Since NASA decided to retire the space shuttle, it seems the trend in spacecraft design has been more intimidating rockets, with more intimidating price tags, for single use missions. I'm pretty much alone over in my corner says "smaller, simpler, reusable."
(If you follow space news, they you probably realize I'm not quite alone in advocating reusable launch vehicles, and there's exciting progress on that front. Yet most NASA fans haven't quite gotten the memo.)
After today's Orion test flight, I discussed frustrations about the dominant approach with my friend Ben. Once finals are over I'll follow up this post with a more detailed explanation, but I want to record the main insights--along with my own thoughts--before they're buried in the chat logs.
- Getting materiel out of the gravity well is most important.
- One large rocket is less efficient (with regard to fuel) than many small rockets.
- Launching one large rocket is less efficient (with regard to materials) than launching many small rockets provided the smaller rockets can be easily reused.
- Smaller payloads would be financially viable if they can be easily assembled in orbit.
- My aerospace aesthetic is "design with an emphasis on 'nothing that explodes and flies away'"
That's all for the time being
