Mack Crawford

Initial Manned Orbital Laboratories would be single-use, but later missions could leave the lab and KH-10 imaging system or other module in orbit for reuse. Later missions could either use a Gemini alone to revisit the station, or add on additional modules

I know this stuff usually isn't very rational, but you are one of the cooler people I've met if it helps. I'm probably not the person to give life advice but don't hurt yourself please

Also +1 for plushies

Every rocket looks cooler with photogrammetry checkers

No, JIMO

Prior to Earth departure, the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter's nuclear reactor is not active. Two Delta Cryogenic Propulsion stages, launched separately and modified with docking and extended-duration flight capabilities, boost the probe most of the way to transjupiter injection

Tbh NS never really interested me much, beyond the minimum baseline of any rocket. But yeah SpaceX is being driven into the ground, hopefully they at least get far enough to not invalidate the ideals of rapid full reuse in the eyes of their competitors. If Blue and Stoke stay on course it'll be fine

The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter maneuvers during a close pass of Europa. Its ion engines consume nearly 200 kilowatts of power, generated by an onboard nuclear reactor

Its probably specifically an issue with restarts when the propellant level is already near-zero, way more likely to get bubble ingestion then. So even missions with multiple burns prior to deorbit wouldn't experience it

A Turtle Orbital Transfer Vehicle in high-Earth orbit

All the pressurized modules are on the bottom, roughly comparable to ISS's volume, and then the rest is just a huge hangar bay. The top side has a fixed solar array, and radiators and reboost engines are on the other 2 sides

I can't remember the name of the paper its from, but its from a JSC study in the early 80s looking at different structural concepts for stations, with an emphasis on supporting assembly of very large in-space vehicles and satellite servicing

An Orbital Transfer Vehicle with an aerocapture heat shield docking to a space station, next to a Space Shuttle orbiter

A Turtle Orbital Transfer Vehicle docks to Delta Station after returning from lunar orbit, alongside a Space Shuttle orbiter

I actually prefer Boeing's, though it doesn't get much attention. HL-20 was meant only as a generally-inferior backup for Shuttle, mainly a crew taxi, but Boeing's could do nearly all Shuttle-equivalent missions and many new capabilities, including GEO and lunar missions

The two main proposals for the Personnel Launch System: JSC/Rockwell's HL-20, and Boeing's biconic capsule

The paper I mainly used as a reference is from November 1990

itself for easier crew access, and they wanted a big volume underneath for a rideshare payload. So thats the geometry you get

this still avoids the need for an upper stage for LEO missions and keeps the booster/core stage highly common. So thats why its asymmetrical. For the hammerhead forward part, PLS's design needed to be LV-agnostic during this stage of development, and they wanted to avoid encapsulating the capsule

kept 2 reusable engine pods side-by-side. One pod drops off early (reduces dry mass+increases average ISP), but now you have to support a significant offset between center of mass vs thrust. If you're doing that anyway, for heavy missions you can only have to use one side booster instead of 2+, and

For low-mass missions to LEO they wanted to be able to do a single-stage vehicle. This lets them put almost all the cost into a single reusable engine pod, and also avoids in-flight ignition events which are where a lot of LOM risk comes from. This wasn't quite feasible, so they went 1.5 stage, but

Same as Apollo or Orion, theres room in the adapter underneath to carry another payload. Typically would be something like a space station module or satellite servicing kit

Theres also a bit of room on top of the capsule underneath the fairing where a smaller module (like an airlock) can be carried

Parallel-staging variant of the Boeing Advanced Launch System carrying a biconic Personnel Launch System capsule

Ascent of Boeing's Advanced Launch System carrying the biconic Personnel Launch System. PLS can be carried by either the 1.5 or 2 stage ALS, depending on whether or not a comanifested payload is carried

I think in Star Trek Enterprise there was a scene where they did basically that. Shakedown cruise for a new warp-capable ship, try going from Earth to Neptune in 10 minutes

Boeing's biconic Personnel Launch System docks at a nadir port of Space Station Freedom

That's X-38, but yes

X-38 lifting body in independent flight in low Earth orbit

X-38 Crew Return Vehicle docked to the International Space Station, configured with Node 3 facing nadir

For the first time ever, NASA is preparing for a medical evacuation of an ISS crew. Sure would be nice if there was a Crew Return Vehicle designed specifically for evacuations, with a low-g reentry and land-landing to reduce risk to injured or ill crewmembers

What's Starliner? Never heard of it

Anyway I'm excited for more PLS flights, maybe by 2005 once Freedom assembly is finished they might even fund the lunar variant

Biconic crew capsule separating from a conical service module, firing RCS thrusters

After completing its deorbit burn, Boeing's Personnel Launch System detaches its expendable service module. Though expended, the SM is very simple; just structures, radiators, and 3 pressure-fed engines. All RCS, power, GNC, and ECLSS hardware remains in the reusable capsule

It sure was chunky

I haven't seen it, but let me know if you find it. The only ABL future stuff I've seen was for X-63A (RS1 with an aerospike)

Bell nozzles would've looked cool. DC-Y also eventually switched to that (but I still kept the aerospike for my renders)

Also when'd you change your name? I like it