[AR] Re: Skylon Progress (was Re: Silicon Carbide)
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2018 19:14:23 -0500 (EST)
On Sun, 2 Dec 2018, johndom@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
The wonder of Skylon is it is an SSTO.
I doubtn if Eugene Saenger had a *commercial* supersonic carrier launch
platform in mind in the forties for his two stage hthl design. Which
objective was an intercontinental bomber iirc albeit with an ssto potential
given reentry tiles or Skylon skin.
No, Saenger's original antipodal "Silverbird" would have reached only
about 6 km/s. Even the more ambitious all-the-way-around version only got
to 7 km/s, still short of orbit, especially since he was being awfully
optimistic about rocket performance -- he assumed an Isp exceeding 400_s!
The impressively long ranges were the result of repeated skips off the
atmosphere, another area where we now know he was far too optimistic.
It wasn't two stages, by the way -- one stage plus launch from a Mach 1.5
rocket sled.
Henry
Other related posts: