Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mitel!sce!cognos!geovision!alastair
From: alastair@geovision.uucp (Alastair Mayer)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: QUESTION: Shuttle round trips to the moon?
Message-ID: <492@geovision.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jan 89 16:10:38 GMT
References: <14549@oberon.USC.EDU> <17360001@hpsel1.HP.COM>
Reply-To: alastair@geovision.UUCP (Alastair Mayer)
Organization: GeoVision Corp, Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 27

In article <17360001@hpsel1.HP.COM> campbelr@hpsel1.HP.COM (Bob Campbell) writes:
[...]
>The "best" design  [for Earth-Moon transport]
>is still to use multiple vehicles designed for specific
>tasks.

Not necessarily true.  If a sufficiently flexible vehicle can be built that
can do the whole trip, and can be built and operated inexpensively enough
(read: mass produced and low operations cost) then that might be the "best"
design.
  Case in point, Pacific-American Launch Co's "Phoenix" design.  This is
a ballistic, single-stage-to-orbit, vertical-take-off/vertical-landing
vehicle.  (Utilizing LH2/LO2 fuel and aerospike engine.  It's been mentioned
around here before, I think).
  This requires refueling in LEO, but one version of the Phoenix is configured
as a 'tanker' to do the job.  Once refueled, the vehicle has sufficient
delta-Vee to leave LEO for the Moon, soft land on the Moon, and return to
Earth.  Since it's a ballistic VTOVL, landing on the moon presents no
special difficulties, and it can land with sufficient fuel to take off again.
   The catch is the orbital refueling, which could take as many as 10 tanker
launches.  However, the Phoenix is designed to be *highly* reusable with
low operations costs and rapid turnaround.
-- 
"The problem is not that spaceflight is expensive,  | Alastair J.W. Mayer
therefore only the government can do it, but that   | alastair@geovision.UUCP
only the government is doing spaceflight, therefore | al@BIX
it is expensive."                                   |