Delta Glider design

[george7378]

Hi all,

What prevents the Delta Glider from being constructed in real life? It's not a massive ship, and the shape looks reasonable (unlike the Shuttle-A and PB). I am guessing it is the lack of power from such small engines, and things like materials for parts like the wings.

 

[agentgonzo]

The fuel is completely unrealistic in the amount of thrust it can produce (Isp)

 

[RisingFury]

Well, you can build one, but at most, it will be an expensive suborbital plane.

 

[Urwumpe]

The shape is also not reasonable because the RCS thrusters are firing at the rudders

Also, it has some other problems to deal with...if it would be just 90% effective and all heat energy spread evenly over the whole surface, it would be glowing white as whole while using the main engines.

 

[RisingFury]

Propulsion is the main problem. I don't think we'll see a DG under chemical propulsion, however, if we manage to make a very powerful electric engine with high specific impulse in a relatively small package, I don't see why not...

Everything else can be sorted out easily. The shape isn't as unreasonable as it might appear.

 

[Eagle]

With the exception of a few dangerous qualities (blossoming nosecone) and small things like the RCS thruster placement that Urwumpe mentioned, its not unreasonable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_rocketplane

Its suborbital, but XCOR is aiming for flight in 2010. Likely late 2010 or 2011 as construction of the airframe hasn't started.

 

[Keatah]

The 2 major issues would be materials sciences and energy density. Without major advancement in those two disciplines you can kiss a delta-glider bye-bye!

 

[ijuin]

Even using NERVA engines and an aerial launch such as a White Knight II type carrier plane, you'd still need a larger fuel fraction than the Deltaglider carries. In other words, you would need an external drop tank and probably some boosters since the fuel tank would reduce the thrust/weight ratio below 1.0--which brings you back to something similar to the Shuttle.

However, if you could have a hypersonic carrier plane, a NERVA-powered Deltaglider could work out as a second stage.

 

[jedidia]

if we manage to make a very powerful electric engine with high specific impulse in a relatively small package, I don't see why not...

Well, that would also solve at least two thirds of our problems concerning interplanetary spaceflight... as far as I know, they are not even sure if a high-thrust high-ISP drive is even possible.

 

[ijuin]

Nuclear Pulse Propulsion (either fission or fusion) would be high-thrust and high-ISP, but you wouldn't really want to do it in atmosphere. Continuous fusion plasma propulsion, in which you essentially have a fusion reactor and expel the superheated plasma for thrust might work as well. However, high-ISP electric propulsion will probably never reach a high enough thrust-to-mass ratio to lift off from Earth's surface due to the magnetic fields involved.