Re:Boeing-SpaceX Team Split Space Taxi Award
by ansible on Tuesday September 16, 2014 @06:04PM
(#8327361)
They both look pretty plain to me. I mean, Musk can lay on some shiny metal here and there, but they're both soulless capsules. I really like the Dream Chaser; a 1/4th size STS that can be mounted on the tip of existing rockets is very tempting.
Plain is good. Plain (in this context) is correlated with reliable.
Here's the thing with the STS. The lifting-body design spreads a critical system component (the reentry system) over a large area, necessarily on the outside of the craft.
A capsule with a more conventional ablative re-entry heat shield is more durable and reliable. It is also protected for most of the mission. It can be engineered with plenty of design margin (at minimal weight penalty), to deal with unexpected circumstances. That makes for a good design.
The TPS on the STS has partially failed several times [1], and once catastrophically.
Plain is good. Plain (in this context) is correlated with reliable.
Here's the thing with the STS. The lifting-body design spreads a critical system component (the reentry system) over a large area, necessarily on the outside of the craft.
A capsule with a more conventional ablative re-entry heat shield is more durable and reliable. It is also protected for most of the mission. It can be engineered with plenty of design margin (at minimal weight penalty), to deal with unexpected circumstances. That makes for a good design.
The TPS on the STS has partially failed several times [1], and once catastrophically.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-27#Tile_damage