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More New Details on NASA's CEV Launcher Studies
TheEqualizer writes "Continuing on the NYT story on NASA's current CEV launcher plans, spaceref has an even
more extensive look with detailed assessments of the available options. By all accounts, it looks like NASA is picking up where it left off with Apollo but also combining it with established Shuttle technology -- the capsule concept of the 1960s atop the shuttle boosters of the 1970s being the winning combination under the current budgetary limitations. However, is this coupling of
old technology and designs really the best we can do?"
They are also attached to launch at a specific location and need yanked out of florida!
There are a number of factors to consider when launching a rocket and Florida provides the best launch location for the US. Here are the factors to consider...
- You have to launch east so you get the added help of the rotational velocity of the Earth.
- You want to launch over unpopulated areas (the ocean is pretty unpopulated for a long way). The Russians use the giant desert in their southern regions for this but don't care as much about the people living under the launch path (have you seen the pictures of rocket debris in Russian villages?). The Europeans also use the ocean (from French Guiana)
- You want to launch from the lowest possible latitute because you can only reach higher latitude orbits in one go (you can reach any orbit from the equator but you can't reach an equatorial orbit from the tropic of cancer without changing orbit in space)
- The ideal US launch facility from a physics standpoint would be Hawaii but the cost of getting the vehicle to Hawaii would be insane so we opt for a higher latitude, continental launch facility).