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bagera3005 β Lockheed VentureStar X-33
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Published: 2008-09-18 02:38:57 +0000 UTC; Views: 20513; Favourites: 169; Downloads: 1016
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Description
VentureStar X-33VentureStar was Lockheed Martin's proposed design for a single-stage-to-orbit reusable launch system. The program's primary goal was to develop a reusable unmanned space plane for launching satellites into orbit at about 1/10 the cost of other systems that would completely replace the space shuttle. While the requirement was for an unmanned launcher, it was expected to optionally carry passengers as cargo. In addition to a modular system, The VentureStar would provide rapid turnaround between launches. It would have also used a new metallic thermal protection system that would be safer and cheaper to maintain than the ceramic one on the Space Shuttle. It was to be a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle that would take off vertically and land like an airplane. The design specifications called for the use of linear aerospike engines, which maintain their efficiency thrust at all altitudes. VentureStar was to be a commercial endeavor and flights would have been leased to NASA as needed.
Failures in the VentureStar's technology demonstrator, the X-33, in particular with the composite LH2 (liquid hydrogen) tank, led to program cancellation on March 1, 2001.
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Comments: 20
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Yeah, I know..
Β Β Β Β Β
I worked in the company & in the department
that was makingΒ the landing gear for this thing.
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funny thing is the 2 problems were not show stoppers "as another company made a successful composite cryogenic tank and it was found metal tanks would have been lighter."
and the aerospike was a little heavier but was wayyyy more better when offering constant efficiency from sea level to orbit.
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I used to have a model of this one. She got lost someweres
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I worked with the company and department
that was making the landing gear for
this craft....
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Man, I would love to just sit down and talk to some peeps who were really involved on the project. Who makes the big vehicle design decisions? Like, if it'll have boosters or not?
IMO, when the composite LH2 tank failed, they should've used conventional materials and put a reusable LOX-RP-1 booster on the back. Put a small turbofan engine on the booster like Buran had, let it separate at a horizontal velocity of ~2,800 m/s, and it could glide and land at Whallops island, be fully reusable, thus keeping the "fully reusable" advantage that an SSTO would offer, without the enormous technical difficulties.
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Please call it only Venture Star. X-33 was another vehicle, a small scale technology demonstrator and was not called Venture Star.
I like your drawings anyway
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this is just incredible. The problem isn't nasa or Lockhead martin, it's congress, more precisely the Presidency. We could get things rolling if we had a mission orientation on this stuff. We have to think in 50-100 year investments, private companies are incapable of thinking that way. that's why we need an international space imperative.
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I loved The X-33 Design, I thought it had potential
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The VentureStar! Why must the bad people cancel thee? I heard they managed to solve the problem with the LH2 tanks, but they are still not continuing it because the government withdrew funding to it, and Lockheed did not see the VentureStar as commercially profitable enough to continue. I check that as another reason why the Iraq War is bad.
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Hey - we overthrew an evil dictator, saved millions of lives, and now we're fighting something like an extremely powerful mafia, saving lives by stopping murderers who would otherwise rise to power, and we're doing it with an all-volunteer army that has had less loss of life than smoking has in half the amount of time...
Plus, DoD only gets a small fraction of Congressional spending anyways. The Majority goes to socialist programs and "third rail" programs, that you can't pull the tens of billions of annual waste out of because people want to be spoon fed.
On a less argumenative note, I'd like to see a source or what solution they used for the LH2 tanks. This is very interesting... If it's profitable, then a private company like SpaceX will pursue it. That's another reason I love private industry. They do whatever makes sense
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NASA just about has a legal right it seems to say who gets to launch into space or not(or the Government does and at times uses NASA as an example why(?)). Most comerical space companines now have to either launch with NASA or else, they use SEA LAUNCH which is an off shore launcher(basic an oil rig like platform that launches rockets). Good old Russia on the other hand has a more open space launch system since the start.
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Sure, but I don't see why Lockheed couldn't maintain a space fleet of its own. NASA is just an agency like any other government agency, they don't have to be pulling the strings all the time, but they do have to oversee operations. If Lockheed wanted to, it could have continued with the VentureStar for its own commercial reasons.
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NASA is also hindered by either internal or external(cough...Congress...cough) in funding programs/systems and when it does get funded they sometimes like to drag their feet on the development time, not to say that throwing together something that is basically a bomb with men or multimillion dollar device atop it is a good idea. There's really too much office work at NASA to really get anything done that hasn't been either paid for or designed and built already. This was even before the first Iraq War.
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As much as I REALLY HATE LOCKHEED MARTIN, for their war profiteering, they DO make some kick ass shit occasionally.
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bagera3005 forgot to include the Skunk Work's logo that would've been painted on the vertical stabilizers
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Necessity is the mother of invention. Some of the best engineers in the world work at Skunk Works, Lockheed Martin's advanced branch. They designed the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) for Apollo and the SR-71, among other things.
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