Comments on: More on EADS’ suborbital vehicle plans

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 05:45:11 +0000

More on EADSâ€™ suborbital vehicle plans…

An update on EADS’ plans for a suborbital tourism space plane with some commentary….

By: JyN

JyN — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 17:37:04 +0000

Hello Jeff, hello you all. You actually miss another key point about the seats : they slide (along a sort of rail) to minimize the G-force ! Good idea isnâ€™t it ?!!

I’m very surprised by all the bad opinions about this EADS try to make space tourism a reality ! All ideas going in that direction should be encouraged I think…

Considering that Arianne is a succes for years, hopping ATV and Colombus for the ISS will certainly be great too, why their Space Jet would’nt be excellent too ?

Jeff, congratulations for your website !

â€¦ and sorry if they are any english mistake, Iâ€™m a french galactic websurfer !

By: Bruno Berger

Bruno Berger — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:00:18 +0000

I talked to one of those guys in Paris (the mockup was shown in the frame of the Air Show in Le Bourget). What you see is a design study made by an artist. They gave him the diameter of the fuselage and he designed something. When I asked him how he thinks to survive mach 4 with this sailplane-like wings he only shrug his shoulders and said “look, this is only a design study. Its very likely that the real plane will look completely different”.
BTW: They have indeed attitude control thrusters. I think the EADS announcement can help the smaller alt.space companies to find investors, because it gives the space tourism market more credibility (even if the EADS plane is IMHO a silly design and the business plan isn’t well thought out.

By: Ferris Valyn

Ferris Valyn — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:37:07 +0000

Rand,

I think what Peter was saying when he said “That IS EADS territory and theyâ€™re going to do it a lot cheaper”, the they’re in fact refered to Scaled/Virgin/Rocketplane/Masten/Armadillo guys.

I could be wrong, but thats how I read it.

By: Ivan Kraus

Ivan Kraus — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 10:11:39 +0000

Peter Shearer is absolutely right, the same doubts resulting in the same sceptical answers with the horrifying final conclusion, regrettably.

I have never realised how big pressure this all would (could) generate intentionally to the folks who mean this business seriously (Burt and his team especially as they seem to be in the front line â€“ remember the amount of hysteric e-mails mentioned by Brian Binnie after the 1st Xprize SS1 flight to stop the programme obtained even from the companies who must have very well understood that the ship was not in real danger)

Wish them all good luck!

By: Rand Simberg

Rand Simberg — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 20:10:54 +0000

EADS is going to do orbital a lot cheaper? Who knew?

What’s been keeping them from doing it?

By: Peter Shearer

Peter Shearer — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 21:20:32 +0000

Seer, I’m referring to the idea that EADS wants to keep “little guys” out of their “big boys” backyard. After Scaled and Rocketplane have proven sub-orbital then they’re going to go after orbital… That IS EADS territory and they’re going to do it a lot cheaper… This scares EADS (I would think…).

Boeing, Lockheed, EADS (and NASA) have the public convinced that space is a multi-billion dollar venture and that it’s really really hard. Burt Rutan proved them wrong.

This isn’t about competing products… This is about the territory of SPACE industry itself. This is monumental I think.

By: Seer

Seer — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 17:39:49 +0000

Peter, FUD – scaring away the competition – only makes sense if in fact you have a product or service you wish to protect. EADS don’t have anything that competes with Scaled or Rocketplane.

By: Peter Shearer

Peter Shearer — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 15:57:37 +0000

Mikael,
They will definately have a RCS. It’s something no spaceship can live without… But reorientating itself is only a small part of the battle. The vehicle has to have some sort of re-entry method… some sort of reconfiguration of the aerodynamics… The space shuttles elevons turn up to break the wings in half… Actually it does the same thing that SS1 does but without the rudders connected to the wing ends which puts SS1’s tail stabilizers further back (and up while in “feather” mode). You could actually think of SS1 as a “sailplane” version of the Space Shuttle. Unfortunately for the shuttle it only works with a delta wing, it only works with MILLIONS of dollars of wind tunnel tests and it only works if the vehicle re-enters at a percise angle (which on-board computers must control). SS1 does this “hands-free” as it is highly stable and automaticly reorients itself.

Long story short… Without an aerodynamic reconfiguring method that vehicle is screwed. The tails will turn the nose down and the speed will climb and climb (probably to mach 5) at which the heat will be severe and without a heavy/expensive heat shield it’ll burn up. Drag flaps like on commercial airliners are insufficient (and unstable). Unless they’ve got a method up their sleaves, this vehicle as depicted does not have a reentry method and will burn up. Of course, it’ll never make it up with those unswept wings either…

As for the “turbines in a vacuum” the problem isn’t the vacuum time of the flight… it’s the fact that the vehicle will go supersonic while still in the atmosphere (during the pull-up) and regardless of how thin the air is getting as it goes up Mach 3 is still Mach 3… Not only would the turbines add substantial drag (from a non-supersonic inlet design) but air would want to flow through it even after it’s turned off. The turbine blades aren’t designed for those speeds… They won’t survive.

As for FUD… Yes they’ve spent a lot and I’m curious why they’d screw with their reputation but for a giant aerospace outfit like them… throwing millions of dollars on something to scare away the competition is something they’d do in a heartbeat… No questions asked, no regrets. Companies that big do it all the time.

…But hey, the more companies that work towards space tourism (whether serious or not) the better.

By: Mikael Wozniak

Mikael Wozniak — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 10:59:00 +0000

Concerning the FUD theory, well, I’m not convinced so far.

Those guys worked a lot on that presentation. They did wind tunnel tests, they hired one of the top world designer for the cabin… Those things cost money.

They invested time and money, they put their name in the balance. If it was only a FUD stuff, they could have done it for far less time/money/reputation costs than that but as you said, Wait and see.