Space Forum / Shuttle / November 2004

Bob Bigelow really raised the bar on this go-round.

It's not so much getting to low earth orbit (LEO) or carrying at least 5
crew/passengers. A modified and resized version of the old 1960s Big Gemini
(Big G) might be the most direct way to go and probably could be developed
for a few hundred megabucks and flown twice before the 10 Jan 2010 deadline.
When I worked on that program in the late 1960s our baseline design
accommodated 9 crew/passengers in a spacecraft weighing about 13,000 pounds,
which is approximately the weight of the Apollo Command Module.

IMHO, the really tough (and interesting) problem is meeting the requirement
that the launch vehicle/spacecraft system be at least 80% reusable. The
shuttle is 75% reusable if you go by parts count (orbiter and 2 SRBs
reusable, ET expendable) or about 89% reusable in terms of dry weight (if
you really believe that the SRMs are truly reusable). If you believe that
the SRMs are actually almost completely remanufactured after each flight and
are not entitled to be considered reusable, then the shuttle is only about
33% reusable based on dry weight. I assume Bigelow is referring to dry
weight reusability in this requirement.

It will be interesting to see how much the competitors are willing to invest
in this competition even with the $1B carrot dangling near their noses.

Anyone out there have a slam-dunk design for an 80% reusable LV?

Later
Ray Schmitt