Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!fluke!ssc-vax!eder
From: eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Missed & Current Opportunities
Summary: reinvented wheel
Message-ID: <2316@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: 12 Oct 88 17:57:52 GMT
References: <6981@ihlpl.ATT.COM> <1988Oct2.021158.15076@utzoo.uucp> <1988Oct3.172838.8828@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: Boeing Aerospace Corp., Seattle WA
Lines: 33

In article <1988Oct3.172838.8828@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> The Soviets say that all of Energia, the core as well as the strap-ons,
> is designed to be recoverable.  Sounds like a tall order to me, but there
> is nothing fundamentally impossible about it.  I believe they haven't yet
> tried recovering the core.

Good photographs of the Energia on the launch pad showed squarish bumps
on the liquid strap-on boosters.  I could easily see those bumps
containing parachutes.

> Sticking a shuttle on a Saturn V would have been a hell of a lot better
> than sticking it on segmented solid boosters!  And it would have flown
> sooner, and probably have been cheaper, too.

It was also proposed by the Boeing/Grumman team early in the development
of the `Shuttle.  We would have put engines and a wing on the
Saturn first stage, to make it recoverable.

May I also point out, for those netters who are amazed at the lift
capacity of the Energia, that the Space Shuttle Orbiter plus cargo
weighed 253,693 lb at launch on STS-26, and 194,800 lb on landing,
the difference being TDRS-C/IUS deployed payload and maneuvering
propellants used during the mission.

Subtracting about 20,000 lb for the three Space Shuttle Main Engines,
leaves about 220,000 lb (100 metric tons) of net payload capacity.
It's just that most of the payload capacity (80%) is the Orbiter itself.


-- 
Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)464-4150(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +100m altitude, Earth