Xref: utzoo sci.aeronautics:85 sci.space:14323 sci.space.shuttle:3713
Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!cica!gatech!prism!ccsupos
From: ccsupos@prism.gatech.EDU (SCHREIBER, O. A.)
Newsgroups: sci.aeronautics,sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: X-30, Space Station Strangles NASP
Message-ID: <2219@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Date: 2 Oct 89 15:43:44 GMT
References: <4983@omepd.UUCP> <1989Sep29.164255.28849@utzoo.uucp> <5292@eos.UUCP> <1989Sep30.220055.28004@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: ccsupos@prism.gatech.EDU (SCHREIBER, O. A.)
Followup-To: sci.aeronautics
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Lines: 20

In article <1989Sep30.220055.28004@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>Actually, I was thinking of space launchers in general rather than
>hypersonic flight in particular -- I'm actually not convinced that
>hypersonic flight is the way to go for cheap spaceflight -- but the

Has anybody ever proven that single stage to orbit is possible?
I remember an engineer from Aerospatiale who was saying that it was not
with the present structural indices possible (weight of fuel/
weight of structure of fuel tank). Perhaps he was not thinking
of airbreathing engine configurations. 
Also, a hypersonic vehicle has to navigate in a narrow 
velocity-altitude region, between the sustentation barrier and 
the thermal barrier: too slow and high and it does not climb, 
too fast and low and it melts.
Any opinion?
-- 
Olivier Schreiber (404)894 6147, Office of Computing Services
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
uucp: ...!{allegra,amd,hplabs,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!prism!ccsupos
ARPA: ccsupos@prism.gatech.edu