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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.columbia
Subject: Re: Re: Side comment on the disaster
Message-ID: <6420@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 22-Feb-86 19:52:05 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.6420
Posted: Sat Feb 22 19:52:05 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Feb-86 19:52:05 EST
References: <1758@druxu.UUCP>, <9400003@ada-uts.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 23

> ... Why not build
> a much SMALLER (and probably less complex) orbiter WITHOUT the huge cargo
> bay that we could boost with something like the IIIc, a proven booster
> that uses relatively easily handled (corrosive, but not very cold)
> hypergolic fuels? ...

Because political support from the Air Force was vital to the Shuttle's
survival, and the Air Force insisted on the big payload bay.  NASA wanted
a rather smaller shuttle.

Also, boosting the shuttle with something like the IIIc would have
eliminated any hope of making shuttle flights cheap, another major factor
in the shuttle's survival.  Nothing in the IIIc is reusable.  (This is
one of the prices paid, to some degree, for the easily-handled fuels:
their performance is lower and you need more stages to get to orbit.
Making intermediate stages reusable is hard.)

Actually, what you have described is a near-exact match for the USAF's
X-25 Dyna-Soar of the early 60s.  Probably workable, but cancelled due to
lack of mission.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry