"SpaceShipTwo could be single stage to SUBorbit"
in [Physics]
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From: Pat Flannery on 16 May 2010 03:33 On 5/15/2010 7:55 PM, Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote: > Huh? Umm. No. But if you were in 1903 claiming that flying 400 passengers > at a time across the Atlantic was "just a few years away" I'd be making the > same argument. The state of the art was far from it. I think one of the basic problems is that it's possible to make a primitive rocket engine and still have it be usable for something. A "primitive scramjet" is a oxymoron, so you have to spend a fortune just getting something that will work at all, much less be an improvement on rocket technology to do the same job. Pat
From: Sylvia Else on 16 May 2010 05:14 On 16/05/2010 5:28 PM, Pat Flannery wrote: > On 5/15/2010 7:10 PM, Sylvia Else wrote: > >>> If you also filled up the passenger compartment with fuel leaving only >>> a pilot's cabin could it even become orbital? >> >> No. It would collapse at the fuelling station. > > I'm thinking of catching a Canada Goose...and feeding it on a diet of > black powder mixed with corn meal...then, by replacing its beak with one > made of quartz rods, sheathing the leading edge of its wing in > reinforced carbon-carbon, and painting its belly feathers with a > rubber-based ablator... ;-) > Sounds good to me. Um, where do you ignite it? On second thoughts, I don't want to know. Sylvia.
From: Pat Flannery on 16 May 2010 12:06 On 5/16/2010 1:14 AM, Sylvia Else wrote: >> I'm thinking of catching a Canada Goose...and feeding it on a diet of >> black powder mixed with corn meal...then, by replacing its beak with one >> made of quartz rods, sheathing the leading edge of its wing in >> reinforced carbon-carbon, and painting its belly feathers with a >> rubber-based ablator... ;-) >> > > Sounds good to me. Um, where do you ignite it? > > On second thoughts, I don't want to know. If we were to take the airship Hindenburg, replace three of its hydrogen gasbags with ones containing oxygen, replace the fabric covering with one made of woven fullerene nanotubes, add a scramjet to the end of each of the tail fins, and install a SSME in the tip of the tail... Pat
From: pete on 16 May 2010 09:09 Pat Flannery wrote: > I'm thinking of catching a Canada Goose...and feeding it on a diet of > black powder mixed with corn meal...then, > by replacing its beak with one > made of quartz rods, sheathing the leading edge of its wing in > reinforced carbon-carbon, and painting its belly feathers with a > rubber-based ablator... ;-) If he chooses you, he will try to kill you. -- pete
From: Sylvia Else on 16 May 2010 09:12
On 17/05/2010 2:06 AM, Pat Flannery wrote: > On 5/16/2010 1:14 AM, Sylvia Else wrote: > >>> I'm thinking of catching a Canada Goose...and feeding it on a diet of >>> black powder mixed with corn meal...then, by replacing its beak with one >>> made of quartz rods, sheathing the leading edge of its wing in >>> reinforced carbon-carbon, and painting its belly feathers with a >>> rubber-based ablator... ;-) >>> >> >> Sounds good to me. Um, where do you ignite it? >> >> On second thoughts, I don't want to know. > > If we were to take the airship Hindenburg, replace three of its hydrogen > gasbags with ones containing oxygen, replace the fabric covering with > one made of woven fullerene nanotubes, add a scramjet to the end of each > of the tail fins, and install a SSME in the tip of the tail... > Hmmm..... How long would an SSME run on the hydrogen in Hindenburg? But its ballistic cooefficient would be favourable for reentry, I'll grant you that. Sylvia. |