Newsgroups: sci.space
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: New Shuttle Engines
Message-ID: <1990Nov14.062718.6752@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <10948@milton.u.washington.edu> <1990Nov13.190528.5893@zoo.toronto.edu> <DLBRES10.90Nov13163343@pc.usl.edu>
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 90 06:27:18 GMT

In article <DLBRES10.90Nov13163343@pc.usl.edu> dlbres10@pc.usl.edu (Fraering Philip) writes:
>HS>in an expendable launcher.  The Hughes/Boeing Jarvis proposal also used
>HS>expendable SSMEs, after they tried very hard to come up with a viable
>HS>scheme for reviving the F-1 and J-2 and couldn't make it work.  The SSME
>HS>is just too expensive to be a good expendable engine, though.
>   
>I was under the impression that the reason Jarvis was not built,
>in either 'incarnation,' was because of political reasons...

Well, sort of.  The fundamental problem was the lack of customers.
Hughes/Boeing was perfectly happy to foot the development bill, given
enough "launch customers" [pun unintentional] to justify it.  But the
government wasn't interested, in the end.

A contributing factor, probably, was excessive reliance on shuttle
technology that was under the political control of people who weren't
keen on the idea.  Even the original F-1/J-2 concept used tankage based
on the shuttle ET.
-- 
"I don't *want* to be normal!"         | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
"Not to worry."                        |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry
