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The Little Spaceplane That Couldn't (2008)

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Re: The Little Spaceplane That Couldn't (2008)

#11

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

aidenn0 wrote: post #10
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #5

> It's an odd feature of aerospace history that many prototype aircraft that never went into production become "cultplanes". Some prominent examples are flying wings, Avro Arrow, B-70 Valkyrie, anything designed by the Nazis in 1945. I don't care about the other planes on the list, but the B-70 Valkyrie absolutely deserves to be a cult plane. It is one of the most visually striking and beautiful planes ever built. Co…

I think the XB-70 is useful in the way that TFA suggests the Dyna Soar could have been useful; it collected data that future airplanes did use. Its flight performance is quite impressive (32 minutes of sustained Mach 3), but as a theoretical bomber, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Do photos exist from directly after that 32 minutes flight of sustained Mach 3? I've read that most of the paint was gone then.

(German: Da war der Lack ab!)

Re: The Little Spaceplane That Couldn't (2008)

#12

Post by ggm »

sterlind wrote: post #8
ncmncm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The operational uselessness of X-37 is demonstrated by their leaving it parked in orbit for months or even years at a stretch. Apparently they park it in orbit instead of a hangar to make it look as if it is actually "on a mission".

how do you know it's not on a mission? aren't its missions heavily classified? I have no idea what it's supposed to do, but e.g. spying on or interfering with enemy spy satellites would give it a reason to stay up there for a long time.

A device capable of making orbital change already in orbit is a shedload faster to redeploy to some useful orbit, than having to prep for launch.

But against that, they should have 50 of these, if they are really as useful as implied: if not, why isn't the one in orbit suspiciously failing in service? I really don't beleive there is asymmetry in capability to mess with orbital devices here.

Re: The Little Spaceplane That Couldn't (2008)

#13

Post by adolph »

ncmncm wrote: post #4
adolph wrote: post #3

The author was writing just ahead of the Dream Chaser development but does mention the X-37 "(This problem cropped up again in the X-37B program and resulted in a big payload shroud being added.)." I think that DC and X-37 are great capabilities to have even if they require shrouds on the way up. Dream Chaser is an American reusable lifting-body spaceplane being developed by Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) Space Syst…

The operational uselessness of X-37 is demonstrated by their leaving it parked in orbit for months or even years at a stretch. Apparently they park it in orbit instead of a hangar to make it look as if it is actually "on a mission".

Could be true, hard to say.

In political jargon, a self-licking ice cream cone is a self-perpetuating system that has no purpose other than to sustain itself. The phrase appeared to have been first used in 1991–1992, in a book about Gulf War weapons systems by Norman Friedman, and On Self-Licking Ice Cream Cones, a paper by Pete Worden about NASA's bureaucracy, to describe the relationship between the Space Shuttle and Space Station.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-licking_ice_cream_cone

Re: The Little Spaceplane That Couldn't (2008)

#14

Post by abudabi123 »

pfdietz wrote: post #7

And SpaceX showed a non-winged recoverable first stage can be a winner. (Compare to the proposed flyback first stage for the Space Shuttle.)

The snakes and critters in the U.S. Senate and U.S. Congress diverted attention and funding away from SpaceX's remake vision of propulsive capsule landing on land as if the DC-X.

Re: The Little Spaceplane That Couldn't (2008)

#15

Post by canadianfella »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #6

Poor Dyna-Soar. Even its name seems to have jinxed it. Some cool tech was there. They got so far with it as well — search for it on YouTube and you can find videos of various aspects of research that went into it. [1..6] I like the landing skids that used the stretching of metal as the means to adsorb the shock of landing - reminds me somewhat of the metal honeycomb that collapsed to adsorb the lunar module landing o…

No post body was provided.

Re: The Little Spaceplane That Couldn't (2008)

#16

Post by pfdietz »

abudabi123 wrote: post #14
pfdietz wrote: post #7

And SpaceX showed a non-winged recoverable first stage can be a winner. (Compare to the proposed flyback first stage for the Space Shuttle.)

The snakes and critters in the U.S. Senate and U.S. Congress diverted attention and funding away from SpaceX's remake vision of propulsive capsule landing on land as if the DC-X.

I wouldn't say that. Simple engineering conservatism would suffice as an explanation.

Re: The Little Spaceplane That Couldn't (2008)

#17

Post by ncmncm »

sterlind wrote: post #8
ncmncm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The operational uselessness of X-37 is demonstrated by their leaving it parked in orbit for months or even years at a stretch. Apparently they park it in orbit instead of a hangar to make it look as if it is actually "on a mission".

how do you know it's not on a mission? aren't its missions heavily classified? I have no idea what it's supposed to do, but e.g. spying on or interfering with enemy spy satellites would give it a reason to stay up there for a long time.

A vehicle whose chief feature is that it can take off and land and be launched again not landing and being launched again tells us all we need to know.

If it is just changing orbit while up there, it doesn't need reusability. Just launch another one.

Re: The Little Spaceplane That Couldn't (2008)

#18

Post by ncmncm »

adolph wrote: post #13
ncmncm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The operational uselessness of X-37 is demonstrated by their leaving it parked in orbit for months or even years at a stretch. Apparently they park it in orbit instead of a hangar to make it look as if it is actually "on a mission".

Could be true, hard to say. In political jargon, a self-licking ice cream cone is a self-perpetuating system that has no purpose other than to sustain itself. The phrase appeared to have been first used in 1991–1992, in a book about Gulf War weapons systems by Norman Friedman, and On Self-Licking Ice Cream Cones, a paper by Pete Worden about NASA's bureaucracy, to describe the relationship between the Space Shuttle a…

And now we have SLS, and a planned lunar space station whose only purpose is to be a place SLS can get to; the moon itself being out of reach.

Make no mistake, a lunar space station, no matter its name, is not a gateway to anywhere. The only defensible place to pause on the way from low earth orbit to anywhere else in the solar system is high earth orbit. Stopping at high lunar orbit is pure cost, no benefit.

It might be useful to park spare fuel in low lunar orbit for a moon landing, but there is no value in a space station there.

Re: The Little Spaceplane That Couldn't (2008)

#19

Post by aidenn0 »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #11
aidenn0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the XB-70 is useful in the way that TFA suggests the Dyna Soar could have been useful; it collected data that future airplanes did use. Its flight performance is quite impressive (32 minutes of sustained Mach 3), but as a theoretical bomber, it leaves a lot to be desired.

Do photos exist from directly after that 32 minutes flight of sustained Mach 3? I've read that most of the paint was gone then. (German: Da war der Lack ab! )

I used to know a little German, but I'll admit I had to look up "ab sein" to get that. At least my dictionary claims it's colloquial...

Re: The Little Spaceplane That Couldn't (2008)

#20

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

aidenn0 wrote: post #19
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do photos exist from directly after that 32 minutes flight of sustained Mach 3? I've read that most of the paint was gone then. (German: Da war der Lack ab! )

I used to know a little German, but I'll admit I had to look up "ab sein" to get that. At least my dictionary claims it's colloquial...

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ab-

That aside I'm really fasicinated by those fast planes. I mean, it's now public knowledge that the SR-71 leaked fuel between gaps in the fuselage onto the tarmac. Because of that they only fueled it up a little to get into the air without leaking too much.

Then after take off, speeding up until the thermal expansion closed those gaps, and full aerial refueling directly after that.

How did they solve that with the Valkyrie I wonder? Did similar things occur there, or were of no concern because of different materials, dimensions, make, etc.?

Edit: > my dictionary claims it's colloquial...

Not more so than The front fell off! :-)

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