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From: mcgeer%ji@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU (Rick McGeer)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: space plane
Message-ID: <8603040645.AA01713@ji.berkeley.edu>
Date: Tue, 4-Mar-86 01:45:11 EST
Article-I.D.: ji.8603040645.AA01713
Posted: Tue Mar  4 01:45:11 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 5-Mar-86 04:41:19 EST
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>> I've heard that the new "space plane" is supposed to get things into
>> low earth orbit at 1% of the cost of the shuttle.  Are there good reasons
>> for that, or is it just hype from aerospace marketing types?
>It is a reasonable claim, although it would be comforting to see a prototype
>flying to confirm it.  Full reusability plus less-strained engines would go
>a long way toward lowering costs.  Even the present Shuttle would look a lot
>better if it had fully-reusable liquid-fuel boosters and carried the external
>tank into orbit for some sort of productive use there.  (If you count the
>tank as payload, the Shuttle is suddenly carrying a lot more payload into
>orbit.)
>-- 
>				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
>

I hope so, too, Henry, but as Robert Truax points out: "the TAV is going to be
a combination of the Space Shuttle and the Concorde, and there's no way
that *that's* going to be cheap".

Well, Truax has an axe to grind,  Let's hope he's wrong.

					-- Rick.