contrary to rules of rocket design which states to keep the parallel staging to a minimum and to avoid it altogether in order to minimum drag. However, the Otrag disregards this rule for the sake of mass-production. The parallel stages are identical, which means they can be mass-produced. One type of rocket nozzle, one type of tank, one type of structure, etc. While the added drag means less payload per launch, the overall mission cost is cut with the streamlined production.
Aquarius is the ultimate expendable vehicle. Aquarius cuts cost at the expense of increasing its chance of failure. Most rockets have a 95-99% rate of success. Aquarius will only have an estimated success rate of 67% or two launches out of three or at least it's design that way. Rather than improving the design to minimize a scrubbed launch, Aquarius will only do enough to get some of their rockets up. This would not work with multi-million dollar sats or astronauts as the payload. Instead, Aquarius' payload will be cheap expendables such as food, water, fuel, and air. The logic behind this reasoning valid. It makes little sense to spend millions on improving the reliability of a launch vehicle for cargo that is only worth a few thousand at the most when it's cheaper to launch rocket not quite reliable and just taking a loss. The team that has designed Aquarius is betting that it is more cost effective to lose more launch vehicles and launch another load of cheap cargo on another rocket than it is to spend R & D money to improve reliability.
My opinion is that more work should be done, at least when it comes to bulk expendable cargo as a means to reduce the overall cost of going into space. What do you think?
Otrag is a launch vehicle composed entirely of parallel-staged rockets stacked side-by-side. It runs contrary to rules of rocket design which states to keep the parallel staging to a minimum and to avoid it altogether in order to minimum drag. However, the Otrag disregards this rule for the sake of mass-production. The parallel stages are identical, which means they can be mass-produced. One type of rocket nozzle, one type of tank, one type of structure, etc. While the added drag means less payload per launch, the overall mission cost is cut with the streamlined production.
Aquarius is the ultimate expendable vehicle. Aquarius cuts cost at the expense of increasing its chance of failure. Most rockets have a 95-99% rate of success. Aquarius will only have an estimated success rate of 67% or two launches out of three or at least it's design that way. Rather than improving the design to minimize a scrubbed launch, Aquarius will only do enough to get some of their rockets up. This would not work with multi-million dollar sats or astronauts as the payload. Instead, Aquarius' payload will be cheap expendables such as food, water, fuel, and air. The logic behind this reasoning valid. It makes little sense to spend millions on improving the reliability of a launch vehicle for cargo that is only worth a few thousand at the most when it's cheaper to launch rocket not quite reliable and just taking a loss. The team that has designed Aquarius is betting that it is more cost effective to lose more launch vehicles and launch another load of cheap cargo on another rocket than it is to spend R & D money to improve reliability.
My opinion is that more work should be done, at least when it comes to bulk expendable cargo as a means to reduce the overall cost of going into space. What do you think?