Orbital ATK believes in satellite servicing, but not rocket reusability

[Kryten]

The launch for the first MEV has now been arranged; a dual launch on Proton with a small OrbATK-built comsat.

[todofwar]

On Sunday, April 17, 2016 at 5:59 PM, fredinno said:

Cool

I think this will be the next big "rocket landing".

Then everyone will think OrbitalATK is a newspace company

(the Orbital side technically is, though)

They do leave the MEV in orbit. Only problem is that this probably isn't big enough yet to justify a Xenon refueling station (unless OrbitalATK extends this system to a full-on reusable Xenon Space tug, which is probably the next logical step).

But a servicing hangar is pointless, it's way too big, and honestly, unless it's pressurized and astronauts can get to it, it's probably no better than the MEV-esque repair solution.

You could pressurize it actually, that wouldn't be too difficult. The repair guys would be in lightweight suits giving them better flexibility and dexterity. In the case of a catastrophic failure of the hangar, the suits would expand like a balloon and a tether would drag them back to an airlock. 

[Northstar1989]

On Thursday, March 03, 2016 at 2:47 PM, fredinno said:

I doubt fighters last for 10s of flights (being in war) so there's that....

But rocket's are basically controlled explosives, something that makes reuse so much more difficult.

Ummm, actually the survivability of US and Western European fighters is excellent.  The chances are they will be used in asymmetrical wars, against oppoments who aren't capable of shooting them down.  And they make plenty of patrols and teaining flights in peacetime.

If we ever started chewing throughhigh-tech fighters like in WWII, by contrast, we'd be *forced* to opt for a cheaper design.  Single-use high-tech fighters simply aren't an affordable prospect...

So no, fighters really *are* reusable...

 

Regards,

Northstar 

EDIT: My bad- didn't notice how old that post was...

Edited October 12, 2016 by Northstar1989

[wumpus]

58 minutes ago, Northstar1989 said:

Ummm, actually the survivability of US and Western European fighters is excellent.  The chances are they will be used in asymmetrical wars, against oppoments who aren't capable of shooting them down.  And they make plenty of patrols and teaining flights in peacetime.

If we ever started chewing throughhigh-tech fighters like in WWII, by contrast, we'd be *forced* to opt for a cheaper design.  Single-use high-tech fighters simply aren't an affordable prospect...

So no, fighters really *are* reusable...

 

Regards,

Northstar 

EDIT: My bad- didn't notice how old that post was...

Considering how much the Air Force/Navy pays to train each pilot (let alone the cost in blood) I'd assume that Boeing/AAI (the global hawk company)/Lockheed Martin would be churning out the next generation drone well before we churned through half of our force.  A drone vs. drone war would also force yet another questioning of warfare technology similar to the reaction of the horrors of the Great War and also of nuclear weapons (and nothing of note happened...).