Point made. Fly somebody. Get someone up around and back down safely. Just do it. Put up, or shut-up. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

“It’s not what I discovered. It’s what many experts in the industry have been saying for decades.”

Much as I want that to be true, I’m also one of those people that doesn’t believe in huge conspiracy theories.

I also don’t see the conditions necessary for that level of disruptive technology to be funded, either through the government or the private sector. SpaceX took a big risk in just building lower cost rockets, and you can see how dicey a proposition that is. Congress has shown no interests either.

So while in theory the technologies exist for SSTO, the theory still needs to be proven as workable and economical.

My prediction is that until there is a demonstrated market in LEO for cargo and crew outside of the ISS (i.e. Bigelow et al), there won’t be a serious effort to go beyond the current CCDev designs that use rockets.

But if a market does develop, then I would expect companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin to propose Two-Stage-To-Orbit systems as the next incremental transportation step. That in turn would allow companies (likely not governments at that point) to assess the cost benefits of a true SSTO as the next innovation.

It’s going to be a slow evolution, just like commercial airliners have been slow to evolve. The few big innovations that have been proposed (SST, Sonic Cruiser, Blended Wing Body, etc.) haven’t made a lasting impact yet. And new technology can’t be just marginally workable, but robustly so.

Large tubes filled with fuel and launched vertically are likely to be around a while…

It would be far too long to post in entirety here.
It’s not what I discovered. It’s what many experts in the industry have been saying for decades.
What’s keeping us from reaching hundred dollar per kilo space access is because it is incorrectly claimed SSTO’s are impractical or impossible.
So you see constantly said you need “unobtainium” to get vehicles light enough that can be SSTO or you need propellant with unknown energy content to propel it to orbit in one stage. No. The stages have existed since the 60’s. The engines with just kerosene or hydrogen have existed since the 70’s.
What I’m arguing for is this incorrect information to stop being promulgated. This is a good start:

Boeing proposes SSTO system for AF RBS program.
The new issue of Aviation Week has a brief blurb about a Boeing proposal for the Air Force’s Reusable Booster System (RBS) program: Boeing Offers AFRL Reusable Booster Proposal – AvWeek – June.13.11 (subscription required).

Darryl Davis, who leads Boeing’s Phantom Works, tells AvWeek that they are proposing a 3-4 year technology readiness assessment that would lead up to a demonstration of a X-37B type of system
but would be smaller. Wind tunnel tests have been completed. Davis says the system would be a single stage capable of reaching low Earth orbit and, with a booster, higher orbits. The system would return to Earth as a glider.
Davis says “that advances in lightweight composites warrant another look” at single-stage-to-orbit launchers.
http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=30110

Bob Clark

“Funny how heavy lift no matter the country tends to be in the past tense……. Saturn V, N1, Energia”

Good point. I think that’s because the ones you listed were built during times of national competition (mainly political & militarily), and we don’t have the same situation today.

Those behemoths also sucked up a lot of money, which is also in short supply today, especially if the only goal is “exploration”.

There is a solution that would allow you to get a 100+ mT payload launcher AND a separate manned launcher at the same time and at the cost of only a 70 mT launcher, or even less.

Yes, it was called Energia.

SCNR

“See the details here:”

You’ve been posting this spam on a lot of space websites. If you want to talk specifics, then do it here – don’t make people go somewhere else to read up on what brilliant approach you’ve “discovered”.

As far as I can tell, it’s a rehash of what’s already been discussed.

Nothing new here folks – move along, move along.

See the details here:

Some proposals for low cost heavy lift launchers.
http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?p=270195&postcount=9

Bob Clark

As military-launch costs soar, would-be competitors protest.
By Mark K. Matthews, Washington Bureau
June 26, 2011
“Company officials said the cost of parts has gone up, and the uncertainty of post-shuttle work at NASA has resulted in subcontractors raising prices. As a result, ULA is sharply increasing the prices it charges the Defense Department to launch military satellites, prompting the Air Force to raise its projected launch costs by nearly 50 percent during the next four years.
In addition, the company is demanding — and federal officials are acquiescing — that government agencies commit to buying more rockets than they’re likely to need from 2013 to 2017, all in the name of maintaining a “resilient, healthy and flexible space industrial base.”
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-military-missile-business-20110626,0,7372393.story

Bob Clark

Your point? That’s a foreign system. Are you really proposing that instead of growing domestic commercial human space transportation systems that the nation’s civil human space flight program rely on Russian systems forever?

Really?

“You want to reinvent the wheel.”

Don’t be an idiot. This wheel has to be reinvented domestically by someone. Shuttle is retiring and every other NASA manned launch system is in a museum.

“NASA has demonstrated the capability of orbiting manned spacecraft since February, 1962.”

Learn the difference between operations and development. NASA hasn’t successfully completed the latter with respect to new launch or reentry systems for nearly 30 years. SpaceX has.

SpaceX has at least a five-year head start. Blue Origin, Boeing, OSC, and SNC have a couple years head start on capsules/lifting bodies, not including a decade or so of EELV launches at ULA. NASA is starting over from square one.

Do the math. Tick-tock…

Cripes…