Onno Meyer wrote:
Roger replied to me:
The
shuttle needs starports with long, reinforced runways
[...]
gSpeed: 555 gAccel: 30 gDecel: 10 gMR: 0.25 gSR: 4
Ground Pressure Extremely High. No Off-Road Performance.
aSpeed: 3,875 aAccel: 40 aDecel: 0.5 aMR: 0.125 aSR: 6
Stall Speed 400.
That looks to me like a 3,900-foot takeoff run and a 12,000-foot
landing. The former is well within the tolerances for a small airport,
so perhaps some sort of better braking system is indicated, either
Improved Brakes or a drag chute.
Roger
A chute would be something to replace after each flight,
and hence bad for routine flight ops. Either smartwheels
or improved brakes would bring the landing run to less
than 4.5 miles, and both would bring it to less than 3.4
miles. (On landing, the tanks would be relatively dry.)
But four miles or six, the ground pressure of this bird
is 40 tons per sf. If 'extremely high' wasn't the last
category, this would be three steps above 'extremely'.
So I figured that the shuttle needs the facilities of
a major spaceport - and where else do you unload 3,000
tons of cargo, anyway?
Could something slightly different work? I am thinking maybe a
reconfigurable wing and ground thrust redirectors.
As it flys in, when it comes below Mach 1 it spins backward, does a wing
reconfiguration and applies reverse braking thrust with the main engines
and instead of ground wheels, it lands on a ground effect thrust cushion
and settles down on large skids.
Or maybe with fusion rockets that would melt the runway.
But 40 tons per sq. foot sounds awfully high and I think that would
break any runway, let alone the wheel material.
--
Zan Lynx
[email protected]
"Knowledge is Power. Power Corrupts. Study Hard. Be Evil."
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