Re: Station-building: a vessel proposal

[Joshua Nicholson <furtim@xxxxxx>]

Roger Burton West wrote:

>- aerodynamic - not necessary but would certainly make things easier!
>(Yes, I've tried taking the new shuttle-A through atmosphere...)
>  
>
Well, does this cargo vehicle even need to be reuseable? It seems to me 
that since the concept presupposes use of the Dragonfly, all that the 
lift vehicle needs to do is get the payload up to the station's orbit, 
where the Dragonfly will takeover. I imagine a situation where the final 
stage of the launch vehicle will essentially consist of the payload 
docked to a small booster for minor orbital corrections before final 
release. The small booster stage would undock once the payload is in an 
appropriate orbit, then perform a reentry it's not intended to survive. 
This obviously posits a scenario where the booster stage is unmanned. ;) 
The docking concept is present to support the Dragonfly. I'm not sure if 
vessels can be jettisoned like payloads or not. If they can, I guess 
that makes it irrelevant.

Basically, I just think that since the Dragonfly is intended to do the 
bulk of the construction work, there's no need to send up a manned, 
reuseable vehicle along with each payload.

But this other idea recently proposed of putting an arm on the lift 
vehicle and cutting the Dragonfly out of the process entirely shows 
promise. It'd really be pushing the limits of modern-to-near-future tech 
to have a reuseable, manned vehicle which is also capable of lifting 
10000kg loads to orbit. Of course, I don't know the payload specs of the 
shuttle off-hand, so take my words with a grain of salt. ;)

Joshua Nicholson


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