Bigger manned space program

Got a better idea...

Saturn Application Single Stage To Orbit (SASSTO) Vertical Take Off / Vertical Landing (VTO/VL). Studied by Bono and Gatland. No wings, so maybe that's why it died. Based around Saturn V's third stage (Saturn IVB) as a transition to a plug-nozzle single-stage orbiter. They wrote 'Spaceships of the Mind' around it. Read it and weep...
 
Truth is Life is right: The money and support just aren't there to do all that.

You need some pretty damned compelling reason to force the U.S. government to act. Well: In 1961, it had such a reason, in the form of the Space Race initiated by the Soviets. And even that was just enough for a moon landing program, nothing else.

A more aggressive Soviet program might well make something else happen - a serious effort to put a Soviet base on the Moon in the 70's, for example. In which case Apollo *might* be extended, and all thoughts of a space station (let alone) Mars would be firmly on the back burner.

For Mars, you're going to need something like . . . evidence of life to open up the federal wallet. Either that, or an impending Extinction Level Event that we can't stop.
 
That's venturing into ASB territory I suspect.

Venturing into? Heck, that's left the border behind so long ago, it can't even see the non-ASB. Anything with aliens (beyond the microbial stage) is ASB by definition, it's right there in the title.

SASSTO died because it had numerous significant technical risks, did not have a payload large enough for the applications NASA wanted to pursue (just 2800 kg! That's similar to the existing Delta), and because engineers who were not Phil Bono were unconvinced of his paper arguments. A decent engineer can make anything look good on paper, after all.
 
SASSTO died because it had numerous significant technical risks, did not have a payload large enough for the applications NASA wanted to pursue (just 2800 kg! That's similar to the existing Delta)...
I should point out in the interest of fairness that that's 2800 kg on top of the 3200 kg Gemini capsule he specced as the crew vehicle, but the point stands. I did some messing around with Schilling, and adding a Centaur as an expendable upper stage would have upped it to about 8300 kg total, though it would only just barely have the T/W to lift off. Still not anywhere near the kind of payload range NASA and the DoD were interested in.
and because engineers who were not Phil Bono were unconvinced of his paper arguments. A decent engineer can make anything look good on paper, after all.
Hey! I resemble that remark! Now, back to justifying the designs for Freedom in Eyes...:)
 
Well could we at least get a sort of von Braun style tower rocket at least as opposed to that 'bolt it on anywhere' pile of junk we got?

It wasn't actually a 'bolt it on anywhere' design--they reached the side-mount idea after a lot of thought--mainly, deciding that it was easier to bolt SRBs onto the sides (as on Titan III) than to lash them together or build a 260 inch Solid, and that it was safer to have all the main engines running at liftoff than to figure out a way to make the SSME air-startable.

I'm working on a scenario in which the Grumman-Boeing H-33 Shuttle proposal with an S-IC-derived booster, a series-burn design, is picked instead, and that's one of the several issues I'm dealing with in trying to find a reason for NASA to choose that system over OTL's, which really under Max Faget took the design philosophy of H-33 to its logical conclusion (Throw away LH2 tanks, save money? Throw away entire propellant tank, save more money!). I thought of maybe the SSME getting cancelled entirely, and a J-2S serving as the Shuttle main engine (already air-started, would operate pretty much entirely in vacuum, existing engine), but there just isn't room for enough J-2 engines on the end of a Shuttle to match the thrust of 3 SSMEs.
 
I thought of maybe the SSME getting cancelled entirely, and a J-2S serving as the Shuttle main engine (already air-started, would operate pretty much entirely in vacuum, existing engine), but there just isn't room for enough J-2 engines on the end of a Shuttle to match the thrust of 3 SSMEs.
Well, you'd obviously have to re-run numbers for a lower ISp, but I think that's doable with some time. Anyway, other than that detail, it actually seems doable thanks to H-33's large aft section. Roughly, 2xJ2S can equal the thrust of 1xSSME. So we need 6xJ2S to match 3xSSME. J2S has a 2.02 m diameter nozzle, and let's say we allow 0.5 m between adjacent engine in a 2x3 rectangular grid. So that's a grid 4.5m x 7m.

Looking at this image, if the cargo bay module is 4.0m in diameter, then the aft section behind just the LH2 tank appears to present a surface at least 5mx8m, plenty large enough for the given engine grid (leaving room above them--behind the cargo bay--for the OMS engines).
 
Well, you'd obviously have to re-run numbers for a lower ISp, but I think that's doable with some time. Anyway, other than that detail, it actually seems doable thanks to H-33's large aft section. Roughly, 2xJ2S can equal the thrust of 1xSSME. So we need 6xJ2S to match 3xSSME. J2S has a 2.02 m diameter nozzle, and let's say we allow 0.5 m between adjacent engine in a 2x3 rectangular grid. So that's a grid 4.5m x 7m.

Looking at this image, if the cargo bay module is 4.0m in diameter, then the aft section behind just the LH2 tank appears to present a surface at least 5mx8m, plenty large enough for the given engine grid (leaving room above them--behind the cargo bay--for the OMS engines).

Thanks. The J-2S would mean a 15 second specific impulse hit for the vehicle, but 6 J-2S engines total 2 metric tons less dry mass than 3 SSMEs--might roughly balance out, especially with incremental improvements to the J-2 as time goes on.

Now there remains only a need to keep the LOX tanks within the Orbiter, and the wetlab lobby might just be enough to get that.
 
It is actually a relevatn question: Private Initiative!

I do believe, however, that the costs (and the state of reseach) in the 70', 80's maybe even 90's would be too much for any private company.

The typical cycle is (as I kow it from the IT side of things) that the first designs are big, clunky, costly and impractical.

After some time it matures and what was science last year is now engineering!

Now, with SpaceX launched, I thnk it proves that technology is now so household it can be done via private capital.

..But then the big question is: Why would SpaceX go to Mars? or somewher else in that 'hood?

If a profit motive can be found, I do believe it could be possible. After all, Sir Richard will be taking people into space at $200,000 per ticket. Motive: $$.

Hell, even Columbus had a bit of an agenda for going on his cruise!

Is the time now to look at private enterrpises in spce exploration?
 
It wasn't actually a 'bolt it on anywhere' design--they reached the side-mount idea after a lot of thought--mainly, deciding that it was easier to bolt SRBs onto the sides (as on Titan III) than to lash them together or build a 260 inch Solid, and that it was safer to have all the main engines running at liftoff than to figure out a way to make the SSME air-startable.
what about sticking the shuttle, maybe with a booster on the back, on top of the S-IC?

I thought of maybe the SSME getting cancelled entirely, and a J-2S serving as the Shuttle main engine (already air-started, would operate pretty much entirely in vacuum, existing engine), but there just isn't room for enough J-2 engines on the end of a Shuttle to match the thrust of 3 SSMEs.
Nah, the J-2s aren't that much smaller than the SSMEs, and a lot less powerful. It might work if they developed the SSME with a view to making it air-startable.
 
what about sticking the shuttle, maybe with a booster on the back, on top of the S-IC?
That was literally the next sentence of his post, man. Anyway, OTL they considered it in the form of the "Saturn-Shuttle" concept, which basically stuck the OTL Shuttle and External tank on top of a stock expendable S-IC and called it a day, trading that against solids.

Nah, the J-2s aren't that much smaller than the SSMEs, and a lot less powerful.
They are in fact larger in terms of dimensions, and of course they get darn near half the thrust, but they actually mass less on a per-kN basis and as I pointed out there's room for them even with twice as many engines needed to make up for the lower thrust. The 15s ISp loss would hurt to the tune of a net 4 tons of payload, but it'd fly too, and they don't need years of new development. I'm not sure it'd be a good idea, but it's at least doable if SSME was cancelled (sufficiently early in the design process, anyway).
 
They are in fact larger in terms of dimensions, and of course they get darn near half the thrust, but they actually mass less on a per-kN basis and as I pointed out there's room for them even with twice as many engines needed to make up for the lower thrust. The 15s ISp loss would hurt to the tune of a net 4 tons of payload, but it'd fly too, and they don't need years of new development. I'm not sure it'd be a good idea, but it's at least doable if SSME was cancelled (sufficiently early in the design process, anyway).

Would running the J-2S more oxidizer-rich improve its Isp? The SSME ran on 6.03 O:F, while the J-2S ran on 5.5.
 
If we want to avoid actual aliens but still get the same effect, is it possible that some kind of astronomical noise/astronomical phenomena could be widely but wrongly accepted as evidence of aliens for a couple of decades? If so, that might do it.
 
Well, J-2S was considered multiple times in the Shuttle's development instead of the SSME. The recurring conclusion was that it just didn't have the performance they wanted; only 15-20,000 lbs to orbit, so around 7-10 tonnes, with a Shuttle basically the size of the OTL one (with the 15x60 ft. payload bay, as per the actual Shuttle). That would use 4 J-2S, I don't think anyone considered jamming six of them on.

The most serious proposal to use them was to have a "phased development," where a "Mark I" orbiter would be developed first and flight-tested, then an aerodynamically identical "Mark II" orbiter with all the nice advanced goodies (up-to-date avionics, SSMEs, reusable heat shield materials) would be developed. I think this would have been a disaster considering the complexity of the Orbiter's aerodynamics and the horrible track record of spray-on ablatives. Not to mention that you would end up with an even more sickeningly expensive Shuttle program.
 
I think this would have been a disaster considering the complexity of the Orbiter's aerodynamics and the horrible track record of spray-on ablatives. Not to mention that you would end up with an even more sickeningly expensive Shuttle program.
I've wondered why they didn't go that route (OK, it would have been more mass, and the refurbishing cost would have been high, although perhaps not as high as OTL's fragile tiles).

Do you have a cite for that? I'd like to look it up.
Edit: I've always thought that ablatives on a thin alumin(i)um shoe would allow for easy reusability (slip the shoe off, put another on), although at the cost of some weight.
 
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It wouldn't be all that difficult to make it happen. It's a matter of cost, not technology. We can already get to Mars, the problem is finding contractors who won't gouge you for ten years' worth of "research", or raise the final price tag ten-fold over what they promised. Oh, and skip that thirty year long detour known as the space shuttle program too.
 
I've wondered why they didn't go that route (OK, it would have been more mass, and the refurbishing cost would have been high, although perhaps not as high as OTL's fragile tiles).

The nitty-gritty of it is that they thought that too in the early '60s, so when X-15A-2 was rebuilt following a minor accident, they went to the trouble of applying a Martin-designed ablator coating to test the theory, in addition to adding drop tanks and a dummy scramjet. In theory, X-15A-2 was able to go faster and higher following its rebuild than any of the other X-15s. In practice, it got up to Mach 6.33 just fine before the ablator was applied, but the highest-speed ablator test flight very nearly led to the vehicle's failure, as the scramjet interacted in very unexpected ways with the rest of the structure. Even in areas where the scramjet had not had an impact, though, the ablator was highly ineffective, it actually made heating worse in some areas, and it was badly damaged. This was after nearly 6 weeks of work to apply it to the vehicle, which of course was a lot smaller than an orbiter. Even with the problems associated with the tiles, orbiters usually only took 12-16 weeks to turnaround, so this would probably have made things go much slower.

In the event, X-15A-2 never flew again, and is now on display at Wright-Patterson.

Do you have a cite for that? I'd like to look it up.
Edit: I've always thought that ablatives on a thin alumin(i)um shoe would allow for easy reusability (slip the shoe off, put another on), although at the cost of some weight.

See NASA SP-2007-4232, Facing the Heat Barrier: A History of Hypersonics, or NASA SP-2000-4518, Hypersonics Before the Shuttle: A Concise History of the X-15 Research Airplane for more details about the trouble with X-15A-2. Both are easily obtainable for free in pdf form from the NASA History Office.

It wouldn't be all that difficult to make it happen. It's a matter of cost, not technology. We can already get to Mars, the problem is finding contractors who won't gouge you for ten years' worth of "research", or raise the final price tag ten-fold over what they promised. Oh, and skip that thirty year long detour known as the space shuttle program too.

This is basically the same as saying "well, Sealion isn't that difficult to make happen, you just need Germany to invest everything in a navy for thirty years prior." Sure, but that totally ignores context. Germany can't invest everything in a navy for thirty years prior to launching an invasion of Britain, and NASA doesn't have the political support to get the huge amounts of money needed to launch something like the 90-day report, Integrated Project Plan, or Project Constellation, all of which are essentially what the OP is asking for (the details may be different...but the overall cost is likely to remain more or less similar, simply because any such plan is going to need to be large and complicated).

Technically speaking as well, hindsight is a wonderful thing. We know now that the space shuttle, as designed and built, was not very good...but they didn't know that then. And then they thought that it would be a very good thing indeed, they thought they were going to get Skylon or at least Falcon 9 limit performance out of the Shuttle. In which case it would have been a great idea.

There are also significant advantages we have now that they didn't have then, more than a decade of long-duration spaceflight for example, or much more exploration of Mars in much more depth. In both cases this has led to an appreciation of issues and risks which they just didn't know existed in the 1960s and 1970s, like the enormous difficulty of Martian entry, descent, and landing operations, or the possibility of long-duration microgravity exposure causing blindness. This means that even the best funded plan is much more likely to fail in the 1970s than today, simply because they won't take countermeasures against threats they don't know exist.
 
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