Issue #3(21) 2019 Opinion

Time to overcome the expendable rocket mindset

David Ashford Bristol Spaceplanes, Bristol, UK

Could the cost of sending people to orbit be reduced by about 1000 times within around 15 years using only proven technology? If so, this would revolutionise spaceflight and lead to a new era of space science and exploration, and to the development of a wide range of new commercial space activities. Such an outcome would require full reusability, an aeroplane-like approach to vehicle design and large new markets to provide economies of scale. Candidate vehicles were widely studied and considered feasible in the 1960s and, here, David Ashford argues that our failure to build them has led to a mindset which is now one of the greatest barriers to a new Space Age.

At first sight, my claim may seem too good to be true. But if we look back there could already have been a progressive, sequential development of vehicles leading to this desired goal, starting with the basic F-104 Starfighter, a first-generation Mach 2 fighter that first flew in 1954.

In 1962-1963, three F-104s were converted for training astronauts by adding a rocket engine to boost their maximum height, and they were given the designation NF-104. The conversion was successful, and the NF-104 reached a height of 120,800 ft (36.8 km) having accelerated to Mach 2 on jet power before the rocket was started.

The F-104 was, however, a tightly packed fighter aeroplane and there was not much spare volume for rocket propellant which limited the maximum height to about one third of the 100 km usually considered as being the boundary of space.

If you already have a login and password to access www.room.eu.com - Please log in to be able to read all the articles of the site.

Popular articles

See also

Opinion

The inadequacies and dangers of modern rocket technology

Astronautics

Space 1.0 to Space 3.0: from Gagarin to market growth

Opinion

Are we entering a post-Overview Effect era?

Popular articles

Specials

Life in the Sun’s atmosphere - the looming threat of solar storms

Science

A bun in the (space) oven - Reasons not to get pregnant while going around Earth at 7.8 kilometres per second