Real SSTO design

[Unit327]

I'd imagine it would be a VTHL

In the thin martian atmosphere your minimum non-stall speed would be quite fast. I shudder to think how long a runway you would need, especially for something the mass of a 20 person carrier. And if you don't have a perfectly smooth runway at that speed, say hello to dr explosion. VTVL possibly aided by chutes, only way to go. The only reason for a plane is for exploration and getting across the surface, not going to orbit. Even then it would still be VTVL if it was big enough to carry people.

As for the methane propellant, as others have stated, if you have a relatively small amount of hydrogen starter, you can make methane and oxygen out of the matian atmosphere. You could bring the hydrogen starter with you or electrolyse it out of water found indigenously. Read the case for mars, it covers all these topics.

There's nothing wrong with having fast-turnaround shuttle-like reusable thermal tiles

Would you even need them at all, just coming in from a low circular orbit? Even if you did, you could always cheat and use more propellant to avoid the need for atmospheric heating.

Edited March 27, 2014 by Unit327

[shynung]

Would you even need them at all, just coming in from a low circular orbit? Even if you did, you could always cheat and use more propellant to avoid the need for atmospheric heating.

That's not cheating. That's good engineering.

[Rakaydos]

The first draft of the space shuttle used titanium intsead of thermal tiles. Then congress told them to economise, and the ended up with the dumb foamed glass protection that killed two different shuttles.

Do it right, use tungstin and titanium to protect your hull.

[Albert VDS]

Could you please post designs (it can be pictures or descriptions) of an SSTO that could get into an orbit around Mars from its surface. I am writing a book which needs to have the SSTO and I would like to learn from the community what features I should add.

Wouldn't it be more productive if you did some research yourself? That way you'll have more options than a few posted here and you'll have more knowledge about the different crafts you pick/derive from.

I'm only posting this to help and not to be negative.

[Transits]

I don't need too large of a heat sheild because I won't be travelling at large speeds or through a thick atmosphere, and when I said plane, I more thought something that I could use during re-entry to get better control.

[Transits]

Wouldn't it be more productive if you did some research yourself? That way you'll have more options than a few posted here and you'll have more knowledge about the different crafts you pick/derive from.

I'm only posting this to help and not to be negative.

I did look them up, I have been reading books about them as well. I have the rough outline of what I want my SSTO to be, but I thought that the KSP forum would be a nice place to go in order to learn about what I should use.

[Nibb31]

The first draft of the space shuttle used titanium intsead of thermal tiles. Then congress told them to economise, and the ended up with the dumb foamed glass protection that killed two different shuttles.

Do it right, use tungstin and titanium to protect your hull.

The foam had nothing to do with the thermal tiles, which were ceramic. The foam was tank insulation to prevent LH2 boil-off. The ceramic TPS tiles never failed, even though they were pretty beat up on some missions, so it was a pretty robust system really. The Columbia accident was due to a foam strike agains the RCC panels, which were on the leading edge of the wing and again, had nothing to do with the thermal tiles.

The Challenger accident was totally unrelated to the TPS, so I don't understand what you mean by "two different shuttles".

Edited March 27, 2014 by Nibb31

[Seret]

A space plane on Mars is a silly idea.

Indeed. Reusable != spaceplane.

[SargeRho]

STS-27 had 700 damaged TPS tiles, with one missing completely. The only reason Atlantis didn't suffer a burnthrough like the one that destroyed Columbia is because the TPS tile was sitting over the aluminium mounting plate of the L-Band antenna.

[Nibb31]

STS-27 had 700 damaged TPS tiles, with one missing completely. The only reason Atlantis didn't suffer a burnthrough like the one that destroyed Columbia is because the TPS tile was sitting over the aluminium mounting plate of the L-Band antenna.

I know, but the tiles had nothing to do with the loss of either shuttle.

The Shuttle's TPS was made of 3 different materials, depending on the area:

- Thermal blankets (on the upper sections and less exposed areas)

- Ceramic tiles (white or black, depending on the thermal requirements)

- Reinforced-Carbon-Carbon panels (on the wing edges and nose).

Columbia was lost due to a foam strike on an RCC panel, not on the ceramic tiles. That was my point answering Rakaydos's comment on "foamed glass tiles", whatever that meant.

[Idobox]

I don't need too large of a heat sheild because I won't be travelling at large speeds or through a thick atmosphere, and when I said plane, I more thought something that I could use during re-entry to get better control.

Your craft needs to shed 4 km/s of deltaV in order to land, and aerobraking is the cheapest way to do that. You will need some form of heat shield to survive it. If you want something totally reusable, the best option is probably evaporation cooling: circulating some fluid below your heat shield and expelling it. It's pretty much the same as spraying water on something to keep it cool.

If you go for LH2/LOx propulsion, LH2 is the best. For methane-LOx, I'm not sure but I think LOx is the best. And then you can burn your hot gases to get some thrust and stay up longer (slower deceleration, less heating).

For the design, it will depend on the level of technology and infrastrucutre in your story.

Turning ice into LH2/LOx is very easy, but storing LH2 is very difficult. Turning LH2 into CH4 using atmospheric CO2 will require more energy and infrastructure, and it also requires cryogenic storage. Another option is to make methanol or ethanol instead. I'm not sure how much more difficult the process is, or what the ISP is, but they would be easier to store. You will still need to store oxygen in cryogenic tanks, unless you decide to go for H2O2, which is a good oxidizer, and a decent mono-propellant, but is unstable and corrosive.

Because of the almost negligible atmosphere, RCS is probably a better option than control surface, but some fins to keep the thing pointed in the right direction can't really hurt. As said, Parachutes can save you a lot of deltaV for landing, but you will still need a powered descent for the last few meters.

For the same reason, you don't need to build the tall fragile structures Earth rockets are. Something short and wide, like a super sized LEM would probably be a good option, allowing you to land on rough terrain.