🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1989Mar14.172237.29235@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes:
>Science reports that the West German government has decided to fund
>initial work on Sanger... turboramjet engines to propel a winged
>first stage to Mach 5, at which point a LOX/LH2 propelled second stage
>... would be released to ascend to orbit.
>
>This seems like a better idea than HOTOL or NASP: no need to take the
>entire vehicle to orbit or to make the first stage capable of flight
>at extreme hypersonic speeds.

Uh, well, provided you don't call Mach 5 "extreme".  Sanger has been
presented as a more modest, technologically straightforward alternative 
to Hotol, but that first stage doesn't sound modest or straightforward
to me.  The last big hypersonic aircraft was the XB-70, which was only
built for Mach 3 and was still mind-bogglingly difficult and costly.
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