CEV - Orion

> From: Xenophile
> Hopefully it won't take "a couple of decades," but then how fast can
> it happen?

It could have been thirty or forty years ago. Rocket design effectively
stalled at the end of the Apollo era. (The shuttle SSME and SRBs are
impressive, but it's debatable whether they represented a step forward
rather than sideways.) At that point we knew enough about getting into space
and back down again to build reliable space vehicles. They would *not* have
been SSTO, but they would have brought the cost down to $500/lb or lower in
today's money. We coudl dust any of the thirty odd sdensible industry
studies off the drawing board (leaving aside the air-breathers and
500ton-to-orbit monsters), give it along with $6B to skunkworks or scaled
composites, and a simple instruction in bold letters to NOT DEVELOP NEW
TECHNOLOGY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and have a prototype flying in about 24
months.

SSTO seems a rule of three though with our current technology: Get into
orbit, get back down again, carry a useful payload - pick two. I favour
TSTO; with a personal bias for a pop-up first stage, blunt body reentry, and
expander-cycle engines. (AKA: The Rocket Company)

> Well, it used to. But then... well, a lot of stuff went wrong. I was
> just wondering how CEV - Orion was suposed to put the sunshine back
> between our cheeks again.

One way is the service module. Since it needs to be built for every mission
it's (relatively) easy to incorporate new technology and ideas. Consider the
switch over from hypergolics to LNG/LOX. How long would that take with a
space shuttle? It's entirely modular.

A stripped down CEV is also a perfectly safe way of getting small ammouts of
nuclear fuel into orbit. Uranium inside a 'safe' style container inside a
CEV is fairly robust and will withstand pretty much any imaginable launch or
midflight emergancy.

The CEV will also provide a 'quick launch' facility. Once on the pad all you
need to do is load a fairly small LOX and LOH tank and put the crew on
board. No first stage fueling. No payload intigration. No six days talking
to computers from the 1970s while you check the health of the rocket. It
should be possible to launch within 48 hours of leaving the VAB.

> Maybe that $60B can be spent on space elevator.

They'll be useful for cargo, but rockets won't be confined to narrow areas
of the equator, and people will prefer them for rapid launches. There's also
the big problem of mass producing the required materials. Until that problem
is solved, the space elevator will be one of those technologies that will
always be possible in another twenty years.

John