Straight Wing Orbiter

[tomnackid]

Back in the early days of STS development Max Faget proposed an orbiter with short, straight wings. The Air Force rejected this design since it did not have enough cross range to meet their needs. However it did have a lot going for it. Reentry was much shorter and therefore generated lower heat loads. Because reentry heating was lower and over a smaller area of the orbiter it would used a relatively robust ablative heat shield rather than super light weight, super fragile silica tiles and carbon panels. You could pound away at it with chunks of foam all day long and not damage it!<br /><br />I can't imagine that we would completely give up the idea of runway landings. I mean we can't keep plopping people and cargo down in the middle of oceans or tundras if we want space travel to be cheap, safe and routine. <br /><br />So...since NASA seems committed to continuing development of the STS--just dumping the current orbiter--do you think that an "orbiter mark II" is in the works. Maybe a Faget-style straight wing, maybe something else. The 70s was probably too early to think about spaceplanes, and politics seems to be currently running against anything resembling one, but I can't believe we would give up on the idea entirely.

 

[chmee]

I too do not think STS will be the last shuttle. While capsules are much cheaper to bring people up and down compared to STS, I think the winged shuttle concept will return (maybe 20-30 years) but in form of people only, not cargo.

 

[tomnackid]

"I do not think you could make that leap. They probably would have used the same TPS because it is so lite weight."<br />-------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Yes, I guess that would be the tendency given the traditional American rocket guys fetish for absolute performance above everything. But do you think we will get over that attitude? We don't need pickup trucks that handle like Ferraris. Will american aerospace engineers ever say something like: "Yes this makes the vehicle heavier but it will cost 20% less to maintain." ? I realize that back in the early days just achieving orbit was so difficult that engineers had to squeeze out everybit of performance they could. But it seems like now performance for perfomance sake is taking us down a dead end road. <br />

 

[spacefire]

go for a large lifting body. you get the cross-range, the runway landing, and the weight-volume efficiency of a capsule. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"go for a large lifting body..."</font><br /><br />Just posting the obligatory riposte:<br /><br />- Yep. Useful if you need it -- useless if you don't.<br />- Depends on the design.<br />- Nope. Basic geometry remains a constant despite your disbelief.

 

[spacefire]

ok, why?<br />give me an example of a system that fits better in a capsule than in a lifting body. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[tomnackid]

Well a lifting body combines some of the best aspects of capsules with winged vehicles, unfortunately it also combines some of the worst as well. Landing a lifting body on a runway is usually a hair raising experience. And if landing on runways is what we eventually want--and I think it will be once we have REAL space travel--then a lifting body would not be optimal. But I do like lifting bodies as an interim solution where they seem appropriate.<br /><br />One of the advantages of the Faget straight wing design is that it basically acts like a capsule through most of its reentry. In fact it has less cross range than an Apollo CM! The wings only come into play for the landing. Some versions sport wings that fold up or swing out of the way until landing. Like a capsule reentry heating is minimized by getting over quickly, unlike the current orbiter which stretches out reentry over a considerable period of time. <br /><br /><br />

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"give me an example of a system that fits better..."</font><br /><br />I assume your referring the the volumetrics efficiency. I already created a fairly lengthy post on that subject to you back when you were a lowly speck of dust. It involves basic geometry. You constantly harp on your expertise as an engineer -- if you haven't mastered basic geom by now, there's no hope of me being able to correct that deficiency. Beyond basic geom. lifting bodies will have more subsystems involved, control surfaces, etc. which will use up some of the volume that started out lower than a capsule.<br /><br />Base point is -- you can say that lifting bodies have <b>almost</b> the volumetric efficiency of capsules, but that's it. At that point, everything depends on your opinion of what 'almost' is. I don't argue with your opinions, whether I agree with them or not.

 

[spacefire]

pilot? what pilot? I would make the vehicle completely automatic. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[tap_sa]

No pilots? That's screamingly <i>unamerican</i>. Have you forgotten the 'no bucks, no buck rogers' <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />

 

[spacefire]

Pilots have one big problem: their big egos. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[propforce]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><font color="yellow">"give me an example of a system that fits better..." </font><br /><br />I assume your referring the the volumetrics efficiency. I already created a fairly lengthy post on that subject to you back when you were a lowly speck of dust. It involves basic geometry. You constantly harp on your expertise as an engineer -- if you haven't mastered basic geom by now, there's no hope of me being able to correct that deficiency. Beyond basic geom. lifting bodies will have more subsystems involved, control surfaces, etc. which will use up some of the volume that started out lower than a capsule. <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />OUCH !! Just cut my balls off and make me sing soprano !!<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[ronatu]

Are you talking about this one?

 

[spacefire]

<font color="yellow">Base point is -- you can say that lifting bodies have almost the volumetric efficiency of capsules, but that's it. At that point, everything depends on your opinion of what 'almost' is. I don't argue with your opinions, whether I agree with them or not.</font><br />bottomline is: a lifting body design is ALWAYS beter than an equivalent capsule design. just deal with it. Capsules are for when your booster can barely make the grade. That's not the case anymore, as the Kliper design is showing right now.<br />EVEN if a cpasule is lighter than a lifting body, it will not be cheaper to operate. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"bottomline is: a lifting body design is ALWAYS beter than an equivalent capsule design. just deal with it."</font><br /><br />Once again you fail to understand what I clearly explained to you in the last post. You can make that particular statement all you want. I don't have anything to deal with. You've just made a statement of opinion. It's neither true nor false. I don't care that you prefer lifting bodies to capsules. I've even stated in previous threads that I agree they have advantages, and I can see situations in which I would feel they were a preferable choice to a capsule. Just not for the CEV... for reasons I've already stated in threads you were involved with.<br /><br />Obviously that's <b>my</b> opinion, and I'm sure you'll give it the exact same amount of weight that I give to yours. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[lampblack]

For whatever it might be worth, here's a link discussing a shuttle design based on Faget's straight-winged concept:<br /><br />http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/shuenara.htm<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font color="#0000ff"><strong>Just tell the truth and let the chips fall...</strong></font> </div>

 

[tomnackid]

Its too bad NASA wasn't allowed to build a shuttle that was logical and economical to operate. If Nixon hadn't forced the Air Force and NASA to collaborate on a shuttle the neither ended up wanting who knows where we would be today! Everything wrong with the current STS was driven by the Air Force's need for cross range and a payload bay sized for a class of spy satellites that were probably already obsolete by the mid 70s. Although, I would make a case that Hubble alone has been worth the price of shuttle.<br /><br />I really like the idea of having a wing that is ONLY used for landing at subsonic speeds rather than trying to design something that can go from hypersonic to landing.

 

[centsworth_II]

Once again I have to remind you what the destination is: Bases on the Moon, a manned mission to Mars.<br /><br />Given budgetary and time restraints, which CEV type will get us to the destination quicker? Without a doubt, the capsule. <br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[drwayne]

And it would seem at some point, there would be some work done in how to use the resources available in those places to be as self-sufficient as possible.<br /><br />That is one place where I am torn. I am not sure if the preliminary work in such areas is really best done by manned missions.<br /><br />Wayne <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>"1) Give no quarter; 2) Take no prisoners; 3) Sink everything."  Admiral Jackie Fisher</p> </div>

 

[spacefire]

like I said, you won't be able to do much on the Moon or Mars without good cheap access to LEO.<br />And that's not obtainable with expendable launchers cause, you know, you throw them away after just one flight.<br />I think NASA should cancel all EELVS and put all of its budget back into the X33/Venture Star program and somehow make that baby work. It's the only worthy path to follow at this time.<br />Of course, it won't happen, because NASA is a government agency and a bureaucratic structure is only good for its own survival and expansion, rather like a large protozoar. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[halman]

tomnackid,<br /><br />The big bugaboo with wings that retract until past the hypersonic regieme is weight. The swing wing designs of the SST and the F-111 are not the answer, althought they have provided much data.<br /><br />Gas cylinders can push things into place with great pressure, and little weight, by burning a dense solid into a gas, which acts upon a piston in a cylinder. Such cylinders could deploy because of pressure generated by a viscous liquid being pumped through a cooling grid in the belly of the orbiter, boiling, and pushing against pistons. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[tomnackid]

Faget actually had fixed straight wings on some of his designs. The underside would have the same ablatic coating as the rest of the belly. This doesn't seem workable to me, but I'm not an aerodynamic engineer. The whole idea of the straight wing orbiter didn't make any sense to me until I did some research and found out that it would not actually be flying until it was well below the speed of sound.<br /><br />If it does need folding wings it has an advantage over something like the F-111 or the B1 Bomber. Those aircraft need to be able to change the angle of their wings continuously throughout a flight. An orbiter only needs to open them once. I imagine the mechanism would be more akin to the system used in cruise missles rather than the heavy, (leak prone) hydraulics of those planes. Do cruise missles use the gas actuated system that you mentioned?

 

[ronatu]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Faget was part of the original feasibility study for the Space Shuttle. His team then focused on Shuttle development.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />This is all projects which NASA selected from in May 1972:

 

[halman]

tomnackid,<br /><br />If you are referring to the wing deployment system on cruise missiles, I believe that it is powered by gas cylinders. Most ejection systems use gas cylinders, for jettisoning the canopy, usually, as well as getting the seat out of the aircraft before the rocket ignites. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> The secret to peace of mind is a short attention span. </div>

 

[mrmorris]

<font color="yellow">"I think NASA should cancel all EELVS ...<br /><br />Of course, it won't happen, because NASA is a government agency "</font><br /><br />Yeah -- well an admittedly <i>minor</i> secondary reason why this won't happen is because the EELVs aren't a NASA program. Their development and continuing existence is funded by a piddly little agency called the US Air Force. But of course it's still NASA's fault that the EELV program won't be cancelled. After all, <b>everything</b> that you don't like about the U.S. space program is NASA's fault.