Newsgroups: sci.space Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: New Shuttle Engines Message-ID: <1990Nov14.062718.6752@zoo.toronto.edu> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology References: <10948@milton.u.washington.edu> <1990Nov13.190528.5893@zoo.toronto.edu> Date: Wed, 14 Nov 90 06:27:18 GMT In article dlbres10@pc.usl.edu (Fraering Philip) writes: >HS>in an expendable launcher. The Hughes/Boeing Jarvis proposal also used >HS>expendable SSMEs, after they tried very hard to come up with a viable >HS>scheme for reviving the F-1 and J-2 and couldn't make it work. The SSME >HS>is just too expensive to be a good expendable engine, though. > >I was under the impression that the reason Jarvis was not built, >in either 'incarnation,' was because of political reasons... Well, sort of. The fundamental problem was the lack of customers. Hughes/Boeing was perfectly happy to foot the development bill, given enough "launch customers" [pun unintentional] to justify it. But the government wasn't interested, in the end. A contributing factor, probably, was excessive reliance on shuttle technology that was under the political control of people who weren't keen on the idea. Even the original F-1/J-2 concept used tankage based on the shuttle ET. -- "I don't *want* to be normal!" | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology "Not to worry." | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry