Continuing…
This kinda made sense while the Shuttle was being developed, but by 1985 the idea of a reusable flyback external Tank seemed kinda silly. The only way it could have made financial sense to recover the ET would be if the Shuttle were to fly *far* more often than it actually did.
Continuing…
In 1985 Rockwell pondered the business case for a brand-new Saturn V-class expendable booster specifically for the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) program. The heavy payload capability coupled with large diameter payloads would allow the launch of sizable space-based lasers and similar systems. In order for the booster to warrant the high development cost, there would have had to have been a need for the capability, and obviously the USAF hasn’t filed the sky with orbital laser systems.
The launcher illustrated is not one I’ve seen elsewhere. It has three Shuttle boosters, a core seemingly larger in diameter than the Shuttle ET, and a propulsion module (presumably recoverable) with five or six engines, presumably SSMEs.
Continuing…
Rockwell in 1985 considered the business case of small unmanned launchers of 15,000 pounds payload capability. The goal would be low cost ($100/lb of payload delivered to orbit). It’s not clear, at least from this report, if Rockwell had a design of their own under consideration; the illustration included shows only non-Rockwell commercial designs… the “Dolphin” and “Conestoga II” from Space Services, Inc; the “Phoenix” SSTO from Pacific American Launch Systems; the “Space Van” from Transpace Inc. (though what’s shown is just the standard orbiter atop the 747 SCA); the “Constellation” from Star Struck Inc.; the Delta from Transpace Carriers Inc (which appears to be a standard Delta II); the Atlas from Convair; and the “Excalibur” from Truax Engineering, a reduced-scale version of the Aerojet Sea Dragon of two decades earlier.
Continuing…
Moving away from the Space Shuttle, Rockwell looked towards the next generation of manned space vehicle. In this case, a small vehicle with about 10% the payload of the Space Shuttle. The general configuration was used by Rockwell for several small space launch vehicles at about this time, mostly military vehicles. While the payload was nowhere near the STS’s, it would- if it worked as advertised – potentially wreck the business model for the STS program by providing a far cheaper means of getting crew into space.
Continuing…
The OMV survived for a number of years as a number of generally similar concepts: an unmanned vehicle designed to shove satellites around Earth orbit. Several companies proposed vehicles such as this with varying degrees of capability. Some were designed to stay in space and be refueled; others were designed to go up with the Shuttle and then come back down with it for refurb and refueling. I believe the OMV shown here was of that kind.
Continuing…
In 1985 Rockwell considered the business case for a small unmanned research vehicle to be released from the Orbiter payload bay. It would be *something* akin to the X-37, though of an utterly different lifting body configuration.
Also note: this vehicle re-appears later in the report, including a nice three-view of an “operational” version.
As time goes by, I find more and more unhappy customers… not because I’m turning out a crappy product or not filling orders, but because the emails i send out are directed into spam buckets. I *assume* that this is because the emails have one or more, sometimes many, HTML links in them, and the spam filters read them as, well, spam. But an email exchange usually fixes that right up.
One problem that I can’t seem to fix, however, is orders from the “free.fr” email system. Multiple machines, multiple email systems, all messages sent to “free.fr” addresses bounce back as undeliverable because the system has, through presumably the same process as he spam filters, decided that these messages are spam, and has successfully blocked me out. So if you have a free.fr email address and don;t get a reply from me, *ever,* contact me via a *different* email.
So… is everythign working again?
Continuing…
Sadly, probably *not* an orbiter with a Phalanx system in the cargo bay. Exactly what would be changed/added is a little vague.
Continuing…
A “Block II” orbiter would not be an entirely new design, but would incorporate a bunch of improvements to the existing design… better systems, newer computers, higher thrust engines, lighter materials, etc. Also would likely use liquid or otherwise improved boosters. Given that Rockwell was the prime contractor for the Orbiter, it’s unsurprising that they would be interested in a new production run of the Orbiter. if the Orbiter was put into another production run, almost certainly Rockwell would get paid to do it. But if the Shuttle was replaced with an all-new “Shuttle II,” then Rockwell could potentially lose to Boeing or Lockheed or McDonnell-Douglas or Grumman or Northrop.
