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Space Technology

Canadian Company Developing New Space Shuttle 44

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the any-port-in-a-storm dept.
Archimboldo writes "CNN is carrying an article on the development of a new space shuttle design by Ontario's PlanetSpace called the Silver Dart, which is based on the U.S. Air Force's Flight Dynamics Laboratory-7 (FDL-7) program. Advantages over the aging Shuttle design include an all metal exterior for all-weather re-entry, twice the shuttle's lift coefficient at sub-sonic speeds, a lighter inner body, and newer electronics." The company has high hopes of snagging some of the space tourism market along with grabbing some of the resupply missions to the ISS.
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Canadian Company Developing New Space Shuttle More

Canadian Company Developing New Space Shuttle

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  • Stealth, too? (Score:1, Funny)

    by sl8r ( 104278 )
    First thought that popped up was "With that angular body, it must have stealth capabilities, too!". I've been watching too much History Channel...

  • All metal? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by YA_Python_dev ( 885173 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @04:36AM (#14307426) Journal
    It seems a bit strange to me that an "all metal aircraft" can have sufficient heat insulation for an orbital re-entry... someone can clarify this?

    • Re:All metal? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Hadlock ( 143607 )
      Maybe they put the ceramic tiles on the inside? If they switched to Titanium for the frame from aluminum, you jump up about 2000 degrees in melting temperature, so the frame doesn't have to be as safely insulated.

      Aluminum melting point = 1400F (or thereabouts); Titanium melting point = 3500F (or thereabouts).

      Some aluminum alloys have melting points near or below 1000F, so insullation is more impostant. By starting over from scratch, you can avoid the aluminum spaceframe design and work with

      • Re:All metal? (Score:4, Informative)

        by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @08:49AM (#14308330) Journal
        Well, reentry is ~3000F, so Titanium would work. [howstuffworks.com] But I sure would prefer something that was higher than that.

        • Shuttle tiles (Score:3, Informative)

          by JetScootr ( 319545 )
          Shuttle tiles were used cuz in the 1970's the metal alloys to withstand the >4000 F reentry temps (allowing for hot reentry in failure/emergencies) were either too expensive or not yet invented. In the 1990's NASA JPL developed a metal alloy that can take the heat without losing strength. Titanium may melt at 3500F, but it loses strength long before that.
          Unfortunately, the NASA program was scrapped after a few test flights of working 1/2 scale models.
          The knife-edge surfaces are needed for hypersonic fl
          • modern tech can probably build a high-temp reentry surface that can actually fly under (limited) control to any chosen landing spot - making the New York - Canberra run an hour-and-a-half or so.
            No, it can't.
        • No It can't Ti turns to liquid at 3500 it weakens long before that. There are metals that can stand much higher heat. They are known as refractory metals. They do not tend to be light. They are commonly used in things like jet engines. The problem then becomes how to protect the other parts of the craft from the hot structure.

    • Re:All metal? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Profane MuthaFucka ( 574406 ) <busheatskok@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @09:36AM (#14308722) Homepage Journal
      It's called a hot airframe. The space shuttle is a cold airframe. If it gets hot, it fails, therefore it requires an additional heat protection system. On the shuttle, this is a very fragile ceramic/silica tile.

      This spaceship uses a hot airframe. The metal parts of the vehicle are designed to get hot during reentry, and all the parts that are delicate are protected behind the very strong metal exterior.

    • It seems a bit strange to me that an "all metal aircraft" can have sufficient heat insulation for an orbital re-entry... someone can clarify this?

      Im not sure about the shuttle but the Apollo mission always used ablative cooling. Basically the concept is similar to sweating. A metal with a high vaporization actually turns into a gas that channels the heat away. This article has more information: http://www.nasa.gov/lb/centers/ames/news/releases/ 2004/moon/adventure_apollo.html [nasa.gov] Unfortunately, the problem w

  • Predictions! (Score:4, Funny)

    by mister_llah ( 891540 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @04:42AM (#14307439) Homepage Journal
    "Say, Terrence, do you know what my space suit smells like?"

    PFFFBBBBLLLT!
  • Its about time our space-ships looked like the ones in the movies.
    This one bears more than a passing resemblance to the star destroyer!

    http://starwars.wikicities.com/wiki/Venator-class_ Star_Destroyer [wikicities.com]

    nick...

  • Is it cost-effective? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pv2b ( 231846 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @05:11AM (#14307510)
    The main question on my mind is whether it's cost-effective.

    From what I've heard, the current Space Shuttle is actually more expensive to operate than an equivalent single-use vehicle, partially because of the amount of work that has to be put into making the Shuttle operational again after landing.

    Will the Silver Dart actually fare any better?
    • Why don't we get some disposable astronauts, too? Cue the Christy McAuliffe jokes...

    • Re:Is it cost-effective? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Vo0k ( 760020 )
      1) Various parties had their business in putting their parts in the shuttle, and cost and quality were often on a far place when considering priorities (political friendships being most important). They often need checking, replacing, in short they suck. A commercial-made shuttle won't have this kind of weight attached. Middle ground between safety and price is the key value. And good-bye all the 60's - based parts still kept for political reasons.
      2) The shuttles have -enormous- amount of redundancy/safety
      • ... and despite all that redundancy and safety, two have been lost in around a hundred missions.

        If space travel is to be scaled up, and space tourism to catch on, we certainly can't afford to have it any -less- safe -- how many people would fly commercial aircraft if one in 100 airline flights ended in a fatal accident (as opposed to of the order of one in a million)? OK, so space tourism is a bleeding-edge, once-in-a-lifetime experience, but still - a safety record worse than one fatal accident every 1000
        • So adding extra safety checks and multipling the redundancy in a failed design has proven to be a wrong approach. What's the right approach? Redesigning the device almost from scratch, then making it safe not by adding devices minimizing damages in case of failure but by reducing the chances of failure by rugged, simple, fault-proof design, then proving it's safe by lots of successful cargo flights ("lots of" possible only when profitable = inexpensive).

          Instead of providing a fault-prone original and 3 spar
    • says this thing never makes it out of 1/3-scale airframe prototypes.

      The great thing is that I don't have to have even a tenth of a percent of the experience, knowledge or education of anyone who calls themselves an aerospace engineer in order to make this prediction.

      Let's call it StarKruzr's Law: "Any new spacecraft proposal will be massively underfunded, poorly designed, have lukewarm support, or simply not work (pick any three)." This is because God and physics really, REALLY hate human spaceflight. One

  • Won't it be hard to launch that far north? (Score:4, Informative)

    by aapold ( 753705 ) * on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @06:37AM (#14307746) Homepage Journal
    I mean there's a reason most space agencies launch from closer to the tropics... to gain additional velocity from the rotation of the earth...

    I guess they'd have to launch from somewhere else...

    That is unless their reviving the Gerald Bull [wikipedia.org] Space Cannon program...

  • Avro Arrow et al (Score:5, Informative)

    by pettau ( 892317 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @06:50AM (#14307789)
    Some of Canada's aerospace history ...

    • The Canadarm2 [wikipedia.org]
    • The Canadarm [wikipedia.org]
    • The Avro Arrow [wikipedia.org]
    • The o-rings on 51-L (if memory serves me correct)

    sorted in some kinda order --please fill in the gaps.
    • The original Silver Dart; the Buffalo, Beaver, Otter & Twin Otter; the Black Brandt; the Argus; the Dash 7 & 8; the CL-84 tilt wing; the CL215, 215T & 415; the 600/601/604; the GX; the CRJ 200/700/900; the CL41, satellites: the Alouette (1963); the Anik A/B/C/D/E/F; Nimq, Radarsat. Off the top of my head.
  • I guess it was only a matter of time before Tang got replaced by Tim Horton's anyhow.

    For all non-Canadians - Tim Horton's is a huge national chain of coffee shops that sells the most adddictive street legal stimulant known to man. It is also one of three everlasting symbols of Canadiana - the other two being Molson Canadian beer and the beaver. Go figure.



    NeverEndingBillboard.com [neverendingbillboard.com]

  • Ten rockets? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Zarf ( 5735 ) on Wednesday December 21, 2005 @09:32AM (#14308680) Journal
    from the article:
    The spacecraft is expected to launch vertical atop a stack of about 10 Canadian Arrow rocket engines and land horizontally on an aircraft runway, they added.

    If I remember my space history correctly, Russia had a moon rocket design that tried to incorporate the firing of 20 or more independant rocket motors. The design proved far too complex for the electronics of the day to coordinate and control.

    With todays computer processing power I'll be interested to see if the problem of coordinating that many rocket motors simultaneously has become trivial enough to make a reliable launch vehicle.

    IIRC: The old soviet rockets would spin out of control.

    However, IANARS (I Am Not A Rocket Scientist).

    • Re:Ten rockets? (Score:3, Informative)

      by bryantthesmith ( 862805 )
      The Delta II can use up to 9 strap on rocket boosters in addition to the main main motor. This configuration has flown successfully for many years. If they try to make all 10 boosters controllable I could see them having problems (like the Soviet Moon rocket). If they just have a few motors for control and use the rest for boost it will probably be an easier task.
      • The Delta II can use up to 9 strap on rocket boosters in addition to the main main motor. This configuration has flown successfully for many years. If they try to make all 10 boosters controllable I could see them having problems (like the Soviet Moon rocket). If they just have a few motors for control and use the rest for boost it will probably be an easier task.

        Thank you, that's very informative. The subtle difference is the idea of a control rocket versus a boost rocket. Boost rockets being easier to
        • The Saturn V first stage originally had only four engines but as the program went on and the weight grew they needed more lift capacity. As Vau Braun said, there was this space right in the middle of the existing four engines that was just crying out for one more, so they put one there. Interestingly and getting to my point, the central one was not steerable while the other four were. It's just a matter of putting in the minimum amount of hardware to give you the steering authority you need.

          I thought the p

      • The Canadian Arrow [canadianarrow.com] doesn't use a gimballed motor. It uses graphite vanes to direct the thrust - far less moving parts, far less opportunity for failure.
    • Soyuz flies with several dozen thrust chambers, and is the most reliable launcher in the world:
      http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/img/soyuz-rocket-comtoi s.jpg [space.gc.ca]

      (canadian site since we're discussing Silver Dart)

      I think the Silver Dart is just paper, or PowerPoint. They really, really need to fly the "Arrow", it's almost 2006. If they couldn't fly it for the XPrize or the Zeroth XCup, their probably not going to fly. You or I can easily do what they've done to "make" the Silver Dart: haul out pictures of your favorite

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