Here's a 34 page study summarizing the efforts to define a 1.5-2 million pound to orbit rocket for the post-Saturn era... some interesting assumptions made in the report-- IE up to 130 flights of 1.5 million pounds payload delivered to orbit EACH for the period from 1981 to 2000... In other words, about the same number of flights as the space shuttle, but instead of 20,000 lbs or so payload, 2 million pounds delivered to orbit on each flight!

The vehicles proposed are truly gargantuan-- 70 feet in diameter and 660 feet tall! The Saturn V looks like a tinker-toy in the diagrams next to them! These vehicles were all designed around a liquid propulsion reusable booster stage to lift it out of the atmosphere and to 10,000 ft/sec staging velocity, where it would stage to a nuclear powered second stage that would either then take a hyperbolic trajectory straight to the moon, stop off in parking orbit as Apollo did before performing a TLI burn to achieve lunar velocities, or simply deliver the cargo to LEO. The second stages were to be reusable and have a specific impulse of 1500 seconds, about three times higher than the best hydrogen engines ever built. There was also extensive discussion of nuclear pulse propulsion second stages, or in-space propulsion stages. I guess this is referring to the "Project Orion" plans to use nuclear detonations from small devices ejected behind the vehicle that, when detonated, reflected the blast wave off a parabolic reflector for propulsion. The report noted that this form of propulsion might not be acceptable for use in Earth's atmosphere for POLITICAL REASONS...

At any rate, it's an interesting study and some neat information for those interested in some of more *creative* ideas for the post-Saturn space program...

Enjoy! OL JR

Attached Files

NASA Study Summary- Advanced Post Saturn Earth Launch Vehicle Study.txt (13.0 KB, 35 views)

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Pic one is the proposed concept vehicles studied-- the nuclear upper stage, in this case equipped with eight water-moderated metal core nuclear engines, atop either the baseline post-Saturn chemical first stage booster, or the Nexus booster.


Pic two is the nuclear second stage, equipped with eight water moderated metal core 750K nuclear rocket engines...


Pic three is the gas-core reactor second stage, powered by a pair of nuclear engines, atop the various chemical boosters, as previously mentioned-- baseline and Nexus...


Pic four is the gas core reactor stage, equipped with two of either 3000K or 4000K thrust nuclear engines...


More coming! OL JR

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__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Pic one is the gas core reactor, this time equipped with two 6000K thrust reactors, on top of an uprated Nexus booster stage...


Pic two is the nuclear pulse stage atop the Nexus booster... this one has very little detail given, since the nuclear pulse stage was still classified when this was written...


That's it for this one, but I have two more studies like this I plan to summarize soon.

Later! OL JR

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__________________
The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!