Ramjet Plus Rocket Propulsion for a Relible Space Shuttle

摘要

This paper describes a two-stage system of aircraft that would be initially accelerated to a supersonic ramjet-operating velocity by a ground-based launcher. Pressurized, liquid propellant, rocket engines with fixed, uncooled nozzles would propel a wheeled carriage that would control the attitudes of the aircraft and diffuse the shock waves; so the aircraft could be released at Mach 2 in a steep climb attitude. The dynamic pressure at launch, which would be about 3 bar, would by countered by having a higher pressure in the propellant tanks and by having a very-high hydrogen pressure in internal cavities in structural members such as the longerons.