SSTO vehicles

<< Those are hard conditions and would slow the development of the high
frontier
considerable. I've been waiting 2 decades for an SSTO and so far none have
appeared. We've gone through Scramjets, the Delta Clipper, Delta-Y, and
Delta-Z vehicles, the X-33, X-34, Vernture Star series, and all these
privately financed initiatives of the 80s, 90s, and today and they've dropped
by the wayside one by one. This goes to show how difficult it is to build an
inexpensive vehicle powered by chemical rockets only. Nuclear rockets may be
the only way to go right now unless you are willing to wait for ultra high
strength, ultra light materials that can handle cyrogenic temperatures for
storing liquid hydrogen, and survive the searing temperatures of blast off
and reentry. I think the initial minor use of nuclear engines is acceptable
rather than waiting for the perfect environmentally friendly to launch things
into orbit.

Tom Kalbfus >>

Tom,

What about using a mass driver on side of mountain to project SSTOs? I
remember Heinlein toyed with this idea in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" even
though mass driver was an unknown concept then. That idea occurred to me
when I was reading O'Neil's mass driver on moon in "The High Frontier" that
it could be a cheap alternative to LHOX fuel for the first stage and then
fire up as it climb the higher attitudes. Later, I came across Savage's same
idea except that it would be done in a tunnel to reduce air resistance. I
wonder why don't we at least try experiment with smaller rockets on mass
driver on a mountain? The moutains are close to many markets such as the
West Coast, China, India, etc.

Ravenart