u know, i have absolutley every single one of your add-ons... and there was one thing i was thinking: if they have these nano super light and super strong stuff, wouldn't they make an SSTO? there are people saying we can make an ssto now, why not one with this hi tech stuff? i know, that even to get a smalish spacecraft in orbit you would need a large SSTO but, somehow an SSTO seems like the "airliner to space" since recovering all those stages is a pain, perticularly for un-organized groups like the people that would use swift space or pocket rockets. not to be critical or anything, i wish some of your VCs could be put into other add-ons like some of sputniks alterntate history things...
ps that "photo" of the BA facility is awesome... wish orbiter could handle stuff like that.
That's an extraordinarily good question. The answer, I think, is two-fold. First, the rocket equation is a harsh mistress, and I think she makes SSTO a very hard problem, even when you're talking about materials an order of magnitude lighter than we have now. But second, I think the aerodynamics become very problematic: You still have to carry a LOT of fuel and, unless it's very highly pressurized, then you're going to have a large volume to get into orbit, no matter what. This means you're going to end up having shapes that are pretty squirrelly when it comes to aerodynamics -- just look at the Skylon concept (and it's partially an air-breather).
But it's still a good point and I may look into an SSTO design. On the other hand, I REALLY want to get off Earth with new addons as soon as possible (thus the "quote" at the beginning of the SwiftSS' documntation).
As for Orbiter even being able to handle something like the image in my last post, well, don't count on it any time soon. The meshes used in that render add up to just under a million polygons. Even Bryce is close to choking on that load, and the renders are taking just over an hour each at that level of detail.
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