🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3361@phri.UUCP>, roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
> 
> 	For the benefit of us interested-but-ignorant observers, can you give
> me some idea of how useful a 600-900 pound (still no metric!) payload is?
> 	Would such a delivery system be useful for making small emergency
> shipments to a permanent space station ("Houston, we, uh, seem to have loaded
> our camera wrong and wasted all our film; think you could Pegasus up another
> few rolls before this comet goes out of range?").  Sounds like putting one of
> these up might be a lot faster than waiting for the next scheduled shuttle.
> -- 

Funny you should ask.  One trade study going on right now at Boeing's
space station effort is looking into ELV's for station resupply.
(We have the Logistics Elements part of the job, among others)

The current station design quantizes most of the interior hardware
into 'double racks', which are large enough to hold two 19 inch
standard rack-mountable pieces of equipment side by side.  Hence
the double rack is 42" wide.  It is about 74-80 in high and 30-40 in
deep.  The rack estimated weights run from about 400 pounds to 1800
pounds, with a mean ofa little over 1000 pounds.  The racks are
all designed be removed as units.  It would be really convenient
to have a one-rack capacity launch vehicle (about 2000 lb), but
even 900 lb will come in very handy:

"Houston, we just lost the number 4 air revitalizer, could you send
up a spare, NOW!!??" (no smiley face)

With a solid rocket, presumably you could treat it like a big
missile, and not have to spend more than a few hours prepping it
for launch.  Then the airplane can cruise to get under the
Station's orbital path as soon as possible, making a <12 hour
response time possible.  Compare to the 90 day wait if a problem
crops up the day after an Orbiter goes home.


Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)461-2606(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +280 ft altitude, Earth

-- 
Dani Eder / Boeing / Space Station Program / uw-beaver!ssc-vax!eder
(205)461-2606(w) (205)461-7801(h) 1075 Dockside Drive #905 Huntsville, 
AL 35824  34 40 N latitude 86 40 W longitude +280 ft altitude, Earth