Good point!
And to put "expensive" in context, at the time the shuttle decision was made, we had already built the titanium SR-71, and very extensive use of titanium was included in some of the commercial SST designs (since the goal was Mach 3 -- Concorde's M 2.2 derived from the max heating an aluminum structure could take).
So, while Ti was expensive, it had already proven feasible and worth it for other specalized, high-value aerospace applications. It wasn't a speculative new thing that they rejected -- the tiles + alumnium was the speculative new thing. A slightly unfair comparison since you still would have had to handle much higher heating than on a Mach 3+ aircraft, but still, it's not the alternative to the tile system was carving it out of diamond or something crazy like that.
Space/Science » in reply to More about titanium
Craziness
The whole thread (44 posts)
- Mike Griffin's road map to Mars
- I think rocket technology is about as good as it's going to get
- Other good points
- I agree
- The 30+ years hasn't been a complete waist.
- re: I agree
- Could the shuttles be redesigned?
- I agree