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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 0824.PDF
FLIGHT International, 30 May 1963 Missiles and Spaceflight EUROPE STUDIES "SPACE TRANSPORTERS" A MARKED interest in the "space transporter" or "aerospace plane" concept was expressed by several leading speakers at the third European Spaceflight Symposium, held in Stuttgart during May 21-24. The meeting was organized jointly by the German Society for Rocket Technology and Spaceflight, the British Interplanetary Society and the French Astronautical Society. The symposium was opened by the German Federal Minister for Scientific Research, Hans Lenz, who disclosed that the West German budget for 1963 included 40m DM for the national pro gramme of space research and technology. This is 30m DM more than in 1962, and is in addition to the West German contributions to the European Launcher Development Organization (34.6m DM for 1963) and to the European Space Research Organization (22.3m DM). What might be called the keynote speech at the opening session was given by Dr L. R. Shepherd, president of the British Inter planetary Society, in an address on The Requirements for a Space Programme. Whatever the broad pattern of future spaceflight applications might be, Dr Shepherd emphasized, they would depend primarily on space transportation techniques. Elements such as communication satellites and scientific experiments in space were simply applications, which would be adapted to the methods of transportation available. The transportation techniques which were of major concern, Dr Shepherd stated, were those which would relate to the problem of transporting men, materials and equipment from the Earth to establish orbital stations and lunar facilities. The development of the techniques of transport in deep space—for example, electrical propulsion systems—belonged to a second phase of space explor ation. Speaking of the European role, Dr Shepherd said, "If our objectives are confined to the conducting of space research and the utilization of communications satellites, it might well be better to buy American vehicles for the former and to rely upon an American communications network. However, in the opinion of the writer, European nations and others must participate in space exploration in the fullest possible sense . . . "Turning to the situation of Europe, we have to first consider carefully the position with regard to launcher development. It would be false to pretend that the existing programme is not based upon an obsolescent vehicle concept, at least as far as the general development of space transportation is concerned. However, continuation of the work on the present vehicle is essential to give European engineers and technologists the initial experience in this field necessary for them to proceed to more sophisticated systems... "It is of vital importance that consideration should now be given to the next stage of vehicle development in Europe. This next step should take into account the broad picture given in the previous section and the remarks that have been made concerning expendable launching vehicles. The need for recoverable vehicles has been stressed by many experts in the past. In the opinion of the writer the future programme of work in Europe should place a strong emphasis upon this line of development. "There would appear to be no virtue in attempting to design and construct expendable vehicles larger than the present Blue Streak. Larger booster stages will certainly be required, but the emphasis in the development of these should be on the possibility of simple and complete recovery and repeated use. If it is assumed that the first major step in the broad development of space-trans- First photograph of Diomant, the SEREB-developed vehicle which is to place a French satellite in orbit in 1965. First described in this journal last June 14 and June 28, Diamant (Diamond) comprises a bipropellant Emeraude (Emerald) first stage, which will be fired at the end of 1963, a solid Topaze second stage, successfully fired last winter, and a glass-wound third stage, which in this photograph is a dummy portation is the construction of one or more near-Earth orbital stations, then the proper objective of the next European develop ment in the vehicle area should be a surface-to-orbit vehicle with a high payload capacity and a recoverable booster. "Ideally the booster stage of a launching vehicle should be capable of taking off with a minimum of special ground facilities. It should be capable of boosting the remaining stages to a significant fraction of the orbital velocity (say 25 per cent or more) and it should then have the capacity of flying back to its base and landing as an aircraft. Although it is a matter of some controversy, the author is firmly of the opinion that the only satisfactory type of booster for this purpose would be one employing air-breathing engines. "The development and testing of a vehicle of this type would be an extremely expensive proposition—a rough guess might put it at some 5,000m DM spread over a period of ten years. Such a development would obviously demand a combined European effort, possibly involving a consortium of aircraft and engine manu facturers as well as national governmental establishments. "The specification of this booster should be adequate to meet the requirements of the mid-1970s. This would suggest that the vehicle should be capable of boosting a minimum payload of 100,000kg to a velocity corresponding to around Mach 10, or rather more than 2,000m/sec. The further acceleration of the final payload to orbital velocity would be accomplished by a high- energy rocket propulsion stage using liquid hydrogen as fuel with either liquid oxygen or fluorine as oxidizer. The net payload placed in a close-Earth orbit would be in the region of 20,000kg. "The high-energy expendable second stage of the vehicle des cribed might also be used as the first stage of a completely expend able vehicle. Using a high-energy second stage which might be developed in connection with the present ELDO vehicle, it would give a useful close-orbital payload capability of 4,000kg to 5,000kg and have a wide range of space research applications. "The development of a recoverable first stage meeting the specifications outlined is essential to any realistic European pro gramme in space transportation. The advantages of it, assuming that it can be successfully designed and constructed to the specifi cations given, are obvious. The all-up weight of the vehicle might
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