/sci/ - Science & Math

I've been running some deltaV numbers, and you could probably make a pretty decent 'core to orbit' 1.5 stage reusable system using falcon heavy.
The side boosters would land themselves and you could put some kind of wing system on the core stage, like the energia concepts.

Ideally you would use less Merlin engines on the core, possibly with slightly expanded nozzles for higher vacuum ISP, there is considerable excess thrust with 9 engines and no second stage.

Figures are around 40tons excess mass total (on top of the 20t core dry mass) that can be split between reusability hardware and payload.
You could maybe cut 5 tons or so off the baseline core dry mass by removing landing legs and engines, to help cover re-entry hardware.
I'd assume somewhere around 20 tons fully re-usable.


Over all methalox would probably be a better setup for this kind of architecture, as kerolox is heavy for a second stage and with a common propellant you can keep the same cross feed capability.
But nevertheless seems like it could be done using a lot of falcon heavy hardware.

>>9500910
>What sort of thermal protection did shuttle and core stage have?
from original Energia-Buran, only orbiter was reusable, it had shielding from silica fibers, carbon and a bunch of other shit, go look it up, whole thing is online
Energia 2 (Uragan) would merge core stage and orbiter into one vehicle. Everything had wings, including boosters.
I don't particularly like this design because it goes to the main problem of American Shuttle - main engines on the most delicate part of the complex.
I would much rather give classic Energia boosters wings and kept the orbiter separate without main thrust engines.