Launch the ISS with just one rocket...

Archibald · October 15, 2006, 02:47:36 PM

We all know that the building of the ISS will require many, many Shuttle and rocket lauch from 1998 to 2010 or so. Now there was a way of lauching this thing in just one lauch or so.
Who thought that the Saturn V was impressive ? look at this one...it was a planned derivative...

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/satnv24l.htm

PolluxDeltaSeven · October 15, 2006, 03:57:17 PM

Did I read correctly???
435 tons in orbit!!!!

Wow!!! I'm... woooooow!!!!

CanisD · October 15, 2006, 05:19:30 PM

Those are puny compared to the Nova project...1 million pounds to Earth Orbit.
http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/nova.htm

rallymodeller · October 15, 2006, 09:01:38 PM

Presenting -- your One Stop Shop for all Really Big Boosters!

Introduction to Future Launch Vehicles

Just about every proposal for American Really Big Boosters since the dawn of the idea, with a bunch of Shuttle proposals thrown in for good measure.

Burncycle · October 15, 2006, 09:23:01 PM

Sea Dragon was supposed to be pretty plausible.

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/searagon.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/gallery/lseragon.htm

Archibald · October 16, 2006, 12:05:23 AM

QuoteThose are puny compared to the Nova project...1 million pounds to Earth Orbit.
http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/nova.htm

one million pounds mean 450 000 kg or 450 tons... not better!
Rally (can I call you rally ?) I know this website from some years now. The guy who made this site name Markus Lindroos.
I found that searching for early shuttle proposals... well it's nearly the only website were you can find it. Sadly, it is no longer updated from June 2001

The Nova 8L and 9L were also quite... impressive.

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/nova8l.htm

Wasn't the Sea Dragon a recoverable booster

It was so huge that it had to land in the ocean if I remember well...
This one was a single-stage-to-orbit, and that's why it was so big...to have a reasonable payload with this kind of launcher (whithout wing, egg-shapped SSTO) you have to scale the concept up to gigantic dimensions.

CanisD · October 16, 2006, 12:31:07 AM

1,000,000 pounds/2000=500 tons
Don't try and confuse us with your socialistic metric system!

Nova MM34: 531,000 kg (1,170,000 lb) 585 tons
Saturn V-24L: 435,300 kg (959,600 lb) 479.8 tons

Archibald · October 16, 2006, 12:40:29 AM

I think there's two different pounds, the american and the british no ?

Whereas there's only one meter

Hobbes · October 16, 2006, 12:48:48 AM

Quote1,000,000 pounds/2000=500 tons
Don't try and confuse us with your socialistic metric system!

No wonder American engineering sucks. You guys keep tripping over your own damn units.

1 million lb = 453 metric tons (of 1000 kg each)

(thumbs nose at Americans)

Archibald · October 16, 2006, 12:56:12 AM

That's why I meant : the english pound is 0.454 kg (or so).
My poor head...

MartG · October 16, 2006, 01:20:36 AM

QuoteThat's why I meant : the english pound is 0.454 kg (or so).
My poor head...

Just don't get them started on gallons ! A real gallon is eight pints

Jennings · October 16, 2006, 01:53:52 AM

QuoteJust don't get them started on gallons ! A real gallon is eight pints

So is a piss-assed American gallon - it's just made up of eight piss-assed American pints. Of course, you Brits can't say anything. You buy your fuel in litres and drive to the pub in miles to buy your beer in pints!

J

lancer · October 16, 2006, 03:42:29 AM

Quote
QuoteJust don't get them started on gallons ! A real gallon is eight pints
So is a piss-assed American gallon - it's just made up of eight piss-assed American pints. Of course, you Brits can't say anything. You buy your fuel in litres and drive to the pub in miles to buy your beer in pints!

J

We've had the bloody metric system FORCED on us by a bunch on unelected bloody foreign beurocrats from Brussels and Strasbourg, backed up by a bunch of spineless cowards in Westminster!!!!! We HAVE to buy our petrol in litres, it makes it so much easier for the oil companies ansd the govt to rip UK drivers off over fuel prices.

NARSES2 · October 16, 2006, 05:06:20 AM

The US uses "Short tons", the UK uses "Imperial Tons". Sometimes know in the US as a long ton

Short ton = 2,000 lbs

Imperial ton = 2,240 tons or 20 cwt's (for those with long memories)

In work we use Metric Tonnes -= 1,000kg's

Personaly I don't see and never have seen what the fuss is about regarding metrication. In conversation with others you use the units you are happy with and can visulise/realise. If you'r buying petrol does it matter a fig if it's in pints/gallons/litres ? Most people put £10 or £20 in anyway I can convert C to F temperature's approximately in my head, so no problem there. It's surely better from an engineering/manufacturing point of view to use consistent measurements worldwide ? Just one of those old arguments that's been around since before a lot of you were born and won't probably go away until the next generation is running the country and all us "old farts" are in homes

Chris - who's a bit peeved today

RLBH · October 16, 2006, 08:46:55 AM

Metric, Imperial, whatever. I don't see the fuss, as long as everyone's well educated...

For instance, in my Mechanics class this morning, I simply did the problems using feet in feet, and the problems in metres in metres. Saving time on the conversions meant I was completing the problems very quickly, despite using a slide rule.

Now, Metric's easier to work with when you stray away from the base units - offhand, if I tell you it's a mile and three furlongs to the post office, and you walk at five feet per second, how long will it take to get there? There again, Imperial or American units mean that you need to learn your tables: as late as the 1950s, British engineers were calculating things in their heads that the Europeans needed calculating machines for. Of course, that could explain why France has an aero industry and we don't...