[extropy-chat] good space shuttle article

[Jay Dugger]

On 8/3/05, Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> There is no reason why an unmanned HLLV can't just be made with the
> SRBs, the tank with engines mounted in its rear. This would essentially
> allow nearly the entire weight of the Shuttle as cargo (about 122,000
> kg). Assuming a 10k kg upper cowling, it could easily match the
> performance of the Energia. Zubrin essentially proposed this with his
> Ares concept: http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/ares.htm, to launch the
> elements for his Mars Direct proposal, though this Thiokol concept
> (http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/hear2015.htm) is more like what I had
> in mind.
> 

[snip]

> > While we are re-hashing 60s and 70s design: our next big step should
> >
> > be nuclear, and we should go right for the Liberty Ship HLLV:
> >
[snip]

So long as we fly paper spaceships--let's just cut to the quick and
build a fleet of Orion-style nuclear pulse drives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_pulse_propulsion

An American ship should launch on July 4th, of course, with its first
few detonations timed to match the cannon shots at the end of the 1812
Overture.

When I loaned out my copy of Dyson's "Project Orion" to a co-worker
Monday, we played a little what-if about a launch of such a ship. He
claimed a surprise launch of any such ship by any major power (e.g.,
PRC) in the next five years would trigger a shooting war. I disagreed,
since MAD would still apply. Comments should go in their own thread.

-- 
Jay Dugger
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