SSTO Comments

Brad Welsh Wrote:
> From some stuff I've seen on the Web, fuel is one of the big deals at
airports.
> FAA regs prohibit aircraft fueled by either LOX or LH2 (I can't recall which,

> maybe both) at civil airports.

The regulations could be changed if neccessary. Of course it should be noted
that you could always use a different fuel mixture that isn't banned like RP-1
if H2(l) is banned.

Al Globus Wrote:
> Note that airplanes are much more heavily used than helicopters, suggesting
> that for many applications HTOL win.

It depends on what you're going to do with it. For going between cities on the
earth HTOL wins easily but for going from the earth's surface to space it could
very easily be VTOL due to not having the dead weight of the wings (which for
an airliner aren't dead weight).

We'll have to wait for them to actually be built before we find out.