Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hplabsb!dsmith
From: dsmith@hplabsb.UUCP (David Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Soviet shuttle
Message-ID: <4933@hplabsb.UUCP>
Date: 4 Oct 88 17:29:04 GMT
References: <1988Oct1.224801.11041@utzoo.uucp> <1109@cfa237.cfa250.harvard.edu> <6798@dasys1.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
Lines: 27

In article <6798@dasys1.UUCP>, tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
> For comparison, consider Orbiter designs over the life of the STS
> program from the planning stages onwars.  Throughout all the wacky
> changes in booster design and configuration, the one thing that stayed
> looking essentially the same was the orbiter.

Since you told another poster "Then you haven't looked very closely",
I will say the same words apply here.  See the models on display at 
the National Air and Space Museum.  Or the articles in Popular Science
from the time the design was being worked out.  At one point, Nasa's
preferred design had small, stubby, almost straight wings to minimize their
weight.  The Air Force was pushing flattened delta-shaped blended wing/body
to get a reentry cross-range of 1500 miles.  The final design was a compromise:
Nasa got its boxy fuselage, and USAF got large wings.

What I wonder is why, with Energia to launch payloads, the SU shuttle
needs to be the size (as well as shape) of the US shuttle.  Why not
a Dyna-Soar-sized vehicle to go up on a Proton?  Actually, if I recall
my AW&ST right, the Soviets are developing two shuttles, and the little
one is a lifting body comparable to Dyna-Soar or Hermes.  Just what is
the mission of the big shuttle?

-- 

			David Smith
			HP Labs
			dsmith@hplabs.hp.com