Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Ariane 5

re: Ariane 5 - Shuttle Vs. Straight Stack
Post Sputnik — (archived)

Not really, as another poster said, the Shuttle and Ariane are basically the same technology. As a cost to mass ratio, the shuttle weighs about four times as much as an Ariane payload, and can be delivered to orbit at only twice the cost. Clearly straight stack unmanned boosters win over the shuttle, but the shuttle was merely an experiment. What I propose is that we'll see a lot of this straight stack stuff in the future, booster assisted core flight. Eventually we'll be able to put small space planes on top of them, and still take the core stage to orbit. If you are recovering the boosters in the ocean, as far as I'm concerned, thats reusable. Think something like Direct, but with much, much better engines and boosters.

We are that close to full reusability. It's just a matter of engine development. When you are doing large scale space flight, you are dealing with engines.

Sooner or later you'll get it.

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