Nasa wants sub-orbital by 2008!

By 2008 Nasa wants to have a sub-orbital plane of there own. They are using the same rocket maker as Scaled Composites.

They want it to be able to reach heights up to 100 miles (160 km), as you know 62 miles is what everyone else is shooting for but this is NASA were talkin about here, this is the best they can do, I'm not sure if this is one step forward or backwards.

Although i'm sure it will be a good learning tool for astronauts, and they would get to experience no gravity for awhile (10 - 30 minutes i would guess), They hope this will be a proving ground for the one to follow which would be able to go all the way to space in order to swap the astronauts on the ISS.

Nasa's Sub-Orbital shuttle



Do you think this is a good thing?



[edit on 21-9-2004 by Murcielago]

"This project is one small step for SpaceDev, but could evolve into one giant leap for affordable, commercial human space flight"

good. god. that is possibly the most terrible, horrible use of that phrase i have every seen.

good. a step in the right direction is always good, and this is. it might be a better decision if NASA had a bigger budget (HINT: CONGRESS!!!!! we need senators/representatives on ATS. ill volunteer.) as they would have more to dish out with, but its still a good idea. the ISS is going to be the next step, coming before the moon and mars in any practical model, much to the chagrin of, well, everyone, and this is a large step toward it. it just needs to work.

I think it's a great idea.

It's good to give the astronauts all the training they need, and it need to be realistic too!

I wonder if they will use some of the X-34 technology in it, The first picture looks like the X-34.

Originally posted by MacKiller
I think it's a great idea.

It's good to give the astronauts all the training they need, and it need to be realistic too!

You beat me to saying it.

But a part of my mind thinks it is unneccesary when we are in deep **** with terrorists and Iraq, not that we can let those things affect our space program, it just doesn't seem fair when people are dying.

you cant let other problems in the world stop you from doing something.

You all seem to like this Idea, one thing that I think is interesting is that its going to take off vertically like all other rockets. Surely Nasa can come up with something better then this, theres several methods of its starting phase, which on our current space shuttle uses over 25% of its feul on, Why not use some Mag Lev tech here?

Originally posted by Murcielago

You all seem to like this Idea, one thing that I think is interesting is that its going to take off vertically like all other rockets. Surely Nasa can come up with something better then this, theres several methods of its starting phase, which on our current space shuttle uses over 25% of its feul on, Why not use some Mag Lev tech here?

I was thinking the same thing. At this point I think they just want to get something up there. Maybe the technology you speak of wouldn't be ready for quite a while.

Wouldn't it be better to tow-launch it into orbit?

Originally posted by PARALYZ
Wouldn't it be better to tow-launch it into orbit?

I think either a tow launch of mag lev would be far efficient then from the ground.

Even if they built a relitively small MagLev track, just enough to get it to around allmost mach 1 range and have the end of the track be pointing straight up, a couple hundred feet in the air, then before it shoots off the track have its rocket engine start up.

A tow launch is another good Idea, Nasa could just modify one of there 747's to do this. But the rocket engine desinger they have for this project built the engine for the SpaceShip One craft, and so if Nasa did the tow system people would start saying "Nasa, Come up with your own designs, and stop using Burts". So I think thats why they wouldn't do the tow method.