Nov 142011
There has been repeated flirtation with the idea of using a common airframe as both orbiter and booster. Generally, though, it really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, since the requirements and environments are so different.
6 Responses to “1971 McDonnell Douglas Shuttle Concepts”
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Not sure I’ve ever seen the “triple nosed” fuel tank before. Would that have been aerodynamically challenging?
> Would that have been aerodynamically challenging?
Almost certainly. There would have been some entertaining shock interactions, with some possible very-hotspots between the tanks.
I seem to remember an Orel concept that used Buran similarly. Not too much data on Orel. No love on the Baikal flyback either…
The requirements may be different but building one vehicle type, capable of performing both roles, offers the potential for massive cost savings during both development and operation.
Using technical/performance issues as the sole criteria for design selection is one of the main reasons why ‘biamese’ concepts have never been considered seriously.
> offers the potential for massive cost savings
Welll… no, not really. Apart from aerodynamic commonality, the requirements are so different that a lot of the perceived benefits get washed away. Consider the Space Shuttle as it was actually built. What changes would you have to make to the Orbiter to turn it into a meaningful booster? Well… more thrust, meaning more engines. A big change to the ass end end. The internal volume is fairly minimal, so either it could only carry a limited amount of propellant (requiring cross-feed from the ET), or you’d need to blow up the size of the fuselage. For both of these major modifications to make sense in terms of booster/orbiter commonality, you’d have to have an increased-size orbiter, with presumably internal propellant tankage.
Such design efforts quickly explode into massive death spirals.
Starting with a fixed orbiter (e.g. Shuttle) design and try re-engineering will not work. Think more about starting with an near-SSTO design and putting two together. Sure, you’re going to be carrying excess mass/systems on the booster but the overall penalty isn’t going to be 1:1 on the orbit payload as the things separate at 3Mn/30km. Yes, cross-feed from booster to orbiter will be required but that’s something that Shuttle mastered 30 years ago.
As an example of a bimese design that could be evolved from sub-orbital origins, see…
http://www.responsivespace.com/Papers/RS3/SESSION%20PAPERS/SESSION%206/6006-RAYMER/6006P.pdf