Marines go orbital?

[deathjester]

Been hearing about the US Marines ultimate wish lately: they want an orbital, or sub - orbital troop insertion craft, to place a squad of men anywhere in the world within about 4 hours.  They wanted something similar in the'50's I think, to move a whole battallion.  However, I think thats a bit short sighted, as the way it was described, the landing craft would be immobile once landed.

So, I have had a better idea (as you might imagine!)

First off, to launch the vehicle / payload.  Why not use Rutan's White Knight Two aircraft?  This means you can have the team on standy, in the air.  Also easy to recall them.

Secondly, on the Rutan theme, the insertion vehicle can be based on the Spaceship Two design, but with important differences: it combines the properties of a supersonic glide vehicle with a stowable, single - bladed rotor powered by a tip jet, fed by a pair of turbine engines.

This would allow the MIV (Marine Insertion Vehicle) to launch from near friendly airspace, fly sub - orbital to the target area, descend, and then engage the rotor for a vertical landing / terrain following flight to the target.  With free flight capability, the MIV could also provide fire support to its troops. 

Once the mission is accomplished, they can then fly themselves to a friendly base - with IFR capability, they could take on enough fuel to go sub - orbital again, perhaps to return to base, or hit another target.  With a booster rocket, they could acheive orbit, which opens up the possibility of orbital refuelling/re-arming stations!


So, what do you think?  Any better ideas out there?  Or should I just get my hat and coat..!?!

[perttime]

Of course it can be done. I'd skip the part about the "single - bladed rotor powered by a tip jet", though.

IRL, there's one thing that will keep it from happening in the near future: that thing that really makes an aircraft fly...

[deathjester]

Hmm, you mean money!?!

No, no - the single rotor thing really works - the Americans built a small delta wing research plane in the sixties, which had a retracting  rotor w/ counterbalance and tip jet - by all accounts, it flew quite well !!

[deathjester]

Anybody want to have a go at this?  Any thoughts on the subject?

[Mr.Creak]

How about a Roton?
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Equipment/EG/Roton/milroton3.html

[deathjester]

Now that is really cool - just the kinda thing I was thinking of, except that the one I was thinking of could have more horizontal flight ability...

[Weaver]

Secondly, on the Rutan theme, the insertion vehicle can be based on the Spaceship Two design, but with important differences: it combines the properties of a supersonic glide vehicle with a stowable, single - bladed rotor powered by a tip jet, fed by a pair of turbine engines.

This would allow the MIV (Marine Insertion Vehicle) to launch from near friendly airspace, fly sub - orbital to the target area, descend, and then engage the rotor for a vertical landing / terrain following flight to the target.  With free flight capability, the MIV could also provide fire support to its troops. 

Once the mission is accomplished, they can then fly themselves to a friendly base - with IFR capability, they could take on enough fuel to go sub - orbital again, perhaps to return to base, or hit another target.  With a booster rocket, they could acheive orbit, which opens up the possibility of orbital refuelling/re-arming stations!

You'd have to radically change Spaceship Two's propulsion system to either run a rotor off it or do IFR, because at the moment, it's powered by a Hybrid-Rocket, which is basically a solid pure fuel grain of HTPB (a form of rubber) which has gaseous Nitrous Oxide squirted through it to acheive combustion. Neither N2O (being a pressurised gas) nor HTPB (being a solid) are compatible with any current IFR technique, nor can they be easily used to run a tip rotor.

You'd probably have to switch to a liquid-kerosene fuelled rocket as a first step, which would be useable in turbines to drive your rotor, but that still leave the isuse of how you IFR the oxidiser.

Hybrid Rockets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_rocket

[deathjester]

Could always go back to good 'ole High Test Peroxide !  That could be pumped from a tanker, along with the kerosene for the rotor drive system.

[Weaver]

HTP is 'orrible stuff though. I don't fancy living within half a mile of a tank of it, never mind sharing an aeroplane with it and then pumping into another one.....

[deathjester]

Would this be an excellent time to introduce the drone tanker (UATV - Unmanned Aerial Tanker Vehicle)?  Also useful as a weapon of last resort

[frank2056]

The Rutan "Spaceship" design is hardly a suborbital ship, unless you want to send Marines from one county to the next. To get real suborbital range from the Rutan design would not only require extra power, the ship would have to be redesigned to withstand the increased re-entry heating. The Spaceship concept is great if you're a rich celebrity with a lot of money and a bucket list. Useless for almost anything else.

The 1960s design (Ithacus was pretty impressive, but a big, glowing rocket coming in for a landing would have made a tempting target for just about every form of AAA.

[deathjester]

Yes, I saw that flaw in it too.  I thought that they could either:

Come in at re-entry speed over the landing zone, before a quick deceleration and landing.  Makes it hard for anything bar ABM systems to engage you.

Come in short of the target, engage rotors and perform NOE flight to the target area.

[frank2056]

Yes, I saw that flaw in it too.  I thought that they could either:

Come in at re-entry speed over the landing zone, before a quick deceleration and landing.  Makes it hard for anything bar ABM systems to engage you.

Come in short of the target, engage rotors and perform NOE flight to the target area.

Or... drop some heavy, heavy metal ahead of them with no retrorockets and simple guidance to target AAA radars, or just blanket the landing area. The actual re-entry part is probably the most vulnerable, since they're coming in fast and hot and their sensors will be hampered by the plasma generated by re-entry. They could also do, like you said, a Curiosity-like landing, although for something the size of the Ithacus it would require a huge amount of extra fuel just for those last few minutes.

[Doc Yo]

I wonder if it would have been feasible ( outside of Gerry Anderson  ) for the Ithaca to hang on to its
boosters, then dump them as decoys during the descent stage. I wonder too, if the plasma generated during
the descent would go some ways toward actually protecting it...

[deathjester]

Yes, I saw that flaw in it too.  I thought that they could either:

Come in at re-entry speed over the landing zone, before a quick deceleration and landing.  Makes it hard for anything bar ABM systems to engage you.

Come in short of the target, engage rotors and perform NOE flight to the target area.

Or... drop some heavy, heavy metal ahead of them with no retrorockets and simple guidance to target AAA radars, or just blanket the landing area. The actual re-entry part is probably the most vulnerable, since they're coming in fast and hot and their sensors will be hampered by the plasma generated by re-entry. They could also do, like you said, a Curiosity-like landing, although for something the size of the Ithacus it would require a huge amount of extra fuel just for those last few minutes.

I like that idea - that's what I call defense suppression!